I don't think I'll be following these instructions for my dimming 17" powerbook. Anybody have any *good* instructions for fixing one of those?
Looking at the text you quoted, I don't see anything terribly "bad" about the instructions.
If you're referring to his spelling, it's fairly clear you are smart enough to have figured out what he was saying, so why judge whether to follow the instructions based on spelling instead of based on your understanding of the instructions?
The primary purpose of instructions are to convey the steps and procedures for accomplishing some task. Spelling and grammar are definitely useful in writing clear instructions, but they are not so critical that a few mistakes necessarily render the whole thing useless (unless the mistakes happen to be "well placed", which none of the examples you've given are).
For me personally this is more important than EFF suing anyone.
Oh yeah, an author's death is so much more important than democracy (rolls eyes).
I read my first short story... [of his when] I was in a hospital in Ukraine
Ok, perhaps you aren't an American, so the story doesn't interest you as much, but let's say there was a story about the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, and someone posted, "Yeah, whatever, I really don't care, but why isn't there a story about this little-known basketball player who died of old age? He really influenced my life." Do you think that would be appropriate?
Hey, I'm glad you liked the guy's work, and it's probably sad he died (at 77, not really tragic), but this story really isn't the place to bring it up.
Democracy is basically 51% of the citizens deciding together to give up certain personal rights and powers to an elected official. 49% of the people may decide they don't want to give up those rights and powers, but they're considered "wrong."
An exaggerated, hyperbolic, and irrationally cynical way of stating, "Democracy is basically majority rule". Plus, people don't generally "give up their rights" to an elected official, although the republican part of our system of government does grant elected officials the right to speak and act, in highly limited ways, on our behalf.
The elected official in a democracy holds office for a certain period of time and has no reason to follow through with what the voters initially wanted
No reason? Re-election and personal convictions come to mind immediately. But it's even simpler than that. Although politicians break promises all the time, they also keep them all the time as well. So not only are there actual reasons to keep their promises, there's actual proof that they do, indeed, keep them.
the voters can not remember what they wanted so many years ago.
That's absurd, of course they can. What they also do is change their mind, something you applaud the free market for allowing, but here you say that's bad?
This is the flaw with voting and the power of the free market. In a free market you can change your mind constantly
See?
Democracy only lets you change your mind once every 4 years or so, and you can never fix past errors in judgement, as they are now law.
Again, you are absurdly wrong. Let's take, for example, the most supreme of all laws, and test your assertion. The US Constitution was amended for the 18th time to abolish liquor. Then, three amendments later, that mistake was absolutely reversed.
It sounds like you are repeating the ol' "Democracy ain't perfect" line, but you are leaving off, "but it's better than the alternatives." No kidding Democracy isn't perfect. In the US, we have attempted to mitigate some of the problems with Democracy by limiting/regulating it with a constitution, a body of representatives, an independent legal system, and limited terms of office, as just a few examples.
You bring up the so-called "free market" as an alternative to democracy. It's not either-or. There are some domains where the free market shines, and some where it's abyssmal. It's often easier to consolidate power in a free market, and you do so without the explicit consent of the people. Similarly, there are domains where democracy doesn't make sense.
It's quite difficult to imagine a stable system of governance that is left entirely to the free market. The first thing that would happen is the rich would buy ads to convince you to "vote" (voting wouldn't even make sense, that's democracy--how exactly would laws be enacted? Or would there even be laws? Without laws, you just have the law of the jungle, which is simply "might makes right") them more power in order to enact more laws to grant them more power, etc. But I would be quite interested how a country the size of the US could be stable and free by eschewing all forms of democracy for the "free market".
Let me help you understand why it's you that doesn't understand.
This ought to be good...
The demand curve for online music looks different for every song
That's the whole point of the story, you moron. Because the demand curve is different, the optimum price is different. How can you understand the first fact, without understanding the second?
Demand steeply falls off at $1.01 as most users go to pirate the song instead.
Says who? You? Did you just make that number up? I can certainly believe (but not on your assertion), that for a vast majority of songs, you're correct. But if a song is popular enough, if the demand is high enough, the record labels will see more revenue at $1.99 for a song than they will at $0.99. It's basic economics. It's simple math, and your quaint theories don't change the way math works.
For really popular songs (that you can hear on the radio all the time anyway) there will be a period of time druing which it will make sense to lower the price to draw more customers.
"For really popular songs" they don't have to draw more customers. They already have them. That's what makes a song "really popular".
This isn't about supply and demand.
Where, exactly, did you get the notion I was talking about supply? Did I mention the supply curve? Why do you think I specifically pointed out the demand curve? It's clearly obvious you don't have even the most basic understanding of economics. The demand curve shows how demand for a product changes with price, and it completely ignores supply. In other words, how many people will buy a song at $0.25? How many at $1.00? How many at $2.00? At $10.00? Etc, and all prices in between. Then you just multiply supply (number of people who will buy at a given price) by price, and whichever price yeilds the largest number is the price you sell for if and only if supply doesn't get in the way, which in this particular situation, it doesn't. There are prices at which demand will decrease, but revenue will still increase.
Go back and read my original post, and you'll see that is what I've been arguing this whole time, that finite supply economics don't apply here.
To quote you (again): "The only way charging more for popular songs is a good idea is if your goal is to punish your customers for being mainstream music listners, or if you have a complete lack of understanding of supply and demand."
Which is absolutely wrong.
Here's another absurd statement on your part: "In order to make the maximum amount of money off any particular song, you want to increase it's appeal as much as you can through price lowering"
Don't you get it? You are only half-correct. In some cases, price lowering makes sense. But it's also true that in some cases, price raising makes sense. And that's exactly what this slashdot story is about. That some songs are priced too high, and some priced too low. What economic good is "increased appeal" of a song, if you make less money on that song overall?
No, I understand you just fine. It's just that you don't know what you're talking about.
If your original price is $1 and you lower the price by 10% to $0.90, but that causes a 15% increase in demand, you've actually made $350,000 more if you would have sold a million copies at the original price.
If that's the case, then lowering the price is a no-brainer. If you had even the slightest understanding of the demand curve, you would know that at some point the price is too high, and at some point the price is too low (and that there may, in fact, be multiple prices around which that's the case, but that's not covered in econ 101).
To quote you: "The only way charging more for popular songs is a good idea is if your goal is to punish your customers for being mainstream music listners, or if you have a complete lack of understanding of supply and demand."
That shows your utter lack of understanding of economics. The argument put forth for variable pricing is that some songs are in low demand, so the price is potentially too high, some songs are in high demand, and the price is potentially too low.
Of course, this all assumes your words accurately describe what you mean. Do you understand that there are certainly times when a more popular song will make more money if you raise the price? If not, then you are seriously deluded. If you do understand that, then your own words, which I quoted above, is an example of your failure to express yourself accurately, not an example of my failure to comprehend your writing.
Deregulation is only the answer when it's the answer, and there are many cases where it's not the answer.
Deregulation merely means lawlessness. What if you "deregulate" murder? Sound good? Or deregulate theft? Fraud? Monopoly?
Some markets strongly require regulation. These are often found in cases such as where:
- A common infrastructure is needed (ie: roads, schools) - Significant costs of production are not paid for by the corporation (ie: strip-mining, factory waste, un-ecological deforestation) - Personal safety of the consumer is easily compromised
Just to name a few.
Basically, it's any place the rules which naturally arise from a system are deemed wholly unacceptable to a rational and progressive society.
If you mean, self-regulated regulation (ie: corporations choose their own regulations), you are laughably wrong. If you mean regulation that treats all comers equally, that's what government regulation (when it's done right) is.
And we are allowed to buy and use almost any phone we can find somewhere in the world - unlike our locked-up American friends, chained to their contracts using branded and crippled last year model phones.
You think that's because there's some government regulation in the US which says consumers must engage in restrictive contracts for locked, obsolete phones? That the various carriers in the US want desperately to allow the consumer to leave them at will, but are forced to ensnare and leach upon the consumer due to government regulations?
Wow.
One standard to help the consumer but completely free market to compete with service and price.
There's no such thing as a completely free market. Every so-called 'free market' has flaws, and those flaws are always exploited eventually. Regulation seeks to prevent or severely discourage the abuse of those flaws.
This reflects a change in how Nielson's gathering statistics, nothing more, nothing less. What paradigm shift? What control over television companies does the audience have now that they didn't have before?
From the summary (in fact, the exact part you quote!), "The audience is taking control." Note the absence of the word "companies". They're talking about people taking control of their TV and how they watch it, not writhing throngs of couch potatoes taking over the local NBC affiliate.
Also, I hope they take into account that most people who have videos on their iPods will overwhelmingly be well-off white people.
They really don't care if you're white or not, just whether they can make money off of you.
I don't want every network to be (more) stacked with Dharma and Greg clones...
If that's what brings in the cash, that's what they'll show. But your cynicism is misplaced. By having better information, they'll be able to see that there's a market for shows which cater to various segments of the population. With better information, the big corporations will be more comfortable taking risks on "innovative" or non-mainstream shows (mostly because they won't really be risks so much, since they'll have a better idea of how a show or idea will go over).
This story is like a game of telephone; after several retellings, a translation, and a paraphrasing or two, it ends up on/. as "French Government says, 'all your Free Software are belong to us!!!!111'"
Except the/. story made it clear that it's what's possible, not what's currently happening, which is absolutely correct. I agree on the "game of telephone" part, but the basic story is accurate.
The GP was right. The summary was seriously misleading.
First, the summary isn't "seriously misleading".
Second, the GP did not claim that. He, very colorfully, called all sorts of people morons and put forth a false claim regarding the French government's role.
The summary very clearly states that part of the French government has stated that Free Software should not be (in the form that it is) and that the legislative body may make that into law. The "game of telephone" effect hasn't altered the summary enough to get that part wrong.
Since you haven't been modded Flamebait or Troll yet...
The French government is considering a law which gives those organizations what they are asking for.
So... not the French Government. Fuckwit submitter, fuckwit eds.
Your love of the fuck-word doesn't make you correct.
The article summary, on the other hand, is quite correct.
Perhaps you missed the part which said, "It appears that publishing Free Software giving access to culture is about to become a counterfeiting criminal offence."
Or the part which said, "Department of Culture is telling free (as in speech) software providers that..." which is referring to the Sirinelli Commission which is linked to: http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/cspla/oeuvrinte rnet.htm in the article's footnotes.
I'll leave it up to you to decipher the meanings of the words "culture", "gouv" and "fr" in the domain name.
It's interesting to see that while people rag on America
When America is in the wrong, it's the patriotic duty of all Americans to criticize America that she might right herself.
all the time for being a bunch of corporate shills
I assume you are referring to Congress. If so, are you saying they aren't a bunch of corporate shills?
Meanwhile, our french friends are hostile to it.
In this one instance. Albeit, this appears to be quite a doozy of an instance. There's a difference between consistently and systematically consolidating power in the hands of the corporate powers and the wealthy few, than one instance of the same.
But let's look at what you are saying more closely. You appear to be repeating the standard, "shut up all you 'blame-America-first' people, France does bad things too, why don't you blame them for once?" What you are missing is that we are being very consistent. We are blaming America when America deserves blame, but we are also blaming France when France deserves blame. Is there something wrong with this?
And they say OSS is a liberal thing.
And they're right. OSS is a very liberal thing. Not capital-L liberal, just liberal. Specifically, it's generous, empowers the individual, and it has a general goal to better the world in some way.
But that lunch from McDonalds, for a coupon, ain't free. The food didn't magically appear, fully cooked, from some sort of alternate universe.
In other words, the law of causality. However, to you (the coupon holder), it's quite free.
But more to the point of your post, just because you didn't pay cash doesn't mean that you got it 'for free.'
That's really the definition of "for free".
The price you paid was, perhaps, time in the restaurant exposed to their advertising.
Which is hardly equivalent to paying $5. If it where, McDonald's would not have to charge for food, they'd just have you look at the advertisements in the store. So, whatever value you received above-and-beyond value of you looking at the sign for the new, ironically named, "Big-N-Tasty", is what's counted as "free". Since to the consumer it's not counted as a monetary cost at all, they consider the entire lunch "free".
What if you got the "free lunch" from McDonald's at the register? At that point, the lunch, to you, was free. Any advert-watching, and line-waiting was a "sunk cost". We can go back-and-forth, removing or negating all sorts of "costs" you can come up with, and we'll just end up with the law of causality, that lunches don't just "make themselves" (does a banana count?).
Or the upsell because the lunch didn't include a drink.
Since there are plenty of "includes a free drink" free lunch coupons, it's not fair to hobble this one just to make your point. I'm not saying there aren't free lunches that aren't so free, I'm saying there are free lunches that are quite free indeed.
Or even the fact that the person who gave you the coupon got advertising dollars from McDs.
That someone got paid to provide you with a free lunch doesn't add to your cost in redeeming it. All it does is add another event (or series of events) in the chain of causality.
That having been said, like any oft-repeated stock phrase, it's a terrible oversimplification with overtones of dread.
I'm mildly amused that after "refuting" my post, you end with, "but yeah, I agree".
Now, I fully agree that TANSTAAFL has value and can impart wisdom, but it's sloppy, and not true in many ways. It's like the phrase, "you have to stop at a red light". Well, in one sense, you do. It's the law. In another sense, you don't, because there isn't necessarily anything physically stopping you from running a red light. The phrase is both wrong and right, all depending on how you mean it or interpret it. Most people, however understand the legal meaning so it's no big deal.
TANSTAAFL similarly suffers from, "depends on what you mean by 'free'", and so proponents of TANSTAAFL (generally, libertarians) almost universally accept it because it's true in one sense (specifically, the sense that they find most important to their political, social, and economic philosophies). Then they wield it like it's true in all senses. They do so in a way that's analogous to someone at a red light with a medical emergency, and seeing no cars in either direction, but being told that they most certainly cannot run the red light, that it's physically impossible because it's true that it's legally not allowed.
The Nobel laureate mathematician John Nash (see the film "A Beautiful Mind") proved that by cooperating, it's possible for everyone to benefit greater than in a scenario where even just one person doesn't cooperate. While this is clear to most people already (I'm sure you can think of many examples without effort), many people won't believe such a thing is possible without unassailable mathematical proof (and some people won't even believe it then!). Black Friday is an example where, all parties (stores, manufacturers, and consumers) all lower their selfish (I'm not using that word in its negative sense) demands (for one day) and all benefit beyond what they would would otherwise. In a way, it's really "There Is Such Thing As A Free Lunch" day.
Sure there is. I've eaten plenty of free lunches. This libertarian rallying cry is far too often treated as an absolute when it's not, and as a valid statement in areas where it doesn't apply.
When you scrape away all of the cruft, you end up with just a clever way of stating the law of causality. Specifically, that anything (a lunch, say) can only exist because of some cause (or set of causes) that made it. Why not say that if that's what you mean?
Otherwise, if I get a coupon for "1 free lunch at McDonald's", should I not redeem it, because TANSTAAFL?
There are plenty of valid, no-strings-attached, "free lunches" (ie: great deals, which is what you mean in this case) out there.
Besides, this wasn't a "free lunch" scenario, it was a scam scenario. Big difference.
I'm also having trouble being massively sympathetic to someone who decided where to buy a multi-thousand dollar camera based solely on price.
This isn't so much about sympathy (although if you can't sympathize with the guy, you might need to have a chest x-ray to verify you, indeed, still have a heart) as it is about exposing a racket for what it is, hopefully shutting it down, and "oh, ain't it cool" that it was us (the digg,/. (well, not in this case), etc, crowd) that did it.
Now ask yourself this, how many "free lunches" did these scum-bags enjoy at the cost of innocent, and possibly naive, people who found a great deal on the web and really didn't know any better? How many people have been truly harmed by this scheme, people who were merely looking to make an honest business transaction?
And you say there's no such thing as a free lunch!
Oh, great. Things like these always give people a scapegoat;
It's not a scapegoat if it's true.
"I'm not lazy, it's my genes."
And if that's the case?
I'm not saying that it not true, but people like "solid" excuses to be even more lazy.
And some people want any "solid" excuse to not feel pity on the less well-off.
Some people deserve their lot in life (whether at the top or bottom of society), and others, try as hard as they might, have the deck stacked against them. The science from this research will better help to distinguish between the two, making for even better allocation of resources. This should satisfy people of both political leanings: the "bleeding-heart" liberals who want to help those who truly need it, and the "cruel" conservatives who abhor spending money on the undeserving.
Do you expect slashdot to adhere to New York Times or the ABC Nightly News level of journalism (whatever your opinion of that is)?
What's wrong with someone posting their opinion on their own personal website?
And last, this story is quite normal for Slashdot. If you don't think this is an appropriate story, then quite clearly slashdot is not the site for you. Either learn to customize the main page, or go away. You're not going to change slashdot, and staying around will just lead to frustration on your part, and annoyance on ours.
No. They form a part of reality in an entirely objective way.
You're contradicting yourself. "They form a part of reality in an entirely objective way," means they exist. "No," means they don't. Which is it?
But if somebody were to observe the physical reaction that you interpret as "the thought", the physical reaction is entirely objective. And the physical reaction is the only way in which the thought can be considered part of reality.
And fundamentally, that's what I'm saying.
Does software exist? Software doesn't mean anything without a computer to interpret it. However, computers are not subjective, they do whatever they do whether a person observes them or not.
Software is to a computer as thoughts are to a brain.
Either thoughts exist or they don't. If they don't, it would be impossible for you to think. Given that you are thinking right now, thoughts must exist. You can't have it both ways.
Subjective reality doesn't exist outside the mind. Its a runtime construct of the human brain.
I absolutely agree.
My fundamental point is that the "runtime construct of the human brain" exists within reality because the brain, and all it's functions, exist within reality.
I don't mean to say that if you imagine a unicorn, that a unicorn is prancing around somewhere, merely that the thought of a unicorn exists within reality as a pattern of matter and energy in the brain.
Subjective things form a part of reality in as much as they are manifested as electrochemical impulses in the brain of the perceiver.
In other words, subjective things exist. That's the entirety of my argument, and that's exactly what you are saying right here.
Here's my theory, summed up:
Everything that exists is part of reality. Thoughts exist, therefore thoughts are part of reality.
If I posit the concept of a square circle, that doesn't mean a square circle exists, but the thought of one obviously does, wherever in reality it is that thoughts exist (I agree that all thoughts arise from patterns of matter and energy in the brain), but whatever they are, they exist within reality.
You're merely redefining reality as being just objective reality, and not subjective reality. Whatever subjective reality is, it exists within reality itself. It must. Otherwise that means it doesn't exist at all and that every thought you've ever had doesn't exist. It's one or the other. Quit getting stuck on thinking that I'm saying the thought of something is the exact same thing as that something. They are two different things.
Maybe you should lay aside the tinfoil hat and actually RTFA sometime.
Care to explain the "tinfoil hat" comment? I'm not saying anything that isn't true. Every action MS takes is meant to help MS. If it helps others, that's a byproduct. MS supports tons of open standards, but only when it serves them.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. I'm not saying MS is out to get me. I'm just saying that MS does whatever MS thinks will best help them, and that it's important to keep that in mind when dealing with MS.
MS still hasn't learned to be a good corporate citizen in the open source and open standards realms. I hope that some day they do (I use many of their products, and even like a lot of them). I just hold no illusions about MS's motives or honesty when dealing with the open (source/standards) world.
Are you saying my skepticism is misguided? That I should accept MS's open source and open standards submissions on face value? How many times does MS have to be shown to misrepresent themselves before it's logical to more carefully scrutinize their actions before accepting their words?
For MS customers (which I am one), this proposal is most likely going to be a good thing. But that doesn't mean they'll play nice with others (which I am also one). I'm not saying that MS is supposed to play nice with others (business is business, right?), just that, from the point of view of the "others", you've always got to keep one eye open with MS. It's just the rule when dealing with MS.
And, similar to this latest proposal, it's based upon existing standards which might help in curbing abuse.
Like kerberos? Like CSS?
I agree that the damage MS can do here is limited due to the nature of the proposed standard, but with MS, anything they promote as "open" (either open source or open standard) needs to be presumed guilty until proven innocent. This is based on their past behavior. I don't mean to say that seeking gain is wrong, just that with some corporations, you need to be more careful (from an open source/open standards point of view) than with others.
Anything further only exists on the conciousness of the person percieving it.
And thus it exists.
Do you believe that these words you are reading now, the thoughts that you are having as you read them, don't exist? Whether something objectively exists or subjectively exist is an important distinction, but to claim that subjective reality does not exist at all is very strange.
You're taking a theory (that only objective reality exists), and claiming it's true via the very thing that proves it's not true. It's like writing an essay that intends to prove that words, proofs, and essays don't exist.
It wasn't ironic, because I obviously (or so I thought) didn't mean it in the context you imply.
What was ironic was that you were using words to say the meanings of words were irrelevant.
Consider the difference between "mind" and "brain". One is an abstract concept, and doesn't physically exist in reality.
Except that whatever the "mind" (vs "brain") actually is actually does exist, and is thus part of reality.
For example, if you think of a unicorn, that thought exists somewhere in reality (specifically, it exists as a physical pattern of matter and electricity in your brain). If the thought didn't actually exist, how could you think it? Of course, that doesn't mean an actual, physical, living unicorn really exists somewhere, but the thought of one does, within your mind.
You're limiting the definition of reality only to that which exists regardless of whether someone is there to view it or not. That's just the definition of objective reality. The problem with that is that people actually do exist, so to exclude people from your definition of reality is to define reality as a subset of reality. What you are saying is, then, that people don't really exist.
For example, if your definition of reality was correct, then a person who insults your mother (for example) and hurt your feelings hasn't really hurt your feelings because your feelings don't exist, because (according to you), reality is limited to that which is not subjective.
So, are you saying all things subjective don't exist at all, in any way? That they are not something that exists within reality?
I agree that the distinction between objective reality and subjective reality is very important, and I believe that that's what you were mostly trying to convey--specifically that one shouldn't confuse the two. But to say that subjective reality does not exist is strange. To say that is to say that every thought you've ever had, every feeling you've ever felt, never happened. In fact, this conversation never took place either (well, objectively that a bunch of atoms were moved around, some electrons jiggled, and some photons were emitted, but no ideas whatsoever were conveyed and no thinking whatsoever took place).
You're using your mind to formulate the argument that the mind doesn't exist.
What? you are saying that a material absorbs electromagnetic radiation of particular frequencies only because it is being observed?
I'm saying that whatever wavelength of light we call "red" is only red because that's how we perceive it. In other words, the color red is subjective. Even though it's completely subjective, the color red (not the wavelength, the color) actually does exist.
Are you arguing that if a tree falls in the woods, and nobody is around to hear it, the laws of physics change so that it doesn't cause the air molecules nearby to vibrate?
No, the molecules would still vibrate, but it wouldn't be a noise, it would just be vibrations.
Who cares about what words mean?
That's the most ironic thing I've read all day. Probably all month, if not all year (three more subjective things which exist: day, month and year).
I can think of one person who cares. I'll quote him, "Not by any conventional definition of reality. What is real doesn't change depending on perception. Reality by definition is objective, not subjective."
The meaning of things is defined by interpretation - it's not reality in the slightest.
Reality is everything that exists. Words clearly exist. Meanings clearly exist. The color red and noise both clearly exist. These things are all subjective, thus subjective things exist, thus subjective things are part of reality.
The implication of your claim that subjective reality does not exist is that your perceptions (such as something looking red to you) does not exist. What it implies is that the very thing that defines your very existance (ie: your mind) does not actually exist.
That's quite a strange thing to believe. Do you believe the implication of your contention that only objective things are part of reality? Or does the subjective exist as well? It's pretty much gotta be one or the other.
Not by any conventional definition of reality. What is real doesn't change depending on perception. Reality by definition is objective, not subjective.
Then nothing is, really, red. There are no noises. Words don't mean anything. This website is just patterns without meaning (ok, that one's sort of a bad example, heh...).
Reality is both objective and subjective. It's folly (and insanity) to believe otherwise.
I've noticed pseudoscience types and religious people use "reality" as a synonym for "belief".
Yes, such people are idiots. But it's just as idiotic to say that subjective reality does not exist.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think I'll be following these instructions for my dimming 17" powerbook. Anybody have any *good* instructions for fixing one of those?
Looking at the text you quoted, I don't see anything terribly "bad" about the instructions.
If you're referring to his spelling, it's fairly clear you are smart enough to have figured out what he was saying, so why judge whether to follow the instructions based on spelling instead of based on your understanding of the instructions?
The primary purpose of instructions are to convey the steps and procedures for accomplishing some task. Spelling and grammar are definitely useful in writing clear instructions, but they are not so critical that a few mistakes necessarily render the whole thing useless (unless the mistakes happen to be "well placed", which none of the examples you've given are).
For me personally this is more important than EFF suing anyone.
... [of his when] I was in a hospital in Ukraine
Oh yeah, an author's death is so much more important than democracy (rolls eyes).
I read my first short story
Ok, perhaps you aren't an American, so the story doesn't interest you as much, but let's say there was a story about the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, and someone posted, "Yeah, whatever, I really don't care, but why isn't there a story about this little-known basketball player who died of old age? He really influenced my life." Do you think that would be appropriate?
Hey, I'm glad you liked the guy's work, and it's probably sad he died (at 77, not really tragic), but this story really isn't the place to bring it up.
Democracy is basically 51% of the citizens deciding together to give up certain personal rights and powers to an elected official. 49% of the people may decide they don't want to give up those rights and powers, but they're considered "wrong."
An exaggerated, hyperbolic, and irrationally cynical way of stating, "Democracy is basically majority rule". Plus, people don't generally "give up their rights" to an elected official, although the republican part of our system of government does grant elected officials the right to speak and act, in highly limited ways, on our behalf.
The elected official in a democracy holds office for a certain period of time and has no reason to follow through with what the voters initially wanted
No reason? Re-election and personal convictions come to mind immediately. But it's even simpler than that. Although politicians break promises all the time, they also keep them all the time as well. So not only are there actual reasons to keep their promises, there's actual proof that they do, indeed, keep them.
the voters can not remember what they wanted so many years ago.
That's absurd, of course they can. What they also do is change their mind, something you applaud the free market for allowing, but here you say that's bad?
This is the flaw with voting and the power of the free market. In a free market you can change your mind constantly
See?
Democracy only lets you change your mind once every 4 years or so, and you can never fix past errors in judgement, as they are now law.
Again, you are absurdly wrong. Let's take, for example, the most supreme of all laws, and test your assertion. The US Constitution was amended for the 18th time to abolish liquor. Then, three amendments later, that mistake was absolutely reversed.
It sounds like you are repeating the ol' "Democracy ain't perfect" line, but you are leaving off, "but it's better than the alternatives." No kidding Democracy isn't perfect. In the US, we have attempted to mitigate some of the problems with Democracy by limiting/regulating it with a constitution, a body of representatives, an independent legal system, and limited terms of office, as just a few examples.
You bring up the so-called "free market" as an alternative to democracy. It's not either-or. There are some domains where the free market shines, and some where it's abyssmal. It's often easier to consolidate power in a free market, and you do so without the explicit consent of the people. Similarly, there are domains where democracy doesn't make sense.
It's quite difficult to imagine a stable system of governance that is left entirely to the free market. The first thing that would happen is the rich would buy ads to convince you to "vote" (voting wouldn't even make sense, that's democracy--how exactly would laws be enacted? Or would there even be laws? Without laws, you just have the law of the jungle, which is simply "might makes right") them more power in order to enact more laws to grant them more power, etc. But I would be quite interested how a country the size of the US could be stable and free by eschewing all forms of democracy for the "free market".
Let me help you understand why it's you that doesn't understand.
This ought to be good...
The demand curve for online music looks different for every song
That's the whole point of the story, you moron. Because the demand curve is different, the optimum price is different. How can you understand the first fact, without understanding the second?
Demand steeply falls off at $1.01 as most users go to pirate the song instead.
Says who? You? Did you just make that number up? I can certainly believe (but not on your assertion), that for a vast majority of songs, you're correct. But if a song is popular enough, if the demand is high enough, the record labels will see more revenue at $1.99 for a song than they will at $0.99. It's basic economics. It's simple math, and your quaint theories don't change the way math works.
For really popular songs (that you can hear on the radio all the time anyway) there will be a period of time druing which it will make sense to lower the price to draw more customers.
"For really popular songs" they don't have to draw more customers. They already have them. That's what makes a song "really popular".
This isn't about supply and demand.
Where, exactly, did you get the notion I was talking about supply? Did I mention the supply curve? Why do you think I specifically pointed out the demand curve? It's clearly obvious you don't have even the most basic understanding of economics. The demand curve shows how demand for a product changes with price, and it completely ignores supply. In other words, how many people will buy a song at $0.25? How many at $1.00? How many at $2.00? At $10.00? Etc, and all prices in between. Then you just multiply supply (number of people who will buy at a given price) by price, and whichever price yeilds the largest number is the price you sell for if and only if supply doesn't get in the way, which in this particular situation, it doesn't. There are prices at which demand will decrease, but revenue will still increase.
Go back and read my original post, and you'll see that is what I've been arguing this whole time, that finite supply economics don't apply here.
To quote you (again): "The only way charging more for popular songs is a good idea is if your goal is to punish your customers for being mainstream music listners, or if you have a complete lack of understanding of supply and demand."
Which is absolutely wrong.
Here's another absurd statement on your part: "In order to make the maximum amount of money off any particular song, you want to increase it's appeal as much as you can through price lowering"
Don't you get it? You are only half-correct. In some cases, price lowering makes sense. But it's also true that in some cases, price raising makes sense. And that's exactly what this slashdot story is about. That some songs are priced too high, and some priced too low. What economic good is "increased appeal" of a song, if you make less money on that song overall?
You fail reading comrehension.
No, I understand you just fine. It's just that you don't know what you're talking about.
If your original price is $1 and you lower the price by 10% to $0.90, but that causes a 15% increase in demand, you've actually made $350,000 more if you would have sold a million copies at the original price.
If that's the case, then lowering the price is a no-brainer. If you had even the slightest understanding of the demand curve, you would know that at some point the price is too high, and at some point the price is too low (and that there may, in fact, be multiple prices around which that's the case, but that's not covered in econ 101).
To quote you: " The only way charging more for popular songs is a good idea is if your goal is to punish your customers for being mainstream music listners, or if you have a complete lack of understanding of supply and demand."
That shows your utter lack of understanding of economics. The argument put forth for variable pricing is that some songs are in low demand, so the price is potentially too high, some songs are in high demand, and the price is potentially too low.
Of course, this all assumes your words accurately describe what you mean. Do you understand that there are certainly times when a more popular song will make more money if you raise the price? If not, then you are seriously deluded. If you do understand that, then your own words, which I quoted above, is an example of your failure to express yourself accurately, not an example of my failure to comprehend your writing.
The record industry should hire a few economists.
Or maybe you should take a few economics courses.
Specifically, you need to discover the "demand curve".
Put simply, imagine a song at $0.01, and you sell 1 million copies. You'll receive $10,000 in revenue.
Now, if you triple the price to $0.03, but demand only drops in half, then you'll receive $15,000 in revenue.
Price goes up, demand drops, but revenue increases by 50%.
Seriously, this is basic Econ 101 stuff.
Market deregulation is the answer.
Deregulation is only the answer when it's the answer, and there are many cases where it's not the answer.
Deregulation merely means lawlessness. What if you "deregulate" murder? Sound good? Or deregulate theft? Fraud? Monopoly?
Some markets strongly require regulation. These are often found in cases such as where:
- A common infrastructure is needed (ie: roads, schools)
- Significant costs of production are not paid for by the corporation (ie: strip-mining, factory waste, un-ecological deforestation)
- Personal safety of the consumer is easily compromised
Just to name a few.
Basically, it's any place the rules which naturally arise from a system are deemed wholly unacceptable to a rational and progressive society.
Independent regulation works perfect.
If you mean, self-regulated regulation (ie: corporations choose their own regulations), you are laughably wrong. If you mean regulation that treats all comers equally, that's what government regulation (when it's done right) is.
And we are allowed to buy and use almost any phone we can find somewhere in the world - unlike our locked-up American friends, chained to their contracts using branded and crippled last year model phones.
You think that's because there's some government regulation in the US which says consumers must engage in restrictive contracts for locked, obsolete phones? That the various carriers in the US want desperately to allow the consumer to leave them at will, but are forced to ensnare and leach upon the consumer due to government regulations?
Wow.
One standard to help the consumer but completely free market to compete with service and price.
There's no such thing as a completely free market. Every so-called 'free market' has flaws, and those flaws are always exploited eventually. Regulation seeks to prevent or severely discourage the abuse of those flaws.
This reflects a change in how Nielson's gathering statistics, nothing more, nothing less. What paradigm shift? What control over television companies does the audience have now that they didn't have before?
From the summary (in fact, the exact part you quote!), "The audience is taking control." Note the absence of the word "companies". They're talking about people taking control of their TV and how they watch it, not writhing throngs of couch potatoes taking over the local NBC affiliate.
Also, I hope they take into account that most people who have videos on their iPods will overwhelmingly be well-off white people.
They really don't care if you're white or not, just whether they can make money off of you.
I don't want every network to be (more) stacked with Dharma and Greg clones...
If that's what brings in the cash, that's what they'll show. But your cynicism is misplaced. By having better information, they'll be able to see that there's a market for shows which cater to various segments of the population. With better information, the big corporations will be more comfortable taking risks on "innovative" or non-mainstream shows (mostly because they won't really be risks so much, since they'll have a better idea of how a show or idea will go over).
This story is like a game of telephone; after several retellings, a translation, and a paraphrasing or two, it ends up on /. as "French Government says, 'all your Free Software are belong to us!!!!111'"
/. story made it clear that it's what's possible, not what's currently happening, which is absolutely correct. I agree on the "game of telephone" part, but the basic story is accurate.
Except the
The GP was right. The summary was seriously misleading.
First, the summary isn't "seriously misleading".
Second, the GP did not claim that. He, very colorfully, called all sorts of people morons and put forth a false claim regarding the French government's role.
The summary very clearly states that part of the French government has stated that Free Software should not be (in the form that it is) and that the legislative body may make that into law. The "game of telephone" effect hasn't altered the summary enough to get that part wrong.
Since you haven't been modded Flamebait or Troll yet...
e rnet.htm in the article's footnotes.
The French government is considering a law which gives those organizations what they are asking for.
So... not the French Government. Fuckwit submitter, fuckwit eds.
Your love of the fuck-word doesn't make you correct.
The article summary, on the other hand, is quite correct.
Perhaps you missed the part which said, "It appears that publishing Free Software giving access to culture is about to become a counterfeiting criminal offence."
Or the part which said, "Department of Culture is telling free (as in speech) software providers that..." which is referring to the Sirinelli Commission which is linked to: http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/cspla/oeuvrint
I'll leave it up to you to decipher the meanings of the words "culture", "gouv" and "fr" in the domain name.
It's interesting to see that while people rag on America
When America is in the wrong, it's the patriotic duty of all Americans to criticize America that she might right herself.
all the time for being a bunch of corporate shills
I assume you are referring to Congress. If so, are you saying they aren't a bunch of corporate shills?
Meanwhile, our french friends are hostile to it.
In this one instance. Albeit, this appears to be quite a doozy of an instance. There's a difference between consistently and systematically consolidating power in the hands of the corporate powers and the wealthy few, than one instance of the same.
But let's look at what you are saying more closely. You appear to be repeating the standard, "shut up all you 'blame-America-first' people, France does bad things too, why don't you blame them for once?" What you are missing is that we are being very consistent. We are blaming America when America deserves blame, but we are also blaming France when France deserves blame. Is there something wrong with this?
And they say OSS is a liberal thing.
And they're right. OSS is a very liberal thing. Not capital-L liberal, just liberal. Specifically, it's generous, empowers the individual, and it has a general goal to better the world in some way.
But that lunch from McDonalds, for a coupon, ain't free. The food didn't magically appear, fully cooked, from some sort of alternate universe.
In other words, the law of causality. However, to you (the coupon holder), it's quite free.
But more to the point of your post, just because you didn't pay cash doesn't mean that you got it 'for free.'
That's really the definition of "for free".
The price you paid was, perhaps, time in the restaurant exposed to their advertising.
Which is hardly equivalent to paying $5. If it where, McDonald's would not have to charge for food, they'd just have you look at the advertisements in the store. So, whatever value you received above-and-beyond value of you looking at the sign for the new, ironically named, "Big-N-Tasty", is what's counted as "free". Since to the consumer it's not counted as a monetary cost at all, they consider the entire lunch "free".
What if you got the "free lunch" from McDonald's at the register? At that point, the lunch, to you, was free. Any advert-watching, and line-waiting was a "sunk cost". We can go back-and-forth, removing or negating all sorts of "costs" you can come up with, and we'll just end up with the law of causality, that lunches don't just "make themselves" (does a banana count?).
Or the upsell because the lunch didn't include a drink.
Since there are plenty of "includes a free drink" free lunch coupons, it's not fair to hobble this one just to make your point. I'm not saying there aren't free lunches that aren't so free, I'm saying there are free lunches that are quite free indeed.
Or even the fact that the person who gave you the coupon got advertising dollars from McDs.
That someone got paid to provide you with a free lunch doesn't add to your cost in redeeming it. All it does is add another event (or series of events) in the chain of causality.
That having been said, like any oft-repeated stock phrase, it's a terrible oversimplification with overtones of dread.
I'm mildly amused that after "refuting" my post, you end with, "but yeah, I agree".
Now, I fully agree that TANSTAAFL has value and can impart wisdom, but it's sloppy, and not true in many ways. It's like the phrase, "you have to stop at a red light". Well, in one sense, you do. It's the law. In another sense, you don't, because there isn't necessarily anything physically stopping you from running a red light. The phrase is both wrong and right, all depending on how you mean it or interpret it. Most people, however understand the legal meaning so it's no big deal.
TANSTAAFL similarly suffers from, "depends on what you mean by 'free'", and so proponents of TANSTAAFL (generally, libertarians) almost universally accept it because it's true in one sense (specifically, the sense that they find most important to their political, social, and economic philosophies). Then they wield it like it's true in all senses. They do so in a way that's analogous to someone at a red light with a medical emergency, and seeing no cars in either direction, but being told that they most certainly cannot run the red light, that it's physically impossible because it's true that it's legally not allowed.
The Nobel laureate mathematician John Nash (see the film "A Beautiful Mind") proved that by cooperating, it's possible for everyone to benefit greater than in a scenario where even just one person doesn't cooperate. While this is clear to most people already (I'm sure you can think of many examples without effort), many people won't believe such a thing is possible without unassailable mathematical proof (and some people won't even believe it then!). Black Friday is an example where, all parties (stores, manufacturers, and consumers) all lower their selfish (I'm not using that word in its negative sense) demands (for one day) and all benefit beyond what they would would otherwise. In a way, it's really "There Is Such Thing As A Free Lunch" day.
Public Schools
Sure there is. I've eaten plenty of free lunches. This libertarian rallying cry is far too often treated as an absolute when it's not, and as a valid statement in areas where it doesn't apply.
/. (well, not in this case), etc, crowd) that did it.
When you scrape away all of the cruft, you end up with just a clever way of stating the law of causality. Specifically, that anything (a lunch, say) can only exist because of some cause (or set of causes) that made it. Why not say that if that's what you mean?
Otherwise, if I get a coupon for "1 free lunch at McDonald's", should I not redeem it, because TANSTAAFL?
There are plenty of valid, no-strings-attached, "free lunches" (ie: great deals, which is what you mean in this case) out there.
Besides, this wasn't a "free lunch" scenario, it was a scam scenario. Big difference.
I'm also having trouble being massively sympathetic to someone who decided where to buy a multi-thousand dollar camera based solely on price.
This isn't so much about sympathy (although if you can't sympathize with the guy, you might need to have a chest x-ray to verify you, indeed, still have a heart) as it is about exposing a racket for what it is, hopefully shutting it down, and "oh, ain't it cool" that it was us (the digg,
Now ask yourself this, how many "free lunches" did these scum-bags enjoy at the cost of innocent, and possibly naive, people who found a great deal on the web and really didn't know any better? How many people have been truly harmed by this scheme, people who were merely looking to make an honest business transaction?
And you say there's no such thing as a free lunch!
Oh, great. Things like these always give people a scapegoat;
It's not a scapegoat if it's true.
"I'm not lazy, it's my genes."
And if that's the case?
I'm not saying that it not true, but people like "solid" excuses to be even more lazy.
And some people want any "solid" excuse to not feel pity on the less well-off.
Some people deserve their lot in life (whether at the top or bottom of society), and others, try as hard as they might, have the deck stacked against them. The science from this research will better help to distinguish between the two, making for even better allocation of resources. This should satisfy people of both political leanings: the "bleeding-heart" liberals who want to help those who truly need it, and the "cruel" conservatives who abhor spending money on the undeserving.
Oh, where to begin...
The post wasn't a "news" story.
Slashdot itself is a blog of sorts.
Why can't a blog be a news source?
Do you expect slashdot to adhere to New York Times or the ABC Nightly News level of journalism (whatever your opinion of that is)?
What's wrong with someone posting their opinion on their own personal website?
And last, this story is quite normal for Slashdot. If you don't think this is an appropriate story, then quite clearly slashdot is not the site for you. Either learn to customize the main page, or go away. You're not going to change slashdot, and staying around will just lead to frustration on your part, and annoyance on ours.
No. They form a part of reality in an entirely objective way.
You're contradicting yourself. "They form a part of reality in an entirely objective way," means they exist. "No," means they don't. Which is it?
But if somebody were to observe the physical reaction that you interpret as "the thought", the physical reaction is entirely objective. And the physical reaction is the only way in which the thought can be considered part of reality.
And fundamentally, that's what I'm saying.
Does software exist? Software doesn't mean anything without a computer to interpret it. However, computers are not subjective, they do whatever they do whether a person observes them or not.
Software is to a computer as thoughts are to a brain.
Either thoughts exist or they don't. If they don't, it would be impossible for you to think. Given that you are thinking right now, thoughts must exist. You can't have it both ways.
Subjective reality doesn't exist outside the mind. Its a runtime construct of the human brain.
I absolutely agree.
My fundamental point is that the "runtime construct of the human brain" exists within reality because the brain, and all it's functions, exist within reality.
I don't mean to say that if you imagine a unicorn, that a unicorn is prancing around somewhere, merely that the thought of a unicorn exists within reality as a pattern of matter and energy in the brain.
Subjective things form a part of reality in as much as they are manifested as electrochemical impulses in the brain of the perceiver.
In other words, subjective things exist. That's the entirety of my argument, and that's exactly what you are saying right here.
Here's my theory, summed up:
Everything that exists is part of reality. Thoughts exist, therefore thoughts are part of reality.
If I posit the concept of a square circle, that doesn't mean a square circle exists, but the thought of one obviously does, wherever in reality it is that thoughts exist (I agree that all thoughts arise from patterns of matter and energy in the brain), but whatever they are, they exist within reality.
You're merely redefining reality as being just objective reality, and not subjective reality. Whatever subjective reality is, it exists within reality itself. It must. Otherwise that means it doesn't exist at all and that every thought you've ever had doesn't exist. It's one or the other. Quit getting stuck on thinking that I'm saying the thought of something is the exact same thing as that something. They are two different things.
Maybe you should lay aside the tinfoil hat and actually RTFA sometime.
Care to explain the "tinfoil hat" comment? I'm not saying anything that isn't true. Every action MS takes is meant to help MS. If it helps others, that's a byproduct. MS supports tons of open standards, but only when it serves them.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. I'm not saying MS is out to get me. I'm just saying that MS does whatever MS thinks will best help them, and that it's important to keep that in mind when dealing with MS.
MS still hasn't learned to be a good corporate citizen in the open source and open standards realms. I hope that some day they do (I use many of their products, and even like a lot of them). I just hold no illusions about MS's motives or honesty when dealing with the open (source/standards) world.
Are you saying my skepticism is misguided? That I should accept MS's open source and open standards submissions on face value? How many times does MS have to be shown to misrepresent themselves before it's logical to more carefully scrutinize their actions before accepting their words?
For MS customers (which I am one), this proposal is most likely going to be a good thing. But that doesn't mean they'll play nice with others (which I am also one). I'm not saying that MS is supposed to play nice with others (business is business, right?), just that, from the point of view of the "others", you've always got to keep one eye open with MS. It's just the rule when dealing with MS.
And, similar to this latest proposal, it's based upon existing standards which might help in curbing abuse.
Like kerberos? Like CSS?
I agree that the damage MS can do here is limited due to the nature of the proposed standard, but with MS, anything they promote as "open" (either open source or open standard) needs to be presumed guilty until proven innocent. This is based on their past behavior. I don't mean to say that seeking gain is wrong, just that with some corporations, you need to be more careful (from an open source/open standards point of view) than with others.
Only inside the human mind.
Humans exist. Our minds exist.
Anything further only exists on the conciousness of the person
percieving it.
And thus it exists.
Do you believe that these words you are reading now, the thoughts that you are having as you read them, don't exist? Whether something objectively exists or subjectively exist is an important distinction, but to claim that subjective reality does not exist at all is very strange.
You're taking a theory (that only objective reality exists), and claiming it's true via the very thing that proves it's not true. It's like writing an essay that intends to prove that words, proofs, and essays don't exist.
It wasn't ironic, because I obviously (or so I thought) didn't mean it in the context you imply.
What was ironic was that you were using words to say the meanings of words were irrelevant.
Consider the difference between "mind" and "brain". One is an abstract concept, and doesn't physically exist in reality.
Except that whatever the "mind" (vs "brain") actually is actually does exist, and is thus part of reality.
For example, if you think of a unicorn, that thought exists somewhere in reality (specifically, it exists as a physical pattern of matter and electricity in your brain). If the thought didn't actually exist, how could you think it? Of course, that doesn't mean an actual, physical, living unicorn really exists somewhere, but the thought of one does, within your mind.
You're limiting the definition of reality only to that which exists regardless of whether someone is there to view it or not. That's just the definition of objective reality. The problem with that is that people actually do exist, so to exclude people from your definition of reality is to define reality as a subset of reality. What you are saying is, then, that people don't really exist.
For example, if your definition of reality was correct, then a person who insults your mother (for example) and hurt your feelings hasn't really hurt your feelings because your feelings don't exist, because (according to you), reality is limited to that which is not subjective.
So, are you saying all things subjective don't exist at all, in any way? That they are not something that exists within reality?
I agree that the distinction between objective reality and subjective reality is very important, and I believe that that's what you were mostly trying to convey--specifically that one shouldn't confuse the two. But to say that subjective reality does not exist is strange. To say that is to say that every thought you've ever had, every feeling you've ever felt, never happened. In fact, this conversation never took place either (well, objectively that a bunch of atoms were moved around, some electrons jiggled, and some photons were emitted, but no ideas whatsoever were conveyed and no thinking whatsoever took place).
You're using your mind to formulate the argument that the mind doesn't exist.
What? you are saying that a material absorbs electromagnetic radiation of particular frequencies only because it is being observed?
I'm saying that whatever wavelength of light we call "red" is only red because that's how we perceive it. In other words, the color red is subjective. Even though it's completely subjective, the color red (not the wavelength, the color) actually does exist.
Are you arguing that if a tree falls in the woods, and nobody is around to hear it, the laws of physics change so that it doesn't cause the air molecules nearby to vibrate?
No, the molecules would still vibrate, but it wouldn't be a noise, it would just be vibrations.
Who cares about what words mean?
That's the most ironic thing I've read all day. Probably all month, if not all year (three more subjective things which exist: day, month and year).
I can think of one person who cares. I'll quote him, "Not by any conventional definition of reality. What is real doesn't change depending on perception. Reality by definition is objective, not subjective."
The meaning of things is defined by interpretation - it's not reality in the slightest.
Reality is everything that exists. Words clearly exist. Meanings clearly exist. The color red and noise both clearly exist. These things are all subjective, thus subjective things exist, thus subjective things are part of reality.
The implication of your claim that subjective reality does not exist is that your perceptions (such as something looking red to you) does not exist. What it implies is that the very thing that defines your very existance (ie: your mind) does not actually exist.
That's quite a strange thing to believe. Do you believe the implication of your contention that only objective things are part of reality? Or does the subjective exist as well? It's pretty much gotta be one or the other.
Not by any conventional definition of reality. What is real doesn't change depending on perception. Reality by definition is objective, not subjective.
Then nothing is, really, red. There are no noises. Words don't mean anything. This website is just patterns without meaning (ok, that one's sort of a bad example, heh...).
Reality is both objective and subjective. It's folly (and insanity) to believe otherwise.
I've noticed pseudoscience types and religious people use "reality" as a synonym for "belief".
Yes, such people are idiots. But it's just as idiotic to say that subjective reality does not exist.