hey... how's Lulu working out for you guys? I heard alot of good stuff about him before he was elected but nothing since. I had the feeling he was going to shake some sense into the western world... there were rumors about defaulting on the national debt etc. any signs of improvement? since this is offtopic for this board feel free to email be privatly...
Do you need to subscribe to one of their monthly plans first? This could cost you an additional 9.95/mo or 4.95/mo depending on the package they make you buy. $0.99 per track doesn't seem like such a good price anymore...
Your analogy has one major flaw: when you use a toll road you usually pay for what you use, not for the maximum use of the road. (ie. $.25 every 10m)
For example imagine if there was a toll road that was 500 miles long. At the center of the toll road you had to pay a fee of $10.00. (this might sound familiar to those in BC) That fee is for the entire use of the toll road. Now, imagine if there was an on ramp 1m south of the toll both and an exit 1m north of the toll both. You have to take the 500m toll road for only the 2m distance between the on ramp and the exit. There may or may not be alternative routes, but this is the fastest/easiest way. You decide not to pay the toll. Have you just stolen $10.00? I don't think so. You've stolen about 4cents (2m/500m*$10).
What happens if you pay the $10.00 toll? That's right, the toll operator is stealing (over-charging) you by $9.96!
Let's now relate this to SW:
1st run: There is a $500 software package that you would like to use. You pay the $500 for the full use of the SW and discover that you only needed 2/500ths of what was sold to you. The SW company overchanged you by $498 ($500-2/500*$500).
2nd run: This time you copy the product from a friend. You use the same 2/500ths of the product. Did you steal $500? No. You stole only $2. (2/500*$500).
Ok. Stealing is still wrong - whether it is $2 or $0.04. The point of this whole thing is the SW industry overcharging (price fixing?) by such huge amounts is being just as immoral as the student who copies the software.
This one is pretty obvious - you have an IT network, you have to keep it running. You have existing software that is providing some sort of value, you must keep it running. Maintenance means replacing broken/failing equipment, it does not mean constantly upgrading to the latest gadgets. This type of IT spending is currently way to high. NT4.0 is good enough. Office 97 is good enough. There is no compelling need to upgrade to newer versions. When we upgraded from office 95 to office 2000 the only reason to upgrade was because of the compatibility issues. And this only affected about 1% of the office! This is not money well spent.
Re engineering Processes
This is a bit more complicated. Actually it's a lot more complicated. Most businesses have been doing things one way since the beginning of time. When asked why they do something the answer is usually "that's how we've always done it."
Spend a few days looking around your corporation. Maybe you can apprentice with some of the Secretaries/Assistances for a few days. Learn their processes. Find out why they do things... question everything and look for redundancies. It probably won't take you long to find cases where people are re-keying information that has already been in the PC once. This type of work adds no value - if there is a significant amount of time spent doing this you can easily build a case to correct this. Start a project to extract the data from its original home, put it in a format that your clients will be able to use. These are the easy projects to get approval for - low political risk, high pay out.
Another way to find potential IT projects is to spend some time trying to trace processes from the original entry into the company, to the final delivery to the customer. Create a complete processes map. Find out what the original input is, and what the eventual output is supposed to be. As an outsider you should be able to look at the process and see major areas that could be improved. Anything that doesn't add value to the final product (in the eyes of the customer) probably does not need to be done.
Focus on areas where a customer request passes between many different people before it is filled. There are usually ways to improve or eliminate hand off time. Possibly there are many 'specialists' involved in a process when really they need one generalist and an expert system. These types of projects are difficult because many business units will need to cooperate to accomplish an improvement - but at the same time this is where the highest return can be.
Resources are not infinite. The amount of wheat you consume cannot be consumed by anyone else. There is a finite amount of wheat that can be grown each year, and if we over consume this people will starve. Much the same goes for many other products, such as wood and any chemical that can be consumed by a lifeform.
Resources are not infinite. Resources should be re-used, and re-allocated whenever possible. Recycling uses resources. Resources are not infinite. Recyling should be our last option.
Resources are not infinite.
Improved extraction and refining techniques effectively reduce the amount of any given resource that remains in the earth. It is not reasonable to suppose an infinite supply exists - to plan for the future we must make the best use of what we have.
Resources are not infinite. Even in space, there is a limited number of resources. In space the human population could grow exponetially - it may seem like a large area now... but it is limited.
Resources are not infinite. As a consequence of much of the above, resources are created by the Earth and are in limited supply. Oil no longer wells up out of the ground, and all the easy resources are long gone. The US may use a 'disproportionate' share, and by being the technology leader, it also depletes a vastly disproportionate share of the world's resources, both directly and indirectly. Better oil-finding technique displaces many people, not just in Sudan, and the Genetic Modification of agricultural research done in the US threatens Third World farmers astoundingly. Arithmetic analysis does not lead to understanding this issue.
India is a vast country with a huge difference between the rich and the poor. It is not unusual in India for a wealthy family to have a maid, a cook a driver and a nanny. (btw, the driver usually takes the bus to work! imagine that!)
The target market for music is probably not the driver the maid and the nanny. The target market is the wealthy Indians who make a significant amount of money. For these people spending a few rupees on a MP3 download isn't all that bad.
The group of servants probably cannot even afford a computer let alone internet access and an MP3 on top of all that!
Re:The best he can build is a disintegration chamb
on
Time Travel
·
· Score: 1
Which means we will never see any evidence that the time machine works. At best he'll be able to create an effect where you toss something in and it disappears.
At first, this may seem like a true statement. But think about it for a minute...
Ok... if there are many parellel universes, and we develop time machines and start "disintegrating" things by making them pop into other universes, don't you think there will be some other universes doing the same? Creating time machines and disintegrating things into yet other universes? And if this is the case, don't you think that things would start poping into our universe??
So, if he does develop this thing, and he does start making things appear in other universes chances are parellel scientists are doing the same thing and making things appear here...
As soon as the thirty-sixth came, I would change rolls, put the exposed roll in a canister, enter its number on a log sheet, take the next one out of the cooler, and insert it. I got to where I could do all that in less than a minute, while steering with my kneecap.
In fact, copyright and license is all that's stopping a popular enemy of many of the readers of this site from running off with a lot of source code and using it in proprietary products.
Hmmm, seems to me, that it is copyright that created a popular enemy of many of the readers of this site. If there was no copyright, that enemy would not exist, and there would be no reason to protect this code from them, and through circular logic, no need for copyright.
Physically, I'm not sure if we will change again. We may grow another arm for using the mouse, but thats about it.
Spiritually/socially/memetically, (i think its all the same... evolution of the way we think/act/treat others) still has alot of evolving to do. I think we'll only be truly evolved when we realize that all humans are worth protecting, not just our friends/neighbors.
Memes are interesting and they appear to be viral - easily transfered from one to the other, constantly evolving and changing and becoming more complex. Just like there is a technique to remove viruses (eat healthy, have strong immune system) there is a technique that can be used to remove memes from your mind. Intellectually it is very simple - do not react to them. Actually it is hard to implement.
Thats why 10 day course have been established throughout the world that can give an opportunity to practice not responding to your memes. Check out Vipassana Meditation for more details.
Vipasanna meditation "aims for the total eradication of
mental impurities and the resultant highest happiness of full
liberation."
overunderunderdone, I think you did a good job of summing up what I was trying to say. As you said, you cannot let these kids just get away with their crimes. You have to be forceful in preventing them from hurting others and hurting themselves. However, when you are forceful in preventing them from commiting crimes, you have to do it for the right reasons, not the wrong reasons. You have to do it because you want to help them, not because you want vegence.
Actually, this is probably closer to the truth than most people realize. If you think about it, you realize it is only possible to hurt someone else (or their property) if you feel like you are hurting yourself. The really sad thing is, when we find someone who is hurting, and has demonstrated this to us by hurting someone else, we hurt them more by punishing them. Thats a human approach, but it will only result in larger problems. When someone hurts us we should help them by giving them a hug... or something:)
I wonder if you could make some fractal representation of the binary and print that on ties. You might end up with a pretty trippy tie if you did that!
The next step is to recall all existing books/movies/pictures etc and remove the WTC from them. Then destroy the original media by dropping them into the memory hole to be devoured by the flames. Then reissue the new media with the towers removed, thereby completly wiping the memory from everyone in Oceania.
Man, I sure hope we get those Eastasia guys this time. I don't know if I can handle another week of hate.
If he threw a bottle of gasoline through the window and did $25k of damage, he would be prosecuted for a felony.
We've know about these exploits for many many years. There are even patches for them, fire retardant materials and bullet proof glass. For some strange reason though, it is still the bottle thrower who is at fault and punished, and not the poor facilities guy who didn't upgrade the bits that make up the windows to something that cannot be attacked.
Why the double standard? In the 'real world' good-enough security is, well, good enough. In the computer world, good-enough security gets laughed at and scorned.
No longer will you have to waste valuable time searching for the meaning of an unexplained term on a page
Who needs smart tags? emedicine.com aleady does this. Just click on an "unexplained term" and a dictionary meaning pops up. Check it out in this Capral Tunnel article.
hehe.. I thought they only created vaccines for things that would kill you. That way, by creating the vaccine they will actually make MORE money off you because you will live longer and spend more money on coff syrup and headache pills;)
"There are 1,800 commercial licensees of ours who pay to access our database, including AOL, RealNetworks and MusicMatch," said Dave Marglin, general counsel for Berkeley, Calif.-based Gracenote. "Roxio is trying to get for free what other people pay for. It's our valuable intellectual property that's underlying all this."
If they win, I bet M$ tries to use this argument against linux..
Looser pays" only works if the two litigants have roughly the same assets
I think you could make this work. Modify it a bit though. Loser pays a ratio of winners court costs that is equal to the ratio difference in their net income? That probably still has problems because everyone tries to make it look like they made less than they really did to try to get out of paying taxes.
It would also be interesting for companies like amazon that operate in the red. The looser could actually make money in this case:)
Slashdot Mirror
hey... how's Lulu working out for you guys? I heard alot of good stuff about him before he was elected but nothing since. I had the feeling he was going to shake some sense into the western world... there were rumors about defaulting on the national debt etc. any signs of improvement? since this is offtopic for this board feel free to email be privatly...
Do you need to subscribe to one of their monthly plans first? This could cost you an additional 9.95/mo or 4.95/mo depending on the package they make you buy. $0.99 per track doesn't seem like such a good price anymore...
Your analogy has one major flaw: when you use a toll road you usually pay for what you use, not for the maximum use of the road. (ie. $.25 every 10m)
For example imagine if there was a toll road that was 500 miles long. At the center of the toll road you had to pay a fee of $10.00. (this might sound familiar to those in BC) That fee is for the entire use of the toll road. Now, imagine if there was an on ramp 1m south of the toll both and an exit 1m north of the toll both. You have to take the 500m toll road for only the 2m distance between the on ramp and the exit. There may or may not be alternative routes, but this is the fastest/easiest way. You decide not to pay the toll. Have you just stolen $10.00? I don't think so. You've stolen about 4cents (2m/500m*$10).
What happens if you pay the $10.00 toll? That's right, the toll operator is stealing (over-charging) you by $9.96!
Let's now relate this to SW:
Ok. Stealing is still wrong - whether it is $2 or $0.04. The point of this whole thing is the SW industry overcharging (price fixing?) by such huge amounts is being just as immoral as the student who copies the software.
This one is pretty obvious - you have an IT network, you have to keep it running. You have existing software that is providing some sort of value, you must keep it running. Maintenance means replacing broken/failing equipment, it does not mean constantly upgrading to the latest gadgets. This type of IT spending is currently way to high. NT4.0 is good enough. Office 97 is good enough. There is no compelling need to upgrade to newer versions. When we upgraded from office 95 to office 2000 the only reason to upgrade was because of the compatibility issues. And this only affected about 1% of the office! This is not money well spent.
This is a bit more complicated. Actually it's a lot more complicated. Most businesses have been doing things one way since the beginning of time. When asked why they do something the answer is usually "that's how we've always done it."
Spend a few days looking around your corporation. Maybe you can apprentice with some of the Secretaries/Assistances for a few days. Learn their processes. Find out why they do things... question everything and look for redundancies. It probably won't take you long to find cases where people are re-keying information that has already been in the PC once. This type of work adds no value - if there is a significant amount of time spent doing this you can easily build a case to correct this. Start a project to extract the data from its original home, put it in a format that your clients will be able to use. These are the easy projects to get approval for - low political risk, high pay out.
Another way to find potential IT projects is to spend some time trying to trace processes from the original entry into the company, to the final delivery to the customer. Create a complete processes map. Find out what the original input is, and what the eventual output is supposed to be. As an outsider you should be able to look at the process and see major areas that could be improved. Anything that doesn't add value to the final product (in the eyes of the customer) probably does not need to be done.
Focus on areas where a customer request passes between many different people before it is filled. There are usually ways to improve or eliminate hand off time. Possibly there are many 'specialists' involved in a process when really they need one generalist and an expert system. These types of projects are difficult because many business units will need to cooperate to accomplish an improvement - but at the same time this is where the highest return can be.
India is a vast country with a huge difference between the rich and the poor. It is not unusual in India for a wealthy family to have a maid, a cook a driver and a nanny. (btw, the driver usually takes the bus to work! imagine that!)
The target market for music is probably not the driver the maid and the nanny. The target market is the wealthy Indians who make a significant amount of money. For these people spending a few rupees on a MP3 download isn't all that bad.
The group of servants probably cannot even afford a computer let alone internet access and an MP3 on top of all that!
At first, this may seem like a true statement. But think about it for a minute...
Ok... if there are many parellel universes, and we develop time machines and start "disintegrating" things by making them pop into other universes, don't you think there will be some other universes doing the same? Creating time machines and disintegrating things into yet other universes? And if this is the case, don't you think that things would start poping into our universe??
So, if he does develop this thing, and he does start making things appear in other universes chances are parellel scientists are doing the same thing and making things appear here...
As soon as the thirty-sixth came, I would change rolls, put the exposed roll in a canister, enter its number on a log sheet, take the next one out of the cooler, and insert it. I got to where I could do all that in less than a minute, while steering with my kneecap.
You've just described the Peter Principle
Hmmm, seems to me, that it is copyright that created a popular enemy of many of the readers of this site. If there was no copyright, that enemy would not exist, and there would be no reason to protect this code from them, and through circular logic, no need for copyright.
Spiritually/socially/memetically, (i think its all the same... evolution of the way we think/act/treat others) still has alot of evolving to do. I think we'll only be truly evolved when we realize that all humans are worth protecting, not just our friends/neighbors.
Memes are interesting and they appear to be viral - easily transfered from one to the other, constantly evolving and changing and becoming more complex. Just like there is a technique to remove viruses (eat healthy, have strong immune system) there is a technique that can be used to remove memes from your mind. Intellectually it is very simple - do not react to them. Actually it is hard to implement.
Thats why 10 day course have been established throughout the world that can give an opportunity to practice not responding to your memes. Check out Vipassana Meditation for more details.
Vipasanna meditation "aims for the total eradication of mental impurities and the resultant highest happiness of full liberation."
much metta
Actually, this is probably closer to the truth than most people realize. If you think about it, you realize it is only possible to hurt someone else (or their property) if you feel like you are hurting yourself. The really sad thing is, when we find someone who is hurting, and has demonstrated this to us by hurting someone else, we hurt them more by punishing them. Thats a human approach, but it will only result in larger problems. When someone hurts us we should help them by giving them a hug... or something :)
much metta
Hey! Thanks for that. I've been wondering about the meaning of http://www.pravda.ru/.
I wonder if you could make some fractal representation of the binary and print that on ties. You might end up with a pretty trippy tie if you did that!
Man, I sure hope we get those Eastasia guys this time. I don't know if I can handle another week of hate.
We've know about these exploits for many many years. There are even patches for them, fire retardant materials and bullet proof glass. For some strange reason though, it is still the bottle thrower who is at fault and punished, and not the poor facilities guy who didn't upgrade the bits that make up the windows to something that cannot be attacked.
Why the double standard? In the 'real world' good-enough security is, well, good enough. In the computer world, good-enough security gets laughed at and scorned.
ms is also moving toward xml. check it here
I think you should rename it to Gnu Allows Instant Messaging.
I think they should have went with beige.
Who needs smart tags? emedicine.com aleady does this. Just click on an "unexplained term" and a dictionary meaning pops up. Check it out in this Capral Tunnel article.
(btw, I am stuck with IE at work, ymmv...)
hehe.. I thought they only created vaccines for things that would kill you. That way, by creating the vaccine they will actually make MORE money off you because you will live longer and spend more money on coff syrup and headache pills ;)
If they win, I bet M$ tries to use this argument against linux..
I think you could make this work. Modify it a bit though. Loser pays a ratio of winners court costs that is equal to the ratio difference in their net income? That probably still has problems because everyone tries to make it look like they made less than they really did to try to get out of paying taxes.
It would also be interesting for companies like amazon that operate in the red. The looser could actually make money in this case :)