Even if shareholders, or the corporation, don't spend the profits (or dividends, whatever), its still being rolled back into the economy. If its deposited into a bank, or buys a security, that money is back to work. The only way to prevent money from working is to stuff cash in a mattress.
Tell me, are Unions evil, because they seek to maximize wages at any cost? Is your average worker evil, because he/she seeks to maximize his/her wages? Why?
Not to mention the article says nothing about rate of return. How much did those 200 spend to make that much money?
Then, how much wealth did those expenditures create once cycled through the economy? The figures are misleading. For every dollar spent, several dollars are "created." That's because the money paid to contractors, employees, etc, gets spent in turn, supporting more business, paying more wages, creating more jobs. And then these businesses and employees spend their money on goods and services, creating more business, more jobs, more wages earned.
Where is the WHOLE economic picture? The figures presented mean nothing, except to the ignorant.
ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR, and CNN? Conservative? LOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!
That made my day. Im crying here. You do realize who Ted Turner is? Used to be married to Jane Fonda? You know, Hanoi Jane? You're too much. Really. CNN and CBS are the most liberal stations in the country. If you would have said FOX, I would have agreed. But CNN? LOLOLOL!!!
Yes, everyone can be a billionaire. Why? Because Billionaires don't have a pile of currency in a vault. They have assets, whether that be stock, bonds, or other securities, real property, and probably some cash in the bank. Other than real property, these assets are IOUs. THE MONEY IS BEING USED ELSEWHERE. Banks loan out money to individuals and businesses, who then buy homes, cars, and pay for business operations, which in turn redistributes the money to others. Money from stocks, bonds, etc. are used by companies to expand operations, creating more wealth and, GASP! more jobs! Which turn redistributes the money through many more hands, etc, etc, etc, etc.
Capitalism is not a zero sum game. Corporations make billions, but those billions pay others, whether contractors, bankers, employees, whatever, and those billions are rolled back into the economy. EVEN THOSE BILLIONS THAT JUST SIT IN THE COFFERS AS PROFIT!
This is not a difficult concept. Nor is it a difficult concept to realize that power in the hands of a corporation is more desirable than power in the hands of a government which holds the reins - political, military, social, AND economic. You can shut down a corporation by not buying their product. You give government control of economics, and your disagreement with government means you don't eat. Take your choice.
That was the most unintelligent post I've ever read. Natural lifespan? Evil multinationals pumping us full of chemicals? Hand over the crack pipe Junior, I wanna hit. Ignorance is bliss, suffer not the fool, all that.
It doesn't require mind reading to come to Phil's conclusion. "Bush only wants to make the oil industry happy" because Bush is pushing for increased domestic oil and gas drilling. The assumption is that is bad. The assumption is only OPEC oil and gas production is acceptable. In other words, more of the NIMBYism that got California in its current debacle to begin with.
More domestic conservation. Like the conservation measures which are driving gas prices through the roof? 38 cents a gallon in federal taxes to discourage gas usage. Federal reformulated gasoline regulations which are causing widespread severe supply shortages, driving the price up. These kind of "conservation" measures? Ever consider that people dont WANT to conserve? Its one thing to pay high prices due to high demand, its another to pay artificially high prices due to some egghead who thinks he knows what's best for others.
Move to California and enjoy the logical conclusion of environmentalism. Hope you take lots of candles.
Only if they pay up someone says. Bah, it wouldn't work. The eco loons will protest - they'll say the microwaves are killing migratory birds, or causing genital warts or something.
So they would reply, "No, I use a Sparc at home." That, no doubt, would be even more impressive that this is a person who loves his tech. The point was that if this person doesn't even care enough for technology to own a rudimentary personal computer, then they are nix for the job.
The fact that dedicated server hosting is a port-based service as well as a non-shared hardware environment makes Quality of Service superior over virtual server solutions. Quality of Service on dedicated servers where CommuniTech.Net guarantees the hardware integrity is measured in two aspects. First, Quality of Service is measured at the switch port, ensuring bandwidth is quality and that there is no internal or external network congestion. Secondly, Quality of Service extends to the hardware used for the dedicated server, making sure there are no hardware performance issues. If such issues arise at anytime, it is our responsibility to resolve the hardware issues, which would have an adverse effect on Quality of Service.
The fact that it is possible (though difficult) to cause a hardware failure through remote software operation is of concern. First, to minimize such circumstances, it is quite important to use only quality hardware in all dedicated servers. Secondly, Quality of Service is exclusive of any software-related issues on the dedicated server, which is the responsibility of the client, not CommuniTech.Net. Therefore, the client, depending on his/her use of the dedicated server, has to carry out the Quality of Service control right down to the application layer.
They claim quality assurance on the link and the hardware, but not software. They state that is a client responsibility. That is a bit unusual, even assinine, but there you have it.
I hate to say this, but you may be out of line. Sounds like these guys are idiots, and completely lack in customer service. BUT, there is a difference between dedicated and managed services. If you have only dedicated service, they essentially lease the box to you, and its your responsibility. If you have a managed account, its then THEIR responsibility to the limits of the service agreement in your contract. However, if they provided you with a dedicated RAQ, and were negligent in that they didn't provide you with root password to manage the box, you have at least something to bitch about. But it sounds like they would have every right to charge for a "managed" service on your "dedicated" box. I don't know how far you could push it claiming that the boxes should have been reasonably secured with free patches provided by the manufacturer before you leased the services. You may have a bad faith argument there.
I worked for UUNET at a data center until laid off by Worldcom recently (grumble), and there most definately is a difference in the services provided between what is essentially colocation and managed hosting. You might want to just chalk it up to experience, and go elsewhere when that option becomes available. Im not sure you have a legal, or fair business practice, case here at all.
Did you read the article, beyond the title? It would seem not.
The project is located on the Red Sea coast of Eritrea, ie Ethiopia. Desert man, desert. And as the article states, the water tables are already salinated. No one is suggesting irrigating grain fields with saltwater.
25,000 miles of desert coast worldwide. 10,000 acres per farm, potential of $1 million an acre in income. All from already unproductive land and previously useless salt water. In short, this is a phenomenal breakthrough if its viable.
This article does raise the issue of liability, and a number of people have raised the question of ISPs being held responsible for any and all content in their news feeds. And that is precisely what I was responding to - ISPs can not be expected to police the massive news tsunami. At best, they can be only held responsible when informed of it, which is precisely what was referred to in the article.
ISPs simply CAN NOT effectively police newsgroups. The volume of new messages alone makes it impossible. The fact that one can post illegal material to ANY newsgroup means you would need to sift through EVERY posted message in EVERY newsgroup, a herculean task by an measure. Having worked for several ISPs doing tech support (the poor bastards that always get stuck doing lame work like above), I can tell you that no ISP in their right minds is going to sacrifice staff manning the phones to sift through thousands of newsgroups. Its bad enough keeping up with IRC support.
The ONLY way an ISP can practically monitor newsgroups is if its subscribers point out offending posts and/or groups, and then eliminate them from the feed. Otherwise this is an impossible task, and someone damn well better point that fact out to Mr. Judge NoClue, politicians and law enforcement officials.
Well, **you** would be prior art. He's patenting the specific arrangement of nucleotides unique to your DNA. All you have to do is show up with a birth certificate and bam, prior art. Or more likely, your parents would be the ones arguing prior art, I suppose.;)
Then there shouldn't be anything wrong with not compensating anyone for coding. Im sure the programmers here on Slashdot would not agree that this is such a good idea. After all, the software house is not actually TAKING anything from them, the code is still there in their brains. No need for compensation, no exchange of values. Right?
If you steal an orange, you can not justify it by saying that you haven't taken anything from the grocer, because you would not have paid for it anyway. You have recieved a value from the grocer without tendering the compensation he is asking for surrender of the value of the orange. It is no different with intangibles. Music is a value that you have recieved, without compensating the artist at the rate the artist has set to surrender the value. Saying that you wouldn't have paid him for it anyway does not justify taking without compensation.
But your point is well understood. The argument always boils down to this - you aren't concerned about the artists' due compensation for his art, but only in getting something for nothing.
Oh yes, Toni Braxton was SOO hurting:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/braxton1.ht ml
Compare that 2-10% royalty figure to profit from sales of branded merchandise such as T-shirts, mugs, blah blah with projected sales figures per annum and then post back. Under which scheme would the artist profit most? What are reasonable figures for such sales without the marketing muscle of a studio behind a musician? Nil? Im not saying that artists deserve less, but they deserve more than the ZERO they get when you **steal** their music.
On that note, fairtunes looks like a way cool concept.
Wrong. Music piracy does not help smaller bands because a. no one has heard of these smaller bands because they don't have a studio to spend lavish amounts of marketing money to get them played. b. the average Napster monkey doesn't download small band music - they download the big timers.
Music piracy IS about ripping off the musicians, because between the studios and the musician, it is the musician who is losing the greater amount proportional to the amount of CD sales they recieve. So what little a musician does make through the studio, you are taking away because of your short-sighted "slight" of "the man" at the studios. Way to be for the musician doood.
Artists tour to sell CDs, dooood. Artists make money from selling CDs, doood. Only massively successful artists make any money from touring, and most touring is paid in large part by studios as, essentially, marketing cost. Most bands who haven't hit the big time, LOSE money on tour.
I suppose you are now going to suggest they sell T-shirts?
You are so right. While we're at it, all the resources, manpower, and energy uselessly consumed by the computer industry should be redirected to building homes, schools, roads, and power plants for these poor unfortunate folks.
Whats that? Oh, your little senseless rant does not apply to supply and demand economics on markets you enjoy. Sorry, didnt realize.
Clue there buckyball - being born isn't a blank check written on my checking account. Sorry.
Slashdot Mirror
Miss the point much, chump? Jane Fonda is a dyed in the wool card carrying liberal and so is Turner.
Derek
Even if shareholders, or the corporation, don't spend the profits (or dividends, whatever), its still being rolled back into the economy. If its deposited into a bank, or buys a security, that money is back to work. The only way to prevent money from working is to stuff cash in a mattress.
Derek
Undefended premise: Greed (subset) Evil.
Defend it, or your entire argument falls down.
Tell me, are Unions evil, because they seek to maximize wages at any cost? Is your average worker evil, because he/she seeks to maximize his/her wages? Why?
Derek
This was such a great article to put on Slashdot. Really shows the level of economic ignorance of too many readers here.
Great post, thank you.
Derek
Not to mention the article says nothing about rate of return. How much did those 200 spend to make that much money?
Then, how much wealth did those expenditures create once cycled through the economy? The figures are misleading. For every dollar spent, several dollars are "created." That's because the money paid to contractors, employees, etc, gets spent in turn, supporting more business, paying more wages, creating more jobs. And then these businesses and employees spend their money on goods and services, creating more business, more jobs, more wages earned.
Where is the WHOLE economic picture? The figures presented mean nothing, except to the ignorant.
Derek
ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR, and CNN? Conservative? LOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!
That made my day. Im crying here. You do realize who Ted Turner is? Used to be married to Jane Fonda? You know, Hanoi Jane? You're too much. Really. CNN and CBS are the most liberal stations in the country. If you would have said FOX, I would have agreed. But CNN? LOLOLOL!!!
Derek
Didn't take econ101 eh?
Yes, everyone can be a billionaire. Why? Because Billionaires don't have a pile of currency in a vault. They have assets, whether that be stock, bonds, or other securities, real property, and probably some cash in the bank. Other than real property, these assets are IOUs. THE MONEY IS BEING USED ELSEWHERE. Banks loan out money to individuals and businesses, who then buy homes, cars, and pay for business operations, which in turn redistributes the money to others. Money from stocks, bonds, etc. are used by companies to expand operations, creating more wealth and, GASP! more jobs! Which turn redistributes the money through many more hands, etc, etc, etc, etc.
Capitalism is not a zero sum game. Corporations make billions, but those billions pay others, whether contractors, bankers, employees, whatever, and those billions are rolled back into the economy. EVEN THOSE BILLIONS THAT JUST SIT IN THE COFFERS AS PROFIT!
This is not a difficult concept. Nor is it a difficult concept to realize that power in the hands of a corporation is more desirable than power in the hands of a government which holds the reins - political, military, social, AND economic. You can shut down a corporation by not buying their product. You give government control of economics, and your disagreement with government means you don't eat. Take your choice.
Derek
Look Ma, one of them there Luddites!
That was the most unintelligent post I've ever read. Natural lifespan? Evil multinationals pumping us full of chemicals? Hand over the crack pipe Junior, I wanna hit. Ignorance is bliss, suffer not the fool, all that.
What's really sad is someone modded this arse.
Derek
It doesn't require mind reading to come to Phil's conclusion. "Bush only wants to make the oil industry happy" because Bush is pushing for increased domestic oil and gas drilling. The assumption is that is bad. The assumption is only OPEC oil and gas production is acceptable. In other words, more of the NIMBYism that got California in its current debacle to begin with.
More domestic conservation. Like the conservation measures which are driving gas prices through the roof? 38 cents a gallon in federal taxes to discourage gas usage. Federal reformulated gasoline regulations which are causing widespread severe supply shortages, driving the price up. These kind of "conservation" measures? Ever consider that people dont WANT to conserve? Its one thing to pay high prices due to high demand, its another to pay artificially high prices due to some egghead who thinks he knows what's best for others.
Move to California and enjoy the logical conclusion of environmentalism. Hope you take lots of candles.
Derek
Only if they pay up someone says. Bah, it wouldn't work. The eco loons will protest - they'll say the microwaves are killing migratory birds, or causing genital warts or something.
Derek
So they would reply, "No, I use a Sparc at home." That, no doubt, would be even more impressive that this is a person who loves his tech. The point was that if this person doesn't even care enough for technology to own a rudimentary personal computer, then they are nix for the job.
Derek
Just caught this on their website:
The fact that dedicated server hosting is a port-based service as well as a non-shared hardware environment makes Quality of Service superior over virtual server solutions. Quality of Service on dedicated servers where CommuniTech.Net guarantees the hardware integrity is measured in two aspects. First, Quality of Service is measured at the switch port, ensuring bandwidth is quality and that there is no internal or external network congestion. Secondly, Quality of Service extends to the hardware used for the dedicated server, making sure there are no hardware performance issues. If such issues arise at anytime, it is our responsibility to resolve the hardware issues, which would have an adverse effect on Quality of Service.
The fact that it is possible (though difficult) to cause a hardware failure through remote software operation is of concern. First, to minimize such circumstances, it is quite important to use only quality hardware in all dedicated servers. Secondly, Quality of Service is exclusive of any software-related issues on the dedicated server, which is the responsibility of the client, not CommuniTech.Net. Therefore, the client, depending on his/her use of the dedicated server, has to carry out the Quality of Service control right down to the application layer.
They claim quality assurance on the link and the hardware, but not software. They state that is a client responsibility. That is a bit unusual, even assinine, but there you have it.
Derek
I hate to say this, but you may be out of line. Sounds like these guys are idiots, and completely lack in customer service. BUT, there is a difference between dedicated and managed services. If you have only dedicated service, they essentially lease the box to you, and its your responsibility. If you have a managed account, its then THEIR responsibility to the limits of the service agreement in your contract. However, if they provided you with a dedicated RAQ, and were negligent in that they didn't provide you with root password to manage the box, you have at least something to bitch about. But it sounds like they would have every right to charge for a "managed" service on your "dedicated" box. I don't know how far you could push it claiming that the boxes should have been reasonably secured with free patches provided by the manufacturer before you leased the services. You may have a bad faith argument there.
I worked for UUNET at a data center until laid off by Worldcom recently (grumble), and there most definately is a difference in the services provided between what is essentially colocation and managed hosting. You might want to just chalk it up to experience, and go elsewhere when that option becomes available. Im not sure you have a legal, or fair business practice, case here at all.
Derek
Did you read the article, beyond the title? It would seem not.
The project is located on the Red Sea coast of Eritrea, ie Ethiopia. Desert man, desert. And as the article states, the water tables are already salinated. No one is suggesting irrigating grain fields with saltwater.
25,000 miles of desert coast worldwide. 10,000 acres per farm, potential of $1 million an acre in income. All from already unproductive land and previously useless salt water. In short, this is a phenomenal breakthrough if its viable.
Derek
Not to mention it gives clues to how the ME can still make money after the oil wells dry up... Derek
Yet again, someone misses the point entirely.
This article does raise the issue of liability, and a number of people have raised the question of ISPs being held responsible for any and all content in their news feeds. And that is precisely what I was responding to - ISPs can not be expected to police the massive news tsunami. At best, they can be only held responsible when informed of it, which is precisely what was referred to in the article.
Any more questions?
Derek
Thank you for enlightening the dullards.
ISPs simply CAN NOT effectively police newsgroups. The volume of new messages alone makes it impossible. The fact that one can post illegal material to ANY newsgroup means you would need to sift through EVERY posted message in EVERY newsgroup, a herculean task by an measure. Having worked for several ISPs doing tech support (the poor bastards that always get stuck doing lame work like above), I can tell you that no ISP in their right minds is going to sacrifice staff manning the phones to sift through thousands of newsgroups. Its bad enough keeping up with IRC support.
The ONLY way an ISP can practically monitor newsgroups is if its subscribers point out offending posts and/or groups, and then eliminate them from the feed. Otherwise this is an impossible task, and someone damn well better point that fact out to Mr. Judge NoClue, politicians and law enforcement officials.
Derek
Well, **you** would be prior art. He's patenting the specific arrangement of nucleotides unique to your DNA. All you have to do is show up with a birth certificate and bam, prior art. Or more likely, your parents would be the ones arguing prior art, I suppose. ;)
Derek
Then there shouldn't be anything wrong with not compensating anyone for coding. Im sure the programmers here on Slashdot would not agree that this is such a good idea. After all, the software house is not actually TAKING anything from them, the code is still there in their brains. No need for compensation, no exchange of values. Right?
If you steal an orange, you can not justify it by saying that you haven't taken anything from the grocer, because you would not have paid for it anyway. You have recieved a value from the grocer without tendering the compensation he is asking for surrender of the value of the orange. It is no different with intangibles. Music is a value that you have recieved, without compensating the artist at the rate the artist has set to surrender the value. Saying that you wouldn't have paid him for it anyway does not justify taking without compensation.
But your point is well understood. The argument always boils down to this - you aren't concerned about the artists' due compensation for his art, but only in getting something for nothing.
Derek
Oh yes, Toni Braxton was SOO hurting:t ml
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/braxton1.h
Compare that 2-10% royalty figure to profit from sales of branded merchandise such as T-shirts, mugs, blah blah with projected sales figures per annum and then post back. Under which scheme would the artist profit most? What are reasonable figures for such sales without the marketing muscle of a studio behind a musician? Nil? Im not saying that artists deserve less, but they deserve more than the ZERO they get when you **steal** their music.
On that note, fairtunes looks like a way cool concept.
Derek
Wrong. Music piracy does not help smaller bands because a. no one has heard of these smaller bands because they don't have a studio to spend lavish amounts of marketing money to get them played. b. the average Napster monkey doesn't download small band music - they download the big timers.
Music piracy IS about ripping off the musicians, because between the studios and the musician, it is the musician who is losing the greater amount proportional to the amount of CD sales they recieve. So what little a musician does make through the studio, you are taking away because of your short-sighted "slight" of "the man" at the studios. Way to be for the musician doood.
Derek
And people say the music biz is over-commercialized now...
As another poster mentioned, this merely turns musicians into marketeers.
Derek
Artists tour to sell CDs, dooood. Artists make money from selling CDs, doood. Only massively successful artists make any money from touring, and most touring is paid in large part by studios as, essentially, marketing cost. Most bands who haven't hit the big time, LOSE money on tour.
I suppose you are now going to suggest they sell T-shirts?
Derek
You are so right. While we're at it, all the resources, manpower, and energy uselessly consumed by the computer industry should be redirected to building homes, schools, roads, and power plants for these poor unfortunate folks.
Whats that? Oh, your little senseless rant does not apply to supply and demand economics on markets you enjoy. Sorry, didnt realize.
Clue there buckyball - being born isn't a blank check written on my checking account. Sorry.
Derek
Because all scientific breakthroughs are vaporware... until the breakthrough. By definition.
Derek