We need Gary Johnson. Which is why we will never get him.
In my little piss-ant berg of southern CT, we had a chance for a mayor not tied to the Democrat party (the Dem primary is basically the election; The Republican party sends out a candidate just for fun), but when it was clear he was popular and had a good chance to win, the Party made sure their choice was elected. The mainline Dems and Reps are on the same team; they don't really care which side wins, so long as it is one of them.
I'm guessing you have never heard of mix tapes or mix cds? I imagine it even happened in the 8 track era as well, but I don't have experience back that far.
In the middle ages, it was common for music to be shared for free, what suddenly changed to make it so expensive? It has only gotten easier to reproduce music.
As I said, people tended to buy music once. Yes, there was pirating in the form of mix tapes, but I'm fairly certain it was not even a drop in the bucket of online piracy (to use the parlance of our time).
Sure, musicians are being screwed over by the labels and publishers, but that's not a reason to outright steal it and deny the musicians the meager cash they are getting paid.
In the past, free (stolen) music was not common - relatively speaking - because the means of distribution were limited. The average consumer of music understood that the form factor - record, 8 track, tape, CD - required they buy it once. This set the bar for musicians (though let's be honest, record companies always made the lion share of the profit) to expect they could sell their music at a certain price.
Fast forward to our hyper-connected world, delivery seems effortless, or at least bundled with the monthly fee we pay our ISP. Stealing music no longer feels like actual stealing because it is all digital, and we're accustomed to sending and receiving bits without a thought to the huge amount of infrastructure and manpower required to create content and keep all those servers running. Additionally, the market forces dictate a new pricing structure because we're consuming music sans physical medium, so the expectation is that price will drop accordingly. But we have a decades old system predicated on the $10 - $15 price point (give or take inflation) for an album.
We have conflicting interests: Joe Musician still has to perfect his craft and write all those songs. He can engineer it at home, but let's be honest, that is often obvious in the end product. Either way, Joe still has the same level of effort to make an album, but the consumers now have the world at their fingertips and an expectation that with a widespread and immediate audience Joe will take a lot less for his record.
Note: This is not a new phenomenon, nor is it only in the digital space. Costco and Walmart have done the same thing for the cost of manufactured and farmed goods. Do those cheap chicken thighs really reflect the cost of raising chickens? They do if one is okay with cramming chickens into a factory farm. In this instance, the environment and well being of the animals suffer, so no one complains.
Now, the empires (corporations) want a factory system for creating creative people. Hence the coding intitiatives and STEM programs that governments are suddenly shoving down schools' throats all over the world.
At least in the United States, I feel the push for STEM programs is the politicians wanting to be perceived as doing something; and, as typically is the case with politicians, they are doing it wrong. Technically wrong, and for the wrong reasons. As for the "empires (corporations)," that is tracing the curve to its logical extreme, as if faceless corporations will take over the world and we will be powerless to stop them. As much as I love a good corporate apocalypse movie, it is only happening because we allow it, and continue to allow it because we accept the carrot that is leisure time in exchange for the freedom to decide -- because choice comes with the possibility of failure.
I have begun to think that maybe we deserve to be slaves. The divine right of kings was tossed on its head after centuries by the U.S. Constitution. And ever since we divested ourselves from it we have slowly moved back towards it. Our politicians have celebrity status. How long before another Kennedy clan arises, and we cheer as they crown themselves king?
The use of information technology in areas of language, mathematics, science is fundamental to the way problems are approached in the real world and should be integrated into the curriculum in all subject areas.
Good point. When I was in high school (1980s) we weren't required to learn how to use a slide rule (although I owned one because nerd). Maybe now we shouldn't teach calculator and instead integrate Matlab or Mathematica into the learning process? A CS course should teach fundamentals, not functional programming or other highly abstracted languages. But applying computers as a tool to solve problems is an entirely different animal these days.
why in the hell would they choose to partner with Infosys on this initiative?
Because Infosys stepped forward with the money in hand.
Why would they outsource healthcare.org to a company that didn't know what they were doing and charged (at least) 10 times what it should have cost, when there were US-based companies with the expertise who could have rolled it out faster and with far less issues? Because it is about greasing palms and returning favors.
I didn't realize they had that. It is a start. What I would really like is a la carte channel packages instead of bundles. But I know that isn't likely to happen any time soon because so many channels would be free-marketed into oblivion when ad revenue plummets because only a tiny fraction of the consumers want them.
On the other hand, maybe the lack of cheap accessibility is good. If the bar of media consumption is lowered too much, we may see a generation of people completely give themselves over to leisure.
The further removed we are from having to work hard, the more we forget what was sacrificed for the free time we enjoy.
Caps are important to them because they see their cable monopoly slipping away as Netflix, HBO, et. al. offer a la carte purchase options that bypass their subscription based model.
If only content creators truly were providing a la carte content. HBO Go requires a subscription to a traditional service provider. Hulu is artificially restricted, and has ads. Netflix is marginalized by content providers striking deals with Amazon, Apple, and others, making their best content Korean action films and their original series. In the sports world, ESPN streaming requires subscription to a traditional service provider, and Fox Sports, the only one that offers their service separate from a traditional service provider (at $20 per month), was priced out of the Premier League market by NBC -- whose sports service requires subscription to a traditional service provider.
Spend any amount of time on Twitter and it is clear that "abuse" in forms other than malicious is rampant. For example, the guy with 17k followers who follows 18k people. His whole Twitter ring is a meaningless bunch of follows/followers/retweets designed to make people look (or feel) popular. In the end, it is just noise.
Unless I missed something, that was pretty much a synopsis of the Twitter business plan.
I think they thought it would be neat for people to be able to let others know they were pooping and whatnot. But then people with lots of followers started making money off of the resulting notoriety, and suddenly a cottage industry of allegedly helping people make money off it sprang up.
I've seen Twitter accounts that do nothing more than re-tweet. I don't get it.
"cuts out when...a bird lands in front of it or something"
With a sufficiently-powerful light, that situation would only last for a fraction of a second.
Spend any amount of time on Twitter and it is clear that "abuse" in forms other than malicious is rampant. For example, the guy with 17k followers who follows 18k people. His whole Twitter ring is a meaningless bunch of follows/followers/retweets designed to make people look (or feel) popular. In the end, it is just noise.
Drug sniffing dogs are no more addicted to drugs than bomb sniffing dogs are addicted to explosives, cash sniffing dogs addicted to cash or cadaver sniffing dogs addicted to dead people. Seriously, dogs have keen noses and will find whatever they are trained to find. The rumor that dogs are turned into drug addicts in order to find drugs is pure unadulterated bullshit.
Except this one cash sniffing dog I saw -- gold grills; Rolex; diamond studs in his ears as large as dog biscuits...
Police offices these days are crooks who reinterpret the law as they choose.
Generalize much?
A long time ago we asked to not be burdened with the task of policing ourselves. The opposite extreme is the Gestapo, and we've been inching closer ever since.
That was a second detention, done without probable cause (since he had already dealt with the reason for the stop), and was therefore unlawful.
The lack of probable cause is not related to the fact that the officer already dealt with the reason for the stop. Hypothetically speaking, on the officer's return to the vehicle he could have noticed something that would lead to the moving violation turning into a longer detention. That was apparently not the case here.
And Mr. Do. But the open world of Minecraft offers near unmatched digging-based time wasting without the added stress of increasing level difficulty. And the possibility of finding shiny blue diamonds...Oh my, I do believe I'm a tad flush.
It's a crime. It's a computer crime, and you're supposed to know that.
By the letter of the law it is a computer crime, but by intention it is an act of vandalizing a computer. Those are two very different things. If he looked up test answers, changed grades, or altered attendance records, then I would accept it as a computer crime. This is an instance of blind application of a law.
I started programming at age 10 on a Vic-20. By high school (1987) I wanted nothing to do with literature classes, but I had it crammed down my throat that one needed to be well rounded, and science and mathematics just weren't enough (I didn't go to Catholic school, so that isn't a literal cramming down my throat). Then came the magnet schools, and their more targeted programs; but alas, it was too late for me.
My opinion: Kids need to be well rounded coming out of high school. Writing should be emphasized more, based on the writing quality of my peers and those younger than me. What we need to change is the idea that we must go to college, and that trade jobs are for blue collar people.
I fear we have created a chasm between the college and no-college crowd, and a strict division of college and no-college jobs. College people largely end up with high-level skills; no-college people end up with practical skills that used to be viewed as essential. We college people have divested ourselves of having to truly know that world. We consume at a level that allows us -- and sometimes even requires us -- to live in blissful ignorance.
In conclusion: Take your college degree and learn how to make your own sausage. Or bread (without a machine). Or soap. Or operating system.
Slashdot Mirror
Other than the so called "fair tax" I could support him.
What don't you like about it?
We need Gary Johnson. Which is why we will never get him.
In my little piss-ant berg of southern CT, we had a chance for a mayor not tied to the Democrat party (the Dem primary is basically the election; The Republican party sends out a candidate just for fun), but when it was clear he was popular and had a good chance to win, the Party made sure their choice was elected. The mainline Dems and Reps are on the same team; they don't really care which side wins, so long as it is one of them.
online piracy
Or maybe I should say, digital piracy.
I'm guessing you have never heard of mix tapes or mix cds? I imagine it even happened in the 8 track era as well, but I don't have experience back that far.
In the middle ages, it was common for music to be shared for free, what suddenly changed to make it so expensive? It has only gotten easier to reproduce music.
As I said, people tended to buy music once. Yes, there was pirating in the form of mix tapes, but I'm fairly certain it was not even a drop in the bucket of online piracy (to use the parlance of our time).
Why do people think all this music is Free?
Sure, musicians are being screwed over by the labels and publishers, but that's not a reason to outright steal it and deny the musicians the meager cash they are getting paid.
In the past, free (stolen) music was not common - relatively speaking - because the means of distribution were limited. The average consumer of music understood that the form factor - record, 8 track, tape, CD - required they buy it once. This set the bar for musicians (though let's be honest, record companies always made the lion share of the profit) to expect they could sell their music at a certain price.
Fast forward to our hyper-connected world, delivery seems effortless, or at least bundled with the monthly fee we pay our ISP. Stealing music no longer feels like actual stealing because it is all digital, and we're accustomed to sending and receiving bits without a thought to the huge amount of infrastructure and manpower required to create content and keep all those servers running. Additionally, the market forces dictate a new pricing structure because we're consuming music sans physical medium, so the expectation is that price will drop accordingly. But we have a decades old system predicated on the $10 - $15 price point (give or take inflation) for an album.
We have conflicting interests: Joe Musician still has to perfect his craft and write all those songs. He can engineer it at home, but let's be honest, that is often obvious in the end product. Either way, Joe still has the same level of effort to make an album, but the consumers now have the world at their fingertips and an expectation that with a widespread and immediate audience Joe will take a lot less for his record.
Note: This is not a new phenomenon, nor is it only in the digital space. Costco and Walmart have done the same thing for the cost of manufactured and farmed goods. Do those cheap chicken thighs really reflect the cost of raising chickens? They do if one is okay with cramming chickens into a factory farm. In this instance, the environment and well being of the animals suffer, so no one complains.
Now, the empires (corporations) want a factory system for creating creative people. Hence the coding intitiatives and STEM programs that governments are suddenly shoving down schools' throats all over the world.
At least in the United States, I feel the push for STEM programs is the politicians wanting to be perceived as doing something; and, as typically is the case with politicians, they are doing it wrong. Technically wrong, and for the wrong reasons. As for the "empires (corporations)," that is tracing the curve to its logical extreme, as if faceless corporations will take over the world and we will be powerless to stop them. As much as I love a good corporate apocalypse movie, it is only happening because we allow it, and continue to allow it because we accept the carrot that is leisure time in exchange for the freedom to decide -- because choice comes with the possibility of failure.
I have begun to think that maybe we deserve to be slaves. The divine right of kings was tossed on its head after centuries by the U.S. Constitution. And ever since we divested ourselves from it we have slowly moved back towards it. Our politicians have celebrity status. How long before another Kennedy clan arises, and we cheer as they crown themselves king?
The use of information technology in areas of language, mathematics, science is fundamental to the way problems are approached in the real world and should be integrated into the curriculum in all subject areas.
Good point. When I was in high school (1980s) we weren't required to learn how to use a slide rule (although I owned one because nerd). Maybe now we shouldn't teach calculator and instead integrate Matlab or Mathematica into the learning process? A CS course should teach fundamentals, not functional programming or other highly abstracted languages. But applying computers as a tool to solve problems is an entirely different animal these days.
why in the hell would they choose to partner with Infosys on this initiative?
Because Infosys stepped forward with the money in hand.
Why would they outsource healthcare.org to a company that didn't know what they were doing and charged (at least) 10 times what it should have cost, when there were US-based companies with the expertise who could have rolled it out faster and with far less issues? Because it is about greasing palms and returning favors.
I didn't realize they had that. It is a start. What I would really like is a la carte channel packages instead of bundles. But I know that isn't likely to happen any time soon because so many channels would be free-marketed into oblivion when ad revenue plummets because only a tiny fraction of the consumers want them.
On the other hand, maybe the lack of cheap accessibility is good. If the bar of media consumption is lowered too much, we may see a generation of people completely give themselves over to leisure.
The further removed we are from having to work hard, the more we forget what was sacrificed for the free time we enjoy.
Caps are important to them because they see their cable monopoly slipping away as Netflix, HBO, et. al. offer a la carte purchase options that bypass their subscription based model.
If only content creators truly were providing a la carte content. HBO Go requires a subscription to a traditional service provider. Hulu is artificially restricted, and has ads. Netflix is marginalized by content providers striking deals with Amazon, Apple, and others, making their best content Korean action films and their original series. In the sports world, ESPN streaming requires subscription to a traditional service provider, and Fox Sports, the only one that offers their service separate from a traditional service provider (at $20 per month), was priced out of the Premier League market by NBC -- whose sports service requires subscription to a traditional service provider.
Bah, you kids and your "sleep." If becoming a parent taught be anything, it's that it is amazing how little sleep you can operate on.
If becoming an alcoholic taught me anything, it's that it is amazing how little sleep you can operate on. And how good greasy food can taste.
Spend any amount of time on Twitter and it is clear that "abuse" in forms other than malicious is rampant. For example, the guy with 17k followers who follows 18k people. His whole Twitter ring is a meaningless bunch of follows/followers/retweets designed to make people look (or feel) popular. In the end, it is just noise.
Unless I missed something, that was pretty much a synopsis of the Twitter business plan.
I think they thought it would be neat for people to be able to let others know they were pooping and whatnot. But then people with lots of followers started making money off of the resulting notoriety, and suddenly a cottage industry of allegedly helping people make money off it sprang up.
I've seen Twitter accounts that do nothing more than re-tweet. I don't get it.
"cuts out when...a bird lands in front of it or something" With a sufficiently-powerful light, that situation would only last for a fraction of a second.
And then you get Internet and fried chicken!
More cancer too. Why not jump right up to X-Rays?
Fuck it, gamma rays.
I vote for death rays.
Spend any amount of time on Twitter and it is clear that "abuse" in forms other than malicious is rampant. For example, the guy with 17k followers who follows 18k people. His whole Twitter ring is a meaningless bunch of follows/followers/retweets designed to make people look (or feel) popular. In the end, it is just noise.
Drug sniffing dogs are no more addicted to drugs than bomb sniffing dogs are addicted to explosives, cash sniffing dogs addicted to cash or cadaver sniffing dogs addicted to dead people. Seriously, dogs have keen noses and will find whatever they are trained to find. The rumor that dogs are turned into drug addicts in order to find drugs is pure unadulterated bullshit.
Except this one cash sniffing dog I saw -- gold grills; Rolex; diamond studs in his ears as large as dog biscuits...
Today's nerds do more meth than they used to. In fairness, the hours we're being pressured to work do require some form of amphetamines.
The older, more refined nerd prefers Adderall.
The even older, even more refined nerds prefer a good night's sleep. And alcohol.
Police offices these days are crooks who reinterpret the law as they choose.
Generalize much?
A long time ago we asked to not be burdened with the task of policing ourselves. The opposite extreme is the Gestapo, and we've been inching closer ever since.
That was a second detention, done without probable cause (since he had already dealt with the reason for the stop), and was therefore unlawful.
The lack of probable cause is not related to the fact that the officer already dealt with the reason for the stop. Hypothetically speaking, on the officer's return to the vehicle he could have noticed something that would lead to the moving violation turning into a longer detention. That was apparently not the case here.
Although Dig Dug would be an obvious choice too.
And Mr. Do. But the open world of Minecraft offers near unmatched digging-based time wasting without the added stress of increasing level difficulty. And the possibility of finding shiny blue diamonds...Oh my, I do believe I'm a tad flush.
Kobalt Digging Shovel and Kobalt Fiberglass Pick Mattock are my favorites for digging.
Is there an Android port available yet?
Maybe people will stop playing this waste of bandwidth.
If you can think of a better program with which to spend three hours digging then I'd like to hear it.
Wrong.
It's a crime. It's a computer crime, and you're supposed to know that.
By the letter of the law it is a computer crime, but by intention it is an act of vandalizing a computer. Those are two very different things. If he looked up test answers, changed grades, or altered attendance records, then I would accept it as a computer crime. This is an instance of blind application of a law.
'hacking' needs to have some lower bounds, and this sounds more like a case of simple vandalism then any kind of intrusion.
This isn't even close to hacking or any kind of computer crime. I'm surprised they didn't throw in hate crime charges for good measure.
I started programming at age 10 on a Vic-20. By high school (1987) I wanted nothing to do with literature classes, but I had it crammed down my throat that one needed to be well rounded, and science and mathematics just weren't enough (I didn't go to Catholic school, so that isn't a literal cramming down my throat). Then came the magnet schools, and their more targeted programs; but alas, it was too late for me.
My opinion: Kids need to be well rounded coming out of high school. Writing should be emphasized more, based on the writing quality of my peers and those younger than me. What we need to change is the idea that we must go to college, and that trade jobs are for blue collar people.
I fear we have created a chasm between the college and no-college crowd, and a strict division of college and no-college jobs. College people largely end up with high-level skills; no-college people end up with practical skills that used to be viewed as essential. We college people have divested ourselves of having to truly know that world. We consume at a level that allows us -- and sometimes even requires us -- to live in blissful ignorance.
In conclusion: Take your college degree and learn how to make your own sausage. Or bread (without a machine). Or soap. Or operating system.