You're paying taxes whether or not you use the library, and checking out a book costs you nothing.
'Taxes' is not a single quantity of money. You can pay more or less in taxes. Many communities have cut their funding of libraries in order to spend the money for other things. They did that as opposed to raising taxes to fund both the libraries and the other things. That happens a lot during economic down times like today.
The numbers of books and media, their variety and quality are also dependent on how much funding the libraries get. The number of library locations and their operating hours - the same. Many libraries also provide internet access. Nothing is free.
One argument for cutting library funding is that people can or should by their own books, media and internet access - as if only the people who can afford all this exist. Some people wish this were true. Don't take libraries or their continued funding and support for granted.
I'm still having that problem with my iPhone 3Gs. I work in the Loop in Chicago. It varies with the time of day too. I suspect that the amount of demand at any given moment is a big part of it.
Why are we changing the subject? We aren't talking about expansive copyright or how large corporations are seeking to abuse the intent of copyright and fair use. That's a different issue. The topic here is whether a content creator who makes their living selling copies of their work should be concerned that the change to digital media makes their work easier to pirate. And in the current business model, that means they lose income. That lost income may not hurt Dan Brown or Brittany Spears all that much -as if I'd care, but it does hurt the vast majority of creators who are basically middle class, if that. In fact, you event contradicted yourself by saying that "the blockbuster author is a myth". Well its not exactly a myth, but it is a rare occurrence. Most authors make enough to live on if that. They are the one's hurt most by piracy. You can give them all the advice you want, but it doesn't mean they shouldn't be concerned.
I'm talking about people who write books, write or make music, movies, etc. If you have a family or want a life or good health you can't spend your time on the road touring nor can you afford to spend all your free time producing content for which you earn little income.
You are ignoring the basic fact that most people who write books and write or make music don't make a living doing it.
Your few friends and acquaintances are not proof of anything and they don't refute what I wrote. I too have friends who still involved in music production, bands, books and the like. They'd love to do it full time and at one time they did. They never had enough commercial success (i.e. income) from it to justify continuing to do it as anymore of a hobby. None of that was because of piracy. Creative arts are tough businesses.
Piracy becomes an issue for those who've been able to have enough success so they can do if for a living. The vast majority of these folks will never get rich, and that's not their goal. They want to make enough to be comfortable and take care of their loved ones. Sharp increases in piracy are a threat to them because they don't have much margin to work with - especially the song writers and authors who don't get paid to perform. Most of what I listen to or read is produced by these folks. I don't listen to the "big names" much or read their books.
Your statement that "most of the people" would do it event if there wasn't going to be a "big paycheck" misses the point unless you think a "big paycheck" is $80 to 100 grand a year. It's not. You also don't account for the drop in production and quality that occurs when you have to spend 40 to 50 hours a week in your day job to make ends meet.
Your logic escapes me. I understand technology very well and I understand his concern. Piracy is much easier and cheaper in a digital world than in a print world. It is a threat to the business of content creators (authors) and their publishers. Ads won't pay the bills. All the clowns on this site who think people should or can work for free or a pittance need to get of their mommas' basements and try to support a family.
I'm talking about people who write books, write or make music, movies, etc. If you have a family or want a life or good health you can't spend your time on the road touring nor can you afford to spend all your free time producing content for which you earn little income. Living for art is a something only the wealthy and the obsessive can do. The rest of us want a nice home, medical care, educated and happy kids and a content spouse. If you don't want or need that then fine, but you are part of a tiny minority.
So how does one get paid a decent amount for one's work in this new model? Advertising is not going to do it. Markets are more fragmented because there are more content delivery channels available. Well that drives down ad rates for the mass market vendors. So the solution is supposed to be to improve the targeting of ads to consumers based on what we know about their interests and proclivities. The problem their is that requires a lot of data collection that many of us see as an invasion of privacy. We block the ads, block the cookies and turn off the scripts in order to avoid all that. Now how much would an advertiser pay if his message rarely gets through and only the clueless can be targeted? (Even the clueless eventually start blocking ads and third party cookies and such.)
Charging for content is necessary and in a digital world the only way that works if enough people are willing to pay. Of those who are willing to pay, you need to get them to pay and not just take it for free. Reasonable unit pricing and convenient delivery helps (a'la iTunes), but frankly, piracy is pretty easy and convenient too. So why pay? Some of us pay because we feel a responsibility to the content producers, but many people seem to assume that content producers are all millionaires. Why is that? Who do they think are paying them? The only rich content producers are the lucky few. Even in a pre-digital world many of the most talented and creative people barely eked out a living and many dropped out in order to provide for their loved ones. In a digital world it can be much tougher.
So whether or not this particular author understands technology, he does understand that his world and his livelihood is under threat and that he needs to figure out how to adjust. That's just being perceptive.
He doesn't misunderstand the purpose of DRM. What you call the purpose of DRM are really the intentions of many who employ it. DRM can be used with other intentions such as those suggested by the gp.
There are some cosmetic manufacturers who say they do no animal testing. I'm sure they do research and testing, I'm just not familiar with their approach(s). Perhaps they are doing what you've suggested.
The fact that we've been "finding more and more incidents" is actually good news because the rate of false convictions has probably gone down over the past 50 years. The Bill of Rights gets a lot more respect now than it did in the 1960's are anytime before that./\
It's a bit like the crime of rape. Reports of rape went up when we stigmatized the victims less. That doesn't mean the rape rate increased. If anything, it probably decreased because the perps knew their victims and their families were less likely to stay quiet and that police, prosecutors and jurors were more sympathetic to the victims. It hasn't always been that way in the U.S. and is certainly not that way in many countries today.
I've used words like "probably" above, but I'm sure of what I say. I've studied history quite a bit, but even more importantly I'm an old fart who remembers how ordinary people thought way back when. If you were a minority or a bit "different" and the cops said you did something wrong, that's all a "God fearing good citizen" had to hear. And believe me, there were a lot more "God fearing good citizens" willing to believe whatever they were told back then than there are now.
The cosmetics industry does put chemicals in the eyes of rabbits to test chemicals used in eye make up, so yes they do "poke puppies in the eye". Almost all cosmetics companies test on animals except for a few companies that advertise that they don't.
To say we must test everything on animal or become Luddites is a false choice. I'd say we should try to strike a humane balance. I'd rather let Pam Anderson poke out her eye if she is determined to than harm an animal. On the other hand, I don't want the materials used to build a home to poison its occupants. There are indulgences and vanities, e.g. eye liner and perfume and there are necessities, e.g. food, shelter, medicines. There is a gray area in the middle. Let's draw a line in the gray area if we have to, but draw a line we must.
Well Mr. Historian, are you absolutely sure every prisoner in every country is guilty of the crimes for which they were convicted? What society in history never imprisoned an innocent person? What society in history has been so unwilling to make a mistake that they do nothing? Assuming you can think of one, how long did it survive?
Some kinds of animal testing is animal cruelty. It depends on how it is conducted and for what purpose. A lot of abuse has occurred over the years which is why the scientific community and its funders have invested heavily in developing protocols, review processes and inspections to prevent abuses. In my review the research should be for a very important purpose and researchers should take maxim care to avoid inflicting unnecessary pain or discomfort. Anthrax vaccines seem to be an important purpose. Eye liner and other cosmetics don't meet my standard.
Your post was modded as funny, but I think a lot of people think that way. I'd at least feel less guilty pirating - if I would ever do such a thing - if I knew they were getting paid even when I wasn't.
Totally different kind of applications than what enterprises need Oracle for. Google serves data and logs (appends) activities. High volume transaction processing with lot's of concurrent access - locks, contention, etc. - or (informationally) complex data warehouses are not well addressed by MySQL especially when the volumes of interrelated data get very large.
Of course it belongs. Didn't you notice the reference to "science" in "scientology"? BTW, Scientology liberally uses lawyers and law suits to intimidate and silence its critics - including the on-line critics.
I don't know or care if Lyons is a shill or an idiot. It's always good for consumers to be reminded that there is no free lunch and that companies are trying to make money. Corporations serve the shareholders and/or management not the people. People need to think about the trade-offs they are making. This good versus evil view of vendors is naive and self-defeating. Understand what a company is offering you and what they expect to get from that and then make your decision on your own self interests. Even "nice" companies are only being "nice" because they see some way to profit from that. That's o.k. , but don't anthropomorphize corporate entities.
That worked out real well for the Soviet Union. It's been so successful in the People's Republic of China that they've been shifting to a market economy as quickly as they can. Yup, we need more central planning. A good 5 year plan for IT would be great for everyone. It would eliminate those annoying surprises and disruptions. Prices would be stable. Everything according to plan. Know any central planners you'd trust that to?
So the parent here gets mod'd as insightful because he doesn't know that the U.S. has enemies. So I post a response pointing out in common/. style that the U.S. has many current and potential enemies (we have 2 active wars going on for God's sake and an inactive state of war with North Korea) and I get mod'd as "offtopic"? How can you be offtopic when you are directly challenging a post that has been mod'd as insightful? Explain that for me please.
What does Palin have to do with anything? I chose when, where and how I post on the Internet. I own my computer and I own my software that runs on it. I exercise control over what programs I run or don't run and the data I store on my computer. I control access to my data. Just because you use the internet does not necessarily mean you've given up all your privacy or control of your hardware - unless you don't have a clue.
China already has dictated to Yahoo, Google and Microsoft - what sites their people see and what data about their people they must surrender to the government. If China can do that, so can the EU, the U.S., India or any other government in a major market.
When you have direct physical access to a computer, there is no security that can stop you. When your computer is in a cloud, the owner of the cloud has direct physical access to your computer. You have to rely on the cloud provider to protect your interests and yet in this case, you aren't even the customer. Advertisers are Google's customers, not you. Google requires the cooperation from governments in order to deliver services to you. Google is not there for you. It's services to you are merely a way of getting your attention and information so they can more effectively (as defined by advertisers) serve ads to you and information to advertisers.
I've already removed Google software from my Mac & PC. No, I don't want to tether to the Google cloud or any cloud and give up my privacy or freedom. At what point will companies like Google be compelled to enforce government mandates and restrictions? (Think China today. The U.S. will start with DMCA and Europe will restrict whatever they think is "offensive" to others.)
Good Sci Fi is not about science and never has been. The GP is correct, but maybe wasn't specific enough for you. The "what if"s in Sci Fi tend to be science or pseudo-science oriented, or futuristic. The point is that the use of science, pseudo-science or the future is to provide a premise so the author can explore issues about human nature and such like ethics, morality, our place in the universe, free will, what democracy means, the value of "truth", etc. Other
The "dubious" sites are well known legitimate businesses who pass your credit card information to their "partners" without asking your permission. So unless you consider all commerce on the internet to be "dubious", you've misunderstood the problem. Imagine if you used your credit card at a brick and mortar Best Buy store and they signed you up for AOL based on your signature on the charge slip - without explaining first what they were doing and insuring you understood. Oh, yeah, they've done that too.
If it were taught in public schools then it would make such tactics a bit less effective. So, since most of the skilled practitioners of these dark arts are in power and since the "public schools" are administered by their minions, I'm not surprised that the schools are not spilling their secrets. If I knew some tricks that I could use to rip you off and/or control you and these tricks depended in part on you not knowing what they were, why would I teach them to you or even admit their existence?
And no, I'm not a conspiracy nut nor do I see conspiracies behind many things. What I do see is that the ruling class has a view of how the world works and what the rules are that is very different from what the rest of us are taught to believe. They use their insights to their advantage and we boobs wonder why our virtues and hard work aren't enough. It's how the ruling classes have remained in power throughout the history of mankind.
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You're paying taxes whether or not you use the library, and checking out a book costs you nothing.
'Taxes' is not a single quantity of money. You can pay more or less in taxes. Many communities have cut their funding of libraries in order to spend the money for other things. They did that as opposed to raising taxes to fund both the libraries and the other things. That happens a lot during economic down times like today.
The numbers of books and media, their variety and quality are also dependent on how much funding the libraries get. The number of library locations and their operating hours - the same. Many libraries also provide internet access. Nothing is free.
One argument for cutting library funding is that people can or should by their own books, media and internet access - as if only the people who can afford all this exist. Some people wish this were true. Don't take libraries or their continued funding and support for granted.
I'm still having that problem with my iPhone 3Gs. I work in the Loop in Chicago. It varies with the time of day too. I suspect that the amount of demand at any given moment is a big part of it.
Why are we changing the subject? We aren't talking about expansive copyright or how large corporations are seeking to abuse the intent of copyright and fair use. That's a different issue. The topic here is whether a content creator who makes their living selling copies of their work should be concerned that the change to digital media makes their work easier to pirate. And in the current business model, that means they lose income. That lost income may not hurt Dan Brown or Brittany Spears all that much -as if I'd care, but it does hurt the vast majority of creators who are basically middle class, if that. In fact, you event contradicted yourself by saying that "the blockbuster author is a myth". Well its not exactly a myth, but it is a rare occurrence. Most authors make enough to live on if that. They are the one's hurt most by piracy. You can give them all the advice you want, but it doesn't mean they shouldn't be concerned.
I'm talking about people who write books, write or make music, movies, etc. If you have a family or want a life or good health you can't spend your time on the road touring nor can you afford to spend all your free time producing content for which you earn little income.
You are ignoring the basic fact that most people who write books and write or make music don't make a living doing it.
Your few friends and acquaintances are not proof of anything and they don't refute what I wrote. I too have friends who still involved in music production, bands, books and the like. They'd love to do it full time and at one time they did. They never had enough commercial success (i.e. income) from it to justify continuing to do it as anymore of a hobby. None of that was because of piracy. Creative arts are tough businesses.
Piracy becomes an issue for those who've been able to have enough success so they can do if for a living. The vast majority of these folks will never get rich, and that's not their goal. They want to make enough to be comfortable and take care of their loved ones. Sharp increases in piracy are a threat to them because they don't have much margin to work with - especially the song writers and authors who don't get paid to perform. Most of what I listen to or read is produced by these folks. I don't listen to the "big names" much or read their books.
Your statement that "most of the people" would do it event if there wasn't going to be a "big paycheck" misses the point unless you think a "big paycheck" is $80 to 100 grand a year. It's not. You also don't account for the drop in production and quality that occurs when you have to spend 40 to 50 hours a week in your day job to make ends meet.
Your logic escapes me. I understand technology very well and I understand his concern. Piracy is much easier and cheaper in a digital world than in a print world. It is a threat to the business of content creators (authors) and their publishers. Ads won't pay the bills. All the clowns on this site who think people should or can work for free or a pittance need to get of their mommas' basements and try to support a family.
I'm talking about people who write books, write or make music, movies, etc. If you have a family or want a life or good health you can't spend your time on the road touring nor can you afford to spend all your free time producing content for which you earn little income. Living for art is a something only the wealthy and the obsessive can do. The rest of us want a nice home, medical care, educated and happy kids and a content spouse. If you don't want or need that then fine, but you are part of a tiny minority.
So how does one get paid a decent amount for one's work in this new model? Advertising is not going to do it. Markets are more fragmented because there are more content delivery channels available. Well that drives down ad rates for the mass market vendors. So the solution is supposed to be to improve the targeting of ads to consumers based on what we know about their interests and proclivities. The problem their is that requires a lot of data collection that many of us see as an invasion of privacy. We block the ads, block the cookies and turn off the scripts in order to avoid all that. Now how much would an advertiser pay if his message rarely gets through and only the clueless can be targeted? (Even the clueless eventually start blocking ads and third party cookies and such.)
Charging for content is necessary and in a digital world the only way that works if enough people are willing to pay. Of those who are willing to pay, you need to get them to pay and not just take it for free. Reasonable unit pricing and convenient delivery helps (a'la iTunes), but frankly, piracy is pretty easy and convenient too. So why pay? Some of us pay because we feel a responsibility to the content producers, but many people seem to assume that content producers are all millionaires. Why is that? Who do they think are paying them? The only rich content producers are the lucky few. Even in a pre-digital world many of the most talented and creative people barely eked out a living and many dropped out in order to provide for their loved ones. In a digital world it can be much tougher.
So whether or not this particular author understands technology, he does understand that his world and his livelihood is under threat and that he needs to figure out how to adjust. That's just being perceptive.
He doesn't misunderstand the purpose of DRM. What you call the purpose of DRM are really the intentions of many who employ it. DRM can be used with other intentions such as those suggested by the gp.
There are some cosmetic manufacturers who say they do no animal testing. I'm sure they do research and testing, I'm just not familiar with their approach(s). Perhaps they are doing what you've suggested.
It's a bit like the crime of rape. Reports of rape went up when we stigmatized the victims less. That doesn't mean the rape rate increased. If anything, it probably decreased because the perps knew their victims and their families were less likely to stay quiet and that police, prosecutors and jurors were more sympathetic to the victims. It hasn't always been that way in the U.S. and is certainly not that way in many countries today.
I've used words like "probably" above, but I'm sure of what I say. I've studied history quite a bit, but even more importantly I'm an old fart who remembers how ordinary people thought way back when. If you were a minority or a bit "different" and the cops said you did something wrong, that's all a "God fearing good citizen" had to hear. And believe me, there were a lot more "God fearing good citizens" willing to believe whatever they were told back then than there are now.
To say we must test everything on animal or become Luddites is a false choice. I'd say we should try to strike a humane balance. I'd rather let Pam Anderson poke out her eye if she is determined to than harm an animal. On the other hand, I don't want the materials used to build a home to poison its occupants. There are indulgences and vanities, e.g. eye liner and perfume and there are necessities, e.g. food, shelter, medicines. There is a gray area in the middle. Let's draw a line in the gray area if we have to, but draw a line we must.
Well Mr. Historian, are you absolutely sure every prisoner in every country is guilty of the crimes for which they were convicted? What society in history never imprisoned an innocent person? What society in history has been so unwilling to make a mistake that they do nothing? Assuming you can think of one, how long did it survive?
Some kinds of animal testing is animal cruelty. It depends on how it is conducted and for what purpose. A lot of abuse has occurred over the years which is why the scientific community and its funders have invested heavily in developing protocols, review processes and inspections to prevent abuses. In my review the research should be for a very important purpose and researchers should take maxim care to avoid inflicting unnecessary pain or discomfort. Anthrax vaccines seem to be an important purpose. Eye liner and other cosmetics don't meet my standard.
Your post was modded as funny, but I think a lot of people think that way. I'd at least feel less guilty pirating - if I would ever do such a thing - if I knew they were getting paid even when I wasn't.
You must be a man.
Totally different kind of applications than what enterprises need Oracle for. Google serves data and logs (appends) activities. High volume transaction processing with lot's of concurrent access - locks, contention, etc. - or (informationally) complex data warehouses are not well addressed by MySQL especially when the volumes of interrelated data get very large.
After that you can right a memoir and appear on talk shows. You won't need another job.
Of course it belongs. Didn't you notice the reference to "science" in "scientology"? BTW, Scientology liberally uses lawyers and law suits to intimidate and silence its critics - including the on-line critics.
I don't know or care if Lyons is a shill or an idiot. It's always good for consumers to be reminded that there is no free lunch and that companies are trying to make money. Corporations serve the shareholders and/or management not the people. People need to think about the trade-offs they are making. This good versus evil view of vendors is naive and self-defeating. Understand what a company is offering you and what they expect to get from that and then make your decision on your own self interests. Even "nice" companies are only being "nice" because they see some way to profit from that. That's o.k. , but don't anthropomorphize corporate entities.
That worked out real well for the Soviet Union. It's been so successful in the People's Republic of China that they've been shifting to a market economy as quickly as they can. Yup, we need more central planning. A good 5 year plan for IT would be great for everyone. It would eliminate those annoying surprises and disruptions. Prices would be stable. Everything according to plan. Know any central planners you'd trust that to?
So the parent here gets mod'd as insightful because he doesn't know that the U.S. has enemies. So I post a response pointing out in common /. style that the U.S. has many current and potential enemies (we have 2 active wars going on for God's sake and an inactive state of war with North Korea) and I get mod'd as "offtopic"? How can you be offtopic when you are directly challenging a post that has been mod'd as insightful? Explain that for me please.
Which enemy?
Fixed that for you.
What does Palin have to do with anything? I chose when, where and how I post on the Internet. I own my computer and I own my software that runs on it. I exercise control over what programs I run or don't run and the data I store on my computer. I control access to my data. Just because you use the internet does not necessarily mean you've given up all your privacy or control of your hardware - unless you don't have a clue.
China already has dictated to Yahoo, Google and Microsoft - what sites their people see and what data about their people they must surrender to the government. If China can do that, so can the EU, the U.S., India or any other government in a major market.
When you have direct physical access to a computer, there is no security that can stop you. When your computer is in a cloud, the owner of the cloud has direct physical access to your computer. You have to rely on the cloud provider to protect your interests and yet in this case, you aren't even the customer. Advertisers are Google's customers, not you. Google requires the cooperation from governments in order to deliver services to you. Google is not there for you. It's services to you are merely a way of getting your attention and information so they can more effectively (as defined by advertisers) serve ads to you and information to advertisers.
I've already removed Google software from my Mac & PC. No, I don't want to tether to the Google cloud or any cloud and give up my privacy or freedom. At what point will companies like Google be compelled to enforce government mandates and restrictions? (Think China today. The U.S. will start with DMCA and Europe will restrict whatever they think is "offensive" to others.)
Good Sci Fi is not about science and never has been. The GP is correct, but maybe wasn't specific enough for you. The "what if"s in Sci Fi tend to be science or pseudo-science oriented, or futuristic. The point is that the use of science, pseudo-science or the future is to provide a premise so the author can explore issues about human nature and such like ethics, morality, our place in the universe, free will, what democracy means, the value of "truth", etc. Other
The "dubious" sites are well known legitimate businesses who pass your credit card information to their "partners" without asking your permission. So unless you consider all commerce on the internet to be "dubious", you've misunderstood the problem. Imagine if you used your credit card at a brick and mortar Best Buy store and they signed you up for AOL based on your signature on the charge slip - without explaining first what they were doing and insuring you understood. Oh, yeah, they've done that too.
If it were taught in public schools then it would make such tactics a bit less effective. So, since most of the skilled practitioners of these dark arts are in power and since the "public schools" are administered by their minions, I'm not surprised that the schools are not spilling their secrets. If I knew some tricks that I could use to rip you off and/or control you and these tricks depended in part on you not knowing what they were, why would I teach them to you or even admit their existence?
And no, I'm not a conspiracy nut nor do I see conspiracies behind many things. What I do see is that the ruling class has a view of how the world works and what the rules are that is very different from what the rest of us are taught to believe. They use their insights to their advantage and we boobs wonder why our virtues and hard work aren't enough. It's how the ruling classes have remained in power throughout the history of mankind.