I would stay "away" from windows "skills" at great effort, it will only devalue your skill set and force you to spend time with technology that will become obsolete along with your skills.
One time I worked for a large enterprise, and they had these windows servers running transactions for all their customers. And (supprise) the servers would lock up under high load nearly every other day, which was extremely expensive because it could cause lines to back up in over 1000 stores and the company would be loosing something to the tune of a million dollars per hour.
Needless to say, the company spent tons of money souping up the servers with the best hardware money could buy and even custom rewriting the tcp/ip stack to get the results they needed. They flew in experts from all over the world to find out what the problem was, and the experts eventually came back and said that it was a failure in the NT kernel.
The company then went to Microsoft and demanded a fix, and Microsoft in not so many words told them to go to hell. After that, they spent another few million dollars migrating their system over to Solaris (this was in 98, so they probably couldn't have gotten away with Linux) and I slowly but sorely started removing my Microsoft skills from my resume and beefing up big time on my Linux skills and haven't regretted it a day since.
Later on I got killed in the dot-com crash, and it was hard, but because of my Linux skills I eventually recovered and am now in demand more than I ever was. My friends who stayed with MS skills simply haven't fared too well at all and many were forced to get new carrers outside of IT.
My impression is that the next generation of stuff being pushed by the *AA is going to be much cheaper and offer much more incentive to use. But lets make no mistake about it, a pirannah painted pink and fluffy is still a pirannah. This is only the industries attempt to ease people into using DRM technologies at any cost. Once they get the noose arround your neck, you can be sure that it will slowly, but certainly tighten.
If a multinational artificially limited the supply of food to drive up food prices in 3rd world countries to make more profit - most people would see this as the pure evil that it is. But if they artifically limit information distribution in the form of copyrights - then oh my God -it's a right!
I think I would feel very violated if people nickeled and dimed away all my crops, but hell, if they could make a copy of my crops, then hell, have the whole field! The whole reason we have property rights to begin with is to deal with and manage limited resources, not to create personal monopolies and provide special incentives to special interests.
Unauthorized use of software somebody has created with the idea of supporting himself through selling it most certainly is theft. It is not theft of the work, it is theft of the revenue that the author could expect.
You can't have your cake, and eat it too. If it's not theft for someone that coppies and share's a work for free 20 years after the copyright expired, then it's not theft for someone who sells a copy for 20% off on the first day it came out either. True rights are timeless, eg. freedom of speech only when no profit is made, and with an expiration date would not be free speech.
No matter how you look at it, property rights that are based off incentive are subjective, and it was only a matter of time before things ended up like the way they are today. Nobody would say Ford was violated if GM stole 50% of it's market share. But in essence, this is exactly the argument being made about copyrights - the artist is entitled to 100% market share once the cats out of the bag. Well No. Nof if it was argued the artist is entitled to throw a concert with 100% the original reputation that comes from being the creator, then sure I could really go for that.
If I busted into someones house, stole $1000, invested it, and returned $1200 to the rest of his family. Technically speaking they would be better off financially, but realisticly speaking they would be way worse off because they would no longer have the freedom to controll their lives.
Well, all to often, this seems to be the exact attitude of city governments. As long as they can loosely justify the illusion that taxing the city to death and exercising immenent domain everywhere can create more propserity, then it must be ok. Thankfully, most people in society don't ry to follow that example.
It's a very bad idea to make laws that can't be enforced. The whole foundation of law revolves arround the fact that people have rights and they organize and use the force of law to secure those rights. If you have rights that can't be secured then the whole system is useless.
Of course the truth is that owning a copyright (a right to coercively restrict how other people copy information at their disposal) is no more a right than owning a slave on the plantation (a right to restrict where and how and under what conditions people work) - each has nothing to do with property and everything to do with controll.
It's worth to point out that the large media and proprietary software interests have pretty much made this an all or nothing game. Either all information will need to be digitally controlled for all time, or it will need to be free to copy unrestricted for any purpose or reason.
Across the information and media industries, there exists two incompatable visions of the future of the infirmation age. One relies on the unrestricted uninhibited free flow of information, the other relies on every piece of information and media being managed and controlled and treated like physical property.
One thing many people do not understand: these two visions are not just different, they are incompatable! for one to succedede the other must fail hands down! There can be no middle ground. IMHO, that is why copyrights and software patents must fail, and must fail soon.
I don't think it's a conspiracy, but I do think that there is a HUGE ammount of pressure to corall the IT industry to use a DRM model vs a free flow of information model for the future of the information age. These two models are completely incompatable.
Of course, on the same note, it's in our best interest to put a large amount of effort into relying on free information and non proprietary technology as much as possible.
The moral is, the USA isn't really more corrupt or backward than many other governments out there. They were just the first to get it because that's where most the money is, and that's where the pressures of the information age hit first.
.. I got to admit, when it comes to "covergence", they really get it. Cell phones, PC's, TVs, radios, the internet, ditital commerce, and many other pieces of tehnology are all slowly but surely moving toward a single unified point. Apple is better positioned for this than a lot players out there.
I just wish they would drop the proprietary software crap and go GPL all the way. It would really be doing themselves and everyone else a favor.
The only reason to do this, is to get everyone to start using DRM technologies. Once they are prevalent, you can better believe Sony and everyone else will start tightening the screws.
I think at this point it is way too late for such token consessions that will only serve to distract us while our freedoms are taken away. At this point the copyright/DMCA/DRM issue is nothing other than an all or nothing battle. Renember those fools at the birth of the industrial revolution that thought that the free states could peacfully get along with the slave states? Well that's what the people who want to cling to copyrights are like today. They just don't get it. Copyrights are going to die, there supposed to die, and there is no place for them in the information age or the people who wish to impose them.
Bypassing due process and just skipping to revoking the Constitution is probably the best way to get lined up against the wall.
This is making the false assumption that copyrights are a just right, it would be like saying it violated due process when Lincoln made the emancipation declaration as well.
If the EU is willing to nullify the IP protection of a U.S. entity in violation of treaty, then what is to stop the U.S. from nullifying EU-originated IP?
Please note that Microsoft isn't the problem here...
Actually the real problem here is the notion that people have any kind of a "right" to restrict what other people copy to begin with (copyrights). Microsoft is a symptom of this problem being brought to its logical conclusion.
I don't know about other countries, but in the USA copyrights don't exist upon high, but intead they are granted for certain purposes that are supposed to serve the public good. I don't see why acting in a monopolist anti trust way shouldn't be grounds to forfiet that 'privelege'.
Were/Are lynch mobs the obvious solution aswell to criminal problems?
Considering that people don't have a natural law right to restrict what other people copy to begin with, a more valid question would be "are corporate lynch mobs an appropiate solution to promote creative works?"
Why is it that the most obvious solution is the one that nobody wants to even consider. Don't fine, don't go thru infinite anti-trust challanges, don't drag the vendors into it. Just nullify enforcement of Microsoft copyright and licences until the matter is worked out and watch how screaming fast Microsoft does a complete about face.
The unfortunate truth is that countries are far more interested in short term political gain, than long term wealth and prosperity. If they were, we would have a dollar backed by anything other than "the good faith of the federal government" and taxes would be drasticly and overwhelmingly lower then they are now.
Stability isn't caused by the conscious will of governments, it is caused by economic and political freedom. Both of which have been decreasing in the western world, even if they are increasing on average through out the rest of the world.
The US is a big big beast. If things go to hell for the US you can bet a good portion of the rest of the world will fall with it. Especially China, India, Europe, Mexico, Canada, Japan and other major trading partners.
Since the US is entering the information age full steam, it will probably be temporary, but for the same reasons, it will likely be harsh because it's harder to manipulate the money of an informed people.
I think that in a normal situation (whatever that is), when a currency inflates, real-estate would be a great investment to have for precicely the reasons you said. But we are not in a normal situation.
Nobody holds onto a loosing investment, the only reason why people put up with the dollar before was because of productivity increases and it's relative stability with other currencies. Now, unlike previous times, people will not hesitate to dump US currency (fast) when it inflates because this "boom" didn't come with the normal increases in productivity and infrascructure. At that point, only an idiot will hold on to bonds or dollars.
Most real-estate now is leveraged under huge amounts of debt, and that will likely become unsustainable long before inflation catches up with peoples paychecks. Yes there will be inflation, but it will likely exceed increases in pay for the very same productivity and infrastructure reasons, not to mention all the variable interest rate lones. All it takes is a small number of people to dump their properties to drive down the market, and once it does the people who are solely speculating on real-estate and not buying will exit out like mad.
When the real-estate collapses, unlike with the stock market, it has an immediate economic impact across the board and will just exascerbate the problem. Property will likely crash, pay will not go up, and inflation will go thru the roof.
It will really be a bad situation, probably worse than the great depression, but it won't last because the USA is still entering the information age and over the long term that will be a huge life saver.
Hopefully after this, people will have learned their lesson, and they will use money with real value and not money backed by the "good faith of the federal government"
The generational lesson we should really learn is that currency backed by "the good faith of the government" is crap. These irrational cycles are only made possible by the fact that institutions like the fed can print up and loan out money when they see fit. Currency should at least be backed by somthing of value, otherwise over the long term it can never be a store of value.
The feds game simply put is... lets lie to people about the value of money to manipultate economic policy. This is going to be a lot harder to do in the information age.
Think about it, going stupidly and outrageously into debt with government bonds, home purchases, and trade deficits makes no sense when a currency stores value. Neither does purchasing stock with a 300 p/E. This "irrational exhuberence" is a symptom, not a cause.
Not bad, but I am sure that ol' Al knows a bit more about the economy than you do. Also, please do not say "buy gold and gold stocks." You forget one rule of investment: there is such thing as a secure asset.
Oh, come on. Both those are true, but that didn't counter any thing I said. No matter what Al knows, he has limited options, and I never said gold was a secure asset, it's just more secure than stocks, bonds, real-estate, cash, foriegn currencies, and other common investments at this time. (perhaps some foriegn markets outside china, europe, japan, and india are safe - but I just don't know enough)
You are right that there is too much money in the world, and part of the reason for that is that the fed has loaned out trillions and trillions of dollars that went into housing. So the last thing you want to do is invest in bonds, they will crash right along with the dollar when investors figure out that the US likely has more debt than it can ever repay or ever be repaid.
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I would stay "away" from windows "skills" at great effort, it will only devalue your skill set and force you to spend time with technology that will become obsolete along with your skills.
One time I worked for a large enterprise, and they had these windows servers running transactions for all their customers. And (supprise) the servers would lock up under high load nearly every other day, which was extremely expensive because it could cause lines to back up in over 1000 stores and the company would be loosing something to the tune of a million dollars per hour.
Needless to say, the company spent tons of money souping up the servers with the best hardware money could buy and even custom rewriting the tcp/ip stack to get the results they needed. They flew in experts from all over the world to find out what the problem was, and the experts eventually came back and said that it was a failure in the NT kernel.
The company then went to Microsoft and demanded a fix, and Microsoft in not so many words told them to go to hell. After that, they spent another few million dollars migrating their system over to Solaris (this was in 98, so they probably couldn't have gotten away with Linux) and I slowly but sorely started removing my Microsoft skills from my resume and beefing up big time on my Linux skills and haven't regretted it a day since.
Later on I got killed in the dot-com crash, and it was hard, but because of my Linux skills I eventually recovered and am now in demand more than I ever was. My friends who stayed with MS skills simply haven't fared too well at all and many were forced to get new carrers outside of IT.
My impression is that the next generation of stuff being pushed by the *AA is going to be much cheaper and offer much more incentive to use. But lets make no mistake about it, a pirannah painted pink and fluffy is still a pirannah. This is only the industries attempt to ease people into using DRM technologies at any cost. Once they get the noose arround your neck, you can be sure that it will slowly, but certainly tighten.
If a multinational artificially limited the supply of food to drive up food prices in 3rd world countries to make more profit - most people would see this as the pure evil that it is. But if they artifically limit information distribution in the form of copyrights - then oh my God -it's a right!
I think I would feel very violated if people nickeled and dimed away all my crops, but hell, if they could make a copy of my crops, then hell, have the whole field! The whole reason we have property rights to begin with is to deal with and manage limited resources, not to create personal monopolies and provide special incentives to special interests.
Unauthorized use of software somebody has created with the idea of supporting himself through selling it most certainly is theft. It is not theft of the work, it is theft of the revenue that the author could expect.
You can't have your cake, and eat it too. If it's not theft for someone that coppies and share's a work for free 20 years after the copyright expired, then it's not theft for someone who sells a copy for 20% off on the first day it came out either. True rights are timeless, eg. freedom of speech only when no profit is made, and with an expiration date would not be free speech.
No matter how you look at it, property rights that are based off incentive are subjective, and it was only a matter of time before things ended up like the way they are today. Nobody would say Ford was violated if GM stole 50% of it's market share. But in essence, this is exactly the argument being made about copyrights - the artist is entitled to 100% market share once the cats out of the bag. Well No. Nof if it was argued the artist is entitled to throw a concert with 100% the original reputation that comes from being the creator, then sure I could really go for that.
That quote had nothing to do with real property rights, it had to do with people who CALLED slavery a "property right".
When it comes to false peoperty rights, we could really learn a lesson or two about copyright and patent monopolies being called property today.
If I busted into someones house, stole $1000, invested it, and returned $1200 to the rest of his family. Technically speaking they would be better off financially, but realisticly speaking they would be way worse off because they would no longer have the freedom to controll their lives.
Well, all to often, this seems to be the exact attitude of city governments. As long as they can loosely justify the illusion that taxing the city to death and exercising immenent domain everywhere can create more propserity, then it must be ok. Thankfully, most people in society don't ry to follow that example.
It's a very bad idea to make laws that can't be enforced. The whole foundation of law revolves arround the fact that people have rights and they organize and use the force of law to secure those rights. If you have rights that can't be secured then the whole system is useless.
Of course the truth is that owning a copyright (a right to coercively restrict how other people copy information at their disposal) is no more a right than owning a slave on the plantation (a right to restrict where and how and under what conditions people work) - each has nothing to do with property and everything to do with controll.
It's worth to point out that the large media and proprietary software interests have pretty much made this an all or nothing game. Either all information will need to be digitally controlled for all time, or it will need to be free to copy unrestricted for any purpose or reason.
Across the information and media industries, there exists two incompatable visions of the future of the infirmation age. One relies on the unrestricted uninhibited free flow of information, the other relies on every piece of information and media being managed and controlled and treated like physical property.
One thing many people do not understand: these two visions are not just different, they are incompatable! for one to succedede the other must fail hands down! There can be no middle ground. IMHO, that is why copyrights and software patents must fail, and must fail soon.
I don't think it's a conspiracy, but I do think that there is a HUGE ammount of pressure to corall the IT industry to use a DRM model vs a free flow of information model for the future of the information age. These two models are completely incompatable.
Of course, on the same note, it's in our best interest to put a large amount of effort into relying on free information and non proprietary technology as much as possible.
The moral is, the USA isn't really more corrupt or backward than many other governments out there. They were just the first to get it because that's where most the money is, and that's where the pressures of the information age hit first.
.. I got to admit, when it comes to "covergence", they really get it. Cell phones, PC's, TVs, radios, the internet, ditital commerce, and many other pieces of tehnology are all slowly but surely moving toward a single unified point. Apple is better positioned for this than a lot players out there.
I just wish they would drop the proprietary software crap and go GPL all the way. It would really be doing themselves and everyone else a favor.
The only reason to do this, is to get everyone to start using DRM technologies. Once they are prevalent, you can better believe Sony and everyone else will start tightening the screws.
This is Sony's way of lewering people into using DRM technologies, once you're hooked in, the noose will slowly tighten.
I think at this point it is way too late for such token consessions that will only serve to distract us while our freedoms are taken away. At this point the copyright/DMCA/DRM issue is nothing other than an all or nothing battle. Renember those fools at the birth of the industrial revolution that thought that the free states could peacfully get along with the slave states? Well that's what the people who want to cling to copyrights are like today. They just don't get it. Copyrights are going to die, there supposed to die, and there is no place for them in the information age or the people who wish to impose them.
Bypassing due process and just skipping to revoking the Constitution is probably the best way to get lined up against the wall.
This is making the false assumption that copyrights are a just right, it would be like saying it violated due process when Lincoln made the emancipation declaration as well.
If the EU is willing to nullify the IP protection of a U.S. entity in violation of treaty, then what is to stop the U.S. from nullifying EU-originated IP?
and that's a bad thing?
Please note that Microsoft isn't the problem here ...
Actually the real problem here is the notion that people have any kind of a "right" to restrict what other people copy to begin with (copyrights). Microsoft is a symptom of this problem being brought to its logical conclusion.
I don't know about other countries, but in the USA copyrights don't exist upon high, but intead they are granted for certain purposes that are supposed to serve the public good. I don't see why acting in a monopolist anti trust way shouldn't be grounds to forfiet that 'privelege'.
Were/Are lynch mobs the obvious solution aswell to criminal problems?
Considering that people don't have a natural law right to restrict what other people copy to begin with, a more valid question would be "are corporate lynch mobs an appropiate solution to promote creative works?"
Why is it that the most obvious solution is the one that nobody wants to even consider. Don't fine, don't go thru infinite anti-trust challanges, don't drag the vendors into it. Just nullify enforcement of Microsoft copyright and licences until the matter is worked out and watch how screaming fast Microsoft does a complete about face.
The unfortunate truth is that countries are far more interested in short term political gain, than long term wealth and prosperity. If they were, we would have a dollar backed by anything other than "the good faith of the federal government" and taxes would be drasticly and overwhelmingly lower then they are now.
Stability isn't caused by the conscious will of governments, it is caused by economic and political freedom. Both of which have been decreasing in the western world, even if they are increasing on average through out the rest of the world.
The US is a big big beast. If things go to hell for the US you can bet a good portion of the rest of the world will fall with it. Especially China, India, Europe, Mexico, Canada, Japan and other major trading partners.
Since the US is entering the information age full steam, it will probably be temporary, but for the same reasons, it will likely be harsh because it's harder to manipulate the money of an informed people.
I think that in a normal situation (whatever that is), when a currency inflates, real-estate would be a great investment to have for precicely the reasons you said. But we are not in a normal situation.
Nobody holds onto a loosing investment, the only reason why people put up with the dollar before was because of productivity increases and it's relative stability with other currencies. Now, unlike previous times, people will not hesitate to dump US currency (fast) when it inflates because this "boom" didn't come with the normal increases in productivity and infrascructure. At that point, only an idiot will hold on to bonds or dollars.
Most real-estate now is leveraged under huge amounts of debt, and that will likely become unsustainable long before inflation catches up with peoples paychecks. Yes there will be inflation, but it will likely exceed increases in pay for the very same productivity and infrastructure reasons, not to mention all the variable interest rate lones. All it takes is a small number of people to dump their properties to drive down the market, and once it does the people who are solely speculating on real-estate and not buying will exit out like mad.
When the real-estate collapses, unlike with the stock market, it has an immediate economic impact across the board and will just exascerbate the problem. Property will likely crash, pay will not go up, and inflation will go thru the roof.
It will really be a bad situation, probably worse than the great depression, but it won't last because the USA is still entering the information age and over the long term that will be a huge life saver.
Hopefully after this, people will have learned their lesson, and they will use money with real value and not money backed by the "good faith of the federal government"
The generational lesson we should really learn is that currency backed by "the good faith of the government" is crap. These irrational cycles are only made possible by the fact that institutions like the fed can print up and loan out money when they see fit. Currency should at least be backed by somthing of value, otherwise over the long term it can never be a store of value.
... lets lie to people about the value of money to manipultate economic policy. This is going to be a lot harder to do in the information age.
The feds game simply put is
Think about it, going stupidly and outrageously into debt with government bonds, home purchases, and trade deficits makes no sense when a currency stores value. Neither does purchasing stock with a 300 p/E. This "irrational exhuberence" is a symptom, not a cause.
Not bad, but I am sure that ol' Al knows a bit more about the economy than you do. Also, please do not say "buy gold and gold stocks." You forget one rule of investment: there is such thing as a secure asset.
Oh, come on. Both those are true, but that didn't counter any thing I said. No matter what Al knows, he has limited options, and I never said gold was a secure asset, it's just more secure than stocks, bonds, real-estate, cash, foriegn currencies, and other common investments at this time. (perhaps some foriegn markets outside china, europe, japan, and india are safe - but I just don't know enough)
You are right that there is too much money in the world, and part of the reason for that is that the fed has loaned out trillions and trillions of dollars that went into housing. So the last thing you want to do is invest in bonds, they will crash right along with the dollar when investors figure out that the US likely has more debt than it can ever repay or ever be repaid.