Problems solved (or tasks accomplished) per day. Whether you write 500, 5000, or -2000 lines of code to solve the problem is irrelevent, since the code is only a means to an end.
As far as "what makes a programmer productive", I know what makes a programmer unproductive... reading Slashdot all day. Back to work, all of you!;^)
Every time that I have made a deal with someone on Kazaa to stay online and let them finish downloading a large file, and in return they would stay online and let me download something large, they burn me.
The rewards come on a larger scale than that. You share your stuff, which attracts more users. Those users (sooner or later) share the stuff they have, and thus there are more goodies for you to enjoy later on. It's not quid pro quo, but more a fuzzy sort of karma thing...
(Touring bands give away CDs as advertising? Exactly how much do they charge per ticket to balance that out? How long do they have to stay on the road?)
I think the truth is that barring any ingenious socio/technological inventions or draconian laws (SSSCA?), that it will simply not be possible to make large amounts of money by selling recorded content anymore. And frankly, that's okay with me. We'd be better off with many amateur/semi-pro bands making small amounts of money touring, then in our current situation of huge media corporations trying to maximize their own profits by pushing a few mediocre mega-sensations on the world.
The Megamonoliths can screw up their content all they want but they can't force anyone to follow suit
Funny you should mention that, but forcing everyone to follow suit is exactly what the megamonoliths have in mind. They won't be happy until the only legal media that is media that they control, and the SSSCA is a big step in that direction.
Re:I gotta agree with Blizzard...
on
EFF Takes Bnetd Case
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I support Blizzard and their attempt to protect their property, income sources, etc. What reason do they have to play nice and let bnetd do whatever they want?
Blizzard has no legal basis for their harrassment, and SLAPPs are unethical and disgusting. Just because Blizzard can use our fucked-up legal system to badger the innocent doesn't mean that they should. By your logic, Blizzard ought to send out goons to the Bnetd authors' houses and break their kneecaps as well -- why play nice?
Name one country whose international policy isn't driven by self-interest. Or can't you?
My point was that helping out the world is in our self-interest. It's vastly cheaper and more effective than merely trying to intimidate the world into submission.
You can't please all of the people all of the time. Especially when they number 6 billion
Very true, which is why I don't advocate scrapping the military competely. But we could certainly raise our ratings a good deal, if we were to act with some common decency and integrity now and then.
But do you realize how many countries would bitch and moan if we pulled our troops out of their country? [...] Hell, even Saudi Arabia would be very unhappy to see a complete US pull-out.
I wasn't advocating a blind pull-out; I was merely suggesting that a sincere effort to better the state of our fellow men would be an effective way to help meet our security goals.
Now, unless you're suggesting that the US saddle up and go on a worldwide spree of crushing warlords,... you're going to have conflicts and hostiles, and you're not going to be able to please everybody
Oh, I totally agree, it's very easy to screw up foreign aid and only make things worse. And there are many things that it may simply be beyond our power to solve. Like everything at the global level, what we do must be very well thought out and done carefully and cautiously. But just because it is hard doesn't mean we shouldn't try to help where we can.... indeed, (jfk) we should do it because it is hard (/jfk). (i.e. we are the best equipped, most skilled society on Earth... if we don't do it, who will?)
You may be able to obtain peace with superior firepower, but you'll never get security that way. Peace through force is inherently unstable, with the oppressed people constantly seeking out chinks in your armour, waiting for their opportunity to turn the tables. If you want stability, you've got to also have respect, moral legitimacy, and good will. Otherwise you'll spend the rest of your life in the equivalent of an armed camp.
(cynic mode) Of course, without distrust and hate, most militaries would be out of a job, so they likely see it as being in their best interest to make sure that all countries hate and distrust each other. (/cynic mode)
Do you like the idea of people who HATE us and our allies having nukes and us (and our allies) not? I sure don't
Me neither, but concentrating solely on our defense ignores the larger and important issue of why do they hate us? Sure, some of their reasons aren't justified, but others are. So instead of spending billions on helping our neighbors and making the world a better place, we think only of our own short-term interests, piss everyone off with our exploitation, and then end up spending trillions on self defense. Everybody loses in the end.... they end up destitute, miserable, and hate-filled, we end up poorer and insecure despite our massive military spending, and the world ends up polluted, unfriendly, and in constant danger of terrorism and nuclear destruction.
The US's refusal to see beyond its own commercial/political interests and become a true citizen of the world comes back to haunt it in a thousand different ways. Maintaining a huge nuclear arsenal and pretending that it will make us 'safe' is a dangerous distraction that keeps us from focussing on the real solution -- helping the rest of the world solve its problems and improve its lot, so that we are no longer hated, and thus we no longer need vast mililtary capabilities. Every dollar we spend helping the world improves our security more than a thousand dollars spent on weaponry.
It's just that I'm part of a generation which grew up expecting a nuclear war. Imagine my surprise when we never had one.
Imagine my further surprise when we end up in a real nice radiation-infested, millions-dead nightmare scenario after the Cold War ended. Leave it to the Republicans to make a bad situation infinitely worse....
Anyone remember that SNL skit shown just before the 2000 elections, with Dubya pointing to a map of the USA with Florida missing and the great lakes on fire? Doesn't seem like so much of an exaggeration now.:^P
But hey, Dubya Strangelove knows what he's doing, right? If someone with his awe-inspiring intellectual prowess thinks that threatening the world with nuclear armaggedon is the best way to keep America safe, who am I to argue?
I just hope the cognitive dissonance caused by simultaneously making bomb threats and 'fighting terrorism' doesn't cause any more general system failures.
Hrm. That seems a little unfair. If I write and record a song, and give you the song for you to play on your webcast, you have to pay the RIAA money? What if I only webcast songs that I recorded myself?
Either that is not the case, or that is some seriously f*cked up shit.:^( Why not put a $500 annual fee on hosting a web page too, while we're at it?
If you don't like the fee structure that the record companies propose then don't pay it and go out of business
Or better yet, don't pay it and find alternative content to broadcast -- content whose authors give you permission to play without a fee. There is plenty of good stuff out there if you look.
It is a proprietary, non-free, non-open OS with no technical advantage whatsoever over Linux or modern BSD kernels
Hmm... does the fact that it can be used by mere mortals count as a 'technical advantage'? (hint: you shouldn't have to learn how to use a shell in order to operate or administrate a computer)
Oh, and did I mention the GUI is ugly? Frankly, we don't care.
Speak for yourself -- I think the GUI is quite nice; certainly better than most of what I've seen in Linux-land, and I am quite interested. If you don't like it, fine, but don't claim to speak for me.
The US always has to pay more, do more, etc. than any other country.
(enable rant mode)
Well, cry me a freaking river. Poor little USA has to take on more responsibility than, say, Botswana. How unfair that we are expected to do more than people who can barely feed themselves! We can put a man on the moon, but ask us to clean up our own mess and all of a sudden we turn into a bunch of crybabies, whining about how unfair it is that we (who contribute the most to pollution, and enjoy the best of the fruits that also cause the pollution) are asked to do the most work to stop polluting.
Honestly, was there ever a bigger bunch of spoiled, pampered, arrogant, ignorant prigs? Every time I see an 8 mile per gallon, 6 ton SUV behemoth carrying its lone driver to the mall, it makes me wonder why we haven't been voted off the planet yet. (probably has something to do with those nukes;^))
People do searches on titles and artists that they know. How do they know these titles and artists? They hear the song on the radio first.
OTOH, don't underestimate the power of word-of-mouth. Plenty of the music I listen to I have because a friend of mine, or an on-line aquaintance recommended it to me. Of course, word-of-mouth only works if people actually like your music....
Further, "passing around" copyrighted material is stealing and has nothing to due with fair use.
This is what conventional wisdom and the law state. However, I disagree. In my opinion, "passing around" copyrighted material should be legal, as long as you do not attempt to make a profit from doing so. It is merely another type of speech, and an important one at that.
That said, I think it is unethical behaviour to enjoy the fruits of someone else's labour without compensating them -- hence my.sig. But I think the right to say what I like to whom I like (as specified in my previous paragraph) is more important than someone else's right to get paid for their work -- if they really didn't want people distributing it, they should have kept it to themselves.
Trying to selectively limit influence over people's votes is a hack fix that has a slim chance of working -- as a previous poster mentioned, people will find ways around just about any rules you can think of, and in the mean time your rules will start to limit "healthy" political speech.
Thus, the only real solution is to educate the public to look beyond the spin and the TV ads. If the public is involved, interested, and aware of what the government is doing, and is thinking critically for themselves, then they won't vote for the whomever has the best hair/TV ads/etc, they will vote for the candidate that best represents their interestes.
Yes, that's a tall order. It's also the only long term solution. You can't have a democracy without an informed, intelligent public.
Slashdot Mirror
As far as "what makes a programmer productive", I know what makes a programmer unproductive... reading Slashdot all day. Back to work, all of you!
Yup... see
The rewards come on a larger scale than that. You share your stuff, which attracts more users. Those users (sooner or later) share the stuff they have, and thus there are more goodies for you to enjoy later on. It's not quid pro quo, but more a fuzzy sort of karma thing...
I think the truth is that barring any ingenious socio/technological inventions or draconian laws (SSSCA?), that it will simply not be possible to make large amounts of money by selling recorded content anymore. And frankly, that's okay with me. We'd be better off with many amateur/semi-pro bands making small amounts of money touring, then in our current situation of huge media corporations trying to maximize their own profits by pushing a few mediocre mega-sensations on the world.
No.
Funny you should mention that, but forcing everyone to follow suit is exactly what the megamonoliths have in mind. They won't be happy until the only legal media that is media that they control, and the SSSCA is a big step in that direction.
Blizzard has no legal basis for their harrassment, and SLAPPs are unethical and disgusting. Just because Blizzard can use our fucked-up legal system to badger the innocent doesn't mean that they should. By your logic, Blizzard ought to send out goons to the Bnetd authors' houses and break their kneecaps as well -- why play nice?
My point was that helping out the world is in our self-interest. It's vastly cheaper and more effective than merely trying to intimidate the world into submission.
You can't please all of the people all of the time. Especially when they number 6 billion
Very true, which is why I don't advocate scrapping the military competely. But we could certainly raise our ratings a good deal, if we were to act with some common decency and integrity now and then.
But do you realize how many countries would bitch and moan if we pulled our troops out of their country? [...] Hell, even Saudi Arabia would be very unhappy to see a complete US pull-out.
I wasn't advocating a blind pull-out; I was merely suggesting that a sincere effort to better the state of our fellow men would be an effective way to help meet our security goals.
Ah yes, good old security-through-obscurity. Shouldn't you say, "there are fewer publicized attacks created for it"?
Oh, I totally agree, it's very easy to screw up foreign aid and only make things worse. And there are many things that it may simply be beyond our power to solve. Like everything at the global level, what we do must be very well thought out and done carefully and cautiously. But just because it is hard doesn't mean we shouldn't try to help where we can.... indeed, (jfk) we should do it because it is hard (/jfk). (i.e. we are the best equipped, most skilled society on Earth... if we don't do it, who will?)
You may be able to obtain peace with superior firepower, but you'll never get security that way. Peace through force is inherently unstable, with the oppressed people constantly seeking out chinks in your armour, waiting for their opportunity to turn the tables. If you want stability, you've got to also have respect, moral legitimacy, and good will. Otherwise you'll spend the rest of your life in the equivalent of an armed camp.
(cynic mode) Of course, without distrust and hate, most militaries would be out of a job, so they likely see it as being in their best interest to make sure that all countries hate and distrust each other. (/cynic mode)
Me neither, but concentrating solely on our defense ignores the larger and important issue of why do they hate us? Sure, some of their reasons aren't justified, but others are. So instead of spending billions on helping our neighbors and making the world a better place, we think only of our own short-term interests, piss everyone off with our exploitation, and then end up spending trillions on self defense. Everybody loses in the end.... they end up destitute, miserable, and hate-filled, we end up poorer and insecure despite our massive military spending, and the world ends up polluted, unfriendly, and in constant danger of terrorism and nuclear destruction.
The US's refusal to see beyond its own commercial/political interests and become a true citizen of the world comes back to haunt it in a thousand different ways. Maintaining a huge nuclear arsenal and pretending that it will make us 'safe' is a dangerous distraction that keeps us from focussing on the real solution -- helping the rest of the world solve its problems and improve its lot, so that we are no longer hated, and thus we no longer need vast mililtary capabilities. Every dollar we spend helping the world improves our security more than a thousand dollars spent on weaponry.
Imagine my further surprise when we end up in a real nice radiation-infested, millions-dead nightmare scenario after the Cold War ended. Leave it to the Republicans to make a bad situation infinitely worse....
But hey, Dubya Strangelove knows what he's doing, right? If someone with his awe-inspiring intellectual prowess thinks that threatening the world with nuclear armaggedon is the best way to keep America safe, who am I to argue?
I just hope the cognitive dissonance caused by simultaneously making bomb threats and 'fighting terrorism' doesn't cause any more general system failures.
I'm glad the protagonist only tried to do this once. By the end of that scene I was already unconsciously referring to the Emma character as 'Kenny'.
Hmm. Now that you mention it... that dart poison didn't really seem to bother anybody that got hit with it. Perhaps it was a placebo?
Either that is not the case, or that is some seriously f*cked up shit.
Or better yet, don't pay it and find alternative content to broadcast -- content whose authors give you permission to play without a fee. There is plenty of good stuff out there if you look.
Hmm... does the fact that it can be used by mere mortals count as a 'technical advantage'? (hint: you shouldn't have to learn how to use a shell in order to operate or administrate a computer)
Oh, and did I mention the GUI is ugly? Frankly, we don't care.
Speak for yourself -- I think the GUI is quite nice; certainly better than most of what I've seen in Linux-land, and I am quite interested. If you don't like it, fine, but don't claim to speak for me.
(enable rant mode)
Well, cry me a freaking river. Poor little USA has to take on more responsibility than, say, Botswana. How unfair that we are expected to do more than people who can barely feed themselves! We can put a man on the moon, but ask us to clean up our own mess and all of a sudden we turn into a bunch of crybabies, whining about how unfair it is that we (who contribute the most to pollution, and enjoy the best of the fruits that also cause the pollution) are asked to do the most work to stop polluting.
Honestly, was there ever a bigger bunch of spoiled, pampered, arrogant, ignorant prigs? Every time I see an 8 mile per gallon, 6 ton SUV behemoth carrying its lone driver to the mall, it makes me wonder why we haven't been voted off the planet yet. (probably has something to do with those nukes
(end rant mode)
The war against Al-Quaeda isn't over, and thousands of people have been killed. How is that 'almost no loss of life' ?
What, the inability to recognize humorous intent, even when the poster beats you about the face and neck with a smiley?
OTOH, don't underestimate the power of word-of-mouth. Plenty of the music I listen to I have because a friend of mine, or an on-line aquaintance recommended it to me. Of course, word-of-mouth only works if people actually like your music....
This is what conventional wisdom and the law state. However, I disagree. In my opinion, "passing around" copyrighted material should be legal, as long as you do not attempt to make a profit from doing so. It is merely another type of speech, and an important one at that.
That said, I think it is unethical behaviour to enjoy the fruits of someone else's labour without compensating them -- hence my
You may flame at will, I'm prepared.
Thus, the only real solution is to educate the public to look beyond the spin and the TV ads. If the public is involved, interested, and aware of what the government is doing, and is thinking critically for themselves, then they won't vote for the whomever has the best hair/TV ads/etc, they will vote for the candidate that best represents their interestes.
Yes, that's a tall order. It's also the only long term solution. You can't have a democracy without an informed, intelligent public.