I thought Henry Ford was the best comparison, to be honest.
Ford was an industrialist and in one sense an economic populist. His company built crazy amounts of cheap cars than almost anyone could afford, in the process employing a vast army of skilled (and decently paid) workers. The development of FoMoCo, the infrastructure and subcontrators the served it, was an important component in the overall development of America's industrial base.
Jobs on the other hand was a product design/marketing guy, and an overt economic elitist. His company designs slick consumer electronics, totally separate Chinese companies actually manufacture them, and then Apple retails them. The company's products are premium priced, and targeted primarily at an affluent demographic. Apple directly employs only a handful of highly skilled designers, engineers, & marketers; and a large number of low skill/wage retail employees.
Both Ford & Jobs were good at running large, highly profitable companies which ultimately sold products to consumers. Both were great managers, but not themselves technical innovators. The resemblance ends there.
The social good derived from (say) derivatives shorting is vanishingly close to zero.
I can think of situations where an orderly market in all sorts of derivatives would benefit actual productive businesses. Imagine a consumer solar panel company that wanted to offer customers "free" installation of panels. In exchange they would collect the money made by selling power back to the grid for X number of years. It would be pretty useful when financing this company to be able to decompose the risk into various components like weather & electric price. Those non-core risks could be hedged on the derivatives market, leaving the company to focus on making cool solar panels without having to worry about cashflow if it's unseasonably cloudy this month.
All this doesn't mean I think the way existing derivatives markets work is okay. The big problems I see are: - Leverage. Derivatives make this harder, but not impossible, to regulate. - Opacity. Lot of market volume is over the counter. - Insurable interest. Insurance-like derivatives (e.g. CDS) need to be governed by insurance regulations.
There are probably lots more problems I haven't listed. Point is that the choice needn't be between "no derivatives market at all" and our current option, "insane gambling casino".
Man, don't say that - I really hate the idea of making a nice old lady sad, even if the company for which she works is a menace to the Internet. Let's hope they simply didn't understand the scope & implications of their actions, and will soon drop the lawsuit.
Fuck politeness; these guys deserve none. My letter went something like this:
Loathsome Parasites:
Your attempted extortion of the maintainers of the Timezone Database threatens the security of the entire Internet. Your company therefore richly deserves failure, your executives destitution. The whole Internet spits in your face and looks forward eagerly to your bankruptcy.
There's a lot of technology we don't want around but are stuck with. Who would not want to put the nuclear genie back in it's bottle, if only we could? Alas, man does not often unlearn technologies.
Every F-22 would take out 8 P-51s per fight if not more.
I don't think the parent is talking about F-22s versus antique P-51s. Rather, he is describing a conflict between F-22s and a hypothetical quick-&-cheap modern aircraft. The F-22 is presumed to be superior to this hypothetical enemy, but not absolutely overwhelmingly superior as it would be to a WWII-era plane.
Don't we do ourselves a disservice by pretending either of the two faces of the Establishment Party deserve even a modicum of respect? I'll stick with calling them Dumbocrats and Republicrooks, thanks.
Seriously dude.. I was going to ask the same thing. Who actually uses a telephone keypad anymore? Even when I use my "landline" (actually VOIP bundled with my DSL, but I digress) I don't dial the damn thing. I can barely remember my own phone numbers - don't know a single other person's number by memory. Just use Google Voice's callback functionality to dial from address book but talk over the (pleasantly non-radiation-emitting) landline.
Seriously dude, don't post this toxic crap on slashdot, it's fucking rude. Reading even the slightest bit of patent text is a serious liability for anyone involved in genuine innovation, as many folks here are. Post a link if you must reference filthy santorum like this, and add a warning lest unsuspecting readers be injured by exposure to it. Thank the gods I had the good safety instinct to avert my eyes the moment I detected the imaginary property lawyer jibberish in your post.
Since Hollywood already got the DMCA, they probably actually don't care about copyright term anymore. Their films are now forever locked in their encrypted containers...
True, but do they actually work? I've owned a couple of sheet feeders that always managed to feed several sheets at a time. Only the high end units could actually take a stack of paper and feed them one at a time.
The sheet feeder on my $160 HP M1212nf multi-function machine works just fine. Hasn't jammed or sucked up multiple sheets so far in the ~1yr I've owned it. Granted, it gets only light home office use, never more than 10 sheets at once.
Making it work correctly on Ubuntu Natty took a bit of wrestling to get the latest version of HPLIP installed, as there was a bug in the distributed HPLIP's scanner support. Hopefully that will not be an issue in future Ubuntu releases. The machine also has a fax built-in, but mine isn't hooked up to a phone line so I've never tried it.
Thank goodness our comrades in the Soviet South African Republic are protecting us from the terrorists! Hacking the PS3 threatened to cause global economic collapse; and posed a direct, physical danger the the health of all citizens in the republic. I know I, for one, will sleep better tonight.
Funny also how those union made shoes, which were almost certainly more expensive as a percent of income than SE Asian slave labor shoes, were constructed in such a way that they could be repaired & maintained over time. Cheap (always as percent of income) products and the environmentally disastrous disposable-culture go hand in hand.
I believe there two distinct differences here. Acxiom is not tracking your 'movements'. Just your actions at various transaction points. That's significant. If you just drive around and don't buy, sell or otherwise interact, Acxiom doesn't have any knowledge of that. This proposal is simply pure survelience (can't spell this to save my life!) not action based tracking of 'what' you do.
While there is a difference, I think it's more technical than substantive. In either case, ordinary non-criminal actions are being tracked. Yes, you can avoid Acxiom's tracking by not buying anything with a credit card (or a store loyalty card). But you can avoid the license plate cameras by not driving.
Tho actually I wonder, does Acxiom nowadays purchase customer location data from the telcos, so they can also track cellphone-carrying customers who pay with cash?
If you want to avoid being tracked in Soviet Amerika, you need to: - only pay cash - never carry a cellphone - never place or accept a phone call of any sort, including skype - never use email - never use postal mail - ride a totally non-descript bike everywhere (there already exists gait-tracking software that can use CC surveillance cameras to identify citizens based on how they walk) - when you must travel by foot, affect a random-ish silly walk - always wear a disguise (to avoid the facial recognition cameras) - if you must travel by vehicle, only hitchhike - never fly on an airplane
So pretty much if you have anything resembling a normal life, you will be tracked against your will by bigcorps and government alike.
Secondly, how many people actually *know* about this? I'm guessing quite bit less than 1/100th of one percent of the population. Hence, no uproar.
Here I think you've hit the nail on the head. Sometimes if I describe even a small part of current surveillance technologies to people, they at first think I am warning of some distant dystopian future. Many are unwilling to accept the reality of actual, already-existing surveillance even when it's brought to their attention.
Slashdot Mirror
I thought Henry Ford was the best comparison, to be honest.
Ford was an industrialist and in one sense an economic populist. His company built crazy amounts of cheap cars than almost anyone could afford, in the process employing a vast army of skilled (and decently paid) workers. The development of FoMoCo, the infrastructure and subcontrators the served it, was an important component in the overall development of America's industrial base.
Jobs on the other hand was a product design/marketing guy, and an overt economic elitist. His company designs slick consumer electronics, totally separate Chinese companies actually manufacture them, and then Apple retails them. The company's products are premium priced, and targeted primarily at an affluent demographic. Apple directly employs only a handful of highly skilled designers, engineers, & marketers; and a large number of low skill/wage retail employees.
Both Ford & Jobs were good at running large, highly profitable companies which ultimately sold products to consumers. Both were great managers, but not themselves technical innovators. The resemblance ends there.
The social good derived from (say) derivatives shorting is vanishingly close to zero.
I can think of situations where an orderly market in all sorts of derivatives would benefit actual productive businesses. Imagine a consumer solar panel company that wanted to offer customers "free" installation of panels. In exchange they would collect the money made by selling power back to the grid for X number of years. It would be pretty useful when financing this company to be able to decompose the risk into various components like weather & electric price. Those non-core risks could be hedged on the derivatives market, leaving the company to focus on making cool solar panels without having to worry about cashflow if it's unseasonably cloudy this month.
All this doesn't mean I think the way existing derivatives markets work is okay. The big problems I see are:
- Leverage. Derivatives make this harder, but not impossible, to regulate.
- Opacity. Lot of market volume is over the counter.
- Insurable interest. Insurance-like derivatives (e.g. CDS) need to be governed by insurance regulations.
There are probably lots more problems I haven't listed. Point is that the choice needn't be between "no derivatives market at all" and our current option, "insane gambling casino".
Man, don't say that - I really hate the idea of making a nice old lady sad, even if the company for which she works is a menace to the Internet. Let's hope they simply didn't understand the scope & implications of their actions, and will soon drop the lawsuit.
Loyalty will cost you much, and benefit you little. Don't be a dick, give them a few weeks notice, but take the job that's better for you.
Fuck politeness; these guys deserve none. My letter went something like this:
There's a lot of technology we don't want around but are stuck with. Who would not want to put the nuclear genie back in it's bottle, if only we could? Alas, man does not often unlearn technologies.
Can I charge them instead? After all, their song is occupying space in my head - they really ought to be paying rent for that space.
Every F-22 would take out 8 P-51s per fight if not more.
I don't think the parent is talking about F-22s versus antique P-51s. Rather, he is describing a conflict between F-22s and a hypothetical quick-&-cheap modern aircraft. The F-22 is presumed to be superior to this hypothetical enemy, but not absolutely overwhelmingly superior as it would be to a WWII-era plane.
I just patented farting with one's thumb stuck up one's ass.
Seriously, when will this fucktardation end?
Next election, vote Pirate. Coming soon to a polity near you...
Some of my undergrad courses used WebCT... god that was awful software.
Gotta ensure those rockets are chock full o' compliance...
Don't we do ourselves a disservice by pretending either of the two faces of the Establishment Party deserve even a modicum of respect? I'll stick with calling them Dumbocrats and Republicrooks, thanks.
That ain't weed they're smokin'...
Seriously dude.. I was going to ask the same thing. Who actually uses a telephone keypad anymore? Even when I use my "landline" (actually VOIP bundled with my DSL, but I digress) I don't dial the damn thing. I can barely remember my own phone numbers - don't know a single other person's number by memory. Just use Google Voice's callback functionality to dial from address book but talk over the (pleasantly non-radiation-emitting) landline.
Check out the Lazarus extension for Firefox... it's pretty nice to have if you (like me) are prone to accidentally closing tabs.
You're welcome. And thank you, for helping stifle software innovation in America.
Oh god, my eyes, the burning the burning!
Seriously dude, don't post this toxic crap on slashdot, it's fucking rude. Reading even the slightest bit of patent text is a serious liability for anyone involved in genuine innovation, as many folks here are. Post a link if you must reference filthy santorum like this, and add a warning lest unsuspecting readers be injured by exposure to it. Thank the gods I had the good safety instinct to avert my eyes the moment I detected the imaginary property lawyer jibberish in your post.
Since Hollywood already got the DMCA, they probably actually don't care about copyright term anymore. Their films are now forever locked in their encrypted containers...
For certain values of 'forever'...
Damn I wish I had mod points...
True, but do they actually work? I've owned a couple of sheet feeders that always managed to feed several sheets at a time. Only the high end units could actually take a stack of paper and feed them one at a time.
The sheet feeder on my $160 HP M1212nf multi-function machine works just fine. Hasn't jammed or sucked up multiple sheets so far in the ~1yr I've owned it. Granted, it gets only light home office use, never more than 10 sheets at once.
Making it work correctly on Ubuntu Natty took a bit of wrestling to get the latest version of HPLIP installed, as there was a bug in the distributed HPLIP's scanner support. Hopefully that will not be an issue in future Ubuntu releases. The machine also has a fax built-in, but mine isn't hooked up to a phone line so I've never tried it.
Thank goodness our comrades in the Soviet South African Republic are protecting us from the terrorists! Hacking the PS3 threatened to cause global economic collapse; and posed a direct, physical danger the the health of all citizens in the republic. I know I, for one, will sleep better tonight.
Thanks - I hadn't thought of that!
Funny also how those union made shoes, which were almost certainly more expensive as a percent of income than SE Asian slave labor shoes, were constructed in such a way that they could be repaired & maintained over time. Cheap (always as percent of income) products and the environmentally disastrous disposable-culture go hand in hand.
I believe there two distinct differences here. Acxiom is not tracking your 'movements'. Just your actions at various transaction points. That's significant. If you just drive around and don't buy, sell or otherwise interact, Acxiom doesn't have any knowledge of that. This proposal is simply pure survelience (can't spell this to save my life!) not action based tracking of 'what' you do.
While there is a difference, I think it's more technical than substantive. In either case, ordinary non-criminal actions are being tracked. Yes, you can avoid Acxiom's tracking by not buying anything with a credit card (or a store loyalty card). But you can avoid the license plate cameras by not driving.
Tho actually I wonder, does Acxiom nowadays purchase customer location data from the telcos, so they can also track cellphone-carrying customers who pay with cash?
If you want to avoid being tracked in Soviet Amerika, you need to:
- only pay cash
- never carry a cellphone
- never place or accept a phone call of any sort, including skype
- never use email
- never use postal mail
- ride a totally non-descript bike everywhere (there already exists gait-tracking software that can use CC surveillance cameras to identify citizens based on how they walk)
- when you must travel by foot, affect a random-ish silly walk
- always wear a disguise (to avoid the facial recognition cameras)
- if you must travel by vehicle, only hitchhike
- never fly on an airplane
So pretty much if you have anything resembling a normal life, you will be tracked against your will by bigcorps and government alike.
Secondly, how many people actually *know* about this? I'm guessing quite bit less than 1/100th of one percent of the population. Hence, no uproar.
Here I think you've hit the nail on the head. Sometimes if I describe even a small part of current surveillance technologies to people, they at first think I am warning of some distant dystopian future. Many are unwilling to accept the reality of actual, already-existing surveillance even when it's brought to their attention.
Why does the government need to know where all of the citizens have been?
To make sure everyone is in compliance, of course.
Why does it need to keep that data indefinitely?
In case you commit any "crimes" before they become crimes, of course.