More tax dollars tossed to the trash to protect the interests of a few companies. And the guy was not even posting infringing content. This is getting so out of hand. Way to go, America!
I agree with you - all the issues I've referred to in my original post are there because of the complacency of the average US Citizen; people do not react because they are afraid of losing the meager middle class possessions they have. But the lot for the average person and small business is shrinking by the day, as larger companies and political interests take over. So eventually there will be not much for the average Joe to care about. It will be an interesting process to watch. As an example, one can look at the current power struggle about reducing spending and increasing debt between Democrats and Republicans - if such display of idiocy, blatant lack of care for the interests of the people that appointed them, and lack of vision (from both sides) were to be exercised by the management of a company, the board would fire all of them on the spot. So what are American voters going to do in the next election?
Greed for power and money is crippling the US. Hope we realize how to stop this before we become a 3rd rank nation. Software patents, corrupted politicians, shortsighted MBAs, unscrupulous lawyers... all of them are contributing to a quick degrade of business ethical values and to the loss of opportunities of the common man for the benefit of few. Sad state of affairs.
IMHO, since OS X was introduced, with each new version Apple applications have been dumbed down in the name of streamlining them. Maybe they are trying to appeal to a broader but less savvy audience. In my mind, it is frustrating, and it is the same kind of thought that brought Microsoft to came up with Clippy...
Whatever is the case, because of this (and the constant 100MB 'updates' for that repugnant abobination iTunes has become) , I am seriously considering going back to Linux for my next computer, after years of using OS X...
So... you are proposing to patent the instructions (software or piano roll) according to what the machine (piano or computer) can perform with them? I am sorry, I think you are not understanding what the issue is here. Both of them are essentially programmable machines, even if one is more complex than the other - because of that, their instructions/rolls/software should be handled equally under the law.
It is free-enterprise on a field that is not leveled, and has not space for the little guys. So it is not fair for small companies. These guys developed a book reader when Apple did not had one, and now are being bullied out just because of Apple's greed. How much would Apple lose if they give them, say, a 10% cut? That is the ethical thing to do.
You are just justifying your choices, and are rather naive at that. It is not about "intellectuals finding the concept of money distasteful". Actually, that reference makes me think about the shift of values that happened in America during the Bush Jr years. Just a tip: At the end, most companies (financial or not) follow money, not ideals. So call things by their name. If investment bankers will make more money producing Soylent Green instead of spinning hi-tech startups, you can bet your neck they will find the way to do that. And if their numbers will look better by firing your sorry ass, you will be on the street so fast that your head will spin. So know who your friends are (hint: the company you work for is likely not).
Samsung is thinking on terms of selling a device. Apple is thinking on terms of owning the user (device, content, services, experience, etc). Samsung does not stand a chance here. You may like this or not, but it is not about hardware specs or features anymore, because Apple is incredibly good at providing services (app store, itunes,.mac account, the book reader thing, etc) tightly integrated with the devices. So they make money on things that other companies cannot, like content. They can afford tighter margins on the hardware if needed and still make money. The old way of selling hardware, just by comparing specs, or trying to beat Apple's feature by feature is half-dead already. You can see how all that worked out with the iPod. I wish more companies understood this.
Well, I agree and congratulate you. But know you are the exception to the rule. My experience is that most people learns to use one tool and try to use it for everything. And then you have the ones that only see value in things that sell for an expensive price, or just blindly follow a brand and recommend everybody else to do the same...
That is true - however, most users are casual users, not professionals. And even for professionals, most of their work does not require complex workflows. You are talking *maybe* to 3% of the users, which really need professional tools. For the rest of us it is an expensive overkill. I've seen countless people through college and grad school pirating Adobe tools for work that does not require anything more complex than combining two plots into one. Even many of my friends (photographers, graphics designers, etc) use Photoshop for things like cropping a photo. It is an overkill in the majority of cases. So in my view Adobe tools are too heavy an expensive for everyday use - if you want to crop your aunt pictures there is no need to pirate anything, or pour a gazillion dollars into Photoshop or similar tools.
My experience is that if you know how to use Inkscape/Gimp you can do 90%+ of what you can do with the Adobe tools with no problem and for free. But most people are settled on their tools and would not even try. So be it. If you want to use free tools you need to start by giving them a chance. For most users, they will be able to do whatever they do normally with either.
Just my $0.02.
Yours is just wishful thinking. The issue is way more serious of who is the party in power. Do not be shortsighted. The current laws are not serving the purpose they were created for, and are only aligned with the interest of a few opportunistic companies. Look at the impact of patents in the software industry if not.
This is just one more field where current patent and copyright law hinders innovation. You cannot have a monopoly and pretend other people to innovate. Unless something change, the US future in science and technology is going to be crippled in the next couple of decades because of the overprotective nature of the current IP laws. As a side note, the idea that a company can be innovative while having profit as its ultimate objective is sorely misguided.
We are in the hands of morons. A constantly evolving standard is bad news for everybody except maybe a few companies that sell HTML development tools. Fast forward 10 years, and we will not be able to read half of the web, and will need 10 different browsers to see our usual choice of sites. There is a reason for versioning. Keeping up with a website will be a pain. I guess I should not complain, many people will have a job thanks to this.
You just don't get it: It does no matter who the victim was. Law should apply the same for all citizens.
Also, I see a tendency in the comments here where the ones that tend to sympathize with Palin post as Anonymous Cowards. Why is that? Are you guys ashamed of showing your name next to your ideas?
It does not work like that. In the long term it is not about more money, it is about balanced living. He will spend 10 times the 'more pay' in physician visits after he is stressed, frustrated, and burned out. His boss does not get it. He should get out of there. And quick. And after he goes to his boss and make such a request in the middle of a company crunch, he will be the next one out the door as soon as things are better for the company.
They may end up making the the worst mistake in US history. Do not underestimate Palin. If you do not want her as your president, stay the heck out of voting her for anything. If you disagree, think for a second how did she manage to be governor of a state and be at the center of the political attention of the entire country for months. Do not vote her.
What is needed is a better voting system. Like somehow being able to vote for 'yes' or 'no' for every candidate, for instance. So not only we give more power to the good ones, but we weed out the bad ones. The way the current system works does not favor changes, no matter the opinion of the people. It is a giant political gridlock.
.. we will be longing for a past long gone were authors could write whatever they wanted and not be censored. This is serious, given how large and influential Amazon is. One may or not agree with having a rating system for certain topics, but censoring books based on its title?
Even if the volume of pages in Chinese is 10 times the volume of pages for all other languages combined, that does not mean that English pages are not relevant. It also does not mean that there is more original content in Chinese than in English. Part of the issue with Chinese language is that there are over 47k characters. To me, it seems that English is easier, more elegant, and more synthetic way to express thoughts. There is a reason why English is the international language of choice. The Chinese government can legislate to a certain point - after that, the idea will just not work for them, and will only isolate their country and people from the rest of the world.
Slashdot Mirror
More tax dollars tossed to the trash to protect the interests of a few companies. And the guy was not even posting infringing content. This is getting so out of hand. Way to go, America!
Nah. You should actually print it, at least with a font size of 12 points. And then, laminate each page, for extra protection!
I agree with you - all the issues I've referred to in my original post are there because of the complacency of the average US Citizen; people do not react because they are afraid of losing the meager middle class possessions they have. But the lot for the average person and small business is shrinking by the day, as larger companies and political interests take over. So eventually there will be not much for the average Joe to care about. It will be an interesting process to watch. As an example, one can look at the current power struggle about reducing spending and increasing debt between Democrats and Republicans - if such display of idiocy, blatant lack of care for the interests of the people that appointed them, and lack of vision (from both sides) were to be exercised by the management of a company, the board would fire all of them on the spot. So what are American voters going to do in the next election?
Greed for power and money is crippling the US. Hope we realize how to stop this before we become a 3rd rank nation. Software patents, corrupted politicians, shortsighted MBAs, unscrupulous lawyers ... all of them are contributing to a quick degrade of business ethical values and to the loss of opportunities of the common man for the benefit of few. Sad state of affairs.
IMHO, since OS X was introduced, with each new version Apple applications have been dumbed down in the name of streamlining them. Maybe they are trying to appeal to a broader but less savvy audience. In my mind, it is frustrating, and it is the same kind of thought that brought Microsoft to came up with Clippy... Whatever is the case, because of this (and the constant 100MB 'updates' for that repugnant abobination iTunes has become) , I am seriously considering going back to Linux for my next computer, after years of using OS X...
So... you are proposing to patent the instructions (software or piano roll) according to what the machine (piano or computer) can perform with them? I am sorry, I think you are not understanding what the issue is here. Both of them are essentially programmable machines, even if one is more complex than the other - because of that, their instructions/rolls/software should be handled equally under the law.
It is free-enterprise on a field that is not leveled, and has not space for the little guys. So it is not fair for small companies. These guys developed a book reader when Apple did not had one, and now are being bullied out just because of Apple's greed. How much would Apple lose if they give them, say, a 10% cut? That is the ethical thing to do.
You are just justifying your choices, and are rather naive at that. It is not about "intellectuals finding the concept of money distasteful". Actually, that reference makes me think about the shift of values that happened in America during the Bush Jr years. Just a tip: At the end, most companies (financial or not) follow money, not ideals. So call things by their name. If investment bankers will make more money producing Soylent Green instead of spinning hi-tech startups, you can bet your neck they will find the way to do that. And if their numbers will look better by firing your sorry ass, you will be on the street so fast that your head will spin. So know who your friends are (hint: the company you work for is likely not).
Samsung is thinking on terms of selling a device. Apple is thinking on terms of owning the user (device, content, services, experience, etc). Samsung does not stand a chance here. You may like this or not, but it is not about hardware specs or features anymore, because Apple is incredibly good at providing services (app store, itunes, .mac account, the book reader thing, etc) tightly integrated with the devices. So they make money on things that other companies cannot, like content. They can afford tighter margins on the hardware if needed and still make money. The old way of selling hardware, just by comparing specs, or trying to beat Apple's feature by feature is half-dead already. You can see how all that worked out with the iPod. I wish more companies understood this.
Well, I agree and congratulate you. But know you are the exception to the rule. My experience is that most people learns to use one tool and try to use it for everything. And then you have the ones that only see value in things that sell for an expensive price, or just blindly follow a brand and recommend everybody else to do the same...
That is true - however, most users are casual users, not professionals. And even for professionals, most of their work does not require complex workflows. You are talking *maybe* to 3% of the users, which really need professional tools. For the rest of us it is an expensive overkill. I've seen countless people through college and grad school pirating Adobe tools for work that does not require anything more complex than combining two plots into one. Even many of my friends (photographers, graphics designers, etc) use Photoshop for things like cropping a photo. It is an overkill in the majority of cases. So in my view Adobe tools are too heavy an expensive for everyday use - if you want to crop your aunt pictures there is no need to pirate anything, or pour a gazillion dollars into Photoshop or similar tools.
My experience is that if you know how to use Inkscape/Gimp you can do 90%+ of what you can do with the Adobe tools with no problem and for free. But most people are settled on their tools and would not even try. So be it. If you want to use free tools you need to start by giving them a chance. For most users, they will be able to do whatever they do normally with either. Just my $0.02.
Science can certainly be regulated by law, but one cannot legislate what is or is not science. This is just sheer ignorance.
Yours is just wishful thinking. The issue is way more serious of who is the party in power. Do not be shortsighted. The current laws are not serving the purpose they were created for, and are only aligned with the interest of a few opportunistic companies. Look at the impact of patents in the software industry if not.
This is just one more field where current patent and copyright law hinders innovation. You cannot have a monopoly and pretend other people to innovate. Unless something change, the US future in science and technology is going to be crippled in the next couple of decades because of the overprotective nature of the current IP laws. As a side note, the idea that a company can be innovative while having profit as its ultimate objective is sorely misguided.
Maybe HTML will die on its own, on the hands of incompetency. Then hopefully a reasonable standard will arise. One that is not designed by committee.
We are in the hands of morons. A constantly evolving standard is bad news for everybody except maybe a few companies that sell HTML development tools. Fast forward 10 years, and we will not be able to read half of the web, and will need 10 different browsers to see our usual choice of sites. There is a reason for versioning. Keeping up with a website will be a pain. I guess I should not complain, many people will have a job thanks to this.
You just don't get it: It does no matter who the victim was. Law should apply the same for all citizens.
Also, I see a tendency in the comments here where the ones that tend to sympathize with Palin post as Anonymous Cowards. Why is that? Are you guys ashamed of showing your name next to your ideas?
It does not work like that. In the long term it is not about more money, it is about balanced living. He will spend 10 times the 'more pay' in physician visits after he is stressed, frustrated, and burned out. His boss does not get it. He should get out of there. And quick. And after he goes to his boss and make such a request in the middle of a company crunch, he will be the next one out the door as soon as things are better for the company.
They may end up making the the worst mistake in US history. Do not underestimate Palin. If you do not want her as your president, stay the heck out of voting her for anything. If you disagree, think for a second how did she manage to be governor of a state and be at the center of the political attention of the entire country for months. Do not vote her.
What is needed is a better voting system. Like somehow being able to vote for 'yes' or 'no' for every candidate, for instance. So not only we give more power to the good ones, but we weed out the bad ones. The way the current system works does not favor changes, no matter the opinion of the people. It is a giant political gridlock.
.. we will be longing for a past long gone were authors could write whatever they wanted and not be censored. This is serious, given how large and influential Amazon is. One may or not agree with having a rating system for certain topics, but censoring books based on its title?
Even if the volume of pages in Chinese is 10 times the volume of pages for all other languages combined, that does not mean that English pages are not relevant. It also does not mean that there is more original content in Chinese than in English. Part of the issue with Chinese language is that there are over 47k characters. To me, it seems that English is easier, more elegant, and more synthetic way to express thoughts. There is a reason why English is the international language of choice. The Chinese government can legislate to a certain point - after that, the idea will just not work for them, and will only isolate their country and people from the rest of the world.
I would rather see her completely forgotten. She is not going away until nobody cares anymore for her. Stop giving her press.
well, maybe the issue is that what is defined as 'wrong' changes with the particular interests of elected politicians at a particular time...