There's a word for this idea that we should keep unecessary jobs at all costs and to hell with the price of the finished product. Communism.
And there's a word for this idea that we should pursue economic "efficiency" to an extreme without any attention to its human costs: Evil. Oh, wait, sorry. I meant, capitalism.
Massive displacement of workers is a real cost. But the rules are rigged to make sure that it doesn't show up in the balance sheet. If all costs were properly accounted for, some of the travesties we routinely commit would be exposed for the losing propositions that they are. But instead we all just hope the system holds together just long enough for us to prosper from it.
I understand that global trade is generally a good thing and that it can lead to rising prosperity levels. On the other hand, this is the first era of truly fluid capital flow and it isn't at all clear where that, taken to its logical ends, will wind up.
What is your answer for the one hundred men? "Sorry, you should have chosen better parents."?
Forget the many economist that make arguments like this one, stating that outsourcing will ultimately benefit consumers...
I think the best that can said is, we don't know how it will play out. What good is a change that benefits consumers, if those consumers can't consume because they're out of work and have no money? Or to put it another way: When the Steel Belt died, retail in the Steel Belt died, too. It had to -- with no one working, who was going to buy?
Ironically, there is some evidence that companies like Wal-Mart -- which bring admittedly low prices, but through in part very low wages -- are being hoist on their own petard, as demand declines even for the bargains. Lit the other way: Henry Ford understood that his workers, paid well, would become some of his best customers.
And outsourcing is good for our economy, right? Let's give them a tax break.
Where are you living? In the good old USA, tax breaks don't require anything so mundane as economic justification. Tax cuts first, last, and always! And to deserve a tax break, you don't need to aid the economy. You just need to send checks to the correct party.
they'll have miles and miles of new spaghetti code introduced by programmers who's native language isn't English. Yes they may know English but since they're not located in the US they'll likely be using another language to communicate in their local workplace.
Um, they're contracting with India. English is spoken quite well there -- perhaps not the accent you're used to, but still the Queen's English.
I donb't [sic] begrudge Slashdot working up a bit of controversy for ad hits, but stirring up racism is immoral imho.
How is this story "stirring up racism"? They didn't say "MS sending jobs to the stinking Indians" or any such thing. They said "MS looking to outsource jobs" -- a statement of fact. It is a fact that companies outsource. It's no secret they do it for the cold, hard economics of it. Because a different nationality benefits, that makes it "racist" to mention the fact?
The iPod uses a database to store song info, so you can't just drop songs onto the HDD.
Wow. That's actually a serious and unncessary limitation. I have an Archos Jukebox and it has an MP3 player built in that can play songs based on the ID3 tags... no special database needed. Central databaes offer up the potential of ugly nastiness.
Hmm. I was just about to order a 40GB iPod but now I'll have to rethink.
The federal government finds mistakes on tax returns from a mafia boss and puts him in jail for a number of years. Later, the same mistakes are found on Mother Theresa's tax returns. Understandably the public would have different opinions of the penalties they should receive.
But the essence of law is that they should receive the same penalty for breaking the same law. It's exceptionalism that's ruining civil society in the US, because it's a tiny step from excusing, say, Mother Theresa to absolving the son of the President from all crime.
That's assuming, quite blindly, that you're using Windows 2000/XP or OS X.
OK, this is the question I can't seem to find answered (and no, there's no one around with an iPod for me to ask...): How crucial is iTunes? Can I use the iPod as a hard drive without installing it? Can I use it as an MP3 player?
Do you want to try and apply that argument to something like, say, console games? I can't play Xbox games on my PS2 so obviously there is a major consumer discrepancy going on, right?
You're missing the point -- I can't tell if purposefully or not. It's not about incompatible standards. Of course Apple doesn't have to "to make the iPod work only with their music store". But they're going further: They're saying that no one else can make the iPod work with a different music store. They are in fact asserting rights over your hardware after you buy it. And while the DMCA might in fact give them the legal right to stop Real, they do not have (in my opinion) a moral right to do so.
Since iPods do what I want (play MP3s), I'll probably get around to buying one. But I am pretty sure I'm not going to be patronizing the iTMS any time soon.
if they have to monitor content Real is creating, they are in a more difficult situation; what if Real fucked up their implementation, and the content they generate works well enough but is not within spec? Now apple has to check their conversion process with multiple versions of real's format, which may or may not be proper M4P.
Just like if someone improperly rips an MP3 and it's not to spec... Oh, wait. Apple bears no responsibility to make sure the iPod runs corrupt MP3s. And of course they have no responsibility to make sure that iPods can handle Real Harmony, either. A simple disclaimer would absolve them of any issue: This device guaranteed to play songs purchased at iTMS only.
It might not play well but it would be within their legal norms.
At which point I'll raise the prices on me product to cover the loss, since I control 90% of the retail market and people will keep buying.
Maybe. It doesn't seem true that consumption is wholly independent of price. Elsewise why haven't they already raised the prices? No, clearly the labels believe that a higher price would lead to lower sales. If they don't -- if they really think they can raise prices without impacting sales, and still don't -- then their shareholders should sue for gross mismanagement.
But in fact, although there isn't a true free market in recordings (the price of songs doesn't fluctuate in response to market demand), the market does bear upon the labels. They are no immune to economic laws than the rest of us.
I'm sorry, but how does the RIAA function according to the "Free Market" rules?
Because the price of a song fluctuates in response to the differentiated desires of the consumer population, of course... oh, wait, I'm sorry. There's that whole price-fixing thing. Carry on.
I really do wonder where this is going to end. In 100 years, will people look back on this as the time when corporate greed destroyed the American music industry?
People will look back and laugh at the quaint historical anomaly called "the music industry" -- a beast that did not exist prior to 1890 and probably won't survive past 2040 or so.
There's no set of rules one could come up with that SOME clever \ devious person couldn't find a way to exploit.
How about: You are to send them $X in cash or bank notes; you are not to write this off on your taxes as any sort of "donation"; and you are list the outlay in your stock prospectus as a fine levied on the company.
The issue here, as usual, is that the parties settled. Generally, in a settlement, the group with the bigger lawyers comes out on top. In this case, the schools simply never had a chance.
Its this kind of elitism that makes people wonder why theres so much shitty sci-fi out there like Firefly, Lexx, badly produced and translated anime, etc.
No. I might get flamed here but the reason there's "so much shitty sci-fi" is Star Wars. And I mean "A New Hope", not the prequel trilogy crap. The unexpected, unprecedented, and overwhelming success of the first Star Wars movies permanently branded Sci Fi onto the retinas of movie moguls looking for (what they think will be) quick and easy blockbusters. Now, I liked Star Wars and still do, but almost no one took away the lesson that a movie succeeds on its human elements. Everyone decided that big badass SFX mattered most, and so we've gotten generations of bad TV and movies based on that premise (including the aforementioned bad prequels, which are virtually a mathematical proof of the falseness of this fixation).
Lacking any sort of self-control, I frequently download said clips, and by the time the movie comes out, I've seen 2/3rds of it. It sucks.
Ah, yes, the great American hobby: Blaming others for the faults in yourself. It's not a "bad idea" just because you happen to (apparently regularly) ruin your own experiences.
Personally, since I do have self-control and don't want to be spoiled (and so don't download trailers, etc.), I couldn't care less whether he does it or not.
So, you don't like sound in space, but you're willing to accept that someone strums away on the banjo every time they turn on their stardrive?
I hate to be the one to break this to you, but incidental music is for the audience, not the characters -- they don't hear it. (Does your life give you musical cues? I'm jealous.) Being against sound effects in space is standing up against the storyteller telling you something not valid. Being against incidental music is like objecting to the use of pages in books -- "no one I know lives on a two-dimensional sheet of paper". It's part of how the story is told.
Do I feel left out? Nope, because I can distinctly remember where I was during the O.J. white bronco chase.
Hmmm. On the one hand, a transcendent moment in human history that united the world and showed us a glimpse of our future. On the other, a dumb former celebrity "on the run" slower than I can walk, the first act in a legal comedy about the end of our civilization.
Private space ventures, like Scaled Composites, have been able to reach the space boundary for very little money: $20 million.
I know that I was particularly impressed that these companies did this without any reference to the five decades of aeronautical knowledge discovered by NASA while it was "wasting" the taxpayers' money... Oh, wait. They actually did build on the public research done; they in fact depended on it. Yet they aren't asked to pay extra for it nor are they charged for it.
That $20 million is the very small child sitting on the shoulder of a very big giant. More power to them and may they grow into a giant themselves -- but let's not pretend they didn't benefit from public spending.
Do I even need to mention the two downed space shuttles, the hubble mirror, or the the ft vs meter fiasco for the mars mission?
I agree. I mean, think of all those innovators out there were just itching to set up a business sending probes to Mars... Oh, wait. That's basic research, and history shows that the private sector wants applied research.
Yes, it would be good to see NASA leasing launch capacity from viable private companies. Yes, they've done an awful lot to stymie that. But don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. NASA has also done very significant work that would never have been done by the private sector.
Why must it be all or nothing? Why can't people see that there are legitimate areas wherein the government has a valid role to play?
lawmakers would rather be percieved as budget-minded tax cutters than bold visionaries
Actually they would like to be perceived as both. And the latter requires only talk, apparently, since after 3 decades of being told that we can have everything without having to pay for it, the American public has become dumb enough to believe it.
Why is there a perennial crisis in public education? Because the political elites (of both parties) have less than no interest in an educated, intelligent, engaged citizenry.
Slashdot Mirror
And there's a word for this idea that we should pursue economic "efficiency" to an extreme without any attention to its human costs: Evil. Oh, wait, sorry. I meant, capitalism.
Massive displacement of workers is a real cost. But the rules are rigged to make sure that it doesn't show up in the balance sheet. If all costs were properly accounted for, some of the travesties we routinely commit would be exposed for the losing propositions that they are. But instead we all just hope the system holds together just long enough for us to prosper from it.
I understand that global trade is generally a good thing and that it can lead to rising prosperity levels. On the other hand, this is the first era of truly fluid capital flow and it isn't at all clear where that, taken to its logical ends, will wind up.
What is your answer for the one hundred men? "Sorry, you should have chosen better parents."?
I think the best that can said is, we don't know how it will play out. What good is a change that benefits consumers, if those consumers can't consume because they're out of work and have no money? Or to put it another way: When the Steel Belt died, retail in the Steel Belt died, too. It had to -- with no one working, who was going to buy?
Ironically, there is some evidence that companies like Wal-Mart -- which bring admittedly low prices, but through in part very low wages -- are being hoist on their own petard, as demand declines even for the bargains. Lit the other way: Henry Ford understood that his workers, paid well, would become some of his best customers.
Where are you living? In the good old USA, tax breaks don't require anything so mundane as economic justification. Tax cuts first, last, and always! And to deserve a tax break, you don't need to aid the economy. You just need to send checks to the correct party.
Um, they're contracting with India. English is spoken quite well there -- perhaps not the accent you're used to, but still the Queen's English.
How is this story "stirring up racism"? They didn't say "MS sending jobs to the stinking Indians" or any such thing. They said "MS looking to outsource jobs" -- a statement of fact. It is a fact that companies outsource. It's no secret they do it for the cold, hard economics of it. Because a different nationality benefits, that makes it "racist" to mention the fact?
Wow. That's actually a serious and unncessary limitation. I have an Archos Jukebox and it has an MP3 player built in that can play songs based on the ID3 tags
Hmm. I was just about to order a 40GB iPod but now I'll have to rethink.
But the essence of law is that they should receive the same penalty for breaking the same law. It's exceptionalism that's ruining civil society in the US, because it's a tiny step from excusing, say, Mother Theresa to absolving the son of the President from all crime.
OK, this is the question I can't seem to find answered (and no, there's no one around with an iPod for me to ask...): How crucial is iTunes? Can I use the iPod as a hard drive without installing it? Can I use it as an MP3 player?
You're missing the point -- I can't tell if purposefully or not. It's not about incompatible standards. Of course Apple doesn't have to "to make the iPod work only with their music store". But they're going further: They're saying that no one else can make the iPod work with a different music store. They are in fact asserting rights over your hardware after you buy it. And while the DMCA might in fact give them the legal right to stop Real, they do not have (in my opinion) a moral right to do so.
Since iPods do what I want (play MP3s), I'll probably get around to buying one. But I am pretty sure I'm not going to be patronizing the iTMS any time soon.
Just like if someone improperly rips an MP3 and it's not to spec... Oh, wait. Apple bears no responsibility to make sure the iPod runs corrupt MP3s. And of course they have no responsibility to make sure that iPods can handle Real Harmony, either. A simple disclaimer would absolve them of any issue: This device guaranteed to play songs purchased at iTMS only.
It might not play well but it would be within their legal norms.
Maybe. It doesn't seem true that consumption is wholly independent of price. Elsewise why haven't they already raised the prices? No, clearly the labels believe that a higher price would lead to lower sales. If they don't -- if they really think they can raise prices without impacting sales, and still don't -- then their shareholders should sue for gross mismanagement.
But in fact, although there isn't a true free market in recordings (the price of songs doesn't fluctuate in response to market demand), the market does bear upon the labels. They are no immune to economic laws than the rest of us.
Indeed, that's what's got them terrified.
Because the price of a song fluctuates in response to the differentiated desires of the consumer population, of course... oh, wait, I'm sorry. There's that whole price-fixing thing. Carry on.
People will look back and laugh at the quaint historical anomaly called "the music industry" -- a beast that did not exist prior to 1890 and probably won't survive past 2040 or so.
How about: You are to send them $X in cash or bank notes; you are not to write this off on your taxes as any sort of "donation"; and you are list the outlay in your stock prospectus as a fine levied on the company.
The issue here, as usual, is that the parties settled. Generally, in a settlement, the group with the bigger lawyers comes out on top. In this case, the schools simply never had a chance.
No. I might get flamed here but the reason there's "so much shitty sci-fi" is Star Wars. And I mean "A New Hope", not the prequel trilogy crap. The unexpected, unprecedented, and overwhelming success of the first Star Wars movies permanently branded Sci Fi onto the retinas of movie moguls looking for (what they think will be) quick and easy blockbusters. Now, I liked Star Wars and still do, but almost no one took away the lesson that a movie succeeds on its human elements. Everyone decided that big badass SFX mattered most, and so we've gotten generations of bad TV and movies based on that premise (including the aforementioned bad prequels, which are virtually a mathematical proof of the falseness of this fixation).
If you like The Dark Knight Returns, I hope you've checked out the contemporaneous and excellent Watchmen.
Ah, yes, the great American hobby: Blaming others for the faults in yourself. It's not a "bad idea" just because you happen to (apparently regularly) ruin your own experiences.
Personally, since I do have self-control and don't want to be spoiled (and so don't download trailers, etc.), I couldn't care less whether he does it or not.
I hate to be the one to break this to you, but incidental music is for the audience, not the characters -- they don't hear it. (Does your life give you musical cues? I'm jealous.) Being against sound effects in space is standing up against the storyteller telling you something not valid. Being against incidental music is like objecting to the use of pages in books -- "no one I know lives on a two-dimensional sheet of paper". It's part of how the story is told.
Ok. If it takes three times to make something a tradition, then two times is certainly "almost" a tradition.
Hmmm. On the one hand, a transcendent moment in human history that united the world and showed us a glimpse of our future. On the other, a dumb former celebrity "on the run" slower than I can walk, the first act in a legal comedy about the end of our civilization.
Yeah, I can see how you'd equate the two.
*Sigh*
I know that I was particularly impressed that these companies did this without any reference to the five decades of aeronautical knowledge discovered by NASA while it was "wasting" the taxpayers' money... Oh, wait. They actually did build on the public research done; they in fact depended on it. Yet they aren't asked to pay extra for it nor are they charged for it.
That $20 million is the very small child sitting on the shoulder of a very big giant. More power to them and may they grow into a giant themselves -- but let's not pretend they didn't benefit from public spending.
And that's why, of course, spending on space travel was so much lower in the days of the Founding Fathers...
I agree. I mean, think of all those innovators out there were just itching to set up a business sending probes to Mars... Oh, wait. That's basic research, and history shows that the private sector wants applied research.
Yes, it would be good to see NASA leasing launch capacity from viable private companies. Yes, they've done an awful lot to stymie that. But don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. NASA has also done very significant work that would never have been done by the private sector.
Why must it be all or nothing? Why can't people see that there are legitimate areas wherein the government has a valid role to play?
Actually they would like to be perceived as both. And the latter requires only talk, apparently, since after 3 decades of being told that we can have everything without having to pay for it, the American public has become dumb enough to believe it.
Why is there a perennial crisis in public education? Because the political elites (of both parties) have less than no interest in an educated, intelligent, engaged citizenry.
a reverse firewall will keep Megabyte and Hexadecimal bottled up in the Tor... :)