Well, while I think you make a very good point (particularly in regard to the FCC not being an authority to levy taxes) your reference to "taxation without representation" is taken out of context.
First of all, your Constitution (yes yours, I am a Canadian) does not say that Congress must approve taxes, it says that congress is *authorized* to approve taxes. It simply grants the right to congress, it does not remove the right from any other body.
Secondly taxation without representation is not addressed at all in your Constitution although reference is made in the Declaration of Independence. (Can anyone tell me where the phrase originated, I drew a blank on its origins..)
Finally, "taxation without representation" refers to the fact that Britain was taxing their American colonies however residents of America did not get to vote for members of Congress. It had nothing to do with Congressional approval of taxes, rest assured Britain's Congress approved taxation of the colonies. The issue was that the colonies these approvals were coming from a properly elected official with the interests of the colonies at heart.
I was about to say that this isn't a socialist state and I don't give a flying hoo-hah if low-income rural subscribers can't get cheap cable.
Fortunately your government disagrees with you on both points. That's why you have libraries: education and access to information to people who can't afford it. That's why public school is free. That's why you have a welfare system. That's why you have food stamps. That's why universities have scholarships. How on earth did you get the impression you didn't live in a socialist state? What country do you live in and unless the US has eliminated all the above, don't say the USA...
Before the rants get too intense about this being a corrupt violation of your rights (read: making you pay for something) you should read the following from the article:
About 85 percent of the fund's revenues are split between two causes: the "e-rate" program (40 percent), which subsidizes school and library Internet connections, and rural telephone companies (45 percent), which might otherwise end up paying more for telephone service than city dwellers. The remaining 15 percent goes toward discounts to low-income subscribers and funds rural health care.
Yes, that's right. 55% of this tax will go to school internet connections, library internet access, and low-income subscribers and health care. 45% goes to the somewhat less worthy but still valid rural subscribers to keep costs equitable. Now, what was that you were about to say?
I get the joke but I don't really agree with the analogy. Software is one of the only industries where there doesn't have to be any fact to product announcements or promises. This causes artificial fluctations in stock prices and real money is both won and lost.
When two companies merge they set "synergy" targets: the amount of money they expect to save through the merger. If they do not meet these, stock holders can be in a position to sue. If a drug company say they have a blockbuster drug in late trials and it turns out to be false, stock holders are in a position to sue. If Enron over-states profit they can be held accountable. Why shouldn't hollow promises about software be the same?
Promises that affect the buying or selling of stock need to be based on fact, not fiction.
It's funny and sad that game developers are literally begging the community to create their next big hit for them.
Why? The community has been writing mods for years, mission packs for major commercial games (both Quake mission packs come to mind) and are now being offered a nice prize to make what I'm sure will be a top-quality conversion. Developers are hoping to showcase the flexibility of their engines while funding the creation of the next wave of creative talent. You underestimate the community.
For example the community (amateur enthusiasts) created Linux. And GNU/Linux.;-) And The Gimp. And Apache. And MySQL. These things run on everything from a web werver in an RJ45 plug to massively-parallel computing monsters from Ma Blue. Funny what this sad community can do...
In the end, you wind up with a paper that is poorly written, has no logical flow, etc etc.
Welcome to the business world. And I'm not even trying to be clever, this kind of collaborative work is more and more common these days. Our company swears by Lotus Notes which means most documents are pored over by huge teams of people, everyone submits a comment or two which must be incorporated, and you end up with something truly collaborative that often doesn't make a whole lot of sense. In fact most "collaborative" software people are raving about these days is about consolidating a cacaphony of sound bites from different people into a cohesive document. I'm not certain it works, although that's certainly what Open Source is about (and literally the entire purpose of CVS) so maybe I'm wrong. I still subscribe to the belief that a single brilliant chef can make a better meal than 20 working together. In fact, it makes me want to coin a phrase...
I'm glad he's leaving, AOL doesn't need him anyway; after all they have lawyers. Let the lawyers write the code. I'm sure AOL 10.0 will rock the house.
On the other hand this unleashes a creative, boisterous, unwielding and stubborn geek on the world, perhaps even to join the ranks of all those amateur open source hacks. In the end you get AOL run by a squeeky-clean army of professional lawyers and another rogue hacker who acknowledges no ones authority to dictate what he contributes to their quasi-communist "community" of freedom fighters. Altogether I think both sides are getting exactly what they deserve.;-)
right now you can't hurt the RIAA without also hurting the artists.
Then I suppose I will hurt them both. I will not give my money to support an organization that treats its customers as thieves and expects us to come begging for more. I buy 1-2 albums a year now and only ones where I think the artist categorically deserves my money. Do Bush, Puddle of Mud, Metallica, Madonna, or Ricky Martin genuinely expect me to spend my hard-earned money to keep them in business??? I will listen by radio, thanks very much, and screw the advertisers too because I refuse to buy their products...
First of all, it suggests that P2P networks are by nature about piracy. I am a huge fan of BitTorrent and have used it for nothing other than downloading cool movie trailers. While piracy has always been common online, you can't blame the cables for the content.
The second issue I take with this submission is the phrase "more resistant to attacks from content owners." I assume you're talking about the RIAA because security from artists who want to be paid for their work is not something most people ever want. Sure, cut the thieves in the RIAA out of the equation but few people will ever begrudge the artists their $1 or $2 per album. It's the oligarchy that is the RIAA that people are mad at.
I don't think any other problems North Korea may have has any bearing on whether or not they have high-tech hacking schools. I work for a large multinational and am repsonsible for IT in all areas outside US and Europe and the bushmen with bamboo computers and blow-guns myth is precisely that. Goddam Nigeria buys Pentium 4's, you think North Korea still uses vacuum tubes as the article laughingly asserts? Hell, India is considered one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world, have nuclear weapons and a space programme, but have barely 50% literacy. North Korea builds 8-lane highways that go virtually unused for future growth, don't think they don't have the resources and bright minds to throw at a military problem they think is pressing. I'm not saying the school is real, I really wouldn't know, but don't subscribe to the myth that everyone else in the world is using Lite-Brite instead of notebooks...
one day, just maybe, he'll even make a living from it...
Bram hopes to make a living off code that he wrote that the community seems to really like? Queue the peanut gallery with cries of "sell-out" and "greed" and random smatterings of the words "corporate" and "freedom". I've not used BT extensively but what little I've seen impressed me immensely. Hopefully he can turn it into something that funds its own improvements, and if he's lucky to help pay some bills as well.
Yes, I think you've nailed it. Microsoft's tried-and-true method for revenue generation is leveraging products against each other. If you can upgrade for free without buying a new OS, they lose their cash cow. Here is how this will play out:
When the next version of MS-Office comes out it will have all sorts of great new web integration features built in. To use those features you will need IE7. However IE7 will only be available bundled with the OS, so you must buy another copy. Eventually the cycle begins anew.
Was speaking with a friend recently and he had heard through the grapevine that the compression done on Tivo video renders very poor quality output, well below that of standard cable TV. I've been thinking of jumping on the PVR bandwagon for a while now but this worries me a lot. Can anyone who has a PVR comment on video quality? How does it compare to things like DivX, VCD, cable TV, satellite etc? I don't want to plug a DVR into my expensive TV and end up with something that makes live cable look awful. Thanks in advance for your insights.
I've got it! Are there any books about two young lovers who meet in a chat room, but they are destined never to be together because one is a Mac user and one is Linux user? They try to pursue their love in secret chat rooms using fake handles, but then the LUG/MUG finds out and forbids them to ever speak again! In desperation she pretends to have switched to Windows, and he in his despair formats his HDD and really does install Windows! She comes online, realizes her lover has been seized by the cold, inhuman clutches of Redmond and she formats and installs Windows too! No greater a love story has ever been told.
Now that's literature, why didn't anyone ever come up with an idea like that!
After all, everyone knows that console hardware is sold for a fairly significant loss, all the profit is in the licensing of titles. One on its own isn't much to sneeze at, but a cluser of 64? You get a fairly powerful cluster and Sony subsidizes your super-computer. Smart idea...
This may be a low-cost gamble, considering SAP-DB is technically quite good but not very popular. MySQL still lacks a lot technically, but it sure has a big hacker following. SAP no doubt wants a piece of the enterprise DB pie and maybe they see Linux and Apache's success and think, "hell it costs peanuts to support the MySQL team and even though it's a long shot there's a slim chance we could start another revolution." Obviously this is pure conjecture but not an unreasonable explanation for what several people seem to be calling a strange move.
Kernel hackers is a false term. Anyone who was there when the term "hackers" was invented knows that it refers to unauthorized entry to a computer system. Hacking does not mean to program, it means to circumvent security... Everyone who has told you otherwise has lied. People are trying to redefine a term after it was invented, programming is not hacking, period.
You are wrong, I was there when the terms hacking and cracking came to be and people seem to have forgotten it. Let me make this finally clear:
1. Hacking involves the intentional but usually casual compromise of computer systems. Recently it also includes general technical activity.
2. Cracking is the process of removing copy protection from commercial software. IT HAS NO OTHER MEANING.
3. Phreaking is the process of using illegal methods to make long distance calls.
Even though people have tried for a long time to redefine terms like "hacking", those of us in the know still remember what it means. A decade of redefinitions and wishful thinking will not change this...
Then try hopping to grammar, "their" != "they're", I'm shocked by how few people know English. No wonder no one else understands us, we don't even know how to speak our own language...
So as not to confuse the teenies... Teens DO NOT have more disposable income on average than someone in their thirties. However they spend more of it on entertainment and small luxuries than do thirty-somethings. As a thirty-something I can say we spend more money on essentials than teenagers do, and more money on luxuries as well. Example: teenagers would tend to spend lots of money on beer and CDs. Thirty-somethings spend it on rent, a new Skil saw, and a boat. Don't listen to people who say teenagers have more disposable income, it's bullcrap. They spend their money differently, but ultimately with age comes income...
conceive a worse punishment than outliving your own children and knowing it was because of your own parental neglect?
You assume they judge themselves by the same rational, logical criteria you judge yourself by. But then most rational people aren't bad parents. If you're willing to neglect the responsibility of being a good parent then you're probably going to neglect the responsibility of holding yourself accountable for your own mistakes. Bad parents blame videogames when their kids shoot other kids. Good parents' kids don't do it in the first place, so they never need blame anyone.
Re:The reason people steal music
on
PressPlay + Roxio?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I disagree, why do people keep blaming crappy product on the producers? Consumers drive the market, if we're swallowing terrible music by the crapload it's because we're demanding it. If there's no demand there's no supply. Jerry Springer isn't responsible for cruddy TV and CNN isn't the cause of sensational reporting, they are delivering what people are demanding. Boatloads of crap. Classical music, blues, jazz all still exist. But no one buys them. There is no supply where there is no demand. And if you want to know the source of the endless demand for crap, then my proud American, you need not look very far.
I dunno, I could care less if my real name appears on my posts. My name is "David B. Chase" and 5 of them show up just when searching my bank records for similar names, and I live in a country of only 31M. There could be dozens of people with my first and last name. I can use it and still be truly anonymous.
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Well, while I think you make a very good point (particularly in regard to the FCC not being an authority to levy taxes) your reference to "taxation without representation" is taken out of context.
First of all, your Constitution (yes yours, I am a Canadian) does not say that Congress must approve taxes, it says that congress is *authorized* to approve taxes. It simply grants the right to congress, it does not remove the right from any other body.
Secondly taxation without representation is not addressed at all in your Constitution although reference is made in the Declaration of Independence. (Can anyone tell me where the phrase originated, I drew a blank on its origins..)
Finally, "taxation without representation" refers to the fact that Britain was taxing their American colonies however residents of America did not get to vote for members of Congress. It had nothing to do with Congressional approval of taxes, rest assured Britain's Congress approved taxation of the colonies. The issue was that the colonies these approvals were coming from a properly elected official with the interests of the colonies at heart.
I was about to say that this isn't a socialist state and I don't give a flying hoo-hah if low-income rural subscribers can't get cheap cable.
Fortunately your government disagrees with you on both points. That's why you have libraries: education and access to information to people who can't afford it. That's why public school is free. That's why you have a welfare system. That's why you have food stamps. That's why universities have scholarships. How on earth did you get the impression you didn't live in a socialist state? What country do you live in and unless the US has eliminated all the above, don't say the USA...
Before the rants get too intense about this being a corrupt violation of your rights (read: making you pay for something) you should read the following from the article:
About 85 percent of the fund's revenues are split between two causes: the "e-rate" program (40 percent), which subsidizes school and library Internet connections, and rural telephone companies (45 percent), which might otherwise end up paying more for telephone service than city dwellers. The remaining 15 percent goes toward discounts to low-income subscribers and funds rural health care.
Yes, that's right. 55% of this tax will go to school internet connections, library internet access, and low-income subscribers and health care. 45% goes to the somewhat less worthy but still valid rural subscribers to keep costs equitable. Now, what was that you were about to say?
I get the joke but I don't really agree with the analogy. Software is one of the only industries where there doesn't have to be any fact to product announcements or promises. This causes artificial fluctations in stock prices and real money is both won and lost.
When two companies merge they set "synergy" targets: the amount of money they expect to save through the merger. If they do not meet these, stock holders can be in a position to sue. If a drug company say they have a blockbuster drug in late trials and it turns out to be false, stock holders are in a position to sue. If Enron over-states profit they can be held accountable. Why shouldn't hollow promises about software be the same?
Promises that affect the buying or selling of stock need to be based on fact, not fiction.
It's funny and sad that game developers are literally begging the community to create their next big hit for them.
Why? The community has been writing mods for years, mission packs for major commercial games (both Quake mission packs come to mind) and are now being offered a nice prize to make what I'm sure will be a top-quality conversion. Developers are hoping to showcase the flexibility of their engines while funding the creation of the next wave of creative talent. You underestimate the community.
For example the community (amateur enthusiasts) created Linux. And GNU/Linux. ;-) And The Gimp. And Apache. And MySQL. These things run on everything from a web werver in an RJ45 plug to massively-parallel computing monsters from Ma Blue. Funny what this sad community can do...
In the end, you wind up with a paper that is poorly written, has no logical flow, etc etc.
Welcome to the business world. And I'm not even trying to be clever, this kind of collaborative work is more and more common these days. Our company swears by Lotus Notes which means most documents are pored over by huge teams of people, everyone submits a comment or two which must be incorporated, and you end up with something truly collaborative that often doesn't make a whole lot of sense. In fact most "collaborative" software people are raving about these days is about consolidating a cacaphony of sound bites from different people into a cohesive document. I'm not certain it works, although that's certainly what Open Source is about (and literally the entire purpose of CVS) so maybe I'm wrong. I still subscribe to the belief that a single brilliant chef can make a better meal than 20 working together. In fact, it makes me want to coin a phrase...
I'm glad he's leaving, AOL doesn't need him anyway; after all they have lawyers. Let the lawyers write the code. I'm sure AOL 10.0 will rock the house.
On the other hand this unleashes a creative, boisterous, unwielding and stubborn geek on the world, perhaps even to join the ranks of all those amateur open source hacks. In the end you get AOL run by a squeeky-clean army of professional lawyers and another rogue hacker who acknowledges no ones authority to dictate what he contributes to their quasi-communist "community" of freedom fighters. Altogether I think both sides are getting exactly what they deserve. ;-)
right now you can't hurt the RIAA without also hurting the artists.
Then I suppose I will hurt them both. I will not give my money to support an organization that treats its customers as thieves and expects us to come begging for more. I buy 1-2 albums a year now and only ones where I think the artist categorically deserves my money. Do Bush, Puddle of Mud, Metallica, Madonna, or Ricky Martin genuinely expect me to spend my hard-earned money to keep them in business??? I will listen by radio, thanks very much, and screw the advertisers too because I refuse to buy their products...
First of all, it suggests that P2P networks are by nature about piracy. I am a huge fan of BitTorrent and have used it for nothing other than downloading cool movie trailers. While piracy has always been common online, you can't blame the cables for the content.
The second issue I take with this submission is the phrase "more resistant to attacks from content owners." I assume you're talking about the RIAA because security from artists who want to be paid for their work is not something most people ever want. Sure, cut the thieves in the RIAA out of the equation but few people will ever begrudge the artists their $1 or $2 per album. It's the oligarchy that is the RIAA that people are mad at.
I don't think any other problems North Korea may have has any bearing on whether or not they have high-tech hacking schools. I work for a large multinational and am repsonsible for IT in all areas outside US and Europe and the bushmen with bamboo computers and blow-guns myth is precisely that. Goddam Nigeria buys Pentium 4's, you think North Korea still uses vacuum tubes as the article laughingly asserts? Hell, India is considered one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world, have nuclear weapons and a space programme, but have barely 50% literacy. North Korea builds 8-lane highways that go virtually unused for future growth, don't think they don't have the resources and bright minds to throw at a military problem they think is pressing. I'm not saying the school is real, I really wouldn't know, but don't subscribe to the myth that everyone else in the world is using Lite-Brite instead of notebooks...
one day, just maybe, he'll even make a living from it...
Bram hopes to make a living off code that he wrote that the community seems to really like? Queue the peanut gallery with cries of "sell-out" and "greed" and random smatterings of the words "corporate" and "freedom". I've not used BT extensively but what little I've seen impressed me immensely. Hopefully he can turn it into something that funds its own improvements, and if he's lucky to help pay some bills as well.
Yes, I think you've nailed it. Microsoft's tried-and-true method for revenue generation is leveraging products against each other. If you can upgrade for free without buying a new OS, they lose their cash cow. Here is how this will play out:
When the next version of MS-Office comes out it will have all sorts of great new web integration features built in. To use those features you will need IE7. However IE7 will only be available bundled with the OS, so you must buy another copy. Eventually the cycle begins anew.
I hope they succeed, but does this mean we should be expecting more orbital vehicle collisions?
Was speaking with a friend recently and he had heard through the grapevine that the compression done on Tivo video renders very poor quality output, well below that of standard cable TV. I've been thinking of jumping on the PVR bandwagon for a while now but this worries me a lot. Can anyone who has a PVR comment on video quality? How does it compare to things like DivX, VCD, cable TV, satellite etc? I don't want to plug a DVR into my expensive TV and end up with something that makes live cable look awful. Thanks in advance for your insights.
I've got it! Are there any books about two young lovers who meet in a chat room, but they are destined never to be together because one is a Mac user and one is Linux user? They try to pursue their love in secret chat rooms using fake handles, but then the LUG/MUG finds out and forbids them to ever speak again! In desperation she pretends to have switched to Windows, and he in his despair formats his HDD and really does install Windows! She comes online, realizes her lover has been seized by the cold, inhuman clutches of Redmond and she formats and installs Windows too! No greater a love story has ever been told.
Now that's literature, why didn't anyone ever come up with an idea like that!
How about something not "scifi-geek-hacker" for a change? It's a big world out there...
You mean like something about cracking instead?
After all, everyone knows that console hardware is sold for a fairly significant loss, all the profit is in the licensing of titles. One on its own isn't much to sneeze at, but a cluser of 64? You get a fairly powerful cluster and Sony subsidizes your super-computer. Smart idea...
This may be a low-cost gamble, considering SAP-DB is technically quite good but not very popular. MySQL still lacks a lot technically, but it sure has a big hacker following. SAP no doubt wants a piece of the enterprise DB pie and maybe they see Linux and Apache's success and think, "hell it costs peanuts to support the MySQL team and even though it's a long shot there's a slim chance we could start another revolution." Obviously this is pure conjecture but not an unreasonable explanation for what several people seem to be calling a strange move.
Kernel hackers is a false term. Anyone who was there when the term "hackers" was invented knows that it refers to unauthorized entry to a computer system. Hacking does not mean to program, it means to circumvent security... Everyone who has told you otherwise has lied. People are trying to redefine a term after it was invented, programming is not hacking, period.
You are wrong, I was there when the terms hacking and cracking came to be and people seem to have forgotten it. Let me make this finally clear:
1. Hacking involves the intentional but usually casual compromise of computer systems. Recently it also includes general technical activity.
2. Cracking is the process of removing copy protection from commercial software. IT HAS NO OTHER MEANING.
3. Phreaking is the process of using illegal methods to make long distance calls.
Even though people have tried for a long time to redefine terms like "hacking", those of us in the know still remember what it means. A decade of redefinitions and wishful thinking will not change this...
Then try hopping to grammar, "their" != "they're", I'm shocked by how few people know English. No wonder no one else understands us, we don't even know how to speak our own language...
So as not to confuse the teenies... Teens DO NOT have more disposable income on average than someone in their thirties. However they spend more of it on entertainment and small luxuries than do thirty-somethings. As a thirty-something I can say we spend more money on essentials than teenagers do, and more money on luxuries as well. Example: teenagers would tend to spend lots of money on beer and CDs. Thirty-somethings spend it on rent, a new Skil saw, and a boat. Don't listen to people who say teenagers have more disposable income, it's bullcrap. They spend their money differently, but ultimately with age comes income...
conceive a worse punishment than outliving your own children and knowing it was because of your own parental neglect?
You assume they judge themselves by the same rational, logical criteria you judge yourself by. But then most rational people aren't bad parents. If you're willing to neglect the responsibility of being a good parent then you're probably going to neglect the responsibility of holding yourself accountable for your own mistakes. Bad parents blame videogames when their kids shoot other kids. Good parents' kids don't do it in the first place, so they never need blame anyone.
I disagree, why do people keep blaming crappy product on the producers? Consumers drive the market, if we're swallowing terrible music by the crapload it's because we're demanding it. If there's no demand there's no supply. Jerry Springer isn't responsible for cruddy TV and CNN isn't the cause of sensational reporting, they are delivering what people are demanding. Boatloads of crap. Classical music, blues, jazz all still exist. But no one buys them. There is no supply where there is no demand. And if you want to know the source of the endless demand for crap, then my proud American, you need not look very far.
I dunno, I could care less if my real name appears on my posts. My name is "David B. Chase" and 5 of them show up just when searching my bank records for similar names, and I live in a country of only 31M. There could be dozens of people with my first and last name. I can use it and still be truly anonymous.