Yes, and the expenses for operation of these facilities were almost certainly paid by the artist.
Unlike employment agreements in the US, recording artists and record companies use a legally binding contract. Apparently this is different in the UK and elsewhere, e.g., there is an explicit and free-standing contract between each employee and the employer.
I think this argument and the other I've seen as yet regarding the RIAA suits are both irrelevant. There isn't any suit as of yet in this case, just a police raid. I don't think it'll stand, even though I would dearly love to see a sovereign government file suit against a multinational corporation. Or heck, Mexico could probably revoke whatever agreement it has for Sony Music to operate/distribute/etc in Mexico.
Sorry for my blind attack earlier. By 'simple,' I meant that you keep harping on the same thing. We get it, i.e., you look down on those with poor credit scores. I have since been shown that 'simple' is British parlance which indicates a lack of intelligence.
The problem with your assertion above is that you seem to be implying that the opposite is also true, e.g., the appearance of not having managed one's finances correctly is a good indicator that one is not responsible.
Further, it is possible to manipulate one's credit records so as to suggest the appearance of responsibility.
To wit, the most basic problem with record keeping is accuracy, both in content and in retrieval, as I'm sure you know very well. I'm saying that neither of these problems is addressed in the US. In the case of consumer credit records, the responsibility has been entirely pushed off onto the consumer--including the responsibility of a response. The credit bureaus are not legally required to acknowledge, let alone act on your requests for correction.
When it comes to criminal and many types of civil records, there is no clear avenue for correction, and it inevitably costs money and time. Even after a ruling has been made which demands correction, there is no punitive remedy for state agencies which continue to release inaccurate information.
It's not nearly as common, but arrest records and other information in criminal databases is much more damaging than credit information, and there are no laws covering your access to verify and/or correct it. Further, potential employers are not bound by law to tell you about what their background check found out about you.
Saying that labor unions as a whole want to get rid of secret ballots is an ignorant smear. Citing the wikipedia EFCA article--which says in its first paragraph that the purpose is to make it easier for employees to organize and join labor unions--is just silly.
And there's bound to be conflict between employers and employees, whether the employees are organized or not, and whether the organization is a previously organized labor union. I personally think that labor unions are outmoded, and that only worldwide unions are effective. The obvious tradeoff is corruption of worldwide organizations, as demonstrated with multinational corporations.
It's not that unions want to eliminate the secret ballot. They want to allow for authorization cards to be recognized as a valid alternative.
The rationale behind providing an alternative to a secret ballot is that most workplaces which benefit from union representation do not facilitate a secret ballot. Think it over: If you were put in charge of administering a secret ballot, what would be on your To Do List?
You may be accustomed to public elections with secret ballots run by someone else. That doesn't mean that it's easy to set up and run a secret ballot. Further, the employer is not interested in a union, and so is not inclined to help with the secret ballot.
All unions aren't helpful. All employers aren't fair. There is no single solution, even to the same problem in different places.
P1: I wrote my first/bin/sh script on 9/10/1984 P2: I'm still in touch with the other intern from that phase, who calls me and asks things like, "Is it 2>&1 or 2&>1? I never can remember..." C: Long term usage does not imply expertise.
I like to think I'm pretty good, but I still review Csh Programming Considered Harmful for more esoteric usage of/bin/sh, when I have only that old tool available.
I'll agree that the present teaching paradigms won't support the teaching of the philosophy of computer science. Your sweeping invalidation, however, seems to suggest that it could never happen.
Sure, it'll take something extraordinary. Look back and think about what got humans onto the Moon.
I'm not claiming to have accurate information. I'm saying that accurate information is not available. Consider that the source of this information is the manufacturers of the products.
Now if we had data from neutral sources, it would be a different story. In the case of the iPod, the figures from the Apple Stores skew the data, IMHO. Feel free to disagree. I fail to see how my claim implies that I provide accurate data--my claim is that accurate data simply is not available.
Further, it doesn't matter anyway. The average consumer may go for what everyone else seems to be buying, but I don't see Slashdot readers as susceptible to the mob opinion.
And to the kindly moderator who marked my earlier comment as "Troll," hey, thanks a lot. I had no idea I was trolling, I thought I was pointing out that marketing data serves one purpose: The marketing of products.
That is, it's not like these are browser usage stats. The corporations involved have a heavy interest in either saying that they're number one or in attenuating the impact of their product not being number one.
I think I see what you're trying to say, but it's obviated by the gross labeling. What is a "liberal", or a "conservative"?
I have friends that listen to Rush Limbaugh, and others to listen to Randi Rhodes. Neither ever misses any chance to hear what their chosen siren says.
I have other friends who go out of their way to get as many takes on issues and events as possible.
I value the opinions of the latter far more than the former, and discussions with them are far more interesting. We actually exchange information, and listen carefully to each other.
Yet all of the above are still my friends. In terms of perspective, all of my friends--including those who just avoid the constant stream (scream?) of news designed to grab our attention--are part of my picture of the world.
The only current social aspect with which I take issue is the black and white approach, the "you're either with us or against us" nonsense. Even if it were that simple--and it's demonstrably more complex--it would appear that I'm branded in some way so that all of my responses are predictable, and that there is nothing that could ever change my mind.
If that's the case, then why discuss or communicate anything besides "Ready, aim, fire" ?
I see absolutely no correlation between a university degree and the ability to support anything, whether it's some leftover turnkey application that runs on SCO or 1000+ servers.
I have a degree, but I became a sysadmin as an intern. I happened to enjoy the courses leading up to the degree, but the subject matter has very, very little to do with any of the work I've ever done as a sysadmin, or even as a systems architect. I got practical experience on the job, including how to drive an API, and a wealth of other experience that simply was not available in school.
Granted, there is a distinct advantage to understanding programming paradigms. I probably could have learnt the basics on my own, but it doesn't seem likely that I'd have entered the market with them. OTOH, I was hired out of school for systems support, then moved to software engineering when some idiot manager thought it would be a good idea to decimate the support staff. I found it to be utterly soul-crushing, but to be fair, it was a very customised system, e.g., they'd rolled their own network transport and DBMS.
That is, working alone or on a small development team is rewarding beyond description. Being a cog in a large software development corporation is a slow roast.
The enduring lessons I learned at university are critical reading and writing (handy with most manuals), the value of re-reading (manuals), and the value of project completion. The single most valuable lesson, which I use daily, is the confidence that I can tackle any subject matter, even when it seems impossible at first, with careful reading and asking questions. That alone is worth the time and money spent, because I know the difference between my own shortcomings and those of computing products.
Simply put, college provided enough trial and error for me to convince myself that I really grok computers. You may not need this for yourself, and it's too bad that most hiring managers don't have the same luxury of trial and error. They're probably going to be stuck with whomever they hire, so the degree is very attractive to them.
How else are you going to attract and keep the best?
What's missing from the question are the definitions for "how" and "best". Your points are well taken, especially the assertion that teachers don't teach for money. However, administrators do indeed supervise educational institutions for money, and lots of it. Further, it is unproven that spending more on an education returns a better one, only that influential connections are more likely.
I submit that the effect under discussion is quite simply a reflection of what we have found almost everywhere else. We do not know how to measure performance. There seems to be no regard for merit, only for executives attaining target numbers. In short, it's rotten at the top.
These target numbers, it seems, are nowhere near what is wanted. In some cases, they are set by cronies who sit on each others' boards. In other cases, the settings are made by those unwilling to perform--or even consult research on how to set them. There are also the targets which have not been changed for decades, and represent extinct models.
It's ironic that in this case, the application of the old targets reveals the present weakness.
The high irony is in the subject at hand. It's one thing to see this effect cause the failure of large firms. It's quite another to see the failure affect the next generation. It implies that we are headed full tilt down a slope, and ignoring that it becomes progressively more slippery.
That is, it becomes increasingly difficult to climb back up.
Right, except for the spying part. Socialism has nothing to do with individual rights. You're thinking of Fascism, or possibly Totalitarianism.
And the "mostly put forth by [D]emocrats" is a canard. Republicans do their share of promoting socialism--for their political base. What do you think the Bush (and Reagan) tax cuts were?
Oh, well then you're not a US government supporter, period. Have a gander at the past seventy years. The "free market" BS is a smokescreen to distract you from long-standing instruments like parity, subsidies, and other forms of never-ending socialism and government bailouts. Just because you don't hear about it on the news or read about it on your favorite blog doesn't mean that it hasn't been going on for a long time, or that it's somehow going to stop tomorrow because of your ill-informed bleating. For example, why do you think milk is more expensive than gasoline? Hint: It's not the free market that sets the prices.
The Federal government is a big racket, featuring a Ponzi scheme (Social Security), protection payments (IRS), and a host of other coercion under the heading "Federal Revenue." You don't have any say in how this money is spent. Occasionally, we can band together and scare elected officials (and their staff) into backing off a little. Regardless of the rhetoric of any political entity, it's little more than refined feudalism.
If you require indisputable evidence, look into Treasury Notes. They're considered to be zero risk, because the presumption is that the government can simply tax the citizens to reap their value, even with record deficits.
For a lesson in what happens when the government bankrupts itself, look into the British Crown's overspending on the French-Indian War, and then see what happened when it tried to get the money back from the American colonists.
Then look into how the world currency standard shifted from GBP to USD.
Or, you know, don't bother, and continue to demonstrate your ignorance and willingness to repeat what someone else told you without looking into it.
And it's not horrible. If you can manage to come up with something to sell that most everyone else believes that s/he needs, you can get enough money to pay the hidden and obvious taxes and still make a handsome living. If you get your hands on some serious money, you can get into some serious capitalism and start to influence the government itself.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, and the expenses for operation of these facilities were almost certainly paid by the artist.
Unlike employment agreements in the US, recording artists and record companies use a legally binding contract. Apparently this is different in the UK and elsewhere, e.g., there is an explicit and free-standing contract between each employee and the employer.
I think this argument and the other I've seen as yet regarding the RIAA suits are both irrelevant. There isn't any suit as of yet in this case, just a police raid. I don't think it'll stand, even though I would dearly love to see a sovereign government file suit against a multinational corporation. Or heck, Mexico could probably revoke whatever agreement it has for Sony Music to operate/distribute/etc in Mexico.
Sorry for my blind attack earlier. By 'simple,' I meant that you keep harping on the same thing. We get it, i.e., you look down on those with poor credit scores. I have since been shown that 'simple' is British parlance which indicates a lack of intelligence.
The problem with your assertion above is that you seem to be implying that the opposite is also true, e.g., the appearance of not having managed one's finances correctly is a good indicator that one is not responsible.
Further, it is possible to manipulate one's credit records so as to suggest the appearance of responsibility.
To wit, the most basic problem with record keeping is accuracy, both in content and in retrieval, as I'm sure you know very well. I'm saying that neither of these problems is addressed in the US. In the case of consumer credit records, the responsibility has been entirely pushed off onto the consumer--including the responsibility of a response. The credit bureaus are not legally required to acknowledge, let alone act on your requests for correction.
When it comes to criminal and many types of civil records, there is no clear avenue for correction, and it inevitably costs money and time. Even after a ruling has been made which demands correction, there is no punitive remedy for state agencies which continue to release inaccurate information.
If only it were that simple.
You seem to be rather simple, come to think of it.
It's not nearly as common, but arrest records and other information in criminal databases is much more damaging than credit information, and there are no laws covering your access to verify and/or correct it. Further, potential employers are not bound by law to tell you about what their background check found out about you.
I remember exactly the same argument when high-dollar MP3 players started showing up. Whatever the market will bear.
Dang! Why is it that I only hear about these bitchen sites after they've been shut down?
Rip open the diseased heart of a corporation and what spills out? People.
~Richard K. Morgan, Broken Angels
Nice. Spew talking points much?
Saying that labor unions as a whole want to get rid of secret ballots is an ignorant smear. Citing the wikipedia EFCA article--which says in its first paragraph that the purpose is to make it easier for employees to organize and join labor unions--is just silly.
And there's bound to be conflict between employers and employees, whether the employees are organized or not, and whether the organization is a previously organized labor union. I personally think that labor unions are outmoded, and that only worldwide unions are effective. The obvious tradeoff is corruption of worldwide organizations, as demonstrated with multinational corporations.
It's not that unions want to eliminate the secret ballot. They want to allow for authorization cards to be recognized as a valid alternative.
The rationale behind providing an alternative to a secret ballot is that most workplaces which benefit from union representation do not facilitate a secret ballot. Think it over: If you were put in charge of administering a secret ballot, what would be on your To Do List?
You may be accustomed to public elections with secret ballots run by someone else. That doesn't mean that it's easy to set up and run a secret ballot. Further, the employer is not interested in a union, and so is not inclined to help with the secret ballot.
All unions aren't helpful. All employers aren't fair. There is no single solution, even to the same problem in different places.
Your point is well taken, but like everything else, there's a trade off. If the ballot is secret, it is easier to manipulate.
P1: I wrote my first /bin/sh script on 9/10/1984
P2: I'm still in touch with the other intern from that phase, who calls me and asks things like, "Is it 2>&1 or 2&>1? I never can remember..."
C: Long term usage does not imply expertise.
I like to think I'm pretty good, but I still review Csh Programming Considered Harmful for more esoteric usage of /bin/sh, when I have only that old tool available.
Hey, when did corporations start posting here? Is that you, MC Visa?
I'll agree that the present teaching paradigms won't support the teaching of the philosophy of computer science. Your sweeping invalidation, however, seems to suggest that it could never happen.
Sure, it'll take something extraordinary. Look back and think about what got humans onto the Moon.
Your response demonstrates the need for instruction from an early age.
The problem, as mentioned above, is that the teachers aren't going to know enough to teach the material.
I'm old enough to remember adults complaining about the new math.
It affects you in that you don't get anything out of it. See also abortion.
You'd have more cred here if you'd posted AC.
Sorry, I should have said, "accurate" instead of "factual."
I'm not claiming to have accurate information. I'm saying that accurate information is not available. Consider that the source of this information is the manufacturers of the products.
Now if we had data from neutral sources, it would be a different story. In the case of the iPod, the figures from the Apple Stores skew the data, IMHO. Feel free to disagree. I fail to see how my claim implies that I provide accurate data--my claim is that accurate data simply is not available.
Further, it doesn't matter anyway. The average consumer may go for what everyone else seems to be buying, but I don't see Slashdot readers as susceptible to the mob opinion.
And to the kindly moderator who marked my earlier comment as "Troll," hey, thanks a lot. I had no idea I was trolling, I thought I was pointing out that marketing data serves one purpose: The marketing of products.
That is, it's not like these are browser usage stats. The corporations involved have a heavy interest in either saying that they're number one or in attenuating the impact of their product not being number one.
For which market? I'm pretty sure that this touted figure is limited to "high end" (read "expensive") music players.
Or maybe it's the "DRM-crippled music player" market.
Either way, it's not a factual stat, just a marketing tool.
Come to think of it, when is the last time you got a stat that you knew for sure was factual?
I think I see what you're trying to say, but it's obviated by the gross labeling. What is a "liberal", or a "conservative"?
I have friends that listen to Rush Limbaugh, and others to listen to Randi Rhodes. Neither ever misses any chance to hear what their chosen siren says.
I have other friends who go out of their way to get as many takes on issues and events as possible.
I value the opinions of the latter far more than the former, and discussions with them are far more interesting. We actually exchange information, and listen carefully to each other.
Yet all of the above are still my friends. In terms of perspective, all of my friends--including those who just avoid the constant stream (scream?) of news designed to grab our attention--are part of my picture of the world.
The only current social aspect with which I take issue is the black and white approach, the "you're either with us or against us" nonsense. Even if it were that simple--and it's demonstrably more complex--it would appear that I'm branded in some way so that all of my responses are predictable, and that there is nothing that could ever change my mind.
If that's the case, then why discuss or communicate anything besides "Ready, aim, fire" ?
I see absolutely no correlation between a university degree and the ability to support anything, whether it's some leftover turnkey application that runs on SCO or 1000+ servers.
I have a degree, but I became a sysadmin as an intern. I happened to enjoy the courses leading up to the degree, but the subject matter has very, very little to do with any of the work I've ever done as a sysadmin, or even as a systems architect. I got practical experience on the job, including how to drive an API, and a wealth of other experience that simply was not available in school.
Granted, there is a distinct advantage to understanding programming paradigms. I probably could have learnt the basics on my own, but it doesn't seem likely that I'd have entered the market with them. OTOH, I was hired out of school for systems support, then moved to software engineering when some idiot manager thought it would be a good idea to decimate the support staff. I found it to be utterly soul-crushing, but to be fair, it was a very customised system, e.g., they'd rolled their own network transport and DBMS.
That is, working alone or on a small development team is rewarding beyond description. Being a cog in a large software development corporation is a slow roast.
The enduring lessons I learned at university are critical reading and writing (handy with most manuals), the value of re-reading (manuals), and the value of project completion. The single most valuable lesson, which I use daily, is the confidence that I can tackle any subject matter, even when it seems impossible at first, with careful reading and asking questions. That alone is worth the time and money spent, because I know the difference between my own shortcomings and those of computing products.
Simply put, college provided enough trial and error for me to convince myself that I really grok computers. You may not need this for yourself, and it's too bad that most hiring managers don't have the same luxury of trial and error. They're probably going to be stuck with whomever they hire, so the degree is very attractive to them.
What's missing from the question are the definitions for "how" and "best". Your points are well taken, especially the assertion that teachers don't teach for money. However, administrators do indeed supervise educational institutions for money, and lots of it. Further, it is unproven that spending more on an education returns a better one, only that influential connections are more likely.
I submit that the effect under discussion is quite simply a reflection of what we have found almost everywhere else. We do not know how to measure performance. There seems to be no regard for merit, only for executives attaining target numbers. In short, it's rotten at the top.
These target numbers, it seems, are nowhere near what is wanted. In some cases, they are set by cronies who sit on each others' boards. In other cases, the settings are made by those unwilling to perform--or even consult research on how to set them. There are also the targets which have not been changed for decades, and represent extinct models.
It's ironic that in this case, the application of the old targets reveals the present weakness.
The high irony is in the subject at hand. It's one thing to see this effect cause the failure of large firms. It's quite another to see the failure affect the next generation. It implies that we are headed full tilt down a slope, and ignoring that it becomes progressively more slippery.
That is, it becomes increasingly difficult to climb back up.
That's old wives' tale, you Neanderthal.
See also the SNL parody of CNN's election map touchscreen.
Right, except for the spying part. Socialism has nothing to do with individual rights. You're thinking of Fascism, or possibly Totalitarianism.
And the "mostly put forth by [D]emocrats" is a canard. Republicans do their share of promoting socialism--for their political base. What do you think the Bush (and Reagan) tax cuts were?
I think you may have been fooled by the fruits of the GOPAC's Language: A Key Mechanism of Control document.
Oh, well then you're not a US government supporter, period. Have a gander at the past seventy years. The "free market" BS is a smokescreen to distract you from long-standing instruments like parity, subsidies, and other forms of never-ending socialism and government bailouts. Just because you don't hear about it on the news or read about it on your favorite blog doesn't mean that it hasn't been going on for a long time, or that it's somehow going to stop tomorrow because of your ill-informed bleating. For example, why do you think milk is more expensive than gasoline? Hint: It's not the free market that sets the prices.
The Federal government is a big racket, featuring a Ponzi scheme (Social Security), protection payments (IRS), and a host of other coercion under the heading "Federal Revenue." You don't have any say in how this money is spent. Occasionally, we can band together and scare elected officials (and their staff) into backing off a little. Regardless of the rhetoric of any political entity, it's little more than refined feudalism.
If you require indisputable evidence, look into Treasury Notes. They're considered to be zero risk, because the presumption is that the government can simply tax the citizens to reap their value, even with record deficits.
For a lesson in what happens when the government bankrupts itself, look into the British Crown's overspending on the French-Indian War, and then see what happened when it tried to get the money back from the American colonists.
Then look into how the world currency standard shifted from GBP to USD.
Or, you know, don't bother, and continue to demonstrate your ignorance and willingness to repeat what someone else told you without looking into it.
And it's not horrible. If you can manage to come up with something to sell that most everyone else believes that s/he needs, you can get enough money to pay the hidden and obvious taxes and still make a handsome living. If you get your hands on some serious money, you can get into some serious capitalism and start to influence the government itself.