Just because all of the ethics violations don't result in disaster doesn't mean that they're numerous. It's not the cutting of corners that causes the problem. It's cutting corners without communicating same.
So the general case is that of a software bug: Modifications introduced out of band from the design. Whether they're mistakes, misinterpretations, or willful mods ("this will work better"), they're still potential bugs, often missed by testing based on the original design.
That being said, it becomes apparent that the problem of hiding such modifications is only unethical when they're willfully hidden. The scale of the violation of ethics is given by the knowledge of the danger of the hidden modification. For example, if I discover a possibly misleading scale difference in a series of user interface screens on a software-controlled aircraft, my boss might not want to do anything about it in order to keep the project from going over budget so s/he can get his/her bonus. That's unethical, because it's a willful decision which conflicts with what one knows ought to be done.
According the Washington Post's Citizen K Street series, it started in 1975 with Cassidy and Associates, It was the first "lobbying firm"; it's now known as the most lucrative lobbying firm in Washington. D.C. Highly recommended, if you're interested to see how lobbying morphed from pork barrel for universities into the almost complete pimping of the US Legislature into a tool for wielding corporate power as we know it today.
ObWarning: It's 25 chapters long plus an introduction, there's a fair amount of Flash intros, and some of it is downright disgusting.
IMHO, this is either going to turn out like Iran/Contra or Watergate. My guess is that it's not so much public opinion and approval ratings as it is media mogul opinion and Nielsen ratings.
Or it could turn out like the 2000 Presidential election, i.e., the Supreme Court rules, and that's that.
Is it just me, or does anyone else keep hearing this message that We the People don't really have any say?
Recently, Americans have had a combination of cheap gas and extra spending money for cars, so they were focused on everything but MPG. Things are swinging the other way now, so you will see MPG go up.
Right. I think our only disagreement is in the meanings of "recently" and "now". I remember gasoline prices going up in the late Seventies--and that's when low-mileage cars first became popular. I'll grant that the recent spike in gasoline prices seems to have gotten the manufacturer's attention, but they seem more sluggish than a walrus with a hangover.
In my view, the American automakers' response to gas prices has been ridiculously slow and nearly immeasurable. Just last month, they told the Congress that they couldn't possibly increase gas mileage without losing money--and the Congress seems to have bought the paradoxical argument. Great, let's just let them keep making crappy cars that don't last and that burn too much gas, all in the name of short-sightedness and tunnel vision.
See also the EPA smackdown in California, and the record profits turned in by Exxon-Mobil and Chevron-Texaco-Unocal.
I'm just saying that the fix is in, and that it's far less a case of supply and demand than it is a corporate-controlled government. On a global scale, of course, economics will shake things out to level, i.e., American cars will continue to become like those manufactured in the now-defunct Soviet Union. Perhaps we'll even have our own version of the Yugo in a few decades.
I beg to differ. GM is almost completely out of touch with what American consumers want. Have a look at their MPG stats, and at their reliability ratings. Then go back to their massive technology investments and make sense of how they spent their money vs. what they got.
American auto manufacturing is a bad, bad joke. It wasn't that long ago that GM was still honoring Henry Ford's "never stop the assembly line" maxim by creating "fix up" areas where thousands of cars and trucks with known defects were pulled off of the line to correct these defects just so they could get to the end of the line. Meanwhile, the government sent Edwards Deming to Japan to teach them true efficiency management, and they listened to him. Have a look at how efficiently they've come to dominance in auto manufacturing.
This is a broad subject. In general, I find it interesting that the auto manufacturers with the best MPG ratings are those in countries with no petroleum industry, and/or weak industry lobbyists.
Regarding organized labor, there isn't enough labor-intensive manufacturing left in these United States for unions to make a difference--in manufacturing. And how in the world are unions competing with corporations on a global scale??? If anything, it's the other way round: Corporations are simply sending jobs to countries to sidestep talking to unions in the US. Sure, there have been and probably always will be abuses by unions, and we'll be hearing about them all the way--from the corporations. Notice how you don't hear so much about the corporate abuses. That's no accident. If you must look at it as a "two sides" issue, then each side does indeed have a vested interest in making the other look bad. Notice which one is set up to do the most efficient job. Then consider how much more productive the corporation would be if it focused on its core business instead of on damage control--or control in general.
Trick question: Who manufactures more, the US or China? The US, but only because we're far more automated. And because we can count weapons manufacturing.
Don't kid yourself. What's good for GM is not good for America. It's good for that multi-national corporation--but who's to say what's good for it? Not its executives or directors, apparently. I'd miss it if it went under, but I also miss affordable health care, privacy, and representative democracy.
[personal record, replying twice to same [AC] post]
The fact that you distinguish "salary" and "wages" does not change the data set, grok?
Right. It doesn't change the data set. What's different is the interpretation of the data set. In this case, the data set is useless in support of Limbaugh's argument. The decision by the IRS to not distinguish between wages, salary, and other types of compensation does not imply that these distinctions are irrelevant.
Consider that the entire IRS description is "wages, tips, and other compensation."
I'm saying that "the top 1%" as defined by IRS income tax categories has nothing whatsoever to do with the top 1% of rich/wealthy American citizens.
It's deceptive to claim that the top %1 pay the most taxes--without qualifying the terms.
"The top 1%" is precisely the ambiguity I seek to refute. This term is often misused to refer to those with the highest net worth, whereas Limbaugh's results are based on income.
I personally distinguish wages from salary, i.e., I define wages as trading hours for money. Salaried employees, like the executives you mention, are most certainly not paid by the hour. Many of those are paid a relatively low base salary, with quarterly bonuses based on easily attainable goals. Look more closely, and recall that the media has little interest in explaining everything: it requires more of an attention span, and makes it harder to cut up the programming to fit in between the advertisements. Plus it's far more attention-getting to shout simple phrases.
No, those with multimillion dollar compensation packages are not middle class... or are they? Is class defined by income, or by lifestyle, or simply by subjective perception? To which class does the retired janitor who has saved more than a million dollars belong? How about the trust fund kid who lives in a crack house?
There are many who earn six figures who would probably be judged to be "middle class" because of their lifestyles and their investment strategies. I judge it as distraction to focus on who is paying more taxes. What I'm interested in is what is being done with the taxes.
There's just one problem with that data: it's based on the top 1% of wage earners. The wealthy do not earn wages. It is my opinion that wage earners define the middle class, although the notion of class distinction in a democratic Republic is open to interpretation.
For that matter, any assertion involving the term "middle class" is open to interpretation.
It's not so much that Limbaugh isn't popular with technically-minded people, it's that he is not nearly as interested in facts as he is in attention. He himself has admitted as much. He makes money by remaining popular, by inciting listeners to excitement. That's the stock in trade of talk radio: Current events plus interpretation with a clear agenda, designed to leave you feeling a certain way.
There's nothing wrong with choosing that flavor of entertainment. The problems crop up when you begin to use data from an entertainment source as fact. For example, I thoroughly enjoyed Michael Clayton, but if I wanted facts about corporate crime, I'd look elsewhere.
If Limbaugh inspires you, great. Inspired people move things forward. One of our biggest problems lately is that the inspired don't step out and think for themselves. My recommendation is that you maintain the distinction between entertainment and news. Get your facts from a reliable source, i.e., from a different source than your inspiration.
If you like thinking for yourself, that is. If you'd prefer to just listen without asking any questions, go right ahead. Just don't expect anyone who isn't plugged into the same source to treat you with any respect.
Too bad it's not that way in government agencies. My impression is that their dominant mindsets are:
No use of "not invented here" techniques or technology
We'll never win this "war", the best we can do is to get ourselves promoted
Open software and other new technologies are tools of the enemy
Let's use my cousin Bob's company to get this done
I would be surprised and delighted to learn that things are any different at all. Having served in the military, I retain a smug sense of superiority, even though I know that there must be intelligent life in government. It's frustrating to keep finding that we're being taxed and led by selfish, incompetent people.
It's like growing up in a home infested with vermin, where the parents just shrug and say that they can't do anything about it, when it's obvious that they're just spending their money and attention on something else. Their willful ignorance might allow me to get away with whatever I want. The trade-off is finding that my possessions have been gnawed by mice or encountering cockroaches that look at me defiantly when I turn on the light.
As long as they let me alone, I'm OK with it. When they step in and try to suddenly impose discipline, I want to say, "Where were you when I needed you?"
No, the government isn't my parents, but it's been getting closer to the asymptote. Public school has been mandatory since before I was born. Income tax is beyond mandatory. Laws have become more and more restrictive, and we are now being monitored without warrants. That's pretty close to what I remember of my own parents, except that in this case, I own all of the responsibility.
On a national level, it's not as simple as moving out. The analog to running away from home is participation in some underground economy.
Well, I don't want any of that either, but (a) that's not what we're talking about here, and (b) posting rants on the net isn't going to help at all, and may in fact make it worse. Have some fruit juice--prunes, if you need it--and have a cleansing bowel movement. I do believe that in your case, it'll clear your head. Then find an outlet for all of that pent-up frustration. Form a band. Start a blog, a group blog. Write a letter to the editor.
Better yet, study the formation of these United States. It's very informative to what you seem to be so upset about. Some of it is what makes the place work, even if you don't happen to like it. Some of it really sucks possum ass. It turns out that your Congressional representatives can be made to pay attention very quickly if they (or their staff, get to know their staff) get a whiff of "dissatisfaction with the incumbent." For them, it's get re-elected or die. For you, it's something to do with your time. It's also very, very handy to be able to drop your Congressional reps' names like you know 'em if the IRS tries to intimidate you.
Or, if you prefer, stay there in the corner and keep complaining.
I mean, at the very least, you could offer some solution. Even a toddler can come up with a solution, although it may involve imaginary friends. I can tell you from experience that "there's room for improvement" is a far healthier place to stand than "it's all fucked."
And do keep us updated; your personal worldview is positively fascinating.
You seem to have missed the semi-recent controversy over the dismissal of US attorneys, i.e., it follows by extension that if attorneys can be dismissed for their unwillingness to be partial, then judges can stay in office by eschewing impartiality, when prudently aligned with The Appointer.
Nothing is wrong with it at all--but your employer would prefer that you give more and more time in exchange for your salary.
OP said, "Hey, I telecommute, and I do great work. I'm way more productive than my colleagues in the office, and I don't like the office environment."
TFA said, "People who work with telecommuters [or overseas colleagues] tend to resent the people who aren't in the office, e.g., What's so special about them that they don't have to put up with all of the crap that I do just to be in the office?"
Your post is an extension of the point of the article: People in office resent telecommuters, probably because they wish they could telecommute, too.
And there you have it for television: The customer is not the consumer. The customer is the advertiser. Forget the consumer. There's no rationale for treating the consumer with any respect or consideration. The emphasis is on proving the value to the customer--the advertiser.
Perhaps the same applies in a different way for film and music, albeit blunted and less direct. The real customer is obviously not the consumer... it's the investors, which vary from enterprise to enterprise.
We tend to think we have a stake and perhaps a say because we spend our time watching and/or listening, when really we're simply spending time with no promise of return on that investment. Celebrity is impossible without fans, but there's no way to reward the fans except with more output.
Investors and advertisers, though, can be rewarded more directly.
After all, it's just entertainment. I'll cop to ranking it as more important than simple distraction from my responsibilities, but ultimately, it's just some stories that I like.
More than anything, I'm interested in this discussion because I find it entertaining to see how content providers, producers and "owners" are squirming. How long, I sometimes wonder, how long until one of more of them acts out inappropriately? Surely it'll be a big hit on YouTube.
In general, the same applies for my fascination with Presidential candidates: Surely one of them is just going to pop. The difference is that the result of that conflagration is far more profound than whether some studio is going to use DRM or not.
Re:What this could mean for SpanktraVision
on
33 MegaPixel TV in 2015
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
The old EST/Forum Six Day training used to feature something like this. You and the others doing the course were led into a room and seated. Without warning, the lights went out and a dozen or so projectors started up, showing very hardcore porn on one or more walls of the room. I'm talking anal Nazi fisting and the like--everything you can imagine short of child porn or snuff.
The resulting conversation was designed to demonstrate that whichever film you couldn't stop watching was the one you "couldn't be with." Most everyone agreed that they tended to ignore the tamer (or familiar) scenes and found themselves staring at the strange.
I notice that my tastes in entertainment continue to change--and that we think we need bigger and sharper vidscreens. Compare and contrast to the technicians who create bigger/sharper/better vidscreens: I think they're in it more for the "we have the technology" angle.
Perhaps it would have prevented them from having obtained valid licenses and/or other IDs from multiple states, but this has nothing to do with the discussion.
With their valid identification, they were able to receive pilot training. It has yet to be shown that the scheme being discussed could prevent the same exploit.
The larger discussion is the continuing distraction of the population of these United States by the federal government. Civil liberties are being removed in the name of security, with the flimsy justification of a straw man called The War On Terror, aided and abetted by the spectre of Identity Theft. Consider that both problems are caused by a lack of security on the part of entities in whom we naively trust: Corporations and Government. Notice how these entities take no responsibility for their laziness and mistakes--and how their solution is to demand more from the consumer/citizen. Credit issuers have successfully declaimed most, if not all responsibility for the security and accuracy of your credit records. Government agencies have simply demanded that we give up more rights in exchange for the continued illusion of security.
The problems with a National Identification Card far outnumber the petty advantages for citizens. There are major advantages for the federal government, and a few minor advantages for state governments. In general, the FBI was created to take care of this sort of interstate problem.
It is unfortunate that, in the presence of fear, urgency, and desperation, we human beings are all too willing to submit to authority. When the authority doesn't seem to exist, we tend to invent it, in order to submit to it.
The predictable future--the one without any change in direction--is that we will find ourselves with very few rights, and for those the records will be inaccurate or lost.
Depending on 70 servers to support a business--health care or otherwise--and presuming that someone will simply support them is worse than presuming that your car will simply work if your maintenance is limited to keeping gas in the tank. Worse yet, most of those who employ systems support personnel for important systems tend to treat them like replaceable parts. I am presently engaged in a surreal conversation with a group of people who express shock and dismay that the previous sysadmins here didn't document their procedures--so now there is no one to set up the 20-odd people they've just hired for the expensive and vital business application for which they are responsible. After three meetings, they seem ready to move from denial to anger and bargaining. I doubt that they'll ever consider the management who keep turning over their systems staff to save a little money in the short term. I'm wondering how to break it to them that I'll be out of here before Q2 arrives.
Sure, there are idiot sysadmins out there who think that the job is all online. It's not: it includes a lot of clerical work, from recording serial numbers to negotiating maintenance agreements. On top of that, there are myriad fools who think it's easy, and more than a few who think it's cute to bash the profession.
Further, it's not the kind of job you can just leave at the office. Even if you're not on call--which you kind of are all the time--the problems you're solving tend to stay with you. Conversely, this defines the personality of the career sysadmin: We don't like to let go of unsolved problems.
Developers know very well that software is never perfected--it's just abandoned. Consider that systems software is no different.
IMHO, the penalty we're discussing was handed out by the same type of cluelessly fearful magistrate who thinks s/he can "send a message to hackers everywhere." I presume that most of us here feel the same mix of superiority and dread that the technology we're familiar with--earn our livings with--is far beyond the scope of the law of the land.
On the bright side, systems administration can be awesomely satisfying. You get the chance to save the day, sometimes with a bit of trivial knowledge. You can feel secure in the knowledge that you are a member of a group so elite that there is no training for what you do. It was a sysadmin who figured out that broken computer in the Apollo 13 command module was exactly the same as the intact one in the Lunar Excursion Module.
Consider that systems administrators are only contacted when something is broken, or needs improvement. Try phoning your sysadmin to tell him/her that things are running smoothly, and that you appreciate glad for what s/he does every day and night.
I don't mean boxing, I mean fighting for survival. Your point is well taken: in referring to sparring, you seem to be describing something for which you have logged many hours of training and experience. Fighting as a sport is far different from fighting to survive. It's survival that causes traits like dream-training to persist in the population.
TFA describes dreaming as survival training, although it's also well known that mastery of many skills is revealed in dreams. For example, an Iranian professor I had for AI said that he knew he'd mastered English when he remembered having dreamt in English.
I'll grant that ROM is poor shorthand for instinct--that is what I meant. In lower life forms with very little actual room for storage and processing, there's simply less room for instinct. While computer terms don't map 1-to-1 with biology, the time-space constraints still hold. Smaller brains have physically less room to store and process information.
Consider the emerald wasp. Where is all of that behavior stored, and how does it actualize the behavior for varying environments? Couldn't it be created during the pupal stage, possibly with environmental cues?
Ultimately, I'm pointing to the difference between trained and untrained behavior. There are moments for everyone when familiar activities are in the background, but the conscious mind isn't doing anything in the foreground. The statement "Are you having fun?" is related to the question "Are you asleep?" An affirmative answer must reference the past, e.g., "Yes, I was before I disengaged to answer your question." I think it's possible to have fleeting moments of lucidity during fun, sleep, and other states where conscious thought doesn't typically exist--but they're rare. I can experience high levels of performance while thinking, but I hardly, hardly ever think when I'm "in the zone."
And those are the most precious moments of life, when the constant stream of unbidden evaluation stops and I look back to realize that I was simply there, playing music, or programming, or driving, or just experiencing being alive. I'm grateful for my consciousness, but nothing matches the sheer enjoyment of pure experience for me.
Protests are meaningless, even though they're the ultimate expression of ideological disagreement by citizens. When merchants start to believe that their income sources are being disrupted, then we'll see some serious rabble rousing and mob activity.
Not likely, though: It would appear that mercantile entities are quite happy with the present state of affairs, which is tending towards that variety of fascism known as corporatism.
Americans are already beginning to simply opt out of the main system which they know to be corrupt and unreliable.
Memory is associative. This implies that remembering a dream while conscious depends on strong associations held by the conscious mind. That's the random part: the dream one happens to remember is the one that has more in common with one's conscious personality. If you think you're not good at fighting, you'll probably remember the dreams where you didn't do so well in a fight. Conversely, when an actual fight situation comes up, you're more likely to do poorly if your conscious mind is engaged. Compare and contrast to reflexive reactions, where you "don't have time" to think.
TFA suggests that it is possible to have dreams which train your subconscious by association. Given that you aren't conscious of every mental process, it's not hard to imagine that your mind can train itself without conscious knowledge. I think it's roughly analogous to code that runs faster without debugging turned on: If you could be conscious of even *some* of your background mental processes, they'd be slowed down--and you'd be spending lots of your awake time just to watch, let alone interpret the debugging output.
Our brains work without our consciousness--and given training, they do far better without our consciousness. Consider the pianist playing Flight of the Bumblebee flawlessly, who suddenly becomes conscious of his/her fingers. For a more common activity, who among us can do that cool pencil-spinning trick, and who can't--or remembers trying to learn it?. Mistakes are far more likely with the conscious mind engaged. The purpose of training is to optimize the loop by removing the conscious mind.
What's weird about the idea under discussion is that it describes training initiated without the conscious mind. This form of training likely has its origins in the lower life forms which perform complex tasks that seem to transcend simple ROM, e.g., wasps.
On the contrary: The Crown very nearly bankrupted itself funding the ill-conceived and poorly managed French-Indian War, aka the Seven Year War. The presumption was--and still is--that governments can carry massive debt because it can always be recovered by taxation.
The hole in this logic is that the citizens will support the taxation, in terms of means--and will tolerate the increasing taxation to support causes with which they do not agree, or at least feel represented.
It's simplistic to assert that the French fomented the revolution. Yes, France and Britain had long been at odds, and it is reasonable that the French were jealous of the British control of colonies. Recall that Franklin, among others, had long since consorted with the French. While France may have influenced the colonial governments to favorably consider revolution, the roots of the revolt were the interruption of commerce by the Crown to replenish its Treasury.
As for the unfairness of the taxation (and tariffs), the problem was not so much the amount as it was poor excuse for representation in the Parliament. Adding insult to injury was the blatant cronyism displayed by George III--or at least, by his administration. The tea tariffs are the best example: Colonial merchants were required to stop at British ports to have their shipments inspected and tariffs levied. Even if the security had prevented loss by theft or extortion, this stop delayed the shipments enough to affect their freshness. Meanwhile, the East India Tea Company paid no taxes or tariffs, and sailed directly to the colonies to deliver cheaper and fresher tea--by a factor of two.
For other inflammatory taxes and tariffs, see sugar, paper, and glass--and the infamous Stamp Act.
Despite the volumes of ideology about freedom and patriotism composed during this time, it was all about the money.
What would be the state of industry today, if when the venture capitalists asked for their money back when a company started making profit, were told to get fucked ?
In a shambles, of course. You're very conveniently leaving out the role of government, which brings us back round to the main subject: Government involvement in the recording industry's protectionist racket.
Venture capitalism has nothing to do with colonialism, unless you presume and approve of venture capitalists using political influence as a means to the end of making a profit.
Leaving government out of it, VCs that bleed their profitable assets to fund their failing assets usually fail completely. It's far wiser to dump the failing asset.
The irony is that Britain lost the war, but gained a very important alliance. Why do you suppose that the world's standard currency transferred so smoothly from the Pound to the Dollar as the Pound began to fail?
Comparisons to present governments and financial systems are left as an exercise to the reader.
As much as I'd like to find a way to agree with you--I dislike the RIAA and their ilk--the answer is no.
The unfair taxation which fomented the American Revolution was judged to be preventing merchants from making a living. Add to that the insult of excluding British merchants from the taxes and tariffs, and you've got a revolt.
The RIAA's tactics aren't preventing anyone from making a living--at least, not directly. Like the 18th century British crown, they're woefully out of touch, but they're not so much exacting taxes and tariffs as they are filing ridiculous lawsuits based on wild accusations.
My experience in inheriting others' code is that I've found the "why" to be missing. I've seen a wide range of comments, from 10K lines of C with exactly two comments ("this part is tricky" and "just in case") to a current project with 25K lines of KSH with a comment-to-code ratio approaching 3-to-1.
I can read the code. I can figure out what it's doing. What I want to know is the reason behind, say, maintaining a counter in a file between runs in order to start over next time in the midst of a long list of filenames. It's obvious that the entire list doesn't need to be reprocessed every time, but why stop without processing all of them?
Ideally, the code itself would contain such rationale as an adjunct to documentation describing how the modules, scripts, etc. all fit together to accomplish some goal. That's what I strive to leave behind--either for someone else, or for myself when/if I encounter my code again years later. I've done this about a dozen times so far, and I usually laugh at what I was thinking "back then." Even so, it's readily apparent what I was trying to accomplish, so that I can either tune it up, fix it, or adapt it to a situation that has changed.
The most hilarious code I've ever worked on was hand-optimised C, replete with explanations about why the arrayname + offset notation was so much faster than the arrayname[offset] notation. The fellow seemed to have been so proud of himself for that style that he forgot to check the logic. Most, if not all of the comments came across as bragging about how good the code was, sprinkled liberally with the repeated declaration, "CODE IS MORE EFFICIENT!!!"
The only other comments I really appreciate are those that explain something that might look weird to someone else. I don't mind extra comments so much; they can be grepped out like so much beer foam.
I think the British found their relationship with us slightly changed due to revolution.
E.g., the shift from the pound to the dollar as a world currency standard. Of course, the Brits set the stage for this by bankrupting their Treasury in the belief that they could simply tax the colonies as they liked.
Slashdot Mirror
Just because all of the ethics violations don't result in disaster doesn't mean that they're numerous. It's not the cutting of corners that causes the problem. It's cutting corners without communicating same.
So the general case is that of a software bug: Modifications introduced out of band from the design. Whether they're mistakes, misinterpretations, or willful mods ("this will work better"), they're still potential bugs, often missed by testing based on the original design.
That being said, it becomes apparent that the problem of hiding such modifications is only unethical when they're willfully hidden. The scale of the violation of ethics is given by the knowledge of the danger of the hidden modification. For example, if I discover a possibly misleading scale difference in a series of user interface screens on a software-controlled aircraft, my boss might not want to do anything about it in order to keep the project from going over budget so s/he can get his/her bonus. That's unethical, because it's a willful decision which conflicts with what one knows ought to be done.
According the Washington Post's Citizen K Street series, it started in 1975 with Cassidy and Associates, It was the first "lobbying firm"; it's now known as the most lucrative lobbying firm in Washington. D.C. Highly recommended, if you're interested to see how lobbying morphed from pork barrel for universities into the almost complete pimping of the US Legislature into a tool for wielding corporate power as we know it today.
ObWarning: It's 25 chapters long plus an introduction, there's a fair amount of Flash intros, and some of it is downright disgusting.
I have, too, but all I find is the Department of Justice asserting in a 2005 opinion that they don't: IMPERMISSIBILITY OF DEPUTIZING THE HOUSE SERGEANT AT ARMS AS A SPECIAL DEPUTY U.S. MARSHAL. Rather pre-emptive, isn't it?
IMHO, this is either going to turn out like Iran/Contra or Watergate. My guess is that it's not so much public opinion and approval ratings as it is media mogul opinion and Nielsen ratings.
Or it could turn out like the 2000 Presidential election, i.e., the Supreme Court rules, and that's that.
Is it just me, or does anyone else keep hearing this message that We the People don't really have any say?
Right. I think our only disagreement is in the meanings of "recently" and "now". I remember gasoline prices going up in the late Seventies--and that's when low-mileage cars first became popular. I'll grant that the recent spike in gasoline prices seems to have gotten the manufacturer's attention, but they seem more sluggish than a walrus with a hangover.
In my view, the American automakers' response to gas prices has been ridiculously slow and nearly immeasurable. Just last month, they told the Congress that they couldn't possibly increase gas mileage without losing money--and the Congress seems to have bought the paradoxical argument. Great, let's just let them keep making crappy cars that don't last and that burn too much gas, all in the name of short-sightedness and tunnel vision.
See also the EPA smackdown in California, and the record profits turned in by Exxon-Mobil and Chevron-Texaco-Unocal.
I'm just saying that the fix is in, and that it's far less a case of supply and demand than it is a corporate-controlled government. On a global scale, of course, economics will shake things out to level, i.e., American cars will continue to become like those manufactured in the now-defunct Soviet Union. Perhaps we'll even have our own version of the Yugo in a few decades.
I beg to differ. GM is almost completely out of touch with what American consumers want. Have a look at their MPG stats, and at their reliability ratings. Then go back to their massive technology investments and make sense of how they spent their money vs. what they got.
American auto manufacturing is a bad, bad joke. It wasn't that long ago that GM was still honoring Henry Ford's "never stop the assembly line" maxim by creating "fix up" areas where thousands of cars and trucks with known defects were pulled off of the line to correct these defects just so they could get to the end of the line. Meanwhile, the government sent Edwards Deming to Japan to teach them true efficiency management, and they listened to him. Have a look at how efficiently they've come to dominance in auto manufacturing.
This is a broad subject. In general, I find it interesting that the auto manufacturers with the best MPG ratings are those in countries with no petroleum industry, and/or weak industry lobbyists.
Regarding organized labor, there isn't enough labor-intensive manufacturing left in these United States for unions to make a difference--in manufacturing. And how in the world are unions competing with corporations on a global scale??? If anything, it's the other way round: Corporations are simply sending jobs to countries to sidestep talking to unions in the US. Sure, there have been and probably always will be abuses by unions, and we'll be hearing about them all the way--from the corporations. Notice how you don't hear so much about the corporate abuses. That's no accident. If you must look at it as a "two sides" issue, then each side does indeed have a vested interest in making the other look bad. Notice which one is set up to do the most efficient job. Then consider how much more productive the corporation would be if it focused on its core business instead of on damage control--or control in general.
Trick question: Who manufactures more, the US or China? The US, but only because we're far more automated. And because we can count weapons manufacturing.
Don't kid yourself. What's good for GM is not good for America. It's good for that multi-national corporation--but who's to say what's good for it? Not its executives or directors, apparently. I'd miss it if it went under, but I also miss affordable health care, privacy, and representative democracy.
googlesearch ron+paul+naacp, Results:about 207,000 for ron paul naacp. (0.19 seconds)
Hit #1: NAACP President: Ron Paul Is Not A Racist
Hit #6: A Huge Endorsement for Ron Paul - NAACP President, Nelson Linder
Right. It doesn't change the data set. What's different is the interpretation of the data set. In this case, the data set is useless in support of Limbaugh's argument. The decision by the IRS to not distinguish between wages, salary, and other types of compensation does not imply that these distinctions are irrelevant.
Consider that the entire IRS description is "wages, tips, and other compensation."
I'm saying that "the top 1%" as defined by IRS income tax categories has nothing whatsoever to do with the top 1% of rich/wealthy American citizens.
It's deceptive to claim that the top %1 pay the most taxes--without qualifying the terms.
"The top 1%" is precisely the ambiguity I seek to refute. This term is often misused to refer to those with the highest net worth, whereas Limbaugh's results are based on income.
I personally distinguish wages from salary, i.e., I define wages as trading hours for money. Salaried employees, like the executives you mention, are most certainly not paid by the hour. Many of those are paid a relatively low base salary, with quarterly bonuses based on easily attainable goals. Look more closely, and recall that the media has little interest in explaining everything: it requires more of an attention span, and makes it harder to cut up the programming to fit in between the advertisements. Plus it's far more attention-getting to shout simple phrases.
No, those with multimillion dollar compensation packages are not middle class... or are they? Is class defined by income, or by lifestyle, or simply by subjective perception? To which class does the retired janitor who has saved more than a million dollars belong? How about the trust fund kid who lives in a crack house?
There are many who earn six figures who would probably be judged to be "middle class" because of their lifestyles and their investment strategies. I judge it as distraction to focus on who is paying more taxes. What I'm interested in is what is being done with the taxes.
There's just one problem with that data: it's based on the top 1% of wage earners . The wealthy do not earn wages. It is my opinion that wage earners define the middle class, although the notion of class distinction in a democratic Republic is open to interpretation.
For that matter, any assertion involving the term "middle class" is open to interpretation.
It's not so much that Limbaugh isn't popular with technically-minded people, it's that he is not nearly as interested in facts as he is in attention. He himself has admitted as much. He makes money by remaining popular, by inciting listeners to excitement. That's the stock in trade of talk radio: Current events plus interpretation with a clear agenda, designed to leave you feeling a certain way.
There's nothing wrong with choosing that flavor of entertainment. The problems crop up when you begin to use data from an entertainment source as fact. For example, I thoroughly enjoyed Michael Clayton, but if I wanted facts about corporate crime, I'd look elsewhere.
If Limbaugh inspires you, great. Inspired people move things forward. One of our biggest problems lately is that the inspired don't step out and think for themselves. My recommendation is that you maintain the distinction between entertainment and news. Get your facts from a reliable source, i.e., from a different source than your inspiration.
If you like thinking for yourself, that is. If you'd prefer to just listen without asking any questions, go right ahead. Just don't expect anyone who isn't plugged into the same source to treat you with any respect.
Too bad it's not that way in government agencies. My impression is that their dominant mindsets are:
I would be surprised and delighted to learn that things are any different at all. Having served in the military, I retain a smug sense of superiority, even though I know that there must be intelligent life in government. It's frustrating to keep finding that we're being taxed and led by selfish, incompetent people.
It's like growing up in a home infested with vermin, where the parents just shrug and say that they can't do anything about it, when it's obvious that they're just spending their money and attention on something else. Their willful ignorance might allow me to get away with whatever I want. The trade-off is finding that my possessions have been gnawed by mice or encountering cockroaches that look at me defiantly when I turn on the light.
As long as they let me alone, I'm OK with it. When they step in and try to suddenly impose discipline, I want to say, "Where were you when I needed you?"
No, the government isn't my parents, but it's been getting closer to the asymptote. Public school has been mandatory since before I was born. Income tax is beyond mandatory. Laws have become more and more restrictive, and we are now being monitored without warrants. That's pretty close to what I remember of my own parents, except that in this case, I own all of the responsibility.
On a national level, it's not as simple as moving out. The analog to running away from home is participation in some underground economy.
Well, I don't want any of that either, but (a) that's not what we're talking about here, and (b) posting rants on the net isn't going to help at all, and may in fact make it worse. Have some fruit juice--prunes, if you need it--and have a cleansing bowel movement. I do believe that in your case, it'll clear your head. Then find an outlet for all of that pent-up frustration. Form a band. Start a blog, a group blog. Write a letter to the editor.
Better yet, study the formation of these United States. It's very informative to what you seem to be so upset about. Some of it is what makes the place work, even if you don't happen to like it. Some of it really sucks possum ass. It turns out that your Congressional representatives can be made to pay attention very quickly if they (or their staff, get to know their staff) get a whiff of "dissatisfaction with the incumbent." For them, it's get re-elected or die. For you, it's something to do with your time. It's also very, very handy to be able to drop your Congressional reps' names like you know 'em if the IRS tries to intimidate you.
Or, if you prefer, stay there in the corner and keep complaining.
I mean, at the very least, you could offer some solution. Even a toddler can come up with a solution, although it may involve imaginary friends. I can tell you from experience that "there's room for improvement" is a far healthier place to stand than "it's all fucked."
And do keep us updated; your personal worldview is positively fascinating.
You seem to have missed the semi-recent controversy over the dismissal of US attorneys, i.e., it follows by extension that if attorneys can be dismissed for their unwillingness to be partial, then judges can stay in office by eschewing impartiality, when prudently aligned with The Appointer.
Nothing is wrong with it at all--but your employer would prefer that you give more and more time in exchange for your salary.
OP said, "Hey, I telecommute, and I do great work. I'm way more productive than my colleagues in the office, and I don't like the office environment."
TFA said, "People who work with telecommuters [or overseas colleagues] tend to resent the people who aren't in the office, e.g., What's so special about them that they don't have to put up with all of the crap that I do just to be in the office?"
Your post is an extension of the point of the article: People in office resent telecommuters, probably because they wish they could telecommute, too.
And there you have it for television: The customer is not the consumer. The customer is the advertiser. Forget the consumer. There's no rationale for treating the consumer with any respect or consideration. The emphasis is on proving the value to the customer--the advertiser.
Perhaps the same applies in a different way for film and music, albeit blunted and less direct. The real customer is obviously not the consumer... it's the investors, which vary from enterprise to enterprise.
We tend to think we have a stake and perhaps a say because we spend our time watching and/or listening, when really we're simply spending time with no promise of return on that investment. Celebrity is impossible without fans, but there's no way to reward the fans except with more output.
Investors and advertisers, though, can be rewarded more directly.
After all, it's just entertainment. I'll cop to ranking it as more important than simple distraction from my responsibilities, but ultimately, it's just some stories that I like.
More than anything, I'm interested in this discussion because I find it entertaining to see how content providers, producers and "owners" are squirming. How long, I sometimes wonder, how long until one of more of them acts out inappropriately? Surely it'll be a big hit on YouTube.
In general, the same applies for my fascination with Presidential candidates: Surely one of them is just going to pop. The difference is that the result of that conflagration is far more profound than whether some studio is going to use DRM or not.
The old EST/Forum Six Day training used to feature something like this. You and the others doing the course were led into a room and seated. Without warning, the lights went out and a dozen or so projectors started up, showing very hardcore porn on one or more walls of the room. I'm talking anal Nazi fisting and the like--everything you can imagine short of child porn or snuff.
The resulting conversation was designed to demonstrate that whichever film you couldn't stop watching was the one you "couldn't be with." Most everyone agreed that they tended to ignore the tamer (or familiar) scenes and found themselves staring at the strange.
I notice that my tastes in entertainment continue to change--and that we think we need bigger and sharper vidscreens. Compare and contrast to the technicians who create bigger/sharper/better vidscreens: I think they're in it more for the "we have the technology" angle.
Perhaps it would have prevented them from having obtained valid licenses and/or other IDs from multiple states, but this has nothing to do with the discussion.
With their valid identification, they were able to receive pilot training. It has yet to be shown that the scheme being discussed could prevent the same exploit.
The larger discussion is the continuing distraction of the population of these United States by the federal government. Civil liberties are being removed in the name of security, with the flimsy justification of a straw man called The War On Terror, aided and abetted by the spectre of Identity Theft. Consider that both problems are caused by a lack of security on the part of entities in whom we naively trust: Corporations and Government. Notice how these entities take no responsibility for their laziness and mistakes--and how their solution is to demand more from the consumer/citizen. Credit issuers have successfully declaimed most, if not all responsibility for the security and accuracy of your credit records. Government agencies have simply demanded that we give up more rights in exchange for the continued illusion of security.
The problems with a National Identification Card far outnumber the petty advantages for citizens. There are major advantages for the federal government, and a few minor advantages for state governments. In general, the FBI was created to take care of this sort of interstate problem.
It is unfortunate that, in the presence of fear, urgency, and desperation, we human beings are all too willing to submit to authority. When the authority doesn't seem to exist, we tend to invent it, in order to submit to it.
The predictable future--the one without any change in direction--is that we will find ourselves with very few rights, and for those the records will be inaccurate or lost.
Depending on 70 servers to support a business--health care or otherwise--and presuming that someone will simply support them is worse than presuming that your car will simply work if your maintenance is limited to keeping gas in the tank. Worse yet, most of those who employ systems support personnel for important systems tend to treat them like replaceable parts. I am presently engaged in a surreal conversation with a group of people who express shock and dismay that the previous sysadmins here didn't document their procedures--so now there is no one to set up the 20-odd people they've just hired for the expensive and vital business application for which they are responsible. After three meetings, they seem ready to move from denial to anger and bargaining. I doubt that they'll ever consider the management who keep turning over their systems staff to save a little money in the short term. I'm wondering how to break it to them that I'll be out of here before Q2 arrives.
Sure, there are idiot sysadmins out there who think that the job is all online. It's not: it includes a lot of clerical work, from recording serial numbers to negotiating maintenance agreements. On top of that, there are myriad fools who think it's easy, and more than a few who think it's cute to bash the profession.
Further, it's not the kind of job you can just leave at the office. Even if you're not on call--which you kind of are all the time--the problems you're solving tend to stay with you. Conversely, this defines the personality of the career sysadmin: We don't like to let go of unsolved problems.
Developers know very well that software is never perfected--it's just abandoned. Consider that systems software is no different.
IMHO, the penalty we're discussing was handed out by the same type of cluelessly fearful magistrate who thinks s/he can "send a message to hackers everywhere." I presume that most of us here feel the same mix of superiority and dread that the technology we're familiar with--earn our livings with--is far beyond the scope of the law of the land.
On the bright side, systems administration can be awesomely satisfying. You get the chance to save the day, sometimes with a bit of trivial knowledge. You can feel secure in the knowledge that you are a member of a group so elite that there is no training for what you do. It was a sysadmin who figured out that broken computer in the Apollo 13 command module was exactly the same as the intact one in the Lunar Excursion Module.
Consider that systems administrators are only contacted when something is broken, or needs improvement. Try phoning your sysadmin to tell him/her that things are running smoothly, and that you appreciate glad for what s/he does every day and night.
I don't mean boxing, I mean fighting for survival. Your point is well taken: in referring to sparring, you seem to be describing something for which you have logged many hours of training and experience. Fighting as a sport is far different from fighting to survive. It's survival that causes traits like dream-training to persist in the population.
TFA describes dreaming as survival training, although it's also well known that mastery of many skills is revealed in dreams. For example, an Iranian professor I had for AI said that he knew he'd mastered English when he remembered having dreamt in English.
I'll grant that ROM is poor shorthand for instinct--that is what I meant. In lower life forms with very little actual room for storage and processing, there's simply less room for instinct. While computer terms don't map 1-to-1 with biology, the time-space constraints still hold. Smaller brains have physically less room to store and process information.
Consider the emerald wasp. Where is all of that behavior stored, and how does it actualize the behavior for varying environments? Couldn't it be created during the pupal stage, possibly with environmental cues?
Ultimately, I'm pointing to the difference between trained and untrained behavior. There are moments for everyone when familiar activities are in the background, but the conscious mind isn't doing anything in the foreground. The statement "Are you having fun?" is related to the question "Are you asleep?" An affirmative answer must reference the past, e.g., "Yes, I was before I disengaged to answer your question." I think it's possible to have fleeting moments of lucidity during fun, sleep, and other states where conscious thought doesn't typically exist--but they're rare. I can experience high levels of performance while thinking, but I hardly, hardly ever think when I'm "in the zone."
And those are the most precious moments of life, when the constant stream of unbidden evaluation stops and I look back to realize that I was simply there, playing music, or programming, or driving, or just experiencing being alive. I'm grateful for my consciousness, but nothing matches the sheer enjoyment of pure experience for me.
Not participating.
Protests are meaningless, even though they're the ultimate expression of ideological disagreement by citizens. When merchants start to believe that their income sources are being disrupted, then we'll see some serious rabble rousing and mob activity.
Not likely, though: It would appear that mercantile entities are quite happy with the present state of affairs, which is tending towards that variety of fascism known as corporatism.
Americans are already beginning to simply opt out of the main system which they know to be corrupt and unreliable.
Memory is associative. This implies that remembering a dream while conscious depends on strong associations held by the conscious mind. That's the random part: the dream one happens to remember is the one that has more in common with one's conscious personality. If you think you're not good at fighting, you'll probably remember the dreams where you didn't do so well in a fight. Conversely, when an actual fight situation comes up, you're more likely to do poorly if your conscious mind is engaged. Compare and contrast to reflexive reactions, where you "don't have time" to think.
TFA suggests that it is possible to have dreams which train your subconscious by association. Given that you aren't conscious of every mental process, it's not hard to imagine that your mind can train itself without conscious knowledge. I think it's roughly analogous to code that runs faster without debugging turned on: If you could be conscious of even *some* of your background mental processes, they'd be slowed down--and you'd be spending lots of your awake time just to watch, let alone interpret the debugging output.
Our brains work without our consciousness--and given training, they do far better without our consciousness. Consider the pianist playing Flight of the Bumblebee flawlessly, who suddenly becomes conscious of his/her fingers. For a more common activity, who among us can do that cool pencil-spinning trick, and who can't--or remembers trying to learn it?. Mistakes are far more likely with the conscious mind engaged. The purpose of training is to optimize the loop by removing the conscious mind.
What's weird about the idea under discussion is that it describes training initiated without the conscious mind. This form of training likely has its origins in the lower life forms which perform complex tasks that seem to transcend simple ROM, e.g., wasps.
The hole in this logic is that the citizens will support the taxation, in terms of means--and will tolerate the increasing taxation to support causes with which they do not agree, or at least feel represented.
It's simplistic to assert that the French fomented the revolution. Yes, France and Britain had long been at odds, and it is reasonable that the French were jealous of the British control of colonies. Recall that Franklin, among others, had long since consorted with the French. While France may have influenced the colonial governments to favorably consider revolution, the roots of the revolt were the interruption of commerce by the Crown to replenish its Treasury.
As for the unfairness of the taxation (and tariffs), the problem was not so much the amount as it was poor excuse for representation in the Parliament. Adding insult to injury was the blatant cronyism displayed by George III--or at least, by his administration. The tea tariffs are the best example: Colonial merchants were required to stop at British ports to have their shipments inspected and tariffs levied. Even if the security had prevented loss by theft or extortion, this stop delayed the shipments enough to affect their freshness. Meanwhile, the East India Tea Company paid no taxes or tariffs, and sailed directly to the colonies to deliver cheaper and fresher tea--by a factor of two.
For other inflammatory taxes and tariffs, see sugar, paper, and glass--and the infamous Stamp Act.
Despite the volumes of ideology about freedom and patriotism composed during this time, it was all about the money.
In a shambles, of course. You're very conveniently leaving out the role of government, which brings us back round to the main subject: Government involvement in the recording industry's protectionist racket.
Venture capitalism has nothing to do with colonialism, unless you presume and approve of venture capitalists using political influence as a means to the end of making a profit.
Leaving government out of it, VCs that bleed their profitable assets to fund their failing assets usually fail completely. It's far wiser to dump the failing asset.
The irony is that Britain lost the war, but gained a very important alliance. Why do you suppose that the world's standard currency transferred so smoothly from the Pound to the Dollar as the Pound began to fail?
Comparisons to present governments and financial systems are left as an exercise to the reader.
As much as I'd like to find a way to agree with you--I dislike the RIAA and their ilk--the answer is no.
The unfair taxation which fomented the American Revolution was judged to be preventing merchants from making a living. Add to that the insult of excluding British merchants from the taxes and tariffs, and you've got a revolt.
The RIAA's tactics aren't preventing anyone from making a living--at least, not directly. Like the 18th century British crown, they're woefully out of touch, but they're not so much exacting taxes and tariffs as they are filing ridiculous lawsuits based on wild accusations.
My experience in inheriting others' code is that I've found the "why" to be missing. I've seen a wide range of comments, from 10K lines of C with exactly two comments ("this part is tricky" and "just in case") to a current project with 25K lines of KSH with a comment-to-code ratio approaching 3-to-1.
I can read the code. I can figure out what it's doing. What I want to know is the reason behind, say, maintaining a counter in a file between runs in order to start over next time in the midst of a long list of filenames. It's obvious that the entire list doesn't need to be reprocessed every time, but why stop without processing all of them?
Ideally, the code itself would contain such rationale as an adjunct to documentation describing how the modules, scripts, etc. all fit together to accomplish some goal. That's what I strive to leave behind--either for someone else, or for myself when/if I encounter my code again years later. I've done this about a dozen times so far, and I usually laugh at what I was thinking "back then." Even so, it's readily apparent what I was trying to accomplish, so that I can either tune it up, fix it, or adapt it to a situation that has changed.
The most hilarious code I've ever worked on was hand-optimised C, replete with explanations about why the arrayname + offset notation was so much faster than the arrayname[offset] notation. The fellow seemed to have been so proud of himself for that style that he forgot to check the logic. Most, if not all of the comments came across as bragging about how good the code was, sprinkled liberally with the repeated declaration, "CODE IS MORE EFFICIENT!!!"
The only other comments I really appreciate are those that explain something that might look weird to someone else. I don't mind extra comments so much; they can be grepped out like so much beer foam.