The former is worse because they get paid with money taken from their fellow citizens at gunpoint.
Generally people who have little more than they have - I've noticed that panhandlers tend to hassle people who look like they've little more than themselves. Ditto burglaries and car thefts (neighbours).
The majority of wealthy families are not out robbing people to keep their coffers full. In fact the majority of them are small/medium business owners whose families worked quite hard for that money. The Rockerfellers and Kennedys are the exception not the rule when it comes to family wealth, and for the most part the wealthy families give plenty back to society
No, very few do. I'm wealthy - I pay less tax on my income than others whose incomes are lower, I don't cheat on tax - but if you're on 50Kpa you don't have anything to negative gear - yes I worked hard for my accumulation of profits. But let's not confuse "wealthy" with "mega-rich". I've got no serious gripe with wealthy - which to me means 7 figures if cashed up. (my country charges higher income tax rates on higher incomes, and death duties - as it should). When the mega rich start paying tax equivalent to the workers you'll be right. When corporations like BHP start paying more than an effective 2% tax rate for the money they make from a nations resources there'll be more money for the lower income earners. The available pool of funds is limited - the flow is not as fast as people seem to think (money moves through poor hands faster)
rather than just sitting around sucking on their crackpipe collecting their welfare check.
With the exception of drug barons, gun runners, thieves, fraudsters , polluters, snake-oil merchants, and any other scumbag that makes money. I think you'll find (look at the history of San Fransisco, Manhattan Island, Monaco etc) that greed and ruthlessness gives rise to riches and power - followed by law and order, followed by welfare states. First you take by force, then you hold by force which you license, then you work it.
Where I live developers are trying to establish an industrial zone - they want government funding to buy up land and build factories, then they want to build high density low income housing so that they can *ship* people down from a nearby city because "we don't have enough low-skilled unemployed people locally". No surprise the main lobbyist for developers (I'm looking at you Terry) is also lobbying to reduce local education funding.
How about - people often/generally do the least they have to do, within their ability, to get the most that they can. Constraining factors being peer pressure, religious indoctrination, police, vigilantes, etc.
We are not all the same - some people have no choice about being stupid.
And I'm not disagreeing with everything you say - family and expectation certainly play a major part - maybe even more important than education. Some are more successful than others - the wealthy families you refer to - but that does make them any less likely to be criminals than the unsuccessful families - they can simply afford to farm out the dirty work. I've seen a study of the history of criminality in one family. Politically contentious stuff. one family in question have been directly and indirectly profiting from the drug trade since the start of the opium wars, through to heroin, crack, and methadone. Not a family name you'd have heard unless you're familiar with big tobacco (one of the clan was busted at an Ivy league institution recently). The other study was on three generation only - mostly petty cons and ripoffs, border-line successful.
Interesting thread, wish I had more time to read, and think about these things. Cheers.
Go take some pictures of your head. Maybe if you could make a coherent point you would get the same air time in real life as you get on the web.
Hint: what you are *trying* to say is "copying causes loss". If you can't say what you mean you're just pointing and grunting. I read your rant before I judged it, making my brain hurt trying to follow your logic doesn't engender sympathy.
AC is for a purpose - using it because you're scared to post from behind a pseudonym like the rest of us - just demonstrates you "don't quite get it". (sigh).
But there are victims. The entire music industry has gone steeply downhill over the past ten years, driving most of the big box retailers out of business.
See - that an example of stupid. "Record shops" come and go. The "music industry" is doing just fine. Theater takings are down - the film industry is doing just fine. News at 11 - drive-in theaters are taking a hit. VHS production companies crippled.
Now - imagine you're a dick, and imagine you just wrote the post I'm responding to, but I repeat myself. Apologies to Mark Twain.
Dunno if Radiohead is a good example of music people want to listen too. I only liked the first three albums - if memory serves "Rainbows(?)" was the donate if you want it album - that I don't have it, and can't think of a track from it, should speak for itself.
I used Radiohead as an example of a name that could command an audience. My point being that having webspace alone wouldn't replace the existing (limited slot) promotion system unless the artist is already established.
As to whether sufficient money would be volunteered to make a donation method work - that's probably a bagel type thing (see Freakanomics) - peer determined. But if no one knows you exist they can't donate squat.
Can a donation or subscriber system work? It certainly works for *some* - both software (noscript, adblock), anime (I know people who religiously download every week, translate, and then spend a fortune buying the official copies of what they already have) and literature. It's worth considering that live shows are where most musicians make a living, and many bands without record deals working the indie scene on the Oz east coast depend on their back of the van homebaked CD sales (it's where I've spent most of my music collection money). Getting heard really helps.
While I doubt Luc Besson'd ever make a profitable movie based on a bittorrent distribution system and donations or subscriptions... I don't doubt a Firefly type show could.
With Hotmail, I don't have to give my cell phone number so that they can send me a text message with a key. That's creepy. I don't want cell phone numbers tied with email accounts and I don't want Google to have that information.
Gmail have special rules just for you? How nice. They don't force me to have a phone number on record.
Sir, I think you should re-read what you just wrote.
Since when is Go not a game? Because it's just complicated?
Have you ever actually played go? If so, you'd know it takes alot of skill and even more practice to master.
Anything that takes practice, skill and involves fun is a game.
Red Rover does not have any 'rules' or 'regulations'. Yet, I bet you played it when you were little.
~Valk
Everything is a game. There's always a winner, and a loser, the trick is to determine when you are the latter, to become the former. All games have consequences. In the end the only guarantee you have is, that sooner or later, you lose.
Where I live we have a system that provides even less work incentive than BIG and the unemployment rates are pretty similar to those in the US, although the unemployed here do live in more humane conditions. But people on the whole don't want to be unemployed because government money may keep you fed but it doesn't buy you a shiny new game console. Also, most people have an inherent urge to feel useful. I'm not saying this is because they're good people, but it's just the case that we're wired that way, it's probably some ancient tribal instinct.
Quite apart from the economic feasibility (which is just fine) there is also the question that I for one don't want to live in a society in which there are people who have to beg for money and/or starve. A civilised society simply doesn't tolerate such squalor. I don't care if some unemployed people don't want to work (as long as they're not too plentiful) and in any case I think a good society would give unemployed a stipend and help to get back on life's tracks.
As for the music payment scheme, I don't know if I agree with GP. Not all people like music... should those people be forced to help fund musicians through taxation? On the other hand maybe cultural development is for the public good to a sufficient extent... I'm on the fence.
I live in a country where the taxpayer does subsidize the "yarts" I also support the idea that it's a waste of money - if the government funded "yartists" were so fucking deserving they wouldn't need a taxpayer hand out.
You know what would rock even more? If we could have both music and movies and and all the other art that we can spread across the world to everyone with a computer virtually for free as well as having the poor artists not starving.
An it would totally rock if everyone had access to all digitalized culture legally, so one wouldn't have to feel bad or fear a one in a million chance of personal economic disaster.
And we can. All it takes is a little socialism. Let the people decide what they like by downloading stuff and give those artists a living wage paid for with taxes.
Anyway... Socialism FTW and fuck you and the horse you rode in on. Peace.
Or - any artist, performer, actor, director, writer who feels strongly about defending the way the current studio/distribution system treats them - publicly put up their paypal (or bank account details). An account the studios don't control. Then those that support the artist - but not the distributors, can donate money directly. What's that going to hurt? If they recieve money, and they don't want it - they can donate it to a worthy cause. But you can bet the studios won't let that happen!
In Australia - with certain restrictions, terms written on the back of a cheque are legally binding - what if people who like musician x sent him a cheque, and on that cheque it said "Dear x, I enjoyed your song/album y but I don't like the manager/company who fucked you over on the royalties - please accept my payment for $z on the condition you don't share it with said manager/company, sincerely a fan".?.
Nourish the share-cropper, starve the slave master. Viva the intelligent revolution!
Guys, there is a very simple solution to this problem: make the publishers go away.
Agreed
Artists can sell their music on the internet, they don't need publishers who record their CDs anymore.
Only when the audience can hear about them - web pages rely on search engines - which can, and will, be gamed. Fine if you're Devo or Radiohead, maybe ok if you're Courtney Love, and if no one has ever heard of you? You what - rely on SEO experts?
The internet is no more a threat to the established studio monopoly than radio or television - bittorrent over the internet is the threat. It's the subversive technology. Web sites are no more a threat to the existing system than ads in local newspapers and junk mail.
I also doubt that twits and facefriends can, or will, change the existing order.
These countries problems are with the people, and greed and stupidity. Fix that first, FIRST!!!, and then you can do the rest.
You are right. Thanks for putting up the truth.
While sincerely not wanting to muddy the waters.... The corruption is fueled by profit, and those (outside of Zim) who profit the most will continue to manipulate the situation in their favour. Fixing, by any means, the situation in Zim is not in their (sic) favour.
IMO one of the areas that foreigners (governments and their citizens) can, and should, help is in the identification and prosecution of those outside of Zim that benefit from, and contribute to the ongoing problems.
I'd also add a lack of an equitably education system to the list of things Zim needs to sort itself out. Sadly the contributions in that area by Rhodes (and Fullbright) don't seem to have helped.
Mozambique is just as bad - just not as popular in the press. To anyone planning on visiting Zim - no amount of pula or rand will save you arse from the ZANU-PF if you are caught with *any* camouflage clothing. For 'some reason' both Moz and Zim are *very* paranoid about the idea of foreign mercenaries arriving to try and stage a coupe.
It might help if the US got some sort of international support and helped the countries who most people believed needed helping, instead of unilaterally invading the ones with the most natural resources. Just saying.
Especially given the existing presence of the Chinese military (allegedly here 1943'28.99"S 3225'33.06"E).... though I'd be surprised if actual "help" ever arrives - far too much money just in the blood diamonds, and far too many "very" powerful players.
I'd be a little cautious about buying anything Andrew Cranswick sold me without checking carefully first, especially if it's a cattle station (Moola Bulla) - equally I'd consider giving him a some credit when he denies that he pointed at Ernest "Deadly" Blom in the first place - but then Cranswick is possibly in SA at present, so SA bullbars might be higher on his list of concerns than Zim ones.
Just the legacy of Rhodes makes any change in Zim a very tricky proposition, dig a little into the Fullbright connection for more complexities. The whole thing just turns my stomach.
Don't confuse Slashdot with Wikipedia folks - do your own research, I have neither the time, the ability, or the inclination to prove anything, and everything.
You are not entitled to the sweat of their brows or all the time out of their lives that it takes to actually learn how to play an instrument, become a good actor, etc.
Neither is the RIAA/MPAA, who gets about 90% of the profit from these artists with almost none of the work behind them.
It's way to easy to see the whole "piracy" issue as *just* two opposing viewpoints. And, to me, neither view stacks up. I strongly suspect both camps are being naive and manipulated. And here's my reasoning:-
Copying as theft is, well, obviously rubbish.
Give people the ability to not pay for something - be it bread or circus - will mostly result in people taking more than if they had to pay.
My point here being that neither party is "completely" right. Copying doesn't reduce the industries revenue stream as much as claimed - though it doesn't make the impact the industry claims it does. I'll leave the value of promotion out of this - it's a red herring.
Why would an immensely profitable industry spend a fortune on a demonstrably pointless pursuit? The assertion that they are total idiots contradicts their success.
Follow the money is the method that should be applied. Do that and it appears obvious (to me) that the "industry" is spending vast amounts of money because it is a cost effective way for them to protect their income. The mistake pro-pirates make is believing the product is the income stream. IMO they are wrong and have been deliberately been fooled.
The industry is profitable and powerful because it controls distribution. The RIAA/MPAA campaign is not about stopping copying it's about stifling an alternative distribution network.
Why is parent modded as troll? He's got a very valid opinion on the matter. About 90% of all rape allegations in Sweden don't even result in charges.
So you "believe" the assertion that "looking" at women in Sweden can "easily" get you sued or arrested or sued is not a troll? No need to state your true agenda either.
If I'd modded it I'd have kicked it down as "off topic", your post on the other-hand is a "troll".
"Valid opinion" == sophism. So's your second sentence. No matter how strongly you feel you've somehow been wronged (or slighted) making up bullshit to support your viewpoint will always work against you.
My goodness. I was under the mistaken impression that the Soviet Union collapsed two decades ago. My mistake. Interesting to meet you, tovarich.
(yawn) Likewise lofus.
How much do you have to bribe the judge, to get out of the falsified breathalyzer results, in your county?
Are you proposing that all breathalyzers are innaccurate?
Is that all cops are out to get *you*?
Is it because you are a good driver and don't need anyone else to tell you when you're too pissed to drive?
And how does what I said equate to communism? That's a rhetorical question - I suspect that was just the sort of slander and slime you throw around when anything you *imagine* challenges your self-righteous crusades.
...is that everyone does it differently, and no one wants to conform to a uniform system. Why, you might ask? Because the current system is in place and, more importantly, people have learned how to game it.
I went through something like this years ago with a local government t&a project. There was a core group that understood it's value ( namely, IT and payroll ), but everyone else had been using tricks of the current, in place system ( which varied from dept to dept ) to get longer lunches, swap shifts or plain, flat out not work and get paid for it.
We never did get universal buy-in for the project, and it ended up dieing ( although, to be fair, the vendor didn't help things much ). Even in the best of times, T&A is a highly complex subject that almost no one understands. When you have people actively trying to undermine your efforts...well, you can imagine how much progress one might make.
( note: the depts that gave us the most headaches, btw, were fire and police. The "old boy" network had been in place so "billy bob" might take off a couple extra hours because he was the chief's friend. Needless to say, the new time keeping software didn't keep track of that "accurately", and people's feelings got hurt. )
The second most important single document in project management - the stakeholders list.
The most misunderstood term in project management - stakeholder.
Stakeholder == anyone who might possibly want to stab you with a pointy stick.
Most important document - a list of motivations and pain points of the stakeholders. Third most important - payment terms. Fourth - project delivery specifications.
You must have been away for a while. It *was* old news that slashdot post old news, the new news is that slashdot reserves first view of the old news for subscribers and the old old news which is no longer news gets posted on hackaday, until its old hackaday news is.... oh wait, I think I see another problem, or maybe I'm just going to have to reconsider string theory
You could refuse an alcohol test? WTF! Seriously something wrong there - and now people complain because what? The "right" to refuse to be tested for being drunk while driving has been taken away? The only ludicrous part about this is that the presence of a judge is required to make testing possible.
In my country (where I drink, and catch a cab home) face-palm is my reaction to the idea that police can't alcohol test people driving out of a pub carpark - but face-palm doesn't cover my reaction to discovering on a recent trip to the US, that in a state where driving whilst drunk, and/or driving with an open alcoholic drink container in the vehicle *is* illegal... I can drive-in to a roadside stand, buy, and consume, a refreshing frozen daquiri without leaving my vehicle.
You are correct, I am not. I apologise, unreservedly, though, fat lot of good that'll do.
I confused you with someone who's attacking and stalking someone else (my wife), having just posted politely to them asking for a reason - I jumped to the conclusion that what was happening to her was happening to me. Nothing to do with your posts, or this thread.
I just checked your recent post history and I don’t see any that were moderated at all so I’m really not sure what you’re talking about here.
Effectively, no. The message (twice about same post in the same day) something to the effect of "your post x has been moderated down, the moderation has been removed , possibly due to a moderator post in the same thread". Not this thread.
Note: I am not the AC poster.
Well that much I know: I know exactly who the AC poster is. He’s Alexander Peter Kowalski,
Now there's a coincidence. I didn't recognise him/it. But I sure do know of him - the 14MB host file, self-validating, hello from 1990 troll! Normally (if that word even applies in this instance) he puts "APK" in his posts/malodorous missives. I reported him for abuse in another thread yesterday - something I've never done before.
Me, on the other hand, I generally try to get along with anyone who isn’t a complete loon or an idiot (i.e. apk), so maybe we got off on the wrong foot. And I can’t fathom what on earth in my post about a “stopped clock” was rude. It certainly wasn’t intended to be, although I did misunderstand your post before it.
Nothing you wrote was taken as rude, the "No shit Sherlock" (colloquial jocularism) was the only comment aimed at you. The rest was me stupidly using and external editor to compose, not checking before posting, and, my stupidity.
You mis-read my post, and I fucked up my response. The two things don't equate. Mea culpa, and kudos for your reasonable and polite response. Good luck with the unreasonable, intractable, abusive, and recalcitrant APK.
BigPond actually has the most robust DNS infrastructure in Australia..
I have no means of knowing whether that is correct or not, and no opinions on it either. I have worked for Telstra (as a complex data tester - so I know a little of the infrastructure), but not TeleTech (BigPond).
Dunno how robustness came into this - I simply pointed out that BigPuddle dns "appears" "selective" about which addresses it resolves.
Mighty tempting to go way OT on this - but I need to have a quick read up on what's happening to my ISP's before dinner...
You are (obviously) correct, and yes "we" are talking about DNS. You are not the source of the confusion....I pasted the wrong bit of bash history there, (that IP came from the IPCop cache).
The DNS address/es supplied by 3 Mobile show are currently 202.124.76.66 & 202.124.68.130 - I don't know if they are the ones I've always gotten. Using them I cannot resolve my.three.com.au to check my account.
Thanks for reminding me about ICMP, both 3Mobile and Vodadphone having been driving me nuts the last few weeks - dropouts, P2P filtering, account balance weirdness (somehow credited 1.4G last week!). Vodaphone currently resolves as does three (intermittantly), my.three.com.au doesn't (though the IP I have for it works). (I'm being told I should look at vodafail.com(?), and that both ISP are now one, or similar, as I try and write this).
telnet three.com.au
telnet: could not resolve three.com.au/telnet: Name or service not known with clean dns cache
$ telnet 203.37.69.133
Trying 203.37.69.133... ^Cusing correct address works
Googledns works for everything except my.three.com.au
I shall now go and read up this site that supposedly will explain the problems, and take my confusion with me. Cheers
This is a very widespread practice now. Use your own ISP for DNS.
Who's your ISP? Do they operate in Australia?
(currently) 3 Mobile, and Vodaphone, have very slow, and unreliable, DNS.
google.com and google.com.au averaging about 350 ms, at present neither ISP is able to resolve their own address (sigh) ping three.com.au
PING three.com.au (203.37.69.133) 56(84) bytes of data.
^C
--- three.com.au ping statistics ---
25 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 2015ms
and that's while using a three connection! (how does that work?)
BigPuddle doesn't resolve address URL's that google DNS does (wikileaks, piratebay, and others)
I use a DNS cache on the firewall, pointed at googledns. I'll have to try opendns and compare.
If the only thing you point to is the pharmaceutical definition you probably earn your geek badge, but maybe should go out into the streets more to learn about the real world.
What's your story? Do you have some sort of chip on your shoulder about higher education, or are you just a crank nursing some obscure personal issue with the poster? You really do come across as someone suffering from foetal alcohol syndrome.
Simple way to test that theory, Kim jong il actually has WMDs and is a far worse tyrant that Saddam could ever hope to be. Which one did we attack?
Me personally I wish we would stay out of things more, Iran is our own doing for instance.
Save your breath. Some people have a deep emotional investment in their opinions - their demand for proof is not a sign that they are capable of reassessing their position. Point out that until Hussein starting looking at Kuwait he received a steady stream of favours from the US.
Disclaimer: I can see the difference between US business interests, the US people, and the US government.
Another test - the Twin Towers are destroyed by (mostly) Saudi citizens - so attack Afganistan... cause Bin Laden is a bad guy (and I don't dispute it). He's a real bad guy - funded and trained by the good guys right?
Big difference between categorically not true and "no proof".
Yes it's about oil, it's about controlling who doesn't get the oil. This is not new - see Japan, WWII. This time it's China and India. Lucky for everyone history doesn't repeat huh?
But he was an evil bastard when we put him in power, we just don't care. Do you have any idea how many ruthless bastards we have put in power?
Well no, I don't.
Nor do I dispute that with all the powerful interest involved - had he *not* been a ruthless bastard (representing a beleaguered minority), he'd have lasted no time at all.
One of things overlooked in debate about the cables concerning Mugabe and his opponents - it that the US assessment of Tsvangirai rates him weak... given the number of foreign funded attempted coup d'état in that area of late - that might not bode well.
Slashdot Mirror
The former is worse because they get paid with money taken from their fellow citizens at gunpoint.
Generally people who have little more than they have - I've noticed that panhandlers tend to hassle people who look like they've little more than themselves. Ditto burglaries and car thefts (neighbours).
The majority of wealthy families are not out robbing people to keep their coffers full. In fact the majority of them are small/medium business owners whose families worked quite hard for that money. The Rockerfellers and Kennedys are the exception not the rule when it comes to family wealth, and for the most part the wealthy families give plenty back to society
No, very few do. I'm wealthy - I pay less tax on my income than others whose incomes are lower, I don't cheat on tax - but if you're on 50Kpa you don't have anything to negative gear - yes I worked hard for my accumulation of profits. But let's not confuse "wealthy" with "mega-rich". I've got no serious gripe with wealthy - which to me means 7 figures if cashed up. (my country charges higher income tax rates on higher incomes, and death duties - as it should). When the mega rich start paying tax equivalent to the workers you'll be right. When corporations like BHP start paying more than an effective 2% tax rate for the money they make from a nations resources there'll be more money for the lower income earners. The available pool of funds is limited - the flow is not as fast as people seem to think (money moves through poor hands faster)
rather than just sitting around sucking on their crackpipe collecting their welfare check.
With the exception of drug barons, gun runners, thieves, fraudsters , polluters, snake-oil merchants, and any other scumbag that makes money. I think you'll find (look at the history of San Fransisco, Manhattan Island, Monaco etc) that greed and ruthlessness gives rise to riches and power - followed by law and order, followed by welfare states. First you take by force, then you hold by force which you license, then you work it.
Where I live developers are trying to establish an industrial zone - they want government funding to buy up land and build factories, then they want to build high density low income housing so that they can *ship* people down from a nearby city because "we don't have enough low-skilled unemployed people locally". No surprise the main lobbyist for developers (I'm looking at you Terry) is also lobbying to reduce local education funding.
How about - people often/generally do the least they have to do, within their ability, to get the most that they can. Constraining factors being peer pressure, religious indoctrination, police, vigilantes, etc.
We are not all the same - some people have no choice about being stupid.
And I'm not disagreeing with everything you say - family and expectation certainly play a major part - maybe even more important than education. Some are more successful than others - the wealthy families you refer to - but that does make them any less likely to be criminals than the unsuccessful families - they can simply afford to farm out the dirty work. I've seen a study of the history of criminality in one family. Politically contentious stuff. one family in question have been directly and indirectly profiting from the drug trade since the start of the opium wars, through to heroin, crack, and methadone. Not a family name you'd have heard unless you're familiar with big tobacco (one of the clan was busted at an Ivy league institution recently). The other study was on three generation only - mostly petty cons and ripoffs, border-line successful.
Interesting thread, wish I had more time to read, and think about these things. Cheers.
Copying as theft is, well, obviously rubbish.
It is not rubbish, it is fact.
Go take some pictures of your head. Maybe if you could make a coherent point you would get the same air time in real life as you get on the web.
Hint: what you are *trying* to say is "copying causes loss". If you can't say what you mean you're just pointing and grunting. I read your rant before I judged it, making my brain hurt trying to follow your logic doesn't engender sympathy.
AC is for a purpose - using it because you're scared to post from behind a pseudonym like the rest of us - just demonstrates you "don't quite get it". (sigh).
But there are victims. The entire music industry has gone steeply downhill over the past ten years, driving most of the big box retailers out of business.
See - that an example of stupid. "Record shops" come and go. The "music industry" is doing just fine. Theater takings are down - the film industry is doing just fine. News at 11 - drive-in theaters are taking a hit. VHS production companies crippled.
Now - imagine you're a dick, and imagine you just wrote the post I'm responding to, but I repeat myself. Apologies to Mark Twain.
Actually it didn't work for Radiohead [snip]
Dunno if Radiohead is a good example of music people want to listen too. I only liked the first three albums - if memory serves "Rainbows(?)" was the donate if you want it album - that I don't have it, and can't think of a track from it, should speak for itself.
I used Radiohead as an example of a name that could command an audience. My point being that having webspace alone wouldn't replace the existing (limited slot) promotion system unless the artist is already established.
As to whether sufficient money would be volunteered to make a donation method work - that's probably a bagel type thing (see Freakanomics) - peer determined. But if no one knows you exist they can't donate squat.
Can a donation or subscriber system work? It certainly works for *some* - both software (noscript, adblock), anime (I know people who religiously download every week, translate, and then spend a fortune buying the official copies of what they already have) and literature. It's worth considering that live shows are where most musicians make a living, and many bands without record deals working the indie scene on the Oz east coast depend on their back of the van homebaked CD sales (it's where I've spent most of my music collection money). Getting heard really helps.
While I doubt Luc Besson'd ever make a profitable movie based on a bittorrent distribution system and donations or subscriptions... I don't doubt a Firefly type show could.
With Hotmail, I don't have to give my cell phone number so that they can send me a text message with a key. That's creepy. I don't want cell phone numbers tied with email accounts and I don't want Google to have that information.
Gmail have special rules just for you? How nice. They don't force me to have a phone number on record.
Now it's me that's sad.
Sir, I think you should re-read what you just wrote.
Since when is Go not a game? Because it's just complicated?
Have you ever actually played go? If so, you'd know it takes alot of skill and even more practice to master.
Anything that takes practice, skill and involves fun is a game.
Red Rover does not have any 'rules' or 'regulations'. Yet, I bet you played it when you were little.
~Valk
Everything is a game. There's always a winner, and a loser, the trick is to determine when you are the latter, to become the former. All games have consequences. In the end the only guarantee you have is, that sooner or later, you lose.
Wake up Jake!
Where I live we have a system that provides even less work incentive than BIG and the unemployment rates are pretty similar to those in the US, although the unemployed here do live in more humane conditions. But people on the whole don't want to be unemployed because government money may keep you fed but it doesn't buy you a shiny new game console. Also, most people have an inherent urge to feel useful. I'm not saying this is because they're good people, but it's just the case that we're wired that way, it's probably some ancient tribal instinct. Quite apart from the economic feasibility (which is just fine) there is also the question that I for one don't want to live in a society in which there are people who have to beg for money and/or starve. A civilised society simply doesn't tolerate such squalor. I don't care if some unemployed people don't want to work (as long as they're not too plentiful) and in any case I think a good society would give unemployed a stipend and help to get back on life's tracks. As for the music payment scheme, I don't know if I agree with GP. Not all people like music... should those people be forced to help fund musicians through taxation? On the other hand maybe cultural development is for the public good to a sufficient extent... I'm on the fence.
I live in a country where the taxpayer does subsidize the "yarts" I also support the idea that it's a waste of money - if the government funded "yartists" were so fucking deserving they wouldn't need a taxpayer hand out.
Ah - spittle! The free screen cleaner! :-D
You know what would rock even more? If we could have both music and movies and and all the other art that we can spread across the world to everyone with a computer virtually for free as well as having the poor artists not starving.
An it would totally rock if everyone had access to all digitalized culture legally, so one wouldn't have to feel bad or fear a one in a million chance of personal economic disaster.
And we can. All it takes is a little socialism. Let the people decide what they like by downloading stuff and give those artists a living wage paid for with taxes.
(Another solution, even easier to administer, would be basic income http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee )
Anyway... Socialism FTW and fuck you and the horse you rode in on. Peace.
Or - any artist, performer, actor, director, writer who feels strongly about defending the way the current studio/distribution system treats them - publicly put up their paypal (or bank account details). An account the studios don't control. Then those that support the artist - but not the distributors, can donate money directly. What's that going to hurt? If they recieve money, and they don't want it - they can donate it to a worthy cause. But you can bet the studios won't let that happen!
In Australia - with certain restrictions, terms written on the back of a cheque are legally binding - what if people who like musician x sent him a cheque, and on that cheque it said "Dear x, I enjoyed your song/album y but I don't like the manager/company who fucked you over on the royalties - please accept my payment for $z on the condition you don't share it with said manager/company, sincerely a fan".?.
Nourish the share-cropper, starve the slave master. Viva the intelligent revolution!
Guys, there is a very simple solution to this problem: make the publishers go away.
Agreed
Artists can sell their music on the internet, they don't need publishers who record their CDs anymore.
Only when the audience can hear about them - web pages rely on search engines - which can, and will, be gamed. Fine if you're Devo or Radiohead, maybe ok if you're Courtney Love, and if no one has ever heard of you? You what - rely on SEO experts?
The internet is no more a threat to the established studio monopoly than radio or television - bittorrent over the internet is the threat. It's the subversive technology. Web sites are no more a threat to the existing system than ads in local newspapers and junk mail.
I also doubt that twits and facefriends can, or will, change the existing order.
These countries problems are with the people, and greed and stupidity. Fix that first, FIRST!!!, and then you can do the rest.
You are right. Thanks for putting up the truth.
While sincerely not wanting to muddy the waters.... The corruption is fueled by profit, and those (outside of Zim) who profit the most will continue to manipulate the situation in their favour. Fixing, by any means, the situation in Zim is not in their (sic) favour.
IMO one of the areas that foreigners (governments and their citizens) can, and should, help is in the identification and prosecution of those outside of Zim that benefit from, and contribute to the ongoing problems.
I'd also add a lack of an equitably education system to the list of things Zim needs to sort itself out. Sadly the contributions in that area by Rhodes (and Fullbright) don't seem to have helped.
Mozambique is just as bad - just not as popular in the press. To anyone planning on visiting Zim - no amount of pula or rand will save you arse from the ZANU-PF if you are caught with *any* camouflage clothing. For 'some reason' both Moz and Zim are *very* paranoid about the idea of foreign mercenaries arriving to try and stage a coupe.
It might help if the US got some sort of international support and helped the countries who most people believed needed helping, instead of unilaterally invading the ones with the most natural resources. Just saying.
Especially given the existing presence of the Chinese military (allegedly here 1943'28.99"S 3225'33.06"E) .... though I'd be surprised if actual "help" ever arrives - far too much money just in the blood diamonds, and far too many "very" powerful players.
I'd be a little cautious about buying anything Andrew Cranswick sold me without checking carefully first, especially if it's a cattle station (Moola Bulla) - equally I'd consider giving him a some credit when he denies that he pointed at Ernest "Deadly" Blom in the first place - but then Cranswick is possibly in SA at present, so SA bullbars might be higher on his list of concerns than Zim ones.
Just the legacy of Rhodes makes any change in Zim a very tricky proposition, dig a little into the Fullbright connection for more complexities. The whole thing just turns my stomach.
Don't confuse Slashdot with Wikipedia folks - do your own research, I have neither the time, the ability, or the inclination to prove anything, and everything.
You are not entitled to the sweat of their brows or all the time out of their lives that it takes to actually learn how to play an instrument, become a good actor, etc.
Neither is the RIAA/MPAA, who gets about 90% of the profit from these artists with almost none of the work behind them.
It's way to easy to see the whole "piracy" issue as *just* two opposing viewpoints. And, to me, neither view stacks up. I strongly suspect both camps are being naive and manipulated. And here's my reasoning:-
My point here being that neither party is "completely" right. Copying doesn't reduce the industries revenue stream as much as claimed - though it doesn't make the impact the industry claims it does. I'll leave the value of promotion out of this - it's a red herring.
Why would an immensely profitable industry spend a fortune on a demonstrably pointless pursuit? The assertion that they are total idiots contradicts their success.
Follow the money is the method that should be applied. Do that and it appears obvious (to me) that the "industry" is spending vast amounts of money because it is a cost effective way for them to protect their income. The mistake pro-pirates make is believing the product is the income stream. IMO they are wrong and have been deliberately been fooled.
The industry is profitable and powerful because it controls distribution. The RIAA/MPAA campaign is not about stopping copying it's about stifling an alternative distribution network.
Why is parent modded as troll? He's got a very valid opinion on the matter. About 90% of all rape allegations in Sweden don't even result in charges.
So you "believe" the assertion that "looking" at women in Sweden can "easily" get you sued or arrested or sued is not a troll? No need to state your true agenda either.
If I'd modded it I'd have kicked it down as "off topic", your post on the other-hand is a "troll".
"Valid opinion" == sophism. So's your second sentence. No matter how strongly you feel you've somehow been wronged (or slighted) making up bullshit to support your viewpoint will always work against you.
My goodness. I was under the mistaken impression that the Soviet Union collapsed two decades ago. My mistake. Interesting to meet you, tovarich.
(yawn) Likewise lofus.
How much do you have to bribe the judge, to get out of the falsified breathalyzer results, in your county?
Are you proposing that all breathalyzers are innaccurate?
Is that all cops are out to get *you*?
Is it because you are a good driver and don't need anyone else to tell you when you're too pissed to drive?
And how does what I said equate to communism? That's a rhetorical question - I suspect that was just the sort of slander and slime you throw around when anything you *imagine* challenges your self-righteous crusades.
Care to state your real agenda?
...is that everyone does it differently, and no one wants to conform to a uniform system. Why, you might ask? Because the current system is in place and, more importantly, people have learned how to game it.
I went through something like this years ago with a local government t&a project. There was a core group that understood it's value ( namely, IT and payroll ), but everyone else had been using tricks of the current, in place system ( which varied from dept to dept ) to get longer lunches, swap shifts or plain, flat out not work and get paid for it.
We never did get universal buy-in for the project, and it ended up dieing ( although, to be fair, the vendor didn't help things much ). Even in the best of times, T&A is a highly complex subject that almost no one understands. When you have people actively trying to undermine your efforts...well, you can imagine how much progress one might make.
( note: the depts that gave us the most headaches, btw, were fire and police. The "old boy" network had been in place so "billy bob" might take off a couple extra hours because he was the chief's friend. Needless to say, the new time keeping software didn't keep track of that "accurately", and people's feelings got hurt. )
The second most important single document in project management - the stakeholders list.
The most misunderstood term in project management - stakeholder.
Stakeholder == anyone who might possibly want to stab you with a pointy stick.
Most important document - a list of motivations and pain points of the stakeholders. Third most important - payment terms. Fourth - project delivery specifications.
Feel free to disagree, and, good luck.
;-p
It's old news that slashdot posts old news.
You must have been away for a while. It *was* old news that slashdot post old news, the new news is that slashdot reserves first view of the old news for subscribers and the old old news which is no longer news gets posted on hackaday, until its old hackaday news is .... oh wait, I think I see another problem, or maybe I'm just going to have to reconsider string theory
You could refuse an alcohol test? WTF! Seriously something wrong there - and now people complain because what? The "right" to refuse to be tested for being drunk while driving has been taken away? The only ludicrous part about this is that the presence of a judge is required to make testing possible.
In my country (where I drink, and catch a cab home) face-palm is my reaction to the idea that police can't alcohol test people driving out of a pub carpark - but face-palm doesn't cover my reaction to discovering on a recent trip to the US, that in a state where driving whilst drunk, and/or driving with an open alcoholic drink container in the vehicle *is* illegal... I can drive-in to a roadside stand, buy, and consume, a refreshing frozen daquiri without leaving my vehicle.
I think you have me confused for someone else...
You are correct, I am not. I apologise, unreservedly, though, fat lot of good that'll do.
I confused you with someone who's attacking and stalking someone else (my wife), having just posted politely to them asking for a reason - I jumped to the conclusion that what was happening to her was happening to me. Nothing to do with your posts, or this thread.
I just checked your recent post history and I don’t see any that were moderated at all so I’m really not sure what you’re talking about here.
Effectively, no. The message (twice about same post in the same day) something to the effect of "your post x has been moderated down, the moderation has been removed , possibly due to a moderator post in the same thread". Not this thread.
Note: I am not the AC poster.
Well that much I know: I know exactly who the AC poster is. He’s Alexander Peter Kowalski,
Now there's a coincidence. I didn't recognise him/it. But I sure do know of him - the 14MB host file, self-validating, hello from 1990 troll! Normally (if that word even applies in this instance) he puts "APK" in his posts/malodorous missives. I reported him for abuse in another thread yesterday - something I've never done before.
Me, on the other hand, I generally try to get along with anyone who isn’t a complete loon or an idiot (i.e. apk), so maybe we got off on the wrong foot. And I can’t fathom what on earth in my post about a “stopped clock” was rude. It certainly wasn’t intended to be, although I did misunderstand your post before it.
Nothing you wrote was taken as rude, the "No shit Sherlock" (colloquial jocularism) was the only comment aimed at you. The rest was me stupidly using and external editor to compose, not checking before posting, and, my stupidity.
You mis-read my post, and I fucked up my response. The two things don't equate. Mea culpa, and kudos for your reasonable and polite response. Good luck with the unreasonable, intractable, abusive, and recalcitrant APK.
BigPond actually has the most robust DNS infrastructure in Australia..
I have no means of knowing whether that is correct or not, and no opinions on it either. I have worked for Telstra (as a complex data tester - so I know a little of the infrastructure), but not TeleTech (BigPond).
Dunno how robustness came into this - I simply pointed out that BigPuddle dns "appears" "selective" about which addresses it resolves.
Mighty tempting to go way OT on this - but I need to have a quick read up on what's happening to my ISP's before dinner...
But that did resolve.
You are (obviously) correct, and yes "we" are talking about DNS. You are not the source of the confusion....I pasted the wrong bit of bash history there, (that IP came from the IPCop cache).
The DNS address/es supplied by 3 Mobile show are currently 202.124.76.66 & 202.124.68.130 - I don't know if they are the ones I've always gotten. Using them I cannot resolve my.three.com.au to check my account.
Thanks for reminding me about ICMP, both 3Mobile and Vodadphone having been driving me nuts the last few weeks - dropouts, P2P filtering, account balance weirdness (somehow credited 1.4G last week!). Vodaphone currently resolves as does three (intermittantly), my.three.com.au doesn't (though the IP I have for it works). (I'm being told I should look at vodafail.com(?), and that both ISP are now one, or similar, as I try and write this).
telnet three.com.au telnet: could not resolve three.com.au/telnet: Name or service not known with clean dns cache
$ telnet 203.37.69.133 Trying 203.37.69.133... ^Cusing correct address works
Googledns works for everything except my.three.com.au
I shall now go and read up this site that supposedly will explain the problems, and take my confusion with me. Cheers
yeah, since you can't set secondary dns servers in any modern os...
:-D
You're aiming too high for this crowd.... ;-p
This is a very widespread practice now. Use your own ISP for DNS.
Who's your ISP? Do they operate in Australia?
(currently) 3 Mobile, and Vodaphone, have very slow, and unreliable, DNS.
google.com and google.com.au averaging about 350 ms, at present neither ISP is able to resolve their own address (sigh) ping three.com.au PING three.com.au (203.37.69.133) 56(84) bytes of data. ^C --- three.com.au ping statistics --- 25 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 2015ms and that's while using a three connection! (how does that work?)
BigPuddle doesn't resolve address URL's that google DNS does (wikileaks, piratebay, and others)
I use a DNS cache on the firewall, pointed at googledns. I'll have to try opendns and compare.
Dunno about iTunes...
If the only thing you point to is the pharmaceutical definition you probably earn your geek badge, but maybe should go out into the streets more to learn about the real world.
What's your story? Do you have some sort of chip on your shoulder about higher education, or are you just a crank nursing some obscure personal issue with the poster? You really do come across as someone suffering from foetal alcohol syndrome.
Jeez, you’re awfully rude.
Well spotted Sherlock! ;-p
Okay, I missed that. What should I write on the chalkboard?
How about:-
"I will not use multiple psuedonyms to mod up my own posts, to mod down posts I don't like, and to create friends I don't have"?
Or maybe:-
"I will not take Slashdot too seriously because my fraudulent ways mean that less and less honest people want to read Slashdot - or post there"?
Given that you appear too shallow to acknowledge your own rudeness, how about:-
"I am too stupid to recognise the consequences of shitting in the water hole - and now my tummy feels funny, and, where has everybody gone?"?
Note: I am not the AC poster. Perhaps *you're* the poster that keeps getting caught by Slashdot trying to moderate my posts with multiple usernames?
Simple way to test that theory, Kim jong il actually has WMDs and is a far worse tyrant that Saddam could ever hope to be. Which one did we attack?
Me personally I wish we would stay out of things more, Iran is our own doing for instance.
Save your breath. Some people have a deep emotional investment in their opinions - their demand for proof is not a sign that they are capable of reassessing their position. Point out that until Hussein starting looking at Kuwait he received a steady stream of favours from the US.
Disclaimer: I can see the difference between US business interests, the US people, and the US government.
Another test - the Twin Towers are destroyed by (mostly) Saudi citizens - so attack Afganistan... cause Bin Laden is a bad guy (and I don't dispute it). He's a real bad guy - funded and trained by the good guys right?
Big difference between categorically not true and "no proof".
Yes it's about oil, it's about controlling who doesn't get the oil. This is not new - see Japan, WWII. This time it's China and India. Lucky for everyone history doesn't repeat huh?
But he was an evil bastard when we put him in power, we just don't care. Do you have any idea how many ruthless bastards we have put in power?
Well no, I don't.
Nor do I dispute that with all the powerful interest involved - had he *not* been a ruthless bastard (representing a beleaguered minority), he'd have lasted no time at all.
One of things overlooked in debate about the cables concerning Mugabe and his opponents - it that the US assessment of Tsvangirai rates him weak... given the number of foreign funded attempted coup d'état in that area of late - that might not bode well.