But do we have to wait another 400 years before evolution is accepted by all?
Has it ever occured to you that evolution might be wrong? It probably isn't, but there's something in your language which is unsettling.
For all the frustration the scientifically inclined have with closed minded fundimentalists, they often times are guilty of the same thing.
It almost seems as if people hold on so tightly to evolutionalism not because they are interested in science or truth, but because it's such a powerful anti-religious symbol.
Evolution is a theory. It's probably right, and right now it's the best thing we've got. But we shouldn't close our minds to other ideas only because religious zelots think we're wrong. We run the risk of being just as bad as they are.
For what it's worth, I consider myself a Christian. I'm happy with my faith, and I can easily see how the study of science fits in nicely with the faith.
I love to see documentaries about science. Learning about the universe that God created fills me with wonder, and the more I see how absolutly amazing the universe is, the more I appreciate what He has given us.
Now, there are those out there who feel that only their understanding of the Bible is correct, and chose to turn their back on any course of study which reveals how truly fantastic creation really is. I have a name for those people: Wackjobs.
It's hard for me to even give those sorts the consideration of being misguided but well intentioned. These people come off as mean-spirited individuals who aren't interested in discovering the truth. God is truth, and turning your back on what is the truth, both spiritually and scientifically is akin to turning your back on God. The way I see it, there's only one way to deal with those types of people: Ignore them.
The only way these people get power is to take their demands seriously. If Imax theaters refuse to show scientific films because they are afraid of offending this very small, but very vocal minority (or in this case, because a few nutjobs said they thought it might be "blasphemous" in one of those inane focus groups), they are doing a disservice to the public in refusing to educating them.
We live in a secular country. We should all be able to celebrate our faith, regardless of what it is. But we shouldn't allow our faith to get in the way of an objective, secular science. Nor should we allow fundamentalism to ruin the education of the population as a whole.
Now, that having been said, it would be nice if the scientific community stopped presenting evolution as the "truth", and touted it for what it is: The best scientific explanation we have right now that outlines the origins and development of life. I only say this because I sometimes think that science, in difference to religion, can be guilty of the same closed mindedness that plagues the fundamentalist movements. When something like "Intelligent Design" comes around, it's immediately dismissed as religious pseudoscience, despite the fact that there might be something to it.
Sure, as far as our current understanding goes, evolution still makes more scientific sense, but let's not sit on our laurels and ignore studying any other ideas. In the same way, let's not succumb to the crazy idea that trying to tell the story of evolution, or of the big bang is somehow an affront to God. Or, more accurately, let's not listen to the vocal minority who wants to stymie any understanding of science which they see as a threat to their faith.
We're fighting a global war on terrorism right now. A good number of those who are out to harm us are motivated by closed minded fundamentalism. Let's try and not give an ear to those within our own country who are motivated by the same thing.
First of all, the proper term for refering to the recently departeted is not 'death', it's "pre-decompisitionary". And secondly, if there is a better catagory for disabled then pre-decopisitionary, I've never seen it.
And I don't see any major challenges for exhuming the grave of Reeves so he can play super-man as a pre-decompisitionary differenlty abled character. We have some pretty good acting coaches to help out.
You should all know that there is an entire "Super-Friends" movie in the works, and my boss, Mr. Cohen is in charge of casting for it. Mr. Cohen is on extended leave right now while he tackles his various, er, addictions, so he's put the casting decisions in my capable hands. Here's some of my notes that are going to the studio next week:
Wonderwoman: Rosie O'Donald. Sure, that spunky little gal may not have the looks, but her endearing spirit and positive attitude make her the only logical choice. Plus, she has an ample frame for supporting a costume that is both revealing, and can hold all sorts of super-hero toys.
Superman: You have to have Christopher Reeves play him again. First, because he knows the part, and secondly, who says superman can't be disabled? What are you, prejudiced?
Aquaman: Hey, there's only one man in Hollywood who can pull off a believable character who breaths under water. And that man is Kevin Costner. I'm pretty sure he still has his gills from Water-world, so there's a cost savings there.
Batman: When he's with the super friends, Batman isn't some brooding, dark, deep and complicated super-hero that we saw in all of his movies. He's jolly and righteous! You know who else is jolly and righteous? Radio personality Rush Limbaugh. A little birdie told me Limbaugh is itching to try out acting, and what a better place then in a super friends movie.
Robin: It's about time Hollywood wakes up to the reality that Robin is gay. Let's stop trying to hide it. So we should get an actor who is also gay, and should stop trying to hide it. Sure he's getting old, but Hollywood veteran Tom Cruise would be a perfect Robin, for no other reason then the mutual outing of two pop-culture institutions.
The Wonder Twins: This ones a no brainer: Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. 'Nuff said. The difficult part would be casting the voice of their trusty side-kick thing, Gleek, which I'm sure would be all CGI. Fran Drescher is at the top of my list until I think of somebody better.
The Legon of Doom: Those are the bad guys, so you are only allowed to cast evil actors in those roles.
Lex Luthor: Let's update the super-friends for the 90s, and cast Luther as a woman. Who says a woman can't be powerfully evil? We'll need some one big and fat who makes your skin crawl whenever you see them, so the obvious choice is Kirstie Alley.
All the other chracters for the LOD will be CGI or Muppets, voiced by Frank Oz.
The last thing we need is another closed "under the hood" protocol out there that allows programs to interface with other programs "seamlessly". Virus and Trojan writers will most likely figure out exploits quickly.
Meanwhile, I'm still figuring out how to uninstall Internet Explorer. I've been trying to figure that out since 1996.
"Dear valued customer: Judging by your current online reservations at hotels.com and corresponding purchases at lingere.com, chances are your wife is about to discover yet again one of your torrid affairs! May we suggest purchasing a lovely bouquet of "forgive me" flowers from flowers.com and a stunning heart shaped diamond pendant from jewerly.com?
This is a valuable opportunity to purchase her forgiveness in advance, and save countless nights on the couch! And since this is your fourth affair in as many years, we'd like to extend a frequent customer 10% discount!"
When I first glanced at the topic, I was expecting another "The Internet with its peer to peer file sharing and broadband will kill the DVD industry just like it hurt record sales.
I was suprised when I found out the culprit was legal downloading. It's nice to see the doomsayers make a little more sense.
The Internet will never kill DVD ownership, but it might bite into the sales of rentals. An Internet connected set-top box capable of easily downloading and displaying a movie on a home theater system at DVD quality, if priced right, will make renting movies so much easier then going to a brick and mortar store that it's a no brainer that the video rental shop is going to see sour days ahead.
But unlike music, the convenience of the Internet will never replace the private ownership of DVDs, because the video business is doing most things right that the record business does wrong. For one, DVDs are typically at a price point that is fair, considering the content. One would think that it would be a wakeup call to the music industry that a $9.99 DVD would sell well, while nobody would touch the $15.99 CD soundtrack of that movie. Even if filesharing of movies reached the level of music, people would still buy the $9.99 DVD, because if it's a decent movie, the price makes ownership worth it. Secondly, movies typically are either a quality piece of work or they're not. It's so common now that a new release CD contains only one or two songs worth listening to and 10-12 tracks that are filler. It makes more sense to the consumer to spend money on something that they know, as an entire piece of work, is all good..
Personally, I've only purchased 3 CDs in the last year (all used for ~$6.99), but some 30 DVDs, all new, and with a few exceptions, all under $22 dollars (most in the $10-$15 range). Even if I could get the movies direct to my TV for a few dollars cheaper, I like to own the whole thing. There's something about having the work sitting on a shelf, and the act of perusing one's collection deciding what you feel like. I would buy more CDs for the exact same reason, if I didn't feel like I was paying too much for what I get.
The only segment of the DVD market I can see being effected by direct Internet downloads would be music video DVDs. I paid $35 for the Criterion Collection Beastie Boys DVD, and now that I have it (which is rarely put in the DVD player), I realize that while I wouldn't purchase another music video DVD, I would be willing to play a couple bucks to download single video (so as long as the quality of the sound and video was to par with DVDs, and as long as I could store it, copy it, and play it whenever I wanted. But ultimately, music video DVDs don't make up a significant enough market share for DVDs to dramatically effect the industry.
This is all assuming that most consumers think the way I do.
What will kill DVD sales? Another video format superior to DVDs which is likely to see mainstream acceptance in another 10-15 years. In the meantime I'll keep buying DVDs, even if I can find a good divx rip of the film for free on the Internet. I see no reason why charging for the work would make that different.
Well, if I knew that the money I gave to a company was going to support one of the owners skateboarding habit, I'd rethink my business relationship.
Sure, Skateboarding is not a crime.... but it should be.
For me, I just use a pseudonym for all my online activities. It's always been a good rule of thumb to keep your personal thoughts and feelings and the persona you put forth in a professional environment separate. It just would be too awkward if I went to a high powered business meeting and somebody said "Aren't you the guy who writes stories about alcoholic donkeys that fly through space?"
People are going to be judgmental. Don't hurt yourself because you think they shouldn't be.
I love reading about this; this idea that the airwaves ultimatly belong to the public. The idea that the public can't use their own airwaves because a company wants to make money off of it just chaps my hide.
Perhaps men like this will bring the FCC towards the direction that it needs to be heading. Who knows... some day all of the public airwaves will actually be used to benifit the public.
IBM Developer Works staff writing guidelines: (For internal distribution only).
1. Chose topic for writing that is common knowledge in the computing community that you yourself know very little about.
2. Do research on topic by asking your neighbors about it. Then ask people from the local coffee shop. Include this process in your article.
3. Ask other editors about the topic. Print their way off responses without actually showing an understanding of them.
4. Always include buzz words like "nanotechnology" in your articles to show you're on the bleeding edge. Also include references to pop-culture like "The Daily Show" to show you're hip. You may want to tell people you lived near the Berlin Wall in your by-line to show how cool you are.
5. Inflate your article as much as possible. While you could say what you need to say in 2 or 3 paragraphs, include all sorts of extraneous information so it looks like you are a real writer.
The problem with charging is not just doing the work, but the follow-ups. Typically the usage behavior of an individual who mucks up their PC with things like spy-ware, viruses, installing bad software etc. is that after the computer is cleaned up and working, they're going to mess it up again.
Then you get the call. "Hey, I paid you $50 to fix my computer and it's still having the same problem!" This can happen literally hours after you've repaired it, and the user will expect you to come back and fix it again for free, because hey, they paid you $50 to fix it and in their minds it's still broke.
So you have to be very, very careful up front explaining to them that "Listen, I'm going to do my best to take care of your problem, but there's going to be no guarantee that the problem won't come back."
The other problem is, once someone has it in their mind that you're a computer expert, they will call you over and over again with questions about any little problem. In most people's minds, phone support is free. Spending 30 minutes on the phone walking somebody through the process of pulling an accidentally deleted file out of the recycle bin is no fun, and they would balk at you trying to charge them for the help.
Otherwise, $30-40 an hour is not unreasonable. They would pay more if they called the local computer shop to help them out.
So, does this mean that my Garmin hand held GPS will have to start running CE in the near future? Because that 8 megs of ram is just going to waste right now.
Why do I have a feeling you wear a mask and non-descript dark clothes when you go to taco bell so you can't be identified by their security cameras. Pay only in cash, which you only handle with gloves on to avoid them finding your fingerprints, and simply point to what you want on the menu so nobody can get a voice print on you.
Because, you know, it's important that nobody ever knows what you do.
Also, you may want to consider purchasing a tin-foil hat. That would compliment your BSD setup perfectly.
And for all these years, I thought Lynx WAS a big magical spotted cat which was caged inside those big giant *nix main-frames. The magical part was that this captive beast would be forced to parse html into ASCII text.
Well, now that I know the browser isn't explotive towards our charmed feline friends, I may just start using it.
I have Sirius, and I'm pleased as punch with it. I can't see how merging with XM (if the story is, in fact, true) would make things any better.
Sirius has some great stations with good DJs. The bigger you make the company, the more whitewashed it becomes. I don't know what XM is all about, but people who have it tell me they like it. That's fine. But a little compitition never hurt anyone. Monopolies, on the other hand, usually don't work, espically with something as subjective as music.
Been an AMD man (not counting laptops), and have had the same main computer now since 1991...much in the same way a lumberjack can claim he's had the same axe for 13 years but replaced the handle 9 times and the head 14 times.
~1989: Intel? 8086, 640k ram, ?video ~1991: AMD 386 DX 40, 4 megs ram, 1meg video ~1994: AMD 386 DX-2 66, 5 megs ram, 1 meg video ~1996: AMD 486 DX-4 133, 5 megs ram, 2 meg video ~1997: AMD K-5 166, 16 megs ram, 2 meg video ~1999: AMD K-6 300, 16 megs ram, 4 meg video ~2001: AMD Duron 600, 128 megs ram, 16 meg video ~2003: AMD Athelon 1900+, 512 megs ram, 64 meg video
Still have the 1900+, but added a new video card with a quarter gig of ram on it. It simply amazes me how much things have changed. I have a laptop now that theoretically should outperform my desktop (except with games). Though looking at that time schedule, I think it's probably time to upgrade my main PC.
Perhaps it's the my old crotchityness (if that is a word), but I've taken to writing parties that broadcast in the Real format. It usually starts out with "I'm not sure how you got swindled into broadcasting in the Real format, but..." and providing some links to show how really terrible the real client is to the user's computers.
I know this won't help your situation now, but gosh I can't wait until otherwise credible media producers--such as NPR or the BBC--drop Real for good. As far as I can tell the only benifit Real gives its customers is the claim that the streams can't easily be copied (though I understand that can 'easily' be circumvented).
Good luck with your device, and hopefully somebody can help you with an easy WMA or Real to MP3 conversion.
You've managed to put your finger on the biggest problem in the Western social and economic system, that corps have the same rights than humans but none of the responsibility.
Though I don't think hitting the corporations financially as punishment really works. Large corporations will typically build in potential losses from economic punishments for misdeeds into their business model. A company may knowingly release a product they know to be unsafe, and simply put a portion of their profits aside for paying out of court settlements to victims.
In essense, this is akin to saying that it's alright for me to go around killing people without fear of jail if I can afford to pay the victim's families a large portion of money.
What I'd like to see is criminal charges brought on descision makers in corporations who knowingly use unsafe methods to produce a product that they know to be dangerous. In other words, a manager who makes the decision to save $0.02 on each product produced by using a less safe part won't be hedging those cost savings against the potential court costs from the families his company's product kills, he'll be hedging it against the very real possibility that he himself may face prison time for multiple murder charges.
We cannot give large corporations exemption from responsibility on a human level. We see corporations as faceless entities, but there are always human beings behind the scenes making decisions on how that corporation acts. If we start making those humans accountable for the actions of the company for whom they make decisions, I think we'd start seeing quite a bit more safety, envrionmental and social responsibility in the corporate world.
I used to be a highschool substitute teacher, so I would usually see the students at there worst (or best, depending on how you look at it).
From what the students told me, here are some ideas to get them interested in science/computing:
Network security: Present a challenge to the students to get past whatever "web-minder" or "net-nanny" type filtering scheme the district has installed so they can get to the more, er, colorful websites. (I was very surprised and delighted to see a group of inner-city students circumvent the filtering measures the school had so they could browse the pages of low-rider magazine online. When I caught them, they were a little scared, until I told them "I won't tell on you if you show me how you did it". They showed me, and man those kids were bright.)
Physics/bio-chemistry: While many people will look down on this, kids are going to smoke weed, and no amount of force-fed DARE propaganda can stop them. Now, you have to be very careful about how to present it, but interesting projects might include Bon..er, "water-pipe" construction, asking the kids "What chemical reaction is going on when the smoke is filtered through the water?", or "What is the best diameter for the main shaft of the pipe for maximum efficiency". I once found a student going over extensive notes, with diagrams and calculations for the design of his custom water-pipe.
Of course, neither of these could ever be seriously put into play in a public school, but for a great deal of motivation for some students is found in the desire to do something they shouldn't be doing. I for one learned quite a bit about computer software trying to get pirated games to run when I only had 640k of base memory to work with. The games themselves were incidental, it was the fact that I could take any number of cracked games and get the old DOS to run it which made the process interesting to me.
I think you'd get a lot of students interested if you can somehow create the illusion of misconduct in the exercises.
It's funny how that works. HP has somehow managed to go from one of the leading producers of quality printers, for example, to one of the many cheapo vendors.
Remember when a Laserjet 4 was the printer to have?
Or for that matter, remember when Diamond multimendia was the producers of graphics cards?
A company that overstates claims typically is a company that is cutting costs while sliding on their brand name. I wonder how many solid names in the industry have to go down the drain before they realize it's probably not a good idea, in the long run, to overstate the quality or performance of your products.
Heck, I can remember a time when Compaq actually made good computers.
But only if they use the money on building and expanding our transportation system here in California
Yes, so as long as the transportation systems your building and expanding are public, mass transit systems.
As it appears now, this sort of policy would be great for gas guzzling SUV owners who only use their vehicles for short commutes to work. If you took away the gas tax on top of that, the cost penalities for buying a giant commuter vehicle as opposed to an efficent, envrionmentally friendly vehicle are dimished, and the benifits of utilizing mass transit over commuting alone in vehicles are gone.
Sadly, California seems perfectly happy to use funds collected from vehicles to maintain and expand road systems instead of investing in transit, so it would be likely that major road arterys into citys would garner the majority of the funds, while long distance freeway travlers would be bearing the brunt of the cost.
I remember doing that too, way back in the mid 80s, but my experience was a little more intense.
We actually got to go into the real shuttle to sit in the cockpit during an engine test. During the test, there was some "computer error" or something (I'm a little fuzzy on the details), which made it appear there was a malfunction, and the people at mission control had to actually launch us into space.
I don't remember much about it, since I was a little kid and I've had a lot to drink since 1986, but there was something about a gay robot and having to tell this annoying kid to "use the force" in order to save everyone's life.
I wonder if the evil specter of the wardriving boogieman will soon replace the computer virus as the all out scapegoat for any problems with computers.
"My computer isn't working" Oh, must be a virus... oh, must have been a wardriver.
"There's this credit card bill to an online porno site, honey.. you know anything about this?" oh, must be a virus... oh, must be a wardriver.
"The RIAA detected several mp3s have been illegal traded from your Internet connection". oh, must be a virus... oh, must be a wardriver.
I have a strong feeling that very soon Norton and MacAfee will be releasing their 'war-driver' defense software, available in your finer Best Buys and Office Depots, which will scan your network and watch out for those pesky war drivers trying to hack into your network and do all sorts of nasty things to you.
I wish the media would just admit that in general, war drivers are nothing more then bored little geeks who are more curious to see what's out there then to actually do any 'hacking', and that enabling the WEP that came standard with consumer's WAPs is typically good enough security to stop some of your more nefarious 'hackers'.
Or at least, that's why I war drive, and that's what I use to stop those hackers. (actually, it's more to stop my neighbors from accidentally connecting to my WAP instead of their own and stealing my bandwidth, because hey, they're leaving their WAP wide open.
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But do we have to wait another 400 years before evolution is accepted by all?
Has it ever occured to you that evolution might be wrong? It probably isn't, but there's something in your language which is unsettling.
For all the frustration the scientifically inclined have with closed minded fundimentalists, they often times are guilty of the same thing.
It almost seems as if people hold on so tightly to evolutionalism not because they are interested in science or truth, but because it's such a powerful anti-religious symbol.
Evolution is a theory. It's probably right, and right now it's the best thing we've got. But we shouldn't close our minds to other ideas only because religious zelots think we're wrong. We run the risk of being just as bad as they are.
For what it's worth, I consider myself a Christian. I'm happy with my faith, and I can easily see how the study of science fits in nicely with the faith.
I love to see documentaries about science. Learning about the universe that God created fills me with wonder, and the more I see how absolutly amazing the universe is, the more I appreciate what He has given us.
Now, there are those out there who feel that only their understanding of the Bible is correct, and chose to turn their back on any course of study which reveals how truly fantastic creation really is. I have a name for those people: Wackjobs.
It's hard for me to even give those sorts the consideration of being misguided but well intentioned. These people come off as mean-spirited individuals who aren't interested in discovering the truth. God is truth, and turning your back on what is the truth, both spiritually and scientifically is akin to turning your back on God. The way I see it, there's only one way to deal with those types of people: Ignore them.
The only way these people get power is to take their demands seriously. If Imax theaters refuse to show scientific films because they are afraid of offending this very small, but very vocal minority (or in this case, because a few nutjobs said they thought it might be "blasphemous" in one of those inane focus groups), they are doing a disservice to the public in refusing to educating them.
We live in a secular country. We should all be able to celebrate our faith, regardless of what it is. But we shouldn't allow our faith to get in the way of an objective, secular science. Nor should we allow fundamentalism to ruin the education of the population as a whole.
Now, that having been said, it would be nice if the scientific community stopped presenting evolution as the "truth", and touted it for what it is: The best scientific explanation we have right now that outlines the origins and development of life. I only say this because I sometimes think that science, in difference to religion, can be guilty of the same closed mindedness that plagues the fundamentalist movements. When something like "Intelligent Design" comes around, it's immediately dismissed as religious pseudoscience, despite the fact that there might be something to it.
Sure, as far as our current understanding goes, evolution still makes more scientific sense, but let's not sit on our laurels and ignore studying any other ideas. In the same way, let's not succumb to the crazy idea that trying to tell the story of evolution, or of the big bang is somehow an affront to God. Or, more accurately, let's not listen to the vocal minority who wants to stymie any understanding of science which they see as a threat to their faith.
We're fighting a global war on terrorism right now. A good number of those who are out to harm us are motivated by closed minded fundamentalism. Let's try and not give an ear to those within our own country who are motivated by the same thing.
So being *dead* now just counts as a disability?
First of all, the proper term for refering to the recently departeted is not 'death', it's "pre-decompisitionary". And secondly, if there is a better catagory for disabled then pre-decopisitionary, I've never seen it.
And I don't see any major challenges for exhuming the grave of Reeves so he can play super-man as a pre-decompisitionary differenlty abled character. We have some pretty good acting coaches to help out.
You should all know that there is an entire "Super-Friends" movie in the works, and my boss, Mr. Cohen is in charge of casting for it. Mr. Cohen is on extended leave right now while he tackles his various, er, addictions, so he's put the casting decisions in my capable hands. Here's some of my notes that are going to the studio next week:
Wonderwoman: Rosie O'Donald. Sure, that spunky little gal may not have the looks, but her endearing spirit and positive attitude make her the only logical choice. Plus, she has an ample frame for supporting a costume that is both revealing, and can hold all sorts of super-hero toys.
Superman: You have to have Christopher Reeves play him again. First, because he knows the part, and secondly, who says superman can't be disabled? What are you, prejudiced?
Aquaman: Hey, there's only one man in Hollywood who can pull off a believable character who breaths under water. And that man is Kevin Costner. I'm pretty sure he still has his gills from Water-world, so there's a cost savings there.
Batman: When he's with the super friends, Batman isn't some brooding, dark, deep and complicated super-hero that we saw in all of his movies. He's jolly and righteous! You know who else is jolly and righteous? Radio personality Rush Limbaugh. A little birdie told me Limbaugh is itching to try out acting, and what a better place then in a super friends movie.
Robin: It's about time Hollywood wakes up to the reality that Robin is gay. Let's stop trying to hide it. So we should get an actor who is also gay, and should stop trying to hide it. Sure he's getting old, but Hollywood veteran Tom Cruise would be a perfect Robin, for no other reason then the mutual outing of two pop-culture institutions.
The Wonder Twins: This ones a no brainer: Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. 'Nuff said. The difficult part would be casting the voice of their trusty side-kick thing, Gleek, which I'm sure would be all CGI. Fran Drescher is at the top of my list until I think of somebody better.
The Legon of Doom: Those are the bad guys, so you are only allowed to cast evil actors in those roles.
Lex Luthor: Let's update the super-friends for the 90s, and cast Luther as a woman. Who says a woman can't be powerfully evil? We'll need some one big and fat who makes your skin crawl whenever you see them, so the obvious choice is Kirstie Alley.
All the other chracters for the LOD will be CGI or Muppets, voiced by Frank Oz.
You really hit the nail on the head there.
The last thing we need is another closed "under the hood" protocol out there that allows programs to interface with other programs "seamlessly". Virus and Trojan writers will most likely figure out exploits quickly.
Meanwhile, I'm still figuring out how to uninstall Internet Explorer. I've been trying to figure that out since 1996.
I can see it now:
"Dear valued customer: Judging by your current online reservations at hotels.com and corresponding purchases at lingere.com, chances are your wife is about to discover yet again one of your torrid affairs! May we suggest purchasing a lovely bouquet of "forgive me" flowers from flowers.com and a stunning heart shaped diamond pendant from jewerly.com?
This is a valuable opportunity to purchase her forgiveness in advance, and save countless nights on the couch! And since this is your fourth affair in as many years, we'd like to extend a frequent customer 10% discount!"
Ahh the Internet... is there nothing it can't do?
When I first glanced at the topic, I was expecting another "The Internet with its peer to peer file sharing and broadband will kill the DVD industry just like it hurt record sales.
.
I was suprised when I found out the culprit was legal downloading. It's nice to see the doomsayers make a little more sense.
The Internet will never kill DVD ownership, but it might bite into the sales of rentals. An Internet connected set-top box capable of easily downloading and displaying a movie on a home theater system at DVD quality, if priced right, will make renting movies so much easier then going to a brick and mortar store that it's a no brainer that the video rental shop is going to see sour days ahead.
But unlike music, the convenience of the Internet will never replace the private ownership of DVDs, because the video business is doing most things right that the record business does wrong. For one, DVDs are typically at a price point that is fair, considering the content. One would think that it would be a wakeup call to the music industry that a $9.99 DVD would sell well, while nobody would touch the $15.99 CD soundtrack of that movie. Even if filesharing of movies reached the level of music, people would still buy the $9.99 DVD, because if it's a decent movie, the price makes ownership worth it. Secondly, movies typically are either a quality piece of work or they're not. It's so common now that a new release CD contains only one or two songs worth listening to and 10-12 tracks that are filler. It makes more sense to the consumer to spend money on something that they know, as an entire piece of work, is all good.
Personally, I've only purchased 3 CDs in the last year (all used for ~$6.99), but some 30 DVDs, all new, and with a few exceptions, all under $22 dollars (most in the $10-$15 range). Even if I could get the movies direct to my TV for a few dollars cheaper, I like to own the whole thing. There's something about having the work sitting on a shelf, and the act of perusing one's collection deciding what you feel like. I would buy more CDs for the exact same reason, if I didn't feel like I was paying too much for what I get.
The only segment of the DVD market I can see being effected by direct Internet downloads would be music video DVDs. I paid $35 for the Criterion Collection Beastie Boys DVD, and now that I have it (which is rarely put in the DVD player), I realize that while I wouldn't purchase another music video DVD, I would be willing to play a couple bucks to download single video (so as long as the quality of the sound and video was to par with DVDs, and as long as I could store it, copy it, and play it whenever I wanted. But ultimately, music video DVDs don't make up a significant enough market share for DVDs to dramatically effect the industry.
This is all assuming that most consumers think the way I do.
What will kill DVD sales? Another video format superior to DVDs which is likely to see mainstream acceptance in another 10-15 years. In the meantime I'll keep buying DVDs, even if I can find a good divx rip of the film for free on the Internet. I see no reason why charging for the work would make that different.
Well, if I knew that the money I gave to a company was going to support one of the owners skateboarding habit, I'd rethink my business relationship.
Sure, Skateboarding is not a crime.... but it should be.
For me, I just use a pseudonym for all my online activities. It's always been a good rule of thumb to keep your personal thoughts and feelings and the persona you put forth in a professional environment separate. It just would be too awkward if I went to a high powered business meeting and somebody said "Aren't you the guy who writes stories about alcoholic donkeys that fly through space?"
People are going to be judgmental. Don't hurt yourself because you think they shouldn't be.
Hint: Both parties are full of incompitant corporate stooges.
I love reading about this; this idea that the airwaves ultimatly belong to the public. The idea that the public can't use their own airwaves because a company wants to make money off of it just chaps my hide.
Perhaps men like this will bring the FCC towards the direction that it needs to be heading. Who knows... some day all of the public airwaves will actually be used to benifit the public.
IBM Developer Works staff writing guidelines:
(For internal distribution only).
1. Chose topic for writing that is common knowledge in the computing community that you yourself know very little about.
2. Do research on topic by asking your neighbors about it. Then ask people from the local coffee shop. Include this process in your article.
3. Ask other editors about the topic. Print their way off responses without actually showing an understanding of them.
4. Always include buzz words like "nanotechnology" in your articles to show you're on the bleeding edge. Also include references to pop-culture like "The Daily Show" to show you're hip. You may want to tell people you lived near the Berlin Wall in your by-line to show how cool you are.
5. Inflate your article as much as possible. While you could say what you need to say in 2 or 3 paragraphs, include all sorts of extraneous information so it looks like you are a real writer.
***
The problem with charging is not just doing the work, but the follow-ups. Typically the usage behavior of an individual who mucks up their PC with things like spy-ware, viruses, installing bad software etc. is that after the computer is cleaned up and working, they're going to mess it up again.
Then you get the call. "Hey, I paid you $50 to fix my computer and it's still having the same problem!" This can happen literally hours after you've repaired it, and the user will expect you to come back and fix it again for free, because hey, they paid you $50 to fix it and in their minds it's still broke.
So you have to be very, very careful up front explaining to them that "Listen, I'm going to do my best to take care of your problem, but there's going to be no guarantee that the problem won't come back."
The other problem is, once someone has it in their mind that you're a computer expert, they will call you over and over again with questions about any little problem. In most people's minds, phone support is free. Spending 30 minutes on the phone walking somebody through the process of pulling an accidentally deleted file out of the recycle bin is no fun, and they would balk at you trying to charge them for the help.
Otherwise, $30-40 an hour is not unreasonable. They would pay more if they called the local computer shop to help them out.
So, does this mean that my Garmin hand held GPS will have to start running CE in the near future? Because that 8 megs of ram is just going to waste right now.
Why do I have a feeling you wear a mask and non-descript dark clothes when you go to taco bell so you can't be identified by their security cameras. Pay only in cash, which you only handle with gloves on to avoid them finding your fingerprints, and simply point to what you want on the menu so nobody can get a voice print on you.
Because, you know, it's important that nobody ever knows what you do.
Also, you may want to consider purchasing a tin-foil hat. That would compliment your BSD setup perfectly.
And for all these years, I thought Lynx WAS a big magical spotted cat which was caged inside those big giant *nix main-frames. The magical part was that this captive beast would be forced to parse html into ASCII text.
Well, now that I know the browser isn't explotive towards our charmed feline friends, I may just start using it.
Learn something new every day.
I really hope something like this doesn't happen.
I have Sirius, and I'm pleased as punch with it. I can't see how merging with XM (if the story is, in fact, true) would make things any better.
Sirius has some great stations with good DJs. The bigger you make the company, the more whitewashed it becomes. I don't know what XM is all about, but people who have it tell me they like it. That's fine. But a little compitition never hurt anyone. Monopolies, on the other hand, usually don't work, espically with something as subjective as music.
Been an AMD man (not counting laptops), and have had the same main computer now since 1991...much in the same way a lumberjack can claim he's had the same axe for 13 years but replaced the handle 9 times and the head 14 times.
~1989: Intel? 8086, 640k ram, ?video
~1991: AMD 386 DX 40, 4 megs ram, 1meg video
~1994: AMD 386 DX-2 66, 5 megs ram, 1 meg video
~1996: AMD 486 DX-4 133, 5 megs ram, 2 meg video
~1997: AMD K-5 166, 16 megs ram, 2 meg video
~1999: AMD K-6 300, 16 megs ram, 4 meg video
~2001: AMD Duron 600, 128 megs ram, 16 meg video
~2003: AMD Athelon 1900+, 512 megs ram, 64 meg video
Still have the 1900+, but added a new video card with a quarter gig of ram on it. It simply amazes me how much things have changed. I have a laptop now that theoretically should outperform my desktop (except with games). Though looking at that time schedule, I think it's probably time to upgrade my main PC.
Perhaps it's the my old crotchityness (if that is a word), but I've taken to writing parties that broadcast in the Real format. It usually starts out with "I'm not sure how you got swindled into broadcasting in the Real format, but..." and providing some links to show how really terrible the real client is to the user's computers.
I know this won't help your situation now, but gosh I can't wait until otherwise credible media producers--such as NPR or the BBC--drop Real for good. As far as I can tell the only benifit Real gives its customers is the claim that the streams can't easily be copied (though I understand that can 'easily' be circumvented).
Good luck with your device, and hopefully somebody can help you with an easy WMA or Real to MP3 conversion.
You've managed to put your finger on the biggest problem in the Western social and economic system, that corps have the same rights than humans but none of the responsibility .
Though I don't think hitting the corporations financially as punishment really works. Large corporations will typically build in potential losses from economic punishments for misdeeds into their business model. A company may knowingly release a product they know to be unsafe, and simply put a portion of their profits aside for paying out of court settlements to victims.
In essense, this is akin to saying that it's alright for me to go around killing people without fear of jail if I can afford to pay the victim's families a large portion of money.
What I'd like to see is criminal charges brought on descision makers in corporations who knowingly use unsafe methods to produce a product that they know to be dangerous. In other words, a manager who makes the decision to save $0.02 on each product produced by using a less safe part won't be hedging those cost savings against the potential court costs from the families his company's product kills, he'll be hedging it against the very real possibility that he himself may face prison time for multiple murder charges.
We cannot give large corporations exemption from responsibility on a human level. We see corporations as faceless entities, but there are always human beings behind the scenes making decisions on how that corporation acts. If we start making those humans accountable for the actions of the company for whom they make decisions, I think we'd start seeing quite a bit more safety, envrionmental and social responsibility in the corporate world.
I used to be a highschool substitute teacher, so I would usually see the students at there worst (or best, depending on how you look at it).
From what the students told me, here are some ideas to get them interested in science/computing:
Network security: Present a challenge to the students to get past whatever "web-minder" or "net-nanny" type filtering scheme the district has installed so they can get to the more, er, colorful websites. (I was very surprised and delighted to see a group of inner-city students circumvent the filtering measures the school had so they could browse the pages of low-rider magazine online. When I caught them, they were a little scared, until I told them "I won't tell on you if you show me how you did it". They showed me, and man those kids were bright.)
Physics/bio-chemistry: While many people will look down on this, kids are going to smoke weed, and no amount of force-fed DARE propaganda can stop them. Now, you have to be very careful about how to present it, but interesting projects might include Bon..er, "water-pipe" construction, asking the kids "What chemical reaction is going on when the smoke is filtered through the water?", or "What is the best diameter for the main shaft of the pipe for maximum efficiency". I once found a student going over extensive notes, with diagrams and calculations for the design of his custom water-pipe.
Of course, neither of these could ever be seriously put into play in a public school, but for a great deal of motivation for some students is found in the desire to do something they shouldn't be doing. I for one learned quite a bit about computer software trying to get pirated games to run when I only had 640k of base memory to work with. The games themselves were incidental, it was the fact that I could take any number of cracked games and get the old DOS to run it which made the process interesting to me.
I think you'd get a lot of students interested if you can somehow create the illusion of misconduct in the exercises.
It's funny how that works. HP has somehow managed to go from one of the leading producers of quality printers, for example, to one of the many cheapo vendors.
Remember when a Laserjet 4 was the printer to have?
Or for that matter, remember when Diamond multimendia was the producers of graphics cards?
A company that overstates claims typically is a company that is cutting costs while sliding on their brand name. I wonder how many solid names in the industry have to go down the drain before they realize it's probably not a good idea, in the long run, to overstate the quality or performance of your products.
Heck, I can remember a time when Compaq actually made good computers.
But only if they use the money on building and expanding our transportation system here in California
Yes, so as long as the transportation systems your building and expanding are public, mass transit systems.
As it appears now, this sort of policy would be great for gas guzzling SUV owners who only use their vehicles for short commutes to work. If you took away the gas tax on top of that, the cost penalities for buying a giant commuter vehicle as opposed to an efficent, envrionmentally friendly vehicle are dimished, and the benifits of utilizing mass transit over commuting alone in vehicles are gone.
Sadly, California seems perfectly happy to use funds collected from vehicles to maintain and expand road systems instead of investing in transit, so it would be likely that major road arterys into citys would garner the majority of the funds, while long distance freeway travlers would be bearing the brunt of the cost.
I remember doing that too, way back in the mid 80s, but my experience was a little more intense.
We actually got to go into the real shuttle to sit in the cockpit during an engine test. During the test, there was some "computer error" or something (I'm a little fuzzy on the details), which made it appear there was a malfunction, and the people at mission control had to actually launch us into space.
I don't remember much about it, since I was a little kid and I've had a lot to drink since 1986, but there was something about a gay robot and having to tell this annoying kid to "use the force" in order to save everyone's life.
well enough to operate a TV, open e-mail and play Pong with 70% accuracy.
So now the disabled are able to function at the exact same level as me while drunk.
Just to be sure, get me a fifth of whiskey and a pong setup, and we'll see who wins.
I wonder if the evil specter of the wardriving boogieman will soon replace the computer virus as the all out scapegoat for any problems with computers.
"My computer isn't working" Oh, must be a virus... oh, must have been a wardriver.
"There's this credit card bill to an online porno site, honey.. you know anything about this?" oh, must be a virus... oh, must be a wardriver.
"The RIAA detected several mp3s have been illegal traded from your Internet connection". oh, must be a virus... oh, must be a wardriver.
I have a strong feeling that very soon Norton and MacAfee will be releasing their 'war-driver' defense software, available in your finer Best Buys and Office Depots, which will scan your network and watch out for those pesky war drivers trying to hack into your network and do all sorts of nasty things to you.
I wish the media would just admit that in general, war drivers are nothing more then bored little geeks who are more curious to see what's out there then to actually do any 'hacking', and that enabling the WEP that came standard with consumer's WAPs is typically good enough security to stop some of your more nefarious 'hackers'.
Or at least, that's why I war drive, and that's what I use to stop those hackers. (actually, it's more to stop my neighbors from accidentally connecting to my WAP instead of their own and stealing my bandwidth, because hey, they're leaving their WAP wide open.