Here is a very interesting online book, written from the perspective of a med student (now a full-fledged MD) at Tufts medical school. It exposes the horrifying practices, corrupt culture, and amoral attitudes of today's doctors and medical institutions.
An except:
I am all gloved up, fifth in line. At Tufts, medical students - particularly male students - practice pelvic exams on anesthetized women without their consent and without their knowledge. Women come in for surgery and, once they're asleep, we all gather around; line forms to the left.
It all started on the first day when the clerkship director described that we were to gain valuable experience doing pelvic exams on women in the operating room. I asked him if the women knew what we were doing. Are the women asked permission? "No," he said. And not only no, he described that he was, "ethically comfortable with that."
"These women sign off that right to refuse on their surgical consent form." Having long learned a healthy skepticism about the pronouncements of authority, I got a copy of the form. The only mention of students reads as follows: "I am aware that occasionally there may be visiting surgeons/ healthcare professionals/ students observing techniques." Observing? We were going to be doing a lot more than observing. I went back to talk to him.
"Women are smart," he told me. "They know that when it says a student observes, that the student will be participating in the procedures." My eyes widened. And anyway, I was told, "Most women wouldn't mind." My jaw dropped. And, "Why are you so sensitive?"
Honestly, I think that is one of the things that makes web cartoons better than print-only comics: They aren't controlled by money.
Syndicated cartoonists must adhere to some pretty strict guidelines. Their comics are printed in mainstream newspapers, where using the word "gosh" will get you angry letters from blue-haired grannies all around the country.
Web comics are created under no such restrictions. Anything is fair game- mainstream demographics be damned! As a result, the average webcomic is much more interesting and daring (if much less polished looking) than say, Marmaduke or the Family Circus.
Anyone can create a web comic- there is even a webhost, keenspace, which will host anyone's comic for free.
Art can only thrive and evolve when there are artists out there who do it purely for the sake of art. If you do it for the money, you aren't so much an artist, you are an entertainer (which isn't to say that you can't make an entertaining comic).
Personally, I don't see how micropayments appeal to anyone psychologically. How would you like to make a million minor financial decisions every time you go online?
Hmm, I want to read this yahoo news article, but is it really worth $.03? Dilbert could be funny today, but do I want to pay $.02 to take that chance?
People like subscriptions because they feel they are getting a good deal. For one low price, they can read as many comics as they want. It's like going to a buffet- even though you're not going to eat everything there, it's nice to know that you can if you want to.
For that reason, I subscribe to Keenspot premium- I pay $40 for a whole year, and I get to read as many ad-free Keenspot comics as I want, no hassles. I don't have to click on payment links every time I want to look at a new comic, and I don't have the psychological burden of making a hundred petty micro-financial decisions every day.
Yes, bandwidth is a huge problem for online comics. Unlike most types of content, comics exist as large, bandwidth-hogging image files. And when a cartoon site has a few years' worth of archived strips that people can look at, the GBs can really add up.
I don't pretend to know how to make money with online comics, but I can tell you that many webcomics could cut their bandwidth bills in half by optimizing their images:
1. Stop using GIFs! Fer crying out loud, use PNG images indexed to 256 or less colors. You don't have to worry about Unisys royalties or any such nonsense, and it compresses much more efficiently than GIF.
2. If you use PNG images, further compress them with pngcrush. It's free and doesn't degrade image quality at all.
3. If you use JPEG, use jpegoptim to optimize compression losslessly. The results may not be too dramatic, but every byte counts.
I'm glad to hear that you'll be bringing Angerson back. I've read and enjoyed it in the past.
I have a webcomic too, and it is payment enough that people bother to read it and give us feedback. I look at webcartooning as kind of like starting a rock band- even though it's possible to make money at it, it is the worst sort of venture to engage in if money is your goal.
There are simply so many web comics out there, that your chances for commercial success are very unfavorable. If you develop a payment system for your comic, why would anyone choose to pay, when they have literally tens of thousands of other comics they can see for free?
You do it first and foremost because you have a passion for it, and you want to expose your art to appreciative people.
Anyone who does it for the money won't last long in this field.
Lisp may not be the most useful language in and of itself, but if you learn it, it will make you a better programmer.
Most people who first learn languages like C, C++ or Java throw around functional side effects like they were going out of style. Lisp makes you very aware of good, disciplined functional programming (it almost forces you to write neat, concise code!).
Also, I learned many powerful programming concepts such as lambdas and closures while teaching myself Common Lisp. I doubt I would understand the concepts as they are applied in Python and Perl nearly as well, if I didn't first learn Lisp.
So go and get a copy of The Little Lisper and have at it. It's good clean fun!
Re:I'd have a hard time taking this book seriously
on
God's Debris
·
· Score: 1
Hey, Scott is one smart fellow. There are some cool philisophical and scientific insights in his book, the Dilbert Future. He talks about stuff like chaos theory and quantum physics, and it's quite interesting. Knocking the guy's intelligence because he draws cartoons is elitist and, dare I say, bad karma;)
He's also a little duller. But hey, any politician who says this is cool in my book:
"Indeed, there is ample evidence that Microsoft is focused on strategies to
cripple the free software movement, which it publicly considers an important competitive threat. This is particularly true for software developed under the GNU Public License (GPL), which is used in GNU/Linux, the most important rival to Microsoft in the server market."
The difference is that Java was not created as a direct response to C++, in an effort to compete with the language. It embraces many of the same concepts, but it is a whole new language in its own right. I wouldn't use Java to write a 3D shooter, and I certainly wouldn't want to use C++ to rapidly develop distributed, enterprise web-based applications. C# seems much like M$'s response to Mozilla- just a silly clone.
Slashdot Mirror
An except:
That's just messed up.
Honestly, I think that is one of the things that makes web cartoons better than print-only comics: They aren't controlled by money.
Syndicated cartoonists must adhere to some pretty strict guidelines. Their comics are printed in mainstream newspapers, where using the word "gosh" will get you angry letters from blue-haired grannies all around the country.
Web comics are created under no such restrictions. Anything is fair game- mainstream demographics be damned! As a result, the average webcomic is much more interesting and daring (if much less polished looking) than say, Marmaduke or the Family Circus.
Anyone can create a web comic- there is even a webhost, keenspace, which will host anyone's comic for free.
Art can only thrive and evolve when there are artists out there who do it purely for the sake of art. If you do it for the money, you aren't so much an artist, you are an entertainer (which isn't to say that you can't make an entertaining comic).
Drake Emko
hackles.org (nerdy animal fun!)
Personally, I don't see how micropayments appeal to anyone psychologically. How would you like to make a million minor financial decisions every time you go online?
Hmm, I want to read this yahoo news article, but is it really worth $.03? Dilbert could be funny today, but do I want to pay $.02 to take that chance?
People like subscriptions because they feel they are getting a good deal. For one low price, they can read as many comics as they want. It's like going to a buffet- even though you're not going to eat everything there, it's nice to know that you can if you want to.
For that reason, I subscribe to Keenspot premium- I pay $40 for a whole year, and I get to read as many ad-free Keenspot comics as I want, no hassles. I don't have to click on payment links every time I want to look at a new comic, and I don't have the psychological burden of making a hundred petty micro-financial decisions every day.
Drake Emko
http://hackles.org (nerdy animal fun!)
Yes, bandwidth is a huge problem for online comics. Unlike most types of content, comics exist as large, bandwidth-hogging image files. And when a cartoon site has a few years' worth of archived strips that people can look at, the GBs can really add up.
I don't pretend to know how to make money with online comics, but I can tell you that many webcomics could cut their bandwidth bills in half by optimizing their images:
1. Stop using GIFs! Fer crying out loud, use PNG images indexed to 256 or less colors. You don't have to worry about Unisys royalties or any such nonsense, and it compresses much more efficiently than GIF.
2. If you use PNG images, further compress them with pngcrush. It's free and doesn't degrade image quality at all.
3. If you use JPEG, use jpegoptim to optimize compression losslessly. The results may not be too dramatic, but every byte counts.
Drake Emko
http://hackles.org (nerdy animal fun!)
I'm glad to hear that you'll be bringing Angerson back. I've read and enjoyed it in the past.
I have a webcomic too, and it is payment enough that people bother to read it and give us feedback. I look at webcartooning as kind of like starting a rock band- even though it's possible to make money at it, it is the worst sort of venture to engage in if money is your goal.
There are simply so many web comics out there, that your chances for commercial success are very unfavorable. If you develop a payment system for your comic, why would anyone choose to pay, when they have literally tens of thousands of other comics they can see for free?
You do it first and foremost because you have a passion for it, and you want to expose your art to appreciative people.
Anyone who does it for the money won't last long in this field.
Lisp may not be the most useful language in and of itself, but if you learn it, it will make you a better programmer.
Most people who first learn languages like C, C++ or Java throw around functional side effects like they were going out of style. Lisp makes you very aware of good, disciplined functional programming (it almost forces you to write neat, concise code!).
Also, I learned many powerful programming concepts such as lambdas and closures while teaching myself Common Lisp. I doubt I would understand the concepts as they are applied in Python and Perl nearly as well, if I didn't first learn Lisp.
So go and get a copy of The Little Lisper and have at it. It's good clean fun!
Hey, Scott is one smart fellow. There are some cool philisophical and scientific insights in his book, the Dilbert Future. He talks about stuff like chaos theory and quantum physics, and it's quite interesting. Knocking the guy's intelligence because he draws cartoons is elitist and, dare I say, bad karma ;)
...And his line of yuppie vegan burritos is dil-tastic!
He's also a little duller. But hey, any politician who says this is cool in my book:
"Indeed, there is ample evidence that Microsoft is focused on strategies to
cripple the free software movement, which it publicly considers an important competitive threat. This is particularly true for software developed under the GNU Public License (GPL), which is used in GNU/Linux, the most important rival to Microsoft in the server market."
Go Ralphie boy!
The difference is that Java was not created as a direct response to C++, in an effort to compete with the language. It embraces many of the same concepts, but it is a whole new language in its own right. I wouldn't use Java to write a 3D shooter, and I certainly wouldn't want to use C++ to rapidly develop distributed, enterprise web-based applications. C# seems much like M$'s response to Mozilla- just a silly clone.