"If your prices are gouging, your rates outragous then the consumer wil go elsewhere. This is the basis for Capitalism, just and unforseen side effect of that system. "
Just how do you know what a gouging price is versus a non-gouging price? Do you just guess or is there some sort of formula?
Do you think the prices on TV's and radios represent gouging? Is breaking a window to steal a TV legitamate "consumer Disobedience?"
"This case is cut and dry. H1B workers take American jobs. Period."
Hey,a job is not an object that belongs to someone. Its not a piece of property that someone else can take. A job is a relationship and a kind of economic free association. Are you saying people should not be allowed to associate freely? That they must deal with an American rather than a person they choose or else?
Why is an abstract thing like a job property, while an invention or software is not?
Why is creating an "artificial scarcity" through copyright bad, while creating real scarcity through visa limits?
Even if a job were some kind of property, its created by an employer, not the employee. An employee uses a job, the employee doesn't own it.
What is so shocking in all these threads on slashdot is the incredible sense of entitlement many here have. I see a lot of people who want everthing handed to them: jobs, inventions, music, etc.
Who are going to be the productive people of the next generation? Who are going to be the whining leaches that want everything for free?
The biggest thing holding broadband back is local regulation. More than 90% of cable companies have their local monopoly because the local government has created it. So you want to start your own cable company? Good luck trying to get the city to sell you a franchise. Local governments don't like the competition because they get a cut of the money the local monopoly makes. Competition would mean less money for them.
Want to string up your own telephone lines? Sorry....you're not allowed to do that either. Hey they're just trying to "protect the public."
This is not a national issue. Its 1000's of local governments standing in the way.
Does the political principle of "free speech" mean you are free to express someone else's speech? I understand you wanting to protect your speech from government, but you seem to want to be free to use someone else's speech. Isn't it reasonable that people should be able to protect their speech from others as well as from the government?
And what about the 5th amendment, in part: "...nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
What happens when the principle of free speech collides with the principle of just compensation?
If the government doesn't protect copyright, for example, aren't they essentially allowing public use of a creative work without just compensation?
Republicanism (not necessarily the Republican Party) emphasizes the individual. In Democracy, the biggest gang wins. There is nothing moral about it. People team up to get what they want even if it means you suffer.
Practically speaking, in a Democracy, gangs fight each other to get their rules in place. They don't have to be good or moral rules. They can vote to limit speech they don't like. They can vote to take away your property (nationalization). They can force you to support a religion you oppose. It has even been used as an argument for slavery. In the Lincoln/Douglas debates, Douglas argued that the democratic process demanded that each state be allowed to vote on wether or not it would be a slave state.
And what about enforcement? Laws passed aren't advice. The only thing that hides the fact that democracy is gang-warfare is that the fighting most often isn't done by the people voting. They hire someone else to do it (law enforcement).
Consider an issue like social-security. You are forced to support people you don't even know involutarily. You are their slave. Why? Because there are about 30+ million of them. Hey, they wants it, you got it. They dont say please or thank-you.
Democracy can even be like mod rule.
The only thing in the USA that limits this are the individual rights outlined in the constitution and even then the protection is weak.
Main Entry: capitalism
Date: 1877
: an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market
There is nothing in that definition that says only one individual may benefit. Indeed, it's already been pointed out that private individuals in a capitalist system already voluntarily cooperate for their mutual benefit. Capitalism just means that individual decide rather than the state.
A better political comparison would be between a robot team where each robot has control over its own robot body, and a robot team with a central master control, telling each robot what to do. Indeed, its interesting that his robots evolve individually where there is a sort of distributed intelligence, rather than under some central authority as in socialism or communism.
Just for comparison,
Main Entry: socialism
Date: 1837
1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2 a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3 : a stage of society in Marxest theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done
I think its interesting that the third definition allows for unequal distribution of goods and pay.
Both Americans and Europeans like to bitch about the inefficies of their governments, but the fact of the matter is that if you look at the history of IT, more fundamental innovations come from government funded work than from industry. Of course Bill Gates, Larry Ellison etc. don't want you to think that, but that's the way it is.
Government funded work isn't that same as government work.
Someone here please offer a solution to the
piracy problem. How can music copyright holders
protect their works from piracy? The RIAA gets
bashed for all their tactics. Okay. Nows your
chance to give them a solution you can live with.
What should they do? How can technology allow
for both protecting copyright and fair use?
Whoever modded this down as a troll should re-read the moderator guidelines. Even if you don't agree, this is a well thought out post.
Here is the original post:
"Patents create prosperity (Score:-1, Troll) by The Ultimate Badass the_ultimate_badass@hotmail.com) on Tuesday October 02, @08:24AM (#2377882)(User #450974 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
Those of us who maintained our interest in the stock market even after the dot-com crash are well aware that the company that currently has the world's highest market capitalisation is none other than General Electric. Knowing this information, and also knowing that GE is the company holding the largest number of patents in the world, we are lead to an obvious conclusion. In the information economy, the only way to remain stable and in control of your destiny is to maintain control of your information resources, such as trade secrets, corporate information, and of course, maintaining ownership of your research properties through patents is vital. Patents are the only means of survival for a late stage tertiary industry based economy such as the US has. Without patents, companies have no reason to do research and individuals have no reason to form companies. It is impossible for a nation to remain prosperous if it does not support patents. Since the primary purpose of capitalism is to encourage economic growth and prosperity, it is obvious that we must encourage the patenting of new technologies, in order to profit from our nation's successes.
I find it crucial that W3C endeavour to hold on to as much of their intellectual property through the means of patents as they can. Only through this method can the W3C guarantee success of the web for America. If they do not, there is nothing preventing foreign off-shore technology companies from undermining the US's dominance in the internet market by stealing control of vital internet research and technology. This would be catastrophic for America. If we are to encourage a dot-com bounce back, we need the W3C to defend their hold on web technology.
My boss used to say that the best way to fight silly rules is to follow them to the letter.
I hope Microsoft continues to piss people off. The more absurd and draconian the licenses are, the better. It will convince people to look elsewhere.
The reason people stick with Microsoft is because its easy. The more difficult Microsoft makes things for their customers, the better it is for the alternatives. This is the downfall of monopolies.
This trial crap is just a rear-guard action. I say let Microsoft go completely. Given all the shit they try to pull, they'll hang themselves. The court system is just drawing all this out. If the public gets smacked, they'll smack back hard.
The only thing I wish the government would do is force Microsoft to reveal all its agreements with venders. The public hates the perception of a conspiracy against them.
No one would own (or lease) a car if the contract said, "You must not sell this car, in the event this car is no longer used, send it to the nearest junkyard.", so why is this true for software?
I have never signed any kind of lease that allowed me to sell what I was leasing.
If a software maker wishes to lease software, isn't this their right?
And why do you think people who write software aren't entitled to put conditions on its use? If you write the software -- its yours. If you tell someone they can use it only under certain conditions and they agree, then they are obligated to keep their word.
"Atheism is a religion, too. It is a concrete belief that is held without any conclusive proof one way or another."
Atheism is a default position. We all start out atheists when we are born. We have no idea of a god until someone tries to tell us about one or we hypothesize one. We are "a-" without "theos" god belief. There are no rituals, no songs, no dogma. Is someone who has never heard of the god idea atheist? They have no belief in god. They don't even know what a god is. The belief in a god is absent. They are a-theos.
What does the word "god" even mean exactly? If I can't conceive of a god, then even the question is meaningless. How can I have a belief one way or the other if the concept itself seem unintelligible? This is the position of many atheists.
As to your statement about being agnostic, that is an answer to another question about what can be known. That isn't that same as what is believed. Are you an agnostic theist or agnostic athiest?
"Ask Russians what life is like under an 'enlightened' atheistic government."
Well, there are plenty of atheists who are skeptical of the communism idea as well as the god idea.
Or make that, government bureaucracies haven't had enough. Who do you think is the biggest purchaser of Microsoft products? Its not even necessary purchases most of the time. I know companies that still use Win 3.11 in places because they dont want to upgrade and have to upgrade.
Governments dont seem to mind shelling out big bucks everytime a new version on MS Office comes out. Companies have to try to make a profit and can't afford to do this. Governments dont have to make any kind of profit and seem to care much less about where the money goes. They spend the public's money, not theirs -- why should they care?
Hopefully more will wake up and start using alternatives.
There are all sorts of limits on economic freedom for "the common good". Abuse of property rights had led to all sorts of problems. We can't have people charging what they want for what they sell (that would be gouging!). We can't let them freely cooperate among themselves and decide what price to charge (conspiracy!). And what about free speach? We can't have cigarette makers speaking about their products (it might harm the kids!) We don't protect THAT kind of speach, afterall now do we.
So whats wrong with the government going ever further "for the common good"? Besides, listen to all the anti-americanism here on Slashdot. Maybe they should be watching. Hey, don't get upset. Its all for the common good.
I have not only been disturbed by the lack of congresional integrity when it comes to civil-liberties, but now the basking of big buisness in all the cash and exemptions they need to further maul the little guy into oblivion.
Except when those civil liberties involve exercising property rights, like being able to charge what you want for what you make or being able to protect your intellectual works from theft. THOSE civil liberties are just too inconvenient.
The sort of reasoning around here has very little to do with priciples and much more to do with short-sighted self-interest. Most here want everything as long as someone else is asked to provide it.
This is unlikely to drive consumer pricing down. If anything, as competetion is elmininated, the national giants will raise prices in less competetive markets.
And prices may have to go up to allow those remaining companies to be self-sustaining. If it were so damned easy to make money in this business, everyone would be doing it. These companies aren't charities.
"$60/month land line bill, meet $90/month cell phone bill, formerly known as $40/month cell phone bill.:)"
Well, we'll just have to see. It isn't necessarily a valid comparison. Most municipalities place some kind of limit on who can provide land line service in their area. It works kind of like cable monopolies. The local municipality makes competition all but impossible in exchange for a piece of the action. Look at how many govenrment taxes there are on you phone bill next time you get it. You think they want lower prices and competition? They want to help promote monopolies.
This anti-american bullshit I see here over and over sickening. If you have so many god-damn reasons to move then do it. At least you'll be able to credibly compare the USA against other contries. Most of you have no idea what its like living in the rest of the world. All you can do is bitch, bitch, bitch.
Really, I mean, WTF? What is the origin of all this bashing? Is it really suprising that the military of a country that just got kicked in the nuts is going to roll over and make things more difficult for itself?
Besides, I've read here over and over again about companies have too much control over this or that. Well, ok. Now they will have less control over the spectrum. Happy now?
Yeah, monopolies are everywhere. We have one automaker, one fast-food company, one semiconductor manufacturer, one PC maker, one insect control company, one furniture maker, one clothes maker, one gasoline refining company, one paper maker....the list goes on and on.
Freedom means being able to play whatever the hell you want
on your radio station. If they have some songs they dont want to play, they are free not to.
There seem to be plenty of people here living under the motto
Hey all you computer-geeks turned sales people! I found this great email address you can send your resumes to! Or if you haven't turned sales-person, why not offer some technical advise (for free!) about how they can improve there sales using you're latest, proprietary, and patent-pending methods.
Send your important, helpful information to sales@monsterhut.com
I went to school in the 80's and here are a
few of my experiences:
In 5th grade, east suddenly becomes "north": The book the teacher was using had a compass pictured in it. Well the book was lying on her desk with the top edge of the book facing east. The compass in the book had an arrow facing the same way labled "North". Bingo! Now north suddenly depends on which way the book faces. It took us about five minutes to explain why this was a problem. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP.
In 6th grade we learn about dangerous chemicals: We are all asked to bring in product lables from various foods so we can see what evil corporations have added to our foods. To the teacher's horror, they've added obviously dangerous chemicals -- like niacin and riboflavin and pantothenic acid!
Also in 6th grade, I point out to the math teacher that we can save some time measuring angles by taking advantage of some simple rules. Like for example, when lines intersect, opposite angles are equal. Big mistake! I'm forced to "prove" this isn't so by using a giant wooden protractor to measure angles between two arcs - -not LINES. When I point that this is a problem, I find out that "lines ain't got to be straight!"
During the evolution portion of biology in high school the teacher comments "well, I have to teach about evolution, but we all know what REALLY happened."
There's plenty more, but recalling all this is starting to make me angry.
The most important lesson it taught me is that I need to judge for myself what is or isn't scientifically suggested by the evidence. Many people overestimate their own understanding (myself included) and there are plenty followers out there willing to accept every word. Even professional scientists aren't immune. They can jump to conclusions too.
It is easy to be intellectually careless, even reckless. I try to figure out why I believe what I believe all the time. It takes alot of work. Many accuse me of "over-analysing." Many think its a waste of time. Its not.
Slashdot Mirror
"If your prices are gouging, your rates outragous then the consumer wil go elsewhere. This is the basis for Capitalism, just and unforseen side effect of that system. "
Just how do you know what a gouging price is versus a non-gouging price? Do you just guess or is there some sort of formula?
Do you think the prices on TV's and radios represent gouging? Is breaking a window to steal a TV legitamate "consumer Disobedience?"
"This case is cut and dry. H1B workers take American jobs. Period."
Hey,a job is not an object that belongs to someone. Its not a piece of property that someone else can take. A job is a relationship and a kind of economic free association. Are you saying people should not be allowed to associate freely? That they must deal with an American rather than a person they choose or else?
Why is an abstract thing like a job property, while an invention or software is not?
Why is creating an "artificial scarcity" through copyright bad, while creating real scarcity through visa limits?
Even if a job were some kind of property, its created by an employer, not the employee.
An employee uses a job, the employee doesn't own it.
What is so shocking in all these threads on slashdot is the incredible sense of entitlement many here have. I see a lot of people who want everthing handed to them: jobs, inventions, music, etc.
Who are going to be the productive people of the next generation? Who are going to be the whining leaches that want everything for free?
"The only way we are NOT going to have monopolies is by nationalizing the infrastructure..."
What a stupid Idea. You're just replacing a corporate monopoly with a government monopoly.
You want a monopoly that also has police power? If you're afraid of net regulation now, just wait until nationalization.
The biggest thing holding broadband back is local regulation. More than 90% of cable companies have their local monopoly because the local government has created it. So you want to start your own cable company? Good luck trying to get the city to sell you a franchise. Local governments don't like the competition because they get a cut of the money the local monopoly makes. Competition would mean less money for them.
Want to string up your own telephone lines? Sorry....you're not allowed to do that either. Hey they're just trying to "protect the public."
This is not a national issue. Its 1000's of local governments standing in the way.
Here's a link describing natural human radioactivity.
s %2 010%20notes/HumanRadioactivity.html
http://muller.lbl.gov/teaching/Physics10/physic
Does the political principle of "free speech" mean you are free to express someone else's speech? I understand you wanting to protect your speech from government, but you seem to want to be free to use someone else's speech. Isn't it reasonable that people should be able to protect their speech from others as well as from the government?
And what about the 5th amendment, in part: "...nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
What happens when the principle of free speech collides with the principle of just compensation?
If the government doesn't protect copyright, for example, aren't they essentially allowing public use of a creative work without just compensation?
We have Democracy because Republicanism has lost.
Republicanism (not necessarily the Republican Party) emphasizes the individual. In Democracy, the biggest gang wins. There is nothing moral about it. People team up to get what they want even if it means you suffer.
Practically speaking, in a Democracy, gangs fight each other to get their rules in place. They don't have to be good or moral rules. They can vote to limit speech they don't like. They can vote to take away your property (nationalization). They can force you to support a religion you oppose. It has even been used as an argument for slavery. In the Lincoln/Douglas debates, Douglas argued that the democratic process demanded that each state be allowed to vote on wether or not it would be a slave state.
And what about enforcement? Laws passed aren't advice. The only thing that hides the fact that democracy is gang-warfare is that the fighting most often isn't done by the people voting. They hire someone else to do it (law enforcement).
Consider an issue like social-security. You are forced to support people you don't even know involutarily. You are their slave. Why? Because there are about 30+ million of them. Hey, they wants it, you got it. They dont say please or thank-you.
Democracy can even be like mod rule.
The only thing in the USA that limits this are the individual rights outlined in the constitution and even then the protection is weak.
Left and Liberal aren't necessarily the same thing.
From www.m-w.com
m ent/PROGRAM.htm for one historically influencial socialist group and their platform.
Main Entry: capitalism
Date: 1877
: an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market
There is nothing in that definition that says only one individual may benefit. Indeed, it's already been pointed out that private individuals in a capitalist system already voluntarily cooperate for their mutual benefit. Capitalism just means that individual decide rather than the state.
A better political comparison would be between a robot team where each robot has control over its own robot body, and a robot team with a central master control, telling each robot what to do. Indeed, its interesting that his robots evolve individually where there is a sort of distributed intelligence, rather than under some central authority as in socialism or communism.
Just for comparison,
Main Entry: socialism
Date: 1837
1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2 a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3 : a stage of society in Marxest theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done
I think its interesting that the third definition allows for unequal distribution of goods and pay.
Also look at http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/resource/docu
Government funded work isn't that same as government work.
Someone here please offer a solution to the
piracy problem. How can music copyright holders
protect their works from piracy? The RIAA gets
bashed for all their tactics. Okay. Nows your
chance to give them a solution you can live with.
What should they do? How can technology allow
for both protecting copyright and fair use?
Whoever modded this down as a troll should re-read the moderator guidelines. Even if you don't agree, this is a well thought out post.
Here is the original post:
"Patents create prosperity (Score:-1, Troll) by The Ultimate Badass the_ultimate_badass@hotmail.com) on Tuesday October 02, @08:24AM (#2377882)(User #450974 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
Those of us who maintained our interest in the stock market even after the dot-com crash are well aware that the company that currently has the world's highest market capitalisation is none other than General Electric. Knowing this information, and also knowing that GE is the company holding the largest number of patents in the world, we are lead to an obvious conclusion. In the information economy, the only way to remain stable and in control of your destiny is to maintain control of your information resources, such as trade secrets, corporate information, and of course, maintaining ownership of your research properties through patents is vital. Patents are the only means of survival for a late stage tertiary industry based economy such as the US has. Without patents, companies have no reason to do research and individuals have no reason to form companies. It is impossible for a nation to remain prosperous if it does not support patents. Since the primary purpose of capitalism is to encourage economic growth and prosperity, it is obvious that we must encourage the patenting of new technologies, in order to profit from our nation's successes.
I find it crucial that W3C endeavour to hold on to as much of their intellectual property through the means of patents as they can. Only through this method can the W3C guarantee success of the web for America. If they do not, there is nothing preventing foreign off-shore technology companies from undermining the US's dominance in the internet market by stealing control of vital internet research and technology. This would be catastrophic for America. If we are to encourage a dot-com bounce back, we need the W3C to defend their hold on web technology.
Denial isn't just a river in Italy"
My boss used to say that the best way to fight silly rules is to follow them to the letter.
I hope Microsoft continues to piss people off. The more absurd and draconian the licenses are, the better. It will convince people to look elsewhere.
The reason people stick with Microsoft is because its easy. The more difficult Microsoft makes things for their customers, the better it is for the alternatives. This is the downfall of monopolies.
This trial crap is just a rear-guard action. I say let Microsoft go completely. Given all the shit they try to pull, they'll hang themselves. The court system is just drawing all this out. If the public gets smacked, they'll smack back hard.
The only thing I wish the government would do is force Microsoft to reveal all its agreements with venders. The public hates the perception of a conspiracy against them.
They need to suffer blowback!
No one would own (or lease) a car if the contract said, "You must not sell this car, in the event this car is no longer used, send it to the nearest junkyard.", so why is this true for software?
I have never signed any kind of lease that allowed me to sell what I was leasing.
If a software maker wishes to lease software, isn't this their right?
And why do you think people who write software aren't entitled to put conditions on its use? If you write the software -- its yours. If you tell someone they can use it only under certain conditions and they agree, then they are obligated to keep their word.
The best thing Bush should have said is:
I don't need to know them. They need to know me.
"Atheism is a religion, too. It is a concrete belief that is held without any conclusive proof one way or another."
Atheism is a default position. We all start out atheists when we are born. We have no idea of a god until someone tries to tell us about one or we hypothesize one. We are "a-" without "theos" god belief. There are no rituals, no songs, no dogma. Is someone who has never heard of the god idea atheist? They have no belief in god. They don't even know what a god is. The belief in a god is absent. They are a-theos.
What does the word "god" even mean exactly? If I can't conceive of a god, then even the question is meaningless. How can I have a belief one way or the other if the concept itself seem unintelligible? This is the position of many atheists.
As to your statement about being agnostic, that is an answer to another question about what can be known. That isn't that same as what is believed. Are you an agnostic theist or agnostic athiest?
"Ask Russians what life is like under an 'enlightened' atheistic government."
Well, there are plenty of atheists who are skeptical of the communism idea as well as the god idea.
Or make that, government bureaucracies haven't had enough. Who do you think is the biggest purchaser of Microsoft products? Its not even necessary purchases most of the time. I know companies that still use Win 3.11 in places because they dont want to upgrade and have to upgrade.
Governments dont seem to mind shelling out big bucks everytime a new version on MS Office comes out. Companies have to try to make a profit and can't afford to do this. Governments dont have to make any kind of profit and seem to care much less about where the money goes. They spend the public's money, not theirs -- why should they care?
Hopefully more will wake up and start using alternatives.
"Freedom for me but not for thee"
There are all sorts of limits on economic freedom for "the common good". Abuse of property rights had led to all sorts of problems. We can't have people charging what they want for what they sell (that would be gouging!). We can't let them freely cooperate among themselves and decide what price to charge (conspiracy!). And what about free speach? We can't have cigarette makers speaking about their products (it might harm the kids!) We don't protect THAT kind of speach, afterall now do we.
So whats wrong with the government going ever further "for the common good"? Besides, listen to all the anti-americanism here on Slashdot. Maybe they should be watching. Hey, don't get upset. Its all for the common good.
"Freedom for me but not for thee"
I have not only been disturbed by the lack of congresional integrity when it comes to civil-liberties, but now the basking of big buisness in all the cash and exemptions they need to further maul the little guy into oblivion.
Except when those civil liberties involve exercising property rights, like being able to charge what you want for what you make or being able to protect your intellectual works from theft. THOSE civil liberties are just too inconvenient.
The sort of reasoning around here has very little to do with priciples and much more to do with short-sighted self-interest. Most here want everything as long as someone else is asked to provide it.
This is unlikely to drive consumer pricing down. If anything, as competetion is elmininated, the national giants will raise prices in less competetive markets.
:)"
And prices may have to go up to allow those remaining companies to be self-sustaining. If it were so damned easy to make money in this business, everyone would be doing it. These companies aren't charities.
"$60/month land line bill, meet $90/month cell phone bill, formerly known as $40/month cell phone bill.
Well, we'll just have to see. It isn't necessarily a valid comparison. Most municipalities place some kind of limit on who can provide land line service in their area. It works kind of like cable monopolies. The local municipality makes competition all but impossible in exchange for a piece of the action. Look at how many govenrment taxes there are on you phone bill next time you get it. You think they want lower prices and competition? They want to help promote monopolies.
This anti-american bullshit I see here over and over sickening. If you have so many god-damn reasons to move then do it. At least you'll be able to credibly compare the USA against other contries. Most of you have no idea what its like living in the rest of the world. All you can do is bitch, bitch, bitch.
Really, I mean, WTF? What is the origin of all this bashing? Is it really suprising that the military of a country that just got kicked in the nuts is going to roll over and make things more difficult for itself?
Besides, I've read here over and over again about companies have too much control over this or that. Well, ok. Now they will have less control over the spectrum. Happy now?
Yeah, monopolies are everywhere. We have one automaker, one fast-food company, one semiconductor manufacturer, one PC maker, one insect control company, one furniture maker, one clothes maker, one gasoline refining company, one paper maker....the list goes on and on.
on your radio station. If they have some songs they dont want to play, they are free not to.
There seem to be plenty of people here living under the motto
"Free for me but not for thee"
Hey all you computer-geeks turned sales people! I found this great email address you can send your resumes to! Or if you haven't turned sales-person, why not offer some technical advise (for free!) about how they can improve there sales using you're latest, proprietary, and patent-pending methods.
Send your important, helpful information to sales@monsterhut.com
few of my experiences:
In 5th grade, east suddenly becomes "north": The book the teacher was using had a compass pictured in it. Well the book was lying on her desk with the top edge of the book facing east. The compass in the book had an arrow facing the same way labled "North". Bingo! Now north suddenly depends on which way the book faces. It took us about five minutes to explain why this was a problem. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP.
In 6th grade we learn about dangerous chemicals: We are all asked to bring in product lables from various foods so we can see what evil corporations have added to our foods. To the teacher's horror, they've added obviously dangerous chemicals -- like niacin and riboflavin and pantothenic acid!
Also in 6th grade, I point out to the math teacher that we can save some time measuring angles by taking advantage of some simple rules. Like for example, when lines intersect, opposite angles are equal. Big mistake! I'm forced to "prove" this isn't so by using a giant wooden protractor to measure angles between two arcs - -not LINES. When I point that this is a problem, I find out that "lines ain't got to be straight!"
During the evolution portion of biology in high school the teacher comments "well, I have to teach about evolution, but we all know what REALLY happened."
There's plenty more, but recalling all this is starting to make me angry.
The most important lesson it taught me is that I need to judge for myself what is or isn't scientifically suggested by the evidence. Many people overestimate their own understanding (myself included) and there are plenty followers out there willing to accept every word. Even professional scientists aren't immune. They can jump to conclusions too.
It is easy to be intellectually careless, even reckless. I try to figure out why I believe what I believe all the time. It takes alot of work. Many accuse me of "over-analysing." Many think its a waste of time. Its not.