So somebody managed to type =R55/M55 and figure out that Net Income is 9% of what it was last June. Congrats on an entirely useless analysis. NetFlix was losing money last quarter and now isn't. This is a good thing, and anything but an indication that NetFlix is on its way out.
If anything's interesting, it's that they're now paying $155,000,000 more to deliver those subscriptions to only about 10% more subscribers. Without spending any time looking for the answer (I'm not a NetFlix investor, so I don't care), I'd infer that content providers are taking a bigger bite of the value NetFlix creates. They're STILL managing to do that profitably. If they can't, they'll raise prices and a lot of people, including me, will probably still find them a compelling value at $10-12 a month. It's possible content providers will price them out of the market, but they have a financial incentive not to unless they're directly competing with NetFlix.
Nah, I'm going to give them this one. The slam dunk is a book that's "40 % ALC. By VOL". It was obviously created to connect with the brand. The decorative lines (filigree?) around the edges is also identical. You don't get to trade on someone else's brand, and that's what the author is doing.
No, we're acting like the world has come to an end because one lunatic committed a heinous crime. We need to stop living in a climate of unnecessary fear. I've read stuff on twitter today where people are saying things like "Who knew there were so many crazies out there?" There aren't so many. There was one. In a country with 300 million people. One. Others saying what a terrible world it is where you can't even go to the movies in safety. You can. Nearly everyone did. Nearly everyone does, every day.
This is not to say this wasn't a heinous crime. It was. It's not to say this isn't a horrible tragedy for anyone who knew the victims. It was. It's not to say we don't all share their sadness. We do. Well, most of us do. I do. I considered seeing this movie last night. I've taken my kids to midnight shows. As they say, there but for the grace of God go I.
It is to say we need to continue living our lives. It's entirely inappropriate to make jokes about the shooting. It's fine to like the movie, and it's fine to talk about the movie.
That would be the right to free speech. Besides, that's just a straw man. Whether or not you're paid for the labor of creating the original copy is up to your employer (if you have one).
Tell has more than one meaning, including those that free speech doesn't cover. Explain to me, then, why anyone is going to create when they're guaranteed only payment for the first copy? So this band I like is supposed to front the money to produce a CD then hope they can get someone to shell out, what, $50,000? $100,000? A lot more? I like them, but I'm not paying them a car or a house. This is where Stallman's nutty ideas fall apart. They don't work in the real world. We'd end up with many people who make things not doing it anymore, or having to come up with a new model where they have to presell enough to make it worth releasing even one copy, which would be instantly, and in your world legally, distributed to anyone else who wants it. Oh, except for the fact that songs, movies, etc are sometimes pirated before they're released.
But if copyright law did not exist, you would not have a right to dictate how I use my specific copy of the good, and that includes dictating who I let copy it.
You're right. I'd have the right not to bother creating the first copy to begin with since there's no financial incentive for doing so. People gotta eat, even people who create copyable things.
That's how a free market works.
How free, though? Could I buy your car for the low-low price of withholding injury? Probably not, right? Can I manipulate the market? Is insider trading ok? Markets have rules. It's not anything goes. Copyright is just another set of rules, and it creates a market that otherwise wouldn't exist. If the Stallmans of the world want to live in a copyright free world, they're welcome to do so. All they have to do is abstain from consuming anything where the content creator asserts copyright. I'm just tired of hearing him pontificate about how he's right and the rest of us are doing something wrong. That's simply not true. Many of us are ok with this whole copyright thing if it's the price of getting content we like.
His desire to deny the freedom of an individual to attempt to profit from his efforts is tin-god like.
He's a crackpot. His ideas only value is as a counterbalancel to those who hold equally nutty positions on the other side.
Is his money where his mouth is?
Of course it isn't. No one has a right to tell others their labor should be free. Everyone has a right to decide the terms on which they wish to exchange their goods or services. I should be able to make a recording of me yodeling and sell it to you for one billion dollars, but require you to only listen to it once, then delete it. You shouldn't have the right to listen to it twice under those terms. You should absolutely have the right to decline the deal.
Stallman lives in a fantasy world where we'd still get all the cool stuff we have to pay nominally for now if the people who created it weren't compensated. Sorry, that's simply not true. My favorite band is not rolling in dough. I'm sure if they couldn't get paid $50 or $60 from me and all the others like me who buy all their CDs, they'd have to go get other jobs and make music as a hobby or not at all. Gah, I can't stand that guy. The bottom line truth is having that music is WORTH something to me, and it's worth more than the ~$50 I paid for it (obviously, or I wouldn't have). In Stallmanland, they create the music and I get 100% of the value. They get zip. Why is that fair?
Most people stick to 10 mph over anyway. I would much prefer to sit back and read, goof off on my phone, watch TV, or something else at 65 mph than have to drive myself at 73 mph.
Eh, I don't think it's really anything to do with the amount of effort parsing your post takes and I don't infer disdain from those who post with bad spelling or bad grammar. I do infer lower intelligence and less merit to bothering with them, though. If that doesn't bother you, then grammar doesn't matter to you. If you're trying to get a job and I'm between you and that job, looking uneducated is going to hurt your chances.
Where did you get that? I agree with GP, and having read his post, I didn't get that at all. What I got is that he published information (period) and someone used it to pretend they are something they are not. That's the freaky part. Nobody's surprised, I hope, when they post info online and other people know it. People are surprised when things like restaurants, who if you've never been there, are not expected to act like they've known you for years. It's not customer intimacy. It's customer snooping, and it's not welcome.
It's not new, really, just a new implementation. The one that comes to mind is cashiers at grocery stores thanking my by name. No, it doesn't make me feel like a regular or like you "know" me, it makes me feel like you can read the name on my loyalty card, credit card, or something else. Worse, it feels like false intimacy because your company told you to act like you know me based on nothing more than being able to read my name off something. If you've ever been a regular somewhere, or had really great service where they DO remember you every time, you know some random airline employee reading your name off a screen because BA googled your picture is nothing anywhere close.
BA, this is a really stupid idea. Don't do it. You will impress no one, and annoy or disturb others.
A shorter time would be good and appropriate, but doesn't address the root problem that most software patents are granted to things that should not be patentable at all. Granting obvious patents and leaving it for the courts to sort out IF you can afford to go that route is the problem.
Not at all. Let's take an obvious and hopefully unambiguous example: The D-day invasion in WWII. Let's assume that invading was an unambiguously "right" thing to do. A lot of people need to know about it beforehand. Some of them may be Bad Guys (tm). How do you find out? Everybody gets slightly different documents, or slightly different information. When we find a copy of those documents in enemy hands that contain information only given to Lendrick, we know with relatively high confidence that's where the leak is. Either Lendrick is a Bad Guy (tm) or he's safeguarding the information poorly, or its a really lucky misinformation campaign by the real Bad Guys (tm).
If I were in possession of that sort of information, I'd assume that some percentage of it, some percentage of the time, is deliberately wrong just to see if I'm mishandling it. Disclaimer: I don't have a clearance, so may not know what I'm talking about. If I did, I probably wouldn't be allowed to talk about it.:P
> To survive in an environment with a forced bell curve, let me paraphrase Shakespeare: "Kill all MBAs."
The people who do nonsense like this are often not MBAs. MBAs should be telling them why this is a bad idea. In my experience, MBAs are taught that this is a bad idea.
> if the company did its job correctly in the first place (hiring great people and not hiring bozos)
Unfortunately, this is hard. Sometimes you make a mistake and hire a bozo. Sometimes you hire a star, and he becomes a bozo. Personally, I like the motto "Hire slow, fire fast." which I think goes to your doing "its job correctly in the first place." Take the time to hire the right people. When you end up with a bad apple, don't take a year to get rid of them, especially if you have a 90 day probationary period.
Actually, that might be one thing that leads to systems like this. It's hard for a big company to fire just one person. They tie themselves in HR knots. But if it's standard operating procedure to fire X% every year, well that's easy! I'm not saying I approve, merely that I may see why this particular pathology develops.
What makes you think uninsured people don't get sick or get in accidents and therefore go to the doctor?
What makes you think that uninsured people who get sick and go to the doctor aren't turned away? Have you tried it?
Everyone talks like you can just show up and say "I'm sick!" and you'll be served. I showed up at a very well respected medical institution and was turned away because I left my wallet at home and didn't have my $10 copay. They wouldn't send me a bill. They wouldn't see me until I came back with money.
I'm sure someone will play the ER card, and again I'll say "go try it." The ER may well have to serve you. Eventually. If you show up with a cough or a fever or some other minor complaint, you'll be triaged to the back of the line and get bumped by everyone who walks or rolls in the door with an actual emergency. When you're faced with an 8-12 hour wait to be seen, you'll start choosing to go without that care if you can.
There are two entirely separate questions here, and it's not helpful to conflate them.
1. Should people get medical care they can't pay for? 2. If we answer yes to #1, what are the economic consequences?
#1 is a complex question that I'm not going to attempt to answer here. #2, which is the one I was addressing, is entirely neutral on whether or not it should be done, and is just questioning whether the hand-waving justifications for why doing #1 will actually result in less costs to people like me who are already covered.
In other words, I'm not saying the poor should get sick, die, and decrease the surplus population, I'm saying that if we're going to start covering a lot more people, let's not lie about the fact that doing so might just cost money.
Which unfortunately doesn't answer the question. Health care is not health insurance. Health insurers are, for most of us, one of health care's customers. If this law leads to greater consumption of health care, meaning more people showing up at the doctor's office door, and there isn't slack capacity ready to serve it, economically you shouldn't be surprised if doctors start raising their rates. Just think about it. If you can work 2,000 hours per year but have 2,200 hours of work available to you and some of it pays better than others, where do you set your price? You set it so the least profitable 200 hours of work decides you're too expensive, but the most profitable 2,000 sticks around.
So, yeah, it's a bit of a pipe dream to think we're going to start providing coverage for 30 million people and it's somehow going to cost less. Getting those 30 million preventive care might make a difference, but that will depend on them actually choosing to get the care. After all, some people who don't have health insurance choose not to. Some people who don't go to the doctor don't go because they aren't sick and just don't choose to get regular exams.
I ALMOST said smart companies still do this. One of our best hires recently didn't have much experience in the thing we needed him to do, but was really good at something similar and demonstrated a mindset in the interview that told me he'd get up to speed quickly. We hired him, he learned quickly, and he's been fantastic ever since.
Smart people still do this. I don't think smart companies exist.
Wait, did you really just say that giving eBay, a private multinational company, the names and addresses of Australian welfare recipients doesn't infringe privacy? Imagine you're an Australian welfare recipient who doesn't even use eBay. Do you still think your statement is true?
It might be just you, too. I use earbuds like that all the time and never get ear infections. I never put them in after a shower, though, not because I'm worried about infection. I'm worried about ruining expensive earbuds.
I don't know if you're expecting LinkedIn to comment, which I seriously doubt they will, but probably the same reason security shortcuts get taken everywhere. Laziness. Schedule pressure. Ignorance. Stubbornness. ("Damn SecurityGuy is always trying to make me more work! He's just paranoid. Nobody cracks SHA1!")
You already know the answer. You just don't like it.
You say that using a different password for every site is not practical. Is it less practical than having to deal with Site A getting hacked and your bank account being emptied? For me, I'm perfectly willing to deal with the hassle of separate passwords.
What I'd suggest is that your "strong" category should all have distinct, strong passwords. I'm fond of 16+ random characters including numbers, caps, specials, etc. It's crazy to trust Amazon and eBay, both giant companies which big targets on their back filled with employees who may or may not be honest, with your bank password. Write 'em down if you have to. You can keep them in your wallet with no note about what they are or usernames, encrypted on your phone, whatever. If that's not good enough, lock them in a safe at home.
I do agree with having a throwaway class of password. I will reuse passwords across sites if they're sites I really don't care about. I don't really have a medium. If having it compromised would be bothersome, it gets its own password.
No, that will just persuade the cashier that you're a jerk, make them have a slightly worse day, and unless people do this in numbers, never make it even to the store manager, let alone the manufacturer.
Second, if you want to be treated better as a customer, shop at a better store.
It goes both ways. If stores want better customers, treat them right. One big box store is short $10k/year just because I got tired of dealing with their ill-trained door Nazis. I never shop Best Buy, either, because they pull the same crap. I bet the thieves still shop there, though. They're not going to be outraged at being treated like thieves, are they?
Sure, it's fine to vote with your wallet, but it's also fine to tell places that treat you poorly that you're willing to give them business if they treat you well.
Slashdot Mirror
So somebody managed to type =R55/M55 and figure out that Net Income is 9% of what it was last June. Congrats on an entirely useless analysis. NetFlix was losing money last quarter and now isn't. This is a good thing, and anything but an indication that NetFlix is on its way out.
If anything's interesting, it's that they're now paying $155,000,000 more to deliver those subscriptions to only about 10% more subscribers. Without spending any time looking for the answer (I'm not a NetFlix investor, so I don't care), I'd infer that content providers are taking a bigger bite of the value NetFlix creates. They're STILL managing to do that profitably. If they can't, they'll raise prices and a lot of people, including me, will probably still find them a compelling value at $10-12 a month. It's possible content providers will price them out of the market, but they have a financial incentive not to unless they're directly competing with NetFlix.
Nah, I'm going to give them this one. The slam dunk is a book that's "40 % ALC. By VOL". It was obviously created to connect with the brand. The decorative lines (filigree?) around the edges is also identical. You don't get to trade on someone else's brand, and that's what the author is doing.
No, we're acting like the world has come to an end because one lunatic committed a heinous crime. We need to stop living in a climate of unnecessary fear. I've read stuff on twitter today where people are saying things like "Who knew there were so many crazies out there?" There aren't so many. There was one. In a country with 300 million people. One. Others saying what a terrible world it is where you can't even go to the movies in safety. You can. Nearly everyone did. Nearly everyone does, every day.
This is not to say this wasn't a heinous crime. It was.
It's not to say this isn't a horrible tragedy for anyone who knew the victims. It was.
It's not to say we don't all share their sadness. We do. Well, most of us do. I do. I considered seeing this movie last night. I've taken my kids to midnight shows. As they say, there but for the grace of God go I.
It is to say we need to continue living our lives. It's entirely inappropriate to make jokes about the shooting. It's fine to like the movie, and it's fine to talk about the movie.
FTFY.
Tell has more than one meaning, including those that free speech doesn't cover. Explain to me, then, why anyone is going to create when they're guaranteed only payment for the first copy? So this band I like is supposed to front the money to produce a CD then hope they can get someone to shell out, what, $50,000? $100,000? A lot more? I like them, but I'm not paying them a car or a house. This is where Stallman's nutty ideas fall apart. They don't work in the real world. We'd end up with many people who make things not doing it anymore, or having to come up with a new model where they have to presell enough to make it worth releasing even one copy, which would be instantly, and in your world legally, distributed to anyone else who wants it. Oh, except for the fact that songs, movies, etc are sometimes pirated before they're released.
You're right. I'd have the right not to bother creating the first copy to begin with since there's no financial incentive for doing so. People gotta eat, even people who create copyable things.
How free, though? Could I buy your car for the low-low price of withholding injury? Probably not, right? Can I manipulate the market? Is insider trading ok? Markets have rules. It's not anything goes. Copyright is just another set of rules, and it creates a market that otherwise wouldn't exist. If the Stallmans of the world want to live in a copyright free world, they're welcome to do so. All they have to do is abstain from consuming anything where the content creator asserts copyright. I'm just tired of hearing him pontificate about how he's right and the rest of us are doing something wrong. That's simply not true. Many of us are ok with this whole copyright thing if it's the price of getting content we like.
He's a crackpot. His ideas only value is as a counterbalancel to those who hold equally nutty positions on the other side.
Of course it isn't. No one has a right to tell others their labor should be free. Everyone has a right to decide the terms on which they wish to exchange their goods or services. I should be able to make a recording of me yodeling and sell it to you for one billion dollars, but require you to only listen to it once, then delete it. You shouldn't have the right to listen to it twice under those terms. You should absolutely have the right to decline the deal.
Stallman lives in a fantasy world where we'd still get all the cool stuff we have to pay nominally for now if the people who created it weren't compensated. Sorry, that's simply not true. My favorite band is not rolling in dough. I'm sure if they couldn't get paid $50 or $60 from me and all the others like me who buy all their CDs, they'd have to go get other jobs and make music as a hobby or not at all. Gah, I can't stand that guy. The bottom line truth is having that music is WORTH something to me, and it's worth more than the ~$50 I paid for it (obviously, or I wouldn't have). In Stallmanland, they create the music and I get 100% of the value. They get zip. Why is that fair?
Dear God, no!
I'm seriously tempted to post this on the wall at work.
Most people stick to 10 mph over anyway. I would much prefer to sit back and read, goof off on my phone, watch TV, or something else at 65 mph than have to drive myself at 73 mph.
Eh, I don't think it's really anything to do with the amount of effort parsing your post takes and I don't infer disdain from those who post with bad spelling or bad grammar. I do infer lower intelligence and less merit to bothering with them, though. If that doesn't bother you, then grammar doesn't matter to you. If you're trying to get a job and I'm between you and that job, looking uneducated is going to hurt your chances.
Where did you get that? I agree with GP, and having read his post, I didn't get that at all. What I got is that he published information (period) and someone used it to pretend they are something they are not. That's the freaky part. Nobody's surprised, I hope, when they post info online and other people know it. People are surprised when things like restaurants, who if you've never been there, are not expected to act like they've known you for years. It's not customer intimacy. It's customer snooping, and it's not welcome.
It's not new, really, just a new implementation. The one that comes to mind is cashiers at grocery stores thanking my by name. No, it doesn't make me feel like a regular or like you "know" me, it makes me feel like you can read the name on my loyalty card, credit card, or something else. Worse, it feels like false intimacy because your company told you to act like you know me based on nothing more than being able to read my name off something. If you've ever been a regular somewhere, or had really great service where they DO remember you every time, you know some random airline employee reading your name off a screen because BA googled your picture is nothing anywhere close.
BA, this is a really stupid idea. Don't do it. You will impress no one, and annoy or disturb others.
A shorter time would be good and appropriate, but doesn't address the root problem that most software patents are granted to things that should not be patentable at all. Granting obvious patents and leaving it for the courts to sort out IF you can afford to go that route is the problem.
Not at all. Let's take an obvious and hopefully unambiguous example: The D-day invasion in WWII. Let's assume that invading was an unambiguously "right" thing to do. A lot of people need to know about it beforehand. Some of them may be Bad Guys (tm). How do you find out? Everybody gets slightly different documents, or slightly different information. When we find a copy of those documents in enemy hands that contain information only given to Lendrick, we know with relatively high confidence that's where the leak is. Either Lendrick is a Bad Guy (tm) or he's safeguarding the information poorly, or its a really lucky misinformation campaign by the real Bad Guys (tm).
If I were in possession of that sort of information, I'd assume that some percentage of it, some percentage of the time, is deliberately wrong just to see if I'm mishandling it. Disclaimer: I don't have a clearance, so may not know what I'm talking about. If I did, I probably wouldn't be allowed to talk about it. :P
> To survive in an environment with a forced bell curve, let me paraphrase Shakespeare: "Kill all MBAs."
The people who do nonsense like this are often not MBAs. MBAs should be telling them why this is a bad idea. In my experience, MBAs are taught that this is a bad idea.
> if the company did its job correctly in the first place (hiring great people and not hiring bozos)
Unfortunately, this is hard. Sometimes you make a mistake and hire a bozo. Sometimes you hire a star, and he becomes a bozo. Personally, I like the motto "Hire slow, fire fast." which I think goes to your doing "its job correctly in the first place." Take the time to hire the right people. When you end up with a bad apple, don't take a year to get rid of them, especially if you have a 90 day probationary period.
Actually, that might be one thing that leads to systems like this. It's hard for a big company to fire just one person. They tie themselves in HR knots. But if it's standard operating procedure to fire X% every year, well that's easy! I'm not saying I approve, merely that I may see why this particular pathology develops.
What makes you think that uninsured people who get sick and go to the doctor aren't turned away? Have you tried it?
Everyone talks like you can just show up and say "I'm sick!" and you'll be served. I showed up at a very well respected medical institution and was turned away because I left my wallet at home and didn't have my $10 copay. They wouldn't send me a bill. They wouldn't see me until I came back with money.
I'm sure someone will play the ER card, and again I'll say "go try it." The ER may well have to serve you. Eventually. If you show up with a cough or a fever or some other minor complaint, you'll be triaged to the back of the line and get bumped by everyone who walks or rolls in the door with an actual emergency. When you're faced with an 8-12 hour wait to be seen, you'll start choosing to go without that care if you can.
There are two entirely separate questions here, and it's not helpful to conflate them.
1. Should people get medical care they can't pay for?
2. If we answer yes to #1, what are the economic consequences?
#1 is a complex question that I'm not going to attempt to answer here. #2, which is the one I was addressing, is entirely neutral on whether or not it should be done, and is just questioning whether the hand-waving justifications for why doing #1 will actually result in less costs to people like me who are already covered.
In other words, I'm not saying the poor should get sick, die, and decrease the surplus population, I'm saying that if we're going to start covering a lot more people, let's not lie about the fact that doing so might just cost money.
Which unfortunately doesn't answer the question. Health care is not health insurance. Health insurers are, for most of us, one of health care's customers. If this law leads to greater consumption of health care, meaning more people showing up at the doctor's office door, and there isn't slack capacity ready to serve it, economically you shouldn't be surprised if doctors start raising their rates. Just think about it. If you can work 2,000 hours per year but have 2,200 hours of work available to you and some of it pays better than others, where do you set your price? You set it so the least profitable 200 hours of work decides you're too expensive, but the most profitable 2,000 sticks around.
So, yeah, it's a bit of a pipe dream to think we're going to start providing coverage for 30 million people and it's somehow going to cost less. Getting those 30 million preventive care might make a difference, but that will depend on them actually choosing to get the care. After all, some people who don't have health insurance choose not to. Some people who don't go to the doctor don't go because they aren't sick and just don't choose to get regular exams.
I ALMOST said smart companies still do this. One of our best hires recently didn't have much experience in the thing we needed him to do, but was really good at something similar and demonstrated a mindset in the interview that told me he'd get up to speed quickly. We hired him, he learned quickly, and he's been fantastic ever since.
Smart people still do this. I don't think smart companies exist.
Wait, did you really just say that giving eBay, a private multinational company, the names and addresses of Australian welfare recipients doesn't infringe privacy? Imagine you're an Australian welfare recipient who doesn't even use eBay. Do you still think your statement is true?
It might be just you, too. I use earbuds like that all the time and never get ear infections. I never put them in after a shower, though, not because I'm worried about infection. I'm worried about ruining expensive earbuds.
I don't know if you're expecting LinkedIn to comment, which I seriously doubt they will, but probably the same reason security shortcuts get taken everywhere. Laziness. Schedule pressure. Ignorance. Stubbornness. ("Damn SecurityGuy is always trying to make me more work! He's just paranoid. Nobody cracks SHA1!")
That's not an exhaustive list, obviously.
You already know the answer. You just don't like it.
You say that using a different password for every site is not practical. Is it less practical than having to deal with Site A getting hacked and your bank account being emptied? For me, I'm perfectly willing to deal with the hassle of separate passwords.
What I'd suggest is that your "strong" category should all have distinct, strong passwords. I'm fond of 16+ random characters including numbers, caps, specials, etc. It's crazy to trust Amazon and eBay, both giant companies which big targets on their back filled with employees who may or may not be honest, with your bank password. Write 'em down if you have to. You can keep them in your wallet with no note about what they are or usernames, encrypted on your phone, whatever. If that's not good enough, lock them in a safe at home.
I do agree with having a throwaway class of password. I will reuse passwords across sites if they're sites I really don't care about. I don't really have a medium. If having it compromised would be bothersome, it gets its own password.
No, that will just persuade the cashier that you're a jerk, make them have a slightly worse day, and unless people do this in numbers, never make it even to the store manager, let alone the manufacturer.
It goes both ways. If stores want better customers, treat them right. One big box store is short $10k/year just because I got tired of dealing with their ill-trained door Nazis. I never shop Best Buy, either, because they pull the same crap. I bet the thieves still shop there, though. They're not going to be outraged at being treated like thieves, are they?
Sure, it's fine to vote with your wallet, but it's also fine to tell places that treat you poorly that you're willing to give them business if they treat you well.