What about a way of communicating to sites the ad formats a user is willing to accept? Breakdown ads into format categories such as animation, image, text, and unknown perhaps with subtypes in major categories where appropriate. That way those of us who want to support a site but cannot tolerate multimedia ads could, for example, select "text" for a particular site and be shown unobtrusive text ads.
Something like this would seem to be a decent compromise. From the comments I've read on various Slashdot articles on the subject, it would seem there are large numbers of people willing to allow at least text and other non-obtrusive ads.
Unreal Tournament: Favorite of all time. I've logged more time with this game than any other game or series of games. For years, I didn't play many other games but this.
Other favorites in no particular order:
Marathon series The Legend of Zelda Legend of Zelda 3 Doom Duke Nuke'em 3D Tie Fighter Castlevania series Super Mario Bros. Mega Man 2 Street Fighter 2 (and CE and Turbo) Final Fight Streets of Rage 2 Metroid Final Fantasy 7
I've worked at a medium-sized community college for about 6 years now in the positions of computer lab admin, computer technician and my current position of web applications developer/db admin.
I wonder which position you are already leaning toward? Your description of the private industry job is more thorough and interesting than the description of the education job.
It would seem that a good choice is something that provides more positive choices. The private industry job, as you describe it, would seem to provide more career choices from the skills you will develop and people you will meet than the education job. Also it would seem easier to get into an education job later with the skills you've developed in private industry rather than trying to get into a private industry job using 'cutting edge technologies' with skills that may languish while working at the university.
Which type of work will you enjoy more? Working with 'cutting edge technologies' sounds more fun than just being in a 'Unix Administrator role.' But you might also feel that assisting another's education (however indirectly) to be more fulfilling than simply pursuing the almighty dollar. I like developing web apps that helps students navigate the academic machinery a bit more easily.
Job security? You will find your job more secure in education than private industry. I've seen really incompetent people hold on to their jobs for decades in education. You have to _really_ screw up to get fired.
Benefits? You will find education offers a generous benefits package. Excellent health coverage, flexible vacations, and (usually) a great retirement program.
An oversimplification perhaps but which matters more to you at this time? Stability or ambition?
I'd recommend going for the private industry job. Sounds much more exciting. Plus, Private industry employment is less secure than education, take the risk now while you have no children. When you're ready to settle down and want a stable job, look at education again.
(If you're wondering what I'm doing, I will move to private industry after I finish my degree. I want to work on more exciting projects than I have gotten in education.)
However, you can make money right in your own home! Just get a piece of paper and write "IOU $5" and give it to a friend. Congratulations. You have just increased the total amount of money in the world by $5.
Reading the posts here, they sound a lot like people want DRM for their personal information:
I want to prevent people from copying my info with out my permission.
I want to take a cut from every transaction that involves my information.
Sounds a lot like the *AAs agenda:
Music/Movie DRM
The *AA wants to prevent people from copying their stuff without permission.
The *AA wants to take a cut from every transaction that involves their stuff.
Interesting. I wouldn't say it's hypocritical. The key difference is that our desire to control who does what with our information is generated by the uncertainty of who is looking at the information and what they intend to do with it -- not simple greed (although the desire to take a cut indicates otherwise for some people).
The idea behind multi-processor licensing stems from the possibility that you could consolidate your servers and thus pay less if you only bought a license per computer. Multi-processor licensing captures the revenue that would other wise be lost.
I don't agree that just because a (competing) product has a feature that we don't have, that feature is important," he said. "It is not. It is only important if it is a feature the customer wants. There are plenty of products out there with features we don't have. We have plenty of features that our customers don't use."
If features that people don't want are unimportant, what are the features that IE has but people don't use? If we apply Mr. Vamos's logic, these features of IE that people don't use must be features they don't want and therefore they are unimportant (and not worth talking about?).
If there are less people producing software, maybe there will be more people actually using the software to do something. Software (as a tool) is very important but what is more useful for society (or at least potentially so) is what is done with the software. So yeah, let's get more people doing something with software rather than just writing it.
There are no taxes on businesses - All taxes are passed on to their customers. Telecoms just are kind enough to itemize it.
I don't know if you meant this to be funny or not. I don't know much about economics but what I have learned is that business cannot pass on all taxes to consumers. While all businesses will try to pass all taxes levied against them, there are few or no businesses that can pass on 100% of their taxes to consumers. They will try but the amount that they can actually pass on is largely determined by the elasticity (or inelasticity) of demand for their product. If demand is relatively inelastic, then the business can pass on much or perhaps all of the tax levied against them by increasing the price of their products (cigarettes are a good example of this). If the demand is relatively elastic, consumers will respond negatively to the price hikes and look for cheaper substitutes if possible or curtail their purchases of the product.
I find this article interesting as a beginning student of economics. I've learned that cost doesn't determine price, price determines cost. Price is determined by the buyer (short of monopolies). Sony knows that they cannot charge the same prices in China that they charge in the US, Japan, or Europe so they must lower them. Piracy is credited for this policy but I suspect that low income is really the factor and was the catalyst for piracy. It is doubtful that Sony will lower prices significantly in the US. If the prices are lowered significantly, they will need to sell many more copies to cover their costs and attempt to make a profit. It is precisely because of the relatively high prices that we see astronomical development budgets for games. Since we (Japan, US, and Europe) pay the higher prices we will bear the cost of development for new games (as someone else here already suggested). The prices they set in China are enough to cover their costs of distribution and translation and turn some kind of profit.
It remains to be seen how this strategy will turn out. Will it turn very little profit and thus just encourage porting of US and Japanese games. Or will they sell enough to make an attractive profit that encourages original development?
Someone raised the issue of greed. Greed works both ways, for the buyer and seller. In general, companies try to sell as much as they can for as high a price as they can, buyers (individuals and companies) try to buy as much as they can for as low a price as they can. The reason for buyers wanting to buy at the lowest possible price is so they may buy more of the same product or more of another. Is this not greed as well?
"Frazier was arrested in October 2002, when Customs agents tracking his operations found computer chips and hacking gear in his luggage on a flight from Canada."
What exactly is "hacking gear?" I Searched Amazon and didn't find anything until I looked up swords, knives, and axes. That's what the article meant -- right? Maybe I'm missing something...;-P
Some of these hardware cards from Orange Micro had the capacity to run Windows NT also. Don't know how well that worked but I remember seeing their advertising...
What I really, really love about this story is how the CBS MarketWatch journalist displayed his complete lack of understanding for Linus' importance in the IT world and stuffed the threat of a law suit in as an afterthought at the bottom line.
One might argue that this is because Intuit has competition, while Hollywood is in fact several dominant companies working together in a de facto monopoly.
When a group of companies act together to influence or regulate a given industry it's a cartel not a monopoly. RTFD
Anyway I agree with your point. Also, they construe lost sales always as piracy. What do we have to do? The less we buy, the more they cry PIRACY!
Motohiro Tsuchiya, a communications professor with the International University of Japan, said Friday that about 80 percent of spam in Japan comes from outside the country and most of it is in English.
``We are now importing more spam from the United States,'' he joked.
Yeah! Finally Japanese importation of at least one U.S. product exceeds their exportation!;-P
I'm willing to try my hand at making a core set of fonts for Linux. During the last few years. I've studied typography and designed a number of my own fonts. Now, I have some familiarity with Linux but am still an outsider to the Linux community. What group should I contact to help channel my work? What kinds of fonts are people looking for? When the fonts are finally finished, who shall distribute them?
The issue of whether said OS poll is rigged, is moot. Most polls are irrelevant from the outset as the sample of people who respond are not represantative of the entire population that the poll purports to measure. So the data we have from most polls is what percentage of respondees chose this or that option, that is all. This data cannot be extrapolated for the entire population and is therefore, less than useful.
However, do not underestimate the impact of polls. Whether they are representative or not, whether they are intended to be persuasive or not polls influence people's decisions as people more or less, consciously or not seek a measure of conformity.
This is something I haven't seen anyone mention: that is, the disgusting greed of the MPAA. The CSS is an attempt to ensure that studios are paid for every copy of a DVD. I do believe that one should get paid for ones work, but shouldn't there be a voluntary cutoff at some point? A point at which one might say "I've made enough money from XYZ, it doesn't matter if other people copy it and enjoy it without lining my pocket."
If anyone believes that propagation of DeCSS will put a serious dent in the revenues of the movie studios, I have some property on the Moon I would like to sell you. If anyone believes the extreme argument that DeCSS and widespread copying of DVDs will obliterate the market you must realize two things: the argument is a logical fallacy (read: slippery slope) and VHS was (and is!) quite a strong market despite the relative ease of copying tapes.
So, don't be fooled people. Although legally, the furor is over copyright issues, the ideology behind the MPAA is GREED.
Slashdot Mirror
What about a way of communicating to sites the ad formats a user is willing to accept? Breakdown ads into format categories such as animation, image, text, and unknown perhaps with subtypes in major categories where appropriate. That way those of us who want to support a site but cannot tolerate multimedia ads could, for example, select "text" for a particular site and be shown unobtrusive text ads.
Something like this would seem to be a decent compromise. From the comments I've read on various Slashdot articles on the subject, it would seem there are large numbers of people willing to allow at least text and other non-obtrusive ads.
The Design of Everyday Things, Donald A. Norman
About Face 2.0: The Essentials of Interaction Design, Alan Cooper and Robert Reimann
Designing Interfaces, Jenifer Tidwell
Unreal Tournament: Favorite of all time. I've logged more time with this game than any other game or series of games. For years, I didn't play many other games but this.
Other favorites in no particular order:
Marathon series
The Legend of Zelda
Legend of Zelda 3
Doom
Duke Nuke'em 3D
Tie Fighter
Castlevania series
Super Mario Bros.
Mega Man 2
Street Fighter 2 (and CE and Turbo)
Final Fight
Streets of Rage 2
Metroid
Final Fantasy 7
I've worked at a medium-sized community college for about 6 years now in the positions of computer lab admin, computer technician and my current position of web applications developer/db admin.
I wonder which position you are already leaning toward? Your description of the private industry job is more thorough and interesting than the description of the education job.
It would seem that a good choice is something that provides more positive choices. The private industry job, as you describe it, would seem to provide more career choices from the skills you will develop and people you will meet than the education job. Also it would seem easier to get into an education job later with the skills you've developed in private industry rather than trying to get into a private industry job using 'cutting edge technologies' with skills that may languish while working at the university.
Which type of work will you enjoy more? Working with 'cutting edge technologies' sounds more fun than just being in a 'Unix Administrator role.' But you might also feel that assisting another's education (however indirectly) to be more fulfilling than simply pursuing the almighty dollar. I like developing web apps that helps students navigate the academic machinery a bit more easily.
Job security? You will find your job more secure in education than private industry. I've seen really incompetent people hold on to their jobs for decades in education. You have to _really_ screw up to get fired.
Benefits? You will find education offers a generous benefits package. Excellent health coverage, flexible vacations, and (usually) a great retirement program.
An oversimplification perhaps but which matters more to you at this time? Stability or ambition?
I'd recommend going for the private industry job. Sounds much more exciting. Plus, Private industry employment is less secure than education, take the risk now while you have no children. When you're ready to settle down and want a stable job, look at education again.
(If you're wondering what I'm doing, I will move to private industry after I finish my degree. I want to work on more exciting projects than I have gotten in education.)
However, you can make money right in your own home! Just get a piece of paper and write "IOU $5" and give it to a friend. Congratulations. You have just increased the total amount of money in the world by $5.
a nking_system#Money_Creation
No, brother, that's not quite right. See this Wikipedia article on the creation of money by bank lending: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_reserve_b
Reading the posts here, they sound a lot like people want DRM for their personal information:
I want to prevent people from copying my info with out my permission.
I want to take a cut from every transaction that involves my information.
Sounds a lot like the *AAs agenda:
Music/Movie DRM
The *AA wants to prevent people from copying their stuff without permission.
The *AA wants to take a cut from every transaction that involves their stuff.
Interesting. I wouldn't say it's hypocritical. The key difference is that our desire to control who does what with our information is generated by the uncertainty of who is looking at the information and what they intend to do with it -- not simple greed (although the desire to take a cut indicates otherwise for some people).
Please don't be vague. Are you talking about latency?
The idea behind multi-processor licensing stems from the possibility that you could consolidate your servers and thus pay less if you only bought a license per computer. Multi-processor licensing captures the revenue that would other wise be lost.
In the article, Mr. Vamos said:
If features that people don't want are unimportant, what are the features that IE has but people don't use? If we apply Mr. Vamos's logic, these features of IE that people don't use must be features they don't want and therefore they are unimportant (and not worth talking about?).
So much for logic....
If there are less people producing software, maybe there will be more people actually using the software to do something. Software (as a tool) is very important but what is more useful for society (or at least potentially so) is what is done with the software. So yeah, let's get more people doing something with software rather than just writing it.
There are no taxes on businesses - All taxes are passed on to their customers. Telecoms just are kind enough to itemize it.
I don't know if you meant this to be funny or not. I don't know much about economics but what I have learned is that business cannot pass on all taxes to consumers. While all businesses will try to pass all taxes levied against them, there are few or no businesses that can pass on 100% of their taxes to consumers. They will try but the amount that they can actually pass on is largely determined by the elasticity (or inelasticity) of demand for their product. If demand is relatively inelastic, then the business can pass on much or perhaps all of the tax levied against them by increasing the price of their products (cigarettes are a good example of this). If the demand is relatively elastic, consumers will respond negatively to the price hikes and look for cheaper substitutes if possible or curtail their purchases of the product.
I find this article interesting as a beginning student of economics. I've learned that cost doesn't determine price, price determines cost. Price is determined by the buyer (short of monopolies). Sony knows that they cannot charge the same prices in China that they charge in the US, Japan, or Europe so they must lower them. Piracy is credited for this policy but I suspect that low income is really the factor and was the catalyst for piracy. It is doubtful that Sony will lower prices significantly in the US. If the prices are lowered significantly, they will need to sell many more copies to cover their costs and attempt to make a profit. It is precisely because of the relatively high prices that we see astronomical development budgets for games. Since we (Japan, US, and Europe) pay the higher prices we will bear the cost of development for new games (as someone else here already suggested). The prices they set in China are enough to cover their costs of distribution and translation and turn some kind of profit.
It remains to be seen how this strategy will turn out. Will it turn very little profit and thus just encourage porting of US and Japanese games. Or will they sell enough to make an attractive profit that encourages original development?
Someone raised the issue of greed. Greed works both ways, for the buyer and seller. In general, companies try to sell as much as they can for as high a price as they can, buyers (individuals and companies) try to buy as much as they can for as low a price as they can. The reason for buyers wanting to buy at the lowest possible price is so they may buy more of the same product or more of another. Is this not greed as well?
From the article:
;-P
"Frazier was arrested in October 2002, when Customs agents tracking his operations found computer chips and hacking gear in his luggage on a flight from Canada."
What exactly is "hacking gear?" I Searched Amazon and didn't find anything until I looked up swords, knives, and axes. That's what the article meant -- right? Maybe I'm missing something...
Some of these hardware cards from Orange Micro had the capacity to run Windows NT also. Don't know how well that worked but I remember seeing their advertising...
What I really, really love about this story is how the CBS MarketWatch journalist displayed his complete lack of understanding for Linus' importance in the IT world and stuffed the threat of a law suit in as an afterthought at the bottom line.
It's called a punchline.
One might argue that this is because Intuit has competition, while Hollywood is in fact several dominant companies working together in a de facto monopoly. When a group of companies act together to influence or regulate a given industry it's a cartel not a monopoly. RTFD
Anyway I agree with your point. Also, they construe lost sales always as piracy. What do we have to do? The less we buy, the more they cry PIRACY!
Motohiro Tsuchiya, a communications professor with the International University of Japan, said Friday that about 80 percent of spam in Japan comes from outside the country and most of it is in English.
``We are now importing more spam from the United States,'' he joked.
Yeah! Finally Japanese importation of at least one U.S. product exceeds their exportation!
I'm willing to try my hand at making a core set of fonts for Linux. During the last few years. I've studied typography and designed a number of my own fonts.
Now, I have some familiarity with Linux but am still an outsider to the Linux community. What group should I contact to help channel my work? What kinds of fonts are people looking for? When the fonts are finally finished, who shall distribute them?
The issue of whether said OS poll is rigged, is moot. Most polls are irrelevant from the outset as the sample of people who respond are not represantative of the entire population that the poll purports to measure. So the data we have from most polls is what percentage of respondees chose this or that option, that is all. This data cannot be extrapolated for the entire population and is therefore, less than useful.
However, do not underestimate the impact of polls. Whether they are representative or not, whether they are intended to be persuasive or not polls influence people's decisions as people more or less, consciously or not seek a measure of conformity.
This is something I haven't seen anyone mention: that is, the disgusting greed of the MPAA. The CSS is an attempt to ensure that studios are paid for every copy of a DVD. I do believe that one should get paid for ones work, but shouldn't there be a voluntary cutoff at some point? A point at which one might say "I've made enough money from XYZ, it doesn't matter if other people copy it and enjoy it without lining my pocket."
If anyone believes that propagation of DeCSS will put a serious dent in the revenues of the movie studios, I have some property on the Moon I would like to sell you. If anyone believes the extreme argument that DeCSS and widespread copying of DVDs will obliterate the market you must realize two things: the argument is a logical fallacy (read: slippery slope) and VHS was (and is!) quite a strong market despite the relative ease of copying tapes.
So, don't be fooled people. Although legally, the furor is over copyright issues, the ideology behind the MPAA is GREED.