I am struck again and again by the similarity of the arguments against P2P to those against guns. "Guns kill people" ignores the fact that they also have legitimate uses for target and skeet, as well as hunting. Of the millions of guns owned in America, far less than 1% have ever been used in an act of violence against another person. Now along comes P2P, and the law is making the same argument against it. "P2P is used for copyright infringement". Its also used for sharing legitimate files. People steal copyrighted material. P2P is just a tool. Guns are 'hard' technology; P2P is 'soft' technology. That's the only difference. That, and guns kill people, while P2P 'steals' from the MPAA and RIAA, which as we know, in this country is a greater crime than killing.
An unnamed computer book publisher apprached me about writing a "Missing Manual" type of book for Microsoft Frontpage (probably a version back, by now). I'm not a big fan of Frontpage anyway, but after looking at the help files I told them "This program doesn't need a manual. It's easy to use and has well-written, comprehensive contextual help files that will hold a user's hand through any conceivable situation. These can even be easily printed out, if the user so desires. We'd just be stealing their money." Needless to say, they went with another writer and produced the book anyway.
I live in Iowa City, IA, home to the University of Iowa and Dr. Van Allen, and I can attest to the fact that this is a regular tirade of Dr. Van Allen's. Why? Because he likes to send up satellites, and manned spaceflight funnels off millions of dollars in NASA funding. He wants the $ for his satelllites. In other words, it's all politics. Surprise.
The process breaks organic materials down thru some process of super-hydration, 500 degree heat, some moderate amount of pressure, and then results in various oils and water... Hey, isn't this the same as KFC's process?:)
You're ignoring another important aspect of 19th century life - the almost ubiquitous practice of Christianity. The idea of Christian charity and brotherhood was taught and believed by almost every pioneer. Those who wouldn't put forth substantial effort for the benefit of their 'brethren' faced tremendous social pressure and chastisement.
In Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the mice offer to buy Arthur Dent's brain (so they can dice it up and find the ultimate question, etc.) and replace it with a simple mechanism that will walk his body around randomly and ask for tea at 4PM every day. I'm convinced that most of humanity (Slashdotters excluded, of course!) could be successfully 'archived' with a similarly simple mechanism.
When I was a teenager we were on vacation in the Wisconsin Dells around my birthday in early August, which just happens to coincide with one of the biggest and best annual meteor showers. I saw quite a few 'normal' shooting stars that night, but I also saw one weird, slow, silent, huge orange fireball. Though I've looked for years, I've never found an explanation of just what I saw.
If you look closely, you will see that these bugs are perched on what looks like a mature opium poppy. Of COURSE they are mating for several days! Of COURSE after a few days of sex, the female gets hungry enough to eat the male! I would like to see how these bugs act when they are not slurping up raw opium. I bet they just grouse at each other and fight over the remote, like all other straight fauna.
Let me get this straight... My cell phone will be ALWAYS WARM, I can set it to VIBRATE, it will be IN MY POCKET, and it will LAST 5 OR 6 HOURS? Looks like my geek 'love life' is about to get quite a bit LIVELIER! WHOO_HOO!
Why should owning a share of stock relieve someone of all moral responsibility? If I make a buck by killing babies and selling the tanned hides as lampshades, that's just plain wrong. If I own a share of stock in a company that makes money for its shareholders in the same way, I am just as responsible. A corporation shouldn't be held to less strict standards than an individual.
Looks like/. got him. No more downloads from this web site for awhile. Google cache is at: http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:MGBZE0sAFnUC: www.wetmachine.com/+&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8 and cache is available for subsequent pages.
You should see one of these things cutting trees. The arm grabs the trunk, auto-locates at the selected stump height, cuts the tree like butter, and immediately strips all the branches. It's impressive. Working at Deere is cool. We get to play with all the cool "big boy" toys.:)
They're bad
on
High Score
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I knew many of the people chronicled in this book, and I can say that it is well-written, well-documented, well-illustrated, well-designed, well-made, and, well, just plain good. Even the fact that Katz likes it can't change that.
Expense is only one factor to consider when introducing products into third world countries. If the economic advantage is large enough, and the price is relatively reasonable, a product will sell. A case in point is John Deere's new India Tractor. It's a very small tractor by Western standards, and very low power. There are no computer controllers, there is no cab, and no air conditioning. You couldn't give them away in North America. But we built a factory to build them in India and they are selling well there, because they meet the needs of the Indian farm economy. Oh, and we added seats on the fenders. Why? Because the farm tractor is also the only vehicle an Indian farm family is likely to own, so they use it for transportation as well as farming.
So... M$ currently has about $50 billion in the bank. If I bought 3.3 million Xboxes, I would drive M$ and Gates into bankruptcy. I could then put FREE Xbox Linux on them and sell them as personal computers for $350 each, pocketing $50 billion and becoming the new Bill Gates! BWAHAHAHA!!!
What if you knew you'd be killing someone who wanted to die? Someone with terminal cancer, or severe depression, or whatever. You wouldn't know why, you'd just know that they wanted to. Then what?
How about this scenario? We've only been 'civilized' for about 10,000 years, and already we're on the cusp of medical, computer, nanotechnology, and other breakthrus that will transcend us far beyond being mere humans. That means the window of 'pre-advanced' civilization is extremely small. Intelligent life basically goes from nothing to beyond everything in a very short time. This means if an advanced civilization should accidently happen upon us while we're in that 'pre-advanced' state, we would be VERY VERY interesting to them. They would try not to interefere, so they could continue to study us, but just couldn't help sending as many researchers as possible. I think it's a great explanation for why we never really are able to prove we've been visited, but why bumpkins in the backwoods keep reporting lots of encounters.
This is so easy. You just have to refer to the basic equation of economics: TIME = MONEY If you're a poor student with lots of time, you'll spend lots of time downloading MP3s and burning them on CDs. But since you don't have much money, you wouldn't have spent much money on CDs anyway. Result? The music industry doesn't lose much. If you're gainfully employed you have more money, but you spend a lot of time at work, so time is more valuable to you than money. You don't sweat spending $14.95 on a CD because the hour or two you'd spend finding and downloading songs and burning your own CD is more valuable to you than the few dollars you spend on the CD. The music industry makes a few bucks, and you save some time. Will a few people sometimes download and burn songs that they might have otherwise paid for? Of course. Could that explain the 10% drop in CD sales? Perhaps, though I'm more inclined to think it's the crap-poor quality of music these days. But bottom line is that downloading and burning music won't hurt sales much unless it gets to the point that the TIME=MONEY equation balances out the other way. For example, to me $.99 for downloading a song is still too much to compensate for the hassle of making my own CDs. Make it $.25 a song and I'll probably take the time, though I'll bet I still buy as many CDs as I do now (about a dozen a year). This is so basic that I can't believe that 'economists' like this guy can't figure it out.
Slashdot Mirror
I am struck again and again by the similarity of the arguments against P2P to those against guns.
"Guns kill people" ignores the fact that they also have legitimate uses for target and skeet, as well as hunting. Of the millions of guns owned in America, far less than 1% have ever been used in an act of violence against another person.
Now along comes P2P, and the law is making the same argument against it. "P2P is used for copyright infringement". Its also used for sharing legitimate files. People steal copyrighted material. P2P is just a tool.
Guns are 'hard' technology; P2P is 'soft' technology. That's the only difference. That, and guns kill people, while P2P 'steals' from the MPAA and RIAA, which as we know, in this country is a greater crime than killing.
I was extremely disappointed that there were no airship at all in this exihibition. None. And especially no ATOMIC airships. :(
-Airship
http://www.atomicairship.com
Anyone who actually builds and markets this would make a fortune selling it to slashdot fans. I know I'd buy one.
An unnamed computer book publisher apprached me about writing a "Missing Manual" type of book for Microsoft Frontpage (probably a version back, by now). I'm not a big fan of Frontpage anyway, but after looking at the help files I told them "This program doesn't need a manual. It's easy to use and has well-written, comprehensive contextual help files that will hold a user's hand through any conceivable situation. These can even be easily printed out, if the user so desires. We'd just be stealing their money." Needless to say, they went with another writer and produced the book anyway.
I live in Iowa City, IA, home to the University of Iowa and Dr. Van Allen, and I can attest to the fact that this is a regular tirade of Dr. Van Allen's. Why? Because he likes to send up satellites, and manned spaceflight funnels off millions of dollars in NASA funding. He wants the $ for his satelllites. In other words, it's all politics. Surprise.
The process breaks organic materials down thru some process of super-hydration, 500 degree heat, some moderate amount of pressure, and then results in various oils and water... :)
Hey, isn't this the same as KFC's process?
You're ignoring another important aspect of 19th century life - the almost ubiquitous practice of Christianity. The idea of Christian charity and brotherhood was taught and believed by almost every pioneer. Those who wouldn't put forth substantial effort for the benefit of their 'brethren' faced tremendous social pressure and chastisement.
C'mon, most /.ers are so sedentary that the odds are they don't even HAVE laps. I know I don't.
is that you should create your own pirate copies at home, rather than chance buying a pirate copy that could fund terrorism.
In Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the mice offer to buy Arthur Dent's brain (so they can dice it up and find the ultimate question, etc.) and replace it with a simple mechanism that will walk his body around randomly and ask for tea at 4PM every day. I'm convinced that most of humanity (Slashdotters excluded, of course!) could be successfully 'archived' with a similarly simple mechanism.
When I was a teenager we were on vacation in the Wisconsin Dells around my birthday in early August, which just happens to coincide with one of the biggest and best annual meteor showers. I saw quite a few 'normal' shooting stars that night, but I also saw one weird, slow, silent, huge orange fireball. Though I've looked for years, I've never found an explanation of just what I saw.
Whether it's "your-anus" or "unine-us" I think the potential for punsters is just about even. (Though I prefer the former.)
If you look closely, you will see that these bugs are perched on what looks like a mature opium poppy. Of COURSE they are mating for several days! Of COURSE after a few days of sex, the female gets hungry enough to eat the male! I would like to see how these bugs act when they are not slurping up raw opium. I bet they just grouse at each other and fight over the remote, like all other straight fauna.
Here's the plan:
(1) Steal Underpants.
(2) ????
(3) A Billion Dollars in PROFIT!
Let me get this straight...
My cell phone will be ALWAYS WARM, I can set it to VIBRATE, it will be IN MY POCKET, and it will LAST 5 OR 6 HOURS?
Looks like my geek 'love life' is about to get quite a bit LIVELIER!
WHOO_HOO!
Why should owning a share of stock relieve someone of all moral responsibility? If I make a buck by killing babies and selling the tanned hides as lampshades, that's just plain wrong. If I own a share of stock in a company that makes money for its shareholders in the same way, I am just as responsible. A corporation shouldn't be held to less strict standards than an individual.
Looks like /. got him. No more downloads from this web site for awhile.: www.wetmachine.com/+&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8
Google cache is at: http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:MGBZE0sAFnUC
and cache is available for subsequent pages.
You should see one of these things cutting trees. The arm grabs the trunk, auto-locates at the selected stump height, cuts the tree like butter, and immediately strips all the branches. It's impressive. :)
Working at Deere is cool. We get to play with all the cool "big boy" toys.
I knew many of the people chronicled in this book, and I can say that it is well-written, well-documented, well-illustrated, well-designed, well-made, and, well, just plain good. Even the fact that Katz likes it can't change that.
But don't forget that video games are bad for you. It was reported on Slashdot, so it can't be wrong!
These fish taste pretty good. But, being Asian, when you eat one you just get hungry again an hour later. :)
Expense is only one factor to consider when introducing products into third world countries. If the economic advantage is large enough, and the price is relatively reasonable, a product will sell. A case in point is John Deere's new India Tractor. It's a very small tractor by Western standards, and very low power. There are no computer controllers, there is no cab, and no air conditioning. You couldn't give them away in North America. But we built a factory to build them in India and they are selling well there, because they meet the needs of the Indian farm economy. Oh, and we added seats on the fenders. Why? Because the farm tractor is also the only vehicle an Indian farm family is likely to own, so they use it for transportation as well as farming.
So...
M$ currently has about $50 billion in the bank. If I bought 3.3 million Xboxes, I would drive M$ and Gates into bankruptcy. I could then put FREE Xbox Linux on them and sell them as personal computers for $350 each, pocketing $50 billion and becoming the new Bill Gates!
BWAHAHAHA!!!
What if you knew you'd be killing someone who wanted to die? Someone with terminal cancer, or severe depression, or whatever. You wouldn't know why, you'd just know that they wanted to. Then what?
How about this scenario? We've only been 'civilized' for about 10,000 years, and already we're on the cusp of medical, computer, nanotechnology, and other breakthrus that will transcend us far beyond being mere humans. That means the window of 'pre-advanced' civilization is extremely small. Intelligent life basically goes from nothing to beyond everything in a very short time. This means if an advanced civilization should accidently happen upon us while we're in that 'pre-advanced' state, we would be VERY VERY interesting to them. They would try not to interefere, so they could continue to study us, but just couldn't help sending as many researchers as possible. I think it's a great explanation for why we never really are able to prove we've been visited, but why bumpkins in the backwoods keep reporting lots of encounters.
This is so easy. You just have to refer to the basic equation of economics:
TIME = MONEY
If you're a poor student with lots of time, you'll spend lots of time downloading MP3s and burning them on CDs. But since you don't have much money, you wouldn't have spent much money on CDs anyway. Result? The music industry doesn't lose much.
If you're gainfully employed you have more money, but you spend a lot of time at work, so time is more valuable to you than money. You don't sweat spending $14.95 on a CD because the hour or two you'd spend finding and downloading songs and burning your own CD is more valuable to you than the few dollars you spend on the CD. The music industry makes a few bucks, and you save some time.
Will a few people sometimes download and burn songs that they might have otherwise paid for? Of course. Could that explain the 10% drop in CD sales? Perhaps, though I'm more inclined to think it's the crap-poor quality of music these days. But bottom line is that downloading and burning music won't hurt sales much unless it gets to the point that the TIME=MONEY equation balances out the other way.
For example, to me $.99 for downloading a song is still too much to compensate for the hassle of making my own CDs. Make it $.25 a song and I'll probably take the time, though I'll bet I still buy as many CDs as I do now (about a dozen a year).
This is so basic that I can't believe that 'economists' like this guy can't figure it out.