I was irritated by his smarmy "If he knew Joe Campbell like I knew Joe Campbell" approach to the whole thing. And his blind determination that he must be right. Darth Vader as Hitler is a million miles of stretch - you either have to ignore the Holocaust or imagine something similar for ol'Vader which apparently happens outside of the films.
Sour grapes maybe? (especially because he points out twice that he has the magic plotline which will restore the series to respectability) Taking himself a little (WAY) too seriously? Unable to separate entertainment from enlightment?
You're right, crap removes itself by losing money. That was the point.
As for piracy removing niche games, got any reliable documentation? Marketeers might jump up and down and claim that they know how much money they're losing to the pirates, but I have yet to see reliable documentation of same.
That's some really excellent total nonsense you've got going there. I especially liked "natural" excelleration and space-time-gravity distortion framework.
I'm gonna guess - you watch a lot of Star Trek and take it easy on the physics books, right?
Any source for any of this? Not that I don't believe they're plausable figures, but I never heard of "Congressional immunity" as relates to drunk driving.
Well, the Dead never made much cash from album sales anyway. Their bread-and-butter was in concert tickets. And it's worth noting that in '95 when fans started busting into shows (Highgate, Deer Creek), the band issued a *very* stern rebuke.
True, though my understanding at the time (the band sent letters to their mail-order mailing list) was that the rebuke was related to the injuries and threats of legal action or cancellations from the local authorities and venues rather than loss of revenue.
So your argument is that because one person can speak freely, there can be no oppression? What kind of sense does that make?
I appreciate the point about the US not really being a police state (more of a corporate fiefdom to my jaundiced eye), but there's plenty of examples of speech being restricted/punished because "larger interests" don't want to hear it.
Perhaps your opinion has some basis in your being a Linux geek?
I've installed both Mandrake and XP several times recently (and XP about 30 times in the 6 months before that) and my opinion differs from yours. XP does require a couple of reboots, and there is some portion of it that's text-y (which doesn't bug me at all), but other than that in installs like a dream. Even my boss installs it himself.
Mandrake, on the other hand, has never properly recognized all of my hardware, is somewhat cryptic, and requires considerably more knowledge to repair the install if it doesn't proceed perfectly. These are not the hallmarks of an easy to install product.
Did you read the quote you're using? Customers prefer artifically low prices, and yes, many large companies increase prices after the competition has been run out of town. This is not uncommon.
lesson #1 of any business is "don't kill your customers.
Actually, Lesson #1 is "Only the bottom line counts". Lesson #8 is "Don't kill *all* your customers.", which is an entirely different kettle of (rotting) fish.
Why do you folks insist that the world is coming to an end, and that multinationals are taking us there?? Reading too much cyberpunk fiction?
No, too much reading the Economist.
The most basic principle is this : there are some things, which are important to people, which don't turn a profit. If you create a system where turning a profit is the only motivating factor, you'll create a system where those important things are not done, or are done poorly. Environmental security is one such thing, so are worker protections. The WTO is a formalization of such a system. It can be (and has been, and will continue to be) used to freeze protesting countries which out of trade relationships which they are dependent upon. In just such a way soverign national laws can be trumped by the judgements of an unaccountable, international body who's overriding intereset is profit.
If that doesn't terrify you, then either you don't understand, or you're hoping to make money.
You're naivete about the situtation is also frightening. Do you really think that corporations are trying to give the 3rd world a leg up? Do you see them lowering prices for necessary because they want to help people? Or do you see them profiteering at every turn and taking advantage of lax labor and evironmental regulation to increase their profit margin? Obviously they're doing it because it makes their bottom line look better.
I totally agree that cultural homogenization is horrendous, but the vast majority of people the world over apparently don't agree!
Bullshit. If you keep a dog in a cage and you only give it dirty water to drink, can you conclude that it prefers dirty water? WalMart, for example, can (and does) move into a community and run it's business at a loss for as long as it takes to starve out smaller businesses.
What I find puzzling is how anyone could understand the basic tenets of capitalism, see the movement towards globalizing and unifying trade relationships, and yet *not* see this as a catastrophe in the making.
Do you really mean "full background"? A flurry of cites is nothing like a full background. It's designed to appear comprehensive and telling, without really being so.
The world is such that everyone must decide for themselves what to believe. If you want to believe that a Cato Institute mouthpiece has the last word on scientific research, that is your perogative. You might want to, however, investigate who funds and distributes Dr. Edwards work (who collected most of the citations on the junkscience page). Maybe if you looked at some of his other work you'd get a better feeling (pro or con) for his credibility and prejudices.
You might also wonder nearly all the citations about eggshell thinning are from the 60s and 70s. And why in his delineation of the "Junk Science Mob" he fails to include any mention of the major corporations which have proveably used their vast resources to buy and intimidate scientists in to publishing what would be economically good for the company.
Anyone who says I've seen many of them, all bogus, and whatever the one you have in mind I know it and I checked it out.must be on the side of truth and open exchange.
I have "definitively follow(ed) a genetics course" and I have learned that there are genes which are only found in certain types of organisms. It is therefore quite proper to refer to a gene in terms of the animal in which it originated in many cases. Especially in the case where the effect hoped to be gained by the introduction of the gene is closely aligned with that organism.
Since you clearly have a superlative grasp of biology, ecology and human history, there is no need to point out that DDT, dioxins and thalidomide were thought safe by the people who stood to make millions by their quick introduction into our lives.
You say that testing of genetically engineered producs is unwarranted because we "don't eat genes" then you go on to point out the obvious flaw in that argument : we do eat what those genes express.
This is not an exact science we're talking about. No one can tell you that they know precisely 1. how an exogenous gene will express itself in a host and 2. the long-term effects of genetic changes on a wild population. They can't even tell you that they pretty much know. If someone says different, look at who's writing their checks.
The point is that the particular effects of genetic modifications on an organism cannot be accurately predicted, they must be discovered. I'd vastly prefer that they be discovered in some controlled test rather than on a supermarket shelf.
What I don't understand is the resistance to testing and labelling. Why would anyone (who wasn't making money off releasing untested foodstuffs) think that testing them, and knowing when you're eating them, are bad ideas?
The thing is that this *isn't* like a crack. It takes a much more refined skill set to write a driver for a propriatary piece of hardware than to piece together a crack. It seems unlikely that anyone would spend the time necessary to produce a driver which was stable enough for the masses.
And even if they did, at least it would be community created - there would've been the demand which compelled some moron to write it. This isn't that. It's ASUS figuring (correctly) that lousy gamers and jerks will preferrentially buy their product if they can more easily cheat with it.
I, for one, will be sure to bad-mouth ASUS to everyone who will listen. Even after all the other video card producers follow suit.
say what you will... but the DMCA wasn't meant to be a way for big business to strong-arm people, ISP's, and weaker institutions
You gotta be kidding me. That is precisely the intent of the DMCA, to give large media groups the ability to push around people who aren't doing what they think is right. In some of cases, they have a point, but there can be no doubt that the DMCA was authored for just such a purpose.
Your land-spectrum analogy is fundamentally flawed. Among other things, there was a market for land before there were sizeable corporations, and further, no small group of corporations exist today which have the capital to own it all. Land is just too expensive.
And as for the poor deluded fools who think the GOVERMENT is a good "steward"... Heh. Just look at who the FCC has divied up all the current bandwidth to!
So the FCC is bad for licensing bandwidth to corporations, but the way to solve that is to sell it to them?
Why do you think it takes so much funding to unseat an incumbent right now? Might it be because incumbents have (as well as name recognition) access to lobbists with lots of money and the ability to garner huge donations from people and companies by giving them governmental access?
McCain/Feingold is a great idea that's about 25 years overdue, but it's going to get hammered in the courts.
Market forces are about the consumer. That is the whole point of a free economy.
The economy you describe doesn't and won't exist. Like it or not, the point of a "free" economy like yours isn't to bend to the will of the consumer, it's to make it easier to generate and move capital. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. Probably literally.
The benefit for consumers is that lots of flexible capital often means lots of choices. It also means big-ass companies that have influence far beyond what is (subjectively) "good" for the consumer.
That being said, I'd prefer to be able to copy whatever I want, whenever I want.
Well said. And I spend my last mod point yesterday on something stupid.
I heard a similar discussion on NPR last week but couldn't remember enough detail to sound like I knew what I was talking about.
What I thought was difficult is that their civilian leaders assumedly demanded the apology because they thought they'd get it and the PLA would think they were tough. Now that they're not getting it, they can't back down without losing face to the PLA who would love to have more say about who gets what position in the next government which is what the civilian government were trying to minimize in the first place.
Slashdot Mirror
People still speak it.
I would've thought that the kind of person who'd post their grades might've been the kind of person to spend 2 seconds double-checking. Guess not.
It's certainly evil, just like the firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo were evil. But not as evil as putting civilians into camps and gassing them.
I was irritated by his smarmy "If he knew Joe Campbell like I knew Joe Campbell" approach to the whole thing. And his blind determination that he must be right. Darth Vader as Hitler is a million miles of stretch - you either have to ignore the Holocaust or imagine something similar for ol'Vader which apparently happens outside of the films.
Sour grapes maybe? (especially because he points out twice that he has the magic plotline which will restore the series to respectability) Taking himself a little (WAY) too seriously? Unable to separate entertainment from enlightment?
Crap removes itself from the marketplace.
You're right, crap removes itself by losing money. That was the point.
As for piracy removing niche games, got any reliable documentation? Marketeers might jump up and down and claim that they know how much money they're losing to the pirates, but I have yet to see reliable documentation of same.
That's some really excellent total nonsense you've got going there. I especially liked "natural" excelleration and space-time-gravity distortion framework.
I'm gonna guess - you watch a lot of Star Trek and take it easy on the physics books, right?
Any source for any of this? Not that I don't believe they're plausable figures, but I never heard of "Congressional immunity" as relates to drunk driving.
Tricoslan isn't an antibiotic, it's an antiseptic, and it's got other neat properties. Like belonging to a class of carcinogenic chemicals.
I understand the little buggers have a hard time developing a resistance to fire though.
Well, the Dead never made much cash from album sales anyway. Their bread-and-butter was in concert tickets. And it's worth noting that in '95 when fans started busting into shows (Highgate, Deer Creek), the band issued a *very* stern rebuke.
True, though my understanding at the time (the band sent letters to their mail-order mailing list) was that the rebuke was related to the injuries and threats of legal action or cancellations from the local authorities and venues rather than loss of revenue.
Nonsense.
Two seconds of research would've told you that the arctic sea ice is receding, not increasing.
That you got the central fact wrong does not bode well for the rest of your "argument".
So your argument is that because one person can speak freely, there can be no oppression? What kind of sense does that make?
I appreciate the point about the US not really being a police state (more of a corporate fiefdom to my jaundiced eye), but there's plenty of examples of speech being restricted/punished because "larger interests" don't want to hear it.
Perhaps your opinion has some basis in your being a Linux geek?
I've installed both Mandrake and XP several times recently (and XP about 30 times in the 6 months before that) and my opinion differs from yours. XP does require a couple of reboots, and there is some portion of it that's text-y (which doesn't bug me at all), but other than that in installs like a dream. Even my boss installs it himself.
Mandrake, on the other hand, has never properly recognized all of my hardware, is somewhat cryptic, and requires considerably more knowledge to repair the install if it doesn't proceed perfectly. These are not the hallmarks of an easy to install product.
You, of course, will disagree. Which is my point.
Did you read the quote you're using? Customers prefer artifically low prices, and yes, many large companies increase prices after the competition has been run out of town. This is not uncommon.
lesson #1 of any business is "don't kill your customers.
Actually, Lesson #1 is "Only the bottom line counts". Lesson #8 is "Don't kill *all* your customers.", which is an entirely different kettle of (rotting) fish.
Why do you folks insist that the world is coming to an end, and that multinationals are taking us there?? Reading too much cyberpunk fiction?
No, too much reading the Economist.
The most basic principle is this : there are some things, which are important to people, which don't turn a profit. If you create a system where turning a profit is the only motivating factor, you'll create a system where those important things are not done, or are done poorly. Environmental security is one such thing, so are worker protections. The WTO is a formalization of such a system. It can be (and has been, and will continue to be) used to freeze protesting countries which out of trade relationships which they are dependent upon. In just such a way soverign national laws can be trumped by the judgements of an unaccountable, international body who's overriding intereset is profit.
If that doesn't terrify you, then either you don't understand, or you're hoping to make money.
You're naivete about the situtation is also frightening. Do you really think that corporations are trying to give the 3rd world a leg up? Do you see them lowering prices for necessary because they want to help people? Or do you see them profiteering at every turn and taking advantage of lax labor and evironmental regulation to increase their profit margin? Obviously they're doing it because it makes their bottom line look better.
I totally agree that cultural homogenization is horrendous, but the vast majority of people the world over apparently don't agree!
Bullshit. If you keep a dog in a cage and you only give it dirty water to drink, can you conclude that it prefers dirty water? WalMart, for example, can (and does) move into a community and run it's business at a loss for as long as it takes to starve out smaller businesses.
What I find puzzling is how anyone could understand the basic tenets of capitalism, see the movement towards globalizing and unifying trade relationships, and yet *not* see this as a catastrophe in the making.
The AOL-MSN front hasn't been won? I think AOL might beg to differ.
Do you really mean "full background"? A flurry of cites is nothing like a full background. It's designed to appear comprehensive and telling, without really being so.
The world is such that everyone must decide for themselves what to believe. If you want to believe that a Cato Institute mouthpiece has the last word on scientific research, that is your perogative. You might want to, however, investigate who funds and distributes Dr. Edwards work (who collected most of the citations on the junkscience page). Maybe if you looked at some of his other work you'd get a better feeling (pro or con) for his credibility and prejudices.
You might also wonder nearly all the citations about eggshell thinning are from the 60s and 70s. And why in his delineation of the "Junk Science Mob" he fails to include any mention of the major corporations which have proveably used their vast resources to buy and intimidate scientists in to publishing what would be economically good for the company.
You might wonder if that means anything.
You certainly are making progress today.
Anyone who says I've seen many of them, all bogus, and whatever the one you have in mind I know it and I checked it out. must be on the side of truth and open exchange.
I have "definitively follow(ed) a genetics course" and I have learned that there are genes which are only found in certain types of organisms. It is therefore quite proper to refer to a gene in terms of the animal in which it originated in many cases. Especially in the case where the effect hoped to be gained by the introduction of the gene is closely aligned with that organism.
Since you clearly have a superlative grasp of biology, ecology and human history, there is no need to point out that DDT, dioxins and thalidomide were thought safe by the people who stood to make millions by their quick introduction into our lives.
Not particularly logical.
You say that testing of genetically engineered producs is unwarranted because we "don't eat genes" then you go on to point out the obvious flaw in that argument : we do eat what those genes express.
This is not an exact science we're talking about. No one can tell you that they know precisely 1. how an exogenous gene will express itself in a host and 2. the long-term effects of genetic changes on a wild population. They can't even tell you that they pretty much know. If someone says different, look at who's writing their checks.
The point is that the particular effects of genetic modifications on an organism cannot be accurately predicted, they must be discovered. I'd vastly prefer that they be discovered in some controlled test rather than on a supermarket shelf.
What I don't understand is the resistance to testing and labelling. Why would anyone (who wasn't making money off releasing untested foodstuffs) think that testing them, and knowing when you're eating them, are bad ideas?
The thing is that this *isn't* like a crack. It takes a much more refined skill set to write a driver for a propriatary piece of hardware than to piece together a crack. It seems unlikely that anyone would spend the time necessary to produce a driver which was stable enough for the masses.
And even if they did, at least it would be community created - there would've been the demand which compelled some moron to write it. This isn't that. It's ASUS figuring (correctly) that lousy gamers and jerks will preferrentially buy their product if they can more easily cheat with it.
I, for one, will be sure to bad-mouth ASUS to everyone who will listen. Even after all the other video card producers follow suit.
You make some great points that really, really need to be heard more often in these insular forums.
Thanks for having the balls to post it and taking the time to follow up on the replies.
say what you will... but the DMCA wasn't meant to be a way for big business to strong-arm people, ISP's, and weaker institutions
You gotta be kidding me. That is precisely the intent of the DMCA, to give large media groups the ability to push around people who aren't doing what they think is right. In some of cases, they have a point, but there can be no doubt that the DMCA was authored for just such a purpose.
Your land-spectrum analogy is fundamentally flawed. Among other things, there was a market for land before there were sizeable corporations, and further, no small group of corporations exist today which have the capital to own it all. Land is just too expensive.
And as for the poor deluded fools who think the GOVERMENT is a good "steward"... Heh. Just look at who the FCC has divied up all the current bandwidth to!
So the FCC is bad for licensing bandwidth to corporations, but the way to solve that is to sell it to them?
Maybe you oughta downshift.
In no way are we living in a country where we elect people that do what we want them to do. Please disabuse yourself of that notion right now.
...
People DO want these kinds of laws. The Justice Department, the military, select big corporations
Why do you think it takes so much funding to unseat an incumbent right now? Might it be because incumbents have (as well as name recognition) access to lobbists with lots of money and the ability to garner huge donations from people and companies by giving them governmental access?
McCain/Feingold is a great idea that's about 25 years overdue, but it's going to get hammered in the courts.
Market forces are about the consumer. That is the whole point of a free economy.
The economy you describe doesn't and won't exist. Like it or not, the point of a "free" economy like yours isn't to bend to the will of the consumer, it's to make it easier to generate and move capital. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. Probably literally.
The benefit for consumers is that lots of flexible capital often means lots of choices. It also means big-ass companies that have influence far beyond what is (subjectively) "good" for the consumer.
That being said, I'd prefer to be able to copy whatever I want, whenever I want.
And I'd prefer if mp3 sounded like WMA.
Well said. And I spend my last mod point yesterday on something stupid.
I heard a similar discussion on NPR last week but couldn't remember enough detail to sound like I knew what I was talking about.
What I thought was difficult is that their civilian leaders assumedly demanded the apology because they thought they'd get it and the PLA would think they were tough. Now that they're not getting it, they can't back down without losing face to the PLA who would love to have more say about who gets what position in the next government which is what the civilian government were trying to minimize in the first place.
BTW : Peoples Liberation Army