Re:Would this ever happen without the licence fee?
on
BBC Launches APIs
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· Score: 1
The problem lies with the TV executives who would rather go for easy sensationalist content with low risk, rather than provide useful and smart content like BBC. If the network executives would realize that more people would watch if the shows had real content, the private stations would be much more successful.
i respectfully disagree. i think that the idea that TV executives care about the actual content at all is crap. TV executives care about one thing, like all other corporate executives: profit. and the source of that profit for them is advertising. thus, it is not the TV executives who determine the content, it is advertisers. Pepsi wants its product shown during some crazy "Xtreme" reality show, in order to imply a co-relation between the two.
it is only indirectly related to the number of people watching. a free codec does not generate sales revenue for Pepsi, and thus means wasted resource for a media corporation that produces it.
the BBC can do this because it doesn't rely on advertising as a main revenue source, and thus is not subject to the whims of advertisers.
Or, you could do what Canada also does, provide some immigrants with all the benefits of citizenship and support of Canadian society with little of the responsibility or even the requirement to work for what they get, taking money from existing citizens through high taxes to feed those fleeing far less supportive cultures. There is nothing wrong with welcoming immigrants, but there is definitely a lot wrong with giving anyone a free ride on the backs of hardworking Canadians, immigrants or not.
What Canada do you come from? Have you ever tried to immigrate to Canada? My best friend just married a French guy with a master's in Economics, and he has been in the immigration process for the last year. Trust me, there is no way that someone can just immigrate to Canada and live off of social services. Both my best friend (who was born in Canada) AND her husband had to sign documents stated that they cannot go on any form of social assistance for the next TEN YEARS.
I suggest you do a research into your own countries policies before you go off on your xenophobic rants.
Two friends of mine got married last year, and instead of diamonds, they both gave each other identical rings. The rings were moebius strips, fashioned in silver. Very cool. They love them. The symbolism involved is also very cool. Two sides of the ring actually are one side, representing their coming together as one. Diamonds are superficial. If you really want to make her happy, I'm sure that some symbolic like this would mean much more than a simple diamond.
Americans and Brits are outraged when corporations get to close to governments (and vice versa) but in Japan, the boundaries between the public and private sectors are much less clear. Government will frequently underwrite corporate financing, grant monopoly licences, engage in mercantilist protectionist policies, and government planners will work along side corporate strategists, it would be unthinkable for a Japanese corporation to undertake a large project without a nod from the government.
hello? do you not read slashdot? how many senators does disney own? the RIAA/MPAA? what about the DMCA? and as for monopoly licenses, why do you think Bush was elected president? have you not noticed that Microsoft "gives" more money to the US government than any other single organization? i don't think that the US market is quite as free as you seem to think.
Not that I'm the biggest fan of the RIAA or anything, but I've seen enough FBI warnings at the beginning of movies to know that "unauthorized distribution" is just as illegal as "unauthorized reproduction". While backing up your files falls under fair-use, i don't know if distributing those files (even for free) enjoys the same protection.
A friend of mine owns a company which is doing exactly this. They provide games for WAP, SMS or Java phones, and it fully supports multiplayer games. Best of all, its free, other than the copious amount of airtime you'll likely spend on the phone...
So, when slavery was legal in the US, it was morally acceptable.
At the time, it was morally acceptable. Very few people in the Southern States thought that it was immoral to have slaves.
My point is not that society dictates morality. To do that is just to push the objectivity down to the societal level, which is just as pointless. My point is that I believe that morality is completely relative, regardless of a particular society. Societies differ in their overall conception of morality, and individuals within any given society also differ.
To address your example of forcing me to do things, I don't think that it is a moral issue at all. Are you "morally wrong" to force me to do things? This begs the question. I am saying that morality does not exist, and so to ask if something like this is wrong is missing the point. It is neither right nor wrong. It is, in this case, right for you. It is wrong for me, because I believe that things should not be forced onto other people (be it meat or morality). Is it right or wrong in an absolute sense? Well, I am saying that there is no absolute sense, so the question is irrelevant. So how does one deal with the conflicting personal moralities? We make societies, which make laws which lay out the rules by which we agree to live. That is not morality, it is society.
And to save you the trouble of another emotionally filled example, where the Nazi's wrong to kill the Jews? I would not do so, because I think that killing others (period) is wrong. You probably share that personal morality with me. But to the Nazi's, it was not wrong.
Perhaps in 100 years, everyone will be a vegetarian, and people will look back on our time and comment on the obvious "moral truth" therein. But for now, it is not "wrong" to eat meat for most people. The fact that this moral view can change means that it must only exist in the people who hold it, and thus has no objective or absolute standpoint.
The root of the problem lies in the continual de-moralization of our society. I think it would help to remember our priorities: when we say - Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, life comes before liberty. And in order to preserve life morals are essential.
And whose "morals" are you referring to here? What is your definition of morality? For example, I am a vegetarian, and I think that its "immoral" to eat meat. Does the presence of meat-eaters qualify as a "de-moralization of society"? I think that most people would say no. Why? Because their morals may not dictate that eating meat is wrong. So the problem you are faced with in declaring that "morals are essential" is simply this: whose morals? My morals? Your morals?
I'm sorry if this is a bit off-topic, but I think that it is a very dangerous slope to be sliding on when we start declaring the necessity of morality. The Church has used this throughout history to burn witches, silence scientists, etc. Morality is not some objective thing, as is apparent from the above example. I can have different morals from you. And there is no possible way for anyone to justify that, for example, eating meat is right or wrong. It is right for you and is it wrong for me. That's it.
And although it is hard to accept, the same thing holds true for acts like Columbine. There is no justification for saying that murder is wrong, in a moral sense. What is wrong about murder is that it goes against the rules that we have decided upon as a society. The vast majority of people, I suspect, prefer to live in a society where people are not allowed to murder, so that they can leave their house and not be afraid of being killed. So, in this sense, murder is wrong. But this is not a moral judgement, it is a societal one. And in order to prevent the abuses of those who take the "moral high ground", it is vital that the difference is understood.
i'd give the child a BASIC interpreter and a manual. chances are they'll have that figured out in a week. if you start simple, like with BASIC, and work your way up, the child will wire itself to think like a programmer. that's a good thing.
i disagree with this. i think that starting this kid on languages like BASIC is a bad idea, because you will simply be trapping him in the same top-down structures of thought that restrict programmers now. while i agree with the person below who says that you need to be careful of "cutting-edge" technology since it may be useless in a few years, i think that you can still take important things from such technologies, such as the way in which the type of thought behind programming is evolving.
things like abstraction and modularization are so much more important things to learn. i've debugged too much horrible C code in order to make it reusable, that i think that one programmer who can think outside of a single project is a hundred times more productive than the fastest C hacker. and the new horizons in programming are constantly being reflected in the ways new languages are being developed to make these things easier, such as in C++, java, XML, etc.
and the great thing about learning concepts such as abstraction is that programming is not the only way to teach it. get the kid to read some philosophy. take him to art galleries, where abstractions of the world are commonplace, and other abstractions are challenged. if he can learn to abstract in unique ways, he will be more productive than anything BASIC could ever teach.
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The problem lies with the TV executives who would rather go for easy sensationalist content with low risk, rather than provide useful and smart content like BBC. If the network executives would realize that more people would watch if the shows had real content, the private stations would be much more successful.
i respectfully disagree. i think that the idea that TV executives care about the actual content at all is crap. TV executives care about one thing, like all other corporate executives: profit. and the source of that profit for them is advertising. thus, it is not the TV executives who determine the content, it is advertisers. Pepsi wants its product shown during some crazy "Xtreme" reality show, in order to imply a co-relation between the two.
it is only indirectly related to the number of people watching. a free codec does not generate sales revenue for Pepsi, and thus means wasted resource for a media corporation that produces it.
the BBC can do this because it doesn't rely on advertising as a main revenue source, and thus is not subject to the whims of advertisers.
Or, you could do what Canada also does, provide some immigrants with all the benefits of citizenship and support of Canadian society with little of the responsibility or even the requirement to work for what they get, taking money from existing citizens through high taxes to feed those fleeing far less supportive cultures. There is nothing wrong with welcoming immigrants, but there is definitely a lot wrong with giving anyone a free ride on the backs of hardworking Canadians, immigrants or not.
What Canada do you come from? Have you ever tried to immigrate to Canada? My best friend just married a French guy with a master's in Economics, and he has been in the immigration process for the last year. Trust me, there is no way that someone can just immigrate to Canada and live off of social services. Both my best friend (who was born in Canada) AND her husband had to sign documents stated that they cannot go on any form of social assistance for the next TEN YEARS.
I suggest you do a research into your own countries policies before you go off on your xenophobic rants.
He should say "GNU/Linux", not "Linux". Really, man, the story was just posted.
Two friends of mine got married last year, and instead of diamonds, they both gave each other identical rings. The rings were moebius strips, fashioned in silver. Very cool. They love them. The symbolism involved is also very cool. Two sides of the ring actually are one side, representing their coming together as one. Diamonds are superficial. If you really want to make her happy, I'm sure that some symbolic like this would mean much more than a simple diamond.
Americans and Brits are outraged when corporations get to close to governments (and vice versa) but in Japan, the boundaries between the public and private sectors are much less clear. Government will frequently underwrite corporate financing, grant monopoly licences, engage in mercantilist protectionist policies, and government planners will work along side corporate strategists, it would be unthinkable for a Japanese corporation to undertake a large project without a nod from the government.
hello? do you not read slashdot? how many senators does disney own? the RIAA/MPAA? what about the DMCA? and as for monopoly licenses, why do you think Bush was elected president? have you not noticed that Microsoft "gives" more money to the US government than any other single organization? i don't think that the US market is quite as free as you seem to think.
Not that I'm the biggest fan of the RIAA or anything, but I've seen enough FBI warnings at the beginning of movies to know that "unauthorized distribution" is just as illegal as "unauthorized reproduction". While backing up your files falls under fair-use, i don't know if distributing those files (even for free) enjoys the same protection.
A friend of mine owns a company which is doing exactly this. They provide games for WAP, SMS or Java phones, and it fully supports multiplayer games. Best of all, its free, other than the copious amount of airtime you'll likely spend on the phone...
Back to defend myself...
So, when slavery was legal in the US, it was morally acceptable.
At the time, it was morally acceptable. Very few people in the Southern States thought that it was immoral to have slaves.
My point is not that society dictates morality. To do that is just to push the objectivity down to the societal level, which is just as pointless. My point is that I believe that morality is completely relative, regardless of a particular society. Societies differ in their overall conception of morality, and individuals within any given society also differ.
To address your example of forcing me to do things, I don't think that it is a moral issue at all. Are you "morally wrong" to force me to do things? This begs the question. I am saying that morality does not exist, and so to ask if something like this is wrong is missing the point. It is neither right nor wrong. It is, in this case, right for you. It is wrong for me, because I believe that things should not be forced onto other people (be it meat or morality). Is it right or wrong in an absolute sense? Well, I am saying that there is no absolute sense, so the question is irrelevant. So how does one deal with the conflicting personal moralities? We make societies, which make laws which lay out the rules by which we agree to live. That is not morality, it is society.
And to save you the trouble of another emotionally filled example, where the Nazi's wrong to kill the Jews? I would not do so, because I think that killing others (period) is wrong. You probably share that personal morality with me. But to the Nazi's, it was not wrong.
Perhaps in 100 years, everyone will be a vegetarian, and people will look back on our time and comment on the obvious "moral truth" therein. But for now, it is not "wrong" to eat meat for most people. The fact that this moral view can change means that it must only exist in the people who hold it, and thus has no objective or absolute standpoint.
The root of the problem lies in the continual de-moralization of our society. I think it would help to remember our priorities: when we say - Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, life comes before liberty. And in order to preserve life morals are essential.
And whose "morals" are you referring to here? What is your definition of morality? For example, I am a vegetarian, and I think that its "immoral" to eat meat. Does the presence of meat-eaters qualify as a "de-moralization of society"? I think that most people would say no. Why? Because their morals may not dictate that eating meat is wrong. So the problem you are faced with in declaring that "morals are essential" is simply this: whose morals? My morals? Your morals?
I'm sorry if this is a bit off-topic, but I think that it is a very dangerous slope to be sliding on when we start declaring the necessity of morality. The Church has used this throughout history to burn witches, silence scientists, etc. Morality is not some objective thing, as is apparent from the above example. I can have different morals from you. And there is no possible way for anyone to justify that, for example, eating meat is right or wrong. It is right for you and is it wrong for me. That's it.
And although it is hard to accept, the same thing holds true for acts like Columbine. There is no justification for saying that murder is wrong, in a moral sense. What is wrong about murder is that it goes against the rules that we have decided upon as a society. The vast majority of people, I suspect, prefer to live in a society where people are not allowed to murder, so that they can leave their house and not be afraid of being killed. So, in this sense, murder is wrong. But this is not a moral judgement, it is a societal one. And in order to prevent the abuses of those who take the "moral high ground", it is vital that the difference is understood.
i'd give the child a BASIC interpreter and a manual. chances are they'll have that figured out in a week. if you start simple, like with BASIC, and work your way up, the child will wire itself to think like a programmer. that's a good thing.
i disagree with this. i think that starting this kid on languages like BASIC is a bad idea, because you will simply be trapping him in the same top-down structures of thought that restrict programmers now. while i agree with the person below who says that you need to be careful of "cutting-edge" technology since it may be useless in a few years, i think that you can still take important things from such technologies, such as the way in which the type of thought behind programming is evolving.
things like abstraction and modularization are so much more important things to learn. i've debugged too much horrible C code in order to make it reusable, that i think that one programmer who can think outside of a single project is a hundred times more productive than the fastest C hacker. and the new horizons in programming are constantly being reflected in the ways new languages are being developed to make these things easier, such as in C++, java, XML, etc.
and the great thing about learning concepts such as abstraction is that programming is not the only way to teach it. get the kid to read some philosophy. take him to art galleries, where abstractions of the world are commonplace, and other abstractions are challenged. if he can learn to abstract in unique ways, he will be more productive than anything BASIC could ever teach.