I think the role of the philosopher is to question everything. Sometimes it's a rigorous questioning (because, you know, physicists are philosophers too). Other times it's more of a general questioning, less scientific and more...well...philosophical. Philosophical statements should all begin with something like "What if..." or "Suppose that..." or "I've been wondering..."
Philosophy is not about fact. Don't say that modern science is no better than island superstitions. There's lots of philosophical quotes that fit here.
Well, yes, an $8 sketchbook has hopefully less content though arguably better paper than an $8 paperback novel. If you were to pay an author the actual hours at minimum wage of a single book, you'd be shelling out thousands for a George Martin fantasy novel. If you take the music industry and all the hours that went into that $16 album, you'd need to mortgage your house.
They recover costs and make a profit through volume of sales. Digital distribution is as simple as throwing your ebook on a google site. Marketing that book, tracking sales, managing the sales...that's the infrastructure that costs a lot. It's cheaper than buying real estate for a book store certainly, but it's not insignificant.
And that $7 is for the content of your book, be it digital or print. After you read it, that book isn't even good enough to be a sketchbook because it's already filled.
This isn't right. You're payin for the people who create the content -- not the material it is printed on. This is obvious of course but people seem to try to leave it out when they are discussing the infinite duplication of media be it music, art, books, etc.
Until we don't live in a society that requires money to survive, it is right to have to pay for these things. Maybe we should go back to concerts and campfires and ban recording devices.
It's funny how 31 other countries manage to do so much better in wireless bandwidth. Are they in a different universe? If so, how do I know about them?
All those 31 countries can fit inside the U.S. probably. Much easier to create a robust, well-managed network in an office building than a city. And so it's easier for Japan (the size of California) than it is for the U.S. If all our cable and wireless providers only had to deal with the west coast, we'd probably see some nice changes.
I'd love a game that played like Freedom Force as an MMO. I remember creating X-men vs the Hulk scenarios and ending up with entire city blocks leveled. Of course you would need to instance battles like that but how cool would it be to have Superman hit Doomsday into a building which collapses, Michael Bay style, all around him? Throwing cars at flying heroes to know them out of the sky...
City of Heroes had some knockback but nothing like Freedom Force's epic combat.
Schemers. That's all they are. People with plans. They think too much. All their little dominoes lined up in a row, and it just takes one person to upset them.
Billing for random internet services is ridiculous. What about Blockbuster? What about Hulu? Don't bill the customer directly -- bill the service then let them figure out what to bill the customer. I have this sneaking suspicion that dropping the $150 TV/Internet bill in favor of just Internet for $60 isn't going to save me any money soon. $60 for internet. $10 for Netflix. $10 for Hulu Plus. $10 for Fox Insider.
Just kidding about that last one. I can get dog crap for free any time I like -- just leash up my dog and walk around the block.
Because when one of our university email account gets hacked and starts spamming, other providers block our SMTP server, effectively knocking out communications between us and that ISP. NATing wouldn't change that, unless spammers use their own SMTP server behind a NAT router.
Eventually something's going to break. The reality is such:
1) 10,000 people can "steal" your digital goods easily 2) You can't currently sue more than one person at a time if they didn't collude 3) It's too expensive to sue 10,000 people separately 4) It's not really the ISPs fault so you can't sue them either
So what DOES someone do who has bankrolled their digital creation and would like to recoup their investment, even make a profit, only to find that it's spread amongst 10,000 people without a penny returned. My thinking: make one copy cost what you hope to earn. So if you make a little software program and it takes you 30 hours at, say, $60/hour...charge $1800 for it. That way, when someone "steals" it, you can sue that single person and get your money back.
Yes, that's a dumb idea. But really, money is going to start failing in terms of something that is essentially eternally renewable. What would clothes be worth if we could 100% recycle them into fresh ones? You have that going on now with software, movies, etc. It's a tricky spot we're in.
When I served there was no such reminder of the proper channels. We were allowed to take notes, but not remove the notes from the room. Her problem, I'd imagine, having of course not read the article, was that she introduced new evidence into the case: an online definition of "rape trauma". She should have used whatever definition the lawyers gave her and if they didn't, they probably didn't for a purpose.
Yes, our justice system is dumb. Any system of justice which relies on ignorance and acting to prove someone's innocence needs to be rethought. And that may be the understatement of the year.
I believe it was established that the internet is not a series of tubes to be clogged by trucks. Increasing a road from 4 to 6 lanes of traffic can certainly ease congestion as long as you alter the off and on ramps and don't make the exits the choke point: having two lanes entering a 6 lane bridge that narrows back to 2 lanes doesn't help much. Happily, we have a lot of exit and entrance points so our problem isn't the same as a road. If Comcast buys more mainline to support its traffic, and they add more switches and routers in their own environment, the problem may eventually be solved.
Sure we have more video coming over the net and that means Comcast really needs to get moving if they want their users to not sue for not delivering the promised product. But the analogy isn't the same as a poorly designed road.
I've never taken an economics course, but from what you wrote there it seems that what we are currently doing isn't so much capitalism as...umm...feudalism? The wealth is certainly not trying to be spread, at least not by the wealthy. There seem to be enough of them that they can have it exchange hands amongst themselves without worrying too much about how the rest of us work out. They benefit from the non-wealthy through quantity not quality of our expenditures. If less of us are spending, it does affect them.
Agreed. It's not that I couldn't, probably, still sit for hours playing an MMO. But I get this niggling feeling of responsibility to myself, my home, my dog, etc. Should I be raking the leaves? Walking the dog? Showering? Or even doing something else I enjoy like tennis, etc. One my friends out-leveled me and I realize the simple gameplay mechanic of EQ wasn't worth much without the joking around and other social aspects, I was never drawn back into the MMO scene.
I had this pipe dream of an MMO that interconnected everything so what you did mattered: you hunt deer, to sell to the market for meat, and you can use the hide to make clothing. The meat you sell is actually available in the store for other players and even NPCs. If no one is hunting and selling meat, a city's NPCs could decline -- no more city guards, no more Molly the Baker selling cherry pies. And you would build relations with NPCs in order to get discounts or quests or access to certain areas or just an extra story line. If an orc raid occurs on your little town, and there aren't enough NPC guards, and you're not around to assist, Molly the Baker may end up captured or dead...and you lose the bonuses that relationship brought you.
And don't overhunt the deer, or the dire wolves will be looking for something else to eat.
I keep thinking that, perhaps, one day we'll be able to do what we want to do with our time. If actors want to act, they'll do so without the guarantee of acquiring money (see local community theaters). If musicians want to play, they'll play. I guess it comes down to being able to create food and shelter for yourself -- you wait tables because you need a home, but you play music because that's what you love. I think it's great that popular musicians get paid for doing what they love, but it's sad that it's a necessity.
Sigh...not even sure what I'm trying to say other than I'm not sure what the end goal of a capitalistic society is. We're technologizing ourselves out of jobs, always have been. What happens when robots are doing all the work, creating the music and art? Aside from the robotics engineers, who's collecting a salary?
I can imagine the owner's excuse as to why they didn't evict the person: "Your honor, would you threaten a man with eviction if he was sitting on a box of live grenades?"
I thought this was going to be a much more interesting listing of sites that have blatantly changed the facts to suit their needs. whitehouse.gov, foxnews.com, cnn.com, msnbc.com, prettymuchanyfinanciallendinginstitution.com, etc
While most of us would say we watch TV for the show, not for the advertisement, there are certain ads and products and movie trailers that do catch our attention. This idea of letting you choose which ads you do or don't want to see the whole of allows the marketer to target ads towards you all the better. And after 5 seconds you have all the product experience you need -- the next 25 seconds is essentially extra money an advertiser has spent on their commercial.
In fact, if we had five 5 second commercials instead of five 30 second commercials on TV, advertisers would probably save a lot of money and not lose any marketing value.
Slashdot Mirror
So we all share one line and it's a colossal fucking mess.
Forward the line to Google Voicemail that emails a mailing list of all your employees. It would, at least, be good for a laugh.
For a second I thought these were plans to electrify the cat. You know...two meshes, bottom electrified. Cat sits on top, completes connection, zap.
It's sad that you're an anonymous coward because I think that might have been the loudest WHOOSH I've ever heard on Slashdot.
I think people buy windows because they're masochists
We buy it to play games too.
Charge up the anti-matter engine and prepare for an infusion of 1.21 Gigawatts! We're going BACK... ...to the future!
It's the normal tracking mechanisms of any cell phone: maps, GPS, app updates.
Windows 7 Phone just sends it in powerpoint format.
I think the role of the philosopher is to question everything. Sometimes it's a rigorous questioning (because, you know, physicists are philosophers too). Other times it's more of a general questioning, less scientific and more...well...philosophical. Philosophical statements should all begin with something like "What if..." or "Suppose that..." or "I've been wondering..."
Philosophy is not about fact. Don't say that modern science is no better than island superstitions. There's lots of philosophical quotes that fit here.
Well, yes, an $8 sketchbook has hopefully less content though arguably better paper than an $8 paperback novel. If you were to pay an author the actual hours at minimum wage of a single book, you'd be shelling out thousands for a George Martin fantasy novel. If you take the music industry and all the hours that went into that $16 album, you'd need to mortgage your house.
They recover costs and make a profit through volume of sales. Digital distribution is as simple as throwing your ebook on a google site. Marketing that book, tracking sales, managing the sales...that's the infrastructure that costs a lot. It's cheaper than buying real estate for a book store certainly, but it's not insignificant.
And that $7 is for the content of your book, be it digital or print. After you read it, that book isn't even good enough to be a sketchbook because it's already filled.
This isn't right. You're payin for the people who create the content -- not the material it is printed on. This is obvious of course but people seem to try to leave it out when they are discussing the infinite duplication of media be it music, art, books, etc.
Until we don't live in a society that requires money to survive, it is right to have to pay for these things. Maybe we should go back to concerts and campfires and ban recording devices.
It's funny how 31 other countries manage to do so much better in wireless bandwidth. Are they in a different universe? If so, how do I know about them?
All those 31 countries can fit inside the U.S. probably. Much easier to create a robust, well-managed network in an office building than a city. And so it's easier for Japan (the size of California) than it is for the U.S. If all our cable and wireless providers only had to deal with the west coast, we'd probably see some nice changes.
I don't see a big change in the internet's language. Rather I see more translators available for each site, either manual or automated.
I'd love a game that played like Freedom Force as an MMO. I remember creating X-men vs the Hulk scenarios and ending up with entire city blocks leveled. Of course you would need to instance battles like that but how cool would it be to have Superman hit Doomsday into a building which collapses, Michael Bay style, all around him? Throwing cars at flying heroes to know them out of the sky...
City of Heroes had some knockback but nothing like Freedom Force's epic combat.
Schemers. That's all they are. People with plans. They think too much. All their little dominoes lined up in a row, and it just takes one person to upset them.
Billing for random internet services is ridiculous. What about Blockbuster? What about Hulu? Don't bill the customer directly -- bill the service then let them figure out what to bill the customer. I have this sneaking suspicion that dropping the $150 TV/Internet bill in favor of just Internet for $60 isn't going to save me any money soon. $60 for internet. $10 for Netflix. $10 for Hulu Plus. $10 for Fox Insider.
Just kidding about that last one. I can get dog crap for free any time I like -- just leash up my dog and walk around the block.
Because when one of our university email account gets hacked and starts spamming, other providers block our SMTP server, effectively knocking out communications between us and that ISP. NATing wouldn't change that, unless spammers use their own SMTP server behind a NAT router.
Bring on DNSSEC and DKIM.
Eventually something's going to break. The reality is such:
1) 10,000 people can "steal" your digital goods easily
2) You can't currently sue more than one person at a time if they didn't collude
3) It's too expensive to sue 10,000 people separately
4) It's not really the ISPs fault so you can't sue them either
So what DOES someone do who has bankrolled their digital creation and would like to recoup their investment, even make a profit, only to find that it's spread amongst 10,000 people without a penny returned. My thinking: make one copy cost what you hope to earn. So if you make a little software program and it takes you 30 hours at, say, $60/hour...charge $1800 for it. That way, when someone "steals" it, you can sue that single person and get your money back.
Yes, that's a dumb idea. But really, money is going to start failing in terms of something that is essentially eternally renewable. What would clothes be worth if we could 100% recycle them into fresh ones? You have that going on now with software, movies, etc. It's a tricky spot we're in.
When I served there was no such reminder of the proper channels. We were allowed to take notes, but not remove the notes from the room. Her problem, I'd imagine, having of course not read the article, was that she introduced new evidence into the case: an online definition of "rape trauma". She should have used whatever definition the lawyers gave her and if they didn't, they probably didn't for a purpose.
Yes, our justice system is dumb. Any system of justice which relies on ignorance and acting to prove someone's innocence needs to be rethought. And that may be the understatement of the year.
I believe it was established that the internet is not a series of tubes to be clogged by trucks. Increasing a road from 4 to 6 lanes of traffic can certainly ease congestion as long as you alter the off and on ramps and don't make the exits the choke point: having two lanes entering a 6 lane bridge that narrows back to 2 lanes doesn't help much. Happily, we have a lot of exit and entrance points so our problem isn't the same as a road. If Comcast buys more mainline to support its traffic, and they add more switches and routers in their own environment, the problem may eventually be solved.
Sure we have more video coming over the net and that means Comcast really needs to get moving if they want their users to not sue for not delivering the promised product. But the analogy isn't the same as a poorly designed road.
Seriously. Replace the firewall.
I've never taken an economics course, but from what you wrote there it seems that what we are currently doing isn't so much capitalism as...umm...feudalism? The wealth is certainly not trying to be spread, at least not by the wealthy. There seem to be enough of them that they can have it exchange hands amongst themselves without worrying too much about how the rest of us work out. They benefit from the non-wealthy through quantity not quality of our expenditures. If less of us are spending, it does affect them.
Anyway, interesting post. :-)
Agreed. It's not that I couldn't, probably, still sit for hours playing an MMO. But I get this niggling feeling of responsibility to myself, my home, my dog, etc. Should I be raking the leaves? Walking the dog? Showering? Or even doing something else I enjoy like tennis, etc. One my friends out-leveled me and I realize the simple gameplay mechanic of EQ wasn't worth much without the joking around and other social aspects, I was never drawn back into the MMO scene.
I had this pipe dream of an MMO that interconnected everything so what you did mattered: you hunt deer, to sell to the market for meat, and you can use the hide to make clothing. The meat you sell is actually available in the store for other players and even NPCs. If no one is hunting and selling meat, a city's NPCs could decline -- no more city guards, no more Molly the Baker selling cherry pies. And you would build relations with NPCs in order to get discounts or quests or access to certain areas or just an extra story line. If an orc raid occurs on your little town, and there aren't enough NPC guards, and you're not around to assist, Molly the Baker may end up captured or dead...and you lose the bonuses that relationship brought you.
And don't overhunt the deer, or the dire wolves will be looking for something else to eat.
I keep thinking that, perhaps, one day we'll be able to do what we want to do with our time. If actors want to act, they'll do so without the guarantee of acquiring money (see local community theaters). If musicians want to play, they'll play. I guess it comes down to being able to create food and shelter for yourself -- you wait tables because you need a home, but you play music because that's what you love. I think it's great that popular musicians get paid for doing what they love, but it's sad that it's a necessity.
Sigh...not even sure what I'm trying to say other than I'm not sure what the end goal of a capitalistic society is. We're technologizing ourselves out of jobs, always have been. What happens when robots are doing all the work, creating the music and art? Aside from the robotics engineers, who's collecting a salary?
I can imagine the owner's excuse as to why they didn't evict the person: "Your honor, would you threaten a man with eviction if he was sitting on a box of live grenades?"
I'm all for games on the phone. I just HOPE TO GOD they never combine one with a music player...
"Sites Guilty of Hi-Jacking History"
I thought this was going to be a much more interesting listing of sites that have blatantly changed the facts to suit their needs. whitehouse.gov, foxnews.com, cnn.com, msnbc.com, prettymuchanyfinanciallendinginstitution.com, etc
While most of us would say we watch TV for the show, not for the advertisement, there are certain ads and products and movie trailers that do catch our attention. This idea of letting you choose which ads you do or don't want to see the whole of allows the marketer to target ads towards you all the better. And after 5 seconds you have all the product experience you need -- the next 25 seconds is essentially extra money an advertiser has spent on their commercial.
In fact, if we had five 5 second commercials instead of five 30 second commercials on TV, advertisers would probably save a lot of money and not lose any marketing value.