I can't help but think that we'll hit the point one day where there will just be no more space left. Now we have advertisements on the floor in shopping centers, in our subway tunnels, and in our school textbooks.
How long until we have ads in the travel lanes of our roadways? When companies send up satellites with a foil "banner" with an ad printed on it? Ad tattoos?
I would also argue that ads are like currency -- the more that exists, the less worth each one has.
I'm not opposed to ads in general, I just wonder when every bit of our consciousness will be required to avoid them. And do they do any good anyway?
Fully agreed... I went to RPI as well, finishing two degrees there, and although the city of Troy is as deplorable a place to live as the surface of Venus, the rest of the capital region is quite nice.
Although Albany isn't a city in the New York or San Francisco sense, it does have its own life. There are tons of diners, Tanglewood is nearby, Saratoga is one of the world's great racing centers (and has a life of its own during the racing months if you're not into racing), and all the "real" cities are within a reasonable distance. I would consider living there again, if the economic conditions were better.
Economically, it's a little distressed, but all it takes is a good shot in the arm to bring it to life. Its only downfall is that it's in-land.
Whether or not RPI helps is a different matter. Most RPI grads that stay within the northeast move to either New York or Boston, where the jobs are plentiful, the salaries are high, and the student loans are paid off quicker. However, I think it's more likely the other way around; RPI would benefit from the influx of companies. Their MBA program will thrive, and perhaps finally they could be more of a world-class institution and get the respect that the school deserves.
I'm 26 and my wife and I have quite a bit of student debt. It's nice to WANT to say "save up six months of living expenses just in case", but when debt payments come due every month and the retirement contributions (I've done the math; compound interest is severely time-dependent) are made, it's really easy to SAY you want to have a fund, but in practice it's unrealistic.
Six months of rent and living expenses would be at least $10,000. That's a hell of a lot of money to save up "just in case" when you have a ton of other obligations that are always present.
This isn't to say that you shouldn't plan for the future, but it's one of my biggest complaints about The Fool and other personal finance advice -- a lot depends on age.
"As in everything, there are always ups and downs, such is life."
And the goal of corporations, all corporations, not just the music industry, is to take as little chance as possible out of business.
Companies don't take risks anymore. They're too afraid to. Focus groups, previews, extensive demographics, cloning other successful acts... these are all tactics designed to remove any semblance of chance from a company's initiatives.
Casinos are the prime example of this -- these aren't games of chance! These odds are perfectly calculated to make sure that the house wins, always. One of the reasons I never set foot in a casino is that I see that they make billions every year. That money has to come from somewhere.
This same idea has gripped the music industry. Forget about trying to earn money and promote music through new acts -- it is in their best interest not to do either of those.
Funny, I've actually wondered why most trials don't end with a perjury charge against the loser.
When you think about it, the whole reason many trials exist (in particular, criminal trials) is that someone says that "A happened" and someone else says that "A didn't happen".
Now, I never took a formal logic course in college, but those seem mutually exclusive to me.
Sure, it's impractical to charge everyone with perjury (going to another trial would make an infinite loop now, wouldn't it?), but it would be fair in hard-fought cases like this. How much taxpayer money did the government have to spend to refute Microsoft's argument that Windows was non-modular? Shouldn't the government at least get some of that back thanks to their lies?
...but I don't really care so long as I'm not affected.
If it ends up that 5% of users end up paying extra, good. If it ends up that 95% of users end up paying extra, there's a problem.
I think the biggest thing I fear is that the latter case will become the norm. Just like those per-pound salad bars, you never know how much you've used until you check out. I'm sure the cable companies would love to use that model, and want everyone to have $200 bills at the end of the month.
What percentage of users paying "extra" is appropriate?
Maybe you all don't agree with this, but I think there's way too much focus on 'majors' these days. Educational institutions spend too much time trying to groom their students for specific careers, with new "IT", "Web Publishing", "Biotechnology", etc. majors. Whatever happened to "Computer Science", "English", or "Biology"? Considering that most employers do some degree of on-the-job retraining anyway, doesn't it seem pointless to have these new 'custom' majors?
I have a physics degree, and I work with XML developing a web solution for insurance companies. I find that day-to-day, I use none of the specific knowledge I gained as a physicist, but every day I use the problem-solving skills, observation skills, etc., that I gained.
Colleges and universities will need to learn that there's only so much they can do, and that education continues when the student receives their sheepskin.
I'm a firm believer that one of the hidden productivity sinks in the world is that of commuting. Commutes are getting increasingly longer, extending our work days and therefore decreasing our collective productivity, and little funding goes to resolving the problem. Most public transport funds go to road/track maintenance for existing lines, rather than attempting to find better ways to travel.
I hope this idea makes it. One of my (and many other persons') complaints about public transport is that it isn't direct enough; there's no way to get from point A to point B without first going through point C, waiting twenty minutes for a connection, then through points D and E before finally arriving at B. The only thing that will get people to use public transport is if it's faster than going by car.
I also someday dream of a system (alas, a long way off) by which none of us actually drives cars anymore -- computer-controlled cars will whisk you along at arbitrarily high speeds to take you to your destination, with little to no risk of automobile accidents. If the system were computer-controlled and more-or-less guaranteed safe, speed limits would no longer be an issue, traffic lights would be limited or non-existent (and you wouldn't have to worry about them anyway), and you can talk on your cell phone all you want. But, alas, this would require a great deal of infrastructure improvement and better sensor technology.
But possibly this new Welsh experiment will be the first step...
I hate to say this, but all corporations, American or otherwise, are in the business of making money, not setting global policy.
Sometimes these interests come close to each other, a little too close, and it's up to the government and citizens to do our part. We can vote, and not just with our political right; with our dollars, our euros, and our pounds.
However, globalization does NOT necessarily include thrusting the American way of life onto nations that do not want it. No wonder globalization's become a bad word in the eyes of many.
If Saudi Arabia wants to block content from its people, that's their problem and it needs to be discussed in the forum of human rights. The government does need to be enlightened as to how the free flow of ideas is helpful. But don't criticize the US companies trying to make a buck off of this. Whether or not they sell a solution or the Saudi government creates their own solution for filtering, the filtering will still be done nonetheless.
Realistically, a metal cylinder is impractical. You can't throw it on a balance and determine if your kilogram of Cheezy-Poofs actually weighs a kilogram, because you'd not only ruin the kilogram from disturbing it in its precious environment, but you'd get yellow-cheese-dust on it.
In reality, I'm sure we could at least replace it with a theoretical definition that's more accurate than the cylinder. Even though the current definition of the meter is physical, in practice it's difficult to measure (the distance light travels in 1/299,792,458 of a second).
So, define the kilogram as the amount of mass that one liter of pure water contains at 4C. We already know the definitions of the meter exactly (defined by scientists, thanks very much), electric field permittivity (\epsilon_0), magnetic field permeability (\mu_0), the speed of light (c), etc.
With all these constants defined exactly, it just seems like there would be a better way...
Of all the broadband compaines out there, Charter is still the best.
Ditto on that. Granted, I haven't really tried to do anything fancy (except run a "personal" Web server and FTP site), but their system downtime has been minimal and the service fairly good.
And now I'm never going to submit any bug report to any company, no matter how warranted.
The amusing thing is that under many statutes of the law, you're required to report something going wrong. For instance, if a friend tells you that he's going to kill his wife tomorrow, you can be found liable if you don't alert authorities. Now, apparently, you can also get arrested for TELLING authorities about the potential crime.
Unless, that is, the feds can tell us that they WOULDN'T have busted anyone exploiting the security hole that Brian West found.
Not to be a party pooper, but that's the problem with the DMCA.
While the DMCA and an insistence to make the Internet world and business model look like the meatspace world and business model still exist, our freedoms will erode more and more.
So the RIAA has the ear of Congress. Napster was shut down for the illegal sharing of copyrighted MP3's. But if I want to make an MP3 of me singing a song that I wrote, that is also controlled by Napster's shut down (and the eventual shut down of all file-sharing systems, P2P, etc.).
Just wait until Microsoft gets the ear of Congress. Next thing you know, open source projects become the scapegoat for all of the innovations, legal (a competing word processor) or illegal (password cracker).
Maybe I'm a little paranoid, but Napster was innovation in music sharing. It can't be much longer until innovation in software sharing follows Napster's downfall.
I'd actually thought of this idea as a way to rid myself of a macro virus I'd had on several of my machines. Write another "virus" that checks for the existence of that virus and neuters it, then propagates to all other files it can find.
My biggest paranoia would be that I'd write it so it would go out of control, then I'd be the one they'd be hauling out of the police car and into the courthouse on CNN.
And I can't honestly think that I'm the only one that ever thought of this.
Has anyone else heard of/attempted/got in trouble for fighting fire with fire in this way?
I think I speak for all of us when I say, "It's about time."
In addition to the $50,000 raised by ElcomSoft for his release, will they be helping with his legal defense as well?
I'm sure that the EFF and hopefully even the ACLU will pitch in to his ongoing legal defense also... what other groups could get involved as well? And do they even know enough to get involved?
"They fix CD prices so as not to undercut each other and to all make max profit."
Forget about any other of your comments -- all it takes is collaboration on pricing schemes (also politely known as "price fixing") in order to cry "Monopoly". And when the two collaborating companies have marketshare of 80%+, look to DoJ to do as well as they are doing in the Microsoft case.
"The problem is that we can't pay for content. There's no system available that would allow me to pay five cents everytime I reloaded slashdot, or three cents to make this post, or half a cent for every comment I read. There's no system that exists that makes it possible."
Another difficulty in determining the payment model is that unlike one-way media such as television or music, the Internet is by nature two-way. Should/. get the three cents for ALLOWING you to post (using their server space, bandwidth, etc.), or should you receive a kickback for YOUR original content as well (/. gets two cents, you get one)?
Every content provider, no matter how trivial, would have to be considered. If I reply to a post seven child posts from the original, do each of the seven parent messages get a royalty?
Theoretically, this would have to be negotiated every time someone wanted to contribute. Soon no one would be contributing.
Whereas I do think micropayments for inherently one-way content (news, sports scores and articles, streaming video) is (and eventually will) become the norm, considerations have to be made when the
interaction is two-way.
Slashdot Mirror
I can't help but think that we'll hit the point one day where there will just be no more space left. Now we have advertisements on the floor in shopping centers, in our subway tunnels, and in our school textbooks.
How long until we have ads in the travel lanes of our roadways? When companies send up satellites with a foil "banner" with an ad printed on it? Ad tattoos?
I would also argue that ads are like currency -- the more that exists, the less worth each one has.
I'm not opposed to ads in general, I just wonder when every bit of our consciousness will be required to avoid them. And do they do any good anyway?
How can you say that?
Albany isn't a hub, if only because RPI has crappy intramural ice hockey teams with dorky green and grey uniforms named after Shakespeare characters.
Although Albany isn't a city in the New York or San Francisco sense, it does have its own life. There are tons of diners, Tanglewood is nearby, Saratoga is one of the world's great racing centers (and has a life of its own during the racing months if you're not into racing), and all the "real" cities are within a reasonable distance. I would consider living there again, if the economic conditions were better.
Economically, it's a little distressed, but all it takes is a good shot in the arm to bring it to life. Its only downfall is that it's in-land.
Whether or not RPI helps is a different matter. Most RPI grads that stay within the northeast move to either New York or Boston, where the jobs are plentiful, the salaries are high, and the student loans are paid off quicker. However, I think it's more likely the other way around; RPI would benefit from the influx of companies. Their MBA program will thrive, and perhaps finally they could be more of a world-class institution and get the respect that the school deserves.
I'm 26 and my wife and I have quite a bit of student debt. It's nice to WANT to say "save up six months of living expenses just in case", but when debt payments come due every month and the retirement contributions (I've done the math; compound interest is severely time-dependent) are made, it's really easy to SAY you want to have a fund, but in practice it's unrealistic.
Six months of rent and living expenses would be at least $10,000. That's a hell of a lot of money to save up "just in case" when you have a ton of other obligations that are always present.
This isn't to say that you shouldn't plan for the future, but it's one of my biggest complaints about The Fool and other personal finance advice -- a lot depends on age.
And the goal of corporations, all corporations, not just the music industry, is to take as little chance as possible out of business.
Companies don't take risks anymore. They're too afraid to. Focus groups, previews, extensive demographics, cloning other successful acts... these are all tactics designed to remove any semblance of chance from a company's initiatives.
Casinos are the prime example of this -- these aren't games of chance! These odds are perfectly calculated to make sure that the house wins, always. One of the reasons I never set foot in a casino is that I see that they make billions every year. That money has to come from somewhere.
This same idea has gripped the music industry. Forget about trying to earn money and promote music through new acts -- it is in their best interest not to do either of those.
When you think about it, the whole reason many trials exist (in particular, criminal trials) is that someone says that "A happened" and someone else says that "A didn't happen".
Now, I never took a formal logic course in college, but those seem mutually exclusive to me.
Sure, it's impractical to charge everyone with perjury (going to another trial would make an infinite loop now, wouldn't it?), but it would be fair in hard-fought cases like this. How much taxpayer money did the government have to spend to refute Microsoft's argument that Windows was non-modular? Shouldn't the government at least get some of that back thanks to their lies?
If it ends up that 5% of users end up paying extra, good. If it ends up that 95% of users end up paying extra, there's a problem.
I think the biggest thing I fear is that the latter case will become the norm. Just like those per-pound salad bars, you never know how much you've used until you check out. I'm sure the cable companies would love to use that model, and want everyone to have $200 bills at the end of the month.
What percentage of users paying "extra" is appropriate?
SPEBSQSA is the worst acronym I've ever seen -- the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America.
Jeez...
The funny thing is that it's even pronounced... usually the last S is left off (for savings), approximating "SPEB-squah".
So will the bride be changing her name to Mrs. Kathleen Taco?!
I have a physics degree, and I work with XML developing a web solution for insurance companies. I find that day-to-day, I use none of the specific knowledge I gained as a physicist, but every day I use the problem-solving skills, observation skills, etc., that I gained.
Colleges and universities will need to learn that there's only so much they can do, and that education continues when the student receives their sheepskin.
I hope this idea makes it. One of my (and many other persons') complaints about public transport is that it isn't direct enough; there's no way to get from point A to point B without first going through point C, waiting twenty minutes for a connection, then through points D and E before finally arriving at B. The only thing that will get people to use public transport is if it's faster than going by car.
I also someday dream of a system (alas, a long way off) by which none of us actually drives cars anymore -- computer-controlled cars will whisk you along at arbitrarily high speeds to take you to your destination, with little to no risk of automobile accidents. If the system were computer-controlled and more-or-less guaranteed safe, speed limits would no longer be an issue, traffic lights would be limited or non-existent (and you wouldn't have to worry about them anyway), and you can talk on your cell phone all you want. But, alas, this would require a great deal of infrastructure improvement and better sensor technology.
But possibly this new Welsh experiment will be the first step...
I hate to say this, but all corporations, American or otherwise, are in the business of making money, not setting global policy.
Sometimes these interests come close to each other, a little too close, and it's up to the government and citizens to do our part. We can vote, and not just with our political right; with our dollars, our euros, and our pounds.
However, globalization does NOT necessarily include thrusting the American way of life onto nations that do not want it. No wonder globalization's become a bad word in the eyes of many.
If Saudi Arabia wants to block content from its people, that's their problem and it needs to be discussed in the forum of human rights. The government does need to be enlightened as to how the free flow of ideas is helpful. But don't criticize the US companies trying to make a buck off of this. Whether or not they sell a solution or the Saudi government creates their own solution for filtering, the filtering will still be done nonetheless.
In reality, I'm sure we could at least replace it with a theoretical definition that's more accurate than the cylinder. Even though the current definition of the meter is physical, in practice it's difficult to measure (the distance light travels in 1/299,792,458 of a second).
So, define the kilogram as the amount of mass that one liter of pure water contains at 4C. We already know the definitions of the meter exactly (defined by scientists, thanks very much), electric field permittivity (\epsilon_0), magnetic field permeability (\mu_0), the speed of light (c), etc.
With all these constants defined exactly, it just seems like there would be a better way...
Ditto on that. Granted, I haven't really tried to do anything fancy (except run a "personal" Web server and FTP site), but their system downtime has been minimal and the service fairly good.
The amusing thing is that under many statutes of the law, you're required to report something going wrong. For instance, if a friend tells you that he's going to kill his wife tomorrow, you can be found liable if you don't alert authorities. Now, apparently, you can also get arrested for TELLING authorities about the potential crime.
Unless, that is, the feds can tell us that they WOULDN'T have busted anyone exploiting the security hole that Brian West found.
Shhh! No one tell the FBI! And ESPECIALLY not Adobe.
Not to be a party pooper, but that's the problem with the DMCA.
While the DMCA and an insistence to make the Internet world and business model look like the meatspace world and business model still exist, our freedoms will erode more and more.
So the RIAA has the ear of Congress. Napster was shut down for the illegal sharing of copyrighted MP3's. But if I want to make an MP3 of me singing a song that I wrote, that is also controlled by Napster's shut down (and the eventual shut down of all file-sharing systems, P2P, etc.).
Just wait until Microsoft gets the ear of Congress. Next thing you know, open source projects become the scapegoat for all of the innovations, legal (a competing word processor) or illegal (password cracker).
Maybe I'm a little paranoid, but Napster was innovation in music sharing. It can't be much longer until innovation in software sharing follows Napster's downfall.
My biggest paranoia would be that I'd write it so it would go out of control, then I'd be the one they'd be hauling out of the police car and into the courthouse on CNN.
And I can't honestly think that I'm the only one that ever thought of this.
Has anyone else heard of/attempted/got in trouble for fighting fire with fire in this way?
In addition to the $50,000 raised by ElcomSoft for his release, will they be helping with his legal defense as well?
I'm sure that the EFF and hopefully even the ACLU will pitch in to his ongoing legal defense also... what other groups could get involved as well? And do they even know enough to get involved?
Forget about any other of your comments -- all it takes is collaboration on pricing schemes (also politely known as "price fixing") in order to cry "Monopoly". And when the two collaborating companies have marketshare of 80%+, look to DoJ to do as well as they are doing in the Microsoft case.
Well then...
It's kind of a shame when one finds out about such wondrous events after the fact...
Another difficulty in determining the payment model is that unlike one-way media such as television or music, the Internet is by nature two-way. Should /. get the three cents for ALLOWING you to post (using their server space, bandwidth, etc.), or should you receive a kickback for YOUR original content as well (/. gets two cents, you get one)?
Every content provider, no matter how trivial, would have to be considered. If I reply to a post seven child posts from the original, do each of the seven parent messages get a royalty?
Theoretically, this would have to be negotiated every time someone wanted to contribute. Soon no one would be contributing.
Whereas I do think micropayments for inherently one-way content (news, sports scores and articles, streaming video) is (and eventually will) become the norm, considerations have to be made when the interaction is two-way.