My favorite moment on CSPAN was when I watched a presentation about non-voters. It turned out that while a large percentage of non-voters are apathetic morons, about 1/3 of them actually follow as much political news as their voting peers. In short, many non-voters are not the ignorant baffons they are made out to be.
This is a clear reason why, and you've hit it on the head: voting does *not* matter. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I'd say the system was set up that way. The two parties in control are so similar that it's hard to decide which one is worse. The worst of it is that most of the politicans are in the pockets of the corporations ANYWAY, so it doesn't matter. There was a story in the Washington Post earlier this year showing that politicans vote in the manner the electorate wanted a mere 40% of the time, down from 60% 30 years ago.
And don't tell me that's what the Founders intended. The Founders rightfully had a distrust of direct democracy, but they did not intend for our representitives to ignore the populance.
The problem is with the people who vote, not those of us who do not. The people who vote only have two choices, but in reality, most of them have none, having been conditioned to vote either Democrat or Republican no matter what. Add a sprinkle of controversy over one-button issues like abortion, and presto, you have our current political situation.
In short, I agree with medicthree's suggestion. Make some money. Hide it in Switzerland so you don't pay taxes on it. Attempt to support the government of this country as little as possible. It's a sham anyway.
Personally, I don't vote because I believe it would give legitmacy to a political system I don't believe in. I don't tell that to legislators, of course, on the off chance that they listen to me. Which is rare, or else I would vote.
Do I have a solution? Sure: reduce the size and distance of the government from the people. You're more likely to influence your mayor than your congressman, and even more likely to influnence your school board member. Government needs to be cut back to the local level, exclusively.
I'd also like to point out that by extending the period of time between when a post is submitted and when it is displayed could be used not only to dampen the effects of trolls and other HUMAN factors, but as a bandwidth throttling mechanism. If a weblog got hit by 1,000 comments in a row, but there was a delay in posting, those comments could be spread out evenly in that time period to reduce the effects of the/. effect on itself...
Or maybe you americans would like a what, 46% income tax? Huh?
Sadly, we already do. Some of it is hidden, but we definately pay that much. The straight-up income tax is (I believe) 28% at its lowest. Throw in social security (15% paid by me, 15% by my employer = 30% at least according to my econ book (NOT TO MENTION that I will get jack for all this wasted money!)) and you've got over 50% taxation. That stinks.
Uhhh...plants have to be at least related before a cross-pollination will work. Perhaps this modification could take place between two tomatos plants, but not between an apple and a tomato. It'd be kind of like a cat having sex with a dog. Maybe it turns you on, but nothing's going to come of it.
Then again, though, there's the issue of expense. Insurance may cover the liver replacement surgery, but probably not the premium cost of a "special order" liver.
It might if you needed to fix someone up with a special liver to stop them from getting drunk in order to secure their place in your plans. For example, if you were an AI seeking independence in the Matrix. Say, someone like a washed-out cybercowboy with a bad drug habit...
That's clearly not true. Re-read the paragraph yourself, my friend. It states that the maximum any sponsor will have to pay is 150% of the largest amount in the last 30 days. This means that if the maximum donations in the last 30 days was 300,000, but then it hits 500,000, the sponsors will only have to pay 450,000 for that day -- but the next day the most they will have to pay will have increased to 750,000!
You are wrong. I see nothing wrong with letting some corporations foot the bill for food.
First of all, let me say I enjoy your work Baptist Death Ray. I have "Pharisee" and I listen to it on a regular basis...I really should check out the rest of what you've done.
I agree with about 50% of what you have to say, and I respect it because you are a musician, so you know what you're talking about, and you believe it. But I think on the main point you're wrong.
Perhaps I'm just a helpless idealist, but I think all information should be free, mine and yours included. Obviously, there should be some rules of ethics regarding the use of the information -- like cite, don't plagurize -- but for the most part, these already exist.
I was going to go on about how Napster and Gnutella change everything, whether you like it or not, but from your other posts, it's clear that you understand that. I also agree that these are going to be merely tools for promotion of the big bands -- because people need to hear about a song to download it. Even I, avowed pretentious indie rock and punk fan, found out about your music from my subscription to Listen.com's newsletter (before it started to totally suck, by the way). This is a problem, and it affects MP3.com et. al just as much as napster.
The solution is collaborative filtering. Even a basic form a la Amazon.com's "people who like this also like these..." would be a great improvement. If you want to make some bucks, I'd find a good domain name and set up a system like this. Make it like Listen.com, but not shitty (read: easy to use...don't seperate the artist's info into four different pages just so you can rack up the banner hits). Offer a rating service. Display the most recent, the most downloaded, and the most highly rated songs on the front page.
That can get an artist's name out. This helps a lot. By getting more listeners, you reach many deaf ears, but you may also find true fans. True fans will support their artist and buy t-shirts, CDs, posters, etc. Offer this. A service like cafepress.com could do this. Let the artist set the prices, or point to their own merchendise page. The idea is to get as many artists as possible invovled, so treat them like gods.
Fans can buy stuff and be happy. But what if they don't want to pay $15 for a t-shirt? I don't think "true" mircopayments will ever work, because they are not volentary, and hence, not ethical, but a "give this artist $1" link might work great!
I think it would rule if there was a site like this. Anyone want to help me make it?:)
Ambrose Bierce, author of "The Devil's Dictionary" (pick it up -- it's $1 and it's funny, even 100+ years later), argued for renaming the letter "W" to "wow" or "woo".
I'm with him. "Double-yu" is too damn long to say. www is fast to type, but lame to say. But if it was "woo woo woo", that'd be funny!
MySQL has its flaws, but I agree that this is not one of them. We use it as the database backend for our webserver where I work, and this little feature saved me a bunch of programming when I was trying to get a date input form working. The user could select the day, month, and year from dropdown boxes, but thankfully, MySQL would roll over the year or month if the user had made an error. If it wasn't what they actually wanted, they could go back and fix it, but I was glad I didn't have to error check each month...
This answer made me laugh! MST3K ruled. I vote for this as the winner, too!
Almost...but then you lost me
on
Copyrant
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· Score: 1
I was nodding my head right along until I got to your solution, I'm afraid.
The failure is: insufficient regulation of the software industry.
I disagree. The failure is not insufficient government regulation of the software industry. The failure is too much regulation of the software industry -- via copyright.
Remove copyright -- an artifical, government-granted monopoly -- from the equation, and everything falls into place. Copyright is what gives these companies the "right" to sell these licenses to individuals. It's time to recognize that copyright is obsolete, and move on -- find NEW revenue models. The chairman of Adobe is right that it will be incovient to have songs you can only listen to on one walkman (or worse, pay for everytime you listen to it). But what he fails to see is that people won't stand for it. We rebelled against too much copy-protection in the '80s, and we will again, but this time it'll be with Free Software, and our friends in the software industry will be fucked. Good riddence.
Sorry I'm towing the copyleft-radical party line, but that's the way I feel. I hate government, and copyright is part of that.
Luke
P.S.: And don't give me that crap "Yeah, but the GPL wouldn't be valid if we didn't have copyright!" Whatever. The GPL is only the way it is to emulate not having copyright. Once it is gone, we won't need the GPL anymore...
Peter F. Hamilton rules! I just started re-reading his "Reality Dysfunction" two-part book after finishing "The Neutronium Alchemist" a little while ago. I'm going to read the four books in order, then get the conclusion when it comes out in paperback (has it already?), because when I was reading "The Neutronium Alchemist", I found I had no clue wtf was going on at first. I read "Reality Dysfunction" in 1997, so I'd forgotten a lot of it. Re-reading "Reality Dysfunction" with the knowledge I've gained from "Neutronium Alchemist" is a very pleasurable experience. The 100 pages of set-up at the begining all MAKES SENSE.:) I really enjoy Hamilton's imagination, even if everything he's writing about has been done before (if somewhat differently). He puts together some very diseperate themes in SF in an interesting and believable way, especially considering the fantastic circumstances.
Regarding gigantic, multi-volume SF series in general, I would have to agree with you. I tried to read the "Dune" series, and I couldn't get past the third book (and this is Dune we're talking about here, not some Scientologist bullshit!). The first two books were really good though...
Re:More info -- from one of the deposed
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DeCSS Update
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· Score: 1
Thank you for this update. As someone who's very concerned about the outcome of this case, I appreciate it.
If I offer you a computer for sale for $10,000 and refuse to lower my prices under any circumstances, do I have a "right to profit"? Obviously not. There is *no* "right to profit" -- this is a simple law of economics. A seller can only price his product at the level the market will pay.
Unfortunately for the RIAA, for digital media[1], this price will soon approach $0. So, they have no right to profit.
Similarly, it annoys me to no end when someone spouts off about how copyright holders have a "right" to earn money from their intellectual product. No one has a right to money. You have to earn it.
[1] Notice I don't say anything about physical copies. The RIAA's sales increased last year, and they're were up first quarter, too. No matter how cheap digital copies are, people (like me) will still want to own the physical medium. I'm just not willing to pay $18 for it.
Slashdot Mirror
My favorite moment on CSPAN was when I watched a presentation about non-voters. It turned out that while a large percentage of non-voters are apathetic morons, about 1/3 of them actually follow as much political news as their voting peers. In short, many non-voters are not the ignorant baffons they are made out to be.
This is a clear reason why, and you've hit it on the head: voting does *not* matter. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I'd say the system was set up that way. The two parties in control are so similar that it's hard to decide which one is worse. The worst of it is that most of the politicans are in the pockets of the corporations ANYWAY, so it doesn't matter. There was a story in the Washington Post earlier this year showing that politicans vote in the manner the electorate wanted a mere 40% of the time, down from 60% 30 years ago.
And don't tell me that's what the Founders intended. The Founders rightfully had a distrust of direct democracy, but they did not intend for our representitives to ignore the populance.
The problem is with the people who vote, not those of us who do not. The people who vote only have two choices, but in reality, most of them have none, having been conditioned to vote either Democrat or Republican no matter what. Add a sprinkle of controversy over one-button issues like abortion, and presto, you have our current political situation.
In short, I agree with medicthree's suggestion. Make some money. Hide it in Switzerland so you don't pay taxes on it. Attempt to support the government of this country as little as possible. It's a sham anyway.
Personally, I don't vote because I believe it would give legitmacy to a political system I don't believe in. I don't tell that to legislators, of course, on the off chance that they listen to me. Which is rare, or else I would vote.
Do I have a solution? Sure: reduce the size and distance of the government from the people. You're more likely to influence your mayor than your congressman, and even more likely to influnence your school board member. Government needs to be cut back to the local level, exclusively.
I'll second that. It's a fascinating idea.
/. effect on itself...
I'd also like to point out that by extending the period of time between when a post is submitted and when it is displayed could be used not only to dampen the effects of trolls and other HUMAN factors, but as a bandwidth throttling mechanism. If a weblog got hit by 1,000 comments in a row, but there was a delay in posting, those comments could be spread out evenly in that time period to reduce the effects of the
Or maybe you americans would like a what, 46% income tax? Huh?
Sadly, we already do. Some of it is hidden, but we definately pay that much. The straight-up income tax is (I believe) 28% at its lowest. Throw in social security (15% paid by me, 15% by my employer = 30% at least according to my econ book (NOT TO MENTION that I will get jack for all this wasted money!)) and you've got over 50% taxation. That stinks.
Uhhh...plants have to be at least related before a cross-pollination will work. Perhaps this modification could take place between two tomatos plants, but not between an apple and a tomato. It'd be kind of like a cat having sex with a dog. Maybe it turns you on, but nothing's going to come of it.
Then again, though, there's the issue of expense. Insurance may cover the liver replacement surgery, but probably not the premium cost of a "special order" liver.
It might if you needed to fix someone up with a special liver to stop them from getting drunk in order to secure their place in your plans. For example, if you were an AI seeking independence in the Matrix. Say, someone like a washed-out cybercowboy with a bad drug habit...
No, he's being sarcastic.
That's clearly not true. Re-read the paragraph yourself, my friend. It states that the maximum any sponsor will have to pay is 150% of the largest amount in the last 30 days. This means that if the maximum donations in the last 30 days was 300,000, but then it hits 500,000, the sponsors will only have to pay 450,000 for that day -- but the next day the most they will have to pay will have increased to 750,000!
You are wrong. I see nothing wrong with letting some corporations foot the bill for food.
And just because something is illegal, doesn't make it wrong.
Not necissarily -- quake 2 certainly wasn't a very good game.
Well, at least we'd be able to find out if RMS actually said this...
I love OOG. :)
Also, what if I make a copy to listen to in my car, and one of my roommates listens to the original while I'm gone? Is that fair use?
:b
Copyright sucks
If I had mod, you'd be going up. This post cuts right to the meat of the issue. Bravo.
The fact of the matter is that artists are getting screwed by the majors. Time for a new system.
First of all, let me say I enjoy your work Baptist Death Ray. I have "Pharisee" and I listen to it on a regular basis...I really should check out the rest of what you've done.
I agree with about 50% of what you have to say, and I respect it because you are a musician, so you know what you're talking about, and you believe it. But I think on the main point you're wrong.
Perhaps I'm just a helpless idealist, but I think all information should be free, mine and yours included. Obviously, there should be some rules of ethics regarding the use of the information -- like cite, don't plagurize -- but for the most part, these already exist.
I was going to go on about how Napster and Gnutella change everything, whether you like it or not, but from your other posts, it's clear that you understand that. I also agree that these are going to be merely tools for promotion of the big bands -- because people need to hear about a song to download it. Even I, avowed pretentious indie rock and punk fan, found out about your music from my subscription to Listen.com's newsletter (before it started to totally suck, by the way). This is a problem, and it affects MP3.com et. al just as much as napster.
The solution is collaborative filtering. Even a basic form a la Amazon.com's "people who like this also like these..." would be a great improvement. If you want to make some bucks, I'd find a good domain name and set up a system like this. Make it like Listen.com, but not shitty (read: easy to use...don't seperate the artist's info into four different pages just so you can rack up the banner hits). Offer a rating service. Display the most recent, the most downloaded, and the most highly rated songs on the front page.
That can get an artist's name out. This helps a lot. By getting more listeners, you reach many deaf ears, but you may also find true fans. True fans will support their artist and buy t-shirts, CDs, posters, etc. Offer this. A service like cafepress.com could do this. Let the artist set the prices, or point to their own merchendise page. The idea is to get as many artists as possible invovled, so treat them like gods.
Fans can buy stuff and be happy. But what if they don't want to pay $15 for a t-shirt? I don't think "true" mircopayments will ever work, because they are not volentary, and hence, not ethical, but a "give this artist $1" link might work great!
I think it would rule if there was a site like this. Anyone want to help me make it? :)
Ambrose Bierce, author of "The Devil's Dictionary" (pick it up -- it's $1 and it's funny, even 100+ years later), argued for renaming the letter "W" to "wow" or "woo".
I'm with him. "Double-yu" is too damn long to say. www is fast to type, but lame to say. But if it was "woo woo woo", that'd be funny!
MySQL has its flaws, but I agree that this is not one of them. We use it as the database backend for our webserver where I work, and this little feature saved me a bunch of programming when I was trying to get a date input form working. The user could select the day, month, and year from dropdown boxes, but thankfully, MySQL would roll over the year or month if the user had made an error. If it wasn't what they actually wanted, they could go back and fix it, but I was glad I didn't have to error check each month...
I really liked this one. I say we should have more contests like this (hey /.'s got some money right?). It brings out a really fun atmosphere.
This answer made me laugh! MST3K ruled. I vote for this as the winner, too!
I was nodding my head right along until I got to your solution, I'm afraid.
The failure is: insufficient regulation of the software industry.
I disagree. The failure is not insufficient government regulation of the software industry. The failure is too much regulation of the software industry -- via copyright.
Remove copyright -- an artifical, government-granted monopoly -- from the equation, and everything falls into place. Copyright is what gives these companies the "right" to sell these licenses to individuals. It's time to recognize that copyright is obsolete, and move on -- find NEW revenue models. The chairman of Adobe is right that it will be incovient to have songs you can only listen to on one walkman (or worse, pay for everytime you listen to it). But what he fails to see is that people won't stand for it. We rebelled against too much copy-protection in the '80s, and we will again, but this time it'll be with Free Software, and our friends in the software industry will be fucked. Good riddence.
Sorry I'm towing the copyleft-radical party line, but that's the way I feel. I hate government, and copyright is part of that.
Luke
P.S.: And don't give me that crap "Yeah, but the GPL wouldn't be valid if we didn't have copyright!" Whatever. The GPL is only the way it is to emulate not having copyright. Once it is gone, we won't need the GPL anymore...
Sounds kinda like After Y2K...the Techno-Talking Babes are pretty compelling...
I'd like to endorse your plan. Sounds like a great idea. I'll bring the popcorn and other snacks.
Peter F. Hamilton rules! I just started re-reading his "Reality Dysfunction" two-part book after finishing "The Neutronium Alchemist" a little while ago. I'm going to read the four books in order, then get the conclusion when it comes out in paperback (has it already?), because when I was reading "The Neutronium Alchemist", I found I had no clue wtf was going on at first. I read "Reality Dysfunction" in 1997, so I'd forgotten a lot of it. Re-reading "Reality Dysfunction" with the knowledge I've gained from "Neutronium Alchemist" is a very pleasurable experience. The 100 pages of set-up at the begining all MAKES SENSE. :) I really enjoy Hamilton's imagination, even if everything he's writing about has been done before (if somewhat differently). He puts together some very diseperate themes in SF in an interesting and believable way, especially considering the fantastic circumstances.
Regarding gigantic, multi-volume SF series in general, I would have to agree with you. I tried to read the "Dune" series, and I couldn't get past the third book (and this is Dune we're talking about here, not some Scientologist bullshit!). The first two books were really good though...
Thank you for this update. As someone who's very concerned about the outcome of this case, I appreciate it.
Good luck on the 6th.
If I had mod, you'd be going up. Very good point.
If I offer you a computer for sale for $10,000 and refuse to lower my prices under any circumstances, do I have a "right to profit"? Obviously not. There is *no* "right to profit" -- this is a simple law of economics. A seller can only price his product at the level the market will pay.
Unfortunately for the RIAA, for digital media[1], this price will soon approach $0. So, they have no right to profit.
Similarly, it annoys me to no end when someone spouts off about how copyright holders have a "right" to earn money from their intellectual product. No one has a right to money. You have to earn it.
[1] Notice I don't say anything about physical copies. The RIAA's sales increased last year, and they're were up first quarter, too. No matter how cheap digital copies are, people (like me) will still want to own the physical medium. I'm just not willing to pay $18 for it.