He's not been there for years yet. However, it seems not unreasonable to think that they're trying to "soften him up" for the Logica case. Plenty of "civilized" governments exploit the fact that the population is largely unaware of the psychological effects of extended isolation.
We got off the gold standard because we were fighting a war we could not pay for and were going to default on redemptions otherwise.
Another way to formulate this would be to say that you got off the gold standard because you could no longer could afford to support hoarders' (of gold and gold-standard cash) expectations of rent just for sitting on their claims to wealth.
If you thought we would all be wealthier and more productive in the future, you would invest your money in productive ventures, because then your claims to wealth (money) will grow along with the economy. But if you expect us to be poorer and less productive in the future, and still for some reason trust that your claims to wealth will be recognized, it makes sense to hoard rather than invest.
This is what bitcoin hoarders believe. It's also what gold bugs believe (it's no coincidence that gold bugs are usually doomers of some sort). Their belief that there will be less real wealth in their future may or may not be correct, but the belief that their claims will be recognized is pretty foolish.
For non-idealistic projects, equity crowdfunding may be more fair. This is available, just not from Kickstarter (when they started it wouldn't have been legal).
In an ideal perspective, what you want or what they want shouldn't matter. There are only two questions:
1. Is there some set of people that are better off from this being released? 2. Can the same benefit cheaper elsewhere?
If the first is true and the second is false, they should, in a perfect world, be able to coordinate to pay the author to release it, letting him capture some share of the benefit they get from it. In practice, things that are slightly useful to lots of people are underprovided because we don't have the mechanisms necessary to effectively find them and pay for them.
If it isn't a threshold pledge system - and there's nothing to suggest that they won't take the money even if the goal isn't reached - then it doesn't deserve to be compared to kickstarter.
Project starters would prefer that you don't think about the possibility of failure at all, and they would of course prefer to get everything raised anyway. But both these desires run contrary to backers' best interest. Sad that the FSF is too top-down to notice (or care).
A lot of web development still happens in Python, although there's more competition from newer languages these days (Ruby), and less from old (Perl, PHP).
Haskell/Erlang/Functional Insanity -- I have no idea how these people deal with data
Haskell has three big web frameworks: Happstack, Snap and Yesod. Happstack has a persistence layer called acid-state, Yesod's is called Persistent. I'm not sure what's Snap's default, but it's possible to mix and match from all three frameworks pretty much.
Well, in that case, you can make the same statement to book buyers: Find a funding model, or die. (Although it's not quite that bad, fortunately).
But there is no lack of other potential funding models. The main difficulty, both for authors and readers, is that we aren't used to these other funding models, and thus we're confused by them, scared by them, and unable to take full advantage of them.
Right now something exciting is happening, as Kickstarter is gradually, slowly, wrapping people's minds around the idea that you can approach creative projects as a investments/ventures for non monetary gain.
I wonder why Nokia, of all companies, got this reputation for solidity. Most of their phones were not very solid.
There is consumer legislation in Norway that electronic devices "of a long-term nature" should function for at least five years. Nokia fought this tooth and claw, and insisted it was completely unreasonable for mobile phones.
Granted, many (not all) of the pre-touch phones were a lot more robust than most touch phones. And very many of the previous generation were in fact Nokias.
Current smokers basically ignore most cigarette advertising as the vast majority will stick to one brand once they're accustomed to it.
Do you really think that the tobacco industry does not spend a significant part of it advertising budget on promoting the idea that smoking = symbol of personal freedom?
The reason Jobs has been compared to those three is that they all had a reputation for being horrible assholes in addition to (arguably) contributing valuable things to humanity. Ford was an honest to God Nazi, Disney was an employee abuser and McCarthyist, and Edison electrocuted animals to smear his opponents' technology.
That it was a property crime against the father. As you can see, it was a very serious crime against the victim, and yes, it was the victim which was the beneficiary of the restitution - alternatively her parents, presumably when she was underage and living with them- because as you can see, there's no provision for restitution to her husband.
The exception is interesting: If the offender has given something to the victim, it always goes to the parents. I think this is because the victim keeping something given as a "gift" by the offender could be taken as a sign of acceptance of the crime.
You can't infer something from the word choice of a translated text, by the way.
He had a number of peculiar ideas about patents. Maybe he had peculiar ideas about the jury selection process too, and thought it there was a 10-year limit or something.
it was considered less a sexual crime, and more a property crime against the father/husband of the woman
This is also mostly a myth. I encourage you to look it up in medieval law codes, e.g. the Visigothic code.
The Romans were very unusual in that they regarded women and children as property. Out of a desire for uniformity, they tried to formulated their laws around as few ideas as possible, and property was their favorite idea. But even in the reinassance when Romans were idolized (and Roman law was actually rediscovered), they balked at copying the Romans on this.
No, it doesn't. It's blatantly ridiculous, even for the most brutal societies that have existed, much less prehistorical ones. Maybe if you call all sex below 18 years of age rape, but even then you'd have trouble, because most births don't happen as a result of sex before 18.
If they've nothing to hide, they've got nothing to fear, right?/s
Maybe you're familiar with the expression to "go on a fishing trip"? In the SCO/IBM lawsuit, it was used, both as a delaying tactic and as an attemt to get the proverbial five lines that can get an honest man hanged. Not all who ask for such information do so in good faith.
Slashdot Mirror
He's not been there for years yet. However, it seems not unreasonable to think that they're trying to "soften him up" for the Logica case. Plenty of "civilized" governments exploit the fact that the population is largely unaware of the psychological effects of extended isolation.
Sore de ganbattekudasai!
"This guy managed to get a 4+ insightful first post on Slashdot, and he's an attention risk."
"OK, make sure he has other things to worry about for a while".
Another way to formulate this would be to say that you got off the gold standard because you could no longer could afford to support hoarders' (of gold and gold-standard cash) expectations of rent just for sitting on their claims to wealth.
If you thought we would all be wealthier and more productive in the future, you would invest your money in productive ventures, because then your claims to wealth (money) will grow along with the economy. But if you expect us to be poorer and less productive in the future, and still for some reason trust that your claims to wealth will be recognized, it makes sense to hoard rather than invest.
This is what bitcoin hoarders believe. It's also what gold bugs believe (it's no coincidence that gold bugs are usually doomers of some sort). Their belief that there will be less real wealth in their future may or may not be correct, but the belief that their claims will be recognized is pretty foolish.
I don't know about you, but I get more utility from my computer than I get from looking at a number and feeling rich.
For non-idealistic projects, equity crowdfunding may be more fair. This is available, just not from Kickstarter (when they started it wouldn't have been legal).
In an ideal perspective, what you want or what they want shouldn't matter. There are only two questions:
1. Is there some set of people that are better off from this being released?
2. Can the same benefit cheaper elsewhere?
If the first is true and the second is false, they should, in a perfect world, be able to coordinate to pay the author to release it, letting him capture some share of the benefit they get from it. In practice, things that are slightly useful to lots of people are underprovided because we don't have the mechanisms necessary to effectively find them and pay for them.
If it isn't a threshold pledge system - and there's nothing to suggest that they won't take the money even if the goal isn't reached - then it doesn't deserve to be compared to kickstarter.
Project starters would prefer that you don't think about the possibility of failure at all, and they would of course prefer to get everything raised anyway. But both these desires run contrary to backers' best interest. Sad that the FSF is too top-down to notice (or care).
A lot of web development still happens in Python, although there's more competition from newer languages these days (Ruby), and less from old (Perl, PHP).
Haskell has three big web frameworks: Happstack, Snap and Yesod. Happstack has a persistence layer called acid-state, Yesod's is called Persistent. I'm not sure what's Snap's default, but it's possible to mix and match from all three frameworks pretty much.
Well, in that case, you can make the same statement to book buyers: Find a funding model, or die. (Although it's not quite that bad, fortunately).
But there is no lack of other potential funding models. The main difficulty, both for authors and readers, is that we aren't used to these other funding models, and thus we're confused by them, scared by them, and unable to take full advantage of them.
Right now something exciting is happening, as Kickstarter is gradually, slowly, wrapping people's minds around the idea that you can approach creative projects as a investments/ventures for non monetary gain.
I wonder why Nokia, of all companies, got this reputation for solidity. Most of their phones were not very solid.
There is consumer legislation in Norway that electronic devices "of a long-term nature" should function for at least five years. Nokia fought this tooth and claw, and insisted it was completely unreasonable for mobile phones.
Granted, many (not all) of the pre-touch phones were a lot more robust than most touch phones. And very many of the previous generation were in fact Nokias.
No one tell them about CLOP.
I've been playing too much SpaceChem...
Advertisers love people like you, who think that if you aren't consciously affected by advertising, you aren't affected at all.
Do you really think that the tobacco industry does not spend a significant part of it advertising budget on promoting the idea that smoking = symbol of personal freedom?
Henry Ford wasn't an elitist?
The reason Jobs has been compared to those three is that they all had a reputation for being horrible assholes in addition to (arguably) contributing valuable things to humanity. Ford was an honest to God Nazi, Disney was an employee abuser and McCarthyist, and Edison electrocuted animals to smear his opponents' technology.
This comment is a good illustration of people's high opinion about Jobs.
But no, we would absolutely not have floppy drives or serial connectors. And we would still have touchscreen UIs. And rounded corners.
Yeah, but I hear there's a thriving shipment industry very efficient at delivering packages and gathering various goods.
That it was a property crime against the father. As you can see, it was a very serious crime against the victim, and yes, it was the victim which was the beneficiary of the restitution - alternatively her parents, presumably when she was underage and living with them- because as you can see, there's no provision for restitution to her husband.
The exception is interesting: If the offender has given something to the victim, it always goes to the parents. I think this is because the victim keeping something given as a "gift" by the offender could be taken as a sign of acceptance of the crime.
You can't infer something from the word choice of a translated text, by the way.
He had a number of peculiar ideas about patents. Maybe he had peculiar ideas about the jury selection process too, and thought it there was a 10-year limit or something.
This is also mostly a myth. I encourage you to look it up in medieval law codes, e.g. the Visigothic code.
The Romans were very unusual in that they regarded women and children as property. Out of a desire for uniformity, they tried to formulated their laws around as few ideas as possible, and property was their favorite idea. But even in the reinassance when Romans were idolized (and Roman law was actually rediscovered), they balked at copying the Romans on this.
No, it doesn't. It's blatantly ridiculous, even for the most brutal societies that have existed, much less prehistorical ones. Maybe if you call all sex below 18 years of age rape, but even then you'd have trouble, because most births don't happen as a result of sex before 18.
If they've nothing to hide, they've got nothing to fear, right? /s
Maybe you're familiar with the expression to "go on a fishing trip"? In the SCO/IBM lawsuit, it was used, both as a delaying tactic and as an attemt to get the proverbial five lines that can get an honest man hanged. Not all who ask for such information do so in good faith.