of course, you know that the reason they haven't written a hit song in 40 years is that digital piracy has taken away their incentive to make music.
how odd that the many, many talented musicians i know keep doing what they do regardless of commercial success or lack thereof, and none of them are particularly concerned about piracy. and that the only musician who has ever voiced, face to face, a real complaint about digital piracy also happens to make loads of royalties off the music of a "musician" (or "artist") (who you'd recognize, dead or alive) who doesn't actually write or produce most of the songs he sings. what a conundrum. yeah, it must be that only "creative" musicians care about these issues.
can you get any more cliche? yes: "we've got company." that one phrase is the embarrassment of an industry. that phrase brings down by at least one star any movie it appears in. and it's in fucking all of them.
Considering I've never heard the phrase "she never sleeps" ever, anywhere, at any time, it's a stretch to call it a cliche. perhaps you meant "melodromatic" or "hack", but if you really meant "cliche" (and i don't think you did), you are an idiot.
disclaimer: i haven't seen the movie yet and i'm still right.
Right, the actors only got such ridiculous sums because they were bringing the eyeballs and advertisers were willing to pay for it. I don't know what you've been smoking, but that doesn't mean that if the advertisers are not willing to pay as much, that people will stop making shows that people like to watch. It just means they'll be paid a little less to do it.
What, you think they'll give up the chance to be rich and famous because it pays 10% less? Yeah, I'm sure if Seinfeld knew he was only going to make $900K per episode he would have gone into dentistry.
I'm going to ignore all the 10,000 stupid posts on this and get to the point: they do have copyright, and the archive is fair use. Archiving the spams is specifically for purpose of information and criticism. IANALAIDFC. The purpose of fair use exemptions is to prevent copyright from becoming a cudgel to stifle public dialog about the contents of the copyrighted work. This absurd copyright claim (yes, it is absurd, because they rip off each other's work all the time and never bother to assert coprights agains this) is merely an attempt to stifle public dialog, civic activity, and the education of the public. Hence, spammers bringing this claim should be kicked swiftly in the ass and sent on their slimy little ways.
Yeah, but this can get to be pretty hairy if your needs are complex... I'm writing a perl script now, made to be extensible by writing your own jobs as modules - it should be pretty easy to have those call existing shell scripts, etc. It's going to have different criticality levels and have a conf file that defines dependencies, retry and state change intervals, suppress notifications on acknowledgement, automatic generation of a status page, persistent state across restarts, etc.
Anyway, if it's code I feel doesn't suck, I'll make it available... I looked at the alternatives and didn't find precisely what I need. That is probably why there are so many options yet so many people who feel they aren't quite right - the needs can be really specific. I'm sure my solution will be great for some, but rotten for others.
Blah, blah blah. Thanks for wasting my time with a buzzword that applies to almost no one. I took a look at what that "CMM-5" is about, and it simply describes the processes by which you improve your software development in obscenely general terms. BFD, most people who've done any sort of software development and have a modicum of social skills and maturity arrive at the same processes intuitively.
You want to know what we've really discovered about software development in 25 years? The same thing we know about booze and marijuana: spend your money on high quality, b/c the increase in quality outpaces the increase in expense.
CMM-5 and crap like that are amusing diversions for middle management types, but keep in mind that middle management is the art of creating an organizational structure that is more important than the people who populate it. It is a recipe for reliable mediocrity, like bread from a factory.
Eventually, it will be realized that top technical personnel are like good lawyers (and not a thing like wonderbread): essential to an organization over a certain size, not readily "manageable" in the sense that the typical weasel would like, and not readily identifiable on the basis of objective criteria.
Or just keep hoping for a magic bullet that will allow a caveman to captain a starship, your choice.
No, linux is as simple to administer correctly as windows. But when you fuck up a windows box, you can throw your hands in the air and say "whaddayagonnado?". Plus, you can *pretend* to administer windows more easily: it's better to use for total fakers.
I agree that "it's dragging us down" may be a bit overstated, but that viewpoint may be a little self-serving as well. It serves to highlight that those of us who understand what's "under the hood" so to speak have much better job security *because* there are so many "programmers" who can't dive beneath the surface when the abstractions leak.
On the other hand, this does suggest some possible limitations with our technological development as a species at some point. As there are more and more technologies, and fewer and fewer people who really understand how to fix problems when the surface layer of a given technology fails, we might hit a, er, carrying capacity problem... So right now, *we* aren't being dragged down by leaky asbtractions, although many bozos are. The problem comes when the number of available non-bozos can no longer cover the number of (leaky) technologies.
Who knows. Perhaps the studio played hardball on the contract and Lee's lawyers said "To hell it, we'll sue when the movie does well and they try to hide the profits." Remember, the real lesson is that it's OK to cheat someone if millions are involved, just as it's OK to cheat on your taxes if you rake in millions.
True, true. I'm in the middle of migrating a project from MySQL to Postgres for the usual reasons - chosen initially because someone else used and it was quick-n-easy, but now our needs are more complex and we need a real database.
You only have to isolate a couple weird cases where it goes mega-slow on account of multiple indexes and joins and the query planner barfs - you'd know what I'm talking about. Of course, a lot of people using MySQL don't know, much less use, basic normalization and so it will take a while before they catch up to reality.
Peter Pan wasn't stolen - it was licensed. Disney has permanent rights covering the movie and their depiction of Tinkerbell, but must pay royalties on merchandise... The children's hospital (!!!) which is the beneficiary of said royalties actually had to sue Disney a few years ago (and won about $16M), because Disney was STEALING - i.e. cooking the books to avoid paying royalties. So your basic point is correct: they are thieves.
As a company, they have absolutely zero respect for intellectual property outside their own. At lawyerpoint they will submit to it, and when it benefits them they cry about it like fucking babies, but it's a big, phony, unprincipled act. Next time you hear Eisner whining about piracy, just imagine Mike Tyson complaining about violent behavior.
Yes, he did miss the point. But he's such an anti-consumer troglodyte with a history of ridiculous exaggerations and indefensible distortions that I would say that he is not merely mistaken, he is a FUCKING LIAR.
And it's a sad and disgusting commentary on the state of freedom in the "freest nation on earth" that you need a law to protect the right of citizens to do things that are legal.
Right on. And if you've watched any tech-related commercials in the past 10 years, you've seen the influence of these movies. If you know who Philip Glass is, or who Brian Eno is, or what time lapse photography is, etc, etc, then you are probably an idiot for not knowing about these films already. It's not like they're not in any decent video store.
Smoke a bowl, or whatever you do to get in your
observant/reflective mood, and watch it.
And while they were making this film I made them a tasty orange fish and mint juleps and they liked it very much.
That's hilarious. They showed "Something About Mary" on TV the other day, and with half the scenes cut to hell, many things became as pointless as the above. There were a half dozen scenes that were rendered incomprehensible by the butchery. And they were funny before they were butchered.
Right on. I nearly pissed myself when he reminded the black Gandalf to finish his filet o fish, and when he told the pregnant star wars fan that on the child's birth, to remind him that's the last time he'd see female genitalia.
Now that I've buried this in a slightly OT post, I'l say what I really have to say. I talked with Bon Jovi's producer at the height of Napster, and he was all bummed because he depends on royalties for his income. I reminded him that at the dawn of radio it wasn't as if some nirvana of record companies and radio stations magically enriched deserving and popular artists: people put music out there until the law compelled all parties to find a way to compensate copyright holders (not necessarily the "artists") and permit play of music recordings in public. He didn't really seem to buy it. I'll state for the record that I'm pretty much pro-Napster and pro-non-commercial distribution. I'm also radically FOR paying artists: I buy tons of music, as much as I can afford to, so I call bullshit when you say I'm enjoying the smell of a fish I didn't buy. I'm glad to see that people are actually attempting to find creative ways to get their fans money (because fans WANT to pay money; that's the only thing that prevents rampant piracy) and discourage piracy by those who might actually be willing to pay for something, without killing the tremendous promotional value of letting people hear music they aren't sure they want to pay for. Tambourine , fooey.
Very true. And anyone who has worked with scientists in academia knows how vicious they really are. In a recent NYTimes interview, Republican Dick Armey was asked how being a professor compares to being in Congress. He said that in Congress you are dealing with much nicer people.
Basically, until a scientific paper produces strongly reproducible results, results in practical applications, or has been looked over for 50 years or so, trust only that which you have reviewed yourself. Science is a political process, not an abstract search for the truth. Peer review and reproducible results are the checks that make sure that, on the whole, science tends closer to the truth. But like the second law of thermodynamics, it's a general process that overall is true: it's easy to find local examples that appear to violate it.
Ouch! But you are correct, it should not have been in the bathtub with a lead pipe, it should have been in the pool with a rope. ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE.
Just think, it wouldn't take many people jerking the scam artists around to completely waste their time to the point they can't focus on the real gullibles.
Weirdly, the Nigerian scamsters only seem to use addresses culled from websites; they haven't gotten any of my e-mails well known to the East Asia Toner Cartridge Syndicate.
Re:Too late. The cat is out of the bag.
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Wow. Great article. That guy proves that it's possible to be stupider than a sea cucumber and still knot a tie! He must live in LA: that town is made for "special" people like him. We used to call them "simple" but that's not polically correct now.
STASI would have liked it...
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Back in the commie days, totalitarian regimes would make people register typewriters, complete with typing samples, so they could crack down on any "unauthorized" writings. Of course, now that Communism has been defeated, the RIAA is determined to repeat its crimes against freedom of speech.
Hmm.. Rosen. Roses are red. Hillary Rosen is a freaking Communist!
Good call. This is indeed microsoft agitprop. "Gee, can't trust this critical function to a bunch of volunteers" segues nicely into "So what we need is a bunch of professionals to make decisions for us... [churchlady voice] Could it be... Microsoft?" I'd expect a lot more of this stuff over the next couple of years.
And if it isn't, it still serves the bastard right for running an open relay and not getting it. Wow, you can send spam by lying to his mail server, let's sue some Danes for pointing it out.
I find it very intersting that Newton N. Minow, the man who famously called television a "vast wasteland" is advocating the Internet as a hope for the future of books:
There's so much good stuff that is trapped in libraries that should be digitized and made available," Mr. Minow said. "It's just yearning to get free."
Well whack me with a 2x4. First of all, you have to be a lifelong government bureaucrat (or a special humanist named Eldred) to think you can free the stuff trapped in libraries in this age of DMCA, deep-linking suits, etc, etc. And I'll even blow right by the "Information wants to be free" reference. But I'm still blown away that the man who called television a wasteland is quoted in the NY Times in an article on the Internet as a wasteland as saying that the problem is we need fewer restrictions on information... I know you *won't* think about it, but I still recommend trying it.
Slashdot Mirror
how odd that the many, many talented musicians i know keep doing what they do regardless of commercial success or lack thereof, and none of them are particularly concerned about piracy. and that the only musician who has ever voiced, face to face, a real complaint about digital piracy also happens to make loads of royalties off the music of a "musician" (or "artist") (who you'd recognize, dead or alive) who doesn't actually write or produce most of the songs he sings. what a conundrum. yeah, it must be that only "creative" musicians care about these issues.
Considering I've never heard the phrase "she never sleeps" ever, anywhere, at any time, it's a stretch to call it a cliche. perhaps you meant "melodromatic" or "hack", but if you really meant "cliche" (and i don't think you did), you are an idiot.
disclaimer: i haven't seen the movie yet and i'm still right.
RIAA: stifling creativity? that's our job!
What, you think they'll give up the chance to be rich and famous because it pays 10% less? Yeah, I'm sure if Seinfeld knew he was only going to make $900K per episode he would have gone into dentistry.
That is to say, it's like your mom, only prettier.
I'm going to ignore all the 10,000 stupid posts on this and get to the point: they do have copyright, and the archive is fair use. Archiving the spams is specifically for purpose of information and criticism. IANALAIDFC. The purpose of fair use exemptions is to prevent copyright from becoming a cudgel to stifle public dialog about the contents of the copyrighted work. This absurd copyright claim (yes, it is absurd, because they rip off each other's work all the time and never bother to assert coprights agains this) is merely an attempt to stifle public dialog, civic activity, and the education of the public. Hence, spammers bringing this claim should be kicked swiftly in the ass and sent on their slimy little ways.
Anyway, if it's code I feel doesn't suck, I'll make it available... I looked at the alternatives and didn't find precisely what I need. That is probably why there are so many options yet so many people who feel they aren't quite right - the needs can be really specific. I'm sure my solution will be great for some, but rotten for others.
You want to know what we've really discovered about software development in 25 years? The same thing we know about booze and marijuana: spend your money on high quality, b/c the increase in quality outpaces the increase in expense.
CMM-5 and crap like that are amusing diversions for middle management types, but keep in mind that middle management is the art of creating an organizational structure that is more important than the people who populate it. It is a recipe for reliable mediocrity, like bread from a factory.
Eventually, it will be realized that top technical personnel are like good lawyers (and not a thing like wonderbread): essential to an organization over a certain size, not readily "manageable" in the sense that the typical weasel would like, and not readily identifiable on the basis of objective criteria.
Or just keep hoping for a magic bullet that will allow a caveman to captain a starship, your choice.
No, linux is as simple to administer correctly as windows. But when you fuck up a windows box, you can throw your hands in the air and say "whaddayagonnado?". Plus, you can *pretend* to administer windows more easily: it's better to use for total fakers.
On the other hand, this does suggest some possible limitations with our technological development as a species at some point. As there are more and more technologies, and fewer and fewer people who really understand how to fix problems when the surface layer of a given technology fails, we might hit a, er, carrying capacity problem... So right now, *we* aren't being dragged down by leaky asbtractions, although many bozos are. The problem comes when the number of available non-bozos can no longer cover the number of (leaky) technologies.
Who knows. Perhaps the studio played hardball on the contract and Lee's lawyers said "To hell it, we'll sue when the movie does well and they try to hide the profits." Remember, the real lesson is that it's OK to cheat someone if millions are involved, just as it's OK to cheat on your taxes if you rake in millions.
True, true. I'm in the middle of migrating a project from MySQL to Postgres for the usual reasons - chosen initially because someone else used and it was quick-n-easy, but now our needs are more complex and we need a real database.
You only have to isolate a couple weird cases where it goes mega-slow on account of multiple indexes and joins and the query planner barfs - you'd know what I'm talking about. Of course, a lot of people using MySQL don't know, much less use, basic normalization and so it will take a while before they catch up to reality.
As a company, they have absolutely zero respect for intellectual property outside their own. At lawyerpoint they will submit to it, and when it benefits them they cry about it like fucking babies, but it's a big, phony, unprincipled act. Next time you hear Eisner whining about piracy, just imagine Mike Tyson complaining about violent behavior.
And it's a sad and disgusting commentary on the state of freedom in the "freest nation on earth" that you need a law to protect the right of citizens to do things that are legal.
Smoke a bowl, or whatever you do to get in your observant/reflective mood, and watch it.
And while they were making this film I made them a tasty orange fish and mint juleps and they liked it very much.
That's hilarious. They showed "Something About Mary" on TV the other day, and with half the scenes cut to hell, many things became as pointless as the above. There were a half dozen scenes that were rendered incomprehensible by the butchery. And they were funny before they were butchered.
Now that I've buried this in a slightly OT post, I'l say what I really have to say. I talked with Bon Jovi's producer at the height of Napster, and he was all bummed because he depends on royalties for his income. I reminded him that at the dawn of radio it wasn't as if some nirvana of record companies and radio stations magically enriched deserving and popular artists: people put music out there until the law compelled all parties to find a way to compensate copyright holders (not necessarily the "artists") and permit play of music recordings in public. He didn't really seem to buy it. I'll state for the record that I'm pretty much pro-Napster and pro-non-commercial distribution. I'm also radically FOR paying artists: I buy tons of music, as much as I can afford to, so I call bullshit when you say I'm enjoying the smell of a fish I didn't buy. I'm glad to see that people are actually attempting to find creative ways to get their fans money (because fans WANT to pay money; that's the only thing that prevents rampant piracy) and discourage piracy by those who might actually be willing to pay for something, without killing the tremendous promotional value of letting people hear music they aren't sure they want to pay for. Tambourine , fooey.
Basically, until a scientific paper produces strongly reproducible results, results in practical applications, or has been looked over for 50 years or so, trust only that which you have reviewed yourself. Science is a political process, not an abstract search for the truth. Peer review and reproducible results are the checks that make sure that, on the whole, science tends closer to the truth. But like the second law of thermodynamics, it's a general process that overall is true: it's easy to find local examples that appear to violate it.
Most other places, people are ACTING on great uses for soft handcuffs, and have no time to post on slashdot. then again, some people are married.
Just think, it wouldn't take many people jerking the scam artists around to completely waste their time to the point they can't focus on the real gullibles.
Weirdly, the Nigerian scamsters only seem to use addresses culled from websites; they haven't gotten any of my e-mails well known to the East Asia Toner Cartridge Syndicate.
Wow. Great article. That guy proves that it's possible to be stupider than a sea cucumber and still knot a tie! He must live in LA: that town is made for "special" people like him. We used to call them "simple" but that's not polically correct now.
Hmm.. Rosen. Roses are red. Hillary Rosen is a freaking Communist!
thank you ladies and gentlemen good night.
And if it isn't, it still serves the bastard right for running an open relay and not getting it. Wow, you can send spam by lying to his mail server, let's sue some Danes for pointing it out.
yes, they do, but you forgot the magic words that make anything patentable: "on a computer"