Yeah... Up until recently (I think, he migh still be teaching, but I didn't see his name) he was a teacher of a core class at UCSC-- The first time I'd found out who sung poisoning pigeons in the park...
I actually just pulled up the numbers, and I'm 2,000 off. $23,000 over it's total lifetime, other than gas. That breaks down to $2,300 a year, or 7 cents per mile for the hardware (including tires, incidentals, accidentals, interest, brakes, oil changes and other maintenance.)
I'd like to see any other car with a total cost of ownership lower than that (more than 8 years old), or a lower per mile (for a car less than 8 years)
I've brought it to mechanics who've asked if I'll sell it because if it hasn't died yet, it'll never die *knocks furiously on wood*/ex
Any conversation about miracle technology has to include my jeep-- There are others out there just as good, but mine is special.
It's a 93 jeep with 300,000 miles on it, mostly original engine (replaced after about 400 miles. See police car below). Original transmission, and, well, basically over it's lifetime, we've put maybe 25000 dollars into it-- including buying it new and only two major technical breaks in its lifetime (transfer case and shorted computer chip), and all of the copays.
Three of the accidents were my family's fault-- Including the drunk in the truck. Cop called it her fault, but failed to give her a breathalyzer-- small town, cop didn't want to arrest his mom's friend. drunk contested, because of how she hit us, it looked like it was our fault, and no proof she was drunk. Let this be a lesson to you-- ALWAYS require a breathalyzer, even if it's obvious they're drunk, or the cop doesn't want to-- you can request it, and if the first cop won't, call 911, and say you were hit by a drunk driver.
Things that it's been hit by: A) Big Rig B) Police Car C) Drunk in truck D) New driver in new truck. E) Idiot in el camino. F) at least three other actionable accidents (had to have almost every panel replaced-- the roof is the one exception.
The most remarkable thing, 90% of the miles were put on within its first 5 years. After three years (180k miles), my parents stopped giving it regular maintenance("well, we're gonna sell it soon, what does it matter"), followed by not replacing the brakes. Six months later, they gave it an oil change. a year later "well, the brakes aren't getting any better".
Most of my friends received new cars on graduating HS, or before or during the first couple years of college. I got the beast because the dealer was going to give them only like 1800 trade in on it-- So my parents signed it over to me. Most of said friends have since seen their cars blow up/go kaput/stop moving.
Other than the cd player and the oil leak, there's nothing wrong with mine:-) *furiously knocks on wood*/Ex
Because every time it pops up, something *really* bad happens. For instance, last time, my grandfather died, the time before that, I got in an accident and broke my back.
That and because every time I put stuff on it, I think "If this is the floppies last trip, then it's gonna cost me a lot-- Usually not monetarily, but you know those last minute papers, that you bring to the computer lab to print (not having a printer, and having a free print pass), which if it doesn't get turned in I fail the class. Mark
Although there is something redeeming about a spaghetti coded game called "pyromaniac" in which you could go to a city from a list, then blow up a landmark from that area.
My first addon was adding my Mom's house, then my Dad's house./ex
For the record, any time I had to put something important on a removable media through college, it was on a cdrw... But the labs only had a couple of those drives apiece, so my floppy (only one I would ever use) was used when I was in the labs to move it back to my room.
I tell ya, they just did something right with that disk:-)
I had a floppy disk somewhere-- It has been dubbed many things in its time, but the most common is the Floppy of Impending Doom.
Okay, so here's the story of the floppy of Impending Doom.
When I was 11ish, I met the first guy that programmed-- he programmed basic among other things, and I thought he was the coolest guy-- We kinda played around a bit, and eventually, he gave me a floppy full of dumb little games written in basic-- Not well written, mind you, but when you're not supposed to touch the computer, any game is cool.
Anyways, he gave me a floppy full of games. Fast forward a couple years, I had moved, and didn't have contact with this guy. I had met another guy who was into computers, and I ended up giving him a bunch of stuff on disk-- hex editors, game trainers and their ilk. Having no other disk accessible, I ended up giving him the disk of impending doom.
Fast forward, another year and a half, said friend had passed that disk around, and I ended up getting it from a friend who got it from a friend, who got it from some guy I don't know, who got it from another guy, who got it from my friend. I realized there was something special about this disk (it went through like 7 people that time. It had my original label on it, which is how I know it's the same disk.
The disk was used for a couple years a couple times a week, I didn't have a printer, so I would bring it to school/a friends house to print stuff. Eventually, I left it in the computer lab.
It made it's way around back to me, after more than 2 years, right before I graduated high school. This disk is now so old, and has so many writes on it, that I didn't trust anything I ever wrote on it-- Yet somehow it still worked fine. I brought it up to college, and, because my computer didn't have a floppy drive, I didn't use it... I ended up giving it to someone who needed it in the computer lab (I worked in the labs). Three years later, about a month and a half before I drop out of school, the disk turns up yet again. Someone left it in the computer lab, and so I grabbed it again.
At the time I was working on a search engine for a small non profit organization, which had me moving all around, so I used this disk to port my writings from place to place. I ended up leaving it with my non-profit supervisor (I was volunteer, I was having a bad time at the time, so I gave up the stuff, I didn't get paid anyway).
I'm sure that in a few years, I'll be living on the streets of some large city, and I'll find it stuck to gum in a trash container. It'll still not have a bad sector./Ex
This is a thought that's been running around in my mind for quite a bit, and it might be considered apropriate in this discussion (while a tangent to the actual story).
I was discussing with a musician friend of mine the situation with the radio industry, and how musicians can't make a living as a musician these days. We were thinking of ways that we could get the music we want, and support the acts without the acts being impoverished.
Note: This should be seen as "when the RIAA finally goes away, Payola is done for, and music adverts are limited to when/where they're playing", in other words, no time soon.
What I came up with, was a basically stock system. This is very rough, I've no money to implement it, so I didn't do any research, thus I'll be using round numbers for it.
The overall company would be responsible for basically nothing, except keeping cds on the shelves, and would be paid a pittance per cd (5-10%, but for taking such a little cut, they would have no sunk costs (besides immaterial expenses, paperwork and button mashers time).
Okay, say it will cost a group $100k (probably a gross underestimation) to live comfortably for 9 months, and create a CD (including a first limited run of cds, enough to pay back all the "stockholders" if the cds sell). Group A is fairly popular, but is still mostly poor, so they get in the system. THey release 10k $10 stock, and it goes onto a "musicians stock exchange", or I guess a futures market is more apt). They then sell however many shares of stock they want/can. Each piece of stock is equivalent to a percentage of the proceeds for the album (minus touring, the musician should keep that). Thus, if they sell 100% of their shares, they get no profit from the cd, *EXCEPT* name recognition, increasing their fan base, and having a cd under their belt, and have been fed/clothed for 9 months.
Group B is well off, so they can put out a record with very little or no stock sold in it --keeping 100% of the proceeds after the supplier and resellers take a big wet bite out of it. In reality, they'll probably recieve 5-6 dollars per cd, possibly more, if it's sold mainly through a website run from the umbrella company.
Group C is willing to live a little less well, and do the cd a little faster, so they manage to cut their living expenses in half. Perhaps they get a day job, or make money playing gigs. the since all these groups are the same size, they are all expected to have the same amount of living expenses, thus they all require $100k of capital. In order to cut down on fraud, everyone is required to use the umbrella company's recording studio, so this band sells $50,000 to cover cd creation costs, and a pittance to live on (50% of the stock from the above groups) THey then recieve 50% of the net proceeds, and whoever put up the money for the other half would get the rest.
I could imagine groups giving away a cd with two shares of stock, or a t-shirt with 4 shares of stock, or something like that. It would mean that fans would have a reason to try and get other people to like the music of the bands they support, it would mean more money per cd going to the ones supporting the arts, rather than marketing and promotions-- hell, 50k rabid fans are much better than any marketing plan ever devised.
The copyrights would lay with the "shareholders", thus, if the shareholders want to give away the mp3s free, more power to them. The band would be given unrestricted rights to play and re-make songs, so long as they pay a percentage of the proceeds of any new cd back to the group backing the original cd (think punk bands that put out 12 cds and only have 80 unique songs)
Okay, you can mod me down for being off topic now, I'm just glad you got to this point./Ex
The reality is this: The state says, "You give us everything you have (including your life if we say so) and do exactly what we tell you to do, and we will protect you from the bad people outside and inside our borders - and if there aren't any bad people, we'll make some - by simply telling you they're bad."
Natural rights are basically that you have the right to take whatever you can take from whoever you can take it from. By surrendering this right to a "governmental body", you lose that right, but instead, gain the ability to own something, and to keep those things, including protection from others taking your things away-- Civil Rights. By entering into the "civil rights" agreement, you have agreed with a group of other people (usually regionally based) that you will protect each other in certain cases-- generally (not always), this includes theft, murder, rape, and sometimes various forms of misfortune-- Communism is basically an all inclusive, while democracy only covers what you, your reps, or by extension, your forebearers have decided to cover.
Thus, if you as a person refuse to withdraw your natural rights in favor of civil rights, you are considered a foreign entity-- and if you steal/hurt/etc. a part of the "civil union", you get bitch slapped by the rest of it.
And thus, government is born, and there is governments power, an agreement by the governed to protect each other against various bad things. Theoretically there needn't be any bad people-- and the government doesn't need to tell you that random entities are bad-- that's a control structure, and that is what you should distrust and hate-- Not the government.
You're 12 freaking years old-- You are *NOT* responsible for everything you think you're responsible. If someone tells you to grow up, tell them "fuck you, I'm still a kid"...
Because you blew years 3-11 acting as the man of the house, doesn't mean you can't have a childhood. Play games. Hang out with friends. Talk about dumb stuff. Watch those movies you know are just dumb, with friends, it's all worth it.
I'd sell it anyways-- the last time I ate there (coincidence, I think not), they served me rotten eggs. Rotten eggs and cold hash browns.
Oddly enough, if I didn't have gift certificates coming out my ass, I wouldn't eat at any fast food restaurant-- Local restaurants are about the same for a meal (minus the soda) as a fast food joint-- and the food is a hell of a lot better./Ex
actually, personal empirical data states that, yes, you probably are the only girl that would rather get hardware than flowers......Well, except maybe alex, but she was butch./Bob
I want you (and anyone else that cares) to know that at least in sane areas of farming (incl. most of california, with certain areas deficient, or certain farmer's being bigots/racists), produce pickers, whether they're in a union or not, recieve fair compensation. Not just minimum wage, in this area, the standard pay for farm workers (santa maria, CA) is approximately 8.50~12.50/hr. This is for non-illegal immigrants.
My grandfather is a farmer, and I've worked with these people, some of them have been out there since he started farming these lands-- 25 years, and they're still picking for him. That doesn't happen on accident, they're some of the best paying jobs in this area.
And not to disrespect your comfy chair, and I'm sure the field workers would like a comfy chair too, but in one on one interviews with these people, many said they were proud of the job they did. It's harder than you can imagine doing what they do the speed that they do it for the length that they're out there. They're proud that they're that hearty, and they do such an important job for the world (because hey, everyone needs to eat)
Not picking on you, but this really ticks me off (mostly due to a class I had up in Santa Cruz that said basically all farmers, So. Cal., and technology companies is evil.)/ex
Actually, step three could be explicated as: 3. Sell derivative information to people who want it, i.e. the people you *DON'T* want to have it.
This includes, as others said, life insurance companies teaming up with grocery stores to find out what you eat, thus raising rates for people who eat "bad" stuff.
Or phone spam companies buying info from phone companies-- Consumer A contacts consumer B, and A bought our stuff, therefore you should call B.
Or, perhaps radio stations selling the numbers of people who request songs to the Wherehouse, so the Wherehouse can call you and say that you can buy the cd.
Or, maybe the police decide to track where you go by reading license plates off of each of the cameras that they have up to detect speeders or light runners.
Just some thoughts. This isn't a joke-- They know exactly how to get money from mining-- It depends on what data you have to who you can sell it to. Noone buys data for no reason-- And the only two reasons to buy data is to target for selling other stuff, or to "find people who don't want to be found"-- Whether it be to find terrorists, criminals, or theoretically people that make x hundred thousand/million a year, so that they can rob you.
Of course, most of this stuff happens every day, and noone realizes./ex.
*note, I'm not sure now that this has anything at all to do with the topic, but it's something that bounces off my head sporadically*
Recently, I've been working with developmentally disabled people as a job coach-- Making sure they have the ability to do the job they're supposed to, and help them to understand anything that needs to happen.
Part of this is working at a local fast food restaurant. The girl I'm working with can do math fairly well, but she has problems with logic, and pattern matching.
And a few times I started thinking about her as a computer-- She can do math fine, and if I specifically tell her how to match a pattern, she can do it for a short time, but she can't do it in situations like when people order a combo. Let's say they order a #1 with onion rings and a small drink, a #6 large combo, and a kids meal, she won't be able to recognize them as "combos" (she'll read the whole thing back to them item by item.) This brings me to a whole other tangent about user interface design (why the normal methods suck, mostly), but that'll be saved until a proper time.
This has been a difficulty with her position as a cashier, but I find it interesting that I'm more or less programming her as I talk to her and re-affirm her patterns to match.
I wonder if certain disabled humans would fail any "turing" test that were given to them, because they don't have normal pattern matching ability. Furthermore, isn't it possible that instead of trying for fully developed Artificial Intelligence, we should look at perhaps emulating those with disabilities? After all, wouldn't this creation process be easier than a "fully aware", fully pattern realizing person?
AI has always interested me, but I don't know nearly enough about it. The thing that made me notice this is I keep talking to her like I would program a computer ("If this, then that, otherwise this other thing" and "While there is someone in line, take their order").
Maybe I'm off based, or this is already an accepted practice. Can anyone correct me?/ex
I have a really crappy CD player in my car (I had no choice, I was a college student and my radio croaked. I got it for free. Sue me). When I insert a CD, it leaves two nice big scars on it (not scratches, *SCARS*). On retail CDs, it usually doesn't hurt them much, but If I just spent 15 dollars on a cd, I don't want to take the chance of losing it. Sure, it's not much of an investment compared to other things I own, it's still something I own, and I'm not going to pay every three weeks to get a new copy of that cd.
While my CD player kills cd-r's after only two or three insertions, a cd-r costs me... about a dime. I can live with a dime loss ever couple weeks (I generally listen to the same cd for long periods of time
and as for "ripping off the artist". I made two copies of this cd. One for my cousin, and another for a friend who happens to be a teacher. My cousin played it for a couple of his friends, then both of them went and bought the last two copies of it at the local warehouse. My teacher friend played it for her classroom, and apparently three of the students decided to go buy it themselves. I'm sure glad I ripped off the band, and got them to sell five more copies than if I hadn't made those copies.
All that being said, Flogging molly is a fucking great band.
...But what about the organizations in the US-- Non-profits, schools, etc.-- that don't have enough money/know-how to set up a decent system.
Others have mentioned that there are groups in the US that need help, and ways to help the local services. At least in California, there are a few groups that do this. One that I'm affiliated with has provided web space (low/no cost web space), on site technical support, and various small projects for a group of non profit organizations.
It is very interesting looking at this stuff-- there are literally no companies that will offer low/no cost tech support even as donations, to local non profits-- the ones that need it the most.
Get involved with the local groups. Any skills you have are really appreciated, and even if you don't want to or can't be there to help them, if you run a server, set up a little web site for them! Give them an account to get mail, and a hundred megs to put as big a site as they want on it, and it doesn't cost you anything but electricity which you would use anyway-- Usually they pull less than a few thousand hits per month/ex
I've known the guy that posted this for years, and I remember our freshman year in college, he ran an ftp server all year-- Anonymous login sharing basically you name it, and apparently people from all over the resnet were doing the same.. It's a problem of them not wanting to do crap, so they don't, then they find a scape goat-- FTP server installed on 2k, and they say "none of that"...
They should really pull their heads out of their asses-- Start *LOGGING* High usage IPs, and start banning those cards from accessing the network-- They do it at UCSC, and the effect was/is whenever I or anyone else needed bandwidth, I or anyone else got it./ex
Yeah, I can't wait to see you seek alternatives to food and water. How do you take your soylent green?
I don't have time to go digging right now, but food is probably the least of our worries. If worldwide meat consumption stopped, and we replaced the hay with something that humans can eat (oats? other type of grain?), we would be buried in food.
Raising a single cow for approximately 200ish single person meals uses as much land to make it possible to feed at least 50 people for a year--If anyone's really interested I'll dig up the place I found that figure. (note-- I'm pretty sure my numbers are way off-- I think a single cow probably gives twice that number of meals, and the land will feed four times-- I should have left for work about 20 minutes ago)
I'm not willing to give up much of my lifestyle for something that I don't believe in-- The scientific evidence that global warming is caused by humans is severely lacking. I will say I see ways that humans are causing it, but I also believe that the earth will bounce back from it just fine-- Things get hotter->More water evaporates->Causes clouds that thicken atmosphere->world gets cooler
And, um, old cars tend to pollute more. If they've got a honda something or other then yes, a SUV will pollute more. If they've got an 87 Cadillac boat, it's going to pollute a *LOT* less.
Santa Cruz, in case you don't know, is famous for its outrageous rental prices, pot smoking hippies, and almost 80 percent engineering drop out rate.
Personally, since last summer, I've been a little more conscientious-- Fluorescent bulbs, don't live in an area with a need for ac, but I'll do the dishes by hand during the day rather than run a load.
However, many people don't, well, live in santa cruz. My home town is normally lit up brighter than...Nevermind. My family shuts off lights a little more, and fluorescent bulbs are in style now, but other than that I haven't noticed much difference. Frankly, noone I know was hit by a rolling blackout-- My home area has a Little Power Plant , so that was never a problem, and in santa cruz, the longest non-centralized on UC Santa Cruz campus power outage was perhaps 30 minutes-- In an area way out in the middle of nowhere.
Basically, it didn't do much other than remind me that as a college student, I really can't afford the cost of keeping my computers on 24/7 anymore. It now gets turned off, and it seems to save me quite a bit of money.
So, I guess the answer to your questions are, the energy I use is less because it costs 70% more. I turn off lights more often, read by the window more often, and use fluorescent lights. Local govt. isn't doing jack shit to promote energy efficiency, except playing the same annoying commercial every three minutes on the best radio station here .
Oh, yeah, and I stopped working for the lumber lobby, and started working for a nature conservancy./ex
Slashdot Mirror
It doesn't get any better than Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie.
:-) /Ex
It's got romance! It's got aliens! It's got scientists! It's got a robot trying to tunnel to earth from a spaceship!
And they take out the hubble! what's not to love?
Yeah... Up until recently (I think, he migh still be teaching, but I didn't see his name) he was a teacher of a core class at UCSC-- The first time I'd found out who sung poisoning pigeons in the park...
/Ex
*sigh* memories...
Lyrics and all can be found here: /ex
lyrics and quicktime versions of Tom Lehrer's Elements song
I actually just pulled up the numbers, and I'm 2,000 off. $23,000 over it's total lifetime, other than gas. That breaks down to $2,300 a year, or 7 cents per mile for the hardware (including tires, incidentals, accidentals, interest, brakes, oil changes and other maintenance.)
/ex
I'd like to see any other car with a total cost of ownership lower than that (more than 8 years old), or a lower per mile (for a car less than 8 years)
I've brought it to mechanics who've asked if I'll sell it because if it hasn't died yet, it'll never die *knocks furiously on wood*
Any conversation about miracle technology has to include my jeep-- There are others out there just as good, but mine is special.
:-) *furiously knocks on wood* /Ex
It's a 93 jeep with 300,000 miles on it, mostly original engine (replaced after about 400 miles. See police car below). Original transmission, and, well, basically over it's lifetime, we've put maybe 25000 dollars into it-- including buying it new and only two major technical breaks in its lifetime (transfer case and shorted computer chip), and all of the copays.
Three of the accidents were my family's fault-- Including the drunk in the truck. Cop called it her fault, but failed to give her a breathalyzer-- small town, cop didn't want to arrest his mom's friend. drunk contested, because of how she hit us, it looked like it was our fault, and no proof she was drunk. Let this be a lesson to you-- ALWAYS require a breathalyzer, even if it's obvious they're drunk, or the cop doesn't want to-- you can request it, and if the first cop won't, call 911, and say you were hit by a drunk driver.
Things that it's been hit by:
A) Big Rig
B) Police Car
C) Drunk in truck
D) New driver in new truck.
E) Idiot in el camino.
F) at least three other actionable accidents (had to have almost every panel replaced-- the roof is the one exception.
The most remarkable thing, 90% of the miles were put on within its first 5 years. After three years (180k miles), my parents stopped giving it regular maintenance("well, we're gonna sell it soon, what does it matter"), followed by not replacing the brakes. Six months later, they gave it an oil change. a year later "well, the brakes aren't getting any better".
Most of my friends received new cars on graduating HS, or before or during the first couple years of college. I got the beast because the dealer was going to give them only like 1800 trade in on it-- So my parents signed it over to me. Most of said friends have since seen their cars blow up/go kaput/stop moving.
Other than the cd player and the oil leak, there's nothing wrong with mine
Because every time it pops up, something *really* bad happens. For instance, last time, my grandfather died, the time before that, I got in an accident and broke my back.
That and because every time I put stuff on it, I think "If this is the floppies last trip, then it's gonna cost me a lot-- Usually not monetarily, but you know those last minute papers, that you bring to the computer lab to print (not having a printer, and having a free print pass), which if it doesn't get turned in I fail the class.
Mark
You have no idea.
/ex
Although there is something redeeming about a spaghetti coded game called "pyromaniac" in which you could go to a city from a list, then blow up a landmark from that area.
My first addon was adding my Mom's house, then my Dad's house.
For the record, any time I had to put something important on a removable media through college, it was on a cdrw... But the labs only had a couple of those drives apiece, so my floppy (only one I would ever use) was used when I was in the labs to move it back to my room.
:-)
I tell ya, they just did something right with that disk
I had a floppy disk somewhere-- It has been dubbed many things in its time, but the most common is the Floppy of Impending Doom.
/Ex
Okay, so here's the story of the floppy of Impending Doom.
When I was 11ish, I met the first guy that programmed-- he programmed basic among other things, and I thought he was the coolest guy-- We kinda played around a bit, and eventually, he gave me a floppy full of dumb little games written in basic-- Not well written, mind you, but when you're not supposed to touch the computer, any game is cool.
Anyways, he gave me a floppy full of games. Fast forward a couple years, I had moved, and didn't have contact with this guy. I had met another guy who was into computers, and I ended up giving him a bunch of stuff on disk-- hex editors, game trainers and their ilk. Having no other disk accessible, I ended up giving him the disk of impending doom.
Fast forward, another year and a half, said friend had passed that disk around, and I ended up getting it from a friend who got it from a friend, who got it from some guy I don't know, who got it from another guy, who got it from my friend. I realized there was something special about this disk (it went through like 7 people that time. It had my original label on it, which is how I know it's the same disk.
The disk was used for a couple years a couple times a week, I didn't have a printer, so I would bring it to school/a friends house to print stuff. Eventually, I left it in the computer lab.
It made it's way around back to me, after more than 2 years, right before I graduated high school. This disk is now so old, and has so many writes on it, that I didn't trust anything I ever wrote on it-- Yet somehow it still worked fine. I brought it up to college, and, because my computer didn't have a floppy drive, I didn't use it... I ended up giving it to someone who needed it in the computer lab (I worked in the labs). Three years later, about a month and a half before I drop out of school, the disk turns up yet again. Someone left it in the computer lab, and so I grabbed it again.
At the time I was working on a search engine for a small non profit organization, which had me moving all around, so I used this disk to port my writings from place to place. I ended up leaving it with my non-profit supervisor (I was volunteer, I was having a bad time at the time, so I gave up the stuff, I didn't get paid anyway).
I'm sure that in a few years, I'll be living on the streets of some large city, and I'll find it stuck to gum in a trash container. It'll still not have a bad sector.
I apologise--
/ex.
I was doing that from memory-- and drunk. I really need to stay away from my computer when I've been drinking
What's your act name? Are you embarrassed that you're posting on slashdot? Afraid to scare away the groupies by announcing it? /Ex :-P
This is a thought that's been running around in my mind for quite a bit, and it might be considered apropriate in this discussion (while a tangent to the actual story).
/Ex
I was discussing with a musician friend of mine the situation with the radio industry, and how musicians can't make a living as a musician these days. We were thinking of ways that we could get the music we want, and support the acts without the acts being impoverished.
Note: This should be seen as "when the RIAA finally goes away, Payola is done for, and music adverts are limited to when/where they're playing", in other words, no time soon.
What I came up with, was a basically stock system. This is very rough, I've no money to implement it, so I didn't do any research, thus I'll be using round numbers for it.
The overall company would be responsible for basically nothing, except keeping cds on the shelves, and would be paid a pittance per cd (5-10%, but for taking such a little cut, they would have no sunk costs (besides immaterial expenses, paperwork and button mashers time).
Okay, say it will cost a group $100k (probably a gross underestimation) to live comfortably for 9 months, and create a CD (including a first limited run of cds, enough to pay back all the "stockholders" if the cds sell). Group A is fairly popular, but is still mostly poor, so they get in the system. THey release 10k $10 stock, and it goes onto a "musicians stock exchange", or I guess a futures market is more apt). They then sell however many shares of stock they want/can. Each piece of stock is equivalent to a percentage of the proceeds for the album (minus touring, the musician should keep that). Thus, if they sell 100% of their shares, they get no profit from the cd, *EXCEPT* name recognition, increasing their fan base, and having a cd under their belt, and have been fed/clothed for 9 months.
Group B is well off, so they can put out a record with very little or no stock sold in it --keeping 100% of the proceeds after the supplier and resellers take a big wet bite out of it. In reality, they'll probably recieve 5-6 dollars per cd, possibly more, if it's sold mainly through a website run from the umbrella company.
Group C is willing to live a little less well, and do the cd a little faster, so they manage to cut their living expenses in half. Perhaps they get a day job, or make money playing gigs. the since all these groups are the same size, they are all expected to have the same amount of living expenses, thus they all require $100k of capital.
In order to cut down on fraud, everyone is required to use the umbrella company's recording studio, so this band sells $50,000 to cover cd creation costs, and a pittance to live on (50% of the stock from the above groups) THey then recieve 50% of the net proceeds, and whoever put up the money for the other half would get the rest.
I could imagine groups giving away a cd with two shares of stock, or a t-shirt with 4 shares of stock, or something like that. It would mean that fans would have a reason to try and get other people to like the music of the bands they support, it would mean more money per cd going to the ones supporting the arts, rather than marketing and promotions-- hell, 50k rabid fans are much better than any marketing plan ever devised.
The copyrights would lay with the "shareholders", thus, if the shareholders want to give away the mp3s free, more power to them. The band would be given unrestricted rights to play and re-make songs, so long as they pay a percentage of the proceeds of any new cd back to the group backing the original cd (think punk bands that put out 12 cds and only have 80 unique songs)
Okay, you can mod me down for being off topic now, I'm just glad you got to this point.
Natural rights are basically that you have the right to take whatever you can take from whoever you can take it from. By surrendering this right to a "governmental body", you lose that right, but instead, gain the ability to own something, and to keep those things, including protection from others taking your things away-- Civil Rights. By entering into the "civil rights" agreement, you have agreed with a group of other people (usually regionally based) that you will protect each other in certain cases-- generally (not always), this includes theft, murder, rape, and sometimes various forms of misfortune-- Communism is basically an all inclusive, while democracy only covers what you, your reps, or by extension, your forebearers have decided to cover.
Thus, if you as a person refuse to withdraw your natural rights in favor of civil rights, you are considered a foreign entity-- and if you steal/hurt/etc. a part of the "civil union", you get bitch slapped by the rest of it.
And thus, government is born, and there is governments power, an agreement by the governed to protect each other against various bad things. Theoretically there needn't be any bad people-- and the government doesn't need to tell you that random entities are bad-- that's a control structure, and that is what you should distrust and hate-- Not the government.
You're 12 freaking years old-- You are *NOT* responsible for everything you think you're responsible. If someone tells you to grow up, tell them "fuck you, I'm still a kid"...
Because you blew years 3-11 acting as the man of the house, doesn't mean you can't have a childhood. Play games. Hang out with friends. Talk about dumb stuff. Watch those movies you know are just dumb, with friends, it's all worth it.
I'd sell it anyways-- the last time I ate there (coincidence, I think not), they served me rotten eggs. Rotten eggs and cold hash browns.
/Ex
Oddly enough, if I didn't have gift certificates coming out my ass, I wouldn't eat at any fast food restaurant-- Local restaurants are about the same for a meal (minus the soda) as a fast food joint-- and the food is a hell of a lot better.
actually, personal empirical data states that, yes, you probably are the only girl that would rather get hardware than flowers... ...Well, except maybe alex, but she was butch. /Bob
That's something that's always pissed me off.
/ex
I want you (and anyone else that cares) to know that at least in sane areas of farming (incl. most of california, with certain areas deficient, or certain farmer's being bigots/racists), produce pickers, whether they're in a union or not, recieve fair compensation. Not just minimum wage, in this area, the standard pay for farm workers (santa maria, CA) is approximately 8.50~12.50/hr. This is for non-illegal immigrants.
My grandfather is a farmer, and I've worked with these people, some of them have been out there since he started farming these lands-- 25 years, and they're still picking for him. That doesn't happen on accident, they're some of the best paying jobs in this area.
And not to disrespect your comfy chair, and I'm sure the field workers would like a comfy chair too, but in one on one interviews with these people, many said they were proud of the job they did. It's harder than you can imagine doing what they do the speed that they do it for the length that they're out there. They're proud that they're that hearty, and they do such an important job for the world (because hey, everyone needs to eat)
Not picking on you, but this really ticks me off (mostly due to a class I had up in Santa Cruz that said basically all farmers, So. Cal., and technology companies is evil.)
Actually, step three could be explicated as:
/ex.
3. Sell derivative information to people who want it, i.e. the people you *DON'T* want to have it.
This includes, as others said, life insurance companies teaming up with grocery stores to find out what you eat, thus raising rates for people who eat "bad" stuff.
Or phone spam companies buying info from phone companies-- Consumer A contacts consumer B, and A bought our stuff, therefore you should call B.
Or, perhaps radio stations selling the numbers of people who request songs to the Wherehouse, so the Wherehouse can call you and say that you can buy the cd.
Or, maybe the police decide to track where you go by reading license plates off of each of the cameras that they have up to detect speeders or light runners.
Just some thoughts. This isn't a joke-- They know exactly how to get money from mining-- It depends on what data you have to who you can sell it to. Noone buys data for no reason-- And the only two reasons to buy data is to target for selling other stuff, or to "find people who don't want to be found"-- Whether it be to find terrorists, criminals, or theoretically people that make x hundred thousand/million a year, so that they can rob you.
Of course, most of this stuff happens every day, and noone realizes.
*note, I'm not sure now that this has anything at all to do with the topic, but it's something that bounces off my head sporadically*
/ex
Recently, I've been working with developmentally disabled people as a job coach-- Making sure they have the ability to do the job they're supposed to, and help them to understand anything that needs to happen.
Part of this is working at a local fast food restaurant. The girl I'm working with can do math fairly well, but she has problems with logic, and pattern matching.
And a few times I started thinking about her as a computer-- She can do math fine, and if I specifically tell her how to match a pattern, she can do it for a short time, but she can't do it in situations like when people order a combo. Let's say they order a #1 with onion rings and a small drink, a #6 large combo, and a kids meal, she won't be able to recognize them as "combos" (she'll read the whole thing back to them item by item.) This brings me to a whole other tangent about user interface design (why the normal methods suck, mostly), but that'll be saved until a proper time.
This has been a difficulty with her position as a cashier, but I find it interesting that I'm more or less programming her as I talk to her and re-affirm her patterns to match.
I wonder if certain disabled humans would fail any "turing" test that were given to them, because they don't have normal pattern matching ability. Furthermore, isn't it possible that instead of trying for fully developed Artificial Intelligence, we should look at perhaps emulating those with disabilities? After all, wouldn't this creation process be easier than a "fully aware", fully pattern realizing person?
AI has always interested me, but I don't know nearly enough about it. The thing that made me notice this is I keep talking to her like I would program a computer ("If this, then that, otherwise this other thing" and "While there is someone in line, take their order").
Maybe I'm off based, or this is already an accepted practice. Can anyone correct me?
Yeah, and only the music industry would use a GOTO loop for a situation like this...
I Do.
/ex
I have a really crappy CD player in my car (I had no choice, I was a college student and my radio croaked. I got it for free. Sue me). When I insert a CD, it leaves two nice big scars on it (not scratches, *SCARS*). On retail CDs, it usually doesn't hurt them much, but If I just spent 15 dollars on a cd, I don't want to take the chance of losing it. Sure, it's not much of an investment compared to other things I own, it's still something I own, and I'm not going to pay every three weeks to get a new copy of that cd.
While my CD player kills cd-r's after only two or three insertions, a cd-r costs me... about a dime. I can live with a dime loss ever couple weeks (I generally listen to the same cd for long periods of time
and as for "ripping off the artist". I made two copies of this cd. One for my cousin, and another for a friend who happens to be a teacher. My cousin played it for a couple of his friends, then both of them went and bought the last two copies of it at the local warehouse. My teacher friend played it for her classroom, and apparently three of the students decided to go buy it themselves. I'm sure glad I ripped off the band, and got them to sell five more copies than if I hadn't made those copies.
All that being said, Flogging molly is a fucking great band.
That's all, go about your business.
...But what about the organizations in the US-- Non-profits, schools, etc.-- that don't have enough money/know-how to set up a decent system.
/ex
Others have mentioned that there are groups in the US that need help, and ways to help the local services. At least in California, there are a few groups that do this. One that I'm affiliated with has provided web space (low/no cost web space), on site technical support, and various small projects for a group of non profit organizations.
It is very interesting looking at this stuff-- there are literally no companies that will offer low/no cost tech support even as donations, to local non profits-- the ones that need it the most.
Get involved with the local groups. Any skills you have are really appreciated, and even if you don't want to or can't be there to help them, if you run a server, set up a little web site for them! Give them an account to get mail, and a hundred megs to put as big a site as they want on it, and it doesn't cost you anything but electricity which you would use anyway-- Usually they pull less than a few thousand hits per month
I've known the guy that posted this for years, and I remember our freshman year in college, he ran an ftp server all year-- Anonymous login sharing basically you name it, and apparently people from all over the resnet were doing the same.. It's a problem of them not wanting to do crap, so they don't, then they find a scape goat-- FTP server installed on 2k, and they say "none of that"...
/ex
They should really pull their heads out of their asses-- Start *LOGGING* High usage IPs, and start banning those cards from accessing the network-- They do it at UCSC, and the effect was/is whenever I or anyone else needed bandwidth, I or anyone else got it.
Yeah, I can't wait to see you seek alternatives to food and water. How do you take your soylent green?
I don't have time to go digging right now, but food is probably the least of our worries. If worldwide meat consumption stopped, and we replaced the hay with something that humans can eat (oats? other type of grain?), we would be buried in food.
Raising a single cow for approximately 200ish single person meals uses as much land to make it possible to feed at least 50 people for a year--If anyone's really interested I'll dig up the place I found that figure. (note-- I'm pretty sure my numbers are way off-- I think a single cow probably gives twice that number of meals, and the land will feed four times-- I should have left for work about 20 minutes ago)
I'm not willing to give up much of my lifestyle for something that I don't believe in-- The scientific evidence that global warming is caused by humans is severely lacking. I will say I see ways that humans are causing it, but I also believe that the earth will bounce back from it just fine-- Things get hotter->More water evaporates->Causes clouds that thicken atmosphere->world gets cooler
And, um, old cars tend to pollute more. If they've got a honda something or other then yes, a SUV will pollute more. If they've got an 87 Cadillac boat, it's going to pollute a *LOT* less.
A Santa Cruz Perspective:
/ex
Santa Cruz, in case you don't know, is famous for its outrageous rental prices, pot smoking hippies, and almost 80 percent engineering drop out rate.
Personally, since last summer, I've been a little more conscientious-- Fluorescent bulbs, don't live in an area with a need for ac, but I'll do the dishes by hand during the day rather than run a load.
However, many people don't, well, live in santa cruz. My home town is normally lit up brighter than...Nevermind. My family shuts off lights a little more, and fluorescent bulbs are in style now, but other than that I haven't noticed much difference. Frankly, noone I know was hit by a rolling blackout-- My home area has a Little Power Plant , so that was never a problem, and in santa cruz, the longest non-centralized on UC Santa Cruz campus power outage was perhaps 30 minutes-- In an area way out in the middle of nowhere.
Basically, it didn't do much other than remind me that as a college student, I really can't afford the cost of keeping my computers on 24/7 anymore. It now gets turned off, and it seems to save me quite a bit of money.
So, I guess the answer to your questions are, the energy I use is less because it costs 70% more. I turn off lights more often, read by the window more often, and use fluorescent lights. Local govt. isn't doing jack shit to promote energy efficiency, except playing the same annoying commercial every three minutes on the best radio station here .
Oh, yeah, and I stopped working for the lumber lobby, and started working for a nature conservancy.