Also, I did read the first few pages of that book, but it sounds like thinly veiled Marxism to me. Also his examples of dualism don't even make sense: "If we made an income pyramid out of child's play blocks with each layer representing $1000 of income, it would be taller than [Mount Everest] but almost all of us would be within a yard of the ground." Well, if almost all of us are within a yard of the ground, that sounds pretty equal to me. Should we tear down a few people because they make more money? I'm quite sure I would be very near to the ground, but the idea that we might one day be closer to the summitt is what motivates people, myself included, not some honky dory environment where we all make the same paycheck every week no matter what we do, or don't do. That most of us will never reach the summitt is not important; it's the desire and the effort to try which makes us productive as a society.
Here's what really needs to change in government: It needs to be easier to undo things. MUCH easier. Laws should be repealable and officials should be removable from office at any time, by a popular vote greater than 50%. As it stands, there's almost no way to get a law off the books, short of a lengthy court process, or to get an official out of office. When those things change, then I think the situation will improve, as electors once again revert to practicing enlightened self-interest.
You make good points.. perhaps a bit idealized, but still valid.
Nonetheless, would Linux be a success without some single person to guide it and mold it toward his vision? Other people can come up with ideas, but without that one person to say Yea or Nay, who knows what Linux would look like? It's important to have a leader -- not because he's necessarily smarter or has better ideas than anyone else, but because someone has to make tough decisions.
The problems with rule-by-committee are that a) everyone must be informed about the choices they're making in order to make sound decisions, and b) non-compatible practices are more easily adopted.
A. If everyone's spending their time boning up on the issues surrounding decisions, then who's doing the work? Moreover, do you actually trust everyone to make good choices? As an example of suckass choices: Our unionized workplace recently voted to accept a change in healthplan. Unfortunately, everyone looked at the higher dollar compensation for declining the company policy, and didn't notice that the company's insurance isn't valid for any of the hospitals here. Oops. Now everyone's unhappy with their choice, but they voted for it and we're stuck with it for the next few years. Our old policy not only had better coverage, but it was actually accepted by regional providers.
Granted, a single person may not have made a better choice on our behalf, but nobody here has time to perform an extensive review of the relevant information before making decisions either. And if they're actually working, I wouldn't expect that they would in a worker-owned corporation either.
B. To use the analogy of software, when features are added based on what's popular, the result is usually a monstrosity. In general, nobody will say "no" to anything, and so everything gets added. And when people DO say no, it creates rifts as the people whose ideas were rejected become nonplussed, or worse. With a leader, it gives a focal point for discontent. With a committee, people turn on each other.
Even our government realizes that democracies pretty much suck for efficiency and effectiveness, which is why everyone is told from day one that the military is NOT a democracy.
People are designed for top-down organization. Every society ever discovered has a leader, because we need leadership to be effective. It's not a shortcoming, it's just the way we are.. basic psychology. In fact, the fact that we're on the top of the food chain sort of indicates that it's a strength.
If you're a balloon company, and your most difficult choices are what color balloons to make and who to get to ship them, then sure, rule by committee. Anything more complicated needs leadership.
As a veteran, I agree with you 100%. While there certainly needs to be repercussions for the persons involved and a review of security policies, people are, and always will be, the weakest link.
Additionally, the lawsuit filed on Tuesday by several veteran organizations seeking claims of $1,000 for each of 26.5 million people potentially affected is simply ridiculous. For that $1,000 pittance, billions of dollars will come out of the VA's coffers, which means a lower quality of service at best, and a very real downsizing at worst. Of course it's possible that the money could just be replace -- by our own tax dollars. It's a little bit like suing your own kid for his lunch money, except in the case of the VA, they actually perform work on our behalf. Oh, and it makes us all look like money grabbing idiots.
Also hammers are tools of burglary, and eating vegetables is a form of cannibalism because indian burial grounds have been discovered in farm fields. It's okay to talk about hammers and vegetables, but if I so much as see you looking at either, I'm calling the cops.
Can't say if worker owned and directed firms would be good or bad.
I don't know about their morality, but I think they would be largely unsuccessful. Design-by-committee ensures zero consistancy, no clear vision or goals, and nobody to hold accountable, thus resulting in a bunch of people pointing the finger at everybody else when something goes wrong. Not unlike Congress.
Too bad about this (website might try to "force" you through a survey -- clicking "submit" skipped it for me): "Linux is found to be much faster than Apple's OS X for statistical computing. And although Linux is 5 to 10 percent faster than Windows XP, both are markedly faster than OS X. For example, in one benchmark both Linux and Windows XP are more than twice as fast as OS X."
Anecdotally, the Amiga is the most popular computer ever, and it has way more titles than the Mac and the PC combined.
Or, put another way, if you blow your whole load at the beginning, there's nothing to look forward to. And to be fair, it's hard to create anything that has the same replay value as shagging.
Broadcasting is like speaking in a public place: The expectation of privacy does not apply. Additionally, the OP never suggested using a radio to spy on his neighbor. But to answer nonetheless, I don't believe a technology should be illegal just because it could be used for illicit purposes. (Not to be confused with technology which exists solely to facilitate illicit or illegal activity). We have plenty of laws to protect against and enforce specific violations or misuses already. If you don't believe that those laws will stop people from engaging in certain activity -- and you're probably right in believing that -- then there's no reason to believe that outlawing the technology altogether will have similar results.
At any rate, I think the whole thing is being blown out of proportion. US ISPs are regularly compelled to provide information on customers regarding copyright violations. What's worse about China doing the same for activities which are just as illegal there? Yahoo has no responsibility to facilitate illegal activity, regardless of whether or not that activity should be illegal by our morals and values. Moreover, Yahoo's withdraw from China would not be detrimental in any way to the Chinese internet or government. What it would do is hurt American employees and investors. I believe the colloquial term for that is "cutting off your nose to spite your face."
Additionally it seems you are missing a key underpinning of Asian societies, which is that the needs of the individual are almost always outweighed by the needs of the many. Is that wrong? Well, it's different, but it has its plusses and minuses, just like anything else. The majority of Chinese believe that dissent has a detrimental, destabilizing effect on their society. They believe that individual-oriented western values contribute to rampant crime and civil unrest, and it's difficult to argue with a straight face that they're wrong. Of course, we tend to believe that the price of liberty is well worth it, although that opinion is unfortunately becoming less and less popular. The bottom line is that a government cannot exist without the support -- either implicitly or explicitly -- of its people, therefore the Chinese government is, in fact, acting on behalf of its citizens. Unless, and until such time as, the members of a society itself decide to enact change, there's not much anyone else can do about it, short of war, but as we've seen in Iraq: You can lead a horse to water...
Re:Non-U.S.'ers not safe either
on
Death By DMCA
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· Score: 1
First of all, this was a damn good article, one of the most thoughtful and thorough ones I've read in a long, long time.
Yeah, it's just too bad it appeared in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers magazine.. pretty much preaching to the choir. Wake me up when it's on the front page of the NYT. Maybe then we'll start to see some actual changes.
Re:Well, twenty years ago....
on
Death By DMCA
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· Score: 1
Those toll booths made good money, and the tool-booth industry has a right to it.
Best Freudian slip ever.
Well, best one today anyway.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane
on
Death By DMCA
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· Score: 1
I don't think it's an all or nothing scenario. Advertisers would still pay for time, although that time may just be worth less (as opposed to worthless). It would require a monumental shift in viewing habits to eliminate the audience for intermission advertising below a threshold which would cause advertisers to withdraw completely. It's more likely that broadcasters would simply have to charge less for ad time. That wouldn't in any way eliminate programming -- because each channel would still compete for viewership -- or shift the burden to the viewer; it would merely cut profit margins. Unfortunate, perhaps, if you're a rich broadcasting executive, worse still if you're aspiring to become a rich broadcasting executive, but largely uneventful for everyone else.
Re:more proof the RIAA/MPAA are insane
on
Death By DMCA
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I would say that the networks should really start looking into it -- in about 20 years all the politicians are going to be people who lived through the shutdown of napster, the lawsuits, and the general stupidity.
I wish there was some merit to the idea that future politicians will have a more modern viewpoint (even if their views are 20 years old by that point), but I'm not convinced that we will elect leaders who are any less susceptible to corporate (or other special interest group) influence, or that any of them will actually carry through on their campaign promises. Moreover, once a law has been on the books for a few decades, it's almost gospel. People can't remember a time when it didn't exist, and thus it's unlikely to go away. I think part of the solution would be to make laws more difficult to enact and easier to repeal. Banning riders would also help, along with eliminating any/all forms of contribution, compensation, and "pampering" of officials by third parties, other than X thousand dollars donatable, by individuals only, directly to campaigns. I'm not sure how much of an effect that would have, but it would be a good start.
I conceed that most creators aren't in charge of marketing their own products, but I don't view that as justification to continue the current process. Entertainment is the only industry I can think of where the content producer has little or no role in marketing their product (aside from book-signing tours, funded by the publisher of course).
However, there are very limited cases where any form of entertainment -- book, music, film, or otherwise -- is a "long term" source of income. Most books aren't even printed for 5 years; only those that are extremely popular, in which case the author and publisher have arguably already earned significant income. As for books which go out of print, the only option for would-be consumers is to obtain a used copy, which doesn't benefit the author/publisher anyway. Removing copyright would actually create new revenue streams by allowing small or alternative publishers to produce books on-demand or in small runs. Perhaps a clause of "5 years from first publication" would be more appropriate, to balance the fact that authors might spend years searching for a publisher in the first place.
people would know -- if you hear about a great new book, just wait a few years, and you'll be able to get it for a buck and a quarter instead of $25.
I think such a claim is highly specious. In most cases, the desire to "have it now" will trump any small savings made by waiting, and five years is a LONG time to wait. In any case, such individuals are more likely to buy a used copy, which means they weren't a potential customer to begin with. If people are compelled to wait that long, chances are your asking price is too high. Of course, you could always drop the price after a couple of years, which is already standard practice for most published works.
Slashdot Mirror
I find your post insightful, however I would like to propose a fine for getting songs stuck in people's heads.
In my day, we resold VOIP for fun. The profit was just a nice side benefit.
Easy to say, but who can resist the temptation of 20 inch blades on an Escolade?
Oh, right.
It makes people running pirated versions of windows especially nervous.
Boo hoo.. poor people running pirated copies.
If they're too stupid/lazy/cocky to keep themselves isolated by a good firewall, then I have no sympathy.
There are plenty of valid reasons why this "feature," or at least the lack of disclosure, is immoral. Protecting piracy is not one of them.
as electors once again revert to practicing enlightened self-interest.
That should say, "as the elected."
Also, I did read the first few pages of that book, but it sounds like thinly veiled Marxism to me. Also his examples of dualism don't even make sense: "If we made an income pyramid out of child's play blocks with each layer representing $1000 of income, it would be taller than [Mount Everest] but almost all of us would be within a yard of the ground." Well, if almost all of us are within a yard of the ground, that sounds pretty equal to me. Should we tear down a few people because they make more money? I'm quite sure I would be very near to the ground, but the idea that we might one day be closer to the summitt is what motivates people, myself included, not some honky dory environment where we all make the same paycheck every week no matter what we do, or don't do. That most of us will never reach the summitt is not important; it's the desire and the effort to try which makes us productive as a society.
Here's what really needs to change in government: It needs to be easier to undo things. MUCH easier. Laws should be repealable and officials should be removable from office at any time, by a popular vote greater than 50%. As it stands, there's almost no way to get a law off the books, short of a lengthy court process, or to get an official out of office. When those things change, then I think the situation will improve, as electors once again revert to practicing enlightened self-interest.
You make good points.. perhaps a bit idealized, but still valid.
Nonetheless, would Linux be a success without some single person to guide it and mold it toward his vision? Other people can come up with ideas, but without that one person to say Yea or Nay, who knows what Linux would look like? It's important to have a leader -- not because he's necessarily smarter or has better ideas than anyone else, but because someone has to make tough decisions.
The problems with rule-by-committee are that a) everyone must be informed about the choices they're making in order to make sound decisions, and b) non-compatible practices are more easily adopted.
A. If everyone's spending their time boning up on the issues surrounding decisions, then who's doing the work? Moreover, do you actually trust everyone to make good choices? As an example of suckass choices: Our unionized workplace recently voted to accept a change in healthplan. Unfortunately, everyone looked at the higher dollar compensation for declining the company policy, and didn't notice that the company's insurance isn't valid for any of the hospitals here. Oops. Now everyone's unhappy with their choice, but they voted for it and we're stuck with it for the next few years. Our old policy not only had better coverage, but it was actually accepted by regional providers.
Granted, a single person may not have made a better choice on our behalf, but nobody here has time to perform an extensive review of the relevant information before making decisions either. And if they're actually working, I wouldn't expect that they would in a worker-owned corporation either.
B. To use the analogy of software, when features are added based on what's popular, the result is usually a monstrosity. In general, nobody will say "no" to anything, and so everything gets added. And when people DO say no, it creates rifts as the people whose ideas were rejected become nonplussed, or worse. With a leader, it gives a focal point for discontent. With a committee, people turn on each other.
Even our government realizes that democracies pretty much suck for efficiency and effectiveness, which is why everyone is told from day one that the military is NOT a democracy.
People are designed for top-down organization. Every society ever discovered has a leader, because we need leadership to be effective. It's not a shortcoming, it's just the way we are.. basic psychology. In fact, the fact that we're on the top of the food chain sort of indicates that it's a strength.
If you're a balloon company, and your most difficult choices are what color balloons to make and who to get to ship them, then sure, rule by committee. Anything more complicated needs leadership.
As a veteran, I agree with you 100%. While there certainly needs to be repercussions for the persons involved and a review of security policies, people are, and always will be, the weakest link.
Additionally, the lawsuit filed on Tuesday by several veteran organizations seeking claims of $1,000 for each of 26.5 million people potentially affected is simply ridiculous. For that $1,000 pittance, billions of dollars will come out of the VA's coffers, which means a lower quality of service at best, and a very real downsizing at worst. Of course it's possible that the money could just be replace -- by our own tax dollars. It's a little bit like suing your own kid for his lunch money, except in the case of the VA, they actually perform work on our behalf. Oh, and it makes us all look like money grabbing idiots.
Yeah, 6/6/06.. man.. must be the end of the world. Again.
Stupid world!! Why must you end every 100 years??!?
Yep, because decrypting DVDs = piracy.
Also hammers are tools of burglary, and eating vegetables is a form of cannibalism because indian burial grounds have been discovered in farm fields. It's okay to talk about hammers and vegetables, but if I so much as see you looking at either, I'm calling the cops.
Can't say if worker owned and directed firms would be good or bad.
I don't know about their morality, but I think they would be largely unsuccessful. Design-by-committee ensures zero consistancy, no clear vision or goals, and nobody to hold accountable, thus resulting in a bunch of people pointing the finger at everybody else when something goes wrong. Not unlike Congress.
Just call them Mini-Stars, or Mars for short.
Too bad about this (website might try to "force" you through a survey -- clicking "submit" skipped it for me): "Linux is found to be much faster than Apple's OS X for statistical computing. And although Linux is 5 to 10 percent faster than Windows XP, both are markedly faster than OS X. For example, in one benchmark both Linux and Windows XP are more than twice as fast as OS X."
Anecdotally, the Amiga is the most popular computer ever, and it has way more titles than the Mac and the PC combined.
Here's a huge list of some of the applications available, from some website: http://aminet.net/tree.php
Now mod me +5, Informative.
I can't wait until Hollywood is touched by a virus.
And with the Internet, viral advertising has a way to touch both groups.
Or, put another way, if you blow your whole load at the beginning, there's nothing to look forward to. And to be fair, it's hard to create anything that has the same replay value as shagging.
[F]rom the look of the videos these things are too scary to ever be allowed into hospitals.
Yeah, cause robot worms are way scarier than these things.
I'm betting the first will be:
...
"Helloooo??? Is this thing on?"
"Can you hear me now?"
Broadcasting is like speaking in a public place: The expectation of privacy does not apply. Additionally, the OP never suggested using a radio to spy on his neighbor. But to answer nonetheless, I don't believe a technology should be illegal just because it could be used for illicit purposes. (Not to be confused with technology which exists solely to facilitate illicit or illegal activity). We have plenty of laws to protect against and enforce specific violations or misuses already. If you don't believe that those laws will stop people from engaging in certain activity -- and you're probably right in believing that -- then there's no reason to believe that outlawing the technology altogether will have similar results.
Where have you been for the past 6 months?
At any rate, I think the whole thing is being blown out of proportion. US ISPs are regularly compelled to provide information on customers regarding copyright violations. What's worse about China doing the same for activities which are just as illegal there? Yahoo has no responsibility to facilitate illegal activity, regardless of whether or not that activity should be illegal by our morals and values. Moreover, Yahoo's withdraw from China would not be detrimental in any way to the Chinese internet or government. What it would do is hurt American employees and investors. I believe the colloquial term for that is "cutting off your nose to spite your face."
Additionally it seems you are missing a key underpinning of Asian societies, which is that the needs of the individual are almost always outweighed by the needs of the many. Is that wrong? Well, it's different, but it has its plusses and minuses, just like anything else. The majority of Chinese believe that dissent has a detrimental, destabilizing effect on their society. They believe that individual-oriented western values contribute to rampant crime and civil unrest, and it's difficult to argue with a straight face that they're wrong. Of course, we tend to believe that the price of liberty is well worth it, although that opinion is unfortunately becoming less and less popular. The bottom line is that a government cannot exist without the support -- either implicitly or explicitly -- of its people, therefore the Chinese government is, in fact, acting on behalf of its citizens. Unless, and until such time as, the members of a society itself decide to enact change, there's not much anyone else can do about it, short of war, but as we've seen in Iraq: You can lead a horse to water...
First of all, this was a damn good article, one of the most thoughtful and thorough ones I've read in a long, long time.
Yeah, it's just too bad it appeared in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers magazine.. pretty much preaching to the choir. Wake me up when it's on the front page of the NYT. Maybe then we'll start to see some actual changes.
Those toll booths made good money, and the tool-booth industry has a right to it.
Best Freudian slip ever.
Well, best one today anyway.
I don't think it's an all or nothing scenario. Advertisers would still pay for time, although that time may just be worth less (as opposed to worthless). It would require a monumental shift in viewing habits to eliminate the audience for intermission advertising below a threshold which would cause advertisers to withdraw completely. It's more likely that broadcasters would simply have to charge less for ad time. That wouldn't in any way eliminate programming -- because each channel would still compete for viewership -- or shift the burden to the viewer; it would merely cut profit margins. Unfortunate, perhaps, if you're a rich broadcasting executive, worse still if you're aspiring to become a rich broadcasting executive, but largely uneventful for everyone else.
I would say that the networks should really start looking into it -- in about 20 years all the politicians are going to be people who lived through the shutdown of napster, the lawsuits, and the general stupidity.
I wish there was some merit to the idea that future politicians will have a more modern viewpoint (even if their views are 20 years old by that point), but I'm not convinced that we will elect leaders who are any less susceptible to corporate (or other special interest group) influence, or that any of them will actually carry through on their campaign promises. Moreover, once a law has been on the books for a few decades, it's almost gospel. People can't remember a time when it didn't exist, and thus it's unlikely to go away. I think part of the solution would be to make laws more difficult to enact and easier to repeal. Banning riders would also help, along with eliminating any/all forms of contribution, compensation, and "pampering" of officials by third parties, other than X thousand dollars donatable, by individuals only, directly to campaigns. I'm not sure how much of an effect that would have, but it would be a good start.
Here's the direct link if you want to download it, or you don't have/want a QT plugin: http://media.revver.com/broadcast/27335/video.mov
(Might have to copy/paste that, I'm not sure)
I conceed that most creators aren't in charge of marketing their own products, but I don't view that as justification to continue the current process. Entertainment is the only industry I can think of where the content producer has little or no role in marketing their product (aside from book-signing tours, funded by the publisher of course).
However, there are very limited cases where any form of entertainment -- book, music, film, or otherwise -- is a "long term" source of income. Most books aren't even printed for 5 years; only those that are extremely popular, in which case the author and publisher have arguably already earned significant income. As for books which go out of print, the only option for would-be consumers is to obtain a used copy, which doesn't benefit the author/publisher anyway. Removing copyright would actually create new revenue streams by allowing small or alternative publishers to produce books on-demand or in small runs. Perhaps a clause of "5 years from first publication" would be more appropriate, to balance the fact that authors might spend years searching for a publisher in the first place.
people would know -- if you hear about a great new book, just wait a few years, and you'll be able to get it for a buck and a quarter instead of $25.
I think such a claim is highly specious. In most cases, the desire to "have it now" will trump any small savings made by waiting, and five years is a LONG time to wait. In any case, such individuals are more likely to buy a used copy, which means they weren't a potential customer to begin with. If people are compelled to wait that long, chances are your asking price is too high. Of course, you could always drop the price after a couple of years, which is already standard practice for most published works.