I keep reading these posts that say "who wants to use napster? there's *free* ones we can use now!"Sure, there are plenty of free services that are similar to napster.
In my experience, they all suck in comparison. Napster was so much better than any media sharing method before or since.
I've used pretty much all of the free media sharing services. Not only are they much, much slower, there's not as good of a selection, especially of the more obscure songs.
They're OK for what they are.. but to compare them to what napster was is pretty inaccurate, IMHO.
Sure, napster is dead now and we make do with what we have left, but if napster could rebuild itself to even a fraction of what it was, I'd certainly be willing to give them a few bucks.
If they company is too broke to pay the employee wages, then they should be liquidating the equipment themselves, and using it to pay the employees. Or at least find a place for the money to come from. The workers have to eat. I've got no problem with someone taking matters into their own hands if the employer isnt paying them.
Reminds me of a story:
There was this coffeeshop where the owner was really bad at paying the employees on time. So the employees started taking their wages out of the register, and leave a note about how much they took.
Pretty soon they were always paid on time.
The moral of the story: if you want loyal employees, dont treat them like shit. And if you treat them like shit, dont be surprised when little acts of sabotage start happening.
"A good wind turbine takes up to 45% of the kinetic energy out of the wind. In built up areas, just think, the lower winds would result in increased build-up of pollution from vehicles. "
I think that the good wind turbine would take 45% of the wind that hits it. The wind hitting the turbine would only be a small percentage of the total wind in the area, so I dont think it would make an appreciable difference. There would still be plenty of wind going around the turbines, over them, under them, etc. I'm not sure about this though, I could be wrong.
"Will any country ever build buildings that large again in light of recent events in the USA? "
I think this is an irrational fear. As horrible as tuesday's events were, it didnt have anything to do with the height of the building itself. I dont think it will stop anyone from building huge buildings, or at least, it shouldnt stop anyone.
Not to mention in the Sims, you can smack the crap out of each other, and fight.
You can even have adults smacking kids around.
Not saying that it wouldnt be a worthwhile game for the kids to play, I think it would be.
I just think that outside of puzzle games, it will be pretty tough to find a game that's not violent in any way. Hell, I personally have found ways to squeeze some violence out of relatively non-violent games. It taught me to be creative in my violence-making.:]
This reminds of of one of the programming projects I had to do for my introductory C++ course in school was an artillery simulator. The final program had to input the angles you wanted to launch the shell, and you had to hit certain targets around campus. It was pretty fun.
Pretty much no matter what we do to the earth, we're not going to wipe out all forms of life on earth, as you said. We can't 'destroy' the planet.
However, it's theoretically possible that some types of environmental damage could seriously affect our human quality of life.
We could wipe out the ozone layer, and animals would evolve to be more resistant to UV radiation. Some probably wouldnt be able to, and some would, but in the end we're not wiping out all forms of life on earth. But, I'd rather not have to take a bath in SPF 5000 every time I leave the house. Or only be able to go out at night. Sure, we could do it, but it would suck.
Same thing with global warming. If, (and it's a big if, I know. But bear with me here)... If we are causing the planet to warm up noticably, there would likely be some changes. THe land currently used for farmland might be turned to desert, for example. Sure, land that was previously frozen further north would now be a decent temperature for farmland. But it would seriously affect the quality of life for millions (billions?) or people.
As for new technologies and more efficiency being the answer... it's the answer for some problems, but not all.
Get in touch with other people from Slashdot in South Carolina. Come up with a good day when most of you will be availible.
Go to a local university's website, and look up student groups- look for libertarian, socialist, and computer clubs, email them ome info and say you'd be interested in helping organize a public protest. Ask them to contact people they know would be interested. Tell them the day you want to have the protest.
The protest should be at a government building- courthouse, city hall, it doesnt matter.
Set it to be at noon, so people will be out on the streets, for their lunch hour.
Make signs, prepare a statement for the press, etc.
Call local TV stations and newspapers, telling them you're going to have a protest, and they should come. Trust me, they'll jump at the chance.
Show up and make a big scene, but make sure the message isnt lost.
Just because you (and probably most webmasters) benefit from this wont stop someone from stepping in and putting a stop to it. Someone will decide that it's violating their copywrite, and disclaimers or not, will decide to sue.
After all, one could argue quite effectively that the copywrite violations of Napster benefitted the music industry, and the artists. That didnt stop them from putting the smack down.
Sooner or later we'll all realize that intellectual property is crap, a myth. People will still innovate because it's a natural human desire to, not because of any potential gain. If you're innovative solely for personal gain, chances are you're not coming up with anything very useful anyway.
"So long as the animals have commercial value- they will always be around. Its ironic that PETA and animals rights activists etc are the ones guaranteeing the eventual extinction of the animals they claim to protect. "
Because that worked well for the Dodo bird, which I've heard were quite popular for their feathers and meat.
This falls under the Tragedy of the Commons. While no one benefits from a commercially valuable species going extinct, those who depend on that species for their living will have no incentive to reduce their take of the elephant, fox, tiger, or whatever. The short term gains of killing that elephant for its ivory outweigh any long term negatives, such as extinction. When that happens, they'll just find another species to hunt.
In this example, as the elephant becomes more rare, the value of the ivory will rise, due to supply and demand. This will cause the hunters to work even harder at killing the elephants, since they now get a much higher price for the ivory. Of course, this works against them in the long run when the elephants all are extinct.
People are always bragging about what a hack job their code is, or how messy or dirty it is, but it works so that's the important thing. It becomes a joke.
Personally I blame it on hungarian notation.
My code's beautiful. Everything I write is gorgeous.:]
"Why do you believe that you have a right to privacy while employed and paid by someone else, and while using their equipment, internet connection, etc?"
And another thing... if we can't expect privacy while on someone else's property, what about if you're renting an apartment? Should the owners of the property have the right to set up hidden cameras in my shower just because they like seeing me naked? THat's all the reason they'd need. After all, it's their property and they're allowed to do anything they want to me while I'm on it, no?
The US public transportation system sucks in part to the passenger trolley systems being bought by GM, for the purpose of tearing them down. GM and allies bought over 100 trolley systems. This eventually resulted in federal antitrust charges, which they were found guilty of. The judge was sympathetic and fined the companies involved $5000, and the executives responsible were fined $1 each.
4 corporations account for 50.4% of web traffic.. sounds like 50.4% of web users 'vote' for those sites with their usage. That doesnt mean those are the best websites, or the most worthy of their attention, just that most people use them. I guess that has some vague notion of democracy.
however-
democracy != freedom
As long as we're free to go to whatever websites we want to, and free to communicate with whoever we want to, the web will be free. It doesnt matter if one website gets 99.9% of all web traffic (democracy in action there) as long as the other 0.1% can look at something else.
Democracy is about majority rule. Freedom is about no one, not even a majority, having the right to tell one what to do.
So, sometimes freedom and democracy overlap, and sometimes they collide.
"It seems to me that the consumer would be better served by AMD advertising in plain language why their chips are better than the competition's. "
I think all they would need to do is slap a bar graph sticker on the case of the computer they are trying to sell. Next to the big bar, they write some good number for a benchmark, and write AMD.
Next to the small bar, write a smaller number for a benchmark, and write Intel.
Mr and Mrs Average might not understand what benchmarks are, or what the numbers mean, but they do understand pretty pictures of Big vs Small.
"These guys create a software product and move it across border. Just like chineese workers, that make tennis shoes and move them to USA to sell. "
The difference is, the work being done by those Chinese workers is being performed in China. In this case, the work being performed by the Russians is taking place on American computers.
If they *hacked* into US computers, then US law would apply to them. But if they only work on US computers, US law doesnt apply.
You bring up a good point, but keep in mind that the jobs are much more mobile than labor.
The company in VA can move the jobs to Russia, Indonesia, Mexico, or wherever, quite easily. They're free to look around the world for the best work at the cheapest wages. However, there are only so many options open to the workers. They're not free to go from country-to-country looking for the highest wages, due to immigration laws, or just plain unwillingness to relocate.
They're probably getting more than most people are making in Russia. But, if they were truly as free to move around the world as the jobs are, they'd probably be able to make a *lot* more.
-J5K
Re:Taking advantage of the developers
on
Extreme Telecommuting
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
This brings up an interesting point. Are they working in Russia, or are they working in the US? So are they subject to Russian labor law, or American? Could they legally be paid under US min wage this way? While they're physically located in Russia, by telecommuting to the US, it isnt *that* different from someone who crosses a border physically each day to go to work.
"the very wealthy life that every average American enjoys today is due PRECISELY to the efforts of the 'evil' businessmen who went out and built the steel plants, and railroads."
The very wealthy life enjoyed by the 'evil' businessmen is due to them building the steel plants and railroads. They didnt voluntarily pay decent wages- they were forced to by unions made up of people who risked their livelihood and their lives by stepping up to the powerful bosses and demanding a fair share. Plenty of them were murdered by corrupt police and hired goons at the request of these 'evil businessmen'
So dont act like they were doing the world a favor.
The real heros are the ones who brought wealth to *everyone*, not just themselves.
If Brazil has no money to buy the drugs, we get one of two situations:
1. Brazilians with AIDS have no money to buy drugs. Therefore, the drug companies get no money from them, and the AIDS patients die.
or
2. Brazilians with AIDS have no money to buy drugs. The Brazilian govt violates the patent, the patients get their drugs, but the drug companies get no money from them.
Looks like #1 is a lose-lose situation.
At least in scenerio #2, the people get their drugs.
"3. XY college students need an excuse, any excuse, to interact with XX college students. "
I especially agree with this. Anything to help the geeks get some:)
In this vein, I'm wondering about the feasibility of an informal training session for some of the more tech savvy students, then sending them back to the dorms armed with their new-found knowledge. They can either work for free or be paid as independant consultants.
Or just get a big classroom, and have a few training sessions for everyone, so they can set it up themselves.
Slashdot Mirror
I keep reading these posts that say "who wants to use napster? there's *free* ones we can use now!"Sure, there are plenty of free services that are similar to napster.
In my experience, they all suck in comparison. Napster was so much better than any media sharing method before or since.
I've used pretty much all of the free media sharing services. Not only are they much, much slower, there's not as good of a selection, especially of the more obscure songs.
They're OK for what they are.. but to compare them to what napster was is pretty inaccurate, IMHO.
Sure, napster is dead now and we make do with what we have left, but if napster could rebuild itself to even a fraction of what it was, I'd certainly be willing to give them a few bucks.
-J5K
Unbreakable codes are a tool.
A tool is not evil. A tool by itself can't fly an airplane into a crowded building.
It depends on the use of the tool.
Evil people will do evil things with it, good people will do good things with it.
-J5K
If they company is too broke to pay the employee wages, then they should be liquidating the equipment themselves, and using it to pay the employees. Or at least find a place for the money to come from. The workers have to eat. I've got no problem with someone taking matters into their own hands if the employer isnt paying them.
Reminds me of a story:
There was this coffeeshop where the owner was really bad at paying the employees on time. So the employees started taking their wages out of the register, and leave a note about how much they took.
Pretty soon they were always paid on time.
The moral of the story: if you want loyal employees, dont treat them like shit. And if you treat them like shit, dont be surprised when little acts of sabotage start happening.
-J5K
"Each of the few times the CIA has been allowed to pick targets has been a disaster."
Hmmm... 0 for (big number)
Maybe the CIA *did* hit exactly what they were aiming for?
I'd hate to think that the CIA was so incompetant that they'd screw up so bad.
There are those rumors of the chinese embassy in belgrade giving out intelligence on the US, which would make it target.
And there is the convenient "oops, we had the wrong map" excuse.
-J5K
"A good wind turbine takes up to 45% of the kinetic energy out of the wind. In built up areas, just think, the lower winds would result in increased build-up of pollution from vehicles. "
I think that the good wind turbine would take 45% of the wind that hits it. The wind hitting the turbine would only be a small percentage of the total wind in the area, so I dont think it would make an appreciable difference. There would still be plenty of wind going around the turbines, over them, under them, etc. I'm not sure about this though, I could be wrong.
"Will any country ever build buildings that large again in light of recent events in the USA? "
I think this is an irrational fear. As horrible as tuesday's events were, it didnt have anything to do with the height of the building itself. I dont think it will stop anyone from building huge buildings, or at least, it shouldnt stop anyone.
-J5K
Build anything you want, just add Soilent Green.
Not to mention in the Sims, you can smack the crap out of each other, and fight.
:]
You can even have adults smacking kids around.
Not saying that it wouldnt be a worthwhile game for the kids to play, I think it would be.
I just think that outside of puzzle games, it will be pretty tough to find a game that's not violent in any way. Hell, I personally have found ways to squeeze some violence out of relatively non-violent games. It taught me to be creative in my violence-making.
-J5K
This reminds of of one of the programming projects I had to do for my introductory C++ course in school was an artillery simulator. The final program had to input the angles you wanted to launch the shell, and you had to hit certain targets around campus. It was pretty fun.
-J5K
Pretty much no matter what we do to the earth, we're not going to wipe out all forms of life on earth, as you said. We can't 'destroy' the planet.
However, it's theoretically possible that some types of environmental damage could seriously affect our human quality of life.
We could wipe out the ozone layer, and animals would evolve to be more resistant to UV radiation. Some probably wouldnt be able to, and some would, but in the end we're not wiping out all forms of life on earth. But, I'd rather not have to take a bath in SPF 5000 every time I leave the house. Or only be able to go out at night. Sure, we could do it, but it would suck.
Same thing with global warming. If, (and it's a big if, I know. But bear with me here)... If we are causing the planet to warm up noticably, there would likely be some changes. THe land currently used for farmland might be turned to desert, for example. Sure, land that was previously frozen further north would now be a decent temperature for farmland. But it would seriously affect the quality of life for millions (billions?) or people.
As for new technologies and more efficiency being the answer... it's the answer for some problems, but not all.
-J5K
Nip this in the bud. Here's what to do:
Get in touch with other people from Slashdot in South Carolina. Come up with a good day when most of you will be availible.
Go to a local university's website, and look up student groups- look for libertarian, socialist, and computer clubs, email them ome info and say you'd be interested in helping organize a public protest. Ask them to contact people they know would be interested. Tell them the day you want to have the protest.
The protest should be at a government building- courthouse, city hall, it doesnt matter.
Set it to be at noon, so people will be out on the streets, for their lunch hour.
Make signs, prepare a statement for the press, etc.
Call local TV stations and newspapers, telling them you're going to have a protest, and they should come. Trust me, they'll jump at the chance.
Show up and make a big scene, but make sure the message isnt lost.
-J5K
Just because you (and probably most webmasters) benefit from this wont stop someone from stepping in and putting a stop to it. Someone will decide that it's violating their copywrite, and disclaimers or not, will decide to sue.
After all, one could argue quite effectively that the copywrite violations of Napster benefitted the music industry, and the artists. That didnt stop them from putting the smack down.
Sooner or later we'll all realize that intellectual property is crap, a myth. People will still innovate because it's a natural human desire to, not because of any potential gain. If you're innovative solely for personal gain, chances are you're not coming up with anything very useful anyway.
-J5K
It doesnt seem dense from what I could tell.
.3 million miles cubed, if my calculations are correct.
The diameter of the sun is 862,400 miles.
The diameter of the black hole is about 93 million miles, which is about 107.8 times as large.
The volume of the black sun would be... lets see, 4/3 pi r^3, I believe.
about
The black hole volume would be about 421,000 million miles cubed.
so the density would be about 4000 times as great as the sun, if I'm not mistaken.
Which I probably am.
-J5K
"So long as the animals have commercial value- they will always be around. Its ironic that PETA and animals rights activists etc are the ones guaranteeing the eventual extinction of the animals they claim to protect. "
Because that worked well for the Dodo bird, which I've heard were quite popular for their feathers and meat.
This falls under the Tragedy of the Commons. While no one benefits from a commercially valuable species going extinct, those who depend on that species for their living will have no incentive to reduce their take of the elephant, fox, tiger, or whatever. The short term gains of killing that elephant for its ivory outweigh any long term negatives, such as extinction. When that happens, they'll just find another species to hunt.
In this example, as the elephant becomes more rare, the value of the ivory will rise, due to supply and demand. This will cause the hunters to work even harder at killing the elephants, since they now get a much higher price for the ivory. Of course, this works against them in the long run when the elephants all are extinct.
People are always bragging about what a hack job their code is, or how messy or dirty it is, but it works so that's the important thing. It becomes a joke.
:]
Personally I blame it on hungarian notation.
My code's beautiful. Everything I write is gorgeous.
-J5K
"Why do you believe that you have a right to privacy while employed and paid by someone else, and while using their equipment, internet connection, etc?"
And another thing... if we can't expect privacy while on someone else's property, what about if you're renting an apartment? Should the owners of the property have the right to set up hidden cameras in my shower just because they like seeing me naked? THat's all the reason they'd need. After all, it's their property and they're allowed to do anything they want to me while I'm on it, no?
-J5K
"If you want to make private communications, then do it on your own time, with your own resources."
In other words, freedom to those who can afford to buy it.
-J5K
The US public transportation system sucks in part to the passenger trolley systems being bought by GM, for the purpose of tearing them down. GM and allies bought over 100 trolley systems. This eventually resulted in federal antitrust charges, which they were found guilty of. The judge was sympathetic and fined the companies involved $5000, and the executives responsible were fined $1 each.
-J5K
4 corporations account for 50.4% of web traffic.. sounds like 50.4% of web users 'vote' for those sites with their usage. That doesnt mean those are the best websites, or the most worthy of their attention, just that most people use them. I guess that has some vague notion of democracy.
however-
democracy != freedom
As long as we're free to go to whatever websites we want to, and free to communicate with whoever we want to, the web will be free. It doesnt matter if one website gets 99.9% of all web traffic (democracy in action there) as long as the other 0.1% can look at something else.
Democracy is about majority rule. Freedom is about no one, not even a majority, having the right to tell one what to do.
So, sometimes freedom and democracy overlap, and sometimes they collide.
-J5K
"It seems to me that the consumer would be better served by AMD advertising in plain language why their chips are better than the competition's. "
I think all they would need to do is slap a bar graph sticker on the case of the computer they are trying to sell. Next to the big bar, they write some good number for a benchmark, and write AMD.
Next to the small bar, write a smaller number for a benchmark, and write Intel.
Mr and Mrs Average might not understand what benchmarks are, or what the numbers mean, but they do understand pretty pictures of Big vs Small.
-J5K
"These guys create a software product and move it across border. Just like chineese workers, that make tennis shoes and move them to USA to sell. "
The difference is, the work being done by those Chinese workers is being performed in China. In this case, the work being performed by the Russians is taking place on American computers.
If they *hacked* into US computers, then US law would apply to them. But if they only work on US computers, US law doesnt apply.
You bring up a good point, but keep in mind that the jobs are much more mobile than labor.
The company in VA can move the jobs to Russia, Indonesia, Mexico, or wherever, quite easily. They're free to look around the world for the best work at the cheapest wages. However, there are only so many options open to the workers. They're not free to go from country-to-country looking for the highest wages, due to immigration laws, or just plain unwillingness to relocate.
They're probably getting more than most people are making in Russia. But, if they were truly as free to move around the world as the jobs are, they'd probably be able to make a *lot* more.
-J5K
This brings up an interesting point. Are they working in Russia, or are they working in the US? So are they subject to Russian labor law, or American? Could they legally be paid under US min wage this way? While they're physically located in Russia, by telecommuting to the US, it isnt *that* different from someone who crosses a border physically each day to go to work.
-J5K
"the very wealthy life that every average American enjoys today is due PRECISELY to the efforts of the 'evil' businessmen who went out and built the steel plants, and railroads."
The very wealthy life enjoyed by the 'evil' businessmen is due to them building the steel plants and railroads. They didnt voluntarily pay decent wages- they were forced to by unions made up of people who risked their livelihood and their lives by stepping up to the powerful bosses and demanding a fair share. Plenty of them were murdered by corrupt police and hired goons at the request of these 'evil businessmen'
So dont act like they were doing the world a favor.
The real heros are the ones who brought wealth to *everyone*, not just themselves.
-J5K
If Brazil has no money to buy the drugs, we get one of two situations:
1. Brazilians with AIDS have no money to buy drugs. Therefore, the drug companies get no money from them, and the AIDS patients die.
or
2. Brazilians with AIDS have no money to buy drugs. The Brazilian govt violates the patent, the patients get their drugs, but the drug companies get no money from them.
Looks like #1 is a lose-lose situation.
At least in scenerio #2, the people get their drugs.
-J5K
"3. XY college students need an excuse, any excuse, to interact with XX college students. "
:)
I especially agree with this. Anything to help the geeks get some
In this vein, I'm wondering about the feasibility of an informal training session for some of the more tech savvy students, then sending them back to the dorms armed with their new-found knowledge. They can either work for free or be paid as independant consultants.
Or just get a big classroom, and have a few training sessions for everyone, so they can set it up themselves.
-J5K