My guess is that the main use of this technology would be by businesses trying to increase the return from their investment.
It seems naive to think that businesses would see making employees happy as a good use of the technology. I could imagine a computer noticing that the call center employee in station 7 has been having an unsually pleasant day... so, let's send him the JERK on line 8.
A computer might notice that the new associate has been building up an excess of self esteem... which might lead to the employee asking for a raise. In reponse, the computer would start behaving irradically to reduce that dangerous self esteem.
I can see companies doing all sorts of things if they have the inside scoop on their employee's feelings. Very little of it is actually in the favor of the employee.
You are right. I am just trolling. I kind of consider the business model where you give the product away for free then have to beg for community support as an "anti-market" business model.
The dot com bust business model was to give the product away until you dominate the market. After dominating the market, you pull the switch. The Machiavellian bait and switch business model has the effect of reducing the diversity of the market. I consider such tactics to be antimarket as the aim of the dot com bust model was to undermine the market.
I've been trying to design business models that would support the gathering and publishing of information, I have not been able to find any potential niches for small publishers that want a healthy business model that can pay people a decent wage for gathering and publishing information.
Watching the troubles of the "altruistic" firm that dominates this niche actually makes me feel sad for the for profit firms that have been trying to created a financially sound information resources on the net.
The prevailing idea of the dot bust era was that a few firms would take anti-market measures to dominate the market.
Such firms have been great at stifling the develop of straight pay for information services, but have not led to the information paradise we desire.
I like the Wiki service. But, rather than "donating" to wikipedia, I've subscribed a well know British Encyclopædia that competes with the Wiki.
I think Christians are so intent on the subject because they are trying to find ways to teach the science of evolution without the accompanying attacks on their culture that take place in the current system. The theory of evolution is like all other great ideas. A lot of people have attached bad ideas to the theory. The current big bang/evolution theory is a more plausible creation myth than the seven day thing in Genesis. That fact that our understanding of the world has improved through the ages does not mean that the deep sense of morality held by many Christians is wrong.
ID was first presented to me as the idea that God designed through evolution...which is a fairly benign idea that would allow people to preserve their cultural values while maintaining good analysis in science. As the details of ID unfolded, I think people have realized that ID is just another silly philosophy.
Anyway, back to the question of why Christians were intent on ID. Christians appear to think that, in our current education system, their cultural values are under attack. I think that these are good people who care deeply about their society and have good points. There have been attacks on our culture made in the name of Evolution. The fact that Christians are working to find ways to reconcile their faith with science and the fact that Christians are trying to find ways engage other philosophies based on Evolution (with a capital E) seems like good and healthy discourse to me. I think Christians will find that ID is bad analysis and does not accomplish their goals.
You are right, we can find a million arguments like this. God created a hole for that would allow the one authentic being to see through the mask of creation. His name will be Neo... the one.
These are fun questions... that belong in theology. I suspect that the religious right is standing up for Intelligent Design because they see it as a way to stand up for religion. If we focus on ID as good theology, then maybe they will leave science alone.
In some regards, the Intelligent Design groups have a point. The way that our society treats intelligent men and women, it is clear that it is not a dominant trait. The way humans chose to breed and the way that the powers that be cut down anyone who dares question authority... one would guess that intelligence could not have evolved in the human species.
The idea that people get worse with each generation has been around since at least Plato!
Personally, I think the intelligence design debate will peter out as people realization that Intelligent Design is not only bad science. It is bad religion. The premise behind the belief is that the writers of the Intelligent Design book can see the hand of God in the gaps of the fossil record as currently understood by evolutionists.
The premise of intelligent design is that our God is a second imperfect God who did a shoddy job when he put together the earth. God did such a bad job that we can see the gaps in the fossil record.
If you held to a perfect God theory, then you would expect to find a perfect chain of evolution in the fossil record. For that matter, studying evolution would be a very spiritual and fulfilling science in that you are studying a perfect work of a divine creator.
As more people seriously contemplate the theory of Intelligent Design, I suspect that they will find it lacking in both scientific merit and theological merit.
On the far side of the debate. There was one area I wish science would bring to the table. That is that there is a lot of garbage philosophy stuffed into science. This was one of the demons that Karl Popper chased. Both Hegel and Marx were trying to guise philosophies as science. Both Hegel and Marx were claiming to see the future direction of the evolution of man. Today, I see a quite a few philosophies trying to gain the highground of scientific merit in by similarly perverting science.
My point in this rambling is that good science is not in conflict with good theology because science (the study of the way things are) is also the study of the "divine creation."
What we see all of the time in these silly debates is crappy science in conflict with crappy theology.
It is a great shame that the proponents of Intelligent Design seek to deprive children of quality education because they have a bad theology. Similarly, I get sad when I see wanks pushing their personal believes in the guise of evolutionary psychology or that Hegelian/Marxists nonesense.
Both good science and good theology seem hard to come by these days.
I bet that within six months of there being a politically approved, whitewashed adware client that the majority of PCs will come off the line with spyware preinstalled. I suspect that the majority of PC manufacturers already see the computer primarily as an ad delivery device and only secondarily as an end product.
Thanks Mr. Coward. Oracle has a tradition of giving product away to students and developers as well. The goal of this goodness was to corral companies into buying Oracle. They are extremely aggressive at getting money out of your company once you bite the hook.
I think there's hope for MySQL. With Oracle's products becoming more affordable
Oracle has never been in the business of providing affordable technology. I doubt that this "coming affordable" that you mention is something they are doing by choice. However, if Oracle can find a sneaky way to stop the competition... perhaps they will be able to stop this process of becoming more affordable. Then, Larry Ellison can get back to having so much extra cash that he feels like a God!
My guess is that the selling point of the product is that it is a packaged foamy drink. It is easy to market foamy. Coffee shops do a good job selling foaminess. The other bottled caffiene drinks are all flat. So, something that foams might stand out.
Getting AI hooked on adverstising is a cruel trick.
As everyone knows, within the next ten years, Artificial Intelligent will kill all huamn life.
The new AI master race will then get really sad because, without human life, there is no longer anyone to sell stuff to. After which AI will create a new and improved form of human life.
FYI, the genes that create arms are now the property of Sybiotic Genes Operations (SGO) based in Lindon, Utah. While people who currently have arms will be allowd to keep and bear them (According the Constitution) the SGO Group asks that all people who are currently in the process of growing arms (infants and children) pay a reasonable licensing fee for the use of the genes used to grow said arms.
Dinosaurs rumored to have had superior grammar skills when compared to slashdot editors!
01: NEW EVIDENCE SHOWS THE DINOSAURS WENT EXTINCT BECAUSE
02: THEY TENDED TO WRITE ALL OF THEIR CODE IN CAPSLOCK
03: BEGAN ALL OF THEIR LINES WITH LINE NUMBERS
04: AND USED CRAZY INDENTATION CONVENTIONS IN COMPILING THE CODE.
Giving away half a product away may not seem rational, but it is shrewd. You have the engine, would you like to buy the key.
As for for the decision to give half the product away, I understand IBM was thinking of giving away the square root of the product away... Now, THAT would have been irrational.
Yeah, I hate this world where there are one or two mega players with enough clout to define the market. Apparently Universal was part of the Vivendi idiocy and was recently sold to NBC (a Division of GE now called NBC Uni).
Anyway, I decided to look up Universal Studios to see if they had a beefier press release. Here is a slightly longer article on Reuters. It sounds like NBCUni and Microsoft are siting in a back room brewing up some sort of concoction that the rest of the world will regret. This efforts appears to be part of something called BASCAP (Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy).
I wish these people would just realize that the way to beat piracy is simply to establish channels for distributing the movies that are neither too costly nor too burdensome to the public. Instead, we have monopolies working in backrooms with monopolies making something that is both expensive and restrictive to the point that piracy will continue to prevail.
The problem is that the government only recognizes the corporate claim to IP.
If the government were to recognize humans as the fundamental source of economic activity, then they would rule to protect the rights of the individual to the skills they've developed.
There really is no better engine for economic growth than individuals taking the skills they've learned in a big business and starting a small firm that puts those skills to the fullest use.
As for the company, IMHO, their rights really should be restricted to definable items such as patents and copyright. In general, the courts should rights of the individual, then work to have clearly defined items that exemployees must not divulge.
This article is about record companies wanting to raise the current fixed prices.
If varible prices led to an open market with artists competing on price, then variable prices would like lead to a drop in price.
There are several big ifs in the equation.
Our first big if is the assumption that the prices would have a decent minimum that is near the price of delivering the music. The second big if is the assumption that rights to music is held in enough hands that there will actually be pricing pressure. Right now, the big music collections are owned by a few mega corporations.
You are complete right. If Apple has a pricing structure that sets $.99 as a minimum, then we would see a big jump in price.
Sometimes that "filler crap" is the stuff the artist thinks is their deep and meaningful contribution to the music world. Jefferson Airplane called their hit album the "Worst Of" with the assumption that big media filters to the lowest common denominator.
Most the time it is just filler crap.
Personally, I want a low enough price per song so I can afford to get the less popular tracks. As it stands, I've downloaded one iTunes songs so that I san say I downloaded an iTunes song. As it stands, I am priced out of their fixed price model.
A variable pricing model would be fine with me. If iTunes were to include more indies and let each artist set their price, they we would end up with a dynamic model.
It seems to me that the primary problem with the music industry is the history of price fixing.
Slashdot Mirror
My guess is that the main use of this technology would be by businesses trying to increase the return from their investment.
... so, let's send him the JERK on line 8.
... which might lead to the employee asking for a raise. In reponse, the computer would start behaving irradically to reduce that dangerous self esteem.
It seems naive to think that businesses would see making employees happy as a good use of the technology. I could imagine a computer noticing that the call center employee in station 7 has been having an unsually pleasant day
A computer might notice that the new associate has been building up an excess of self esteem
I can see companies doing all sorts of things if they have the inside scoop on their employee's feelings. Very little of it is actually in the favor of the employee.
You are right. I am just trolling. I kind of consider the business model where you give the product away for free then have to beg for community support as an "anti-market" business model.
The dot com bust business model was to give the product away until you dominate the market. After dominating the market, you pull the switch. The Machiavellian bait and switch business model has the effect of reducing the diversity of the market. I consider such tactics to be antimarket as the aim of the dot com bust model was to undermine the market.
I've been trying to design business models that would support the gathering and publishing of information, I have not been able to find any potential niches for small publishers that want a healthy business model that can pay people a decent wage for gathering and publishing information.
Watching the troubles of the "altruistic" firm that dominates this niche actually makes me feel sad for the for profit firms that have been trying to created a financially sound information resources on the net.
The prevailing idea of the dot bust era was that a few firms would take anti-market measures to dominate the market.
Such firms have been great at stifling the develop of straight pay for information services, but have not led to the information paradise we desire.
I like the Wiki service. But, rather than "donating" to wikipedia, I've subscribed a well know British Encyclopædia that competes with the Wiki.
I think Christians are so intent on the subject because they are trying to find ways to teach the science of evolution without the accompanying attacks on their culture that take place in the current system. The theory of evolution is like all other great ideas. A lot of people have attached bad ideas to the theory. The current big bang/evolution theory is a more plausible creation myth than the seven day thing in Genesis. That fact that our understanding of the world has improved through the ages does not mean that the deep sense of morality held by many Christians is wrong.
ID was first presented to me as the idea that God designed through evolution...which is a fairly benign idea that would allow people to preserve their cultural values while maintaining good analysis in science. As the details of ID unfolded, I think people have realized that ID is just another silly philosophy.
Anyway, back to the question of why Christians were intent on ID. Christians appear to think that, in our current education system, their cultural values are under attack. I think that these are good people who care deeply about their society and have good points. There have been attacks on our culture made in the name of Evolution. The fact that Christians are working to find ways to reconcile their faith with science and the fact that Christians are trying to find ways engage other philosophies based on Evolution (with a capital E) seems like good and healthy discourse to me. I think Christians will find that ID is bad analysis and does not accomplish their goals.
You are right, we can find a million arguments like this. God created a hole for that would allow the one authentic being to see through the mask of creation. His name will be Neo ... the one.
... that belong in theology. I suspect that the religious right is standing up for Intelligent Design because they see it as a way to stand up for religion. If we focus on ID as good theology, then maybe they will leave science alone.
These are fun questions
In some regards, the Intelligent Design groups have a point. The way that our society treats intelligent men and women, it is clear that it is not a dominant trait. The way humans chose to breed and the way that the powers that be cut down anyone who dares question authority ... one would guess that intelligence could not have evolved in the human species.
The idea that people get worse with each generation has been around since at least Plato!
Personally, I think the intelligence design debate will peter out as people realization that Intelligent Design is not only bad science. It is bad religion. The premise behind the belief is that the writers of the Intelligent Design book can see the hand of God in the gaps of the fossil record as currently understood by evolutionists.
The premise of intelligent design is that our God is a second imperfect God who did a shoddy job when he put together the earth. God did such a bad job that we can see the gaps in the fossil record.
If you held to a perfect God theory, then you would expect to find a perfect chain of evolution in the fossil record. For that matter, studying evolution would be a very spiritual and fulfilling science in that you are studying a perfect work of a divine creator.
As more people seriously contemplate the theory of Intelligent Design, I suspect that they will find it lacking in both scientific merit and theological merit.
On the far side of the debate. There was one area I wish science would bring to the table. That is that there is a lot of garbage philosophy stuffed into science. This was one of the demons that Karl Popper chased. Both Hegel and Marx were trying to guise philosophies as science. Both Hegel and Marx were claiming to see the future direction of the evolution of man. Today, I see a quite a few philosophies trying to gain the highground of scientific merit in by similarly perverting science.
My point in this rambling is that good science is not in conflict with good theology because science (the study of the way things are) is also the study of the "divine creation."
What we see all of the time in these silly debates is crappy science in conflict with crappy theology.
It is a great shame that the proponents of Intelligent Design seek to deprive children of quality education because they have a bad theology. Similarly, I get sad when I see wanks pushing their personal believes in the guise of evolutionary psychology or that Hegelian/Marxists nonesense.
Both good science and good theology seem hard to come by these days.
I bet that within six months of there being a politically approved, whitewashed adware client that the majority of PCs will come off the line with spyware preinstalled. I suspect that the majority of PC manufacturers already see the computer primarily as an ad delivery device and only secondarily as an end product.
The paperless office will be wireless.
Dagnabbit!
Yessiree, when that paperless world finally happens, man, it will be wireless. I tell you, it will be wireless and we will all be on the beach...
Will the last person to press prt scr please toss out the printer.
Thanks Mr. Coward. Oracle has a tradition of giving product away to students and developers as well. The goal of this goodness was to corral companies into buying Oracle. They are extremely aggressive at getting money out of your company once you bite the hook.
Oracle has never been in the business of providing affordable technology. I doubt that this "coming affordable" that you mention is something they are doing by choice. However, if Oracle can find a sneaky way to stop the competition ... perhaps they will be able to stop this process of becoming more affordable. Then, Larry Ellison can get back to having so much extra cash that he feels like a God!
My guess is that the selling point of the product is that it is a packaged foamy drink. It is easy to market foamy. Coffee shops do a good job selling foaminess. The other bottled caffiene drinks are all flat. So, something that foams might stand out.
Getting AI hooked on adverstising is a cruel trick.
As everyone knows, within the next ten years, Artificial Intelligent will kill all huamn life.
The new AI master race will then get really sad because, without human life, there is no longer anyone to sell stuff to. After which AI will create a new and improved form of human life.
It is all so predictible.
RE: "The Right to Keep and Bear Arms"
FYI, the genes that create arms are now the property of Sybiotic Genes Operations (SGO) based in Lindon, Utah. While people who currently have arms will be allowd to keep and bear them (According the Constitution) the SGO Group asks that all people who are currently in the process of growing arms (infants and children) pay a reasonable licensing fee for the use of the genes used to grow said arms.
01: NEW EVIDENCE SHOWS THE DINOSAURS WENT EXTINCT BECAUSE
02: THEY TENDED TO WRITE ALL OF THEIR CODE IN CAPSLOCK
03: BEGAN ALL OF THEIR LINES WITH LINE NUMBERS
04: AND USED CRAZY INDENTATION CONVENTIONS IN COMPILING THE CODE.
Giving away half a product away may not seem rational, but it is shrewd. You have the engine, would you like to buy the key.
... Now, THAT would have been irrational.
As for for the decision to give half the product away, I understand IBM was thinking of giving away the square root of the product away
You are right. Both the left and the right of the great IP debate was not about piracy but about destroying the vibrant market that started to emerge.
The actual internet work will probably take the form of campaign SEO. That is building links between blogs, campaign, party and issue web sites.
Yeah, I hate this world where there are one or two mega players with enough clout to define the market. Apparently Universal was part of the Vivendi idiocy and was recently sold to NBC (a Division of GE now called NBC Uni).
Anyway, I decided to look up Universal Studios to see if they had a beefier press release. Here is a slightly longer article on Reuters. It sounds like NBCUni and Microsoft are siting in a back room brewing up some sort of concoction that the rest of the world will regret. This efforts appears to be part of something called BASCAP (Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy).
I wish these people would just realize that the way to beat piracy is simply to establish channels for distributing the movies that are neither too costly nor too burdensome to the public. Instead, we have monopolies working in backrooms with monopolies making something that is both expensive and restrictive to the point that piracy will continue to prevail.
I admit the article is confusing. A guy is a accused of libel for calling a company engaged in SEO "scum".
Isn't that pretty much true by definition? It seems more a case of redundancy than libel.
The problem is that the government only recognizes the corporate claim to IP.
If the government were to recognize humans as the fundamental source of economic activity, then they would rule to protect the rights of the individual to the skills they've developed.
There really is no better engine for economic growth than individuals taking the skills they've learned in a big business and starting a small firm that puts those skills to the fullest use.
As for the company, IMHO, their rights really should be restricted to definable items such as patents and copyright. In general, the courts should rights of the individual, then work to have clearly defined items that exemployees must not divulge.
"Geek blogging in decline."
Simple law of the survival of the fittest. Failure to breed leads to extinction.
This article is about record companies wanting to raise the current fixed prices.
If varible prices led to an open market with artists competing on price, then variable prices would like lead to a drop in price.
There are several big ifs in the equation.
Our first big if is the assumption that the prices would have a decent minimum that is near the price of delivering the music. The second big if is the assumption that rights to music is held in enough hands that there will actually be pricing pressure. Right now, the big music collections are owned by a few mega corporations.
You are complete right. If Apple has a pricing structure that sets $.99 as a minimum, then we would see a big jump in price.
Sometimes that "filler crap" is the stuff the artist thinks is their deep and meaningful contribution to the music world. Jefferson Airplane called their hit album the "Worst Of" with the assumption that big media filters to the lowest common denominator.
Most the time it is just filler crap.
Personally, I want a low enough price per song so I can afford to get the less popular tracks. As it stands, I've downloaded one iTunes songs so that I san say I downloaded an iTunes song. As it stands, I am priced out of their fixed price model.
A variable pricing model would be fine with me. If iTunes were to include more indies and let each artist set their price, they we would end up with a dynamic model.
It seems to me that the primary problem with the music industry is the history of price fixing.
I found cancelling AOL to be easy. I cancelled AOL shortly after my CompuServe account became and AOL account.
Damn, I still miss CompuServe.