With their "he who does not work shall not eat" philosophy, I don't think the Reds are too keen on cradle to grave welfare either. Personally, I'd like to get a bit of that welfare for myself. Working sucks. The state I live in actually makes it really, really tough to get on the dole.
Actually most of the ebooks I've seen on P2P are either tech books like "Effective C++", or sci-fi. There is not much of a selection otherwise from what I've seen. I have most of William Gibson's writing in Ebook format. If only I had interest in reading it. They're too small to bother deleting. I guess I'm not a fan of the sci-fi genre. IMO, any book worth reading is worth reading on paper.
That is a myth. We may all be social animals to some degree, but there are vast differences between the ones who cannot stand to be alone even for an hour, who always need to be with other people (I have seen some extremely attractive girls who are like this), and others for whom one other person is more than enough social interaction.
Yeah. This is the really just the whole nature vs. nurture argument. I actually think it's a bit of both. I think some people are genetically predisposed to dis-valuing social situations and groups, but that life experiences can influence a person to enjoy being sociable more or less.
For instance, I kind of have this theory that at least some shy people are that way simply because they were/are unattractive physically. Attractive people would seem to get a kind of boost towards their enjoyment of social situations for obvious reasons.
Such choices are not really possible. An earlier post states the introvert's position quite clearly. You are probably an extrovert who used to be shy and not an introvert at all. An introvert is usually considered to be a person who *prefers* to not be with lots of people, who regards social situations as chores not as fun.
Do we still like girls? Yes. Can we get them. Certainly, and very attractive ones if we are attractive ourselves. The ideal life of an extrovert is to have very few, but highly valued human relationships. An SO, and maybe a couple of good friends.
I have asked extroverts why they felt the need to have so many friends and why they choose to spend almost all of their time in groups. Their answers have never satisfied me. I just don't really understand them and they don't understand me.
Re:What if we just don't like stupidity?
on
The Introvert Advantage
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Introverted computer geeks love to assume that they are smarter than folks who enjoy American Idol and other shows. A higher breed, or something.
Not just introverts. Pretty much anyone who doesn't watch those shows assumes that those who do are "stupid" in some difficult (not textbook IQ) to define way. Do you think that the only people who think those shows are "stupid" are introverts? Most prime time television is designed for those who like to check their brains at the door. I doubt if you are immune to these assumptions. There must be some shows that would lower your opinion of the viewer if you saw them watching it.
Interesting. I wonder how common it is for introverts to dislike "people in general". Personally, I tend to dislike people when they are in groups. Group-think and group-speak are not my cup of tea. I find that extroverts are somewhat more likely to respond as a group might even when they are alone. Pretty weird stuff.
But if there is no aether, doesn't that mean that non-propellant based space travel and thus human lifespan (assuming the current 100 year limits) interstellar space travel will remain forever, and eternally beyond our reach? Of course, the universe makes its own rules, but it does kind of suck.
Wow are you an optimist! Two or three decades. You're even more optimistic than the Star Trek writers. We will be lucky to have "replicators" in two or three millennia. You might want to learn a bit about the history and principles of real science instead of science fiction before you make such statements. Would you mind if I were to ask you how old you are? Somehow I'm willing to bet that you are young enough to believe that you will be alive to see these miraculous machines yourself.
Note that such things will likely come *after* HAL, interstellar travel, and perhaps even relativistic time machines. Frankly, I'm still waiting for 2001.
The benefits of Linux and *BSD OSes for the average user is in their stability, far greater than any feature-bloated flavor of the week OS that Bill Gates has come up with. Believe me, as a Win98 user, I know of what I speak. I feel lucky when I can shut down my computer without it crashing into oblivion. Yes I know the NT/2K/XP kernel is more stable, but still not as rock stable as most Linux or BSD releases. Windows is only more user friendly while it is still working.
Actually 40 clicks over might be considered "reckless driving" a far different and more serious "crime" than mere speeding, although I don't think they enforce that one very often. I've been stopped at nearly 100MPH, without receiving a citation for "reckless driving", just a hefty speeding fine, not that it's anything compared to what the RIAA is asking for sharing just one song.
OTOH, it feels pretty good to be one of a vast mob, attacking this huge, ugly, behemoth. Even if your analysis is correct and it is in fact helping them, that is not how they see it. They view it as stealing from them, which makes me feel pretty good about doing it (even though I don't regard it as actually stealing). It makes me feel even better to help others do the same, which is why I like to be generous with my upstream bandwidth:).
I simply want to hurt the RIAA in any way I can and I already do not buy any of their products. I see offering others RIAA MP3s as a way of encouraging them not to buy RIAA products either.
I realize that by introducing others to potentially undiscovered RIAA music I could actually be increasing their sales, but my hope is that that is more than offset by non-purchases due to the insanely high cost of their CDs vs. the MP3s I offer for free. All I can do is try.
I would tend to agree that the copyright period on certain works of art should be longer, especially if these "rights" are not sold off to the highest bidder. Perhaps copyright should simply be non-transferable, period. Perhaps it should only apply to the original artist/creator. I tend to agree that copyrights on media such as books and photographs could reasonably remain for the life of the creator. Any further just seems completely absurd however. Personally, I think an inverse relationship between copyright length and industry profitability make some sense. Artists that gain vast riches should have shorter copyrights than those that acquire less from the societal construct we call "copyright".
I believe that copyrights on music have been completely abused and the system as it exists is ridiculous. As with our absurd patent system, the copyrights on music are in need of some serious reform to tip the balance more in favor of the public.
Copyright violation is not theft in any sense. Copyrights are clearly an artificial construct to balance the needs of both artist and society. When it comes to music, we just need a bit of re-balancing.
As well as well as the rest of their material goods and 2/3 of every paycheck for the remainder of their lives. Time to buy some record company stock:). Looks like they have finally adopted a new business model. And lawyers figure prominently in it.
Actually I have downloaded some O'Reilly books as large text files. This would certainly not stop me from buying the actual book. In fact, it might make it more likely. I don't think book publishers will ever be threatened by non-commercial copyright violation due to most of us strongly preferring text clearly printed on some nice thick paper. Book publishers produce a genuine physical product that has value in itself.
Even so, book publishers have almost certainly lost sales due to the existence of libraries, but you don't see them complaining or buying off politicians to make them illegal (as has been done with CD rentals). They learn to live with it and just accept that some people are going to be able to get their product for free.
MP3s (especially at the most common bitrates) are a far inferior product to the original pressed redbook CD. They are not equal in any sense. I think this makes the comparison with a physical book made from trees and an electronic text file a somewhat valid one. Perhaps you can justify the illegality of file sharing (although I don't find the arguments terribly convincing), but I don't see how one can justify the illegality of CD rentals or a "CD library" of some kind.
Make no mistake. If the RIAA is succesful in their campaign against file sharing, their next battle will be a law to outlaw the sale of used CDs. Especially if the used market starts to explode after file sharing is reduced.
Drug patents make an interesting comparison in this respect I think. I am currently waiting for a couple of different drug patents to expire so that the companies will finally release some of the newer drugs or at least a slightly more effective variety of the same drug.
There has been some very interesting research that I have been following, but human trials have been put off indefinitely because they see no reason to invest funds into a market that is already very profitable for them.
One drug patent expires in 2008. I am certain that the next new development will only be released at that time. I am sure this is a common pattern. I realize that pharmaceutical companies need to make money to fund their research. It's just too bad that it's at the expense of future developments because they do not want to start competing with their current cash cows by introducing something new and better.
I hate to imagine what our drug markets would look like if drug patents never expired. I suspect that pretty much all research would stop on any disease for which we already had at least one treatment. Why innovate if the new patented drug will not sell for any more than the old one? It could even be considered irresponsible to the shareholders to do so.
This seems like a really bad idea to me. Why doesn't he just design a few different types of cars and leave it at that. The whole idea of a "custom" car seems ludicrous to me. He should just design and build the best cars he can for the lowest price that he can.
What the market really needs is a truly beautiful shell for a relatively low price with a choice of engine sizes ranging from small and fuel efficient to 12 cylinder twin turbo monsters.
Most of the companies building good looking cars, also charge prices that most of us cannot afford. I don't see any reason why this has to be so.
Still it makes me uncomfortable to see our tax dollars going towards analyzing Microsoft products for security holes. I wonder how many HS employees are devoted to network security and Microsoft vulnerabilities.
Of course, we all know that "hackers" are the number one threat to our security, not terrorist WMD plots. Now that like 70% of FBI resources are devoted to "computer crime", it's only natural for other segments of our very sensible government to follow suit. God knows our entire society would just collapse if we couldn't use the internet for a day because of some "terrorist created" virus/worm. Needless to say the term "terrorist" now really means "computer hacker".
Well I have a madonna MP3 that I'd be willing to let go for only $12,500 if you're interested. As you say it's worth a lot more than that so contact me if you're interested in this deal.
More like sketching something with dust on it. I am picturing you breaking into a house with a block of clay and a portable furnace and re-creating an exact copy of a valuable chinese vase or bringing a canvas and paint and painting an exact copy of a valuable painting without so much as touching the original.
Thanks. That's exactly the phrase I was thinking of while reading this. However isn't it "Killing a chicken to scare the monkeys"? I wasn't sure if it was "killing a monkey to scare the chickens". I wonder if a bullet in the neck is still the penalty for prostitution in China.
Just because it's art doesn't mean that people can't expect to be compensated for it.
It also doesn't mean they can. When a painter creates a work on a canvas, he does not expect to instantly sell 500,000 copies of it. The advantage of creating something unique that can also be copied is that all that multiplication can add up to a lot of money. But this particular sword is sharp on both edges. Money is both an advantage and a limitation of this medium.
Actually the work *is* scarce until the artist intentionally makes hundreds of thousands of copies of it to spread far and wide. As soon as the first copy is made and released to the public the artist has lost this scarcity.
Slashdot Mirror
With their "he who does not work shall not eat" philosophy, I don't think the Reds are too keen on cradle to grave welfare either. Personally, I'd like to get a bit of that welfare for myself. Working sucks. The state I live in actually makes it really, really tough to get on the dole.
Actually most of the ebooks I've seen on P2P are either tech books like "Effective C++", or sci-fi. There is not much of a selection otherwise from what I've seen. I have most of William Gibson's writing in Ebook format. If only I had interest in reading it. They're too small to bother deleting. I guess I'm not a fan of the sci-fi genre. IMO, any book worth reading is worth reading on paper.
That is a myth. We may all be social animals to some degree, but there are vast differences between the ones who cannot stand to be alone even for an hour, who always need to be with other people (I have seen some extremely attractive girls who are like this), and others for whom one other person is more than enough social interaction.
Yeah. This is the really just the whole nature vs. nurture argument. I actually think it's a bit of both. I think some people are genetically predisposed to dis-valuing social situations and groups, but that life experiences can influence a person to enjoy being sociable more or less.
For instance, I kind of have this theory that at least some shy people are that way simply because they were/are unattractive physically. Attractive people would seem to get a kind of boost towards their enjoyment of social situations for obvious reasons.
Such choices are not really possible. An earlier post states the introvert's position quite clearly. You are probably an extrovert who used to be shy and not an introvert at all. An introvert is usually considered to be a person who *prefers* to not be with lots of people, who regards social situations as chores not as fun.
Do we still like girls? Yes. Can we get them. Certainly, and very attractive ones if we are attractive ourselves. The ideal life of an extrovert is to have very few, but highly valued human relationships. An SO, and maybe a couple of good friends.
I have asked extroverts why they felt the need to have so many friends and why they choose to spend almost all of their time in groups. Their answers have never satisfied me. I just don't really understand them and they don't understand me.
Introverted computer geeks love to assume that they are smarter than folks who enjoy American Idol and other shows. A higher breed, or something.
Not just introverts. Pretty much anyone who doesn't watch those shows assumes that those who do are "stupid" in some difficult (not textbook IQ) to define way. Do you think that the only people who think those shows are "stupid" are introverts? Most prime time television is designed for those who like to check their brains at the door. I doubt if you are immune to these assumptions. There must be some shows that would lower your opinion of the viewer if you saw them watching it.
Interesting. I wonder how common it is for introverts to dislike "people in general". Personally, I tend to dislike people when they are in groups. Group-think and group-speak are not my cup of tea. I find that extroverts are somewhat more likely to respond as a group might even when they are alone. Pretty weird stuff.
But if there is no aether, doesn't that mean that non-propellant based space travel and thus human lifespan (assuming the current 100 year limits) interstellar space travel will remain forever, and eternally beyond our reach? Of course, the universe makes its own rules, but it does kind of suck.
Wow are you an optimist! Two or three decades. You're even more optimistic than the Star Trek writers. We will be lucky to have "replicators" in two or three millennia. You might want to learn a bit about the history and principles of real science instead of science fiction before you make such statements. Would you mind if I were to ask you how old you are? Somehow I'm willing to bet that you are young enough to believe that you will be alive to see these miraculous machines yourself.
Note that such things will likely come *after* HAL, interstellar travel, and perhaps even relativistic time machines. Frankly, I'm still waiting for 2001.
The benefits of Linux and *BSD OSes for the average user is in their stability, far greater than any feature-bloated flavor of the week OS that Bill Gates has come up with. Believe me, as a Win98 user, I know of what I speak. I feel lucky when I can shut down my computer without it crashing into oblivion. Yes I know the NT/2K/XP kernel is more stable, but still not as rock stable as most Linux or BSD releases. Windows is only more user friendly while it is still working.
Actually 40 clicks over might be considered "reckless driving" a far different and more serious "crime" than mere speeding, although I don't think they enforce that one very often. I've been stopped at nearly 100MPH, without receiving a citation for "reckless driving", just a hefty speeding fine, not that it's anything compared to what the RIAA is asking for sharing just one song.
OTOH, it feels pretty good to be one of a vast mob, attacking this huge, ugly, behemoth. Even if your analysis is correct and it is in fact helping them, that is not how they see it. They view it as stealing from them, which makes me feel pretty good about doing it (even though I don't regard it as actually stealing). It makes me feel even better to help others do the same, which is why I like to be generous with my upstream bandwidth :).
I simply want to hurt the RIAA in any way I can and I already do not buy any of their products. I see offering others RIAA MP3s as a way of encouraging them not to buy RIAA products either.
I realize that by introducing others to potentially undiscovered RIAA music I could actually be increasing their sales, but my hope is that that is more than offset by non-purchases due to the insanely high cost of their CDs vs. the MP3s I offer for free. All I can do is try.
I would tend to agree that the copyright period on certain works of art should be longer, especially if these "rights" are not sold off to the highest bidder. Perhaps copyright should simply be non-transferable, period. Perhaps it should only apply to the original artist/creator. I tend to agree that copyrights on media such as books and photographs could reasonably remain for the life of the creator. Any further just seems completely absurd however. Personally, I think an inverse relationship between copyright length and industry profitability make some sense. Artists that gain vast riches should have shorter copyrights than those that acquire less from the societal construct we call "copyright".
I believe that copyrights on music have been completely abused and the system as it exists is ridiculous. As with our absurd patent system, the copyrights on music are in need of some serious reform to tip the balance more in favor of the public.
Copyright violation is not theft in any sense. Copyrights are clearly an artificial construct to balance the needs of both artist and society. When it comes to music, we just need a bit of re-balancing.
and taking their computer away
:). Looks like they have finally adopted a new business model. And lawyers figure prominently in it.
As well as well as the rest of their material goods and 2/3 of every paycheck for the remainder of their lives. Time to buy some record company stock
Actually I have downloaded some O'Reilly books as large text files. This would certainly not stop me from buying the actual book. In fact, it might make it more likely. I don't think book publishers will ever be threatened by non-commercial copyright violation due to most of us strongly preferring text clearly printed on some nice thick paper. Book publishers produce a genuine physical product that has value in itself.
Even so, book publishers have almost certainly lost sales due to the existence of libraries, but you don't see them complaining or buying off politicians to make them illegal (as has been done with CD rentals). They learn to live with it and just accept that some people are going to be able to get their product for free.
MP3s (especially at the most common bitrates) are a far inferior product to the original pressed redbook CD. They are not equal in any sense. I think this makes the comparison with a physical book made from trees and an electronic text file a somewhat valid one. Perhaps you can justify the illegality of file sharing (although I don't find the arguments terribly convincing), but I don't see how one can justify the illegality of CD rentals or a "CD library" of some kind.
Make no mistake. If the RIAA is succesful in their campaign against file sharing, their next battle will be a law to outlaw the sale of used CDs. Especially if the used market starts to explode after file sharing is reduced.
Is Felix the Cat considered old?
Drug patents make an interesting comparison in this respect I think. I am currently waiting for a couple of different drug patents to expire so that the companies will finally release some of the newer drugs or at least a slightly more effective variety of the same drug.
There has been some very interesting research that I have been following, but human trials have been put off indefinitely because they see no reason to invest funds into a market that is already very profitable for them.
One drug patent expires in 2008. I am certain that the next new development will only be released at that time. I am sure this is a common pattern. I realize that pharmaceutical companies need to make money to fund their research. It's just too bad that it's at the expense of future developments because they do not want to start competing with their current cash cows by introducing something new and better.
I hate to imagine what our drug markets would look like if drug patents never expired. I suspect that pretty much all research would stop on any disease for which we already had at least one treatment. Why innovate if the new patented drug will not sell for any more than the old one? It could even be considered irresponsible to the shareholders to do so.
This seems like a really bad idea to me. Why doesn't he just design a few different types of cars and leave it at that. The whole idea of a "custom" car seems ludicrous to me. He should just design and build the best cars he can for the lowest price that he can.
What the market really needs is a truly beautiful shell for a relatively low price with a choice of engine sizes ranging from small and fuel efficient to 12 cylinder twin turbo monsters.
Most of the companies building good looking cars, also charge prices that most of us cannot afford. I don't see any reason why this has to be so.
Still it makes me uncomfortable to see our tax dollars going towards analyzing Microsoft products for security holes. I wonder how many HS employees are devoted to network security and Microsoft vulnerabilities.
Of course, we all know that "hackers" are the number one threat to our security, not terrorist WMD plots. Now that like 70% of FBI resources are devoted to "computer crime", it's only natural for other segments of our very sensible government to follow suit. God knows our entire society would just collapse if we couldn't use the internet for a day because of some "terrorist created" virus/worm. Needless to say the term "terrorist" now really means "computer hacker".
Well I have a madonna MP3 that I'd be willing to let go for only $12,500 if you're interested. As you say it's worth a lot more than that so contact me if you're interested in this deal.
More like sketching something with dust on it. I am picturing you breaking into a house with a block of clay and a portable furnace and re-creating an exact copy of a valuable chinese vase or bringing a canvas and paint and painting an exact copy of a valuable painting without so much as touching the original.
Thanks. That's exactly the phrase I was thinking of while reading this. However isn't it "Killing a chicken to scare the monkeys"? I wasn't sure if it was "killing a monkey to scare the chickens". I wonder if a bullet in the neck is still the penalty for prostitution in China.
I guess you don't listen to pop music very much.
Just because it's art doesn't mean that people can't expect to be compensated for it.
It also doesn't mean they can. When a painter creates a work on a canvas, he does not expect to instantly sell 500,000 copies of it. The advantage of creating something unique that can also be copied is that all that multiplication can add up to a lot of money. But this particular sword is sharp on both edges. Money is both an advantage and a limitation of this medium.
Actually the work *is* scarce until the artist intentionally makes hundreds of thousands of copies of it to spread far and wide. As soon as the first copy is made and released to the public the artist has lost this scarcity.