How an industry claims loss of revenue when they report record earnings is the real problem here. Record companies are making more money this year than last year. Where is this loss of revenue caused by the Internet?.
Can we stop trying to use this point as a rebuttal? The fact is that the record industry was posting increasing profits before Napster came into effect as well.
While they posted record revenues, the question is unexplored of how much higher their revenues would have been without Napster.
All this point does is show that people are buying more music. When you consider that the economy is increasing, there is no cause-effect correlation that you can verify here.
I look at Jon Katz articles posted here as trial runs for articles that are going to appear in less technical publications, like maybe Rolling Stone. By putting them here, he gets technical people to look at the article and help him clean up the technical flaws.
I don't know why I didn't think of it before, but to me it sounds like you're bang on, Phil. Slashdot is Katz' unpaid coterie of technical editors, all he has to do is ignore some verbal abuse every week and he gets his article looked at by a number of technical professionals.
Getting to the article itself, obtaining music is not a "right" of anyone. Just because people have been doing it for a while doesn't mean it's a right. Tradition, okay, but right? Somehow I think "getting music free" shouldn't be anywhere near "free speech", "due process", or "jury of peers".
Also, Katz' may want to point out that there already are sites which sell songs for a buck or so, with payments split between the label/artists and the sites. The business model is out there. It's not making money yet (in large part due to Napster & similar) but everybody should show these sites support.
e-Music is the one I use. 20 bucks for a month of no limit music leeching, plus I know that the artists are still getting something. Not all the labels/bands that I'd like, but a fair number. Do a search and find one that works for you.
For one, I'm glad the Judge has stayed the punishments. Not because I don't believe MS deserves to get punished, but because this action puts a great big hole in MS's cries of how the judge has been biased against them since day one.
It's a little hard for MS to go to the appeals court and claim that Jackson's had it in for them all along when he's stayed the decision that would split them up.
Very canny move, I think.
However, I am surprised that he's trying to toss it up to the Supreme Court after the Court of Appeals made their eagerness to take it so obvious. The stated reasons he gives are certainly valid, but I'm thinking he's hoping that the Supreme Court might look a little askance on how fast Appeals jumped on this.
All in all, I'm quite impressed with the way Jackson's handled the whole thing. He's had them slip the knot twice now, it looks like he's making sure that won't happen again.
Damn straight they're spoiled compared to 100 years ago..
Whatever happened to the days when we could get a worker and pay him 36 cents for an 18 hour day. Man, they're all just lazy bastards today. Useta be they'd sell you their 12 year olds and be happy to do it too, if it meant they got food on their table. Makes you wish we could go back to the good old days.
Now that I've got that bit of vitriol out of my system..
Take a look at before the industrial revolution. Yes, farmers would put in 14-15 hour days come harvest season, but that was generally only for a month or two throughout the year. The Holy Days actually came very close to the number of "working" days.
And if you're looking at how many parents sacrifice their children, maybe you should also look at how many parents don't have a choice if they simply want to provide a decent meal three times a day to their kids.
I'll agree that there's a lot of "Beat the Joneses" attitude out there, but you can't say that this attitude isn't fostered and encouraged by the political-economic system that's currently in place.
No, you're wrong. Significant parts of the remedy take effect exactly 90 days from now. Make no mistake about it: In 90 days they're putting the handcuffs on Microsoft and marching them off to jail.
Except, of course, that MS is filing a stay on this order to prevent it from happening before the appeals process is over.
We may well see nothing change for a year or two.
Now, if the order DOES go through.. Microsoft has to keep every e-mail they recieve. I propose the following:
Subject: DOJ Ignore this ####### Server Filler Body: This is message ####### which is used as server filler and to be sure that MS is keeping all e-mail. A list of all the numbers sent can be provided upon request.
Please mail such requests to:
Send a few million of those with a random number on each one, and keep a list of the numbers somewhere.
assigning these resources owners would give us a true capitalistic system, in which none of the things signal 11 mentioned would happen.
corporations could not use every last drop of water or cut down every tree, because they would not have any left. instead, they would be required to plan to keep themselves alive, and we would see some systems that are already in effect become more common (eg growing saplings and planting them as new trees where old trees have been cut down).
Unfortunately, the problem with simply granting ownership and hoping that the solutions will appear is that it neglects the two facts that:
The environment is not made up of discrete systems; and
The difficulty of assigning worth to an interrelated system.
Consider: Forest Company uses up the timber on its plot of land in a non-sustainable manner. They proceed over to their neighbor and offer a large sum of money gained from not worrying about environmental costs. The owner sells, since if he doesn't, his neighbor might and he'll gain nothing. Forest Company then repeats this process.
Of course, eventually, the owners of the land not already purchased by Forest Company realize just how much their land is worth, and Forest Company finds it's now cheaper to try sustainable methods than to purchase new land.
Unfortunately, by this time the forest ecology doesn't have enough land/diversity to properly sustain itself.. so now *everybody* loses.
This may not happen, as the early owners may happen to realize their property's true worth - but this is hardly guarunteed.
And besides this, assigning private ownership to a chunk of land (or ocean) does not guaruntee that poaching will not occur. There have already been a number of unfriendly incidents based on some countries fishing other countries' waters.
Convergence is what the big boys are striving for. Convergence is what they're going to get.
Your broadcast picture will only take up 70% of the screen, but the screen'll be twice as big, so that's okay. The other 30% will be the side and bottom-bars (ala home shopping networks)
You'll point your remote at the TV and be able to maneuver a small cross-hair around on the screen. Like the outfit that Britney Spears is wearing? Point at it and click your INFO button. On the sidebar you'll be able to see that dress, modify it's color and size (and perhaps style somewhat) and hit your buy button.
The bottom bar will pop up a number of payment options, as well as a listing of accessories that the system conclude you'll be >70% likely to purchase, according to your total profile that's stored in the combined database of everywhere you've shopped and every survey you've filled in.
Hit your BUY button - deliver is all taken care of.. except..
You decide though that you want to go the party across town, so you hit the "To Go" button, grab your things and head out. In the ultra-compact vehicle, you hit your approximate destination on the touch screen of your car, and say "Party" since it's not one of your regular destinations. The system references the map point you touched with your e-mail looking for a Party at about this time to give you a HUD of the exact address of your destination. Your party dress should be waiting by the time you get there.
On the way, you notice the destination address change. The system had too many responses so had to move the party to a larger location. The route on your screen-map changes accordingly from where you are now. There's now a cover charge. Do you want to proceed? Tapping the yes button on the map, the charge is deducted from your credit and your watch and sunglasses are provided with the entry code - your purse isn't because you had decided you didn't need it so left it at home.
You arrive at the party and your car directs you to a reasonable parking spot - the billboard in front of it is of course advertising the party sponsor - which by the way has a great sale on perfume you might want to try; simply hit the yes button in your car and it'll be added to your account and put with your dress delivery which is waiting for you in slot 21B inside the main foyer.
The party, like life, is great.
Of course.. you're one of the "in" crowd. You don't have any nasty habits people might be offended at, no real opinions on any issue beyond the next fashion craze, and if there's some people who are cut out of the system and starving just outside the wall, what business is it of yours? They could've grabbed a data-mining job just like you did. They certainly didn't need to go around spouting off about how this company or that company is abusing people. They deserve what they get for trying to make life unhappy, right?
Additionally.. there are a bunch of games already out there that have been written in Java, and you can easily pick up a Java Decompiler and let your kids mess with code that's already been built.
Personally, I'd recommend teaching an object oriented language first.
Don't get them started on the procedural path for a number of reasons:
1. It's slowly dying out. 2. It's a lot easier to grasp procedural after OO than the reverse. (since any OO language can be reduced to a procedural language.) 3. There's no reason to follow an evolutionary path. Just because we did things in a certain order doesn't mean our kids have to repeat our mistakes. 4. OO languages almost force a better methodology when designing code. 5. If your kids program some good ideas in an OO language, they're easy to steal for work.:-)
Kids don't need to understand why a language is done a certain way. If they want to know, they'll ask, but there's no reason to teach them hieroglyphs and then move on to the alphabet so that they'll understand why the alphabet is used instead now.
Give'em the most advanced tools available. Give'em something they can get immediate results from. Give'em something that doesn't teach bad habits for the future.
Unfortunately, it seems right now that nobody in charge of developing SDMI has an eye out for anything beyond profitability.
The big worry they have developing a reasonable SDMI is controlling redistribution.
Personally, I think if they simply started charging reasonable prices per song (85 cents a song? 25 cents per minute of music?) and worked out a convenient way to implement the charge - their worries about redistribution would fade to the level of bootlegs, if not smaller.
(Here that, RIAA? Lobby for micropayment legislation, not DMCA - it's a win-win situation for you)
The scale it becomes unethical at is when you're giving tapes out to people you don't know and won't get to know. As long as its restricted to your circle of friends, there is a limit as to how far its going to go, and there also is more of a sense of responsibility - your friend gave this to you. You know it's not legit, there's no way you can pretend its legit, and there's that slight moral wiggle in there that may one day encourage you to actually buy one of the albums. If not this one, then maybe the next one - if for no other reason than so you can return the favor to your friend.
You get the song from some anonymous source be it Napster or some incredibly rich guy with a poor sense of values, there's less of a moral connection. "Hey, he was giving it to everybody. It's not just me.." and hence less compunction to eventually purchase. "I'll just wait til the rich guy gets it..."
Unfortunately, I don't have the link, but if you go through the "Your Rights On Slashdot" you should be able to find his response to this in his submission to court.
If I remember correctly, it goes along the lines that even if the "A href" tag isn't there, some browser software will recgonize the format of a URL and make it into a link automatically.
And he proceeds to argue that to ban putting the URL onsite is obviously against the first amendment.
KWiL (why does hitting return automatically submit? It should automatically preview)
>We need a conscious civilization that acknowledges individualism as a basic human right.
I'm not quite sure I understand the idea of "conscious civilization." Is this some kind of uber-mind, or statement that someone, society - civilization - is more than a collection of individuals, and can have a consciousness unto itself?
No. It's a generic term used by some people smarter than me to signify the idea that most of the individuals/people living in our society and civilization are unaware, or as one could say, unconscious, of the various forces that work to shape their decisions.
>2. We should acknowledge that economics matters (a lot), but it can't be society's only common goal. Nothing could be more morally bankrupt than
Does the idea of a bunch of societal "common goals" seem to be totally contradictory to any form of individualism? Doesn't, rather individualism mean that each person is an end in and of themself, rather than just a cog in some "common goal"?
Yes. However, there is nothing to say that I can not be an individual while still sharing with you and others around me some common beliefs, thoughts, and goals. As people will form groups based on these, we will find there are many sub-sets of society with different common goals. The key is to not allow any of them to supersede all others (which is what I believe Jon is suggesting is happening today. The common goal of 'profit' is wiping out all others.
>markets are important, but corporate entities should also embrace moral and ideological values -- of their own choosing --apart from pleasing stockholders
... Or, is what you're trying to say is that corporate entities should embrace "moral and idological values - of their own choosing", at least, so long as it fits into your own preset notions?
I don't believe that's what being said at all. In the current system, corporations are often hamstrung from wanting to pursue moral and ideological values by the commonly held notion that if you're not growing, you're dead. These corporations, if they are to continue operation, must continue to grow and provide benefits for the shareholders - and if moral or ideological considerations get in the way of that, they are punished for it, not only in lowered stock prices, but by lowered lines of credit and less exposure to the public in the media.
I don't see Jon as suggesting that if pure profit is the be-all and end-all of a company it shouldn't be allowed to pursue that, but rather that other options should at least be viable ones. This of course requires a concious effort on the part of the individualists to support those corporations that are not purely profit-centric. Currently, this task is made more difficult by the media conglomerates which control the access to the useful information about who is doing what.
Case in point - how often do we hear in the news about non-profit organizations that are actively working to make the world a better place - apart from when they buy their own air time? Now how often do we hear about the companies making the biggest profits? How often do we hear about the smaller companies making ethical, humane, and environmentally conscious decisions? Heck, how often do we hear about the decisions any company makes if it's not directly related to the bottom line? We hear all about various mergers going on - but we never hear about the real human effects that those mergers have. Were people laid off from AOL/Time Warner merging? Were wages/benefits affected? Were other companies forced out of business, their employees now all having to find other employment?
>3. Individualism values a humane workplace.
Individualism is an entity, now? This is as contradictory to any real form of individualism as referring to the State as an entity. I'd jsut love to see Mr. Katz's response if the goverment were to say, "The State values a humane workplace for it's little pawns."
You're getting confused in semantics. Jon has previously stated the notion of recognizing individualism as a real movement. Therefore, yes, individualism is an entity, similar to how a corporation, the state (as a collective group of people who agree to relinquish certain freedoms in order to ensure others), a society, or a civilization is an entity. An entity need not be physical in order to exist.
>Workers are entitled to safe, creative and secure work environments, to freedom from continuous downsizings, re-structurings, layoffs and "re-engineerings."
Entitled to... at cost to whom? Is this still an "entitlement," even if it involves sacrificing other individuals - the company owners - to supply these "entitlments"?
At cost to those who can most afford it. If it involves sacrificing the company owner's second new BMW in three years to ensure that no worker is reduced to a level where they cannot afford their mortgage? I don't see how you can argue with that. Look at wealth concentration statistics. There is *more* than enough wealth present in the United States to ensure that every single citizen in it need never worry about food or shelter. Shouldn't this be a priority in any group of "civilized" people? More of a priority than getting that new swimming pool?
>Though these practices unquestionably benefit the economy, they're rough on humanity.
No rougher on humanity than a weak economy...
Humanity will survive a weak economy. Humanity will not survive itself if it continues with a profit 'uber-alles' mentality.
>4. Individualists celebrate, cherish and support non-conformity.
Non-conformity as a value in and of itself is one of the largest farces ever foisted upon the world....
This I tend to agree with. A better way to say it would have been that Individualists do not denigrate, condemn, or work against non-conformity.
1. Made computers easy to use. You're assuming that if it weren't for Microsoft, we wouldn't have had a GUI. Unfortunately, you're missing the several other manufacturers that MS drove out of business with (among others) tactics such as specifically programming Windows to crash if an alternate OS was present (see DR.DOS), FUD, Vaporware announcements, and predatory hiring practices. (Apocryphal story of a programmer for a rival firm refusing MS's offer to hire as he did not want to move to Redmond due to his wife's pregnancy. MS countered by offering a large bonus on top on the condition that the programmer merely stop working at the rival firm until such time as he felt able to move to Redmond and begin working for MS.)
Other systems (Amiga, NeXT, Atari, Apple) all had GUI's. Admitted most had some other problems generally to do with lack of scale or marketing - but MS was not above dirty tactics to remove them entirely.
2. Started the Internet revolution. And Netscape was doing what? Microsoft was *behind* Netscape at the start of the Internet Revolution. Only through such things as automatic bundling and coercive tactics on large ISP's did they manage to catch up.
3. Constantly improved their product. When all you've got is crap, it's not that hard to improve upon it. It's only with Windows 98/2000 that MS is finally surpassing the abilities of the Amiga 2000. And this using only 100x the storage, 32x the RAM, and 6x the MHz, and some 5 years later (at a conservative estimate). NB: This is *not* a comment on the Office Software. I'll give MS that, they identified the needs of your generic business and hit that market exceptionally well.
Comments on your against microsoft points: 1. They forced all competitors out of the market. See point one in the for MS section. It's not that they forced competitors out of the market. If they were able to do that on the strength of their product, more power to them. Unfortunately, the methods they used to achieve this monopoly were anything but providing better product. Also, for what it's worth, the owners of Hotmail made out okay, but mostly they rue the day they let Microsoft in. (I've lost the article in Wired where the Hotmail guys were interviewed. Perhaps someone can find the URL?)
2. They charged more than a fair, price for Windows. No comment on MS charging whatever they want for Windows, you're correct on that. However, people don't need Windows because it's a good enough product to engulf the market. The need windows because it HAS engulfed the market. That's why so many people are angry. Windows simply isn't a good enough product to dominate the market. What has dominated the market are the marketing and shady tactics of a company.
Proof of Windows being a poor product? Compare your standard Windows machine with your standard automobile of today. Windows can easily crash, even if all you're doing is something Windows was supposedly designed for (running several programs at once - or even one program. I currently have a copy of MS Home Publisher 2000 that simply will not run, it came pre-installed on this system but any attempt to run it will lock up the entire system requiring reboot.) Your automobile may have a system failure if you're only doing what it was designed for, but only after several years, and then only if you haven't followed the recommended maintenance schedules.
Conclusion: Bill may deserve every penny he has - but let's not kid ourselves and say it's because he's a master at fostering technical innovation and providing quality products. Bill deserves his money because he's ruthless and amoral enough to not really care about the welfare of the computer industry or the advancement of science, so can callously crush those technologies which he can not imitate or dominate through marketing.
What was it like before DOS? To be honest, it wasn't much. Dip-switches and jumper cables. What could it have been without Windows? We'll never know - but it likely would have been ahead of where it is now.(See Amiga, NeXT, Apple etc.)
I do wish Katz would one day consider offering potential solutions rather than just desparately trying to show how everybody else "doesn't get it".
Katz suggests that with the internet, we the consumer will finally be able to voice our decision as to what books we like and what we don't. Maybe it's time for him to clue in - we already do this, it's just not via a direct link, but rather by means of sales.
Personally, the reason I buy a book put out by a professional publishing house rather than read fiction from the net is two-fold.
Reading online is uncomfortable at best, and painful at worst. It's not portable, it's tiring on the eyes, it's not random access like a book is. (G'wan.. take an E-book and just try to flip to that middle section you like but can't remember how it goes.. if you don't remember the language, no search engine will help you, and unless you're fairly anal, you probably didn't bother remembering what page number you were on when you read that cool snippit. With a physical book, it's easy to remember about how far in you were and flip to the approximate section)
99% of the fiction on the web is crap. Publishers don't publish everything they're sent for a reason, and I don't have the time or desire to want to read through their slush piles searching for the occasional gem. Neither do I want most netizens going through the slush pile to supposedly decide what's worth publishing. From what I've read on the web in various forums, chatrooms and the like, the general netizen has the literary skill and discernment of an overcooked turnip. I'd rather leave that to the professional editors. While they may not always have the same tastes as myself, at least I'm somewhat assured that what I'm getting has at least been scrutinized by someone who has some experience at picking out the gems from the dross.
Some other ideas: Every city has a talk radio station, and e-commerce/business news is considered good copy these days.
CNN has their daily "Talkback Live" show. CNBC seems to be 90% financial news. - If these stations learned of a concerted boycott on a specific e-retailer, they might find it newsworthy.
I haven't been on the eToys site, so I don't know if they're advertising for anybody else, but if they are, it seems a good idea would be to contact the people advertising there and let them know how disappointed you are in them supporting this kind of action.
HBO has David Miller (sp?) who you can call. MuchMusic has Speaker's Corner, I'm sure MTV has something similar.
Most local channels have some sort of web/email presence.
Write up a press release and send it to the local papers.
With the ridiculous number of outlets for news, some of them must be looking for a story.. if a bunch of people write in, they may just consider it worthy enough to cover.
I think it's pretty pathetic when an author lumps in trade conflict with military conflict. They are not even in the same domain when people decide to protest.
Uh.. I think you completely missed what that paragraph was about. At that point, the author was merely providing examples of how national governments don't always comply with international organizations - thus the inclusion of an example (which even the author says is "a more trivial" one) shows that these disagreements can occur over less than a government's military decisions.
He wasn't suggesting we rise up and rebel these disagreements, in fact, I understood it as being a method of saying "don't lose hope - we can convince our own governments not to go along with this WTO, WIPO, IMF crap."
I'm just wondering, since some newsreaders also seem to be able to understand HTML - would this then be a problem in usenet newsgroups too?
Obviously they wouldn't be able to get your email address, but take the situation where while surfing you're given a non-unique cookie which contains a unique number inside it (possibly from a banner ad on the page). In the usenet groups is a message which contains the hidden gif that requests the contents of this cookie. Your unique number goes back to the company, the company matches that up with their database, and voila, instant profile of not only your web-browsing habits, your e-mail address, but your newsgroup access as well.
Slashdot Mirror
How an industry claims loss of revenue when they report record earnings is the real problem here. Record companies are making more money this year than last year. Where is this loss of revenue caused by the Internet? .
Can we stop trying to use this point as a rebuttal? The fact is that the record industry was posting increasing profits before Napster came into effect as well.
While they posted record revenues, the question is unexplored of how much higher their revenues would have been without Napster.
All this point does is show that people are buying more music. When you consider that the economy is increasing, there is no cause-effect correlation that you can verify here.
Kwil
I look at Jon Katz articles posted here as trial runs for articles that are going to appear in less technical publications, like maybe Rolling Stone. By putting them here, he gets technical people to look at the article and help him clean up the technical flaws.
I don't know why I didn't think of it before, but to me it sounds like you're bang on, Phil. Slashdot is Katz' unpaid coterie of technical editors, all he has to do is ignore some verbal abuse every week and he gets his article looked at by a number of technical professionals.
Getting to the article itself, obtaining music is not a "right" of anyone. Just because people have been doing it for a while doesn't mean it's a right. Tradition, okay, but right? Somehow I think "getting music free" shouldn't be anywhere near "free speech", "due process", or "jury of peers".
Also, Katz' may want to point out that there already are sites which sell songs for a buck or so, with payments split between the label/artists and the sites. The business model is out there. It's not making money yet (in large part due to Napster & similar) but everybody should show these sites support.
e-Music is the one I use. 20 bucks for a month of no limit music leeching, plus I know that the artists are still getting something. Not all the labels/bands that I'd like, but a fair number. Do a search and find one that works for you.
Kwil
For one, I'm glad the Judge has stayed the punishments. Not because I don't believe MS deserves to get punished, but because this action puts a great big hole in MS's cries of how the judge has been biased against them since day one.
It's a little hard for MS to go to the appeals court and claim that Jackson's had it in for them all along when he's stayed the decision that would split them up.
Very canny move, I think.
However, I am surprised that he's trying to toss it up to the Supreme Court after the Court of Appeals made their eagerness to take it so obvious. The stated reasons he gives are certainly valid, but I'm thinking he's hoping that the Supreme Court might look a little askance on how fast Appeals jumped on this.
All in all, I'm quite impressed with the way Jackson's handled the whole thing. He's had them slip the knot twice now, it looks like he's making sure that won't happen again.
Kwil
Damn straight they're spoiled compared to 100 years ago..
Whatever happened to the days when we could get a worker and pay him 36 cents for an 18 hour day. Man, they're all just lazy bastards today. Useta be they'd sell you their 12 year olds and be happy to do it too, if it meant they got food on their table. Makes you wish we could go back to the good old days.
Now that I've got that bit of vitriol out of my system..
Take a look at before the industrial revolution. Yes, farmers would put in 14-15 hour days come harvest season, but that was generally only for a month or two throughout the year. The Holy Days actually came very close to the number of "working" days.
And if you're looking at how many parents sacrifice their children, maybe you should also look at how many parents don't have a choice if they simply want to provide a decent meal three times a day to their kids.
I'll agree that there's a lot of "Beat the Joneses" attitude out there, but you can't say that this attitude isn't fostered and encouraged by the political-economic system that's currently in place.
Kwil
There is one already.
It's called diet & exercise.
No, you're wrong. Significant parts of the remedy take effect exactly 90 days from now. Make no mistake about it: In 90 days they're putting the handcuffs on Microsoft and marching them off to jail.
Except, of course, that MS is filing a stay on this order to prevent it from happening before the appeals process is over.
We may well see nothing change for a year or two.
Now, if the order DOES go through.. Microsoft has to keep every e-mail they recieve. I propose the following:
Subject: DOJ Ignore this ####### Server Filler
Body: This is message ####### which is used as server filler and to be sure that MS is keeping all e-mail. A list of all the numbers sent can be provided upon request.
Please mail such requests to:
Send a few million of those with a random number on each one, and keep a list of the numbers somewhere.
Have fun!
U.S. or Canadian?
corporations could not use every last drop of water or cut down every tree, because they would not have any left. instead, they would be required to plan to keep themselves alive, and we would see some systems that are already in effect become more common (eg growing saplings and planting them as new trees where old trees have been cut down).
Unfortunately, the problem with simply granting ownership and hoping that the solutions will appear is that it neglects the two facts that:
Consider: Forest Company uses up the timber on its plot of land in a non-sustainable manner. They proceed over to their neighbor and offer a large sum of money gained from not worrying about environmental costs. The owner sells, since if he doesn't, his neighbor might and he'll gain nothing. Forest Company then repeats this process.
Of course, eventually, the owners of the land not already purchased by Forest Company realize just how much their land is worth, and Forest Company finds it's now cheaper to try sustainable methods than to purchase new land.
Unfortunately, by this time the forest ecology doesn't have enough land/diversity to properly sustain itself.. so now *everybody* loses.
This may not happen, as the early owners may happen to realize their property's true worth - but this is hardly guarunteed.
And besides this, assigning private ownership to a chunk of land (or ocean) does not guaruntee that poaching will not occur. There have already been a number of unfriendly incidents based on some countries fishing other countries' waters.
Kwil
Convergence is what the big boys are striving for. Convergence is what they're going to get.
Your broadcast picture will only take up 70% of the screen, but the screen'll be twice as big, so that's okay. The other 30% will be the side and bottom-bars (ala home shopping networks)
You'll point your remote at the TV and be able to maneuver a small cross-hair around on the screen. Like the outfit that Britney Spears is wearing? Point at it and click your INFO button. On the sidebar you'll be able to see that dress, modify it's color and size (and perhaps style somewhat) and hit your buy button.
The bottom bar will pop up a number of payment options, as well as a listing of accessories that the system conclude you'll be >70% likely to purchase, according to your total profile that's stored in the combined database of everywhere you've shopped and every survey you've filled in.
Hit your BUY button - deliver is all taken care of.. except..
You decide though that you want to go the party across town, so you hit the "To Go" button, grab your things and head out. In the ultra-compact vehicle, you hit your approximate destination on the touch screen of your car, and say "Party" since it's not one of your regular destinations. The system references the map point you touched with your e-mail looking for a Party at about this time to give you a HUD of the exact address of your destination. Your party dress should be waiting by the time you get there.
On the way, you notice the destination address change. The system had too many responses so had to move the party to a larger location. The route on your screen-map changes accordingly from where you are now. There's now a cover charge. Do you want to proceed? Tapping the yes button on the map, the charge is deducted from your credit and your watch and sunglasses are provided with the entry code - your purse isn't because you had decided you didn't need it so left it at home.
You arrive at the party and your car directs you to a reasonable parking spot - the billboard in front of it is of course advertising the party sponsor - which by the way has a great sale on perfume you might want to try; simply hit the yes button in your car and it'll be added to your account and put with your dress delivery which is waiting for you in slot 21B inside the main foyer.
The party, like life, is great.
Of course.. you're one of the "in" crowd. You don't have any nasty habits people might be offended at, no real opinions on any issue beyond the next fashion craze, and if there's some people who are cut out of the system and starving just outside the wall, what business is it of yours? They could've grabbed a data-mining job just like you did. They certainly didn't need to go around spouting off about how this company or that company is abusing people. They deserve what they get for trying to make life unhappy, right?
Right?
Additionally.. there are a bunch of games already out there that have been written in Java, and you can easily pick up a Java Decompiler and let your kids mess with code that's already been built.
I personally like JAD for opening up java programs:
http://www.geocities.co m/SiliconValley/Bridge/8617/jad.html
KWiL
Personally, I'd recommend teaching an object oriented language first.
:-)
Don't get them started on the procedural path for a number of reasons:
1. It's slowly dying out.
2. It's a lot easier to grasp procedural after OO than the reverse. (since any OO language can be reduced to a procedural language.)
3. There's no reason to follow an evolutionary path. Just because we did things in a certain order doesn't mean our kids have to repeat our mistakes.
4. OO languages almost force a better methodology when designing code.
5. If your kids program some good ideas in an OO language, they're easy to steal for work.
Kids don't need to understand why a language is done a certain way. If they want to know, they'll ask, but there's no reason to teach them hieroglyphs and then move on to the alphabet so that they'll understand why the alphabet is used instead now.
Give'em the most advanced tools available.
Give'em something they can get immediate results from.
Give'em something that doesn't teach bad habits for the future.
KWiL
Sure there is, it's called SDMI
Unfortunately, it seems right now that nobody in charge of developing SDMI has an eye out for anything beyond profitability.
The big worry they have developing a reasonable SDMI is controlling redistribution.
Personally, I think if they simply started charging reasonable prices per song (85 cents a song? 25 cents per minute of music?) and worked out a convenient way to implement the charge - their worries about redistribution would fade to the level of bootlegs, if not smaller.
(Here that, RIAA? Lobby for micropayment legislation, not DMCA - it's a win-win situation for you)
KWiL
The scale it becomes unethical at is when you're giving tapes out to people you don't know and won't get to know. As long as its restricted to your circle of friends, there is a limit as to how far its going to go, and there also is more of a sense of responsibility - your friend gave this to you. You know it's not legit, there's no way you can pretend its legit, and there's that slight moral wiggle in there that may one day encourage you to actually buy one of the albums. If not this one, then maybe the next one - if for no other reason than so you can return the favor to your friend.
You get the song from some anonymous source be it Napster or some incredibly rich guy with a poor sense of values, there's less of a moral connection. "Hey, he was giving it to everybody. It's not just me.." and hence less compunction to eventually purchase. "I'll just wait til the rich guy gets it..."
Be sure to direct her lawyer to Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream as well.
Sheesh.
KWiL
Unfortunately, I don't have the link, but if you go through the "Your Rights On Slashdot" you should be able to find his response to this in his submission to court.
If I remember correctly, it goes along the lines that even if the "A href" tag isn't there, some browser software will recgonize the format of a URL and make it into a link automatically.
And he proceeds to argue that to ban putting the URL onsite is obviously against the first amendment.
KWiL
(why does hitting return automatically submit? It should automatically preview)
Never mind. I found the link on my own.
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f4600/ 4639.htm
KWiL
Gotta link for that?
But if they remove it, then they acknowledge responsibility for it, and can pretty much kiss any "common carrier" defense out the window.
Personally, I don't want the Slashdot honchos being held responsible for whatever drivel I spew.
It wouldn't do either of us any good.
>We need a conscious civilization that acknowledges individualism as a basic human right.
...
I'm not quite sure I understand the idea of "conscious civilization." Is this some kind of uber-mind, or statement that someone, society - civilization - is more than a collection of individuals, and can have a consciousness unto itself?
No. It's a generic term used by some people smarter than me to signify the idea that most of the individuals/people living in our society and civilization are unaware, or as one could say, unconscious, of the various forces that work to shape their decisions.
>2. We should acknowledge that economics matters (a lot), but it can't be society's only common goal. Nothing could be more morally bankrupt than
Does the idea of a bunch of societal "common goals" seem to be totally contradictory to any form of individualism? Doesn't, rather individualism mean that each person is an end in and of themself, rather than just a cog in some "common goal"?
Yes. However, there is nothing to say that I can not be an individual while still sharing with you and others around me some common beliefs, thoughts, and goals. As people will form groups based on these, we will find there are many sub-sets of society with different common goals. The key is to not allow any of them to supersede all others (which is what I believe Jon is suggesting is happening today. The common goal of 'profit' is wiping out all others.
>markets are important, but corporate entities should also embrace moral and ideological values -- of their own choosing --apart from pleasing stockholders
... Or, is what you're trying to say is that corporate entities should embrace "moral and idological values - of their own choosing", at least, so long as it fits into your own preset notions?
I don't believe that's what being said at all. In the current system, corporations are often hamstrung from wanting to pursue moral and ideological values by the commonly held notion that if you're not growing, you're dead. These corporations, if they are to continue operation, must continue to grow and provide benefits for the shareholders - and if moral or ideological considerations get in the way of that, they are punished for it, not only in lowered stock prices, but by lowered lines of credit and less exposure to the public in the media.
I don't see Jon as suggesting that if pure profit is the be-all and end-all of a company it shouldn't be allowed to pursue that, but rather that other options should at least be viable ones. This of course requires a concious effort on the part of the individualists to support those corporations that are not purely profit-centric. Currently, this task is made more difficult by the media conglomerates which control the access to the useful information about who is doing what.
Case in point - how often do we hear in the news about non-profit organizations that are actively working to make the world a better place - apart from when they buy their own air time? Now how often do we hear about the companies making the biggest profits? How often do we hear about the smaller companies making ethical, humane, and environmentally conscious decisions? Heck, how often do we hear about the decisions any company makes if it's not directly related to the bottom line? We hear all about various mergers going on - but we never hear about the real human effects that those mergers have. Were people laid off from AOL/Time Warner merging? Were wages/benefits affected? Were other companies forced out of business, their employees now all having to find other employment?
>3. Individualism values a humane workplace.
Individualism is an entity, now? This is as contradictory to any real form of individualism as referring to the State as an entity. I'd jsut love to see Mr. Katz's response if the goverment were to say, "The State values a humane workplace for it's little pawns."
You're getting confused in semantics. Jon has previously stated the notion of recognizing individualism as a real movement. Therefore, yes, individualism is an entity, similar to how a corporation, the state (as a collective group of people who agree to relinquish certain freedoms in order to ensure others), a society, or a civilization is an entity. An entity need not be physical in order to exist.
>Workers are entitled to safe, creative and secure work environments, to freedom from continuous downsizings, re-structurings, layoffs and "re-engineerings."
Entitled to... at cost to whom? Is this still an "entitlement," even if it involves sacrificing other individuals - the company owners - to supply these "entitlments"?
At cost to those who can most afford it. If it involves sacrificing the company owner's second new BMW in three years to ensure that no worker is reduced to a level where they cannot afford their mortgage? I don't see how you can argue with that. Look at wealth concentration statistics. There is *more* than enough wealth present in the United States to ensure that every single citizen in it need never worry about food or shelter. Shouldn't this be a priority in any group of "civilized" people? More of a priority than getting that new swimming pool?
>Though these practices unquestionably benefit the economy, they're rough on humanity.
No rougher on humanity than a weak economy...
Humanity will survive a weak economy.
Humanity will not survive itself if it continues with a profit 'uber-alles' mentality.
>4. Individualists celebrate, cherish and support non-conformity.
Non-conformity as a value in and of itself is one of the largest farces ever foisted upon the world.
This I tend to agree with. A better way to say it would have been that Individualists do not denigrate, condemn, or work against non-conformity.
KWiL
Comments on your points for Microsoft:
1. Made computers easy to use.
You're assuming that if it weren't for Microsoft, we wouldn't have had a GUI. Unfortunately, you're missing the several other manufacturers that MS drove out of business with (among others) tactics such as specifically programming Windows to crash if an alternate OS was present (see DR.DOS), FUD, Vaporware announcements, and predatory hiring practices. (Apocryphal story of a programmer for a rival firm refusing MS's offer to hire as he did not want to move to Redmond due to his wife's pregnancy. MS countered by offering a large bonus on top on the condition that the programmer merely stop working at the rival firm until such time as he felt able to move to Redmond and begin working for MS.)
Other systems (Amiga, NeXT, Atari, Apple) all had GUI's. Admitted most had some other problems generally to do with lack of scale or marketing - but MS was not above dirty tactics to remove them entirely.
2. Started the Internet revolution.
And Netscape was doing what? Microsoft was *behind* Netscape at the start of the Internet Revolution. Only through such things as automatic bundling and coercive tactics on large ISP's did they manage to catch up.
3. Constantly improved their product.
When all you've got is crap, it's not that hard to improve upon it. It's only with Windows 98/2000 that MS is finally surpassing the abilities of the Amiga 2000. And this using only 100x the storage, 32x the RAM, and 6x the MHz, and some 5 years later (at a conservative estimate).
NB: This is *not* a comment on the Office Software. I'll give MS that, they identified the needs of your generic business and hit that market exceptionally well.
Comments on your against microsoft points:
1. They forced all competitors out of the market.
See point one in the for MS section. It's not that they forced competitors out of the market. If they were able to do that on the strength of their product, more power to them. Unfortunately, the methods they used to achieve this monopoly were anything but providing better product.
Also, for what it's worth, the owners of Hotmail made out okay, but mostly they rue the day they let Microsoft in. (I've lost the article in Wired where the Hotmail guys were interviewed. Perhaps someone can find the URL?)
2. They charged more than a fair, price for Windows.
No comment on MS charging whatever they want for Windows, you're correct on that. However, people don't need Windows because it's a good enough product to engulf the market. The need windows because it HAS engulfed the market. That's why so many people are angry. Windows simply isn't a good enough product to dominate the market. What has dominated the market are the marketing and shady tactics of a company.
Proof of Windows being a poor product? Compare your standard Windows machine with your standard automobile of today. Windows can easily crash, even if all you're doing is something Windows was supposedly designed for (running several programs at once - or even one program. I currently have a copy of MS Home Publisher 2000 that simply will not run, it came pre-installed on this system but any attempt to run it will lock up the entire system requiring reboot.) Your automobile may have a system failure if you're only doing what it was designed for, but only after several years, and then only if you haven't followed the recommended maintenance schedules.
Conclusion:
Bill may deserve every penny he has - but let's not kid ourselves and say it's because he's a master at fostering technical innovation and providing quality products. Bill deserves his money because he's ruthless and amoral enough to not really care about the welfare of the computer industry or the advancement of science, so can callously crush those technologies which he can not imitate or dominate through marketing.
What was it like before DOS? To be honest, it wasn't much. Dip-switches and jumper cables. What could it have been without Windows? We'll never know - but it likely would have been ahead of where it is now.(See Amiga, NeXT, Apple etc.)
Kwil
Hey.. what about Microsoft Bob? :-)
Katz suggests that with the internet, we the consumer will finally be able to voice our decision as to what books we like and what we don't. Maybe it's time for him to clue in - we already do this, it's just not via a direct link, but rather by means of sales.
Personally, the reason I buy a book put out by a professional publishing house rather than read fiction from the net is two-fold.
Karl
Some other ideas:
Every city has a talk radio station, and e-commerce/business news is considered good copy these days.
CNN has their daily "Talkback Live" show.
CNBC seems to be 90% financial news.
- If these stations learned of a concerted boycott on a specific e-retailer, they might find it newsworthy.
I haven't been on the eToys site, so I don't know if they're advertising for anybody else, but if they are, it seems a good idea would be to contact the people advertising there and let them know how disappointed you are in them supporting this kind of action.
HBO has David Miller (sp?) who you can call.
MuchMusic has Speaker's Corner, I'm sure MTV has something similar.
Most local channels have some sort of web/email presence.
Write up a press release and send it to the local papers.
With the ridiculous number of outlets for news, some of them must be looking for a story.. if a bunch of people write in, they may just consider it worthy enough to cover.
Kwil
I think it's pretty pathetic when an author lumps in trade conflict with military conflict.
They are not even in the same domain when people decide to protest.
Uh.. I think you completely missed what that paragraph was about. At that point, the author was merely providing examples of how national governments don't always comply with international organizations - thus the inclusion of an example (which even the author says is "a more trivial" one) shows that these disagreements can occur over less than a government's military decisions.
He wasn't suggesting we rise up and rebel these disagreements, in fact, I understood it as being a method of saying "don't lose hope - we can convince our own governments not to go along with this WTO, WIPO, IMF crap."
Kwil
I'm just wondering, since some newsreaders also seem to be able to understand HTML - would this then be a problem in usenet newsgroups too?
Obviously they wouldn't be able to get your email address, but take the situation where while surfing you're given a non-unique cookie which contains a unique number inside it (possibly from a banner ad on the page). In the usenet groups is a message which contains the hidden gif that requests the contents of this cookie. Your unique number goes back to the company, the company matches that up with their database, and voila, instant profile of not only your web-browsing habits, your e-mail address, but your newsgroup access as well.
Kwil