Anyone who has held a security clearence can tell you - the government over-classifies. From my brief stint with a security clearence, I can honestly say I didn't learn anything from the documents I viewed that one couldn't reach by common sense or looking around on the internet.
You got that right! I just accepted a job with a government entity and they had classififed the employment contract they sent me to sign.
No this is not normal market activity. The people who are installing spyware are not taking into account the costs it imposes on the people who own the infected computers.
This is the same reasoning for why government's should be intervene for things like pollution or building public roads.
$50million or not, the market is distorted. The same could be applied to sports figures
I don't think the market is distorted so much as supply is limited.
Think of it this way. Suppose you have two singers, Britney Spears and some unknown. Say the unknown person sings 99.9 percent as well as Spears. Would you--or whoever actually likes Britney Spears stuff--be prepared to pay 99.9 percent of the price of a BS CD of songs as sung by the unknown person?
These super stars get paid so much beacause they are the only person suppling their talents. Only Tom Cruise can make a "Tom Cruise" film.
If anything piracy will increase the salaries of these superstars. This is because the marginal viewer who wouldn't pay a full price ticket for a movie will instead download it for a fraction of the cost. Therefore the market for these stars increases and the stars can demand larger salaries. This will probably be especially prevelant in the music business since more people will be going to concerts.
I'll agree with the engineering vs. graphic design. I think its more to do with the fact that engineers care more about power/dollar then artists do; artists it seems care more about ease of use/dollar.
Anyway I'd say the tide is changing since the fourth(?) fastest supercomputer, Virginia Tech's X is a cluster of G5s.
Of course they will only get higher pay until the cost exceeds the cost of jumping to the new third world nation. Then they'll be screwed just like the manufacturing workers in the first world.
Only the manufacturing jobs in the western world that a relatively unskilled third world worker could do are being shipped over.
In a decade or two it'll be more like, for manufacturing,:
western world: mostly highly skilled jobs
middle income countries (Mexico, China, ect.): mostly highly skilled manufacturing jobs, ie autos
lower income countries (Bangladesh): low skilled manufacturing, ie garment industry, ship breaking
Companies are only going to go where wage/unit, i.e. high productivity for a given wage, is lower not where wage is lower.
Europe and the US went through periods of horrendous exploitation and abysmal working conditions before workers demanded, and got, improvements. China will probably follow the same path if given a chance.
Amen! Although I would say that the reason developed countries' workers received improvements is due to increased productivity; i.e. the workers were more valuable then the pitence that they were paid.
Same thing should happen in China and other third world countries if the US, Canada and Europe give them a chance. The Chinese workers will gain some skills on the assembly line and then they'll protest for and get higher pay or better working conditions.
Now before I get flamed for being naive or what not, I must point out that this is happening in the Chinese toy industry. Workers their have to master the skills to put together the current "hot" toy whether it is a Furby or an XBox. They've gained some skills in doing this and now they have better working conditions. The Economist had an article about this a couple of years ago.
moving forward in technology and space travel is just as important as moving forward in medicine and food production.
You're kidding right? What percentage of Shuttle experiments have yielded results that were genuinely useful?
Contrast this with advances in Medicine; the average life span of someone born in an industrial nation is about 74 compared to what about 54 in 1903. Also advances in medicine will hopefully save a whole continent, Africa, from the catastrophe of AIDS.
Look at food production; a hundred years ago there was famine and starvation fears in industrial countries. Now the fears are obesity. Advances in food production have helped us support many more people then we previously could have.
It is impossible to exist harmoniously with people like that because no matter how hard they may try, they will always have an inate desire for children. And that is a risk too high to take.
How many bad laws and wrong headed government initiatives have been justified on "to protect the children"?
We already have a punishment for sex offenders, it's called prison.
they may be second class citizens but the bets are off after bankruptcy proceedings have started. At this point I believe it's (more or less) the bondholders who are the most important class of people since they HAVE to be paid off before everybody else (except of course the federal government).
Slashdot Mirror
Anyone who has held a security clearence can tell you - the government over-classifies. From my brief stint with a security clearence, I can honestly say I didn't learn anything from the documents I viewed that one couldn't reach by common sense or looking around on the internet.
You got that right! I just accepted a job with a government entity and they had classififed the employment contract they sent me to sign.No this is not normal market activity. The people who are installing spyware are not taking into account the costs it imposes on the people who own the infected computers. This is the same reasoning for why government's should be intervene for things like pollution or building public roads.
$50million or not, the market is distorted. The same could be applied to sports figures
I don't think the market is distorted so much as supply is limited.
Think of it this way. Suppose you have two singers, Britney Spears and some unknown. Say the unknown person sings 99.9 percent as well as Spears. Would you--or whoever actually likes Britney Spears stuff--be prepared to pay 99.9 percent of the price of a BS CD of songs as sung by the unknown person?
These super stars get paid so much beacause they are the only person suppling their talents. Only Tom Cruise can make a "Tom Cruise" film.
If anything piracy will increase the salaries of these superstars. This is because the marginal viewer who wouldn't pay a full price ticket for a movie will instead download it for a fraction of the cost. Therefore the market for these stars increases and the stars can demand larger salaries. This will probably be especially prevelant in the music business since more people will be going to concerts.
I'll agree with the engineering vs. graphic design. I think its more to do with the fact that engineers care more about power/dollar then artists do; artists it seems care more about ease of use/dollar.
Anyway I'd say the tide is changing since the fourth(?) fastest supercomputer, Virginia Tech's X is a cluster of G5s.
Of course they will only get higher pay until the cost exceeds the cost of jumping to the new third world nation. Then they'll be screwed just like the manufacturing workers in the first world.
Only the manufacturing jobs in the western world that a relatively unskilled third world worker could do are being shipped over.
In a decade or two it'll be more like, for manufacturing,:
Companies are only going to go where wage/unit, i.e. high productivity for a given wage, is lower not where wage is lower.
off topic:The second world was the communist block.
Europe and the US went through periods of horrendous exploitation and abysmal working conditions before workers demanded, and got, improvements. China will probably follow the same path if given a chance.
Amen! Although I would say that the reason developed countries' workers received improvements is due to increased productivity; i.e. the workers were more valuable then the pitence that they were paid.
Same thing should happen in China and other third world countries if the US, Canada and Europe give them a chance. The Chinese workers will gain some skills on the assembly line and then they'll protest for and get higher pay or better working conditions.
Now before I get flamed for being naive or what not, I must point out that this is happening in the Chinese toy industry. Workers their have to master the skills to put together the current "hot" toy whether it is a Furby or an XBox. They've gained some skills in doing this and now they have better working conditions. The Economist had an article about this a couple of years ago.
Mmmmmmmmm.... MUFONs
For once the "you belong in a zoo" version of Happy Birthday is applicable.
Its against the DMCA to use a mute button and also to tell people that there is a mute button.
Yeah but the thing you forget is that the next Einstein might die as a child from malnutrition or some preventable childhood diseases.
moving forward in technology and space travel is just as important as moving forward in medicine and food production.
You're kidding right? What percentage of Shuttle experiments have yielded results that were genuinely useful?
Contrast this with advances in Medicine; the average life span of someone born in an industrial nation is about 74 compared to what about 54 in 1903. Also advances in medicine will hopefully save a whole continent, Africa, from the catastrophe of AIDS.
Look at food production; a hundred years ago there was famine and starvation fears in industrial countries. Now the fears are obesity. Advances in food production have helped us support many more people then we previously could have.If you look at the source it seems to have been made by an old version of Fireworks and Dreamweaver. Is there an embargo with North Korea on software?
The some relvent stories from ./
Children's Internet Prevention Act
Thai Government Comments On Gaming Curfew
U.S. Supreme Court To Rule On Online Porn Law
Not to mention every Megan's Law ever written.
How many bad laws and wrong headed government initiatives have been justified on "to protect the children"?
We already have a punishment for sex offenders, it's called prison.
they may be second class citizens but the bets are off after bankruptcy proceedings have started. At this point I believe it's (more or less) the bondholders who are the most important class of people since they HAVE to be paid off before everybody else (except of course the federal government).