You really are coming accross as a chauvinist, you know? Why do you assume English is an obligatory language? Maybe in TI it is. Maybe in order to publish scientific papers - but then it shows you have no idea how unfair and needlessly complicated it is for those researchers. Besides, by your premise alone it's very clear you have no clue about how hard English can be - because it's your native tongue, I suppose. English is *not* an easy language and there are many cultured people who can't say a word in English. In fact, you might even find some who simply refuse to use English, not finding it particularly beautiful or its Anglo-Saxon culture enthralling at all (ever been to France ?;-))
If we had better connections between engineering and medical science we could all live a lot longer.
The correlation between advances in both fields and increase in life-expectancy isn't so simple. Advanced medicine is very expensive and is probably not financially feasible for a large population. Prevention is really the only sane approach on a wider scale.
I would love to see more acceptance of modern information techniques and more flexibility in medical research. I would love to see better use of rapid prototyping and model systems, and we're heading that way
The problem is that medical doctors don't even know what a mathematical model is. OTOH, applied mathematicians and engineeers create models that are frankly puerile and revealing a fundamental lack of understanding of the problem domain. The new thing, mathematization of biological problems, is extremely demanding from a career point-of-view. It takes extremely long (and medical school already takes a long time). And I don't think governments are doing nearly enough to support these people. And while they don't, they have to listen to Mister Intel talk shit out of his mouth about the medical research community, when all he's gotta do is keep pushing the x86 architecture a little bit ahead.
Electrons, logical gates, etc. are very simple objects when compared to living things, like cells, bacteria or related stuff like protein folding. Any classical object of physics is much simpler than any object of study of the life sciences. This is a problem. Life scientists know about it.
Besides, there's no such thing as "useless" research. The only reason HIV was so quickly identified for what it is was because of a bunch of "fringe" virologists that had been working for a very long time on this unknown type of virii called retrovirus no one gave a damn about. But boy, was everybody glad they were doing their thing when we needed them!
So, go back to silicon chips, will ya? Who cares if he's "fed up." You don't undertand this stuff. Wanna help? Try developing another approach than the same old, same old Van Neumann architecture. Otherwise, STFU, 'cause Intel's job is easy.
Some cities in Brazil rank among the most expansive in the world, the cost of living in São Paulo and Rio corresponding to 72% of those of New Yorkers who are - as you know "rich Americans."
But anyways, it was US $ 850, I stand corrected, which by today's exchange rate is R$ 1528.3. Which is way better, but you still don't qualify as middle class (well, technically you would, but that would be "lower middle class"). Anyhow, that's around 4 times less than a better qualified job (such as a software engineer for a big Brazilian bank).
hey were trying to unload these things on me.. 5 movies for 1 Real. I can't imagine that even would cover the cost of the blank DVD
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Crime rate is sky-high in Brazil (as always) and hijacking truck loads is a very common crime. So, with all probability, that guy was dealing stolen goods - not only pirated. Often, the truck driver pays with his life (this type of story is always on the 6 o'clock news). That's how sick this thing gets.
Sometimes you see street vendors selling a whole line of, e.g., Johnson & Johnson's cosmetic line dirt cheap. Where did he get it from? From the mafias that steal transport firms.
So you are a witness to how debased this piracy business gets. Now I get to read on Slashdot about US Americans fascinated by a shitty music market that is so poor that they don't even try to sell their records and have to churn out 400 'albums' a year just to put food on the table.
People, get real. Pirate Bay is is Sweden. Tecnobrega is in Brazil.
As for the lumpenproletariat nature of the listeners, well, that's always where the best music comes from. Rap, rock, jazz, blues, country...all of them were originally seen as low-class crap for the low-class subcultures.
You ever read a biography about a Jazz musician, where his pop would beat the shit out of him if he didn't play the trumpet for 8 hours a day?
This is not the kind of music I'm speaking of. Consider Hip Hop. A major industry phenomenom. To me, the sound of retards. Tecnobrega is more like in this 2nd category. We're talking people with no musical talent (then again, I suppose anyone can push buttons).
The situation in Brazil is somewhat unique in the world (and perhaps not the best example) because Brazil has among the highest (sometimes the highest, it fluctuates year to year) income inequalities on earth.
Let me give you a recent number: 1700 X is the number between lowest and highest incomes.
The fine article said a tecnobrega musician makes R$ 850 and said that it's a "decent salary." That is a wage you can only live on if you're willing to live in a favela.
The article also said tecnobrega puts out 400 albums/year vs 40 of the traditional music industry. Ask yourself which artist is able to carve out a confortable living, Caetano Veloso or tecnobrega.
Don't take this tecnobrega too seriously. You, as a US American, European or Japanese would not be able to live with the consequences.
Nobody purchases original CDs here. People just get them on the streets, with "3 for 5 reais" price tags (~$1 each CD)
I do. I would rather buy music on a one-song basis from iTunes but due to this widespread piracy here, Apple doesn't seem to give a shit about Brazil.
Trash music is everywhere. It is hard to listen to good music nowadays, be it in the radio, the clubs, or the stupid loud car sound systems around the city.
Why is that? Maybe it has to do with the music industry being overwhelmed by these favela freeloader fuckers with no music talent but with a beat box and the street commerce that is driving artists to a difficult situation, while the very good Brazilian music people enjoy from London to Tokyo is having a hard time just surviving. Tom Jobim (the guy who wrote "The Girl from Ipanema") used to complain that an artist could never get filthy rich in Brazil, even though even Frank Sinatra recorded The Girl From Ipanema and Bossa Nova plays worldwide daily on thousands of radios ever since the late 50's.
Musicians get almost nothing selling CDs by normal means (recorder company contracts etc), if you're not a TOP 20 you make more money with shows/presentations anyway, making it very good to spread your music - the more the better
The music industry's to blame here. I remember back in the 90's when Real had dollar-parity, CDs here cost the double what they would cost me in New York. Now the cancer has spread and there's no stopping it.
Streets of Brazil are overwhelmed with street vendors ("camelôs") who pay no taxes and sell pirate products.
Yeah. Brazil's the future. You wanna see how bad it gets you just look at what's going on here.
There are many other revenue streams artist can and do pursue to make money... live shows... endorsements... tee shirt sales...
Yes, I can fully picutre in my imagination how Brazilians would be creative with this too, from what I've seen at the (few) major artists that ever step here for a performance: fake tickets, pirate t-shirts looking just like the original, etc.
Just so you know, nobody listens to this in major cities. I don't think this stuff is nowhere near the airwaves of major cities. It's a very low-wage kinda subculture thing and as such gets very little attention. Except where it's lumpenproletariat galore, which is basically their scene, I suppose.
"Brega" means "tacky", having extremely bad taste. Like refrigerator penguins. Like when you try to interpret a fashion trend but get it all wrong because it looks so cheap and ridiculous. Imagine rednecks, but a 1000 times worse. Definitely not mainstream. And limited to a specific region of Brazil.
Low-wage Brazilians typically don't want to pay for anything. They get tax discounts after tax discounts. A typical porter or handyman is a tax-free guy. He gets free medical services and education (which both suck, BTW...), sustained by those that are between a rock and a hard place - the middle class that does pay a hefty 37% tax on income; and the businesses, industries, etc. That's 3-4 months working for the government. Yup. Doctors, engineers, consultancy firms - anyone who's not poor. The leftist corrupt government caters to these people, giving out more government aid and tax-cuts, because then they vote for them.
So why would they pay for music? They're already a bunch of freeloaders, anyway. If they're unemployed, they just pack up and go buy contraband products in neighboring Paraguay (they have a tax-free policy on imports, I think) to resell on sidewalks. No Union protest... Just their very own tax-free shortcut to survival. This is just how their life is. How fucked up. And now some foreigners and academics are fascinated with this...LOL.
You can't simply assume that once information is made available, it will always be available. If not maintained and copied and actively disseminated, information dies; it fades away, for a myriad of reasons.
I'll just call this the "GNU zealot paranoid outlook." How typical. The Church of Stallman creed. The same argument could be made wrt GPLed software if you think about it, e.g., unless some replicates GPL code it dies too. For instance, AFAIK, I'm the only one to keep a public TISL (Tokohoku ISLisp) GPLed code around. This isn't DNA, dude. This is computer code. Computer code is not free. Freedom is a category that belongs to people. You get that wrong every time. Once the code is out there, it's out there. Nobody can take that away.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. The tax dictatorship is pretty sophisticated. Problem is, the people who pay taxes are in the minority (middle class is a minority). Entreprises pay a lot of taxes. Small business have to have serious jungle survival skills to make it throught their 5th year of business.
There's a leftist government who thinks you can distribute wealth in a country that isn't really making that much money. Said leftist government is a dangerous tax addict whore bitch from Hell. A middle-class Brazilian puts up with 37% taxes directly out of the pay check. Additionally, you gotta pay for health care and private schools (because you want what's best for your family). Furthermore, every single product you want is overtaxed. Like, how about buying the world's most expansive iPod. To sum it up: if you're middle class then you: 1) Pay taxes like a Scandinavian; 2) Buy your shit paying up like you were in Tokyo; 3) Live like an Egyptian. And if you're not middle class? Well, then you're rich - in which case, you're doing really good, probably (with the p.a. interest rate, my God...BTW, can't complain about the stock market here - I feel pitty for you if you're, e.g., European, in that respect;-))); or your poor - which means you're really fucked.
Brazil is basically hostile environment to businesses. And every single fucking region-wide poll in Latin America http://www.latinobarometro.org/ show that the people in this region just love Big Government. The catch is: No can afford it! . Everything is coming to a halt in this country, but the government thinks bringing in private enterprises to do the job it can't is Evil. We need some kinda of Thatcher-from-the-Tropics.
Now there's radar-guided photo cameras everywhere and nation-wide integrated computer vehicle databases. You'd just get your picture and your fine in the mail, together with a penalty on your driver's license. Yeah. Not the 90's anymore.
PS: Rio has a notoriously chronic corrupt police. Not to be taken as a standard.
Slashdot Mirror
You really are coming accross as a chauvinist, you know? Why do you assume English is an obligatory language? Maybe in TI it is. Maybe in order to publish scientific papers - but then it shows you have no idea how unfair and needlessly complicated it is for those researchers. ;-))
Besides, by your premise alone it's very clear you have no clue about how hard English can be - because it's your native tongue, I suppose. English is *not* an easy language and there are many cultured people who can't say a word in English.
In fact, you might even find some who simply refuse to use English, not finding it particularly beautiful or its Anglo-Saxon culture enthralling at all (ever been to France ?
Yeat another example of "the language problem."
I recommend this video by a former UN and World Health Organization translator, Mr. Claude Piron:
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=_YHALnLV9XU
So, are we just gonna sit here and wait for the aliens to find us?!
If we had better connections between engineering and medical science we could all live a lot longer.
The correlation between advances in both fields and increase in life-expectancy isn't so simple. Advanced medicine is very expensive and is probably not financially feasible for a large population. Prevention is really the only sane approach on a wider scale.
Dude, try to have a conversation with your doctor about the pathophysiology of your condition. You'll have a better understanding of your treatment.
I would love to see more acceptance of modern information techniques and more flexibility in medical research. I would love to see better use of rapid prototyping and model systems, and we're heading that way
The problem is that medical doctors don't even know what a mathematical model is. OTOH, applied mathematicians and engineeers create models that are frankly puerile and revealing a fundamental lack of understanding of the problem domain. The new thing, mathematization of biological problems, is extremely demanding from a career point-of-view. It takes extremely long (and medical school already takes a long time).
And I don't think governments are doing nearly enough to support these people. And while they don't, they have to listen to Mister Intel talk shit out of his mouth about the medical research community, when all he's gotta do is keep pushing the x86 architecture a little bit ahead.
System biology is hard. Damn hard. System biology is harder than math or physics. Fact.
And for a field so new, it's amazing what we're building in terms of theories.
And from a theoretical POV, Intel's computers sure aren't the shit. In a parallel world, Lisp Machines-type of computers would've been better.
Now kill me. I've said it.
Yeah...Ooooookaaaaay.
Try alternative medicine.
See if you're alive by the time you get to 70.
Electrons, logical gates, etc. are very simple objects when compared to living things, like cells, bacteria or related stuff like protein folding. Any classical object of physics is much simpler than any object of study of the life sciences. This is a problem. Life scientists know about it.
Besides, there's no such thing as "useless" research. The only reason HIV was so quickly identified for what it is was because of a bunch of "fringe" virologists that had been working for a very long time on this unknown type of virii called retrovirus no one gave a damn about. But boy, was everybody glad they were doing their thing when we needed them!
So, go back to silicon chips, will ya? Who cares if he's "fed up." You don't undertand this stuff. Wanna help? Try developing another approach than the same old, same old Van Neumann architecture. Otherwise, STFU, 'cause Intel's job is easy.
Why is this modded down to *1* ?
:-)
Let my protest be known!
Can we simulate this with cellular automata?
Jesus Christ, is Wolfram out of Lithium again?
Wow, Malaysia is really cheap! Good for you!
Some cities in Brazil rank among the most expansive in the world, the cost of living in São Paulo and Rio corresponding to 72% of those of New Yorkers who are - as you know "rich Americans."
http://www.citymayors.com/features/cost_survey.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/portuguese/reporterbbc/story/2007/03/070306_cidadescaras_pu.shtml
(Sorry this BBC article is in Portuguese - but if you read Spanish you can probably handle it).
But anyways, it was US $ 850, I stand corrected, which by today's exchange rate is R$ 1528.3. Which is way better, but you still don't qualify as middle class (well, technically you would, but that would be "lower middle class"). Anyhow, that's around 4 times less than a better qualified job (such as a software engineer for a big Brazilian bank).
hey were trying to unload these things on me.. 5 movies for 1 Real. I can't imagine that even would cover the cost of the blank DVD
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Crime rate is sky-high in Brazil (as always) and hijacking truck loads is a very common crime. So, with all probability, that guy was dealing stolen goods - not only pirated. Often, the truck driver pays with his life (this type of story is always on the 6 o'clock news). That's how sick this thing gets.
Sometimes you see street vendors selling a whole line of, e.g., Johnson & Johnson's cosmetic line dirt cheap. Where did he get it from? From the mafias that steal transport firms.
So you are a witness to how debased this piracy business gets. Now I get to read on Slashdot about US Americans fascinated by a shitty music market that is so poor that they don't even try to sell their records and have to churn out 400 'albums' a year just to put food on the table.
People, get real. Pirate Bay is is Sweden. Tecnobrega is in Brazil.
LOL.
As for the lumpenproletariat nature of the listeners, well, that's always where the best music comes from. Rap, rock, jazz, blues, country...all of them were originally seen as low-class crap for the low-class subcultures.
You ever read a biography about a Jazz musician, where his pop would beat the shit out of him if he didn't play the trumpet for 8 hours a day?
This is not the kind of music I'm speaking of. Consider Hip Hop. A major industry phenomenom. To me, the sound of retards. Tecnobrega is more like in this 2nd category. We're talking people with no musical talent (then again, I suppose anyone can push buttons).
The situation in Brazil is somewhat unique in the world (and perhaps not the best example) because Brazil has among the highest (sometimes the highest, it fluctuates year to year) income inequalities on earth.
Let me give you a recent number: 1700 X is the number between lowest and highest incomes.
I'm sorry my post was labeled a flamebait. Unfortunately, since I live here and am not just reading a Slashdot thread, I know what I'm talking about.
The fine article said a tecnobrega musician makes R$ 850 and said that it's a "decent salary." That is a wage you can only live on if you're willing to live in a favela.
The article also said tecnobrega puts out 400 albums/year vs 40 of the traditional music industry. Ask yourself which artist is able to carve out a confortable living, Caetano Veloso or tecnobrega.
Don't take this tecnobrega too seriously. You, as a US American, European or Japanese would not be able to live with the consequences.
Nobody purchases original CDs here. People just get them on the streets, with "3 for 5 reais" price tags (~$1 each CD)
I do. I would rather buy music on a one-song basis from iTunes but due to this widespread piracy here, Apple doesn't seem to give a shit about Brazil.
Trash music is everywhere. It is hard to listen to good music nowadays, be it in the radio, the clubs, or the stupid loud car sound systems around the city.
Why is that? Maybe it has to do with the music industry being overwhelmed by these favela freeloader fuckers with no music talent but with a beat box and the street commerce that is driving artists to a difficult situation, while the very good Brazilian music people enjoy from London to Tokyo is having a hard time just surviving. Tom Jobim (the guy who wrote "The Girl from Ipanema") used to complain that an artist could never get filthy rich in Brazil, even though even Frank Sinatra recorded The Girl From Ipanema and Bossa Nova plays worldwide daily on thousands of radios ever since the late 50's.
Musicians get almost nothing selling CDs by normal means (recorder company contracts etc), if you're not a TOP 20 you make more money with shows/presentations anyway, making it very good to spread your music - the more the better
The music industry's to blame here. I remember back in the 90's when Real had dollar-parity, CDs here cost the double what they would cost me in New York. Now the cancer has spread and there's no stopping it.
Streets of Brazil are overwhelmed with street vendors ("camelôs") who pay no taxes and sell pirate products.
Yeah. Brazil's the future. You wanna see how bad it gets you just look at what's going on here.
There are many other revenue streams artist can and do pursue to make money... live shows... endorsements... tee shirt sales...
Yes, I can fully picutre in my imagination how Brazilians would be creative with this too, from what I've seen at the (few) major artists that ever step here for a performance: fake tickets, pirate t-shirts looking just like the original, etc.
Just so you know, nobody listens to this in major cities. I don't think this stuff is nowhere near the airwaves of major cities. It's a very low-wage kinda subculture thing and as such gets very little attention. Except where it's lumpenproletariat galore, which is basically their scene, I suppose.
"Brega" means "tacky", having extremely bad taste. Like refrigerator penguins. Like when you try to interpret a fashion trend but get it all wrong because it looks so cheap and ridiculous. Imagine rednecks, but a 1000 times worse. Definitely not mainstream. And limited to a specific region of Brazil.
Low-wage Brazilians typically don't want to pay for anything. They get tax discounts after tax discounts. A typical porter or handyman is a tax-free guy. He gets free medical services and education (which both suck, BTW...), sustained by those that are between a rock and a hard place - the middle class that does pay a hefty 37% tax on income; and the businesses, industries, etc. That's 3-4 months working for the government. Yup. Doctors, engineers, consultancy firms - anyone who's not poor. The leftist corrupt government caters to these people, giving out more government aid and tax-cuts, because then they vote for them.
So why would they pay for music? They're already a bunch of freeloaders, anyway. If they're unemployed, they just pack up and go buy contraband products in neighboring Paraguay (they have a tax-free policy on imports, I think) to resell on sidewalks. No Union protest... Just their very own tax-free shortcut to survival. This is just how their life is. How fucked up. And now some foreigners and academics are fascinated with this...LOL.
Plus, that music sucks. Real bad.
You can't simply assume that once information is made available, it will always be available. If not maintained and copied and actively disseminated, information dies; it fades away, for a myriad of reasons.
I'll just call this the "GNU zealot paranoid outlook." How typical. The Church of Stallman creed.
The same argument could be made wrt GPLed software if you think about it, e.g., unless some replicates GPL code it dies too. For instance, AFAIK, I'm the only one to keep a public TISL (Tokohoku ISLisp) GPLed code around.
This isn't DNA, dude. This is computer code. Computer code is not free. Freedom is a category that belongs to people. You get that wrong every time.
Once the code is out there, it's out there. Nobody can take that away.
I use Softmaker's suite on FreeBSD. It handles Excel files well.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. The tax dictatorship is pretty sophisticated. Problem is, the people who pay taxes are in the minority (middle class is a minority). Entreprises pay a lot of taxes. Small business have to have serious jungle survival skills to make it throught their 5th year of business.
There's a leftist government who thinks you can distribute wealth in a country that isn't really making that much money. Said leftist government is a dangerous tax addict whore bitch from Hell. A middle-class Brazilian puts up with 37% taxes directly out of the pay check. Additionally, you gotta pay for health care and private schools (because you want what's best for your family). Furthermore, every single product you want is overtaxed. Like, how about buying the world's most expansive iPod. To sum it up: if you're middle class then you: 1) Pay taxes like a Scandinavian; 2) Buy your shit paying up like you were in Tokyo; 3) Live like an Egyptian. And if you're not middle class? Well, then you're rich - in which case, you're doing really good, probably (with the p.a. interest rate, my God...BTW, can't complain about the stock market here - I feel pitty for you if you're, e.g., European, in that respect;-))); or your poor - which means you're really fucked.
Brazil is basically hostile environment to businesses. And every single fucking region-wide poll in Latin America http://www.latinobarometro.org/ show that the people in this region just love Big Government. The catch is: No can afford it! . Everything is coming to a halt in this country, but the government thinks bringing in private enterprises to do the job it can't is Evil. We need some kinda of Thatcher-from-the-Tropics.
Now there's radar-guided photo cameras everywhere and nation-wide integrated computer vehicle databases. You'd just get your picture and your fine in the mail, together with a penalty on your driver's license.
Yeah. Not the 90's anymore.
PS: Rio has a notoriously chronic corrupt police. Not to be taken as a standard.