Because if I'm not totally mistaken, the standard RIAA tactic on them is: 1. Argue against any counterclaims for attorney's fees on the basis that those can always be handled after the case has been decided and is thus redundant. 2. If they're going to lose (and thus be subject to an attorney's fees hearing), withdraw the case so that no attorney's fees decision gets in front of a judge.
The obvious risk here is that attorney's fees are essential to deterring the "pay up or I'll cost you even more in legal fees" tactic.
If you're in a wooded area with overhanging trees, you still can see a little bit (not much, but you can see trees a few feet in front of you) during the summer. In the winter it's pretty easy to see because most of the foliage cover is gone and snow cover does an excellent job of reflecting moon and star light.
Is it perfect conditions? No. But you can walk around if you're reasonably careful.
We don't need anything that drastic. We just need to ensure that people can't communicate with each other effectively. I suggest having everyone make up their own language.
This is the sort of thing I'd expect to see cut back during an economic slump. Much better to reduce spending on trade shows (including sending people to them to look at booth babes) than to cut salaries and staff.
Yes, it may mean that some sales that would have been made at the trade show won't happen. Sorry, but when people are worried about how their going to eat they get less excited about mp3 players. Welcome to a cyclical industry.
My own personal favorite comes from the days of 5.25" floppy drives, as relayed by my own dad (who worked in IT back then).
A customer called in to complain that the software install that they were doing would always fail when it got to the second disk. The support guy ran through most of the standard procedures, and running out of ideas directed the customer to insert the diagnostics disk that came with the software.
After a short pause, the customer responded "There's no way to squeeze that in there." The support minion promptly discovered that when the customer saw the instruction "Insert disk 2", she was putting in disk 2 without removing disk 1 first.
Interestingly, in the early 90's I started seeing installation tools that said "remove disk 1 and insert disk 2". Either this story got out, or it happened more frequently than I would have thought.
Might I suggest that in your ad (which sounds quite good to someone like me without professional marketing flack training) to include as part of the shots of the third guy some idea of how pretty his desk is? Or even a look at a computer screen he's using?
The reason for this is to make it look like it's easy to use, not just for geeks.
Which just so happen to be part of conglomerates (News Corp, Time Warner, Disney, and Sony) that also own our television networks, movie studios, book publishers, and (wait for it) the Wall Street Journal.
Which of course has absolutely nothing to do with why a story like this might be put out there.
Considering most IT jobs are far easier than being a ditch-digger
Yes in some ways, no in some others.
Construction jobs are physical labor. No question. A friend of mine who works as a bricklayer is quite clear that it can be hard work at times.
But on the flip side, IT jobs aren't exactly a picnic. Especially when you factor in the 24x7 on-call response, the unpaid overtime, and in many companies the lack of career path, IT jobs start looking less attractive. Bricklayers can at least typically go home at the end of the 8-10 hour day and not have to worry about their jobs until the next morning while the IT geek is attached to his Crackberry.
An excellent target for unionizing developers would be Electronic Arts, who routinely would work their developers 70+ hours a week. A union would have allowed the developers to push back much more effectively because the threat of all of EA's developers walking out is much more effective than the threat of each individual developer quitting eventually.
That's not an insightful argument, it's just saying "your wrong" in a slightly more vulgar way.
Something tells me this was moderated based on ideology rather than quality. A sibling post entitled "I disagree almost completely" is far better, and while I happen to disagree with it, deserves its positive mod.
A lot of the anti-union sentiment has to do with attitudes towards fellow techies: a vast majority of drivers consider themselves to be better-than-average drivers, and in a similar vein a vast majority of programmers and admins think that they're better-than-average at what they do. That illusion means that they think that they can get better salary and benefits on their own.
Another issue is that most people see unions as part of a blue-collar system, and programmers as white-collar employees.
They may be right, they may not be. But there's definitely a lot of BS that goes around.
The emails contain an insider's look at how grassroots operations work, full of scheduling questions and rallying cries for support
No, it showed how an astroturfing operation works.
The difference: grassroots - A small community organization gets together and starts making signs without any direction from the campaign, just folks doing what they want to do.
astroturf - A campaign sets up what they call a "community organization", except that all that the organization does is what the campaign tells them to do. They make signs designed to look like they're made by normal people but are really designed by pros.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, see, we used to be able to Slashdot somebody just by linking the article. Now we have to link videos to do real damage.
Attorney's fees?
Because if I'm not totally mistaken, the standard RIAA tactic on them is:
1. Argue against any counterclaims for attorney's fees on the basis that those can always be handled after the case has been decided and is thus redundant.
2. If they're going to lose (and thus be subject to an attorney's fees hearing), withdraw the case so that no attorney's fees decision gets in front of a judge.
The obvious risk here is that attorney's fees are essential to deterring the "pay up or I'll cost you even more in legal fees" tactic.
Replace the removed brain with an electronic brain. A simple one would suffice. All it would have to do is say "What?" and "Where's the tea?"
While I accept the fact the moon is made of cheese, it most likely is moldy and hence it's green tinge.
It's like no cheese I've ever tasted, Gromit.
If you're in a wooded area with overhanging trees, you still can see a little bit (not much, but you can see trees a few feet in front of you) during the summer. In the winter it's pretty easy to see because most of the foliage cover is gone and snow cover does an excellent job of reflecting moon and star light.
Is it perfect conditions? No. But you can walk around if you're reasonably careful.
We don't need anything that drastic. We just need to ensure that people can't communicate with each other effectively. I suggest having everyone make up their own language.
Seen nablag orggash, neeble whorp flarq.
This is the sort of thing I'd expect to see cut back during an economic slump. Much better to reduce spending on trade shows (including sending people to them to look at booth babes) than to cut salaries and staff.
Yes, it may mean that some sales that would have been made at the trade show won't happen. Sorry, but when people are worried about how their going to eat they get less excited about mp3 players. Welcome to a cyclical industry.
Turkeys already voted for Thanksgiving back in 1941 when it became law.
My brain hurts a lot now.
It will have to come out. All the bits of it. Nurse! Nurse! Nurse, take Mr Gumby to a brain surgeon.
I think you left out roughly 70% of the Earth's surface there.
That's absolutely 100% impossible, because Netcraft confirms that BSD is dying.
Reminds me of the great Groucho Marx:
"Clear? Huh! Why a four-year-old child could understand this report. Run out and find me a four-year-old child. I can't make head or tail out of it."
My own personal favorite comes from the days of 5.25" floppy drives, as relayed by my own dad (who worked in IT back then).
A customer called in to complain that the software install that they were doing would always fail when it got to the second disk. The support guy ran through most of the standard procedures, and running out of ideas directed the customer to insert the diagnostics disk that came with the software.
After a short pause, the customer responded "There's no way to squeeze that in there." The support minion promptly discovered that when the customer saw the instruction "Insert disk 2", she was putting in disk 2 without removing disk 1 first.
Interestingly, in the early 90's I started seeing installation tools that said "remove disk 1 and insert disk 2". Either this story got out, or it happened more frequently than I would have thought.
Might I suggest that in your ad (which sounds quite good to someone like me without professional marketing flack training) to include as part of the shots of the third guy some idea of how pretty his desk is? Or even a look at a computer screen he's using?
The reason for this is to make it look like it's easy to use, not just for geeks.
Which just so happen to be part of conglomerates (News Corp, Time Warner, Disney, and Sony) that also own our television networks, movie studios, book publishers, and (wait for it) the Wall Street Journal.
Which of course has absolutely nothing to do with why a story like this might be put out there.
Considering most IT jobs are far easier than being a ditch-digger
Yes in some ways, no in some others.
Construction jobs are physical labor. No question. A friend of mine who works as a bricklayer is quite clear that it can be hard work at times.
But on the flip side, IT jobs aren't exactly a picnic. Especially when you factor in the 24x7 on-call response, the unpaid overtime, and in many companies the lack of career path, IT jobs start looking less attractive. Bricklayers can at least typically go home at the end of the 8-10 hour day and not have to worry about their jobs until the next morning while the IT geek is attached to his Crackberry.
An excellent target for unionizing developers would be Electronic Arts, who routinely would work their developers 70+ hours a week. A union would have allowed the developers to push back much more effectively because the threat of all of EA's developers walking out is much more effective than the threat of each individual developer quitting eventually.
That's not an insightful argument, it's just saying "your wrong" in a slightly more vulgar way.
Something tells me this was moderated based on ideology rather than quality. A sibling post entitled "I disagree almost completely" is far better, and while I happen to disagree with it, deserves its positive mod.
A lot of the anti-union sentiment has to do with attitudes towards fellow techies: a vast majority of drivers consider themselves to be better-than-average drivers, and in a similar vein a vast majority of programmers and admins think that they're better-than-average at what they do. That illusion means that they think that they can get better salary and benefits on their own.
Another issue is that most people see unions as part of a blue-collar system, and programmers as white-collar employees.
They may be right, they may not be. But there's definitely a lot of BS that goes around.
Speech can definitely be a crime:
"Fire!" at the wrong time or context.
"Let's go kill all the [insert ethnic or religious group]!" and obviously meaning it.
"If you don't give me enough money, I'll tell the world who you slept with on Thursday."
"If you vote for anyone other than John Jackson, I'll kill you."
You get the idea. Just because it's speech (online or otherwise) doesn't mean it can't be criminal.
No, in Korea only old people watch billboards.
Get it right.
If the possibility is there, why not take the initiative to get this project started or supported?
Not saying you can't ask for it, but this seems like a personal itch you should look at scratching.
The emails contain an insider's look at how grassroots operations work, full of scheduling questions and rallying cries for support
No, it showed how an astroturfing operation works.
The difference:
grassroots - A small community organization gets together and starts making signs without any direction from the campaign, just folks doing what they want to do.
astroturf - A campaign sets up what they call a "community organization", except that all that the organization does is what the campaign tells them to do. They make signs designed to look like they're made by normal people but are really designed by pros.
You're generally right, but there's one key problem with your argument:
It's not about musicians. It never really was. If it were, you'd be hearing more from musicians about it.
It's about record and motion picture companies (note that these are often the same conglomerates).
Wow, you missed at least one of the biggies:
Fred Brooks' "The Mythical Man-Month"
or (c) face the reality that we need to pay back the loans to the SSA with higher progressive taxes.
You're right that borrow-and-spend isn't going to keep working, but tax-and-spend conceivably could.