That matches my experience (which I admit isn't extensive). I spent some time working in Japan back in the mid 90's. The company put us up at the Palace Hotel in Omiya. Most of the front desk staff spoke flawless English, the cleaning staff, none at all. All of the in-house restaurants offered English language menus. Many of the nearby department store employees spoke enough English so that you could usually find what you wanted. It was enough to get by.
On the other hand, after walking around gawping in various parts of Tokyo got boring, I started boarding random trains and riding them out to smaller towns in order to aimlessly wander around.
Then it was a whole different story. It was extremely rare to find someone that spoke English, there were no English menus or street signs. I'd wander into a park and have no idea if what I was seeing had any significance or not. Unless I could point to an item, shopkeepers generally had no clue what I was after. Judging from the comet trails of little kids I sometimes accumulated, I got the impression that seeing a non-Japanese person in real life was a rare event. Fun enough for me, on my own, but I can't image doing it if I had my family along and a real tourist agenda.
Humans don't distinguish case... no reason for computers to do.
Sorry, but that statement is just naive and misleading. Case folding can be much more difficult than you think. There are words where capitilizing the first letter changes its meaning (capitonym). There are letters where there is no one to one mapping between 'lowercase' and 'uppercase' (German ß, becomes two letters, "SS"). And you can't leave out languages that have no concept of upper and lower case letters at all.
(He went to prison for the first stunt and my guess is that the repeat offense would carry a longer sentance.)
Actually he just ended up paying a $1500 fine (as soon as the FAA figured out what to charge him with).
Actually, it's not. The paper trail is what a vote recount would use, rather than reusing the electronic tallies the machine provided in the first place. The fact that we allowed voting machines that have no means to check the vote totals is shameful. Welcome to the Banana Republic of America.
I used to do quite a bit of business travel, which unfortunately afforded me first hand experice with the 'ugly american' abroad. My all time favorite encounter took place at the rental car stand at the Nice airport. I was in France for a working group meeting taking place nearby.
I'd just gotten in after a long days travel, and tiredly dragged my luggage into the rental office to pick up my economy class car (my company only reimbursed that rental category).
The place was incredibly busy since tourists were beginning to stream in for the upcoming Grand Prix in Monaco and the upcoming Film Festival in Cannes.
The clerk politely told me that they were running a little behind, and that the cars were being cleaned and refueled as quickly as they were returned. My wait would be about 20 minutes.
After I sat down to wait, another American walked in to pick up her car. Judging from her attire, I think it's safe to say that she was fairly affluent. After being told the same thing I was, she immediately started to rant and rave at the clerk about the inconvenience. No matter how many times the clerk politely told her that they were doing the best they could, she responded by yelling at him.
After about 15 minutes of this I saw a small economy car pull up outside. As I stood up to get the keys from the clerk he looked at me, put up his hand and smiled. He then proceeded to give the keys to the loudmouth woman. After she left he told me it would be a few minutes more. Imagine my suprise when the next car to pull up was a fully loaded 4-door Mecedes-Benz diesel sedan. Leather seats, wood trim, high end stereo, the works. Before I could panic about the price, the clerk informed me that I would be charged the economy class rate to make up for being so patient.
Needless to say, I got tapped to do all the driving for our sightseeing roadtrips.
One thing I don't see mentioned is the fact that soon US corporations won't need (nor especially care about) US consumers.
US population: 293,870,345 Indian population: 1,028,610,328 Chinese population: 1,296,754,074
Look at those enormous pools of relatively untapped consumers, and you'll understand why the CxOs of US corporations couldn't give a rat's ass about displaced worker's long term ability to maintain the same lifestyle their parents could afford.
I recall hearing about a supermarket that experimented with tracking devices in the shopping carts (can't remember where). It recorded your path through the store, how long you spent in front of any particular display, etc. Then when you got to the checkout line and produced your loyalty/discount card - it attached your name to your shopping behavior.
Given the number of people that use credit/debit cards instead of cash, anyone with access to the data can already find out a lot about your movements. Take a trip - it's possible to determine where you went, where you ate, where you stayed, how long you stayed, etc. No RFID required.
I got my first personal taste of how much information about my life is available when my wife and I were expecting our first child. About 6-7 months into the pregnancy we started getting junk mail for diaper services, coupons for baby formula, and baby food, as well as other baby related advertising crap. After the birth, one company even sent a birthday card that had the birth date and sex of our child on it. Turns out the doctor's office was selling their patient list to a number of companies.
> No, it hasn't. Most parents (including yourself, I'm sure) tell their children, once they're old enough to read, that they should check the dictionary. I hope you don't mind if I do it for you.
I don't mind, but I hope you won't mind if I don't rely on the dictionary for legal advice.
>"intellectual property" is a buzzword used by various anti-piracy groups to scare users.
I'm sorry, but I just don't believe that. Intellectual property as a concept has existed much longer than the RIAA or DMCA. The fact that it's not physical property doesn't make it any less real.
>What I am saying is that piracy is not only a lesser crime (IMHO) than stealing, as it only deprives the owner of an imagined profit, and, in fact, does not cause a direct loss like shoplifting, it really bears no relation to stealing.
What is it about a person coming in to possession of the 'bits' without obtaining the physical packaging that makes the lost opportunity for profit imaginary or the loss any less direct?
>Uhh, seriously, read a law dictionary. Without something being missing from the victim, and without it being in the hands of the perpetrator (preferrably at the same time) there can be no theft.
You're right that under current law you may not be charged with theft, but I'm not trying to explain the fine points of the law to my children. I'm trying to ensure that they understand that (in my opinion) making an illegal copy of a software package is little different than walking in to the store and taking it off the shelf. The value of the software is not attached to the packaging.
>It's always a lot more complicated to convince someone a crime is bad when there is no victim, and *THAT'S* why the BSA (et al.) want you to (wrongly) think copyright is theft.
I'm no fan of the BSA, (or RIAA or DMCA for that matter) but here we definitely disagree. There certainly are victims. However you feel about certain software companies, their pricing, their licensing, whatever, the fact remains that the victim is the owner of the intellectual property (sorry, there's that term again) that the violater now possesses without having made any compensation.
Sorry, my mistake. You see the financials. I'm sorry if your personal experience with the people you hire was so consistently bad that you couldn't justify paying them a fixed wage. Your original comment still sounds clueless about what drives business offshore. Kodak just announced 3000 people are being layed off and their jobs are being moved out of the country. Think they all must have been slackers too?
You know, I have this discussion with my children periodically. Usually right after I tell them that no, they can't install that cracked copy of MOE that their friend just burned for them. The logic is a little tricky, so try to stay with me.
Some people, especially young children, seem to have a difficult time grasping that although nothing physical is taken, theft has still occurred. They seem to overlook the fact that in the case of software (as in books), it's not the physical manifestation that's holds the majority of the value of the item, it's the intellectual property.
So, your thinking that even though you took it, the fact that they still have it (wow, magic), let's you off the hook is just plain wrong. You're would still be in possession of someone else property without having compensated them for it.
By the way, you're not even close in interpreting how copyright laws apply to these situations.
You obviously are not exposed to the financials at your company. It has nothing to do with work ethic, or lack therof. It has to do with the fact that once a bean counter sees that outsourcing to India is 1/5th the cost of keeping it here, the jobs go.
Consider this scenario: A) I own a Sony DVD player (true story) B) In a drunken stupor, I drop it, step on it and crack it. C) Should I not be able to go to Circuit City and take a replacement? After all, I've already paid for it once. D) The police throw my butt in jail, preventing me from performing any other activities not related to the supposed 'theft'.
Slashdot Mirror
Argument from First Cause is a common logical fallacy. Look up: Fallacy of Equivocation.
I like Jack Germond's label better; 'braying jackasses'. I watched him call O'Reilly that to his face during an interview. Made my day.
That matches my experience (which I admit isn't extensive). I spent some time working in Japan back in the mid 90's. The company put us up at the Palace Hotel in Omiya. Most of the front desk staff spoke flawless English, the cleaning staff, none at all. All of the in-house restaurants offered English language menus. Many of the nearby department store employees spoke enough English so that you could usually find what you wanted. It was enough to get by.
On the other hand, after walking around gawping in various parts of Tokyo got boring, I started boarding random trains and riding them out to smaller towns in order to aimlessly wander around.
Then it was a whole different story. It was extremely rare to find someone that spoke English, there were no English menus or street signs. I'd wander into a park and have no idea if what I was seeing had any significance or not. Unless I could point to an item, shopkeepers generally had no clue what I was after. Judging from the comet trails of little kids I sometimes accumulated, I got the impression that seeing a non-Japanese person in real life was a rare event. Fun enough for me, on my own, but I can't image doing it if I had my family along and a real tourist agenda.
Humans don't distinguish case... no reason for computers to do.
Sorry, but that statement is just naive and misleading. Case folding can be much more difficult than you think. There are words where capitilizing the first letter changes its meaning (capitonym). There are letters where there is no one to one mapping between 'lowercase' and 'uppercase' (German ß, becomes two letters, "SS"). And you can't leave out languages that have no concept of upper and lower case letters at all.
It is quite the norm...
For some reason I read that as:
It is quite the norm though, not in the USA, but most first world nations.
Those 'failures' have more to do with the morons that led, and are leading Xerox, than failures on the part of PARC's scientists.
(He went to prison for the first stunt and my guess is that the repeat offense would carry a longer sentance.)
Actually he just ended up paying a $1500 fine (as soon as the FAA figured out what to charge him with).
The paper trail is a red herring
Actually, it's not. The paper trail is what a vote recount would use, rather than reusing the electronic tallies the machine provided in the first place. The fact that we allowed voting machines that have no means to check the vote totals is shameful. Welcome to the Banana Republic of America.
I used to do quite a bit of business travel, which unfortunately afforded me first hand experice with the 'ugly american' abroad. My all time favorite encounter took place at the rental car stand at the Nice airport. I was in France for a working group meeting taking place nearby.
I'd just gotten in after a long days travel, and tiredly dragged my luggage into the rental office to pick up my economy class car (my company only reimbursed that rental category). The place was incredibly busy since tourists were beginning to stream in for the upcoming Grand Prix in Monaco and the upcoming Film Festival in Cannes.
The clerk politely told me that they were running a little behind, and that the cars were being cleaned and refueled as quickly as they were returned. My wait would be about 20 minutes. After I sat down to wait, another American walked in to pick up her car. Judging from her attire, I think it's safe to say that she was fairly affluent. After being told the same thing I was, she immediately started to rant and rave at the clerk about the inconvenience. No matter how many times the clerk politely told her that they were doing the best they could, she responded by yelling at him.
After about 15 minutes of this I saw a small economy car pull up outside. As I stood up to get the keys from the clerk he looked at me, put up his hand and smiled. He then proceeded to give the keys to the loudmouth woman. After she left he told me it would be a few minutes more. Imagine my suprise when the next car to pull up was a fully loaded 4-door Mecedes-Benz diesel sedan. Leather seats, wood trim, high end stereo, the works. Before I could panic about the price, the clerk informed me that I would be charged the economy class rate to make up for being so patient.
Needless to say, I got tapped to do all the driving for our sightseeing roadtrips.
One thing I don't see mentioned is the fact that soon US corporations won't need (nor especially care about) US consumers.
Look at those enormous pools of relatively untapped consumers, and you'll understand why the CxOs of US corporations couldn't give a rat's ass about displaced worker's long term ability to maintain the same lifestyle their parents could afford.
I recall hearing about a supermarket that experimented with tracking devices in the shopping carts (can't remember where). It recorded your path through the store, how long you spent in front of any particular display, etc. Then when you got to the checkout line and produced your loyalty/discount card - it attached your name to your shopping behavior.
Given the number of people that use credit/debit cards instead of cash, anyone with access to the data can already find out a lot about your movements. Take a trip - it's possible to determine where you went, where you ate, where you stayed, how long you stayed, etc. No RFID required.
I got my first personal taste of how much information about my life is available when my wife and I were expecting our first child. About 6-7 months into the pregnancy we started getting junk mail for diaper services, coupons for baby formula, and baby food, as well as other baby related advertising crap. After the birth, one company even sent a birthday card that had the birth date and sex of our child on it. Turns out the doctor's office was selling their patient list to a number of companies.
Fun stuff.
You mean a material like this?
> No, it hasn't. Most parents (including yourself, I'm sure) tell their children, once they're old enough to read, that they should check the dictionary. I hope you don't mind if I do it for you.
I don't mind, but I hope you won't mind if I don't rely on the dictionary for legal advice.
>"intellectual property" is a buzzword used by various anti-piracy groups to scare users.
I'm sorry, but I just don't believe that. Intellectual property as a concept has existed much longer than the RIAA or DMCA. The fact that it's not physical property doesn't make it any less real.
>What I am saying is that piracy is not only a lesser crime (IMHO) than stealing, as it only deprives the owner of an imagined profit, and, in fact, does not cause a direct loss like shoplifting, it really bears no relation to stealing.
What is it about a person coming in to possession of the 'bits' without obtaining the physical packaging that makes the lost opportunity for profit imaginary or the loss any less direct?
>Uhh, seriously, read a law dictionary. Without something being missing from the victim, and without it being in the hands of the perpetrator (preferrably at the same time) there can be no theft.
You're right that under current law you may not be charged with theft, but I'm not trying to explain the fine points of the law to my children. I'm trying to ensure that they understand that (in my opinion) making an illegal copy of a software package is little different than walking in to the store and taking it off the shelf. The value of the software is not attached to the packaging.
>It's always a lot more complicated to convince someone a crime is bad when there is no victim, and *THAT'S* why the BSA (et al.) want you to (wrongly) think copyright is theft.
I'm no fan of the BSA, (or RIAA or DMCA for that matter) but here we definitely disagree. There certainly are victims. However you feel about certain software companies, their pricing, their licensing, whatever, the fact remains that the victim is the owner of the intellectual property (sorry, there's that term again) that the violater now possesses without having made any compensation.
Regards
Sounds like your father should have spent more time teaching you. Perhaps if you ever find out who he was, you two should spend some time together.
Sorry, my mistake. You see the financials. I'm sorry if your personal experience with the people you hire was so consistently bad that you couldn't justify paying them a fixed wage. Your original comment still sounds clueless about what drives business offshore. Kodak just announced 3000 people are being layed off and their jobs are being moved out of the country. Think they all must have been slackers too?
You know, I have this discussion with my children periodically. Usually right after I tell them that no, they can't install that cracked copy of MOE that their friend just burned for them. The logic is a little tricky, so try to stay with me.
Some people, especially young children, seem to have a difficult time grasping that although nothing physical is taken, theft has still occurred. They seem to overlook the fact that in the case of software (as in books), it's not the physical manifestation that's holds the majority of the value of the item, it's the intellectual property.
So, your thinking that even though you took it, the fact that they still have it (wow, magic), let's you off the hook is just plain wrong. You're would still be in possession of someone else property without having compensated them for it.
By the way, you're not even close in interpreting how copyright laws apply to these situations.
You obviously are not exposed to the financials at your company. It has nothing to do with work ethic, or lack therof. It has to do with the fact that once a bean counter sees that outsourcing to India is 1/5th the cost of keeping it here, the jobs go.
Consider this scenario:
A) I own a Sony DVD player (true story)
B) In a drunken stupor, I drop it, step on it and crack it.
C) Should I not be able to go to Circuit City and take a replacement? After all, I've already paid for it once.
D) The police throw my butt in jail, preventing me from performing any other activities not related to the supposed 'theft'.
Take a look at Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments for an interesting look at why results like that are to be expected.