There are plenty of examples where earning more money, means you end up having less to spend. For instance college expenses, over a certain income level you no longer qualify for need based aid, that means you are footing the entire bill yourself.
Retirement contributions decrease or eliminated over a certain income level. Making more money can throw you into a higher tax bracket, or worse get you caught up in the AMT (believe me, you don't want to go there).
I'm pretty confident that my wife and I make a lot more than the guy in the article and there is no way we could justify $25K on this. After we give over more than a third of our income to three different government entities, we still have to use half of what's left to put two children through school, that doesn't leave a lot left to live on, let alone $25K for something that would only benefit one of us.
That was the point I was trying to make, plus adding a third choice to the mix (i.e. Windows, Linux, OS X), but I also meant it to be funny, so either mod is correct.
Lisp was "king"? I must have slept through that 10 minutes of time...
My dad was a CIO for 3 different companies before he finally had enough and retired. The average "lifespan" of a CIO is 3 or 4 years, eventually something is going to fail and you are going to get left holding bag. He loved the technology end of it, didn't mind the management aspect, but hated the blame game. I think many CIO's are in the same boat, and hence have no interest in going any higher, where they not only loose the technology, but gain more stress, job insecurity and BS.
I don't know but if anybody wants a bunch of the cables I have a whole box of them, found them last week while cleaning up. Thought about throwing them away, but the pack rat in me kept them, probably why nothing in my house ever really gets "cleaned up", just moved to another part of the house...
"I find it funny how few people I talk to are true Republicans or Democrats"
I find it sad that so many people are sheep and look for the easy way out and compromise their true believes/feelings to fit one of the two most popular parties. Certainly there isn't a "perfect" party out their for everyone, but most times there is a better "fit".
"old adage that if you vote third party you are throwing your vote away."
It's not clear from your post how you feel, but never fall for that line of thinking. If you show up at the polls and vote, doesn't matter for who or what, you have not thrown away your vote, the people that don't bother to show up are the ones throwing away their vote.
"A true democracy would require all citizens to vote on everything."
Probably wouldn't take as long as you think, less than half the population votes now, do you think requiring them to vote more often, would make MORE vote?
All good points! I never said the government should be spending money on ANY of those things, we were just talking about one small area that the US government wastes money, there are PLENTY of other examples, SS, Medicare, "bridges to no where", congressional pay raises, how many different "intelligence" agencies does one government need?, etc...
BTW, in the Ohio the lane markings are absolutely the worst I have ever seen (they all but disappear when it is raining at night), and I clearly (no pun intended) wish they would stop giving tax payer money to whichever company makes that paint!
At the entry level end of IT I think there are more factors to consider. During the boom years of lot of people jumped on the bandwagon and got into IT and were good enough to bluff their way through the interview, but bombed in the job, costing companies plenty. Another factor, is that fewer US students are going into the sciences and engineering fields, and IMO the quality of the education (especially undergraduate) they are getting has gone WAY down in the last 10-15 years. Add these two factors to lower wages for Indian and Chinese talent and you have a perfect storm of sorts.
I believe all of this is temporary because as you mentioned India is starting to feel the bite of inflation, but also as their economy grows, their own internal needs for IT is causing a shortage of IT talent, all this causing Indian IT to not be as big a bargain as it once was.
I suspect this is happening to a certain extent in China, but being Communist gives them a certain advantage in not only hiding it, but for them to just force more people through the education mill, and up their supply of talent.
Nonprofits are actually how more government money should be spent, and if their research results in an application/product and no one profits from it, then that is fine. My problem is large corporations (not just drug companies) putting their hands under the government slot machine, taking tax payer money and profiting from it.
"If we were talking about the government spending money for a technology widget for a computer or TV I would agree with you, but we are talking about medicines here,"
Then we disagree, because I see no difference, in the end, both constitute corporate welfare. No where in the Constitution or in natural law is there a right to a healthy life, just to life itself.
If there really is basic research still to do, fine, but if that research has any applications to real products, then public money shouldn't be used, because ultimately a corporation will benefit from it and that is just another form of corporate welfare, and the government shouldn't be in the business of helping private corporations!
Most of the articles I read, addressing the lack of public funding for stem cells, centers around research for specific applications, such as MJF's push for using stem cells to find a cure for Parkinson's, that is a specific application of stem cells and should be pursued with private funds. Public funds need to go to helping the largest percentage of the population first, using public funds to find cures to afflictions that affect a small percentage of the population is not the best use for those funds.
I also suspect, you being a "Ph.D in Biology", you don't speak from a completely unbiased point of view, since your livelihood at least partially depends on public funding...
That is really a different issue, but probably a bigger issue. The question of research being made public that was done with public funds, is yes!
The US Government really needs to overhaul how public funds are spent on research. IMHO, the government should only be spending money on fundamental, groundbreaking type research. A good example of this is stem cells, the government should no longer be funding any type of stem cell research, the basic understanding of how stem cells work has been done, the work now centers around finding applications for them, private money should be used for this, since private companies are the ones that will benefit from the application of the research.
Unfortunately in the current setup, Congress determines where public monies are spent on research, they are pretty much the last group of people that should decide how money is spent on research (and certainly on a lot of things as well). Congresses role should end at approval of a budget for research, a independent body, made up of researchers representing all/many areas of expertise, should then decide how that money is allocated.
Unionizing IT is not the answer. A couple of years ago I did a contract in a unionized IT shop and it was a nightmare! Incompetent, unqualified, downright lazy people in critical support positions, and protected by the union. Unions cater to the lowest common denominator and cause quality and productivity to suffer. Individuals have as much power as a union, they just need to stand up for it!
I have been in IT for 20+ years, I have worked in a lot of different shops, and you only get abused if you accept it. I have worked in shops that expected long hours, and I only did it if I felt like it. If the situation got too bad, i.e. they start demanding that I spend extra hours, I walked. The beauty of IT is that there is ALWAYS another job out there. In 20+ years I have only been out of work ~2 months total, and yes, I have changed jobs twice in the last 5 years. Outsourcing is completely overblown, computers are here to stay and only getting more integrated into our lives and businesses, there is going to be IT work for a very long time.
Sure, as long as the show isn't in a bar (or other establishment where minors aren't allowed), there is no reason that minors can't come to the shows.
"What about the problem of letting the public know that your music exists?"
At some point it becomes an individuals responsibility to look for alternatives, if his entertainment interests aren't being satisfied by his current spoon fed selections. The sad truth is that most people either don't have the time or don't care enough to look outside the mainstream for their entertainment, but that doesn't make it the performers responsibility to inform each one of them about alternatives.
"All Fort Wayne Community Schools buses in operation between 1989 and 1999 have had FM radios."
That certainly seems like something you should take up with your school board. If they don't allow children, riding community owned school buses, to bring alternative forms of music on the bus, and insist on playing what they (the elected school board) choose to play, then that is a problem that should be addressed by the voting public of that district.
I use MacDrive6 on my Windows boxes and format all of my external drives as HFS drives. Now I have fully read/write capability on OSX, Linux and Windows, without the limitations of FAT32. It isn't free, but it certainly makes life easier when moving external drives between different OS's.
True, but you said: "It gives you no rights whatsoever to control how recipients use those copies."
So the GPL does restrict how I use those copies, i.e. I can't redistribute (a use) those copies (or any derived product) any way I wish, I can only distribute copies the way the GPL says I can.
The way independent bands have reached these people for years, selling CD's at their concerts, or in independent CD shops. If you have a college or university near you, they are going to have independent CD/record shops. CD's are ~$.01 per CD to get produced in volumes as small as 100, packaged with cover art and shrink wrapped. I have been involved with several independent bands over the years and getting our music into the hands/players of people that wanted it was never a problem.
As for the school bus, if you can't bring MP3's onto a bus and any school bus I was ever on never had a radio, so how are you exposing a captive audience to major label music?
"Unfortunately nothing will happen until somebody takes one of these copyright holders to court over their infringing on our rights. But that's not likely to happen since the little guy can't afford to sue these massive corporations."
That's what most people fail to realize, everyone has the most important vote of all, your wallet! If you don't like what they produce, don't buy it. Everyone can afford that, and if you get enough people to go along with you then these companies will have to get the idea that DRM is a bad idea.
"The Internet still does not reach motor vehicles such as cars or school buses, which expose a captive audience to major label music every day."
Yes, but it reaches my house, and my car has an aux input and a tape player so I can plug my MP3 player into either and listen to whatever I wish, I am not captive to major label music in the least.
"Wow! Do you think it's a crime for a company to make money?!"
"Yes, certainly in the United States it is. Only the Federal Government is permitted to print US currency and anyone else who makes it is a counterfeiter."
Since you want to take what I said literally, I'll do the same: I said "money", first of all that doesn't imply a particular currency, such as the US dollar, which it's true, only the US government can issue. However, I can trade in any currency I wish, I can make up my own currency and if someone will accept it for payment, then yes, even in the US, I can "make my own money", as long as I don't try to make it look like US currency.
There was recently an article about a artist (sorry can't find the link) that painted his own money and convinced people to take it as payment for goods and services rendered. The receivers of the painted money made out, because as word spread of what he was doing, the demand for the money increased, and so did the price. Of course none this was what I meant, I should have said:
"Wow! Do you think it's a crime for a company to earn money?!
Hope that clears that up.
"Absolutely, but given that it is an open standard I don't see how they are going to protect anything."
I never once said it was a good way to protect content, just that they have the right to use it.
"No. Copyright gives you the exclusive right to distribute copies. It gives you no rights whatsoever to control how recipients use those copies."
Software companies have always controlled how you use their products. Even more to the point, the GPL does exactly this, using a license to control how the end user distributes software that he received from the original copyright holder.
"So we have a very large company doing several things at once, all with the goal of making more money"
Wow! Do you think it's a crime for a company to make money?!
"Because then, if you are an entertainer, and you want the entertainment you produce distributed, you'd have only one place to go and, regardless of the contract terms, you'd probably sin."
You do realize the barrier to entry into producing and distributing your own "entertainment" continues to drop, right? 20 years ago, before the Internet took off and powerful desktop computers, your statement might have had some validity, but today producing high quality works of "entertainment" is easier and less expensive, and with the Internet, and broadband, distribution is easier too.
"And that whole process would be heped along if there were a law that prevented entertainment from being released into the atmosphere without the industry's explicit approval."
Maybe, if DRM was actually a law. DRM is simply a mechanism for entertainment companies to try and protect their investment.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not a myth...
There are plenty of examples where earning more money, means you end up having less to spend. For instance college expenses, over a certain income level you no longer qualify for need based aid, that means you are footing the entire bill yourself.
Retirement contributions decrease or eliminated over a certain income level. Making more money can throw you into a higher tax bracket, or worse get you caught up in the AMT (believe me, you don't want to go there).
I'm pretty confident that my wife and I make a lot more than the guy in the article and there is no way we could justify $25K on this. After we give over more than a third of our income to three different government entities, we still have to use half of what's left to put two children through school, that doesn't leave a lot left to live on, let alone $25K for something that would only benefit one of us.
That was the point I was trying to make, plus adding a third choice to the mix (i.e. Windows, Linux, OS X), but I also meant it to be funny, so either mod is correct.
Lisp was "king"? I must have slept through that 10 minutes of time...
"five minutes to boot"
Wow, you must have gotten one of the good VAXen. Fast boot times, and a 10Mbps network card, aren't you Mr. Fancypants!!!
Eclipse, the emacs for a new generation!
I think your close, but it goes a little deeper.
My dad was a CIO for 3 different companies before he finally had enough and retired. The average "lifespan" of a CIO is 3 or 4 years, eventually something is going to fail and you are going to get left holding bag. He loved the technology end of it, didn't mind the management aspect, but hated the blame game. I think many CIO's are in the same boat, and hence have no interest in going any higher, where they not only loose the technology, but gain more stress, job insecurity and BS.
I don't know but if anybody wants a bunch of the cables I have a whole box of them, found them last week while cleaning up. Thought about throwing them away, but the pack rat in me kept them, probably why nothing in my house ever really gets "cleaned up", just moved to another part of the house...
"I find it funny how few people I talk to are true Republicans or Democrats"
I find it sad that so many people are sheep and look for the easy way out and compromise their true believes/feelings to fit one of the two most popular parties. Certainly there isn't a "perfect" party out their for everyone, but most times there is a better "fit".
"old adage that if you vote third party you are throwing your vote away."
It's not clear from your post how you feel, but never fall for that line of thinking. If you show up at the polls and vote, doesn't matter for who or what, you have not thrown away your vote, the people that don't bother to show up are the ones throwing away their vote.
"A true democracy would require all citizens to vote on everything."
Probably wouldn't take as long as you think, less than half the population votes now, do you think requiring them to vote more often, would make MORE vote?
All good points! I never said the government should be spending money on ANY of those things, we were just talking about one small area that the US government wastes money, there are PLENTY of other examples, SS, Medicare, "bridges to no where", congressional pay raises, how many different "intelligence" agencies does one government need?, etc...
BTW, in the Ohio the lane markings are absolutely the worst I have ever seen (they all but disappear when it is raining at night), and I clearly (no pun intended) wish they would stop giving tax payer money to whichever company makes that paint!
At the entry level end of IT I think there are more factors to consider. During the boom years of lot of people jumped on the bandwagon and got into IT and were good enough to bluff their way through the interview, but bombed in the job, costing companies plenty. Another factor, is that fewer US students are going into the sciences and engineering fields, and IMO the quality of the education (especially undergraduate) they are getting has gone WAY down in the last 10-15 years. Add these two factors to lower wages for Indian and Chinese talent and you have a perfect storm of sorts.
I believe all of this is temporary because as you mentioned India is starting to feel the bite of inflation, but also as their economy grows, their own internal needs for IT is causing a shortage of IT talent, all this causing Indian IT to not be as big a bargain as it once was.
I suspect this is happening to a certain extent in China, but being Communist gives them a certain advantage in not only hiding it, but for them to just force more people through the education mill, and up their supply of talent.
Nonprofits are actually how more government money should be spent, and if their research results in an application/product and no one profits from it, then that is fine. My problem is large corporations (not just drug companies) putting their hands under the government slot machine, taking tax payer money and profiting from it.
"If we were talking about the government spending money for a technology widget for a computer or TV I would agree with you, but we are talking about medicines here,"
Then we disagree, because I see no difference, in the end, both constitute corporate welfare. No where in the Constitution or in natural law is there a right to a healthy life, just to life itself.
If there really is basic research still to do, fine, but if that research has any applications to real products, then public money shouldn't be used, because ultimately a corporation will benefit from it and that is just another form of corporate welfare, and the government shouldn't be in the business of helping private corporations!
Most of the articles I read, addressing the lack of public funding for stem cells, centers around research for specific applications, such as MJF's push for using stem cells to find a cure for Parkinson's, that is a specific application of stem cells and should be pursued with private funds. Public funds need to go to helping the largest percentage of the population first, using public funds to find cures to afflictions that affect a small percentage of the population is not the best use for those funds.
I also suspect, you being a "Ph.D in Biology", you don't speak from a completely unbiased point of view, since your livelihood at least partially depends on public funding...
That is really a different issue, but probably a bigger issue. The question of research being made public that was done with public funds, is yes!
The US Government really needs to overhaul how public funds are spent on research. IMHO, the government should only be spending money on fundamental, groundbreaking type research. A good example of this is stem cells, the government should no longer be funding any type of stem cell research, the basic understanding of how stem cells work has been done, the work now centers around finding applications for them, private money should be used for this, since private companies are the ones that will benefit from the application of the research.
Unfortunately in the current setup, Congress determines where public monies are spent on research, they are pretty much the last group of people that should decide how money is spent on research (and certainly on a lot of things as well). Congresses role should end at approval of a budget for research, a independent body, made up of researchers representing all/many areas of expertise, should then decide how that money is allocated.
Unionizing IT is not the answer. A couple of years ago I did a contract in a unionized IT shop and it was a nightmare! Incompetent, unqualified, downright lazy people in critical support positions, and protected by the union. Unions cater to the lowest common denominator and cause quality and productivity to suffer. Individuals have as much power as a union, they just need to stand up for it!
I have been in IT for 20+ years, I have worked in a lot of different shops, and you only get abused if you accept it. I have worked in shops that expected long hours, and I only did it if I felt like it. If the situation got too bad, i.e. they start demanding that I spend extra hours, I walked. The beauty of IT is that there is ALWAYS another job out there. In 20+ years I have only been out of work ~2 months total, and yes, I have changed jobs twice in the last 5 years. Outsourcing is completely overblown, computers are here to stay and only getting more integrated into our lives and businesses, there is going to be IT work for a very long time.
"But can minors go to these concerts?"
Sure, as long as the show isn't in a bar (or other establishment where minors aren't allowed), there is no reason that minors can't come to the shows.
"What about the problem of letting the public know that your music exists?"
At some point it becomes an individuals responsibility to look for alternatives, if his entertainment interests aren't being satisfied by his current spoon fed selections. The sad truth is that most people either don't have the time or don't care enough to look outside the mainstream for their entertainment, but that doesn't make it the performers responsibility to inform each one of them about alternatives.
"All Fort Wayne Community Schools buses in operation between 1989 and 1999 have had FM radios."
That certainly seems like something you should take up with your school board. If they don't allow children, riding community owned school buses, to bring alternative forms of music on the bus, and insist on playing what they (the elected school board) choose to play, then that is a problem that should be addressed by the voting public of that district.
I use MacDrive6 on my Windows boxes and format all of my external drives as HFS drives. Now I have fully read/write capability on OSX, Linux and Windows, without the limitations of FAT32. It isn't free, but it certainly makes life easier when moving external drives between different OS's.
True, but you said: "It gives you no rights whatsoever to control how recipients use those copies."
So the GPL does restrict how I use those copies, i.e. I can't redistribute (a use) those copies (or any derived product) any way I wish, I can only distribute copies the way the GPL says I can.
The way independent bands have reached these people for years, selling CD's at their concerts, or in independent CD shops. If you have a college or university near you, they are going to have independent CD/record shops. CD's are ~$.01 per CD to get produced in volumes as small as 100, packaged with cover art and shrink wrapped. I have been involved with several independent bands over the years and getting our music into the hands/players of people that wanted it was never a problem.
As for the school bus, if you can't bring MP3's onto a bus and any school bus I was ever on never had a radio, so how are you exposing a captive audience to major label music?
"Unfortunately nothing will happen until somebody takes one of these copyright holders to court over their infringing on our rights. But that's not likely to happen since the little guy can't afford to sue these massive corporations."
That's what most people fail to realize, everyone has the most important vote of all, your wallet! If you don't like what they produce, don't buy it. Everyone can afford that, and if you get enough people to go along with you then these companies will have to get the idea that DRM is a bad idea.
"The Internet still does not reach motor vehicles such as cars or school buses, which expose a captive audience to major label music every day."
Yes, but it reaches my house, and my car has an aux input and a tape player so I can plug my MP3 player into either and listen to whatever I wish, I am not captive to major label music in the least.
"Wow! Do you think it's a crime for a company to make money?!"
"Yes, certainly in the United States it is. Only the Federal Government is permitted to print US currency and anyone else who makes it is a counterfeiter."
Since you want to take what I said literally, I'll do the same: I said "money", first of all that doesn't imply a particular currency, such as the US dollar, which it's true, only the US government can issue. However, I can trade in any currency I wish, I can make up my own currency and if someone will accept it for payment, then yes, even in the US, I can "make my own money", as long as I don't try to make it look like US currency.
There was recently an article about a artist (sorry can't find the link) that painted his own money and convinced people to take it as payment for goods and services rendered. The receivers of the painted money made out, because as word spread of what he was doing, the demand for the money increased, and so did the price. Of course none this was what I meant, I should have said:
"Wow! Do you think it's a crime for a company to earn money?!
Hope that clears that up.
"Absolutely, but given that it is an open standard I don't see how they are going to protect anything."
I never once said it was a good way to protect content, just that they have the right to use it.
"No. Copyright gives you the exclusive right to distribute copies. It gives you no rights whatsoever to control how recipients use those copies."
Software companies have always controlled how you use their products. Even more to the point, the GPL does exactly this, using a license to control how the end user distributes software that he received from the original copyright holder.
"So we have a very large company doing several things at once, all with the goal of making more money"
Wow! Do you think it's a crime for a company to make money?!
"Because then, if you are an entertainer, and you want the entertainment you produce distributed, you'd have only one place to go and, regardless of the contract terms, you'd probably sin."
You do realize the barrier to entry into producing and distributing your own "entertainment" continues to drop, right? 20 years ago, before the Internet took off and powerful desktop computers, your statement might have had some validity, but today producing high quality works of "entertainment" is easier and less expensive, and with the Internet, and broadband, distribution is easier too.
"And that whole process would be heped along if there were a law that prevented entertainment from being released into the atmosphere without the industry's explicit approval."
Maybe, if DRM was actually a law. DRM is simply a mechanism for entertainment companies to try and protect their investment.