Look at it this way, if we wait until the technology is perfected and we know all the impacts, you'll never see the benefits of it.
Not only that, but the only way to really perfect a technology like this is by applying it.
Yes, it could have some catastrophic effects, but fuck it, you only live once (unless you're a Hindu, but then nobody cares what you think anyway)! As for future generations, if we wipe ourselves out, they'll never notice anyway.
Being careful about raping mother nature is for quiche eaters...
I see your point, and it's very valid, but there's a flaw in that argument. Let's use Mickey Mouse as an example.
The root of the problem is that when Walt created Mickey, and published his film, he essentially entered into a contract with the public. He agreed that he had a specific number of years from which to profit off of his creation (and he clearly took great advantage of this). Now, the Disney corporation (standing in for Walt himself) has not held up their end of the bargain.
The public agreed, in exchange for not using the intellectual property of Disney for some period of time, that they would gain the possesion of that property for the good of society at large. We held up our end of that bargain (sure some people didn't, but Disney was allowed to sick their lawyers on those folks, as well as use our legal infrastructure for that purpose), so where's the part that benefits us??
Yes, it's certainly in Eisner's interests to extend copyrights (including doing it retroactively). I do not fault him for endorsing such a policy. What I do have a problem with is the way he endorses it, and the fact that Congress doesn't understand or care about the public's side of things. The RIAA/MPAA have made quite a few shady deals (Hollings isn't called "senator Disney" for nothing) in order to get legislation to swing their way. This is really what's wrong with copyright law as it stands (and how it seems to be progressing).
If you carry those cheap non-copyrighted works, we won't sell you any Britney Spears or 'Nsync albums.
If you buy X Britney Spears units, we give you 10X units of this uncopyrighted [by European standards] work that we just happen to own the US copyright on.
Thereby shutting out the European competitors.
I'm sure Tower Records will crumble under this sort of pressure...
The problem in America is that Congress has implemented retroactive extensions to copyrights.
What this means is that someone created some content, at year 0, with full knowledge that the copyright would expire in X years. At year (X - 1), Congress extends copyrights to (X + Y) years. Now, said content is still under copyright until year (X + Y), even though it's creator had accepted the fact that it would fall into the public domain at year X.
This is what Lessig was in front of the Supreme Court for. Congress can arbitrarily apply a copyright extension every time a chunk of media (eg. "Steamboat Willie", owned by Disney - the first appearance of Mickey Mouse) is about to fall into the public domain.
Clearly, Walt was okay with the idea of Mickey becoming public domain in X years, but Eisner sees things a bit differently...
I'll go ahead and say the RIAA's first serious move will be to apply another law to prevent this from happening (DMCA anyone? Trademark? Anti-trust [that'd be ironic]?) as soon as someone puts out a legitimate publication of copyright-less material.
We'll probably see WIPO get involved here too.
If the DMCA could be used against Sklyarov (even if it wasn't that successful, it was still a major pain in the ass for him), couldn't they just apply American copyright law against a European distributor?
Like I've said elsewhere, everyone has their own definition of success. To me, part of being successful is doing things that others simply can not. Having kids is not anything special, hundreds of millions of people do it. To you, it may be a really big deal, to me it's just someone else (most likely another asshole in the making) to suck away my tax dollars.
Everyone here seems to be confused about what success is. Success isn't happines, they are not synonyms. Success is a measure of achievement in life (you may insist that happiness is part of total achievement, but I do not necessarily). There are a lot of things that can be combined to define a successful person (including happiness). But, missing some of those elements does not preclude one from being successful. Also, having a kid is certainly not a major achievement, nor does it assure happiness (quite the opposite in some cases).
I'm not going to break out a dictionary definition here, just so I don't repeat myself, I already tried to define success elsewhere today.
Having kids absolutely does not make you successful. It may give you personal satisfaction, but satisfaction is not success. Personally, I tend to feel sorry for people who need to define themselves by their children. It's ultimately bad for them, and often bad for the kids.
Don't get me wrong, this isn't a slight against you personally, but against the idea that having kids is some noble goal. I would expect that you've picked up this "value" of having children from our society. This is some remnant from when life was harder, and raising a child into an adult was a major challenge, and the population kind of needed lots of births (plagues, starvation, etc). This is no longer the case. As far as I'm concerned...
baby: (noun) an alimentary canal, with a loud vocal organ at one end, and no responsibility at the other. [I forget who originally said that, maybe Ambrose Bierce?]
The problem with an article/discussion like this is that you'll never get a good concensus on the definition of successful. A lot of times when discussing this, the topic becomes one of both success and satisfaction. Be careful about confusing the two.
In my case, I've worked as an engineer for a couple of years right out of college and was rather successful. I get lots of other people, including much more senior engineers, coming to me for advice. I've gotten a bunch of raises, travelled the world, and am sitting on a pile of cash. I see some other people here that I consider to be extremely good at what they do, and would generally be considered successful. They make quite a bit of money, and are very talented. However, I don't consider them to be that successful. If I gave you their names, you would never have heard of them, so to me, that's not that successful. To truly be successful, I would consider having a certain degree of fame in your field to be a prerequisite.
Money is certainly a criterion for success. Anyone that says money can't buy happiness has never had money, or just didn't know how to spend it. Often, the people that say things like this are kind of bitter about not being rich themselves.
For me, the work I did seems kind of meaningless (this is where satisfaction comes in). Creating some software that does some menial (I'll leave the definition of "menial" open) task is bullshit, and rather uninteresting. Sure, it can be challenging to get things working (creating true reliability is rather hard), but challenge in and of itself is not too satisfying. Yes, there's some satisfaction in seeing your creation work well, but not a lot.
For me, real satisfaction will only come from pushing boundaries and expanding knowledge (ie. doing research). Note that I said research and not engineering. That's a very important distinction... engineering is a means to an end (and a subset of doing a lot of research), the goal of research (in my opinion) is not to create, but to discover and learn. Engineering is something in which I think I could find at least a modicum of success, but not satisfaction.
Of course, your opinion may be rather different, and some other guy will disagree with both of us. We could discuss this forever...
A good general definition of success (not satisfaction) would be: achieving recognition in one's chosen field, where recognition comes in the form of both respect and compensation.
Personally, I'd like more flexibility in a browser's back/forward functionality (and might get some use out of a variety of implementations). But, does your average user care at all? I'll bet most wouldn't even notice. Lots of websites integrate their own back/forward functionality anyway, which I'll bet get a fair amount of use. This may just confuse some of the simpler folk who want things to "just work".
By the way, have they patented this yet? If they plan on exploiting this, they've got 1 year (I think) from the date of publication, they'd better get to filing! Anyone smell a lawsuit coming in a couple of years?
Do you think they're really looking at using MS software for critical systems, such as missiles? I seriously doubt that. They'll probably go with some mature real-time control system (I don't know much about that market).
All the MS stuff they may use would probably go into administrative systems, the same as it does here. Sure, it may cause some problems, but if it gets the job done, it really isn't important. If the total cost to India is low enough, they'll use MS (which is the logical decision). By total cost, I'm including support over time.
Personal beliefs don't have much place in business decisions.
I wasn't commenting on the economics of the situation. In fact, that's a very complex issue, and various aspects of globalization can be good or bad. We could certainly bounce posts back and forth on the subject for weeks. I was just commenting on the fact that people love to express controversial opinions as "Anonymous Coward", instead of standing behind their beliefs.
As you can tell, I'm a racist. My posts often get modded down, just because of my username. But, I'm still very upfront about my beliefs. I think if more people were honest about what they think, we'd be better off.
What would a total cost analysis show? Would the cost of administration, customization, training, support, and finding the necessary applications cancel any benefits of not buying licenses?
One thing a lot of people ignore is that software, on an enterprise scale, almost always comes with a support package and some amount of custom solutions. Of course, the quality of the support/solutions is up for debate on a per company basis.
Still, open source might be cheaper, but I haven't investigated enough to be sure. I tend to not trust the analysis of someone pushing an agenda (MS, Stallman, etc.).
fuck the globalists and the chinks/browns who take our jobs away
Nice sentiment, but next time be a little more proud of your thoughts and don't post as "Anonymous Coward". There's nothing wrong with not liking the chinks/browns who take our jobs away. If more people would actually speak up about these problems, we could actually fix them.
Anyone know what kind of money India throws around for software? They've got a lot of people, but are very poor (per capita), so what sort of market is that cesspool?
ignorant sister-kissing cousin-fscking inbred so-and-so's like this
Hmmm... that's a gross generalization of racists. Isn't that sort of like my gross generalization of the dirty-skins? I guess we're all very much alike afterall.
You don't have to agree with all my opinions. But, you shouldn't let my opinions about race affect your thoughts on anything else I have to say. I mean, isn't that what tolerance is all about?
FYI - My signature is because Saudi Arabia is anti-American. Not only are they anti-American, but they got rich off of us so they won't openly admit to hating us. Of course, being a racist, I've got a thing against all arabs, but Saudi Arabia is worse than most.
Regardless of it being DRM or a faulty player, you should be compensated. You bought a product (be it the CDs or the player) that does not work. Try complaining about the CD player first (and try the CDs in a few other machines too). Get your player and/or CDs replaced or get refunds.
If it is DRM, they should have labelled it, and they deserve to take some shit for fucking over their customers.
That's why the japs had to just pull the plug. Why would anyone (knowledgeable) be using a wireless link for sensitive data as if it were a wireline LAN?
How can supposedly professional people be so careless?
Slashdot Mirror
Look at it this way, if we wait until the technology is perfected and we know all the impacts, you'll never see the benefits of it.
Not only that, but the only way to really perfect a technology like this is by applying it.
Yes, it could have some catastrophic effects, but fuck it, you only live once (unless you're a Hindu, but then nobody cares what you think anyway)! As for future generations, if we wipe ourselves out, they'll never notice anyway.
Being careful about raping mother nature is for quiche eaters...
I see your point, and it's very valid, but there's a flaw in that argument. Let's use Mickey Mouse as an example.
The root of the problem is that when Walt created Mickey, and published his film, he essentially entered into a contract with the public. He agreed that he had a specific number of years from which to profit off of his creation (and he clearly took great advantage of this). Now, the Disney corporation (standing in for Walt himself) has not held up their end of the bargain.
The public agreed, in exchange for not using the intellectual property of Disney for some period of time, that they would gain the possesion of that property for the good of society at large. We held up our end of that bargain (sure some people didn't, but Disney was allowed to sick their lawyers on those folks, as well as use our legal infrastructure for that purpose), so where's the part that benefits us??
Yes, it's certainly in Eisner's interests to extend copyrights (including doing it retroactively). I do not fault him for endorsing such a policy. What I do have a problem with is the way he endorses it, and the fact that Congress doesn't understand or care about the public's side of things. The RIAA/MPAA have made quite a few shady deals (Hollings isn't called "senator Disney" for nothing) in order to get legislation to swing their way. This is really what's wrong with copyright law as it stands (and how it seems to be progressing).
Shhhh!!! Don't give the RIAA any ideas!!!
It goes something like this:
- If you carry those cheap non-copyrighted works, we won't sell you any Britney Spears or 'Nsync albums.
- If you buy X Britney Spears units, we give you 10X units of this uncopyrighted [by European standards] work that we just happen to own the US copyright on.
Thereby shutting out the European competitors.I'm sure Tower Records will crumble under this sort of pressure...
The problem in America is that Congress has implemented retroactive extensions to copyrights.
What this means is that someone created some content, at year 0, with full knowledge that the copyright would expire in X years. At year (X - 1), Congress extends copyrights to (X + Y) years. Now, said content is still under copyright until year (X + Y), even though it's creator had accepted the fact that it would fall into the public domain at year X.
This is what Lessig was in front of the Supreme Court for. Congress can arbitrarily apply a copyright extension every time a chunk of media (eg. "Steamboat Willie", owned by Disney - the first appearance of Mickey Mouse) is about to fall into the public domain.
Clearly, Walt was okay with the idea of Mickey becoming public domain in X years, but Eisner sees things a bit differently...
I'll go ahead and say the RIAA's first serious move will be to apply another law to prevent this from happening (DMCA anyone? Trademark? Anti-trust [that'd be ironic]?) as soon as someone puts out a legitimate publication of copyright-less material.
We'll probably see WIPO get involved here too.
If the DMCA could be used against Sklyarov (even if it wasn't that successful, it was still a major pain in the ass for him), couldn't they just apply American copyright law against a European distributor?
It's nice to see someone exploiting another (probably poorly written) law besides the DMCA for a change.
Is it just me, or do Russians make great targets for this stuff?
Anyone know some details about this law (I'm too lazy to bother looking into it myself)?
Don't forget it's Star Trek, having continuity errors only adds to the authenticity...
Wait a minute, how authentic (in relation to the original) could it be if the acting is good?
Like I've said elsewhere, everyone has their own definition of success. To me, part of being successful is doing things that others simply can not. Having kids is not anything special, hundreds of millions of people do it. To you, it may be a really big deal, to me it's just someone else (most likely another asshole in the making) to suck away my tax dollars.
Everyone here seems to be confused about what success is. Success isn't happines, they are not synonyms. Success is a measure of achievement in life (you may insist that happiness is part of total achievement, but I do not necessarily). There are a lot of things that can be combined to define a successful person (including happiness). But, missing some of those elements does not preclude one from being successful. Also, having a kid is certainly not a major achievement, nor does it assure happiness (quite the opposite in some cases).
I'm not going to break out a dictionary definition here, just so I don't repeat myself, I already tried to define success elsewhere today.
Having kids absolutely does not make you successful. It may give you personal satisfaction, but satisfaction is not success. Personally, I tend to feel sorry for people who need to define themselves by their children. It's ultimately bad for them, and often bad for the kids.
Don't get me wrong, this isn't a slight against you personally, but against the idea that having kids is some noble goal. I would expect that you've picked up this "value" of having children from our society. This is some remnant from when life was harder, and raising a child into an adult was a major challenge, and the population kind of needed lots of births (plagues, starvation, etc). This is no longer the case. As far as I'm concerned...
baby: (noun) an alimentary canal, with a loud vocal organ at one end, and no responsibility at the other. [I forget who originally said that, maybe Ambrose Bierce?]
The problem with an article/discussion like this is that you'll never get a good concensus on the definition of successful. A lot of times when discussing this, the topic becomes one of both success and satisfaction. Be careful about confusing the two.
In my case, I've worked as an engineer for a couple of years right out of college and was rather successful. I get lots of other people, including much more senior engineers, coming to me for advice. I've gotten a bunch of raises, travelled the world, and am sitting on a pile of cash. I see some other people here that I consider to be extremely good at what they do, and would generally be considered successful. They make quite a bit of money, and are very talented. However, I don't consider them to be that successful. If I gave you their names, you would never have heard of them, so to me, that's not that successful. To truly be successful, I would consider having a certain degree of fame in your field to be a prerequisite.
Money is certainly a criterion for success. Anyone that says money can't buy happiness has never had money, or just didn't know how to spend it. Often, the people that say things like this are kind of bitter about not being rich themselves.
For me, the work I did seems kind of meaningless (this is where satisfaction comes in). Creating some software that does some menial (I'll leave the definition of "menial" open) task is bullshit, and rather uninteresting. Sure, it can be challenging to get things working (creating true reliability is rather hard), but challenge in and of itself is not too satisfying. Yes, there's some satisfaction in seeing your creation work well, but not a lot.
For me, real satisfaction will only come from pushing boundaries and expanding knowledge (ie. doing research). Note that I said research and not engineering. That's a very important distinction... engineering is a means to an end (and a subset of doing a lot of research), the goal of research (in my opinion) is not to create, but to discover and learn. Engineering is something in which I think I could find at least a modicum of success, but not satisfaction.
Of course, your opinion may be rather different, and some other guy will disagree with both of us. We could discuss this forever...
A good general definition of success (not satisfaction) would be: achieving recognition in one's chosen field, where recognition comes in the form of both respect and compensation.
Personally, I'd like more flexibility in a browser's back/forward functionality (and might get some use out of a variety of implementations). But, does your average user care at all? I'll bet most wouldn't even notice. Lots of websites integrate their own back/forward functionality anyway, which I'll bet get a fair amount of use. This may just confuse some of the simpler folk who want things to "just work".
By the way, have they patented this yet? If they plan on exploiting this, they've got 1 year (I think) from the date of publication, they'd better get to filing! Anyone smell a lawsuit coming in a couple of years?
I don't really care why it's a cess pool. If it's because of the British rule, well, isn't it the fault of India for being so weak in the first place?
Besides, they fucked up the Ganges themselves, then they bathed in it.
Oh, yeah, they're pretty ugly. I don't like having to look at them (they stink too).
Do you think they're really looking at using MS software for critical systems, such as missiles? I seriously doubt that. They'll probably go with some mature real-time control system (I don't know much about that market).
All the MS stuff they may use would probably go into administrative systems, the same as it does here. Sure, it may cause some problems, but if it gets the job done, it really isn't important. If the total cost to India is low enough, they'll use MS (which is the logical decision). By total cost, I'm including support over time.
Personal beliefs don't have much place in business decisions.
I wasn't commenting on the economics of the situation. In fact, that's a very complex issue, and various aspects of globalization can be good or bad. We could certainly bounce posts back and forth on the subject for weeks. I was just commenting on the fact that people love to express controversial opinions as "Anonymous Coward", instead of standing behind their beliefs.
As you can tell, I'm a racist. My posts often get modded down, just because of my username. But, I'm still very upfront about my beliefs. I think if more people were honest about what they think, we'd be better off.
Does open source really make sense?
What would a total cost analysis show? Would the cost of administration, customization, training, support, and finding the necessary applications cancel any benefits of not buying licenses?
One thing a lot of people ignore is that software, on an enterprise scale, almost always comes with a support package and some amount of custom solutions. Of course, the quality of the support/solutions is up for debate on a per company basis.
Still, open source might be cheaper, but I haven't investigated enough to be sure. I tend to not trust the analysis of someone pushing an agenda (MS, Stallman, etc.).
Clearly, Microsoft would and the open source community seems ready to embrace the dot-heads too.
Anyway, I'm just curious... we should all be curious, about everything.
fuck the globalists and the chinks/browns who take our jobs away
Nice sentiment, but next time be a little more proud of your thoughts and don't post as "Anonymous Coward". There's nothing wrong with not liking the chinks/browns who take our jobs away. If more people would actually speak up about these problems, we could actually fix them.
Anyone know what kind of money India throws around for software? They've got a lot of people, but are very poor (per capita), so what sort of market is that cesspool?
I'm not unreasonable, and that's not such a bad idea (it looks kinda gaudy anyway)...
ignorant sister-kissing cousin-fscking inbred so-and-so's like this
Hmmm... that's a gross generalization of racists. Isn't that sort of like my gross generalization of the dirty-skins? I guess we're all very much alike afterall.
You don't have to agree with all my opinions. But, you shouldn't let my opinions about race affect your thoughts on anything else I have to say. I mean, isn't that what tolerance is all about?
FYI - My signature is because Saudi Arabia is anti-American. Not only are they anti-American, but they got rich off of us so they won't openly admit to hating us. Of course, being a racist, I've got a thing against all arabs, but Saudi Arabia is worse than most.
First, if it has DRM is it really a "CD"?
Second - COMPLAIN!
Regardless of it being DRM or a faulty player, you should be compensated. You bought a product (be it the CDs or the player) that does not work. Try complaining about the CD player first (and try the CDs in a few other machines too). Get your player and/or CDs replaced or get refunds.
If it is DRM, they should have labelled it, and they deserve to take some shit for fucking over their customers.
That's why the japs had to just pull the plug. Why would anyone (knowledgeable) be using a wireless link for sensitive data as if it were a wireline LAN?
How can supposedly professional people be so careless?
Hey! How did you find out I have an ugly ass??? I know I mailed out some photocopies of it, but I don't remember sending you one...
Anyway, it's prejudiced to say my ass is ugly just because it's hairy. That's discrimination!