This guy can't even give coherent examples on why "piracy" is bad because he treats them like physical property.
Friend of mine is building a house. [snip]
But when I copy something, I'm not depriving someone of an original. If someone said "Hey, can I take your screwdriver for a few seconds, scan it in my computer and have my 3-D printer make me a replica?" I'd say sure. That is the closest thing to "piracy" in the physical world.
But when you copy something you're potentially depriving someone of income. Say the guy who makes screwdrivers. Not always, granted, but sometimes. And often enough for it to irk the guy who makes the screwdrivers.
Now let's say I wrote a song - it took a lot for me to write it, and it has been my full-time job for over twenty years to make sure that the songs I write go out into the world to be heard and sung. The way I support myself and my family is through the sale of those songs, on CD's, in sheet music, in tickets. Sheet music represents almost half of my yearly income. You seem to be saying that you should be able to take that song, that screwdriver, just take it for free, and go build your career and your happiness without ever compensating me.
...And to that I say, don't release it if it is -that- valuable to you. Seriously, there used to be a time not too long ago that if you published something it automatically pretty much became part of the public domain. One only needs to study where Shakespeare got the ideas for his plays to see that (and the majority of his stories would -not- be in the public domain today that he adapted)
It's valuable to him because he can release it and make money from it. It's the way he supports his family. It's almost half his yearly income.
If you don't want people using your stuff, don't release it. Don't write it down, don't publish it.
He wants to make a living doing what he's good at. That involves writing his stuff down and publishing it. Some people are willing to pay for his material, some aren't. Your argument is that just because some people copy his material without paying him, then he should give up the opportunity for any people to do so. It's like saying, if you don't want people to break into your house, then don't put in doors or windows. Just have four concrete walls and a roof. Sure, nobody will be able to get in, but it kinda defeats the purpose. Among other things, you'll starve.
And, for the record, there are some songs that he has chosen not to publish. Chosen being the operative word.
In short, this guy is a greedy, idiotic bastard, I really hope everyone boycotts him and urges others to do the same. He has no clue what he is talking about and as such will probably never achieve fame because hes obviously doing this simply as a profit motive and doesn't care about anyone else or about restoring sanity to copyright.
He's actually pretty famous in musical theatre circles. Not Lloyd Webber famous. Not Sondheim famous. But Jason Robert Brown famous. Say, not IE famous. Not Firefox famous. But Opera famous. And his shows and songs are pretty damn good.
And to characterise him as a "greedy, idiotic bastard" who's "obviously doing this simply as a profit motive" and who "doesn't care about anyone else" says more about your mindset than his. Does copyright need a level of sanity restored? Yeah. But this guy isn't Disney making a grab for rights in perpetuity. He's a guy trying to raise a family by doing something he has a talent for and loves doing. And the way he went about exploring an issue that affects him personally and detrimentally was, all in all, pretty cool. Did he threaten a lawsuit? No. Did he call on the *AAs? No. Did he track down the website's ISP and ask them to shut it down? No. Did he engage in dialogue with people in an attempt to make them s
In my opinion the key difference between music distribution and movie/TV distribution is that the latter has access to multiple revenue streams.
You make a movie and you show it at the theatres and get money. You sell the cable/free-to-air TV rights and get money. By the time you release it on DVD you've (hopefully) made back most of your production costs or are even showing a profit already.
You make a record on the other hand and when it's played on the radio (the equivalent of free-to-air TV distribution) you don't get any money; in fact it costs you (in marketing or other incentives) to get airplay. You have to make back all your production costs via CD sales. Granted, it doesn't cost as much to cut a CD as to make a (Hollywood) movie, but then there are only limited ways to get your money back, necessitating a higher unit-charge.
If labels would be able to charge radio stations to play their music (something highly unlikely to happen, by the way) I believe CD prices would likely fall.
Does your accounting department have to compare themselves to other businesses? Do your managers have to go around finding out how other managers in other companies are doing? Fuck no.
In my experience, all functional areas are compared to other businesses. It's what benchmarking is all about and has been all the rage for at least twenty years now. IT is no exception. Sometimes it can even be useful! If you're doing well, then it can help demonstrate you're doing well. If not, then it can act as an incentive to improve things.
Sure, sometimes it can be used for political, even malicious, purposes; but in those instances the corporate culture is often dysfunctional enough that that's just an excuse to screw you. If it's not benchmarking, it'll be something else.
If you make more than other people, expect a pay freeze or cut.
If you make more than other people, then surely you'd be able to justify that? Maybe by benchmarking your IT department's performance against others?
Even if fall in the middle of the bell curve, expect them to find a reason to lump you with the folks on the bottom of the curve.
In my experience if you fall in the middle of the bell curve, they'll ask the question "Why aren't we ahead of the curve?" The answer can lead to a productive discussion about what exactly the business needs to invest in in order to make IT performance even better.
"Are things running well?" Yes? Yes they are? Then shut the fuck up" [...] Management doesn't understand you or what you do. They're scared of you. They want to control you and marginalize you so they can eliminate you.
And this embodies the attitude that wants to maintain the priesthood at all cost - keep IT mysterious and scary, rather than enlightening the business... cause that way it makes it easier to justify our toys and inefficiencies.
Don't let them, don't help them, don't give them any excuse [...] avoid it at all costs.
And update your CV while you're doing that, cause you'll be needing it soon.
Your mention of Hal Clement prompted me to remember another fascinating and appropriate book, though it may now be out of print and thus hard to find: Medea: Harlan's World.
It's part SF anthology, part world-creation manual. The concept behind the book was that a team of prominent SF writers such as Hal Clement, Poul Anderson, Larry Niven, Frederik Pohl, Thomas M Disch, Frank Herbert, Robert Silverberg, Theordore Sturgeon and Harlan Ellison collaboratively created a world and its inhabitants, from astrophysics to theology; then they and some other writers (eg Jack Williamson, Kate Whilhelm) would write stories set on that world.
So Clement wrote a "specification" on the astrophysics of the system and its planets. Anderson outlined the geology, meterology, oceanography, geography, nomenclature and biology of Meda. Niven sketched out further thoughts on biology, ecology and xenology. Poul took the xenology baton and put down his thoughts on the sociology, politics, theology and mathematics of the world's various human and non-human species.
Then they all got together and discussed this blueprint, among each other, and with an audience (of UCLA students) in attendance that had the opportunity to pose questions and make suggestions. After some revision of their thoughts, they all went away and wrote stories based on the world they created together.
The result is Medea: Harlan's World, edited by Harlan Ellison. My edition was published by Bantom Books in 1985 and feature illustrations by Kelly Freas and cartography by Diane Duane.
I think it's a great suggestion for the school because it shows how science fiction writers can and do consider real scientific facts, theories and extrapolations (at least as best they are aware of them at the time) across a range of disciplines in order to craft their stories.
Other than the book now perhaps being hard to find, the only possible issue I can think of is that the "Medea Seminar" was conducted in the mid-1970s, so some of the science could have been superseded by now. Of course, that's the risk with any science, not just that used in creating fiction, so if that were to be the case, that in itself could be a lesson for students about the nature of the scientific process.
As well as Brin, and I guess Bear, Benford and Forward (some of the better-known "hard SF" authors around), I recommend Australian writer Greg Egan. Heck he even supplies technical notes to his books on his home page.
Though my favourite Egan works tend to be more philosophical than scientific (eg the short story "Learning To Be Me").
Yes, this is called "consideration" and is one of the essential elements of a contract.
There's another element which is relevant: "meeting of minds". If there is no meeting of minds there is a "mistake":
Sometimes, only one party will be in error. If the other party is aware of the misperception or should have been aware of the mistake, the contract may not be enforceable, even if the enlightened party did not cause the mistake. The law books call this a "unilateral mistake."
In this case, most of the customers (the enlightened party) were well aware of the error that amazon made, even though the customer did not cause the mistake. I'm not sure if the contract therefore would be enforcable.
For example, see here [visa.com]. The issue is one of contract law between the three aforementioned entities. In this case, the promise is from Visa to you that you are not liable for an unauthorized transaction. In the case of amazon, you have not authorized an additional billing to your account.
The Visa "zero liability" policy you linked to is meant to protect you in case someone steals your credit card number and commits fraud:
Visa's Zero Liability policy means 100 percent protection for you. Visa's enhanced policy guarantees maximum protection against fraud. You now have complete liability protection for all of your card transactions that take place on the Visa system. Should someone steal your card number while you're shopping, online or off, you pay nothing for their fraudulent activity.
I'm not sure that amazon's actions could be construed as fraud.
Further, the small print at the bottom of the page effectively says that all bets are off if you've committed fraud:
Financial institutions may impose greater liability on the cardholder if the financial institution reasonably determines that the unauthorized transaction was caused by the gross negligence or fraudulent action of the cardholder
Given that most people were aware of the error and deliberately ordered the goods to take advantage of it, I'd say that there's a strong argument to be made that the cardholder is the one that committed the fraud, thus voiding the zero liability policy.
Of course, IANAL.
Re:Let it rest in peace!
on
AmigaOS 4
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
The Amiga died for one reason. Closed Source on a Closed Platform.
The proprietary nature of the platform had little if anything to do with the Amiga's death... in contrast with the incompetence, self-serving nature and maliciousness of Commodore's management. The Amiga is further proof that technical excellence is insufficient to win, keep and expand market share unless backed up by marketing, commercial and strategic nous. The Amiga deserved to be the pre-eminent home/office OS of its time. With proper support I think it would have had a shot at being number two in the market.
An ad placed by google has opportunity cost associated with it.
A tip does not.
I disagree. The opportunity cost is the money google could have made by selling the tip to another provider. As you point out, tips have icons - and are also phrased in terms of advice by a trusted party rather than advertising - two attributes which no doubt would attract a price premium.
While your argument is well thought out, I don't have a huge problem with google cross-marketing its products in this way, probably because (a) it's still relatively unobtrusive (b) google doesn't (yet) have the same market dominance in search as Microsoft has on the desktop and (c) google's general halo effect, which is still only slightly tarnished.
The Iraq Body Count website only tallies deaths on an incident-by-incident basis that are reported in reputable media. A minimum of two independent agencies need to publish a report before they are willing to add it to the count.
There are many deaths that are never reported for a variety of reasons (eg lack of journalistic coverage in many areas), let alone twice. As such, even the "max" number on the website can be considered to be a "minimum" actual number.
The Dilbert Principle takes pride of place in the management & business section of my personal library; more true-to-life, and certainly more readable, than the Porter, Senge, Schwartz and Peters tracts gathering dust next to it.
I had great fun zooming in on the flowers behind the grille below the fresco, or looking at the detail of the two paintings to the side of the fresco, or checking out what appears to be a security device on the left hand side. But still couldn't find a woman in a bath.
Slashdot Mirror
Mitt Romney: going after birds, big and small.
I'm expecting Matt Smith to be replaced by Alex Kingston...
This guy can't even give coherent examples on why "piracy" is bad because he treats them like physical property.
Friend of mine is building a house. [snip]
But when I copy something, I'm not depriving someone of an original. If someone said "Hey, can I take your screwdriver for a few seconds, scan it in my computer and have my 3-D printer make me a replica?" I'd say sure. That is the closest thing to "piracy" in the physical world.
But when you copy something you're potentially depriving someone of income. Say the guy who makes screwdrivers. Not always, granted, but sometimes. And often enough for it to irk the guy who makes the screwdrivers.
Now let's say I wrote a song - it took a lot for me to write it, and it has been my full-time job for over twenty years to make sure that the songs I write go out into the world to be heard and sung. The way I support myself and my family is through the sale of those songs, on CD's, in sheet music, in tickets. Sheet music represents almost half of my yearly income. You seem to be saying that you should be able to take that song, that screwdriver, just take it for free, and go build your career and your happiness without ever compensating me.
It's valuable to him because he can release it and make money from it. It's the way he supports his family. It's almost half his yearly income.
If you don't want people using your stuff, don't release it. Don't write it down, don't publish it.
He wants to make a living doing what he's good at. That involves writing his stuff down and publishing it. Some people are willing to pay for his material, some aren't. Your argument is that just because some people copy his material without paying him, then he should give up the opportunity for any people to do so. It's like saying, if you don't want people to break into your house, then don't put in doors or windows. Just have four concrete walls and a roof. Sure, nobody will be able to get in, but it kinda defeats the purpose. Among other things, you'll starve.
And, for the record, there are some songs that he has chosen not to publish. Chosen being the operative word.
In short, this guy is a greedy, idiotic bastard, I really hope everyone boycotts him and urges others to do the same. He has no clue what he is talking about and as such will probably never achieve fame because hes obviously doing this simply as a profit motive and doesn't care about anyone else or about restoring sanity to copyright.
He's actually pretty famous in musical theatre circles. Not Lloyd Webber famous. Not Sondheim famous. But Jason Robert Brown famous. Say, not IE famous. Not Firefox famous. But Opera famous. And his shows and songs are pretty damn good.
And to characterise him as a "greedy, idiotic bastard" who's "obviously doing this simply as a profit motive" and who "doesn't care about anyone else" says more about your mindset than his. Does copyright need a level of sanity restored? Yeah. But this guy isn't Disney making a grab for rights in perpetuity. He's a guy trying to raise a family by doing something he has a talent for and loves doing. And the way he went about exploring an issue that affects him personally and detrimentally was, all in all, pretty cool. Did he threaten a lawsuit? No. Did he call on the *AAs? No. Did he track down the website's ISP and ask them to shut it down? No. Did he engage in dialogue with people in an attempt to make them s
The above should not have been modded offtopic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ICpoWtFFzc
It's just a guess, but "Even the Germans make some bad choices" does not exactly bring out the best memories from the World's History...
Don't mention the war!!
At least not yet.
In my opinion the key difference between music distribution and movie/TV distribution is that the latter has access to multiple revenue streams.
You make a movie and you show it at the theatres and get money. You sell the cable/free-to-air TV rights and get money. By the time you release it on DVD you've (hopefully) made back most of your production costs or are even showing a profit already.
You make a record on the other hand and when it's played on the radio (the equivalent of free-to-air TV distribution) you don't get any money; in fact it costs you (in marketing or other incentives) to get airplay. You have to make back all your production costs via CD sales. Granted, it doesn't cost as much to cut a CD as to make a (Hollywood) movie, but then there are only limited ways to get your money back, necessitating a higher unit-charge.
If labels would be able to charge radio stations to play their music (something highly unlikely to happen, by the way) I believe CD prices would likely fall.
In my experience, all functional areas are compared to other businesses. It's what benchmarking is all about and has been all the rage for at least twenty years now. IT is no exception. Sometimes it can even be useful! If you're doing well, then it can help demonstrate you're doing well. If not, then it can act as an incentive to improve things.
Sure, sometimes it can be used for political, even malicious, purposes; but in those instances the corporate culture is often dysfunctional enough that that's just an excuse to screw you. If it's not benchmarking, it'll be something else.
If you make more than other people, then surely you'd be able to justify that? Maybe by benchmarking your IT department's performance against others?
In my experience if you fall in the middle of the bell curve, they'll ask the question "Why aren't we ahead of the curve?" The answer can lead to a productive discussion about what exactly the business needs to invest in in order to make IT performance even better.
And this embodies the attitude that wants to maintain the priesthood at all cost - keep IT mysterious and scary, rather than enlightening the business
And update your CV while you're doing that, cause you'll be needing it soon.
Bravo, ToastyKen.
Where's Marble Madness??
Your mention of Hal Clement prompted me to remember another fascinating and appropriate book, though it may now be out of print and thus hard to find: Medea: Harlan's World.
It's part SF anthology, part world-creation manual. The concept behind the book was that a team of prominent SF writers such as Hal Clement, Poul Anderson, Larry Niven, Frederik Pohl, Thomas M Disch, Frank Herbert, Robert Silverberg, Theordore Sturgeon and Harlan Ellison collaboratively created a world and its inhabitants, from astrophysics to theology; then they and some other writers (eg Jack Williamson, Kate Whilhelm) would write stories set on that world.
So Clement wrote a "specification" on the astrophysics of the system and its planets. Anderson outlined the geology, meterology, oceanography, geography, nomenclature and biology of Meda. Niven sketched out further thoughts on biology, ecology and xenology. Poul took the xenology baton and put down his thoughts on the sociology, politics, theology and mathematics of the world's various human and non-human species.
Then they all got together and discussed this blueprint, among each other, and with an audience (of UCLA students) in attendance that had the opportunity to pose questions and make suggestions. After some revision of their thoughts, they all went away and wrote stories based on the world they created together.
The result is Medea: Harlan's World, edited by Harlan Ellison. My edition was published by Bantom Books in 1985 and feature illustrations by Kelly Freas and cartography by Diane Duane.
I think it's a great suggestion for the school because it shows how science fiction writers can and do consider real scientific facts, theories and extrapolations (at least as best they are aware of them at the time) across a range of disciplines in order to craft their stories.
Other than the book now perhaps being hard to find, the only possible issue I can think of is that the "Medea Seminar" was conducted in the mid-1970s, so some of the science could have been superseded by now. Of course, that's the risk with any science, not just that used in creating fiction, so if that were to be the case, that in itself could be a lesson for students about the nature of the scientific process.
As well as Brin, and I guess Bear, Benford and Forward (some of the better-known "hard SF" authors around), I recommend Australian writer Greg Egan. Heck he even supplies technical notes to his books on his home page.
Though my favourite Egan works tend to be more philosophical than scientific (eg the short story "Learning To Be Me").
There's another element which is relevant: "meeting of minds". If there is no meeting of minds there is a "mistake":
In this case, most of the customers (the enlightened party) were well aware of the error that amazon made, even though the customer did not cause the mistake. I'm not sure if the contract therefore would be enforcable.
Of course, IANAL either.
The Visa "zero liability" policy you linked to is meant to protect you in case someone steals your credit card number and commits fraud:
I'm not sure that amazon's actions could be construed as fraud.
Further, the small print at the bottom of the page effectively says that all bets are off if you've committed fraud:
Given that most people were aware of the error and deliberately ordered the goods to take advantage of it, I'd say that there's a strong argument to be made that the cardholder is the one that committed the fraud, thus voiding the zero liability policy.
Of course, IANAL.
The proprietary nature of the platform had little if anything to do with the Amiga's death
Weapons of Mars Destruction?
I disagree. The opportunity cost is the money google could have made by selling the tip to another provider. As you point out, tips have icons - and are also phrased in terms of advice by a trusted party rather than advertising - two attributes which no doubt would attract a price premium.
While your argument is well thought out, I don't have a huge problem with google cross-marketing its products in this way, probably because (a) it's still relatively unobtrusive (b) google doesn't (yet) have the same market dominance in search as Microsoft has on the desktop and (c) google's general halo effect, which is still only slightly tarnished.
That would be the model for French writers: ballSaac
The Iraq Body Count website only tallies deaths on an incident-by-incident basis that are reported in reputable media. A minimum of two independent agencies need to publish a report before they are willing to add it to the count.
There are many deaths that are never reported for a variety of reasons (eg lack of journalistic coverage in many areas), let alone twice. As such, even the "max" number on the website can be considered to be a "minimum" actual number.
The Newton will return
Of course they like Word.
They're Microsoft Mice.
The Dilbert Principle takes pride of place in the management & business section of my personal library; more true-to-life, and certainly more readable, than the Porter, Senge, Schwartz and Peters tracts gathering dust next to it.
Yes! That was my reaction exactly!
I had great fun zooming in on the flowers behind the grille below the fresco, or looking at the detail of the two paintings to the side of the fresco, or checking out what appears to be a security device on the left hand side. But still couldn't find a woman in a bath.
Thanks for the tip. I bow from your superior language skills. Heil!
I have to say that Children of Men is the best SF movie I've seen in years. It's better than (but very different to) Serenity.