Joe's Own Editor , a unix editor very much like the old Turbo-Pascal 4 editor, or WordStar, used and enjoyed by us console freaks who still miss the old DOS days, and cannot finish understanding vi's modes, has been revamped, adding syntax highlighting and internationalization support after many years without new features.
Does it happen to have a grammar checker? That's such an egregious abuse of punctuation that I actually had to read it three times to try and figure out what the point of the sentence actually was. Bad grammar and punctuation is one thing, but when it starts interfering with the point of the statement, there's a problem (but then, why would an editor actually edit anything, right).
Good to know that you're still spouting uninformed, trollish bullshit.
Have you stopped eating the lead paint yet? If you move onto latex and start listening to classical, maybe you can recover some of those IQ points you lost.
A fresh-faced lad out of school is a well-rounded individual, but is not likely to have the necessary working knowledge to dig into things right away and be good at their trade. This is true of many things, not just computing. My point is simply that some people who are hiring (frequently, those who don't know what they actually want in an applicant) will stubbornly insist on a degree, and I think that's moronic. You get some kid out of school who knows all about the theoretical basis for the relational model, for example, but has no clue how to actually apply that to a specific implementation. In fact, relational database design is a PERFECT example of that problem: few tools implement the theory properly, so executing it requires you to figure out what they're actually doing. That kind of ingrained knowledge comes with experience, not book study.
On top of that, what irks me about the whole "gotta get that degree" mentality is that some of us just hate school. I do. I hate it. I never want to go back. I hate waiting for the slow kids to play catch up, and I hate getting behind in things I don't want to do. I can learn from books. I just memorize stuff that I hear or read, I don't need a teacher. Why should the fact that I don't need to learn that way be held against me over a peice of paper?
Book study is an integral part of developing your skills. Don't get me wrong - I have an entire room of books stacked full of everything from obsolete RFC printouts to a book about optimizing specific Python tasks. I just think that making it the most important part of a decision - particularly later on in career development - in a field where hands on knowledge can be gained by pretty much anyone is dumb.
I'm thoroughly convinced this is a stupid attitude to take, but it might just be my experience.
I couldn't count on both hands and both feet the number of people who have tried to tell me that the way they do something is better. I ask them where they learned "their way", and they say they saw it in a book or some teacher told them. Then, they do it, and it doesn't work very well. They ask me where I learned my way, and I tell them: I screwed it up a bunch of times until I got it right - experience.
There are benefits to a degree, of course. If they have good marks and all that from a good school, you know they were a studious worker and kept priorities straight and they're well-rounded. However, when it comes right down to it, 8 years of theory packed in and put up against 8 years of solid experience are no match. Eight years of good experience, with or without prior education, will mop the floor with theory.
I think hiring "lower" jobs on degree is fine. Hiring higher jobs on degree is stupid if you let it become a major obstacle to people who may have a ton of experience, but no degree.
And no, I don't have a degree, but I have experience. Factor that in to my credibility on this statement as you see fit.
As an admin, are you in the position to do any hiring, or provide an serious feedback to the process? I've always wondered what weight a guy like me gets. For all intents and purposes, no formal education, but I do have a very strong grasp of Perl and a rapidly improving (we shall call it's current state "amicable to average development jobs") grasp of db design and SQL. I have a strong enough understanding of the major C concepts and enough experience with the actual language that learning derivative languages is basically just an exercise in syntax familiarization.
Despite my Slashdot postings, I also have a strong business communication background and I have 3 years of experience in all these areas to back it up...
... but no formal training. I'm sure I'm not the only person around here wondering where that puts folks like me.
Oh, you'd like me to be civil. No problem. Makes the post shorter anyway, even if I don't get to have the fun of tossing mud at you.
Your "point" about thirteen year olds buying CDs: if the kid has the money to keep buying them, the kid ought to be responsible enough to know whether he/she finds the CD worth what he/she paid for it. If it's the parents buying it for him or her, they'd better damn well know the same thing. So, just in case you were suggesting that 13 year olds with enough money to keep buying CDs can't be held responsible for their buying decisions: rubbish. If the kid has the money, the kid should have the responsibility to decide if they think it's a good value or not.
Which computer? The ones at work that my employer provide for me to do my job? The one I use to code for a living? Or, one of the three Frankenputers here at home that I built myself? One of the three I built myself because I think all the major suppliers overprice their junk? Or, was that just an irrelevant comparison since I'm not griping about the Big Evil Computer Industry and I'm not stealing computers? Since I don't feel that I ripped myself off on any of these computers, I feel no need to stop using them to make a point about my own pricing to myself. That was completely and totally irrelevant.
Yes, yes, the RIAA buys laws. Yippy. Which means you're now talking about corrupt politicians which is a completely different problem that doesn't involve only the RIAA. Since the RIAA has not managed to pass a law that says you HAVE to buy from them, you could just NOT BUY from them to make your point. Apparently, however, you have chosen to rip them off. This gives them a legitimate gripe about people "stealing" from them and only gives them credibility in the eyes of the public and politicians. Brav-o. There's nothing quite like legitimizing your enemy's corrupt activity by participating in your own corrupt activity because you just don't want to ignore them. Way to go. That's sure to work. Yea. Right. Sure. It's done a whole lot up to this point, hasn't it?
Again, I say: just don't buy them. Ripping them off only proves that 1) you want the music and 2) you're not willing to pay for it. There are no inferences or hidden conslusions here. You just don't want to pay, and that's that. If you really wanted to stop them, you'd just tell them all to shove off and you'd stop consuming their tripe altogether. All you want is free music. On that note (oh, i'm so punny..), I'm washing my hands of this moronic discussion.
Maybe you should actually read something about the subject before opening your mouth.....
Funny thing about monopolies with a product nobody needs... it's still a totally voluntary purchase. Despite the fact that you are totally clueless (shouldn't you be watching American Idol reruns about now?), I don't think even YOUR vapid, pointless existance (how else could you explain it if you think that living without a Foghat CD is too painful to even consider) wouldn't come to an end if you just helped those of us who actually THOUGHT about it put them out of business by NOT BUYING FROM THEM.
Oops, you still haven't overcome that one funky little problem that blows away all of your claims that your activity is anything more than the boring antics of a common criminal: you could just stop buying them.
Oh wait wait.. I forgot.. you WANT those last 100 years of music, you're just not willing to PAY the market price for it, so, again, it's obviously alright that you just rip it off. My bad, I forgot that paying for things is old and cliche and not paying for things that are overpriced is "stupid" since you can always just rip them off. Ha ha. Silly me. What an idiot I am for suggesting that the real problem is dumb consumers willing to pay a hyperinflated market price. I should have realized when I first crossed you that you'd think education was a stupid way to go about changing things since you obviously have never tried anything of the sort.
Why, yes. I am slinging personal insults at you now, mainly because I think you're just a yipping little kid who doesn't want to play fair anymore than the RIAA does.
Wow.. Iraq... yes, I equate wars to getting ripped off at The Wall all the time. You really are a dumbass after all.
I'll try and beat this through that thick chunk of bone that theoretically houses a brain... theoretically... one last time:
As long as they have the cash, they'll get whatever they want.
THEN DON'T BUY FROM THEM AND EITHER FIND ANOTHER, LEGITIMATE SOURCE, OR DEAL WITH NOT HAVING THE MUSIC YOU LIKE. It's not your music, you can't make it your music on your own terms, get over it. If I make something, and I sign it away to some big, evil conglomerate, then I'm a dumbass, and that's my fault. That doesn't give everyone else a free ticket to rip it off.
It really is that simple. Just like anything else, if you don't buy it, you don't support it. You cannot justify stealing it just because you don't want to pay for it. Nobody held a gun to anyone's head to sign contracts. Stupid bands did that of their own volition. Nobody is forcing it to continue. The entire system is being supported voluntarily, and if you don't like it, you just remove yourself or you can go a step further and educate people on the situation. Boo hoo. You're a cheap little bitch. I don't care, go ahead and keep patting your back over your heroic copyright infringement. You're an idiot, and you're just as much to blame for the problem overall as anyone else. If you ever grow up and stop acting like a little kid (wah wah.. I don't like the terms of the deal, so rather than just walk away, I'll just steal their stuff instead), you'll realize that.
And, incidentally, if every person in the U.S. bought only one CD, on average, per year, at $20 a pop, that would be more than a five fold cut in their profits. At their current size, there is no way that they could sustain themselves AND fork out tons of money for litigation and pocket lining without either falling on their face in the process or drastically restructuring.
Congratulations, you're the 2 millionth person to respond to one of my posts without bothering to digest it first. In fact, it looks like you didn't even READ it.
So, I'll repeat: I have not purchased more than 2 full price CDs per year for the last three years so don't give me crap about when I'll stop sending them money. Gee, now if everyone was so concerned about the RIAAs smear tactics, legal and political strongarming, and price gouging/fixing, and they all did that, how long do you think it would take before the whole thing collapsed around them? They're a HUGE organization. The infrastructure of the thing places extreme demands for capital. If you pull that capital out from under them, it'll be like pulling the support structure out from under a skyscraper. The thing'll collapse in an instant under its own weight.
Miss out on WHAT? Oh, boo hoo. You can't live without the music. Well, then buy it. Stop being such a crybaby. Better yet, DON'T buy it and make sure you let everyone else understand WHY you're not buying it. Let them know that the only reason they have to pay $20 for twenty cent discs of plastic is because they're WILLING to and if they stop, the price will have to come down one way or another. Let them know that they keep hearing the same songs again and again because it WORKS and if they stop buying the songs that get overplayed, they'll be forced to change the way the raffled airtime system works. Oh, but you're one of the new breed that can't fathom "suffering" without your precious music to make your point. God forbid you should make the wholly enormous sacrifice of not buying RIAA sponsored bullshit for a while.
The only thing you people who rip off songs manage to do is give the RIAA FUD material. While some of us have simply stopped purchasing their garbage, you're out there ripping it off so they have a scapegoat. Congratulations, you completely missed the point. Did it never occur to you that if there wasn't a crime occurring, it would be that much harder to manufacture court "victories" to legitamize their position in the eyes of John Q. Public?
You're not doing anything except helping them villify the evil public that's ripping off those poor, hardworking musicians. Give it a rest. You're just as big a part of the problem as the RIAA itself.
I bet you had to provide an alibi or in some way prove you were indeed innocent.
I'll take that bet. You lose. They asked very nicely to look through some stuff that might have evidence that the other bozo's accusations were true. Fearing nothing, I let them go wild. They made a quick run of it and left, and I never heard from them again. They'd have never gotten a warrant if I'd have refused to let them in, and given their overall attitude about the situation, I doubt they'd have bothered trying.
The problem here is that you don't know what you're talking about. You're confusing being picked up for questioning in an investigation into whether a crime occurred and being picked up for questioning when you're a suspect in a crime that they know has occurred. In order to be fingered as a suspect, you have to actually have evidence stacked against you. I don't think that being asked for an alibi when you had motive and opportunity is exactly like proving your innocence, especially since lack of an alibi alone will only get you convicted by a jury of idiots, and only a complete moron would actually try to charge you only on that. The DA would run you down with his/her car if you did that and you'd lose your job.
But no, please, go on living in your fantasy world where the cops are all a bunch of thugs beating people senseless. Please, go about disregarding the facts of criminal investigations and police misconduct, and, for good measure, add in a healthy dose of distorting the facts by suggesting that the incidents of bad cops are a common, widespread problem.
See, what you're doing, like so many other little whelps out there who don't want to admit that they're just lightweight crooks, is attempting to justify your position as if it were some sort of civil disobedience. However, since there's a perfectly viable option that all you folks who think you're such big martyrs can use to put an end to all this: STOP CONSUMING THE FUCKING MUSIC ALTOGETHER, which allows you to destroy the Evil Empire (TM) without breaking any laws (my... GOD... you mean we can act like INTELLIGENT, INFORMED CONSUMERS!? HOLY SHIT! I'd have NEVER thought of something like THAT!), your actions indicate you are either lazy, cheap, stupid, or any combination of those three. Civil disobedience is great when it's the only way to make your point. However, since you could just stop buying the shit altogether (which means you are NOT entitled to listen to the music), it's NOT the only option, and if you take it, you're just another little brat breaking copyright laws. Oh, you don't like the copyright laws? Well wah, wah. Seems like the majority of the people out there don't mind them since they keep supporting them by purchasing copyrighted works. Since the world isn't run for you personally, I guess you'd better either figure out a way to educate people about why those laws are so bad, or shut up and accept that most people don't care. Maybe they are bad, and maybe people are stupidly supporting them, but that's a WHOLE different issue.
If people want to buy the music, then the music is fairly priced as far as the market is concerned. If the people are only buying that music because they're uninformed, then instead of breaking laws just because you're not willing to pay for the music, why don't you try to inform folks instead?
Again, I say: you're breaking the law because you're cheap, and nothing more. You're no different than the crooks in the RIAA, but by all means, go ahead and tell yourself that you are.
By the way, as a means to lower the rate of muggings, I'm going to start proactively beating up people on my own and stealing their posessions. Sure, I'm victimizing the victim, but it'll sure teach those muggers a lesson when there's nothing left to steal!
Once you know the context your reasoning looks pretty naive to the level of almost stupidity.
Oh yes, you're right. My reasoning... that you can easily defeat these horrid people by simply turning your back to them, is soooooo stupid. You're right, making intelligent, informed decisions as a consumer is stupid. From now on, I'm just going to steal everything that I don't feel like paying for, even if I don't need it, just because that's what SMART people like you do.
If you actually believe that people are justified in ripping off songs, you're just an idiot, plain and simple. You don't like the business, or you don't like the music, you don't buy the product. It doesn't really get any simpler than that. They're asking a price, they're getting that price. You can't steal things just because you personally think that price is too high. Do you steal Gucci off the racks? Do you steal Porsches from dealerships? Do you steal Nikes from department stores? All of those things are overpriced only because they can fetch the prices they do from stupid consumers with more money than brains. I'm sure each of those companies have more than a few skeletons in their closets, and, hell, Nikes production frequently gets outsourced to child labor sweatshops. I'd say that's a bit worse than the RIAA ripping off some dumbshit band that didn't bother to read the fucking contract it signed.
Give it a rest. You can't justify stealing music based on what the recording industry is doing right now. You either support it, or you don't. Dumbass consumers keep paying exhorbitant prices for rehashed bullshit. That's their perogative. If you don't like it, just don't buy it. Give the "oh, I'm just fighting the good fight by ripping off copyright" bullshit a rest. You're not. You're just violating copyright. Nothing more.
Incidentally, I haven't purchased more than half a dozen CDs at retail in the last 3 years. I've given almost nothing to the RIAA recently, so don't talk to me about "when" I'll stop sending them money.
When cops pick you up to question you about some crime, they already assume you had something to do with it, or know something, you have to prove you don't, that your completely innocent as regards whatever they're investigating.
Yea, right. That's why the last time I got picked up and questioned, I didn't get charged, I was never in a situation where I had to do anything other than cooperate voluntarily, and they basically treated the whole thing as "look, we have to do this, this, and this, we'll get it done as quickly as possible and let you get on with your life because this is wasting our time too".
That attitude must be really pervasive in people who think they have a guilty party, huh?
Oh, I agree completely with that interpretation too. I like to play computer games, but odds are pretty good nobody is going to pay ME to do it. So, I have a real job and I play computer games in my own time.
Actually, same goes for programming. The PHBs ask for stupid things at work, so I do the programming I enjoy on my own time just because. I don't expect to get paid for it, that's what my 9 to 5 is for. I just like doing it.
You know, I saw that this morning, and I thought it was actually a pretty good wrap up (well, for what a comic can do anyway) of several of the main positions in the debate.
First, there are all the people who go snag copies of music because they're too a) lazy, b) stupid, c) cheap, or d) all of the above to either go buy a copy or just not buy it at all (don't give me shit: you think it costs too much or has too much filler, blah blah blah... don't buy the fucking thing, don't be a little baby about it). Then, there's the theiving nature of all the execs in the industry ripping off the artists. There's also the problem of overproduction, and the mentality of major artists that they have to make money but no, no... they're still doing it for the art.. really.
I thought it was a very good bit of satire, all around.
Yea, but after a while you'd get so backed up that by the time you got done handling each packet, you'd have to decrement the entire remaining TTL and drop it. God help you if you've configured yourself to also send back an ICMP packet to let the other end know what happened.
Klinefelter's syndrome in a cat (two X, one Y) can (not definite, just possible) produce a male Calico (due to the Y), but it will always be sterile. That's why male Calicos are extremely RARE. They do exist, however.
Cars are not, inherently, that complicated to use. The hard part is concentrating on what you need to do and making the right decisions, not doing it. Even back before the days of power steering and power braking and whatnot, they weren't THAT much harder to use, you just had to be stronger and have better reaction times.
Perhaps, however, I did not adequately and clearly explain what I'm getting at. Access is a worthless piece of junk. Microsoft took an incredibly complicated concept and simplified it. Unfortunately, unlike the mechanical engineering example of cars, they did it very poorly. The shortcomings of Access are frequently marketed as "benefits" to people who don't know how to use a DBMS. From limited, oversimplified data types to a grossly inadequate set of features (how can it be a DBMS, much less a relational one, if it's not even ACID compliant?), Access is little more than a glorified version of Excel. I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure that I even saw an entry in the help file somewhere that suggested that serial fields make good primary keys.
Unfortunately, in typical Microsoft fashion, the quality of the product is not nearly important as the quality of its marketing, so it sells. My boss bought Access on Microsoft's marketing, and now he thinks he knows how to use relational database systems when, in fact, he only knows how to use Access.
While the mocking is humorous, it's not really in response to my post. My post is about a guy using a tool that's intentionally built to let people who don't know how to use it, use it. Your post is about a guy who continually uses the wrong tool for the job (only one of my bullet points covered that subject).
You can't prevent stupid people from misusing tools. However, Microsoft Access actively engages in encouraging them to abuse DBMSs. That's the problem. A DBMS is not a simple tool, yet Microsoft tries to make it one in Access. Result? A bunch of folks who get sucked into a simple, pretty pointy-clicky system that they don't really understand when it comes right down to it. Not a problem if they restrict themselves to that messed up situation, but how often does that happen?
Slashdot Mirror
No, the typical Slashdotter would probably write the review based on the excerpts on the dust jackets of other books on the surrounding shelves.
Are you suggesting that an individual can't find intelligent discussion on the profession outside of a University?
Joe's Own Editor , a unix editor very much like the old Turbo-Pascal 4 editor, or WordStar, used and enjoyed by us console freaks who still miss the old DOS days, and cannot finish understanding vi's modes, has been revamped, adding syntax highlighting and internationalization support after many years without new features.
Does it happen to have a grammar checker? That's such an egregious abuse of punctuation that I actually had to read it three times to try and figure out what the point of the sentence actually was. Bad grammar and punctuation is one thing, but when it starts interfering with the point of the statement, there's a problem (but then, why would an editor actually edit anything, right).
HAHA! Tricked you into looking at my post!
Good to know that you're still spouting uninformed, trollish bullshit.
Have you stopped eating the lead paint yet? If you move onto latex and start listening to classical, maybe you can recover some of those IQ points you lost.
It's only insulting because you misunderstood.
A fresh-faced lad out of school is a well-rounded individual, but is not likely to have the necessary working knowledge to dig into things right away and be good at their trade. This is true of many things, not just computing. My point is simply that some people who are hiring (frequently, those who don't know what they actually want in an applicant) will stubbornly insist on a degree, and I think that's moronic. You get some kid out of school who knows all about the theoretical basis for the relational model, for example, but has no clue how to actually apply that to a specific implementation. In fact, relational database design is a PERFECT example of that problem: few tools implement the theory properly, so executing it requires you to figure out what they're actually doing. That kind of ingrained knowledge comes with experience, not book study.
On top of that, what irks me about the whole "gotta get that degree" mentality is that some of us just hate school. I do. I hate it. I never want to go back. I hate waiting for the slow kids to play catch up, and I hate getting behind in things I don't want to do. I can learn from books. I just memorize stuff that I hear or read, I don't need a teacher. Why should the fact that I don't need to learn that way be held against me over a peice of paper?
Book study is an integral part of developing your skills. Don't get me wrong - I have an entire room of books stacked full of everything from obsolete RFC printouts to a book about optimizing specific Python tasks. I just think that making it the most important part of a decision - particularly later on in career development - in a field where hands on knowledge can be gained by pretty much anyone is dumb.
I'm thoroughly convinced this is a stupid attitude to take, but it might just be my experience.
I couldn't count on both hands and both feet the number of people who have tried to tell me that the way they do something is better. I ask them where they learned "their way", and they say they saw it in a book or some teacher told them. Then, they do it, and it doesn't work very well. They ask me where I learned my way, and I tell them: I screwed it up a bunch of times until I got it right - experience.
There are benefits to a degree, of course. If they have good marks and all that from a good school, you know they were a studious worker and kept priorities straight and they're well-rounded. However, when it comes right down to it, 8 years of theory packed in and put up against 8 years of solid experience are no match. Eight years of good experience, with or without prior education, will mop the floor with theory.
I think hiring "lower" jobs on degree is fine. Hiring higher jobs on degree is stupid if you let it become a major obstacle to people who may have a ton of experience, but no degree.
And no, I don't have a degree, but I have experience. Factor that in to my credibility on this statement as you see fit.
As an admin, are you in the position to do any hiring, or provide an serious feedback to the process? I've always wondered what weight a guy like me gets. For all intents and purposes, no formal education, but I do have a very strong grasp of Perl and a rapidly improving (we shall call it's current state "amicable to average development jobs") grasp of db design and SQL. I have a strong enough understanding of the major C concepts and enough experience with the actual language that learning derivative languages is basically just an exercise in syntax familiarization.
Despite my Slashdot postings, I also have a strong business communication background and I have 3 years of experience in all these areas to back it up...
... but no formal training. I'm sure I'm not the only person around here wondering where that puts folks like me.
Oh, you'd like me to be civil. No problem. Makes the post shorter anyway, even if I don't get to have the fun of tossing mud at you.
Your "point" about thirteen year olds buying CDs: if the kid has the money to keep buying them, the kid ought to be responsible enough to know whether he/she finds the CD worth what he/she paid for it. If it's the parents buying it for him or her, they'd better damn well know the same thing. So, just in case you were suggesting that 13 year olds with enough money to keep buying CDs can't be held responsible for their buying decisions: rubbish. If the kid has the money, the kid should have the responsibility to decide if they think it's a good value or not.
Which computer? The ones at work that my employer provide for me to do my job? The one I use to code for a living? Or, one of the three Frankenputers here at home that I built myself? One of the three I built myself because I think all the major suppliers overprice their junk? Or, was that just an irrelevant comparison since I'm not griping about the Big Evil Computer Industry and I'm not stealing computers? Since I don't feel that I ripped myself off on any of these computers, I feel no need to stop using them to make a point about my own pricing to myself. That was completely and totally irrelevant.
Yes, yes, the RIAA buys laws. Yippy. Which means you're now talking about corrupt politicians which is a completely different problem that doesn't involve only the RIAA. Since the RIAA has not managed to pass a law that says you HAVE to buy from them, you could just NOT BUY from them to make your point. Apparently, however, you have chosen to rip them off. This gives them a legitimate gripe about people "stealing" from them and only gives them credibility in the eyes of the public and politicians. Brav-o. There's nothing quite like legitimizing your enemy's corrupt activity by participating in your own corrupt activity because you just don't want to ignore them. Way to go. That's sure to work. Yea. Right. Sure. It's done a whole lot up to this point, hasn't it?
Again, I say: just don't buy them. Ripping them off only proves that 1) you want the music and 2) you're not willing to pay for it. There are no inferences or hidden conslusions here. You just don't want to pay, and that's that. If you really wanted to stop them, you'd just tell them all to shove off and you'd stop consuming their tripe altogether. All you want is free music. On that note (oh, i'm so punny..), I'm washing my hands of this moronic discussion.
Maybe you should actually read something about the subject before opening your mouth.....
Funny thing about monopolies with a product nobody needs... it's still a totally voluntary purchase. Despite the fact that you are totally clueless (shouldn't you be watching American Idol reruns about now?), I don't think even YOUR vapid, pointless existance (how else could you explain it if you think that living without a Foghat CD is too painful to even consider) wouldn't come to an end if you just helped those of us who actually THOUGHT about it put them out of business by NOT BUYING FROM THEM.
Oops, you still haven't overcome that one funky little problem that blows away all of your claims that your activity is anything more than the boring antics of a common criminal: you could just stop buying them.
Oh wait wait.. I forgot.. you WANT those last 100 years of music, you're just not willing to PAY the market price for it, so, again, it's obviously alright that you just rip it off. My bad, I forgot that paying for things is old and cliche and not paying for things that are overpriced is "stupid" since you can always just rip them off. Ha ha. Silly me. What an idiot I am for suggesting that the real problem is dumb consumers willing to pay a hyperinflated market price. I should have realized when I first crossed you that you'd think education was a stupid way to go about changing things since you obviously have never tried anything of the sort.
Why, yes. I am slinging personal insults at you now, mainly because I think you're just a yipping little kid who doesn't want to play fair anymore than the RIAA does.
Wow.. Iraq... yes, I equate wars to getting ripped off at The Wall all the time. You really are a dumbass after all.
I'll try and beat this through that thick chunk of bone that theoretically houses a brain... theoretically... one last time:
As long as they have the cash, they'll get whatever they want.
THEN DON'T BUY FROM THEM AND EITHER FIND ANOTHER, LEGITIMATE SOURCE, OR DEAL WITH NOT HAVING THE MUSIC YOU LIKE. It's not your music, you can't make it your music on your own terms, get over it. If I make something, and I sign it away to some big, evil conglomerate, then I'm a dumbass, and that's my fault. That doesn't give everyone else a free ticket to rip it off.
It really is that simple. Just like anything else, if you don't buy it, you don't support it. You cannot justify stealing it just because you don't want to pay for it. Nobody held a gun to anyone's head to sign contracts. Stupid bands did that of their own volition. Nobody is forcing it to continue. The entire system is being supported voluntarily, and if you don't like it, you just remove yourself or you can go a step further and educate people on the situation. Boo hoo. You're a cheap little bitch. I don't care, go ahead and keep patting your back over your heroic copyright infringement. You're an idiot, and you're just as much to blame for the problem overall as anyone else. If you ever grow up and stop acting like a little kid (wah wah.. I don't like the terms of the deal, so rather than just walk away, I'll just steal their stuff instead), you'll realize that.
And, incidentally, if every person in the U.S. bought only one CD, on average, per year, at $20 a pop, that would be more than a five fold cut in their profits. At their current size, there is no way that they could sustain themselves AND fork out tons of money for litigation and pocket lining without either falling on their face in the process or drastically restructuring.
In my experience....
So, what you're really trying to tell us here is that you're not very experienced, right?
Congratulations, you're the 2 millionth person to respond to one of my posts without bothering to digest it first. In fact, it looks like you didn't even READ it.
So, I'll repeat: I have not purchased more than 2 full price CDs per year for the last three years so don't give me crap about when I'll stop sending them money. Gee, now if everyone was so concerned about the RIAAs smear tactics, legal and political strongarming, and price gouging/fixing, and they all did that, how long do you think it would take before the whole thing collapsed around them? They're a HUGE organization. The infrastructure of the thing places extreme demands for capital. If you pull that capital out from under them, it'll be like pulling the support structure out from under a skyscraper. The thing'll collapse in an instant under its own weight.
Miss out on WHAT? Oh, boo hoo. You can't live without the music. Well, then buy it. Stop being such a crybaby. Better yet, DON'T buy it and make sure you let everyone else understand WHY you're not buying it. Let them know that the only reason they have to pay $20 for twenty cent discs of plastic is because they're WILLING to and if they stop, the price will have to come down one way or another. Let them know that they keep hearing the same songs again and again because it WORKS and if they stop buying the songs that get overplayed, they'll be forced to change the way the raffled airtime system works. Oh, but you're one of the new breed that can't fathom "suffering" without your precious music to make your point. God forbid you should make the wholly enormous sacrifice of not buying RIAA sponsored bullshit for a while.
The only thing you people who rip off songs manage to do is give the RIAA FUD material. While some of us have simply stopped purchasing their garbage, you're out there ripping it off so they have a scapegoat. Congratulations, you completely missed the point. Did it never occur to you that if there wasn't a crime occurring, it would be that much harder to manufacture court "victories" to legitamize their position in the eyes of John Q. Public?
You're not doing anything except helping them villify the evil public that's ripping off those poor, hardworking musicians. Give it a rest. You're just as big a part of the problem as the RIAA itself.
I bet you had to provide an alibi or in some way prove you were indeed innocent.
I'll take that bet. You lose. They asked very nicely to look through some stuff that might have evidence that the other bozo's accusations were true. Fearing nothing, I let them go wild. They made a quick run of it and left, and I never heard from them again. They'd have never gotten a warrant if I'd have refused to let them in, and given their overall attitude about the situation, I doubt they'd have bothered trying.
The problem here is that you don't know what you're talking about. You're confusing being picked up for questioning in an investigation into whether a crime occurred and being picked up for questioning when you're a suspect in a crime that they know has occurred. In order to be fingered as a suspect, you have to actually have evidence stacked against you. I don't think that being asked for an alibi when you had motive and opportunity is exactly like proving your innocence, especially since lack of an alibi alone will only get you convicted by a jury of idiots, and only a complete moron would actually try to charge you only on that. The DA would run you down with his/her car if you did that and you'd lose your job.
But no, please, go on living in your fantasy world where the cops are all a bunch of thugs beating people senseless. Please, go about disregarding the facts of criminal investigations and police misconduct, and, for good measure, add in a healthy dose of distorting the facts by suggesting that the incidents of bad cops are a common, widespread problem.
No, no, trust me. You're off your rocker as well.
See, what you're doing, like so many other little whelps out there who don't want to admit that they're just lightweight crooks, is attempting to justify your position as if it were some sort of civil disobedience. However, since there's a perfectly viable option that all you folks who think you're such big martyrs can use to put an end to all this: STOP CONSUMING THE FUCKING MUSIC ALTOGETHER, which allows you to destroy the Evil Empire (TM) without breaking any laws (my... GOD... you mean we can act like INTELLIGENT, INFORMED CONSUMERS!? HOLY SHIT! I'd have NEVER thought of something like THAT!), your actions indicate you are either lazy, cheap, stupid, or any combination of those three. Civil disobedience is great when it's the only way to make your point. However, since you could just stop buying the shit altogether (which means you are NOT entitled to listen to the music), it's NOT the only option, and if you take it, you're just another little brat breaking copyright laws. Oh, you don't like the copyright laws? Well wah, wah. Seems like the majority of the people out there don't mind them since they keep supporting them by purchasing copyrighted works. Since the world isn't run for you personally, I guess you'd better either figure out a way to educate people about why those laws are so bad, or shut up and accept that most people don't care. Maybe they are bad, and maybe people are stupidly supporting them, but that's a WHOLE different issue.
If people want to buy the music, then the music is fairly priced as far as the market is concerned. If the people are only buying that music because they're uninformed, then instead of breaking laws just because you're not willing to pay for the music, why don't you try to inform folks instead?
Again, I say: you're breaking the law because you're cheap, and nothing more. You're no different than the crooks in the RIAA, but by all means, go ahead and tell yourself that you are.
By the way, as a means to lower the rate of muggings, I'm going to start proactively beating up people on my own and stealing their posessions. Sure, I'm victimizing the victim, but it'll sure teach those muggers a lesson when there's nothing left to steal!
Once you know the context your reasoning looks pretty naive to the level of almost stupidity.
Oh yes, you're right. My reasoning... that you can easily defeat these horrid people by simply turning your back to them, is soooooo stupid. You're right, making intelligent, informed decisions as a consumer is stupid. From now on, I'm just going to steal everything that I don't feel like paying for, even if I don't need it, just because that's what SMART people like you do.
If you actually believe that people are justified in ripping off songs, you're just an idiot, plain and simple. You don't like the business, or you don't like the music, you don't buy the product. It doesn't really get any simpler than that. They're asking a price, they're getting that price. You can't steal things just because you personally think that price is too high. Do you steal Gucci off the racks? Do you steal Porsches from dealerships? Do you steal Nikes from department stores? All of those things are overpriced only because they can fetch the prices they do from stupid consumers with more money than brains. I'm sure each of those companies have more than a few skeletons in their closets, and, hell, Nikes production frequently gets outsourced to child labor sweatshops. I'd say that's a bit worse than the RIAA ripping off some dumbshit band that didn't bother to read the fucking contract it signed.
Give it a rest. You can't justify stealing music based on what the recording industry is doing right now. You either support it, or you don't. Dumbass consumers keep paying exhorbitant prices for rehashed bullshit. That's their perogative. If you don't like it, just don't buy it. Give the "oh, I'm just fighting the good fight by ripping off copyright" bullshit a rest. You're not. You're just violating copyright. Nothing more.
Incidentally, I haven't purchased more than half a dozen CDs at retail in the last 3 years. I've given almost nothing to the RIAA recently, so don't talk to me about "when" I'll stop sending them money.
When cops pick you up to question you about some crime, they already assume you had something to do with it, or know something, you have to prove you don't, that your completely innocent as regards whatever they're investigating.
Yea, right. That's why the last time I got picked up and questioned, I didn't get charged, I was never in a situation where I had to do anything other than cooperate voluntarily, and they basically treated the whole thing as "look, we have to do this, this, and this, we'll get it done as quickly as possible and let you get on with your life because this is wasting our time too".
That attitude must be really pervasive in people who think they have a guilty party, huh?
Or, were you just talking out of your ass?
Oh, I agree completely with that interpretation too. I like to play computer games, but odds are pretty good nobody is going to pay ME to do it. So, I have a real job and I play computer games in my own time.
Actually, same goes for programming. The PHBs ask for stupid things at work, so I do the programming I enjoy on my own time just because. I don't expect to get paid for it, that's what my 9 to 5 is for. I just like doing it.
Commie.
You know, I saw that this morning, and I thought it was actually a pretty good wrap up (well, for what a comic can do anyway) of several of the main positions in the debate.
First, there are all the people who go snag copies of music because they're too a) lazy, b) stupid, c) cheap, or d) all of the above to either go buy a copy or just not buy it at all (don't give me shit: you think it costs too much or has too much filler, blah blah blah... don't buy the fucking thing, don't be a little baby about it). Then, there's the theiving nature of all the execs in the industry ripping off the artists. There's also the problem of overproduction, and the mentality of major artists that they have to make money but no, no... they're still doing it for the art.. really.
I thought it was a very good bit of satire, all around.
Of course, were you a true geek, you'd know that it should have started at Part 0.
We're going to have to revoke your Slashdot ID now...
Yea, but after a while you'd get so backed up that by the time you got done handling each packet, you'd have to decrement the entire remaining TTL and drop it. God help you if you've configured yourself to also send back an ICMP packet to let the other end know what happened.
Yes, you COULD "inspect and repair" packets on the fly by becoming the TCP/IP stack yourself and mangling them appropriately before acting on them.
I can only imagine what that would do to network speeds, however...
That's how you get Calico cats (always female)...
Klinefelter's syndrome in a cat (two X, one Y) can (not definite, just possible) produce a male Calico (due to the Y), but it will always be sterile. That's why male Calicos are extremely RARE. They do exist, however.
No, that's not my point. You're missing my point.
Cars are not, inherently, that complicated to use. The hard part is concentrating on what you need to do and making the right decisions, not doing it. Even back before the days of power steering and power braking and whatnot, they weren't THAT much harder to use, you just had to be stronger and have better reaction times.
Perhaps, however, I did not adequately and clearly explain what I'm getting at. Access is a worthless piece of junk. Microsoft took an incredibly complicated concept and simplified it. Unfortunately, unlike the mechanical engineering example of cars, they did it very poorly. The shortcomings of Access are frequently marketed as "benefits" to people who don't know how to use a DBMS. From limited, oversimplified data types to a grossly inadequate set of features (how can it be a DBMS, much less a relational one, if it's not even ACID compliant?), Access is little more than a glorified version of Excel. I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure that I even saw an entry in the help file somewhere that suggested that serial fields make good primary keys.
Unfortunately, in typical Microsoft fashion, the quality of the product is not nearly important as the quality of its marketing, so it sells. My boss bought Access on Microsoft's marketing, and now he thinks he knows how to use relational database systems when, in fact, he only knows how to use Access.
While the mocking is humorous, it's not really in response to my post. My post is about a guy using a tool that's intentionally built to let people who don't know how to use it, use it. Your post is about a guy who continually uses the wrong tool for the job (only one of my bullet points covered that subject).
You can't prevent stupid people from misusing tools. However, Microsoft Access actively engages in encouraging them to abuse DBMSs. That's the problem. A DBMS is not a simple tool, yet Microsoft tries to make it one in Access. Result? A bunch of folks who get sucked into a simple, pretty pointy-clicky system that they don't really understand when it comes right down to it. Not a problem if they restrict themselves to that messed up situation, but how often does that happen?