The question shouldn't be "Is college relevant to my career?" but rather "Is college relevant to my life?"
I feel sorry for people who treat college as just four years of task-training and ignore the possibility of expanding your exposure to other walks of life, other disciplines, art, music, literature, sport, and everything else.
I don't just bring my technical training to work, I bring my entire self and everything I know and love and hate and have been exposed to.
College helped show me how to be a well-rounded human being. It gave me more to live for than just jobjobjob 24/7. College is there to teach us not only how to learn new things, but what new things there are to be learned.
Stop flaming Katz because he's stuck on one topic. In this case he happens to be right. The X-Men movie is almost a literal metaphor of what has happened recently to geeks, freaks, and whatevers, especially post Columbine.
Before that incident, did you see CONGRESS discussing legislation to mark those who didn't fit in so that authorities can recognize them? Sure, geeks, freaks, and losers were persecuted by society, but not with the consent and even participation of Authority. Hippies and Communists got somewhat the same reception, but those cases don't fit as nicely with this movie.
The Establishment has recently threatened to brand a "group" of people as dangerous because of the actions of a few of them! And in one case (a certain detective company) they've tried to get the "normals" to finger the "mutants". It seems to almost directly parallel the movie. So Katz is right this time, even though I too am tired of the subject.
This back door sounds more like a temporary measure that wasn't removed when it came time to ship, rather than some malicious thing perpetrated by a "rogue coder."
You don't have any idea what you're talking about. I have several friends who make their living through music. One is an oboe player, another a clarinetist, one plays bass in a touring band, another is a percussionist.
These folks work *hard* for their living, and they're not rolling in dough. They play as often as they possibly can, plus they *teach* on the side. I know you didn't specifically say artists have it easy, but intimating that we treat them better than scientists or doctors leads me to believe that you think making art isn't really work at all, and artists certainly should expect to make a decent living from what they're hearts lead them to do. Bullshit.
The full time jobs for musicians and other artists are few and far between. An opening for a part-time piccolo player in the New York Philharmonic drew over two hundred applicants, many with masters degrees from highly regarded music conservatories.
The *rest* of the folks who love art and want to devote their lives to making things of beauty and bringing a little happiness into the world must take any job that comes along and works for them economically. They must teach as many students as they can fit in between playing jobs. And when they aren't playing or teaching, they're practicing for hours in order to prepare the art that you so love to see, hear, watch. Between all these various engagements that they must attract and manage for themselves, they can make a living.
What about job security? They rely on their reputation for every meal, they don't know where the next job is coming from, if it's coming. They don't know if their students will continue to play, paint, sing, sculpt. They buy their own insurance.
Artists are the original consultants, and they've had to fight for ever scrap of dignity they've attained.
Artists work just as hard as the rest of us, usually harder, they cater to anyone who is willing to hire them, and they work for a reasonable fee. They bringing enjoyment to their patrons, no matter who they are.
The artists making a million dollars a year are such a tiny percentage of the total number of professional "artists" in any medium, that it's ridiculous to hold them up as examples of the typical artist's situation.
As to your other point, there was *never* a time when only the rich could afford the arts. It is still true that no one who doesn't make a decent living is going to commission a symphony or have their portrait painted. But the "common man" has always had access to symphonies (The English Ball), paintings (Sistine Chapel?), and the other arts.
If you think we're treating artists better than doctors or scientists, or especially "the people who run the country" (politicians?) then you're out of your mind. You owe the artists of the world an apology for the hard work they do and the crap they put up with from idiots like yourself who haven't bothered to look at the true situation.
The Apple spokesman said all that needs saying: "One's a computer, one's an iron. What's your point?"
That's the way the law sees it too. IANAL, but AFAIK if you take a design idea from a product that has nothing in common with your own (irons vs. computers) then any suit for design infringement is likely to be lost. As long as you don't incorporate any trademarked logos and such...
All those people still using paintbrushes to make pictures in this day and age! I mean, come on people! Live in the NOW! Get a copy of Illustrator for God's sake!
I like your stuff. I'm sad that (so it seems) the vocal minority has browbeaten you into curtailing your long posts. When I read a long post, even if it's not all well thought-out, at least I know there's a lot of thought in there to find.
These shorter posts of yours, like this movie review, seem to have one brief idea with no exposition. It's like you're afraid to let yourself go.
In the old days, you'd have gone on at length about what was good about the movie, what was bad, why you think it was written as it was, what the movie might indicate about where movies are going and where they are right now, maybe a little about the fancy gadget that plays such an important role in the film, something about the role of everyday technology in the film, and on and on just like I'm going now.
Personally, I think it sucks.
Bring back the Jon Katz we (some of us) love to hate. Bring back the long posts!
Using the Internet rather than watching TV is not a bad thing. TV is passive, Internet has at least a minimal active element, and at most a completely active element in that you are involved in communicating with other people in real-time.
John: http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/cth211.htm Steve: oh, that Steve: that's just personalization John: oh John: ok John: i won't worry about it then Steve: nothing to worry about here Steve: move along John: i feel soothed Steve: darn it, now I hate cookies again John: i know! John: i was like "what's wrong with cookies?" until this Steve: I'm not sure I follow how it works, though Steve: double click makes a cookie Steve: they give the unique id to a company Steve: the company gives it to you, and you send them info. Steve: that seems circular to me Steve: I think I'm misunderstanding John: yeah John: Doubleclick sends an ID number to your browser and at the same time sends the same number to the site you're visiting. John: the site you're visiting sends DoubleClick some sort of information that lets DoubleClick look you up in their Abacus database. John: so the site you're visiting has to be a collaborator Steve: I thought you could only access cookies for the domain you've served the webpage from Steve: oh, ok now I understand Steve: duhh John: i have no idea how the site you're visiting correlates the ID number it receives with your identity Steve: wait, I still don't understand Steve: that's what I don't understand Steve: in order to make a corellation, it seems like they'd have to know who you are Steve: how about this: Steve: doubleclick creates a # with no other info., just a pool of numbers Steve: they give a batch to a collaborator Steve: you visit the collaborator, and they give you a cookie (with a # pulled from the pool) Steve: you give the damn quisling your name address, soc. sec. #, and underwear fabric preference Steve: the collaborator forwards the cookie# and your info to double click, who stores your info. Steve: I'm still missing how the next collaborator gets the same cookie identifier Steve: otherwise, it's not tracking John: yeah, doesn't quite make sense John: but I do believe them when they say they can do it Steve: so do I Steve: I believe they can do it, I'd just like to understand how John: yeah, i'm sure there are lots of people who would like to know that Steve: heh Steve: it wouldn't do them too much good without the abacus db Steve: I'm thinkin' that's how the match is made Steve: double click has that db with 90% of the U.S. in it Steve: they already know our names and addresses John: right Steve: so, the collaborator sends a name and address to double click Steve: double click looks you up by name and address, and then records that you've been to the collaborator's website and bought x y or z Steve: in that case, they wouldn't need cookies though John: right John: unless John: the site doesn't know the identity of the person with the cookie until you purchase something or give information somehow Steve: right John: once they know who has what ID #, they've identified you John: and then they can identify you by the cookie number, even if you don't buy anything Steve: so, in order for it to work, the site would need to be able to pull the cookie from Double Click John: i guess Steve: oh, so once they've id'ed you, you never need to buy anything else...they'll still know each time you visit John: right. they just keep the same ID John: and if the same person is identified from multiple sites, their tracking gets more accurate. John: but i don't think i understand how doubleclick's cookies work John: if you embed an image in a page, and the image is stored on another site, can they give you a cookie from that site? John: like, do all doubleclick cookies come from the same site? John: if so, then once they've got your identity matched up with an ID, they know where you are and who you are everytime you load a doubleclick banner ad John: because obviously each banner ad URL is coded somehow so they know where it's being shown... John: god, this is complex and evil.
I mean, what does "degrade" mean anyway? It sounds like this "coating" will actually break up and come off the DVD *inside* your player! How much coating is there? Will it build up over time?
Brill's Content on media mergers
on
AOL Nation
·
· Score: 1
This merger may not be a monopoly, but it's another step towards the consolidation of creative culture into the hands of a select few companies. Where it may not matter so much if two meat-packing concerns join forces, when two companies that control media content merge, it removes a point of view from the available choices of consumers. And that's a bad thing.
In this case, the merger of AOL and Time Warner potentially removes the point of view of non-Time Warner content from the choices of AOL Users. And if mainstream America follows its normal course, the vast majority of those users won't even notice their loss.
It will be a sad day when a musician can't get hired because someone thinks a machine can do his job better.
In a worst-case scenario the proliferation of such devices will discourage young people from exploring the opportunities of music as a career, and may decrease our chances of hearing the *next* Hendrix, Heifitz, Paganini, Rostropovich, VanHalen, or B.B. King come along and grace our ears with a sound we've never heard before.
If you can find an alternative cable supplier in my area, I'll happily sign up with them.
To my understanding there is (in my area) one cable supplier for each region. I don't know of anywhere in Pennsylvania, USA (my home state) where two cable companies serve the same constituency.
The proponents of MP3 must come up with an alternative method for artists to protect their copyrights. It's not enough to say "MP3's haven't proliferated enough to cut into music sales"- just look at the growth of the Web to find the flaw in that reasoning.
I realize that the RIAA acting as a representative for artists rights is of dubious merit, but no one else seems to be, and there are plenty of MP3's of artists who make their living from music and who aren't being properly compensated for their use. People can't be trusted to use tools such as MP3 legally because they are too convenient and they produce such a high level of product. That's the reason tape dubbing isn't the problem that MP3's are. You can't make a thousand copies of a cassette tape with nearly perfect replication (unless you spend $$$). You can do that with an MP3.
The RIAA has put forth its idea of how this can be done, but I haven't seen a counterproposal from the pro-MP3 camp. This can't be an either-or debate, there has to be a way for the two sides to meet somewhere near the middle.
So it's up to the loudest pro-MP3 mouths in the debate, including the EFF, to come up with a way to allow MP3's to live and protect the rights of artists at the same time.
Slashdot Mirror
The question shouldn't be "Is college relevant to my career?" but rather "Is college relevant to my life?"
I feel sorry for people who treat college as just four years of task-training and ignore the possibility of expanding your exposure to other walks of life, other disciplines, art, music, literature, sport, and everything else.
I don't just bring my technical training to work, I bring my entire self and everything I know and love and hate and have been exposed to.
College helped show me how to be a well-rounded human being. It gave me more to live for than just jobjobjob 24/7. College is there to teach us not only how to learn new things, but what new things there are to be learned.
Do all of you get your news only from Slashdot? This story has been all over the net for a week now!
0 0.html
, 00.html
The date on this sucker at Wired is Aug 8.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,38052,
And that's the story *after* the controversy was ended by an agreement.
The big breaking story was on JULY TWENTY FREAKING SEVENTH!
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,37804
Change the URL to Molassdot. Bah! Phooey!
Because it's not NEW doesn't mean it's not RELEVANT.
Before that incident, did you see CONGRESS discussing legislation to mark those who didn't fit in so that authorities can recognize them? Sure, geeks, freaks, and losers were persecuted by society, but not with the consent and even participation of Authority. Hippies and Communists got somewhat the same reception, but those cases don't fit as nicely with this movie.
The Establishment has recently threatened to brand a "group" of people as dangerous because of the actions of a few of them! And in one case (a certain detective company) they've tried to get the "normals" to finger the "mutants". It seems to almost directly parallel the movie. So Katz is right this time, even though I too am tired of the subject.
After reading this book, the actions and attitudes of the RIAA won't surprise anyone.
Well then, I want dibs on
gary.gnu
and
no-gnu-is-good.gnu
:)
That is *absolutely* the case. That's why the ILOVEYOU virus author renamed files not from file.ext to file.vbs but to file.ext.vbs.
Moderate Chris Hiner's post UP.
This back door sounds more like a temporary measure that wasn't removed when it came time to ship, rather than some malicious thing perpetrated by a "rogue coder."
How can you tell the difference?
These folks work *hard* for their living, and they're not rolling in dough. They play as often as they possibly can, plus they *teach* on the side. I know you didn't specifically say artists have it easy, but intimating that we treat them better than scientists or doctors leads me to believe that you think making art isn't really work at all, and artists certainly should expect to make a decent living from what they're hearts lead them to do. Bullshit.
The full time jobs for musicians and other artists are few and far between. An opening for a part-time piccolo player in the New York Philharmonic drew over two hundred applicants, many with masters degrees from highly regarded music conservatories.
The *rest* of the folks who love art and want to devote their lives to making things of beauty and bringing a little happiness into the world must take any job that comes along and works for them economically. They must teach as many students as they can fit in between playing jobs. And when they aren't playing or teaching, they're practicing for hours in order to prepare the art that you so love to see, hear, watch. Between all these various engagements that they must attract and manage for themselves, they can make a living.
What about job security? They rely on their reputation for every meal, they don't know where the next job is coming from, if it's coming. They don't know if their students will continue to play, paint, sing, sculpt. They buy their own insurance.
Artists are the original consultants, and they've had to fight for ever scrap of dignity they've attained.
Artists work just as hard as the rest of us, usually harder, they cater to anyone who is willing to hire them, and they work for a reasonable fee. They bringing enjoyment to their patrons, no matter who they are.
The artists making a million dollars a year are such a tiny percentage of the total number of professional "artists" in any medium, that it's ridiculous to hold them up as examples of the typical artist's situation.
As to your other point, there was *never* a time when only the rich could afford the arts. It is still true that no one who doesn't make a decent living is going to commission a symphony or have their portrait painted. But the "common man" has always had access to symphonies (The English Ball), paintings (Sistine Chapel?), and the other arts.
If you think we're treating artists better than doctors or scientists, or especially "the people who run the country" (politicians?) then you're out of your mind. You owe the artists of the world an apology for the hard work they do and the crap they put up with from idiots like yourself who haven't bothered to look at the true situation.
The Apple spokesman said all that needs saying: "One's a computer, one's an iron. What's your point?"
That's the way the law sees it too. IANAL, but AFAIK if you take a design idea from a product that has nothing in common with your own (irons vs. computers) then any suit for design infringement is likely to be lost. As long as you don't incorporate any trademarked logos and such...
You know what else I can't believe?
All those people still using paintbrushes to make pictures in this day and age! I mean, come on people! Live in the NOW! Get a copy of Illustrator for God's sake!
Mr. Katz,
I like your stuff. I'm sad that (so it seems) the vocal minority has browbeaten you into curtailing your long posts. When I read a long post, even if it's not all well thought-out, at least I know there's a lot of thought in there to find.
These shorter posts of yours, like this movie review, seem to have one brief idea with no exposition. It's like you're afraid to let yourself go.
In the old days, you'd have gone on at length about what was good about the movie, what was bad, why you think it was written as it was, what the movie might indicate about where movies are going and where they are right now, maybe a little about the fancy gadget that plays such an important role in the film, something about the role of everyday technology in the film, and on and on just like I'm going now.
Personally, I think it sucks.
Bring back the Jon Katz we (some of us) love to hate. Bring back the long posts!
Here's the sentence of which you evidently read only every other word:
"It's time for a new vehicle to spoof ourselves, our darkest fears and our techno-culture obsessed lives."
To SPOOF our darkest fears AND our techno-culture obsessed lives. Both of which are true.
Are you just reacting out of habit because it's Jon Katz? And what moderators thought your thoroughly inaccurate message was worth bumping up?
Using the Internet rather than watching TV is not a bad thing. TV is passive, Internet has at least a minimal active element, and at most a completely active element in that you are involved in communicating with other people in real-time.
John: http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/cth211.htm
Steve: oh, that
Steve: that's just personalization
John: oh
John: ok
John: i won't worry about it then
Steve: nothing to worry about here
Steve: move along
John: i feel soothed
Steve: darn it, now I hate cookies again
John: i know!
John: i was like "what's wrong with cookies?" until this
Steve: I'm not sure I follow how it works, though
Steve: double click makes a cookie
Steve: they give the unique id to a company
Steve: the company gives it to you, and you send them info.
Steve: that seems circular to me
Steve: I think I'm misunderstanding
John: yeah
John: Doubleclick sends an ID number to your browser and at the same time sends the same number to the site you're visiting.
John: the site you're visiting sends DoubleClick some sort of information that lets DoubleClick look you up in their Abacus database.
John: so the site you're visiting has to be a collaborator
Steve: I thought you could only access cookies for the domain you've served the webpage from
Steve: oh, ok now I understand
Steve: duhh
John: i have no idea how the site you're visiting correlates the ID number it receives with your identity
Steve: wait, I still don't understand
Steve: that's what I don't understand
Steve: in order to make a corellation, it seems like they'd have to know who you are
Steve: how about this:
Steve: doubleclick creates a # with no other info., just a pool of numbers
Steve: they give a batch to a collaborator
Steve: you visit the collaborator, and they give you a cookie (with a # pulled from the pool)
Steve: you give the damn quisling your name address, soc. sec. #, and underwear fabric preference
Steve: the collaborator forwards the cookie# and your info to double click, who stores your info.
Steve: I'm still missing how the next collaborator gets the same cookie identifier
Steve: otherwise, it's not tracking
John: yeah, doesn't quite make sense
John: but I do believe them when they say they can do it
Steve: so do I
Steve: I believe they can do it, I'd just like to understand how
John: yeah, i'm sure there are lots of people who would like to know that
Steve: heh
Steve: it wouldn't do them too much good without the abacus db
Steve: I'm thinkin' that's how the match is made
Steve: double click has that db with 90% of the U.S. in it
Steve: they already know our names and addresses
John: right
Steve: so, the collaborator sends a name and address to double click
Steve: double click looks you up by name and address, and then records that you've been to the collaborator's website and bought x y or z
Steve: in that case, they wouldn't need cookies though
John: right
John: unless
John: the site doesn't know the identity of the person with the cookie until you purchase something or give information somehow
Steve: right
John: once they know who has what ID #, they've identified you
John: and then they can identify you by the cookie number, even if you don't buy anything
Steve: so, in order for it to work, the site would need to be able to pull the cookie from Double Click
John: i guess
Steve: oh, so once they've id'ed you, you never need to buy anything else...they'll still know each time you visit
John: right. they just keep the same ID
John: and if the same person is identified from multiple sites, their tracking gets more accurate.
John: but i don't think i understand how doubleclick's cookies work
John: if you embed an image in a page, and the image is stored on another site, can they give you a cookie from that site?
John: like, do all doubleclick cookies come from the same site?
John: if so, then once they've got your identity matched up with an ID, they know where you are and who you are everytime you load a doubleclick banner ad
John: because obviously each banner ad URL is coded somehow so they know where it's being shown...
John: god, this is complex and evil.
I mean, what does "degrade" mean anyway? It sounds like this "coating" will actually break up and come off the DVD *inside* your player! How much coating is there? Will it build up over time?
http://www.brillscontent.c om/features/bigmedia_1299.html
This merger may not be a monopoly, but it's another step towards the consolidation of creative culture into the hands of a select few companies. Where it may not matter so much if two meat-packing concerns join forces, when two companies that control media content merge, it removes a point of view from the available choices of consumers. And that's a bad thing.
In this case, the merger of AOL and Time Warner potentially removes the point of view of non-Time Warner content from the choices of AOL Users. And if mainstream America follows its normal course, the vast majority of those users won't even notice their loss.
It will be a sad day when a musician can't get hired because someone thinks a machine can do his job better.
In a worst-case scenario the proliferation of such devices will discourage young people from exploring the opportunities of music as a career, and may decrease our chances of hearing the *next* Hendrix, Heifitz, Paganini, Rostropovich, VanHalen, or B.B. King come along and grace our ears with a sound we've never heard before.
If you can find an alternative cable supplier in my area, I'll happily sign up with them.
To my understanding there is (in my area) one cable supplier for each region. I don't know of anywhere in Pennsylvania, USA (my home state) where two cable companies serve the same constituency.
Thus, it's a monopoly. Around here, at least.
The proponents of MP3 must come up with an alternative method for artists to protect their copyrights. It's not enough to say "MP3's haven't proliferated enough to cut into music sales"- just look at the growth of the Web to find the flaw in that reasoning.
I realize that the RIAA acting as a representative for artists rights is of dubious merit, but no one else seems to be, and there are plenty of MP3's of artists who make their living from music and who aren't being properly compensated for their use.
People can't be trusted to use tools such as MP3 legally because they are too convenient and they produce such a high level of product. That's the reason tape dubbing isn't the problem that MP3's are. You can't make a thousand copies of a cassette tape with nearly perfect replication (unless you spend $$$). You can do that with an MP3.
The RIAA has put forth its idea of how this can be done, but I haven't seen a counterproposal from the pro-MP3 camp. This can't be an either-or debate, there has to be a way for the two sides to meet somewhere near the middle.
So it's up to the loudest pro-MP3 mouths in the debate, including the EFF, to come up with a way to allow MP3's to live and protect the rights of artists at the same time.