I disagree that the concept of Intellectual Property is dead. You're confusing that concept with the concept of physical manufacturing and distribution of content. Rather, we're moving more closing to un-marrying content from its medium of delivery.
What we must overcome is the artificial scarcity that is created by people who still insist on controlling and charging money for each physical representation of a piece of intellectual property.
Of course, there may be a more clever term that will emerge that doesn't connote that content is "property," but that's a whole different story. There also must emerge a sane and consistent way to compensate creators-- maybe it's just simply the greed of the current middle men that is in the way?
Pardon the interruption of your tirade, but I'd be curious if Louisiana actually has verbiage in their state constitution about separation of church and state? Because that notion is generally understood as a doctrine of the United States constitution and the prohibition of said congress to pass laws honoring or denying religious beliefs.
If it does, then I stand corrected and agree with your sentiment. If it doesn't, I'm not necessarily inclined to tell LA to fsck off, but really: So what? Don't live there. Don't raise kids there.
Raising a child is still the job of parents; I'm glad to have grown up in a non-religious household and have been able to freely explore my own spirituality, personally. But I'm certainly not arrogant enough to try and short circuit states' rights because of it.
If I may so bold is to agree with you and take it a slightly different direction, there is some theory out there (if I can dig up the books I read, I'll post a link) about how this "long tail" theory works (besides the actual "Long Tail" book).
Basically, the role of critics is increasing in importance. "Obscurity" in the context of popular culture just means that the consumers are too lazy to find stuff and the creators are too poor or too lazy or simply not interested in mass marketing their stuff. A "critic" (for lack of a better word) would essentially become the middle man. S/he will use her particular taste/expertise to bring together a collection of great, albeit obscure, things. At this scale, there is sufficient content to gather a niche audience and therefore money to be made for all parties involved.
It's way too soon to dismiss the long tail theory, because online/cheap distribution is simply an immature medium. Example: As a musician, I see lots of sites that will help me distribute my stuff to an audience willing to pay for it; but it doesn't take much to see that I will be along side of others who are just simply not that talented, or who produce music in a genre whose audience wouldn't like my stuff. In other words, the online music world is still fascinated with a brick and mortar record store approach of loading up with as much crap as possible, assuming that people will wander in and find what they like. My product is lost in such a chaotic set up.
Rather, once this long tail theory plays out more, I assume that there will be larger (read easier to find) ways to get to your favorite folk-rock site, or your favorite 1950s rockabilly site, or your favorite left-handed midget dentist techno site, to find what you are looking for.
Pandora is an interesting approach to finding obscure music, where an individual IS the critic. However, I would argue that it still requires too much work for Joe Sixpack to find new stuff. In essence, Pandora represents the niche of die hard music fans who are willing to take the time to let themselves be guided through a musical experience to find new stuff.
For all intents and purposes, this is just a long-winded way to say that niche marketing will rule, given that people require guidance through the many choices of where to get stuff that they like. The notion of "competition" will always exist; but, once the notion that Hanna Montana is competing with Metallica disappears, it will slowly give way to the synergy that is created and grown among products that gel into a well-defined niche.
For all the advantages that computers confer on society, don't forget the huge losses in both time and money that the poor quality of Windows and its apps have caused.
That's a pretty anti-Microsoft-skewed statement that is kind of ridiculous. The real story is that those Microsoft folks aggressively pursued the notion that they could build a successful business by focusing on PCs. For all of the "losses in both time and money" the can be attributed to imperfect, or even faulty, software, there were also great strides in desktop productivity.
It's just simply business-- they focused their efforts on the PC and, because their timing was right, they succeeded in a humongous way. Were their tactics seedy? Sure; that's business for you. I wonder if, in the future, you will be writing the same stuff, but with Google's name in it, because they'll have secured their place in history as the frontrunners of capitalizing on Internet technologies?
For instance, what about all of the time and money that is wasted by employees viewing videos on YouTube? That may not necessarily be the equivalent of faulty software; but those videos eat bandwidth and slow PC performance down. That forces corporate IT to make a decision as to whether or not they need to block YouTube on the firewall. If they do that, any legitimate business use of video on YouTube is no longer viable.
In the age of desktop video publishing: If a movie/entertainment professional were to discover original material on YouTube that s/he considered exceptionally great (understood that's subjective, but let's say it just hits home in some sense) despite poor production quality, what's the next thing that s/he would look for?
Would it be the rest of the poster's/director's body of work?
Would it be contact information to try and make contact with the poster/director?
Would the poster's page simply be put on some sort of favorites list?
Or, would it simply be ignored because of poor production quality?
I think ultimately we need to just get past the "desktop" metaphor altogether. The word "desktop" connotes work, and while PCs are certainly used to help people perform "work," "desktop" is a rather exclusive word that is becoming more and more inappropriate.
I've been a PC user since the first version of Windows-- my dad is a computer guy and, when desktop PCs became affordable, we immediately got one and he made sure to teach me the ins and outs of organizing my files, how to navigate around in the various windows, and how to do stuff from the command line. But, to my Geekiness discredit, Solitaire and Paint were the coolest things to me.
It was only when the multimedia capabilities and the processing power to run them finally met that my head turned and my imagination started churning away. Sure, I could type papers on DOS-oriented word processors with the best of them but, let's face it, I was forced into doing those types of things. It was cute, it was easier than using a typewriter, but it still wasn't "fun." It was a virtual replacement for a physical desktop.
Multimedia and the idea of convergence really started to chip away at the idea that a PC is a virtual desktop. Then, the WWW happened, and Communication poked its nose into the mainstream. So now what we have, and seem to be stuck with, is the notion of a box, that you turn on and that shows you a desktop from which you can perform many tasks or be entertained.
Yawn. I'm a musician, and I've now got an Ubuntu machine for my web surfing and CD collection, a decent Windows machine to do my home recording on, and an older Windows machine that functions as a family machine for my daughter to play games on (with the ability to bolster my home studio when needed). And for fun, an Internet-connected Wii.
My machines are appliances. Certainly the idea of Computer as Appliance is not new, but we're now at a point where that doesn't mean a cheap piece of non-powerful, non-upgradeable, bearly-passable poop. The iPhone may well indeed fulfill 99% of an average person's computing needs. The eeePC might be Just Enough to satisfy the needs of a student. The Wii might be the exact right thing for one's gaming. And yes, my Windows box is Just Enough to satisfy my home recording needs.
In terms of mainstream ideology, we definitely need to get past the idea that people want a box that can do every single thing known to man without ever breaking down. People want a Communication machine, or a Game machine, or a Creativity machine. They want them in different rooms around their house, or in their pocket, or in their backpack. They don't care, nor do I believe they should care or have to care, about the Operating System.
I admit that I shudder to think of ever ridding myself of a startup screen with rows and rows of icons that I forgot the functions of, or the pesky Update notices for some obscure program that I didn't even know I had. In the end, though, those things are obstacles to what I want my machines to do.
Specialization of functionality. Appliances. Keep the Desktop at work. The proles will (and indeed must) survive under whatever conditions the Powers That Be foist upon them anyway.
I agree that there is the problem of overcoming a "game system" stigma for this concept of an all-in-one set-top box. However, I do think it can be overcome. From that perspective, I find that the interesting thing about the X-Box is simply its name-- it is a "box" that can perform "X" number of functions.
On the other front, the Wii is chipping away at the concept that a "game system" is only for kids or nerdy adults.
These systems are certainly the most technically capable and, to some degree, aesthetically pleasing, go-to machines for capitalizing on the trend of entertainment convergence.
My bet is that in 30 years time we'll still be reading stuff about the latest generation "growing up with technology" and how this is overhauling the preconceptions of previous generations, whose own "growing up with technology" is apparently no longer good enough. I disagree with this, on the basis that you're using the term "technology" in a generic way. In this day and age, the Internet has very recently (generationally speaking) elevated Information Technology to complete ubiquity. Therefore, those raised within a time frame/generation where they take the Internet for granted will inherently be more comfortable with it, with all that it entails, and with the possibilities for future applications that it offers.
An analogy or parallel might be those who grew up with cable television vs. those who were around when TV was 3 networks that didn't even broadcast a signal 24x7: Those who grew up with cable television say, "Where's my DVR, I don't want to miss anything!" Those who grew up without cable television say, "Damn, all those channels and nothing but crap."
In the business sense, the younger generation of employees is saying, "I can't believe we're not using X technology to solve Y problem!" The "older generation" is saying "nothing but crap" while lamenting the absence of their old typewriter.
It sounds like you are probably comparable to my age; I don't know. But I've been shedding my youthful arrogance in the following way:
I am better able to distinguish "wisdom" from "business know-how." In this sense, I have accumulated many "wise" older acquaintances at work who really don't know much, business-wise, beyond what they specifically do. Therefore, their wisdom doesn't necessarily earn them my respect as a co-worker, though I may gain some wisdom about interpersonal or social relationships.
There are others whom I respect greatly because they have business know-how. Maybe they're "wise" or maybe not, but they tend to get straight to the point and ask questions if they don't understand something (rather than assume that, if they don't understand, it must not be important). But the key component of business know-how in my mind is the understanding that one is never, at any time, working in a vacuum; and if one knows how to leverage the knowledge and skills of the team around him effectively, good things happen.
When I perceive that someone has both the wisdom gained with lots of experience, and business know-how, then they have my full respect.
My first impression before RTFA is that, if this is true, then we have a viable argument for why our constant exposure to advertising is bad. Ive always thought that leaving the TV on 24/7 is to your brain what drinking toilet water is to your body: You cant necessarily see the germs that youre ingesting, but at some point theyre going to have a negative effect on you.
Of course, it doesnt end at your TV: Newspapers, magazines, billboards-- the germs are everywhere.
Its there to create awareness, and ad exec would say; or, maybe a more blunt ad exec would say, Its there to make you decide to buy the product.
But, I think this shows that it does a lot more than that. And we should be concerned, and ask ourselves what were allowing our brains to ingest at any given time. And, what can we do about it?
RTFA. Unlike "toilets," proper integration of IT within a company can offer a competitive advantage and therefore increase revenue. Conversely, if your competition nicely integrates IT within its organization as the article suggests, it will be better poised to lead the way, and move more quickly, than your company; and, your company will lose.
>> When were we told that we cannot question assumptions made as part of scientific theory, and doesn't that reduce science to just another religion?
Never, and no.
The scientific method defines a format for framing your question and performing an experiment. If you can contradict previous findings, and others are able to perform your experiment to the same result, then you have successfully disproved a piece of science.
Religion, on the other hand, is "faith" based, with no pre-defined format in which to frame your question. However, many religions conveniently answer most questions within the framework of said faith, rather than previously tested facts.
I wonder if there's actually a "generation gap" of sorts in corporate culture nowadays.
I have been working in and adapting to rapidly changing environments and industries for my entire career (having acquired a degree in communications and specializing in web/online development). With such insight to how Technology and Information relate to each other and serve businesses, I personally find it frustrating to deal with "old-school" management types who have survived in a relatively tech-free world for most of their lives, but who are now in powerful decision-making positions with no real grasp of the things in business that are shifting because of the (relatively recent) abundance and ubiquity of IT.
So I think the "looking at the problem in reverse" comment is supremely insightful. I'm personally in a situation now where I'm already looking at the problem in reverse and trying to figure out how the heck to advance in my career given my unfortunate dependence on these old-school guys.
You're actually referring to the State's preference for eliminating human dignity in order to maintain its power. While the Catholic Church is not a State, it is a power structure also, and I would argue that by forcing beliefs upon people, it also robs people of human dignity.
Human dignity is a concept with no owner except for the particular human in which it resides-- it is not something to be defined by Catholicism, or Human Secularists, or anyone else who finds comfort labeling or oversimplifying their philosophies so that they can find comfort in numbers.
Peel away all of your labels, and we're roughly progressing toward the improvement of all of humanity; that's pretty dignified.
Slashdot Mirror
Enough already! Cud it out!
I disagree that the concept of Intellectual Property is dead. You're confusing that concept with the concept of physical manufacturing and distribution of content. Rather, we're moving more closing to un-marrying content from its medium of delivery.
What we must overcome is the artificial scarcity that is created by people who still insist on controlling and charging money for each physical representation of a piece of intellectual property.
Of course, there may be a more clever term that will emerge that doesn't connote that content is "property," but that's a whole different story. There also must emerge a sane and consistent way to compensate creators-- maybe it's just simply the greed of the current middle men that is in the way?
Pardon the interruption of your tirade, but I'd be curious if Louisiana actually has verbiage in their state constitution about separation of church and state? Because that notion is generally understood as a doctrine of the United States constitution and the prohibition of said congress to pass laws honoring or denying religious beliefs.
If it does, then I stand corrected and agree with your sentiment. If it doesn't, I'm not necessarily inclined to tell LA to fsck off, but really: So what? Don't live there. Don't raise kids there.
Raising a child is still the job of parents; I'm glad to have grown up in a non-religious household and have been able to freely explore my own spirituality, personally. But I'm certainly not arrogant enough to try and short circuit states' rights because of it.
If I may so bold is to agree with you and take it a slightly different direction, there is some theory out there (if I can dig up the books I read, I'll post a link) about how this "long tail" theory works (besides the actual "Long Tail" book).
Basically, the role of critics is increasing in importance. "Obscurity" in the context of popular culture just means that the consumers are too lazy to find stuff and the creators are too poor or too lazy or simply not interested in mass marketing their stuff. A "critic" (for lack of a better word) would essentially become the middle man. S/he will use her particular taste/expertise to bring together a collection of great, albeit obscure, things. At this scale, there is sufficient content to gather a niche audience and therefore money to be made for all parties involved.
It's way too soon to dismiss the long tail theory, because online/cheap distribution is simply an immature medium. Example: As a musician, I see lots of sites that will help me distribute my stuff to an audience willing to pay for it; but it doesn't take much to see that I will be along side of others who are just simply not that talented, or who produce music in a genre whose audience wouldn't like my stuff. In other words, the online music world is still fascinated with a brick and mortar record store approach of loading up with as much crap as possible, assuming that people will wander in and find what they like. My product is lost in such a chaotic set up.
Rather, once this long tail theory plays out more, I assume that there will be larger (read easier to find) ways to get to your favorite folk-rock site, or your favorite 1950s rockabilly site, or your favorite left-handed midget dentist techno site, to find what you are looking for.
Pandora is an interesting approach to finding obscure music, where an individual IS the critic. However, I would argue that it still requires too much work for Joe Sixpack to find new stuff. In essence, Pandora represents the niche of die hard music fans who are willing to take the time to let themselves be guided through a musical experience to find new stuff.
For all intents and purposes, this is just a long-winded way to say that niche marketing will rule, given that people require guidance through the many choices of where to get stuff that they like. The notion of "competition" will always exist; but, once the notion that Hanna Montana is competing with Metallica disappears, it will slowly give way to the synergy that is created and grown among products that gel into a well-defined niche.
It's just simply business-- they focused their efforts on the PC and, because their timing was right, they succeeded in a humongous way. Were their tactics seedy? Sure; that's business for you. I wonder if, in the future, you will be writing the same stuff, but with Google's name in it, because they'll have secured their place in history as the frontrunners of capitalizing on Internet technologies?
For instance, what about all of the time and money that is wasted by employees viewing videos on YouTube? That may not necessarily be the equivalent of faulty software; but those videos eat bandwidth and slow PC performance down. That forces corporate IT to make a decision as to whether or not they need to block YouTube on the firewall. If they do that, any legitimate business use of video on YouTube is no longer viable.
They already have that. It's called G4!
Clearly it is a galaxy full of Slashdot readers.
canard
noun
a deliberately misleading fabrication
So, the moon is not real?
In the age of desktop video publishing: If a movie/entertainment professional were to discover original material on YouTube that s/he considered exceptionally great (understood that's subjective, but let's say it just hits home in some sense) despite poor production quality, what's the next thing that s/he would look for?
Would it be the rest of the poster's/director's body of work?
Would it be contact information to try and make contact with the poster/director?
Would the poster's page simply be put on some sort of favorites list?
Or, would it simply be ignored because of poor production quality?
I think ultimately we need to just get past the "desktop" metaphor altogether. The word "desktop" connotes work, and while PCs are certainly used to help people perform "work," "desktop" is a rather exclusive word that is becoming more and more inappropriate.
I've been a PC user since the first version of Windows-- my dad is a computer guy and, when desktop PCs became affordable, we immediately got one and he made sure to teach me the ins and outs of organizing my files, how to navigate around in the various windows, and how to do stuff from the command line. But, to my Geekiness discredit, Solitaire and Paint were the coolest things to me.
It was only when the multimedia capabilities and the processing power to run them finally met that my head turned and my imagination started churning away. Sure, I could type papers on DOS-oriented word processors with the best of them but, let's face it, I was forced into doing those types of things. It was cute, it was easier than using a typewriter, but it still wasn't "fun." It was a virtual replacement for a physical desktop.
Multimedia and the idea of convergence really started to chip away at the idea that a PC is a virtual desktop. Then, the WWW happened, and Communication poked its nose into the mainstream. So now what we have, and seem to be stuck with, is the notion of a box, that you turn on and that shows you a desktop from which you can perform many tasks or be entertained.
Yawn. I'm a musician, and I've now got an Ubuntu machine for my web surfing and CD collection, a decent Windows machine to do my home recording on, and an older Windows machine that functions as a family machine for my daughter to play games on (with the ability to bolster my home studio when needed). And for fun, an Internet-connected Wii.
My machines are appliances. Certainly the idea of Computer as Appliance is not new, but we're now at a point where that doesn't mean a cheap piece of non-powerful, non-upgradeable, bearly-passable poop. The iPhone may well indeed fulfill 99% of an average person's computing needs. The eeePC might be Just Enough to satisfy the needs of a student. The Wii might be the exact right thing for one's gaming. And yes, my Windows box is Just Enough to satisfy my home recording needs.
In terms of mainstream ideology, we definitely need to get past the idea that people want a box that can do every single thing known to man without ever breaking down. People want a Communication machine, or a Game machine, or a Creativity machine. They want them in different rooms around their house, or in their pocket, or in their backpack. They don't care, nor do I believe they should care or have to care, about the Operating System.
I admit that I shudder to think of ever ridding myself of a startup screen with rows and rows of icons that I forgot the functions of, or the pesky Update notices for some obscure program that I didn't even know I had. In the end, though, those things are obstacles to what I want my machines to do.
Specialization of functionality. Appliances. Keep the Desktop at work. The proles will (and indeed must) survive under whatever conditions the Powers That Be foist upon them anyway.
I agree that there is the problem of overcoming a "game system" stigma for this concept of an all-in-one set-top box. However, I do think it can be overcome. From that perspective, I find that the interesting thing about the X-Box is simply its name-- it is a "box" that can perform "X" number of functions.
On the other front, the Wii is chipping away at the concept that a "game system" is only for kids or nerdy adults.
These systems are certainly the most technically capable and, to some degree, aesthetically pleasing, go-to machines for capitalizing on the trend of entertainment convergence.
An analogy or parallel might be those who grew up with cable television vs. those who were around when TV was 3 networks that didn't even broadcast a signal 24x7: Those who grew up with cable television say, "Where's my DVR, I don't want to miss anything!" Those who grew up without cable television say, "Damn, all those channels and nothing but crap."
In the business sense, the younger generation of employees is saying, "I can't believe we're not using X technology to solve Y problem!" The "older generation" is saying "nothing but crap" while lamenting the absence of their old typewriter.
2. ???
3. ???
4. Profit
It sounds like you are probably comparable to my age; I don't know. But I've been shedding my youthful arrogance in the following way:
I am better able to distinguish "wisdom" from "business know-how." In this sense, I have accumulated many "wise" older acquaintances at work who really don't know much, business-wise, beyond what they specifically do. Therefore, their wisdom doesn't necessarily earn them my respect as a co-worker, though I may gain some wisdom about interpersonal or social relationships.
There are others whom I respect greatly because they have business know-how. Maybe they're "wise" or maybe not, but they tend to get straight to the point and ask questions if they don't understand something (rather than assume that, if they don't understand, it must not be important). But the key component of business know-how in my mind is the understanding that one is never, at any time, working in a vacuum; and if one knows how to leverage the knowledge and skills of the team around him effectively, good things happen.
When I perceive that someone has both the wisdom gained with lots of experience, and business know-how, then they have my full respect.
As I said regarding a previous story:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=467516&cid=22577490
My first impression before RTFA is that, if this is true, then we have a viable argument for why our constant exposure to advertising is bad. Ive always thought that leaving the TV on 24/7 is to your brain what drinking toilet water is to your body: You cant necessarily see the germs that youre ingesting, but at some point theyre going to have a negative effect on you.
Of course, it doesnt end at your TV: Newspapers, magazines, billboards-- the germs are everywhere.
Its there to create awareness, and ad exec would say; or, maybe a more blunt ad exec would say, Its there to make you decide to buy the product.
But, I think this shows that it does a lot more than that. And we should be concerned, and ask ourselves what were allowing our brains to ingest at any given time. And, what can we do about it?
... that any ad addressing me as "Scroatzilla" would be quite endearing.
RTFA. Unlike "toilets," proper integration of IT within a company can offer a competitive advantage and therefore increase revenue. Conversely, if your competition nicely integrates IT within its organization as the article suggests, it will be better poised to lead the way, and move more quickly, than your company; and, your company will lose.
Have fun crapping.
A red car.
Thanks, but I'll wait for a Matter Compiler.
>> When were we told that we cannot question assumptions made as part of scientific theory, and doesn't that reduce science to just another religion?
Never, and no.
The scientific method defines a format for framing your question and performing an experiment. If you can contradict previous findings, and others are able to perform your experiment to the same result, then you have successfully disproved a piece of science.
Religion, on the other hand, is "faith" based, with no pre-defined format in which to frame your question. However, many religions conveniently answer most questions within the framework of said faith, rather than previously tested facts.
I wonder if there's actually a "generation gap" of sorts in corporate culture nowadays.
I have been working in and adapting to rapidly changing environments and industries for my entire career (having acquired a degree in communications and specializing in web/online development). With such insight to how Technology and Information relate to each other and serve businesses, I personally find it frustrating to deal with "old-school" management types who have survived in a relatively tech-free world for most of their lives, but who are now in powerful decision-making positions with no real grasp of the things in business that are shifting because of the (relatively recent) abundance and ubiquity of IT.
So I think the "looking at the problem in reverse" comment is supremely insightful. I'm personally in a situation now where I'm already looking at the problem in reverse and trying to figure out how the heck to advance in my career given my unfortunate dependence on these old-school guys.
You're actually referring to the State's preference for eliminating human dignity in order to maintain its power. While the Catholic Church is not a State, it is a power structure also, and I would argue that by forcing beliefs upon people, it also robs people of human dignity.
Human dignity is a concept with no owner except for the particular human in which it resides-- it is not something to be defined by Catholicism, or Human Secularists, or anyone else who finds comfort labeling or oversimplifying their philosophies so that they can find comfort in numbers.
Peel away all of your labels, and we're roughly progressing toward the improvement of all of humanity; that's pretty dignified.