It is unlikely than anyone's behavior will change with an economic incentive, but only some kind of technological innovation will make it possible alter the economics of the situation. Of course, the problem would disappear tomorrow if everyone in the world simply resolved to stop buying products advertised via spam, but that isn't going to happen. (Maybe just as well: The problem of companies sending out spam for their competitors' products might be just as bad.)
... to work in a field where nobody can say your wrong?"
I'm a philosophy prof. Although I don't work on post-modernism at all, I encounter this kind of comment all the time. The nature of the field may make it harder for someone else to definitively prove you're wrong, but it also makes it harder for you to prove you're right... which makes it EASY for EVERYBODY to SAY that you're wrong.
I wouldn't be too happy about working in this monster (or any other skyscraper). 9/11 showed the need for work on ways to get people out of skyscrapers quickly in case of a major fire or other disaster. Just yesterday 10 people (I believe) died in a high-rise fire in Chicago; they were found in a stairwell, and apparently died of soke inhalation. I don't think I would work in one of the upper floors unless I were able to keep a parachute in my office.
1) That a company has an obligation to provide a service, or even to exist at all.
2) That a company exists for "the public good" rather than the profit of its owners.
3) That your convenience or need overrules the rights of another private entity
Well, there is all the difference in the world between saying something ought to be done for one individual's convenience and saying it ought to be done for the public good. But it is not that any one given company exists for the public good. Rather, the system within which businesses operate has to be one that works for the public good. There are no libertarian natural laws for the system to obey, and natural rights are nonsense, as Bentham said. On average, people will be much, much, happier, even in the long run, if we put some restrictions on businesses and the kinds of contracts that they are able to offer people. So let's do that.
But even if you are to wedded to libertarian principles to accept this, maybe you can look at it this way. It is not like we have been living in a Randian or Rothbardian society up until now, and this is the first government interference in the market being proposed. That airline has received the help of government in numerous ways. And it isn't too much for society to ask it to accept some restrictions on its activities in response.
Suppose that a business owner says that because his business is a private organization, and that no one has to work there if they don't want, he is putting a clause in the employment contract saying that the employees have to provide him with sexual services on demand. Obviously that is illegal, in the US anyway---should it be legal? Clearly not. It contributes to a happy, well-functioning society for us to have a presumption in favor of letting people make whatever business arrangements they want between themselves, but freedom of contract isn't a sacred principle. Why can't we limit it where there is clear social benefit to doing so?
But the thing is that there is a reasonably precise answer to the question of what an official freeway sign looks like. The same isn't really true of software error messages. Except maybe when it comes to the BSOD.
The most common password would be...
on
Inkblot Passwords
·
· Score: 1, Funny
cscscscscs
Too many guys are going to see a "chick with big hooters" in every blot.
If you don't mind adding to your chances of being in that few percent then, by all means, be my guest and keep that phone/notebook/whatever switched on when you're asked to have it switched off.
I know where you are coming from but this is exactly the wrong thing to say. If I'm sitting on the same plane, then I want your phone/notebook/whatever switched off regardless of what chances you're willing to take with your own life. You may not mind adding to YOUR chances of being in that 'few percent,' but I resent like hell you adding to MY chances of being in it. People take all kinds of stupid risks with their own lives, but they shouldn't be able to force the rest of us cowards to take the same risks along with them.
I spent $1200 building a MythTV box thinking I could sift through the cruft of television to find something good to watch thinking that maybe all the good stuff is hiding at 3am on TNT or USA. Well, it's not
Uh, maybe before investing that $1,200 it would have been wise to invest 75 cents in a copy of TV Guide to see what actually was on late at night.
Could anyone else figure out why this requires a program on the user's end that is too large to be downloaded? Seems like all you need is an e-mail client, and instructions on how to format the information request.
But what does a tactic like this do to PS's current shareholders? They benefit from a takeover attempt, because it drives the value of their stock up. The management of the company has a fiduciary obligation to act in the best interest of shareholders; not of PS's customers, and certainly not of the executives themselves. "Poisoning the well" to prevent a takeover could very well lead to a lawsuit by shareholders.
I'm not a software developer, but I read the article and (I think) followed the reasoning. The analogy is probably a good one, but part of what is good about it is that you can extend the analogy to explain the major weak spot in the argument. If you develop for Windows, etc., you are a sharecropper---but you get access to a huge farmer's market where only sharecroppers get to sell their produce (products) and where lots and lots of customers come to buy. If not, then you're relegated to a roadside stand on a highway that may potentially get tons of traffic, but isn't seeing that much yet.
It is a little too simplistic to simply say either "Fair use!" or "Then don't buy it!" Yes, you have a legal right to fair use of copyrighted materials. However, the whole idea of a contract is that you give up certain rights to get other rights in exchange. When you buy copyrighted material, one right you give up is the right to a sum of money. But there is nothing in the concept of a contract to say that you can't be required to give up any of your other rights as well, including your right to fair use. Do we as a society want to let the holders of copyrighted material make it available to consumers only on the condition that they agree to such a contract? People who say "Just don't buy it" say yes; they have faith that if the terms of the contract are lousy then consumers will be enlightened enough to stay away. Eventually, though competition, the companies will be forced to offer better terms. It is a question of whether consumers are smart enough to pass up a bad deal, and whether there is enough competition that if one company requires an unreasonable contract another will offer a comparable product on better terms. I've got a moderate amount of faith in competition myself, but I'm not a libertarian zealot either. If book and periodical publishers started to require alienation of fair use rights as a condition of purchase, I'd be ready for the government to step in and say "You just can't do that." I don't know about other kinds of material.
Yeah, but from this point forward companies paying for banner ads will simply be paying to have their banner ads displayed on the screens of people who aren't running programs like Gator. They won't have any right to be annoyed, because they will have known what they were entitled to when they paid for it. I started to say that the price of banner ads would drop, but I think that is backwards; if the ruling had gone the other way, the price would have gone up. Either way, the companies/people who really have a right to be annoyed are the ones who SELL banner ads. They are the ones who are losing revenue.
Bedroom PC's are for those who do not share the bedroom with a significant other. Some of us do, and so have banished most electronics to other parts of the house, so we can concentrate on...ahem...other matters pertaining to the bedroom. Sadly, most of/. does nto fit this profile, so a nice quiet bedroom PC is a necessary object.
Actually, for most of/. a computer is a "necessary object" in "other matters pertaining to the bedroom."
My guess is that the average user is lazy, and would rather spend twice as much on the ink instead of being bothered to educate themselves.
Maybe I am just in a crotchety mood today, but this seems pretty unfair. Just because people don't want to educate themselves on a topic that happens to interest us doesn't make them lazy. We all have multiple demands on our time, and we have to file a lot of things away in the "I have no time to think about this" file in order to have time to think about the things we really care about. For the average computer user, ink cartridges are in this category (along with non-Windows OSs). For the average/.er, computer technology is what one is trying to make more time to think about, and so it is stuff like upkeep on one's house and lawn---not to mention one's own body---that gets shoved back into the "no time" file.
Firebird might be better. I'm talking about the User and GDI resource stacks, though, not RAM and disk space.
Mozilla and (blush) systems resources
on
Netscape 7.1 Released
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Okay, I confess that I'm a lamer. Not only do I run Windows, but I still run Win 98SE. But I decided to download Mozilla 1.4 today, making one feeble gesture toward geekhood. But you may remember that 98 still has the old system resources constraint, and Mozilla is an absolute pig for the resources. Makes it hard to run it along with any other programs. But it does seem to be pretty good about giving up the resources once it is closed.
What you may get, and indeed are aqlready starting to get, is fewer true ads and more product placements during TV shows. If the merchandising is tightly integrated with the entertainment, there is nothing to skip.
First, Movieflix lets you watch the old movies for free. It is just the soft-core pr0n you have to pay for. Second, I'm willing to grant you that there might be some great movies from that period. That isn't the point. The point is that such a small number of people have an interest in those movies that there wouldn't be any competition. (Phillistines!) Third, there are a lot of films from that period that would basically have no audience, even if there are some gems. Yet having these films in the public domain would be a great boon to film scholars. Fourth, we aren't just talking about films, but all manner of works. And what makes tracking the copyright holders down hard is that people die, and so you have to figure out who inherited the copyright. Fifth, Lessig estimates that this would put over 90% of material from 1923--532 in the public domain. But I guess you shouldn't argue with an anonymous coward; people might not be able to tell the difference.
Yeah, right, studios are going to be real concerned that people would rather watch a black and white movie from the 30s for free rather than pay $3 for a new popular movie. That is why the the video chains and theaters have already lost huge sums of movie to movieflix, which lets you watch a few old movies for free via streaming video. I think the real point of the legislation is to free up material whose copyrights are held by private individuals who may not even know that they hold them. It saves people who want to use the material the expense of hiring a PI to try and figure out just who the heck the copyright belongs to.
The possibility of these things being put into pieces of currency (as described here) is probably even more worrisome than them being put into consumer products. No more anonymity in cash transactions.
(By the way, would they interference with wireless devices, cordless phones, etc? I don't want to have to change into an old shirt to use the phone!)
Slashdot Mirror
It is unlikely than anyone's behavior will change with an economic incentive, but only some kind of technological innovation will make it possible alter the economics of the situation. Of course, the problem would disappear tomorrow if everyone in the world simply resolved to stop buying products advertised via spam, but that isn't going to happen. (Maybe just as well: The problem of companies sending out spam for their competitors' products might be just as bad.)
... to work in a field where nobody can say your wrong?" I'm a philosophy prof. Although I don't work on post-modernism at all, I encounter this kind of comment all the time. The nature of the field may make it harder for someone else to definitively prove you're wrong, but it also makes it harder for you to prove you're right... which makes it EASY for EVERYBODY to SAY that you're wrong.
Maybe Papa John's would pay for a shootout scene where everyone in a Pizza Hut gets slaughtered.
I wouldn't be too happy about working in this monster (or any other skyscraper). 9/11 showed the need for work on ways to get people out of skyscrapers quickly in case of a major fire or other disaster. Just yesterday 10 people (I believe) died in a high-rise fire in Chicago; they were found in a stairwell, and apparently died of soke inhalation. I don't think I would work in one of the upper floors unless I were able to keep a parachute in my office.
Suppose that a business owner says that because his business is a private organization, and that no one has to work there if they don't want, he is putting a clause in the employment contract saying that the employees have to provide him with sexual services on demand. Obviously that is illegal, in the US anyway---should it be legal? Clearly not. It contributes to a happy, well-functioning society for us to have a presumption in favor of letting people make whatever business arrangements they want between themselves, but freedom of contract isn't a sacred principle. Why can't we limit it where there is clear social benefit to doing so?
But the thing is that there is a reasonably precise answer to the question of what an official freeway sign looks like. The same isn't really true of software error messages. Except maybe when it comes to the BSOD.
cscscscscs Too many guys are going to see a "chick with big hooters" in every blot.
Good old Bertie. I'm your fan. But to go really obscure, I'm much more of a fan of his godfather...
NASCAR strategy wouldn't work here, since nothing makes another vehicle's slipstream look less inviting than flames shooting out the back end.
Could anyone else figure out why this requires a program on the user's end that is too large to be downloaded? Seems like all you need is an e-mail client, and instructions on how to format the information request.
But what does a tactic like this do to PS's current shareholders? They benefit from a takeover attempt, because it drives the value of their stock up. The management of the company has a fiduciary obligation to act in the best interest of shareholders; not of PS's customers, and certainly not of the executives themselves. "Poisoning the well" to prevent a takeover could very well lead to a lawsuit by shareholders.
I'm not a software developer, but I read the article and (I think) followed the reasoning. The analogy is probably a good one, but part of what is good about it is that you can extend the analogy to explain the major weak spot in the argument. If you develop for Windows, etc., you are a sharecropper---but you get access to a huge farmer's market where only sharecroppers get to sell their produce (products) and where lots and lots of customers come to buy. If not, then you're relegated to a roadside stand on a highway that may potentially get tons of traffic, but isn't seeing that much yet.
It is a little too simplistic to simply say either "Fair use!" or "Then don't buy it!" Yes, you have a legal right to fair use of copyrighted materials. However, the whole idea of a contract is that you give up certain rights to get other rights in exchange. When you buy copyrighted material, one right you give up is the right to a sum of money. But there is nothing in the concept of a contract to say that you can't be required to give up any of your other rights as well, including your right to fair use. Do we as a society want to let the holders of copyrighted material make it available to consumers only on the condition that they agree to such a contract? People who say "Just don't buy it" say yes; they have faith that if the terms of the contract are lousy then consumers will be enlightened enough to stay away. Eventually, though competition, the companies will be forced to offer better terms. It is a question of whether consumers are smart enough to pass up a bad deal, and whether there is enough competition that if one company requires an unreasonable contract another will offer a comparable product on better terms. I've got a moderate amount of faith in competition myself, but I'm not a libertarian zealot either. If book and periodical publishers started to require alienation of fair use rights as a condition of purchase, I'd be ready for the government to step in and say "You just can't do that." I don't know about other kinds of material.
Yeah, but from this point forward companies paying for banner ads will simply be paying to have their banner ads displayed on the screens of people who aren't running programs like Gator. They won't have any right to be annoyed, because they will have known what they were entitled to when they paid for it. I started to say that the price of banner ads would drop, but I think that is backwards; if the ruling had gone the other way, the price would have gone up. Either way, the companies/people who really have a right to be annoyed are the ones who SELL banner ads. They are the ones who are losing revenue.
Firebird might be better. I'm talking about the User and GDI resource stacks, though, not RAM and disk space.
Okay, I confess that I'm a lamer. Not only do I run Windows, but I still run Win 98SE. But I decided to download Mozilla 1.4 today, making one feeble gesture toward geekhood. But you may remember that 98 still has the old system resources constraint, and Mozilla is an absolute pig for the resources. Makes it hard to run it along with any other programs. But it does seem to be pretty good about giving up the resources once it is closed.
What you may get, and indeed are aqlready starting to get, is fewer true ads and more product placements during TV shows. If the merchandising is tightly integrated with the entertainment, there is nothing to skip.
First, Movieflix lets you watch the old movies for free. It is just the soft-core pr0n you have to pay for. Second, I'm willing to grant you that there might be some great movies from that period. That isn't the point. The point is that such a small number of people have an interest in those movies that there wouldn't be any competition. (Phillistines!) Third, there are a lot of films from that period that would basically have no audience, even if there are some gems. Yet having these films in the public domain would be a great boon to film scholars. Fourth, we aren't just talking about films, but all manner of works. And what makes tracking the copyright holders down hard is that people die, and so you have to figure out who inherited the copyright. Fifth, Lessig estimates that this would put over 90% of material from 1923--532 in the public domain. But I guess you shouldn't argue with an anonymous coward; people might not be able to tell the difference.
Yeah, right, studios are going to be real concerned that people would rather watch a black and white movie from the 30s for free rather than pay $3 for a new popular movie. That is why the the video chains and theaters have already lost huge sums of movie to movieflix, which lets you watch a few old movies for free via streaming video. I think the real point of the legislation is to free up material whose copyrights are held by private individuals who may not even know that they hold them. It saves people who want to use the material the expense of hiring a PI to try and figure out just who the heck the copyright belongs to.
The possibility of these things being put into pieces of currency (as described here) is probably even more worrisome than them being put into consumer products. No more anonymity in cash transactions. (By the way, would they interference with wireless devices, cordless phones, etc? I don't want to have to change into an old shirt to use the phone!)