As long as those unemployed software guys will work for sub-minimum wage. A few McDonalds' in Oregon have been outsourcing their drivethrough window to people at phone-farms in the midwest (North Dakota, I think). Minimum wage in Oregon is almost $7.50, but it's only around $5.10 in North Dakota. By outsourcing the guy that you talk to at the drive through speaker, they're saving $25/day per restaurant.
The ransom model, in that respect, is fine. (That's the model I already described and is essentially how everything is already done in and out of open-source). But the idea of "If I don't finish the program or I dont' get enough money, whatever I did get goes to charity" is kind of... silly.
Because, money is evil. Vouchers require administrative personel. Staffing. Oversight committees. Planning boards. Watch dogs. All of which comes out of a little administrative fee added on to vouchers. Let's see cash do that.
Plus, I still don't want my government endorsing open-source companies. I don't want them endorsing anything. Not companies. Not churches. Nothing. I want them to do the three or four necessary things they're obligated to do and stop trying to push utopia through government process. If you and I want successful open source, we can do it without a fucking government mandate.
I'm still failing to understand how the free market has failed for software. Between home and the office, I have multiple flavors of linux, OSX, Solaris, HP-UX and Windows. I have the choice of paying for the standard $400 MS Office suite or downloading OpenOffice or StarOffice (or even others). I have a plethora of decent browsers, music players, art programs, entertainment, games and everything else under the sun between free, cheap, costly or expensive.
How exactly is the free market failing? If it weren't for the free market, what incentive would there be to operate at anything higher than 50mhz? Who would care about 128bit audio when 8bit audio is just fine? The incentive is in the mass market and that market is not going to be served with good products by guys getting paid with in coupons and vouchers from random users.
Yeah, Microsoft has a huge chunk of the market. Yeah, microsoft sucks. But Microsoft isn't the only game in town. As I mentioned above.
Tell me some things the government has taken over that have been exemplary? They really have that welfare thing nailed down. Efficient. No fraud. No waste. You bet. Oh, and that Amtrak. What with it being friendly, efficient, on time, clean and accessible in every destination you could possibly want. And that telephone thing always goes so well, too... And utility companies. And.. yeah everything they touch turns to gold. I definitely want my software funded by government beauracracy that can't even fix a pothole.
If you're going to be a bum, be a bum. Stop being a bum and calling yourself an "artist". If you didn't want to starve, you could have been a lawyer or something else in school that required more than the ability to coordinate color or sculpt clay between pot-smoking breaks (I grew up near Lewis & Clarke university and Reed college, so I know of what I speak).
An "Artistic Freedom Voucher" sounds like it's clearly a politically correct version of the vouchers they tried to use in San Francisco where, instead of giving the homeless money, you gave them vouchers to get services when they redeem them.
Not to mention, as creative as you might be in programming, you are not an artist. Creativity in a thing does not make it art. Nobody wrote Clippy to evoke emotional inquisitiveness or OpenOffice to convey some inward yearning for self-exposition on display.
This just sounds too hippy-ish. And I don't even really dislike hippies. But come on . . . Rather than doing useful work that people would pay you for, you're supposed to contribute to some government social program Cuba-style in return for a little redeemable voucher that someone offered in the spirit of charity?
I, for one, never want any sort of a job where I'm paid in fucking "vouchers". You might as well be coding for foodstamps for fuck's sake.
(By "you", I mean the collective, subjective "you" - not the parent poster).
What genius is going to "donate" money for some software that hasn't been released yet? With the sheer amount of garbage software out there, the last thing I'm going to do is put up $10 for a piece of software that may never come (in which case my share of the money would get dumped into some frigging charity) or, when it does, is absolutely nothing like what I thought I was paying for.
Here's what I call the ransom model:
You make the software I want and if I like it, I'll buy it from you with cash. If you don't make the software I want or I don't like it, I won't buy it and will keep my cash. That's the true ransom model.
In the scenerio presented above, it's a lose/lose situation.
In contrast to my earlier post about this article, this one is going to flamebait.
Joel from Joel On Software is the software and internet equivelant of Star Jones. Isn't as interesting as he thinks he is. Isn't as revered as he thinks he should be. Isn't as authoritative and insightful and entertaining as he probably feels he is.
By the sheer number of craptastic "articles" (lame blog entries) he's had posted on Slashdot, I had been certain there was a little Joel on a Pole going on backdoors at Slashdot. It's only been trumped by the recent flooding of "the Escapist" craptastic articles.
As much as I like fostering open source software competitions, I don't want my government funding or operating it. These are things that private individuals, contributors, users and corporations can setup. I don't mean to sound like I'm flamebaiting here, but the first thing that went through my head is "Hippy-haired RMS-style socialism".
And, if you live in a socialist country, that's great. But let's pick one.
Heck, while we're at it, why not put automotive companies out of business by having government-funded and operated initiatives to build and sell cheap or free cars in regional co-ops?
You probably don't lock your doors at night, either. Or lock your car door. Or have an alarm system on your car or your home. Or lock any drawers at work. Or use a passcode for your voicemail. Or a pin number for your bank account.
I mean, nobody would care about your stuff. And with so many cars and homes and drawers and cubicles and bank accounts and voicemail accounts out there, your measely stuff will just get lost in the noise.
Storing all of your private data on a stranger's computer for a fee, remotely accessible, granting permission to scan everything you have (so clearly it's only so private to begin with, right?) for allegedly copyrighted material (who knows how they know if it's copyrighted by YOU or someone else or if you're allowed to use it or if it's just a PHOTO of Metallica when you saw them backstage)...
Agreed. I'd have to say, I don't equate "anime fanboy" with any income over about $50,000.
I'm still not quite clear on who this guy is that he has so much money anyway. He is apparently the guy behind some lame website and something called "LiveDoor" (whatever the hell that is). Maybe that's the guy who made that door that was on Slashdot or one of these sites a few weeks ago that opens to allow just your particular frame shape through the door when you approach it. Or maybe not.
Like, every damn thing in that blurb is over my head. Dressing up as who? Dice-K? Livedoor? I saw an episode of that Gundam thing once and... let me just say it's humbling to know that billionaires have shitty taste, too.
Hi, I'm some douche with a telescope who is easily impressed by things that have been around for billions of years, like meteors. Also, I'm constantly baffled by that big yellow glowing god that comes out during the day time before the moon goddess arises and protects us in our slumber.
If you know the tune to West Side Story enough to be able to hum it, you have bigger problems than being a snobby prick who gets upset that he has to work in a cubicle (guess what, 90% of IT groups have to).
It has a lot to do with where you spend your time. If you're a chick and you spend all of your time on sites related to teenage boys with a decent photo of yourself as your "avatar", why wouldn't you expect to have some unpleasant or uncomfortable or boy-like behavior flung your way? Twelve year old boys act... well... like twelve year old boys - whether it's online or not. Now, if you're getting that kind of behavior from grown men, it's different. Most grown men just don't care. Don't get me wrong - I think it's kind of cool when there is a really good chick player in a game. Especially an FPS (we used to have this really hot teenage blonde that played on our CounterStrike server. The grown men (the mature highschool and college kids and those of us who were much older) treated her like one of the guys (that is to say, just like any other regular player).
Everyone else under about 17 tended to spend the entire game talking to her, trying to pick up on her and whatever else. Some got downright crude and hade to be banned after a bit. But to suggest that the majority of the male population on the net is anything like that is retarded.
Think of it this way... when you play a number of online games (FPS, MMORPG, whatever) - there are a lot of people spouting homophobic comments and sexist comments and racist comments. The things you hear are astonishing in their ignorance and hatered. But you don't extrapolate that to mean that every person on every server or game or even the entire internet that is male is a homophobic, racist sexist.
There's nothing sadder than guys who fawn all over lame ass "internet chicks" because they have no realistic scope and depth or breadth of experience to compare internet chicks with. Any chick who isn't outright ugly becomes totally hot in their minds, because they've never seen a hot chick out at a club or asked the cute starbucks girl out or anything.
I mean, I guess ugly girls need love, too. Just don't delude yourself into thinking that the girl you're loving is anything more than a mediocre internet chick.
You can call me a dick if you want, too. Just remember my words when you fall for the first chick that'll tolerate you and you're just too thrilled to have some chick with tits pay attention to you and you jump into something too quickly and regret it later. Guys need to be a bit more discerning. Even internet dork guys.
I can't count the number of times some friend has been all crazy over his new girlfriend and thinking she's the best thing on earth while the rest of us scratch our heads wondering why he's sunk so low.
HDTV will be hitting in three or four years. It will be the standard for the next fifty years, just as we've stuck with the outdated "standard" we have now for however many decades. Don't expect to see any of this (in America, at least) in our lifetimes.
The great thing about the internet is that fugly or barely average girls like that can get an ego boost from all the drooling nerds, wheras in real life a girl like that wouldn't even be able to remotely compete with almost any random chick from a night club (or a Starbucks) for that matter.
Slashdot Mirror
As long as those unemployed software guys will work for sub-minimum wage. A few McDonalds' in Oregon have been outsourcing their drivethrough window to people at phone-farms in the midwest (North Dakota, I think). Minimum wage in Oregon is almost $7.50, but it's only around $5.10 in North Dakota. By outsourcing the guy that you talk to at the drive through speaker, they're saving $25/day per restaurant.
The ransom model, in that respect, is fine. (That's the model I already described and is essentially how everything is already done in and out of open-source). But the idea of "If I don't finish the program or I dont' get enough money, whatever I did get goes to charity" is kind of... silly.
Because, money is evil. Vouchers require administrative personel. Staffing. Oversight committees. Planning boards. Watch dogs. All of which comes out of a little administrative fee added on to vouchers. Let's see cash do that.
Plus, I still don't want my government endorsing open-source companies. I don't want them endorsing anything. Not companies. Not churches. Nothing. I want them to do the three or four necessary things they're obligated to do and stop trying to push utopia through government process. If you and I want successful open source, we can do it without a fucking government mandate.
I'm still failing to understand how the free market has failed for software. Between home and the office, I have multiple flavors of linux, OSX, Solaris, HP-UX and Windows. I have the choice of paying for the standard $400 MS Office suite or downloading OpenOffice or StarOffice (or even others). I have a plethora of decent browsers, music players, art programs, entertainment, games and everything else under the sun between free, cheap, costly or expensive.
How exactly is the free market failing? If it weren't for the free market, what incentive would there be to operate at anything higher than 50mhz? Who would care about 128bit audio when 8bit audio is just fine? The incentive is in the mass market and that market is not going to be served with good products by guys getting paid with in coupons and vouchers from random users.
Yeah, Microsoft has a huge chunk of the market. Yeah, microsoft sucks. But Microsoft isn't the only game in town. As I mentioned above.
Tell me some things the government has taken over that have been exemplary? They really have that welfare thing nailed down. Efficient. No fraud. No waste. You bet. Oh, and that Amtrak. What with it being friendly, efficient, on time, clean and accessible in every destination you could possibly want. And that telephone thing always goes so well, too... And utility companies. And.. yeah everything they touch turns to gold. I definitely want my software funded by government beauracracy that can't even fix a pothole.
If you're going to be a bum, be a bum. Stop being a bum and calling yourself an "artist". If you didn't want to starve, you could have been a lawyer or something else in school that required more than the ability to coordinate color or sculpt clay between pot-smoking breaks (I grew up near Lewis & Clarke university and Reed college, so I know of what I speak).
An "Artistic Freedom Voucher" sounds like it's clearly a politically correct version of the vouchers they tried to use in San Francisco where, instead of giving the homeless money, you gave them vouchers to get services when they redeem them.
Not to mention, as creative as you might be in programming, you are not an artist. Creativity in a thing does not make it art. Nobody wrote Clippy to evoke emotional inquisitiveness or OpenOffice to convey some inward yearning for self-exposition on display.
This just sounds too hippy-ish. And I don't even really dislike hippies. But come on . . . Rather than doing useful work that people would pay you for, you're supposed to contribute to some government social program Cuba-style in return for a little redeemable voucher that someone offered in the spirit of charity?
I, for one, never want any sort of a job where I'm paid in fucking "vouchers". You might as well be coding for foodstamps for fuck's sake.
(By "you", I mean the collective, subjective "you" - not the parent poster).
Why would Mississippi oppose this?! Hell, for all I know, they don't even have technology there, yet.
Oh - by the way - it wouldn't work.
What genius is going to "donate" money for some software that hasn't been released yet? With the sheer amount of garbage software out there, the last thing I'm going to do is put up $10 for a piece of software that may never come (in which case my share of the money would get dumped into some frigging charity) or, when it does, is absolutely nothing like what I thought I was paying for.
Here's what I call the ransom model:
You make the software I want and if I like it, I'll buy it from you with cash. If you don't make the software I want or I don't like it, I won't buy it and will keep my cash. That's the true ransom model.
In the scenerio presented above, it's a lose/lose situation.
In contrast to my earlier post about this article, this one is going to flamebait.
Joel from Joel On Software is the software and internet equivelant of Star Jones. Isn't as interesting as he thinks he is. Isn't as revered as he thinks he should be. Isn't as authoritative and insightful and entertaining as he probably feels he is.
By the sheer number of craptastic "articles" (lame blog entries) he's had posted on Slashdot, I had been certain there was a little Joel on a Pole going on backdoors at Slashdot. It's only been trumped by the recent flooding of "the Escapist" craptastic articles.
As much as I like fostering open source software competitions, I don't want my government funding or operating it. These are things that private individuals, contributors, users and corporations can setup. I don't mean to sound like I'm flamebaiting here, but the first thing that went through my head is "Hippy-haired RMS-style socialism".
And, if you live in a socialist country, that's great. But let's pick one.
Heck, while we're at it, why not put automotive companies out of business by having government-funded and operated initiatives to build and sell cheap or free cars in regional co-ops?
With a one way ticket.
Isn't Napster already the legal Napster? Napster is like if a Squidbilly had an inbred child with a vending machine.
No kidding. My first concerns would be:
1) Can I bring two other people with me?
2) Can they be hot chicks?
3) Can we have a steamy zero-gravity orgy?
4) Are there statutory laws in space?
You probably don't lock your doors at night, either. Or lock your car door. Or have an alarm system on your car or your home. Or lock any drawers at work. Or use a passcode for your voicemail. Or a pin number for your bank account.
I mean, nobody would care about your stuff. And with so many cars and homes and drawers and cubicles and bank accounts and voicemail accounts out there, your measely stuff will just get lost in the noise.
Storing all of your private data on a stranger's computer for a fee, remotely accessible, granting permission to scan everything you have (so clearly it's only so private to begin with, right?) for allegedly copyrighted material (who knows how they know if it's copyrighted by YOU or someone else or if you're allowed to use it or if it's just a PHOTO of Metallica when you saw them backstage)...
Hell, what could possibly go wrong?!
Agreed. I'd have to say, I don't equate "anime fanboy" with any income over about $50,000.
I'm still not quite clear on who this guy is that he has so much money anyway. He is apparently the guy behind some lame website and something called "LiveDoor" (whatever the hell that is). Maybe that's the guy who made that door that was on Slashdot or one of these sites a few weeks ago that opens to allow just your particular frame shape through the door when you approach it. Or maybe not.
As a recent Raptor purchaser, I can vouch that a RAID of raptors certainly would never fall into "inexpensive" land. 74gb for $170. Ouch.
But they're pretty fucking slick.
Like, every damn thing in that blurb is over my head. Dressing up as who? Dice-K? Livedoor? I saw an episode of that Gundam thing once and... let me just say it's humbling to know that billionaires have shitty taste, too.
Hi, I'm some douche with a telescope who is easily impressed by things that have been around for billions of years, like meteors. Also, I'm constantly baffled by that big yellow glowing god that comes out during the day time before the moon goddess arises and protects us in our slumber.
If you know the tune to West Side Story enough to be able to hum it, you have bigger problems than being a snobby prick who gets upset that he has to work in a cubicle (guess what, 90% of IT groups have to).
It has a lot to do with where you spend your time. If you're a chick and you spend all of your time on sites related to teenage boys with a decent photo of yourself as your "avatar", why wouldn't you expect to have some unpleasant or uncomfortable or boy-like behavior flung your way? Twelve year old boys act... well... like twelve year old boys - whether it's online or not. Now, if you're getting that kind of behavior from grown men, it's different. Most grown men just don't care. Don't get me wrong - I think it's kind of cool when there is a really good chick player in a game. Especially an FPS (we used to have this really hot teenage blonde that played on our CounterStrike server. The grown men (the mature highschool and college kids and those of us who were much older) treated her like one of the guys (that is to say, just like any other regular player).
Everyone else under about 17 tended to spend the entire game talking to her, trying to pick up on her and whatever else. Some got downright crude and hade to be banned after a bit. But to suggest that the majority of the male population on the net is anything like that is retarded.
Think of it this way... when you play a number of online games (FPS, MMORPG, whatever) - there are a lot of people spouting homophobic comments and sexist comments and racist comments. The things you hear are astonishing in their ignorance and hatered. But you don't extrapolate that to mean that every person on every server or game or even the entire internet that is male is a homophobic, racist sexist.
You don't get out much, huh?
There's nothing sadder than guys who fawn all over lame ass "internet chicks" because they have no realistic scope and depth or breadth of experience to compare internet chicks with. Any chick who isn't outright ugly becomes totally hot in their minds, because they've never seen a hot chick out at a club or asked the cute starbucks girl out or anything.
I mean, I guess ugly girls need love, too. Just don't delude yourself into thinking that the girl you're loving is anything more than a mediocre internet chick.
You can call me a dick if you want, too. Just remember my words when you fall for the first chick that'll tolerate you and you're just too thrilled to have some chick with tits pay attention to you and you jump into something too quickly and regret it later. Guys need to be a bit more discerning. Even internet dork guys.
I can't count the number of times some friend has been all crazy over his new girlfriend and thinking she's the best thing on earth while the rest of us scratch our heads wondering why he's sunk so low.
You spelled "you're speakin' the truth, brutha category" wrong.
Great for you. You've had HDTV and a whole two channels of HDTV content to watch. Idiot.
Yeah. Obsolete, huh. Whatever. Nice hyperbole.
HDTV will be hitting in three or four years. It will be the standard for the next fifty years, just as we've stuck with the outdated "standard" we have now for however many decades. Don't expect to see any of this (in America, at least) in our lifetimes.
The great thing about the internet is that fugly or barely average girls like that can get an ego boost from all the drooling nerds, wheras in real life a girl like that wouldn't even be able to remotely compete with almost any random chick from a night club (or a Starbucks) for that matter.