The GDP per capita is 20K USD. But...... that does not imply the wealth gets spread very evenly.
Yeah the work the Saudi's don't want to do, as if a benign oil corporation and a corrupt government would rather pay high wages to locals or import Filipinos and Indians to live in work camps and work like slaves.
Saudi Arabia is poor, because the downstream value of the oil is lost. The sales values goes to the corrupt ruling family, the ordinary Saudi lives in poverty.
It will be the same in Afghanistan. The raw material will be ripped out at the lowest cost (lowest cost meaning maximum pollution) and the real wealth of downstream value add will take place out of Afghanistan.
and.....social networks are not places one find truth or accuracy. We seem to be able to waste enough civilians, now we get to do it faster with less analysis thanks to lack of constraint, responsibility and oversight.
"Dude, Just push the fucking button, not my family gonna get wasted....... don't push the button and I will defriend you"
Except all the people in power and all the people who will be in power are just paid proxies for corporates interests. Boot out this or that politician? The corporations will just pay to have an equivalent replacement. They will ensure the message changes from time to time ( Obama was given a different script to Bush) but behind the scenes there is nothing but a plutocracy. "Democracy" is just the marketing bullshit phrase used to sell yet more plutocratic power grabs.
I agree, I live in France and I can watch Movies over the Internet via Orange, and I do. I pay 2.99, or 3.99 for the abiitity to watch ONE time. However I only get 24 hours. My partner usually falls asleep at the halfway point so she never usually get the times to watch the rest.
I don't want HD, or blueray or other crap definitions. I use piratebay because I can download a film in 40 minutes and watch it that night in bed, and my partner can rewatch it some other time.
I would pay 5 Euros a download for a 1 gig sized version. But no one wants to sell to me, because copyright is A MONOPOLY in distribution. There is no incentive for the distributers to reacts to changing market conditions.
I WILL NOT BUY DVD's anymore. I do not buy CD's anymore.
Cinema? Yes I reluctantly go. I saw Avatar in non 3D. 10 Euros a ticket, 40 euros for the family.
People defending copyright have no idea on the intention of copyright. They have no idea the abusive monopolistic position of copyrights holders.
Yeah back in the day when I saw a web browser for the first time and how SLOW it was, I laughed and predicted gopher would rule the known universe. Not one of my finer moments....
You watch TV for free and you listen to the radio for free. Think carefully about value for money. If your barber overcharges you change barbers. If the Rolling Stones album is a rip off, the copyright is owned by a monopoly - no one can compete.
"...you're not a serious music fan at the moment because you don't like the CD format...."
Oh really? Newsflash - only "serious" ( as defined by you?) listen to CD's.
"...Explain to me how musicians who are currently used to touring....." What follows this makes no sense to me.
"....you and your ilk will have killed live music....."
Sorry but I see lots of live music. I also play with about 5 different bands as well, all in "live" situations. You have a fixed limited idea between the old record label system and what SHOULD replace it.
You seem somehow to make a logical leap that the only way a fan will be attracted to a live show is via an album release. Is that so?
Overall, it seems you want everything to stay the same. Well it is not - it is changing.
"....You perhaps need to be as informed about musicians as I am....."
Oh really? I started listening in a serious way to music in 1964. Your assumption is quite arrogant.
"....n general I listen to very few of them because they lack the quality of those who undertook a proper music "apprenticeship" in the pubs and clubs...."
This is just a complete and utter bullshit generalization. Every generation has superb musicians with superb skills. Perhaps your much cherished system is not working so well if you are mired in the past musically?
Meanwhile I stand by my assertion that copyright is broken and it's use by record labels does not benefit the audience or the musicians - it however benefits you personally. Great.
"*ALL* I care about" Well what you care about is not frankly very interesting in the overall scheme of things. That you are happy with a broken outdated system is fine. Your argument seems to be based around " I am happy, I personally cannot visualize another system of music distribution, thus I ignore the implications of a monopoly situation".
Black or white? Your definition, perhaps because people disagree with you?
None of the music I own was connected to me by marketing. It was discovered via means other than a major label.
By the way I work with lots of musicians and I tell them all the same when I record them, give your music away in order to build an audience for your live performances. The old system is dead.
Maybe Eric Clapton made money from the "old system" but 99% of the working musicians never made a dime from recorded music.
The cost of recording music now is virtually free now anyway.
And yes, if there are thousands of music web sites, we have enough technology and search knowledge to allow people to find what they want.
Now explain tome exactly how this music monopoly benefits anyone besides you. It certainly does not benefit the majority of musicians. Oh, I guess maybe copyright exists to make sure U2 and Eric Clapton can make the maximum from their music and damn the rest.
The sooner musicians realize they have to get up on stage and work, that the day of recording an album and winning the lottery is over.
But you go ahead and live in the past, you and Eric.
It always amazes what bullshit some people come out with in order to justify the continued abuse of Copyright as Monopoly by record labels. You seem to not have listened to the point - people would rather pay 10 cents direct to an artist than 10 dollars to a record label whose cost of doing business has dropped dramatically, but since they are a copyright monopoly they use this monopoly to prop up their pricing in an abusive manner.
What company releases a product and then quits? Releasing new products does not automatically define that they are engineering obsolescence. My original 5 gig ipod still works. My original iMac ( 1998) still works. I have a 520c Portable that still worked the day I threw it out ( 1995?) last month.
I never sell any apple product they all continue to work .
"......For example, Apple’s 2004 R&D-to-Sales ratio of 5.9% trails the computer industry average of 7.6%, and its $489 million spend is a fraction of its larger competitors. But by rigorously focusing its development resources on a short list of projects with the greatest potential, the company created an innovation machine that eventually produced the iMac, iBook, iPod, and iTunes....."
Everything I put on Facebook is public. if I want some secrets I keep it off of facebook. You can watch me walk down the road, watch me shop, watch me play with my kids in the park etc etc etc. Life itself has very few privacy controls when you are in a public space. Facebook is a public space.
You don't need to be my "friend" to see my content.
So then why does Google not get banged up since I am sure 99% of people use Google to search for a torrent and Google leads them to PirateBay and then to a torrent file. Google are part of this chain.
You can't allow Google to list torrent links and then accuse PirateBay. Both are guilty or both are innocent.
"...Do you think they've ever, you know, killed someone?....."
Live by the sword die by the sword. You can't have it both ways, you want to be smug about us ( the good guys? ) killing and not calling this terrorism because we,you know, keep hush hush in the US and press, and then you want to bleat like a stuck pig when someone you know is executed/blown up/killed by bad dark men with beards?
So if you believe we have the wink wink nudge nudge right to kill people with no judicial process, then why do you believe any other nation or organization would not have the same right.
In the end this wink wink James Bond bullshit rebounds on you. It is called blowback. Because, when you start killing, you most often are killing the wrong guys.
"....The War Powers Act of 1973 (Pub.L. 93-148), also referred to as the War Powers Resolution, is a resolution of Congress that stated that the President can send troops into action abroad only by authorization of Congress or if America is already under attack or serious threat. The War Powers Act requires that the president notify Congress within 48 hours of committing troops to military action and forbids troops from remaining for more than 60 days without a declaration of war......"
When exactly did we declare war on either Iraq or Afghanistan?
There is a difference between "war" as normally understood and "an undeclared war without end".
The war against terror, like the war against drugs is an artifice to mollify weak minded people to delegate their thinking and power completely to the government with no checks and balances.
So all this bombing that Adams is accused of, what court convicted him of these crimes? Being interned for membership of the IRA is NOT the same as being convicted for murder. So you evade the point, the point is that the British resorted to Diplock courts and abuse verging on torture to get what what wanted. They, the same as the US, tried to circumvent normal legal process.
Me! I have had a server there for years from the RackShack days. I never expected such an outage from one of the world's largest hosting companies. My machine has been up three years straight and then a year ago it hung. But it was up since then.
".....So, in Kenya, you have thousands of acres of the very best farmland growing coffee for export to the West, all owned by a handful of people, while the vast majority of the country starves......"
Um. Exactly how many people are starving in Kenya? I agree with your basic point, and perhaps in the future Kenya might suffer more, but for the moment it is not doing that badly relative to food.
Slashdot Mirror
Have you ever been to Saudi Arabia?
The GDP per capita is 20K USD. But ...... that does not imply the wealth gets spread very evenly.
Yeah the work the Saudi's don't want to do, as if a benign oil corporation and a corrupt government would rather pay high wages to locals or import Filipinos and Indians to live in work camps and work like slaves.
Saudi Arabia is poor, because the downstream value of the oil is lost. The sales values goes to the corrupt ruling family, the ordinary Saudi lives in poverty.
It will be the same in Afghanistan. The raw material will be ripped out at the lowest cost (lowest cost meaning maximum pollution) and the real wealth of downstream value add will take place out of Afghanistan.
Just like the raw opium.
Don't forget China shares a border with Afghanistan
and .....social networks are not places one find truth or accuracy. We seem to be able to waste enough civilians, now we get to do it faster with less analysis thanks to lack of constraint, responsibility and oversight.
"Dude, Just push the fucking button, not my family gonna get wasted ....... don't push the button and I will defriend you"
http://smile29.eu/doc/DS29_EN.pdf
SOME Cubans. Some Mexicans.
Except all the people in power and all the people who will be in power are just paid proxies for corporates interests. Boot out this or that politician? The corporations will just pay to have an equivalent replacement. They will ensure the message changes from time to time ( Obama was given a different script to Bush) but behind the scenes there is nothing but a plutocracy. "Democracy" is just the marketing bullshit phrase used to sell yet more plutocratic power grabs.
I agree, I live in France and I can watch Movies over the Internet via Orange, and I do. I pay 2.99, or 3.99 for the abiitity to watch ONE time. However I only get 24 hours. My partner usually falls asleep at the halfway point so she never usually get the times to watch the rest.
I don't want HD, or blueray or other crap definitions. I use piratebay because I can download a film in 40 minutes and watch it that night in bed, and my partner can rewatch it some other time.
I would pay 5 Euros a download for a 1 gig sized version. But no one wants to sell to me, because copyright is A MONOPOLY in distribution. There is no incentive for the distributers to reacts to changing market conditions.
I WILL NOT BUY DVD's anymore. I do not buy CD's anymore.
Cinema? Yes I reluctantly go. I saw Avatar in non 3D. 10 Euros a ticket, 40 euros for the family.
People defending copyright have no idea on the intention of copyright. They have no idea the abusive monopolistic position of copyrights holders.
Their distribution model sucks and is overpriced.
Yeah back in the day when I saw a web browser for the first time and how SLOW it was, I laughed and predicted gopher would rule the known universe. Not one of my finer moments ....
You watch TV for free and you listen to the radio for free. Think carefully about value for money. If your barber overcharges you change barbers. If the Rolling Stones album is a rip off, the copyright is owned by a monopoly - no one can compete.
"....Why should I? It works for me....."
OK, it works for you. What more can I say?
"...you're not a serious music fan at the moment because you don't like the CD format...."
Oh really? Newsflash - only "serious" ( as defined by you?) listen to CD's.
"...Explain to me how musicians who are currently used to touring....." What follows this makes no sense to me.
"....you and your ilk will have killed live music....."
Sorry but I see lots of live music. I also play with about 5 different bands as well, all in "live" situations. You have a fixed limited idea between the old record label system and what SHOULD replace it.
You seem somehow to make a logical leap that the only way a fan will be attracted to a live show is via an album release. Is that so?
Overall, it seems you want everything to stay the same. Well it is not - it is changing.
"....You perhaps need to be as informed about musicians as I am....."
Oh really? I started listening in a serious way to music in 1964. Your assumption is quite arrogant.
"....n general I listen to very few of them because they lack the quality of those who undertook a proper music "apprenticeship" in the pubs and clubs...."
This is just a complete and utter bullshit generalization. Every generation has superb musicians with superb skills. Perhaps your much cherished system is not working so well if you are mired in the past musically?
Meanwhile I stand by my assertion that copyright is broken and it's use by record labels does not benefit the audience or the musicians - it however benefits you personally. Great.
"*ALL* I care about" Well what you care about is not frankly very interesting in the overall scheme of things. That you are happy with a broken outdated system is fine. Your argument seems to be based around " I am happy, I personally cannot visualize another system of music distribution, thus I ignore the implications of a monopoly situation".
Black or white? Your definition, perhaps because people disagree with you?
None of the music I own was connected to me by marketing. It was discovered via means other than a major label.
By the way I work with lots of musicians and I tell them all the same when I record them, give your music away in order to build an audience for your live performances. The old system is dead.
Maybe Eric Clapton made money from the "old system" but 99% of the working musicians never made a dime from recorded music.
The cost of recording music now is virtually free now anyway.
And yes, if there are thousands of music web sites, we have enough technology and search knowledge to allow people to find what they want.
Now explain tome exactly how this music monopoly benefits anyone besides you. It certainly does not benefit the majority of musicians. Oh, I guess maybe copyright exists to make sure U2 and Eric Clapton can make the maximum from their music and damn the rest.
The sooner musicians realize they have to get up on stage and work, that the day of recording an album and winning the lottery is over.
But you go ahead and live in the past, you and Eric.
It always amazes what bullshit some people come out with in order to justify the continued abuse of Copyright as Monopoly by record labels. You seem to not have listened to the point - people would rather pay 10 cents direct to an artist than 10 dollars to a record label whose cost of doing business has dropped dramatically, but since they are a copyright monopoly they use this monopoly to prop up their pricing in an abusive manner.
Pure and simple: Monopolies don't work.
What company releases a product and then quits? Releasing new products does not automatically define that they are engineering obsolescence. My original 5 gig ipod still works. My original iMac ( 1998) still works. I have a 520c Portable that still worked the day I threw it out ( 1995?) last month.
I never sell any apple product they all continue to work .
"......For example, Apple’s 2004 R&D-to-Sales ratio of 5.9% trails the computer industry average of 7.6%, and its $489 million spend is a fraction of its larger competitors. But by rigorously focusing its development resources on a short list of projects with the greatest potential, the company created an innovation machine that eventually produced the iMac, iBook, iPod, and iTunes....."
Define R and D?
Define jack shit?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkDt_TmEqqM&feature=related
Everything I put on Facebook is public. if I want some secrets I keep it off of facebook. You can watch me walk down the road, watch me shop, watch me play with my kids in the park etc etc etc. Life itself has very few privacy controls when you are in a public space. Facebook is a public space.
You don't need to be my "friend" to see my content.
Exactly how? Fundamentally, both PirateBay and Google assist in finding torrents.
So then why does Google not get banged up since I am sure 99% of people use Google to search for a torrent and Google leads them to PirateBay and then to a torrent file. Google are part of this chain.
You can't allow Google to list torrent links and then accuse PirateBay. Both are guilty or both are innocent.
There was a Sun / Apple merger rumor years ago.....early 90s?
If Sun are to go, better to Apple than to IBM.
"...Do you think they've ever, you know, killed someone?....."
,you know, keep hush hush in the US and press, and then you want to bleat like a stuck pig when someone you know is executed/blown up/killed by bad dark men with beards?
Live by the sword die by the sword. You can't have it both ways, you want to be smug about us ( the good guys? ) killing and not calling this terrorism because we
So if you believe we have the wink wink nudge nudge right to kill people with no judicial process, then why do you believe any other nation or organization would not have the same right.
In the end this wink wink James Bond bullshit rebounds on you. It is called blowback. Because, when you start killing, you most often are killing the wrong guys.
"....The War Powers Act of 1973 (Pub.L. 93-148), also referred to as the War Powers Resolution, is a resolution of Congress that stated that the President can send troops into action abroad only by authorization of Congress or if America is already under attack or serious threat. The War Powers Act requires that the president notify Congress within 48 hours of committing troops to military action and forbids troops from remaining for more than 60 days without a declaration of war......"
When exactly did we declare war on either Iraq or Afghanistan?
There is a difference between "war" as normally understood and "an undeclared war without end".
The war against terror, like the war against drugs is an artifice to mollify weak minded people to delegate their thinking and power completely to the government with no checks and balances.
So all this bombing that Adams is accused of, what court convicted him of these crimes? Being interned for membership of the IRA is NOT the same as being convicted for murder. So you evade the point, the point is that the British resorted to Diplock courts and abuse verging on torture to get what what wanted. They, the same as the US, tried to circumvent normal legal process.
Me! I have had a server there for years from the RackShack days. I never expected such an outage from one of the world's largest hosting companies. My machine has been up three years straight and then a year ago it hung. But it was up since then.
".....So, in Kenya, you have thousands of acres of the very best farmland growing coffee for export to the West, all owned by a handful of people, while the vast majority of the country starves......"
Um. Exactly how many people are starving in Kenya? I agree with your basic point, and perhaps in the future Kenya might suffer more, but for the moment it is not doing that badly relative to food.