Personally, I would recommend neither. Get yourself a liberal arts degree. Understanding a broader range of science, language, history, literature, politics, sociology, business and communication skills will make you a happier person in the long run.
It may be harder to land that killer job at your dream company right out of school, but if you're like most people, you'll grow and change over the years, and you'll look back and think to yourself that you're so glad you didn't get that job, or even better, how funny it is that you're now running the company that didn't take you as an entry level employee.
Liberal arts are severely underappreciated in this world. The more bright, interesting people who refuse to over-focus too early in their careers, the better the world will be; please do your part.
So study your technology. But this is an undergraduate degree; treat it like a beginning, not an end. The race is a long one, and you really don't need to be going full speed out of the gate.
If this person were to lay all that stuff out during the first interview, they'd have nothing left over for the 12th. When interviewing with Google, remember to pace yourself, as there will be many, many more before the offer comes...
I'm thinking a better solution might be to only publish street view images after they've done a couple of runs with the photo system and they've had a chance to run it through an error correction algorithm. Do it right, and you keep the streets, the buildings and the plant-life, and all the people and vehicles (except abandoned cars) go away...
The difference is that Microsoft would put your social security number in there and sony would put a virus in there with the text, "This virus written by [your name]".
This is not a huge deal. It allows them to potentially track the big offenders while leaving the little guys--even the ones who distribute a few odd copies--alone. Quite the opposite of DRM where everyone has to think about it--i.e. authorizing new machines to play a song--whether they're doing legit transactions or not. In fact, there are those who would say that DRM, even the fairly friendly fair-play, was more of an inconvenience to legitimate users than it was to pirates, who would just clean out the DRM before distributing anyway.
Believe it or not, people aren't always more forgiving of apple because of some cult thing. People are more forgiving of Apple because there is less to forgive.
Ever hear of a little town called Portland? Muni wifi in the most populous areas, extending out over the next couple of years to--supposedly--everywhere. If you can see one of the antennae over a light pole, pull over, boot up, and Google your directions any time. No preregistration. Just some banner ads.
I see the worry about kiddie porn &c, but if they're going to look at that stuff in a public location, they're begging to be caught, so maybe there's no prereg to act as a defacto dragnet. And re: copyrighted entertainment... unless you register for the premium version, you're going to be waiting a long time for that high-def torrent of LOST to come down over the public net, so I'm not sure that's a huge worry.
Not that I'm inviting all the people who want to watch copyrighted child porn in public to Portland; I'd prefer that they stay elsewhere. But if you want to check your email while driving through my town, go for it. Just pull over and stop. Or just stop; we've got the nicest drivers in the country, so everyone will just wait patiently while you do your work in the middle of the street.
It started off as a gut feel, but I'll be honest with you, Google is very far from being a monopoly. They are innovating--and purchasing--their way to success, and they applaud and support small businesses with good ideas. If they were a monopoly, they would have crushed YouTube with GVid, but they didn't; they paid a very good price for it.
With Microsoft, a lot of what they do stinks of control and monopoly-based thinking. Claiming to support browser standards, but breaking them such that it's more work for web-based businesses to support browsers other than the most dominant one, creating their own "PlaysForSure" music DRM standard and then breaking it for their banner music player which is supposed to supplant the iPod, donating huge amounts of money to schools in the form of certificates for Windows-only software. It's a very different culture.
Plus, if I really want to, I can block cookies, I can avoid sites with advertisements, I can not use the Google toolbar. They are not forcing me to give them my data. I don't use Google Checkout, for example. I don't like to have a blank check sitting on anyone's system. However, they've made it worthwhile for me (functionally) to use their toolbar, so I do. They've made it (financially) worthwhile for me to use their Adsense system, so I do. They've made it worthwhile (functionally) for me to use Gmail, so I do. It's easy, reliable and the price is right, and I can take my crap and go any time if I really wish to, so I use it.
The sheer fact that Google is one of the biggest companies doesn't make them the worst. A very small company can be very corrupt. Microsoft, to quote--or at least paraphrase Steve Jobs--may not be evil, but they have no class, and I choose to give them no more of my resources--informational, financial or otherwise--than I absolutely have to. But it's not because their the biggest; it's because they engage in predatory, anti-competitive behavior.
That being said, Google is a company made up of people. And people do bad things; people make mistakes. My initial point was that even if the intention isn't bad, bad things can happen. I'm not sure it's worth a lawsuit, but it is worth questioning--and was, even before the D-C purchase--whether Google is taking all necessary precautions to make sure that data is not being abused. For example, a client of mine recently emailed me his social security number. I didn't ask for it, and I didn't want it. And I deleted the message. However, it was on my Gmail account, and I'm sure they have a backup somewhere, and if some corrupt-but-efficient person were to gain unfettered access to email backups and do a search for patterns matching social security numbers, they could find them, and possibly use and sell them, and that would be a *bad* thing.
So in short, there's no love and devotion and justification going on, and Google is not yet Microsoft. G may be bigger, but M is definitely badder. Your wariness is probably founded; I just don't feel the same way... yet.
Your rhetorical suggestion about some other smaller company with a good idea is probably a good litmus test. If some little company comes along with a search algorithm that works 100 times better than Google's, and Google sues them into oblivion spuriously (i.e. without grounds, but knowing that the little guy doesn't have deep enough pockets), then I'd start to feel the same way about Google. Likewise, if they were to buy the company and bury the technology so that it never saw the light of day, I'd feel negative about Google. But so far, GOOG has been all about incorporating new ideas, using open standards, and supporting multiple platforms. So far, so good. If you want to know how I'll feel about them next week, ask me next week.
...as I am about long-term security. From hackers, from digruntled Googleans (what do you call Google employees, anyway?), from the Federal Gov't, from other Gov'ts who somehow are able to subpoena Google logs. I try not to wear a tin-foil hat too often, and when I do, it's usually got holes for Google, but I'm not a great fan of Double-Click's at least historically.
But is it worth suing them or breaking them up or blocking their ability to purchase the double-clicks of the world? I don't know. If you don't like what they're doing, don't use the toolbar, clear your cookies every once in a while, add a plug-in to block ads from certain hosts or IPs, and whatever else you like.
Or if you want to be an activist, start a certification where people can put your badge up on their site indicating that their system is totally Google free. No trackers, no ads, no counters, no nothing. Of course, then you could collect data about everyone who visits those google-free pages and use it for your own benefit, or sell it to Google, or...
So what are they going to do about people who live in the southernmost portions of Washington, and who hop across a bridge to Oregon cities like Portland, where there's no sales tax? Are they going to put a toll on the bridges that only applies to Washingtonians who may have spent money in Stumptown?
So, some friends and I have been bantering back and forth about how Google treats content that has been inserted into a page using Javascript. So I decided to do an experiment. This page has six nonsense words. Two are hardcoded into the page via straight HTML. Two are inserted via Javascript, but the script is part of the page HTML. The last two are inserted via Javascript, but the script is on a remote server.
The purpose of the test is to see three things...
* The time lapse between when the words appear in a Google alert and when they're searchable on the main Google site.
* Which words return search results.
* If the words from the remotely sourced script return search results, do they point to this page, the.js file on the remote server, or both?
Here are a couple of nonsense words that turn up no hits in Google. They are hardcoded into the HTML. zonkdogfology and ibbytopknot
I'll repeat them for emphasis... zonkdogfology and ibbytopknot
Here are two words inserted into the page via a javascript hardcoded into the page...
test words are pignoklot and zimpogrit - these have been inserted via javascript
repetition: pignoklot and zimpogrit - these have been inserted via javascript
And now a couple of nonsense words inserted with a remotely-sourced javascript...
test words are fimptopo and biggytink - these have been inserted via javascript
repetition: fimptopo and biggytink - these have been inserted via javascript
And that constitutes the test. I should know within a few weeks how well it worked.
That's a great point. I wonder how the graphs of game sales track compared to music CD sales. It wouldn't take much growth to find a correlation, considering a game is 3-4x more expensive than a music CD, on average.
And lets not forget that new consoles are coming out ALL THE TIME! XBox, XBox2, XBox360, PlayStation, PS2, PS3, Nintendo GameCube, DS, DS Lite, Wii.
And how about other places young-uns are spending their money? Cell phones, text messages... and ring tones. The RIAA is doing fine on licensing ring tones to the phone industry. And of course, when you buy that cool new MP3 player, that's a couple of dozen CDs you can't buy.
Last, at the same time that pirating has been a growing "problem", lots of services are offering unlimited download subscriptions. I wouldn't subscribe myself, but I wonder how much that "cuts into" CD sales while still padding the bottom line of the RIAA.
Notably, the music industry "hit back" with a paper called "Piracy on the High 'C's", who's central contention was that students did spend less on music. A barely mentioned acedemic paper that I discovered when researching the issue mayself had a response to that: older people who pirate buy more, and younger people buy less.
In unrelated news, the Beer Brewers' Association of America (BBAA) announced that there was a correlation between filesharing and a steep drop-off in sales of premium beers. "We are aligning ourselves with the RIAA and the MPAA because it is clear that filesharing has far reaching effects in our economy and must be stopped," announced BBAA chairperson Miranda Stone.
In other news, the makers of Bud, Miller, Coors, Pabst Blue Ribbon and Mickey's Big Mouth withdrew from the BBAA today, citing record profits. "The recent success of our economy beers is an indicator that our philosophy of supporting classic beer flavor rather than the latest microbrew fads is a successful one. Our rapidly increasing sales in cities, especially where there are universities, indicates that well educated consumers know good beer and good value when they taste it."
...
I know I bought music in college, and making that choice not to buy two cases of Bud (on sale) for the cost of one CD was a difficult one. I'm sure that there are all sorts of unpredictable effects on the market when college students don't have to spend money to get the music they want.
Imports are always special in the music world, although the ability download the stuff should change that (someday). I remember looking at a copy of Bjork's Gling Glo and thinking that I wanted it, but I was not going to spend $28.00 on it, as it was only available as an import.
Then, of course, you have the Japan factor in your statement. With the exception of certain models of cars, things Japanese tend to be pricey. If you've ever been there, you know that you can spend $30.00 on a cantaloupe, $15.00 on a bowl of ramen if you buy it at a late-night ramen house (of course, at 3am, after much liquor, there's nothing better than a hot bowl of ramen, and it's worth every stinking penny (yenny?)), and much, much more. Not everything is more expensive, but the cost of living is pretty high in most Japanese cities, and luxury items like music CDs follow suit.
You obviously don't download as much music as the people who use eMusic. For those that do, it's a great deal. But it's obviously not for everyone.
That's correct; I may download 2 or 3 songs every couple of months and then download 3 or 4 albums when I get the urge one random day. I tend to enjoy the music that I have--most of what I like was recorded before I was born--and listen to the 300 or so albums I have over and over. I would love to support eMusic, and I would pay a premium for individual downloads, but I just can't justify subscribing to something that I don't use like a subscription.
This is the post I wanted to make. I totally agree with you. I also like the fact that they totally ignore the decrease in cost to them for making the product. If it costs a big-4 record company $0.25 to make a CD (in bulk), I'd be really surprised. This compared with (probably) $5.00 in the early 80s... I wish I knew the actual numbers, but I don't. But my gut feeling says to tell those guys (and gals) to go ahead and do what they want. The world is crying out for an "open source" music industry association...
Raise the cost of a CD to $33.00 and just see what happens...
Right; I do understand that you keep the music, and it's not like the Yahoo "plays for sure" system. However, this does mean that if I want to use them, I have to pay for a month's service just to buy one song, and if I want more songs than are offered in the plan I choose, I either have to upgrade, or if I've already got the highest plan, I have to wait for next month.
I mentioned cable and newspaper because of their similarities to this, but I was trying to point out that I already feel like I pay too much for subscription media, and music downloads just weren't going to cut it for another $9.99 per month. However, that having been said, there are two major differences between eMusic subscriptions and cable:
1- I'm in a reception hole. Either I get cable or satellite, or I don't get the evening news. I have plenty of alternatives to eMusic.
2- What I get on cable is new and fresh and often (i.e. in the case of news) live. What I would get on eMusic is not quite as time-dependent.
3- As such (related to #2) I use cable *nearly every day*, if only for a few minutes. Knowing what traffic will look like on the way out of town, or the latest local news is useful to me every day. I get basic cable for under $13 per month, and that much is worthwhile to me. The next step up would be nice (more channels, movies on demand), but it's more than three times as much, and I can't see getting that much use out of it. In short, it becomes like eMusic to me.
If I could buy my songs at eMusic without a subscription, I would do so in a heartbeat. But I absolutely refuse to pay a monthly fee to have the ability to get music. I realize it's a better deal than iTunes at $0.33/song, but if I buy one song in three months, it's the difference between $1.00 and $29.97.
People complain about the iPod lock-in--somewhat justifiable--and then bring up eMusic as a counter example? It doesn't make sense. If I don't buy another iPod or any songs from iTunes, I don't pay apple another single dollar. If I subscribe to eMusic, I'm paying $10-$20 each month ad infinitum for the privilege. Talk about a lock-in!
If they offered an a la carte service, I'm sure it would be more expensive per song, but that's worth it to me. I'd even pay a premium of $0.26 over iTunes for non-DRM'ed songs. But a music subscription? No way, never, never. Cable TV and the NY Times are the only media subscriptions I'm carrying, and it's going to stay that way for the time being.
...is that there could be a form of entrapment if hacking into a personal system became legal for police to do, especially as it becomes a slippery slope, where blocking such searches is tantamount to a crime in and of itself. A technicnally savvy (but innocent) person could note the attack, take steps to block it, and then appear--in the eyes of law enforcement officials who "know" of his guilt--to be trying to avoid justice. One could imagine how this might be used as justification for a warrant to search, seize and confiscate the physical property, and perhaps dig into other private areas of the innocent party's life.
> Where do you live? The 50s? You may want to ask some women you know about using that particular illustrative image.
Wow... My first ever post that got modded down as flamebait. Awesome:-) Especially funny, considering the parent post which was blatantly sexist got modded up as insightful.
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It may be harder to land that killer job at your dream company right out of school, but if you're like most people, you'll grow and change over the years, and you'll look back and think to yourself that you're so glad you didn't get that job, or even better, how funny it is that you're now running the company that didn't take you as an entry level employee.
Liberal arts are severely underappreciated in this world. The more bright, interesting people who refuse to over-focus too early in their careers, the better the world will be; please do your part.
So study your technology. But this is an undergraduate degree; treat it like a beginning, not an end. The race is a long one, and you really don't need to be going full speed out of the gate.
I'm thinking a better solution might be to only publish street view images after they've done a couple of runs with the photo system and they've had a chance to run it through an error correction algorithm. Do it right, and you keep the streets, the buildings and the plant-life, and all the people and vehicles (except abandoned cars) go away...
This is not a huge deal. It allows them to potentially track the big offenders while leaving the little guys--even the ones who distribute a few odd copies--alone. Quite the opposite of DRM where everyone has to think about it--i.e. authorizing new machines to play a song--whether they're doing legit transactions or not. In fact, there are those who would say that DRM, even the fairly friendly fair-play, was more of an inconvenience to legitimate users than it was to pirates, who would just clean out the DRM before distributing anyway.
Believe it or not, people aren't always more forgiving of apple because of some cult thing. People are more forgiving of Apple because there is less to forgive.
I see the worry about kiddie porn &c, but if they're going to look at that stuff in a public location, they're begging to be caught, so maybe there's no prereg to act as a defacto dragnet. And re: copyrighted entertainment... unless you register for the premium version, you're going to be waiting a long time for that high-def torrent of LOST to come down over the public net, so I'm not sure that's a huge worry.
Not that I'm inviting all the people who want to watch copyrighted child porn in public to Portland; I'd prefer that they stay elsewhere. But if you want to check your email while driving through my town, go for it. Just pull over and stop. Or just stop; we've got the nicest drivers in the country, so everyone will just wait patiently while you do your work in the middle of the street.
I'm thinking Snow Crash, but I'm not 100% positive.
With Microsoft, a lot of what they do stinks of control and monopoly-based thinking. Claiming to support browser standards, but breaking them such that it's more work for web-based businesses to support browsers other than the most dominant one, creating their own "PlaysForSure" music DRM standard and then breaking it for their banner music player which is supposed to supplant the iPod, donating huge amounts of money to schools in the form of certificates for Windows-only software. It's a very different culture.
Plus, if I really want to, I can block cookies, I can avoid sites with advertisements, I can not use the Google toolbar. They are not forcing me to give them my data. I don't use Google Checkout, for example. I don't like to have a blank check sitting on anyone's system. However, they've made it worthwhile for me (functionally) to use their toolbar, so I do. They've made it (financially) worthwhile for me to use their Adsense system, so I do. They've made it worthwhile (functionally) for me to use Gmail, so I do. It's easy, reliable and the price is right, and I can take my crap and go any time if I really wish to, so I use it.
The sheer fact that Google is one of the biggest companies doesn't make them the worst. A very small company can be very corrupt. Microsoft, to quote--or at least paraphrase Steve Jobs--may not be evil, but they have no class, and I choose to give them no more of my resources--informational, financial or otherwise--than I absolutely have to. But it's not because their the biggest; it's because they engage in predatory, anti-competitive behavior.
That being said, Google is a company made up of people. And people do bad things; people make mistakes. My initial point was that even if the intention isn't bad, bad things can happen. I'm not sure it's worth a lawsuit, but it is worth questioning--and was, even before the D-C purchase--whether Google is taking all necessary precautions to make sure that data is not being abused. For example, a client of mine recently emailed me his social security number. I didn't ask for it, and I didn't want it. And I deleted the message. However, it was on my Gmail account, and I'm sure they have a backup somewhere, and if some corrupt-but-efficient person were to gain unfettered access to email backups and do a search for patterns matching social security numbers, they could find them, and possibly use and sell them, and that would be a *bad* thing.
So in short, there's no love and devotion and justification going on, and Google is not yet Microsoft. G may be bigger, but M is definitely badder. Your wariness is probably founded; I just don't feel the same way... yet.
Your rhetorical suggestion about some other smaller company with a good idea is probably a good litmus test. If some little company comes along with a search algorithm that works 100 times better than Google's, and Google sues them into oblivion spuriously (i.e. without grounds, but knowing that the little guy doesn't have deep enough pockets), then I'd start to feel the same way about Google. Likewise, if they were to buy the company and bury the technology so that it never saw the light of day, I'd feel negative about Google. But so far, GOOG has been all about incorporating new ideas, using open standards, and supporting multiple platforms. So far, so good. If you want to know how I'll feel about them next week, ask me next week.
But is it worth suing them or breaking them up or blocking their ability to purchase the double-clicks of the world? I don't know. If you don't like what they're doing, don't use the toolbar, clear your cookies every once in a while, add a plug-in to block ads from certain hosts or IPs, and whatever else you like.
Or if you want to be an activist, start a certification where people can put your badge up on their site indicating that their system is totally Google free. No trackers, no ads, no counters, no nothing. Of course, then you could collect data about everyone who visits those google-free pages and use it for your own benefit, or sell it to Google, or...
Now they're going to offer a feature where they can record, transcribe and make searchable all of your video chats... No privacy issues here...
So what are they going to do about people who live in the southernmost portions of Washington, and who hop across a bridge to Oregon cities like Portland, where there's no sales tax? Are they going to put a toll on the bridges that only applies to Washingtonians who may have spent money in Stumptown?
So, some friends and I have been bantering back and forth about how Google treats content that has been inserted into a page using Javascript. So I decided to do an experiment. This page has six nonsense words. Two are hardcoded into the page via straight HTML. Two are inserted via Javascript, but the script is part of the page HTML. The last two are inserted via Javascript, but the script is on a remote server. The purpose of the test is to see three things... * The time lapse between when the words appear in a Google alert and when they're searchable on the main Google site. * Which words return search results. * If the words from the remotely sourced script return search results, do they point to this page, the .js file on the remote server, or both?
Here are a couple of nonsense words that turn up no hits in Google. They are hardcoded into the HTML. zonkdogfology and ibbytopknot
I'll repeat them for emphasis... zonkdogfology and ibbytopknot
Here are two words inserted into the page via a javascript hardcoded into the page...
test words are pignoklot and zimpogrit - these have been inserted via javascript
repetition: pignoklot and zimpogrit - these have been inserted via javascript
And now a couple of nonsense words inserted with a remotely-sourced javascript...
test words are fimptopo and biggytink - these have been inserted via javascript
repetition: fimptopo and biggytink - these have been inserted via javascript
And that constitutes the test. I should know within a few weeks how well it worked.
And lets not forget that new consoles are coming out ALL THE TIME! XBox, XBox2, XBox360, PlayStation, PS2, PS3, Nintendo GameCube, DS, DS Lite, Wii.
And how about other places young-uns are spending their money? Cell phones, text messages... and ring tones. The RIAA is doing fine on licensing ring tones to the phone industry. And of course, when you buy that cool new MP3 player, that's a couple of dozen CDs you can't buy.
Last, at the same time that pirating has been a growing "problem", lots of services are offering unlimited download subscriptions. I wouldn't subscribe myself, but I wonder how much that "cuts into" CD sales while still padding the bottom line of the RIAA.
They want to have their cake and eat it too.
In unrelated news, the Beer Brewers' Association of America (BBAA) announced that there was a correlation between filesharing and a steep drop-off in sales of premium beers. "We are aligning ourselves with the RIAA and the MPAA because it is clear that filesharing has far reaching effects in our economy and must be stopped," announced BBAA chairperson Miranda Stone.
In other news, the makers of Bud, Miller, Coors, Pabst Blue Ribbon and Mickey's Big Mouth withdrew from the BBAA today, citing record profits. "The recent success of our economy beers is an indicator that our philosophy of supporting classic beer flavor rather than the latest microbrew fads is a successful one. Our rapidly increasing sales in cities, especially where there are universities, indicates that well educated consumers know good beer and good value when they taste it."
I know I bought music in college, and making that choice not to buy two cases of Bud (on sale) for the cost of one CD was a difficult one. I'm sure that there are all sorts of unpredictable effects on the market when college students don't have to spend money to get the music they want.
Then, of course, you have the Japan factor in your statement. With the exception of certain models of cars, things Japanese tend to be pricey. If you've ever been there, you know that you can spend $30.00 on a cantaloupe, $15.00 on a bowl of ramen if you buy it at a late-night ramen house (of course, at 3am, after much liquor, there's nothing better than a hot bowl of ramen, and it's worth every stinking penny (yenny?)), and much, much more. Not everything is more expensive, but the cost of living is pretty high in most Japanese cities, and luxury items like music CDs follow suit.
That's correct; I may download 2 or 3 songs every couple of months and then download 3 or 4 albums when I get the urge one random day. I tend to enjoy the music that I have--most of what I like was recorded before I was born--and listen to the 300 or so albums I have over and over. I would love to support eMusic, and I would pay a premium for individual downloads, but I just can't justify subscribing to something that I don't use like a subscription.
Raise the cost of a CD to $33.00 and just see what happens...
I mentioned cable and newspaper because of their similarities to this, but I was trying to point out that I already feel like I pay too much for subscription media, and music downloads just weren't going to cut it for another $9.99 per month. However, that having been said, there are two major differences between eMusic subscriptions and cable:
1- I'm in a reception hole. Either I get cable or satellite, or I don't get the evening news. I have plenty of alternatives to eMusic.
2- What I get on cable is new and fresh and often (i.e. in the case of news) live. What I would get on eMusic is not quite as time-dependent.
3- As such (related to #2) I use cable *nearly every day*, if only for a few minutes. Knowing what traffic will look like on the way out of town, or the latest local news is useful to me every day. I get basic cable for under $13 per month, and that much is worthwhile to me. The next step up would be nice (more channels, movies on demand), but it's more than three times as much, and I can't see getting that much use out of it. In short, it becomes like eMusic to me.
People complain about the iPod lock-in--somewhat justifiable--and then bring up eMusic as a counter example? It doesn't make sense. If I don't buy another iPod or any songs from iTunes, I don't pay apple another single dollar. If I subscribe to eMusic, I'm paying $10-$20 each month ad infinitum for the privilege. Talk about a lock-in!
If they offered an a la carte service, I'm sure it would be more expensive per song, but that's worth it to me. I'd even pay a premium of $0.26 over iTunes for non-DRM'ed songs. But a music subscription? No way, never, never. Cable TV and the NY Times are the only media subscriptions I'm carrying, and it's going to stay that way for the time being.
Wow... My first ever post that got modded down as flamebait. Awesome :-) Especially funny, considering the parent post which was blatantly sexist got modded up as insightful.