I've often wondered about the same thing myself. My mother, wife of a geek and mother of 3 geeks - yet not a geek herself - has had trouble understanding our frustration and pessimism regarding events such as this one, and beyond. Patent wars, legislation (DMCA, et al), and just your everyday bad business habits.
You know, I bet that most of us geeks were led here by sheer curiosity. Once we learned the potentials of technology, I bet that most of us would love to see it bring people together, and (scuse the cliche'd naivety) used for good (TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD! - heh). But we all know that just isn't going to happen. I believe this is why many of us choose not to invite other people into our 'little world', but rather let them discover it on their own, as we did -- and only then do we welcome them with open arms.
I would like to know what many of you (realistically) think it would take to make things start turning in a positive direction -- IE, legislation that is in favor of the individual vs the business; businesses that are in favor of being fair; and technology being advocated in a non-abusive way.
DO you think it can ever happen? Personally, I don't. I have hope that the world will eventually sway over to the ideas that make up things like the GPL, etc... but I know that, when they do, it will simply become another act of devious manipulation and molestation by the corps/government(s).
BTW, I do not exclude the rest of the world from this. It exists everywhere.
I have tried to just sum up all of my personal feelings to 'waking up' (being a new father and becoming more responsible and aware of surroundings, etc)... but I don't know... Its probably too trite and obvious to speak about. thoughts?
Actually, unless they start mentioning the holy Cell tech that Sony's been working on for the PS3, spawned only from divine intervention, I'm gonna put a price on Sony's head for toying with me...
Re:I've got all of you beat - "secret service, wha
on
How Were You Fired?
·
· Score: 1
Fraid not. If I had to give my boss a name, it would be "Chux", the Angry Drunken Dwarf.
I've got all of you beat - "secret service, what?"
on
How Were You Fired?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I apologize for the length, but it must be told like this.
Yeah...
SO after leaving a popular, yet horrific ISP ruled by the followers of L. Ron Hubbard (that story is pretty bad, as well), a friend of mine came to my rescue during my week of unemployment.
He mentioned that him and and another programmer were working on a web-app that would be the holy grail of auto sales...
He was happy there, and he was paid, so I joined. A small company like this was a welcomed change from the corporate lies I had just escaped from. The other programmer turned out to be a good guy -- as with the rest of the staff there... with the exception of the boss / owner.
The man wasn't too intelligent, but thought himself a god. Given his constant drinking, we started to (and still do) refer to him as the Angry Drunken Dwarf. If any of you know of Hank, his might help to give you a picture of what we are dealing with here.
Anyhoo, the man was always tossing acronym's and jargon he had just read in an outdated business/computing magazine, and DEMANDED his product have all of those features that he had no idea what they even meant, and that it be completed in a week. You couldn't argue with the man, either. If he wanted his web-app to be "API compatible", you might as well smile and nod, and tell him it was done yesterday. Arguing with him that something couldn't be done or (gasp!) 'didn't make any sense' was like asking him to yell loudly in your ear using as many offensive remarks about you as he could in the process. Oh, how we hated him..
Throw in his ability to get people to pay down on something they had never seen, then refuse to give them a refund when they get something of *cough* lesser quality (which they refused, and then the dwarf sold to someone else without giving their deposit back), and you had a lot of other people whom hated him.
In fact, this hatred took on a life of its own, into what we could only see as the funniest piece of justice ever served.
So I wake up one morning to my friend and fellow programmer at X company on the phone, telling me not to bother coming in today -- as the Angry Drunken Dwarf informed him that he would no longer be able to pay us.
That evening my friend called me back with an amusing story. It seems that, while he was gathering his things to go home, two hugely muscular men in suits came in, and started talking with (your friend and mine) the Angry Drunken Dwarf. Not to be outdone, the Angry Drunken Dwarf returned fire in his mannger that we had all come to know, with only his beautiful cherry office desk between them.
Suddenly, the men grabbed the Angry Drunken Dwarf by the collar and yanked him over the desk and onto the floor *on the other side*, where the commened beating him.
My friend called the authorities and, fortunately for the Angry Drunken Dwarf, my friend managed to separate them. You have to understand, my friend is a 6 foot 250 pounds of muscle black-belt in juikido jujitsu of 6 years. It wasn't easy for him to get them separated.
So the men leave, and later the cops show when they feel they had waited long enough. It seems those large men were witht he mob -- that's right, THE MOB. The Angry Drunken Dwarf seems to owe them a lot of money. Our account mentioned a figure around 3/4 a million.
So the next day we arrive, received our last paycheck (we received a personal check, which we cashed before he could stop payment -- yes, he would do that), and then he begins to ask us to work for free -- still promising us how much money the software was going to make.
During this speech, a policeman shows up and serves the Angry Drunken Dwarf. The officer cheerily announces (he must've gathered what was going on) "Hey, you're being sued!".
A lot of people began suing the Angry Drunken Dwarf.
A few weeks later, I get an email from EBAY (our software listed on ebay) that the secret service was looking for any info or any person whom had bought f
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I've often wondered about the same thing myself. My mother, wife of a geek and mother of 3 geeks - yet not a geek herself - has had trouble understanding our frustration and pessimism regarding events such as this one, and beyond. Patent wars, legislation (DMCA, et al), and just your everyday bad business habits.
You know, I bet that most of us geeks were led here by sheer curiosity. Once we learned the potentials of technology, I bet that most of us would love to see it bring people together, and (scuse the cliche'd naivety) used for good (TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD! - heh). But we all know that just isn't going to happen. I believe this is why many of us choose not to invite other people into our 'little world', but rather let them discover it on their own, as we did -- and only then do we welcome them with open arms.
I would like to know what many of you (realistically) think it would take to make things start turning in a positive direction -- IE, legislation that is in favor of the individual vs the business; businesses that are in favor of being fair; and technology being advocated in a non-abusive way.
DO you think it can ever happen? Personally, I don't. I have hope that the world will eventually sway over to the ideas that make up things like the GPL, etc... but I know that, when they do, it will simply become another act of devious manipulation and molestation by the corps/government(s).
BTW, I do not exclude the rest of the world from this. It exists everywhere.
I have tried to just sum up all of my personal feelings to 'waking up' (being a new father and becoming more responsible and aware of surroundings, etc)... but I don't know... Its probably too trite and obvious to speak about. thoughts?
Actually, unless they start mentioning the holy Cell tech that Sony's been working on for the PS3, spawned only from divine intervention, I'm gonna put a price on Sony's head for toying with me...
Fraid not. If I had to give my boss a name, it would be "Chux", the Angry Drunken Dwarf.
I apologize for the length, but it must be told like this.
Yeah...
SO after leaving a popular, yet horrific ISP ruled by the followers of L. Ron Hubbard (that story is pretty bad, as well), a friend of mine came to my rescue during my week of unemployment.
He mentioned that him and and another programmer were working on a web-app that would be the holy grail of auto sales...
He was happy there, and he was paid, so I joined. A small company like this was a welcomed change from the corporate lies I had just escaped from. The other programmer turned out to be a good guy -- as with the rest of the staff there... with the exception of the boss / owner.
The man wasn't too intelligent, but thought himself a god. Given his constant drinking, we started to (and still do) refer to him as the Angry Drunken Dwarf. If any of you know of Hank, his might help to give you a picture of what we are dealing with here.
Anyhoo, the man was always tossing acronym's and jargon he had just read in an outdated business/computing magazine, and DEMANDED his product have all of those features that he had no idea what they even meant, and that it be completed in a week. You couldn't argue with the man, either. If he wanted his web-app to be "API compatible", you might as well smile and nod, and tell him it was done yesterday. Arguing with him that something couldn't be done or (gasp!) 'didn't make any sense' was like asking him to yell loudly in your ear using as many offensive remarks about you as he could in the process. Oh, how we hated him..
Throw in his ability to get people to pay down on something they had never seen, then refuse to give them a refund when they get something of *cough* lesser quality (which they refused, and then the dwarf sold to someone else without giving their deposit back), and you had a lot of other people whom hated him.
In fact, this hatred took on a life of its own, into what we could only see as the funniest piece of justice ever served.
So I wake up one morning to my friend and fellow programmer at X company on the phone, telling me not to bother coming in today -- as the Angry Drunken Dwarf informed him that he would no longer be able to pay us.
That evening my friend called me back with an amusing story. It seems that, while he was gathering his things to go home, two hugely muscular men in suits came in, and started talking with (your friend and mine) the Angry Drunken Dwarf. Not to be outdone, the Angry Drunken Dwarf returned fire in his mannger that we had all come to know, with only his beautiful cherry office desk between them.
Suddenly, the men grabbed the Angry Drunken Dwarf by the collar and yanked him over the desk and onto the floor *on the other side*, where the commened beating him.
My friend called the authorities and, fortunately for the Angry Drunken Dwarf, my friend managed to separate them. You have to understand, my friend is a 6 foot 250 pounds of muscle black-belt in juikido jujitsu of 6 years. It wasn't easy for him to get them separated.
So the men leave, and later the cops show when they feel they had waited long enough. It seems those large men were witht he mob -- that's right, THE MOB. The Angry Drunken Dwarf seems to owe them a lot of money. Our account mentioned a figure around 3/4 a million.
So the next day we arrive, received our last paycheck (we received a personal check, which we cashed before he could stop payment -- yes, he would do that), and then he begins to ask us to work for free -- still promising us how much money the software was going to make.
During this speech, a policeman shows up and serves the Angry Drunken Dwarf. The officer cheerily announces (he must've gathered what was going on) "Hey, you're being sued!".
A lot of people began suing the Angry Drunken Dwarf.
A few weeks later, I get an email from EBAY (our software listed on ebay) that the secret service was looking for any info or any person whom had bought f