What we're really seeing here is the invisible hand of the market correcting an imbalance that's existed for a long time. The stick is piracy: studios don't like it, obviously. The carrot is, if you release the film on DVD immediately, people will buy that instead of the pirated version. A win for everyone except the pirates and the theaters.
And what about the theaters? They've had us over a barrel for years, charging insane prices for tickets and for food from the concession stand. This isn't going to be a lot of fun for them, because now their audience is going to be solely people who actually like to go to movie theaters. And this is certainly smaller than the audience of people who either like to go to movie theaters or don't like to wait for movies to hit video.
The theater owners are in denial about this - they're not planning for it - and that's going to hurt them, unfortunately. If they were to jump on board and start planning for the inevitable, I think it'd work out pretty well. In the long run, it'll work out anyway - some people really do like to see a movie in a theater. I certainly do. Target that audience, and give that audience the experience they want, and you've got a solid business. Unfortunately, it's probably a smaller business than the one you have now. Sad for theater operators, but really not fixable.
I have no real idea which web sites I use are in the U.S. and which are not. It would be a complete, utter, ruinous disaster for the internet to be partitioned in the way you describe. It would be the ultimate victory for Big Brother. I'm frankly shocked that anyone would even ask this question.
BTW, I actually don't know how long the editors spent on the book. It might have been more than a week or two, now that I think about it, because there are so many phases to the editing process. My only reason for stating a smaller number for them than for Ralph and me is that they were a lot better at it than we were, so I'd like to *think* that they took less time.
You got it. When Ralph and I wrote the DHCP handbook, we probably put two man-months each into the book. The editors spent a week or two on it, and then there was the marketing effort, which costs real money. In the end, the book cost a lot of money to make, and didn't sell that many copies.
One interesting factoid: the publisher doesn't care whether you go hardcover or paperback - the cost is effectively the same to them. So you can see that the cost isn't in the printing. This is why the ebook isn't any cheaper. The reason that tech books cost more than science fiction books is very simply that the non-recurring costs are amortized over fewer books. (BTW, when you get into the world of mass market paperbacks, the recurring costs start to swallow the non-recurring costs, and that's why a science fiction paperback has the potential to be cheaper than a hardcover.)
If you want to ask a really good question about book publishing, ask this one: why are *textbooks* so goddamned expensive? I mean, every kid in the country has to have one, right? (TBH, I suspect that there's a pretty good explanation for this also - I just don't know what it is.)
Oh, please. I was being silly. Of course there's been good music since. Did you hear Marion McPartland's show the night before last? Not sure if I'd say that no music is as good as Bach's, but he is one master beside whom I might be tempted to compare another composer, yes.:')
Well, it's an admirable rant, and I agree with many of your sentiments, but the bottom line is that companies care about the marginal cost of software because competition and piracy drive the price of the software, amortized over its user base (including the people who didn't pay for it), down to the marginal cost. That's how the market works. If the total income for a product is less than the total cost, you're dead. You're right that Microsoft has been using lock-in and legal force to charge exhorbitant prices for Word. It would be nice if something changed so that that didn't happen anymore. But the economics of software really are chancy, and whether you like it or not, they probably don't support the level of reliability you yearn for. You know what software is that reliable? MVS. Why? Years of no new features, and years of bug fixes. You want a reliable version of Linux? Check back in 20 years - if the rate of innovation has flattened out by then, maybe you'll get your wish.
You know, the irony is that I thought it was chillingly good. Sure, Cruise is hidden behind his eyes as usual, but the story isn't Cruise. The story is the situation they're in. I've seen, heard and read several renditions of War of the Worlds, and this one was done quite well. The whole point of the story is the feeling of doom, of a situation that is completely unresolvable, and what people in that situation do. The sight of a person covered with the dust of his vaporized neighbors, with the breakdown of law and order. There were some visuals in this movie that were just amazing, and the action at the beginning was brilliant. The one thing in the movie that I thought completely sucked came at the very end - if you've seen the movie I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. But to me the movie seemed very true to the story as it's evolved in its many incarnations, and some of the visuals really felt like the kind of thing H.G. Wells would have wanted to see if he'd had a say in making it. Who would you want as the main character in the movie? Cruise' dissociation was perfect.
Oh, come on! Howard the Duck was great! And didn't you see Amadeus? Salieri's music is still remembered, actually. But the fact is that no decent music has been written since the Baroque era. Face it, Mozart's music is all just fluff.
(Actually, I do find some of it unlistenably naive, but he wrote some good stuff too...:')
Maybe he can cook... After all, if they're bringing the DVD home anyway. Plus, there's the whole advantage that then she's at home with you, so there's no awkward conversation about coming in for a bit of tea.
We have a really nice TV at home these days, and there are definitely some movies we'll be watching there rather than in the theaters. But I think the original article has it right - we just haven't wanted to see that many movies this year. Most of the movies that won oscars didn't even make it into the big theatre - Capote and Syriana are both playing at art cinemas here. We never got around to seeing most of the wicked cool blockbusters that came by because they got such bad reviews, and the one really cool blockbuster this year, Serenity, didn't get promoted properly, so it tanked in the theatres. It's a damned shame.
How much did you pay for your car? Now, how much did you pay for all the software that you're currently using? Do you need me to go on?
My argument is somewhat weakened by the fact that paying more for software doesn't actually seem to achieve a higher level of quality - indeed it seems to me that in many cases the more you pay, the worse the software is. But at least when we're talking about the software we personally use, I think it's a meaningful measure. If you really paid $30k for your complete computer system, it bloody well ought to be reliable, secure and accurate. But if, like most people, you paid a lot less than that, then it doesn't make sense to talk about it on the same terms.
Another thing to consider is that unlike a car, software wants to be free. That is, in the sense that the marginal cost of each additional copy is zero. But the marginal cost isn't the entire cost - in fact, it's none of the cost - the cost of a software product is in the development, and it can be quite expensive, for a nice piece of software. But the marginal cost still dominates the way the software is sold - free software generally isn't, or it's sold on the basis of support, which generally doesn't pay for development. Non-free software is sold, but most of the extant copies are generally pirated (this is for the stuff we use - it's different for big corporate software).
My point isn't that pirates are 3v1l, that we should have to pay more for software, or anything like that. It's just that comparing the price and reliability of your car to the price and reliability of your spreadsheet is comparing apples and oranges. I don't see that changing in the future. So you're probably going to have to get used to paying for bug fixes, fixing the bugs yourself, or hoping that some open source developer fixes them without you having to do anything. From the perspective of personal responsibility, I recommend you go with choices one or two, although in practice I find that I benefit far more frequently from choice three. Which is pretty amazing, possibly even cause for celebration.
It does cost money to fix bugs, you know. You can argue that they ought not to have released the software with bugs, but it's just part of the cost equation - do I release now, with potential bugs, or release later, with no bugs? Do you want the software now, or later, or maybe not at all, because my company folded due to no revenue? Okay, so now you have the software, and it turns out not to be perfect. Do you want my company to stay in business so I can fix your problems, or go under?
"Should" is a fairly useless word when it comes to commerce. "Works" is a better word.
Anyway, if you don't like the process of using commercial software, there's a cure - go open source.:')
Depending on where on the east coast you live, chances are that you won't be able to find a place that costs the same as what you're paying now at any size. The only exception would be if you're living in New York, but if you're living in New York, the shock from the drop in population density will nearly kill you. Before you agree to this move, go out to the Bay Area and do some house hunting, and get a good feel for what things cost and what's available.
If you do decide to do the move, consider living some place like Millbrae. This won't work if your job is way down south, but if it's anywhere from about Mountain View north, it will work. The problem is that you're likely going to be stretched between two extremes. The South Bay and Penninsula are really nice for certain things - the restaurants there are by and large much better than what you'll get in San Francisco, for example. But there are a lot more available single women in San Francisco. Or, if you swing the other way, I probably don't need to tell you that being close to San Francisco has its benefits. So being in a location that lets you get to both places conveniently is good.
If your job has decent Caltrain access, consider living close to Caltrain. This gives you the option of avoiding the car commute. Caltrain won't always be faster than driving, but it's a lot more relaxing. It can also be a very social setting if your friends also commute by train.
As far as moving goes, make sure your company is going to pay for a moving van and for packing service on your end. Sell the junk that won't fit in your Silicon Valley apartment before you move - otherwise your apartment will be a zoo, because you probably won't have time to deal with the stuff on the other end. Freecycle is your friend.
If you're at all like me, you will find driving in the Bay Area a bit of a trial. It's congested, people tend not to have a good sense of humor about it, and there are driving styles from around the world (literally) competing for roadspace.
The geek quotient in Silicon Valley is unmatched. Things that geeks like (good restaurants, toys, bookstores) are plentiful. You probably won't find any plays based on the works of Dostoevsky playing in Palo Alto, though. Bicycling and rollerblading are good outdoor fun options, and they work pretty much year round. I've never lived anywhere where the bicycling was better than the Bay Area. Be aware, though, that there's a weird cultural antagonism between some Bay Area drivers and bicyclists, so you may get yelled at seemingly for no reason. Try not to take it personally, or it'll ruin your ride.
I lived in the Bay Area for over ten years. It's a lovely place, full of really cool people. I don't think I'll ever live there again, because it's too damned expensive, but if the economics work for you, it can be a lot of fun.
You can already do this - just do a recursive descent of the filesystem tree. SQL is just an interface for doing the same thing. It may be that the MS filesystem is more efficiently organized for doing this kind of query, but that's another issue.
Generally speaking, if a company wants to make it difficult for you to use their product in some way that you consider important, the right thing to do is to not do business with them. That way you don't run into all of these hairy legal issues. Honestly, it's just not worth the trouble - why would you even want to go down this road?
Reverse engineering their product may be legal, depending on the jurisdiction in which you live. Litigating it will cost you more than you can afford, unless you're rich.
If you want to get a job there, you definitely mustn't release this stuff - given their (weird) stance on patents and file formats, it's extremely unlikely that the management there would let you be hired even if the geeks there were impressed with your work.
So if the people are there, and they need something to do to pay for food and a roof, where's your beef? I mean, obviously it would be nice if they lived in the U.S., under U.S. labor law, but we aren't willing to open our borders, nor is China. So we're at an impasse. The only knob that's available to turn is the employment knob. The only thing that has any hope of fixing this problem is the death of the backwater. And in fact, the backwater is slowly dying. Romania, anyone?
He did say "gradually." Being attached to solving all the world's problems in your own lifetime is the cause of all the world's problems. (Okay, I'm exaggerating, but not without cause!)
History is a stream, not an island. And yet, it makes little sense to talk about history of fifty years ago in this context - what matters to us now is how things are now. While that includes the state vector of remembrance of things past, it is not the past itself. Frequently, the more we can do to suppress that state vector instead of attempting to redress past wrongs, the more likely we are to make real progress rather than getting embroiled in another pointless conflict.
Yeah, yeah, I've heard that old saw before. There are plenty of resources. The problem is that they are spread out unevenly. Spreading them out more evenly is good. Creating a world in which you can't drive something that weighs as much as most peoples' houses around without impoverishing yourself is good. Which is better: going to war, or being sensible about your energy consumption?
(a) how do you know what some other person thinks - are you a mind reader?
(b) who cares anyway?
Of course outsourcing isn't being done for altruistic means. I'm not talking about why it's being done - I'm talking about what the result is.
It's very frustrating sometimes watching people engage in political discourse, because it's axiomatic that anything your opponent says *must* be wrong. So if Bush says X, then X must be wrong. The world isn't black and white - it's complicated. Deeply, hairily complicated.
Sure, Bush appears to be pretty clueless. But even a complete idiot can say something intelligent once in a while. And sure, Bush seems to be pushing an agenda that's generally harmful. But just because he's pushing it doesn't mean he's going to succeed in the long run.
In point of fact, it might be a very good thing for the world at large if Bush pushed the U.S. economy down so far that we lost the ability to dictate intellectual property policy to the rest of the world. Personally, I hope it doesn't turn out that way, because I happen to live in the U.S. and if things do go that way I'm probably going to spend the next thirty years watching the U.S. climb back out of the pit we've dug for ourselves. But in the long run, the outcome of this is likely to be good.
China fails to control population? You've never heard of one family, one child? India? You're still mired in the 20th century. India and China are a lot different than you imagine.
If you want to see population growth reined in, pay attention: the only mechanism other than war that's ever succeeded in reining in population growth is industrialization. So if you want less population growth, what's happening in Asia right now is good news, not bad news.
Don't get too attached to your preconceptions about the power elite and class war. As long as you frame it that way, you're perpetuating the problem, not solving it.
Nono, you're not getting it. This is negative-sum economic thinking. It's not the case that it has to be that some people somewhere prosper while other people elsewhere do not prosper. It is possible for everyone to prosper. Protectionism is negative-sum thinking because it creates an artificial labor cost imbalance in order to make certain people prosper at the expense of other people.
Anyway, one of the great historic strengths of the U.S. is that at least in theory we _do_ care about the kids who are starving in China. We're spending how many billions wrecking Iraq? But we can't afford to have a few jobs shift to India? Maybe we should stop spending the money wrecking Iraq and use it to cushion the temporary local shock caused by evening out the global economy.
Just to be clear here, I'm not talking about corporate globalism. I'm just talking about evening out the economies of the world, so that nobody gets a sweetheart deal and nobody gets shafted. Outsourcing is an instance of that, so in principle it's good, even though it feels bad when you're on the receiving end.
One cool thing about outsourcing is that there are a lot of places in the U.S. where the cost of living (and therefore labor) is substantially lower than in, e.g., the San Francisco Bay area, home of the multimillion-dollar two-room house. So outsourcing is actually helping your fellow Americans, not just your fellow world citizens.
The rewrites aren't extensive. I've diffed them. Honest. There's lots of extra stuff heaped on, but that's not a rewrite - that's a barnacle. Barnacles can be useful, but they're not the same thing as a rewrite. Like I said, I'm looking forward to seeing the actual rewrite the zen dev guys are talking about.
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What we're really seeing here is the invisible hand of the market correcting an imbalance that's existed for a long time. The stick is piracy: studios don't like it, obviously. The carrot is, if you release the film on DVD immediately, people will buy that instead of the pirated version. A win for everyone except the pirates and the theaters.
And what about the theaters? They've had us over a barrel for years, charging insane prices for tickets and for food from the concession stand. This isn't going to be a lot of fun for them, because now their audience is going to be solely people who actually like to go to movie theaters. And this is certainly smaller than the audience of people who either like to go to movie theaters or don't like to wait for movies to hit video.
The theater owners are in denial about this - they're not planning for it - and that's going to hurt them, unfortunately. If they were to jump on board and start planning for the inevitable, I think it'd work out pretty well. In the long run, it'll work out anyway - some people really do like to see a movie in a theater. I certainly do. Target that audience, and give that audience the experience they want, and you've got a solid business. Unfortunately, it's probably a smaller business than the one you have now. Sad for theater operators, but really not fixable.
I have no real idea which web sites I use are in the U.S. and which are not. It would be a complete, utter, ruinous disaster for the internet to be partitioned in the way you describe. It would be the ultimate victory for Big Brother. I'm frankly shocked that anyone would even ask this question.
BTW, I actually don't know how long the editors spent on the book. It might have been more than a week or two, now that I think about it, because there are so many phases to the editing process. My only reason for stating a smaller number for them than for Ralph and me is that they were a lot better at it than we were, so I'd like to *think* that they took less time.
You got it. When Ralph and I wrote the DHCP handbook, we probably put two man-months each into the book. The editors spent a week or two on it, and then there was the marketing effort, which costs real money. In the end, the book cost a lot of money to make, and didn't sell that many copies.
One interesting factoid: the publisher doesn't care whether you go hardcover or paperback - the cost is effectively the same to them. So you can see that the cost isn't in the printing. This is why the ebook isn't any cheaper. The reason that tech books cost more than science fiction books is very simply that the non-recurring costs are amortized over fewer books. (BTW, when you get into the world of mass market paperbacks, the recurring costs start to swallow the non-recurring costs, and that's why a science fiction paperback has the potential to be cheaper than a hardcover.)
If you want to ask a really good question about book publishing, ask this one: why are *textbooks* so goddamned expensive? I mean, every kid in the country has to have one, right? (TBH, I suspect that there's a pretty good explanation for this also - I just don't know what it is.)
Oh, please. I was being silly. Of course there's been good music since. Did you hear Marion McPartland's show the night before last? Not sure if I'd say that no music is as good as Bach's, but he is one master beside whom I might be tempted to compare another composer, yes. :')
Well, it's an admirable rant, and I agree with many of your sentiments, but the bottom line is that companies care about the marginal cost of software because competition and piracy drive the price of the software, amortized over its user base (including the people who didn't pay for it), down to the marginal cost. That's how the market works. If the total income for a product is less than the total cost, you're dead. You're right that Microsoft has been using lock-in and legal force to charge exhorbitant prices for Word. It would be nice if something changed so that that didn't happen anymore. But the economics of software really are chancy, and whether you like it or not, they probably don't support the level of reliability you yearn for. You know what software is that reliable? MVS. Why? Years of no new features, and years of bug fixes. You want a reliable version of Linux? Check back in 20 years - if the rate of innovation has flattened out by then, maybe you'll get your wish.
You know, the irony is that I thought it was chillingly good. Sure, Cruise is hidden behind his eyes as usual, but the story isn't Cruise. The story is the situation they're in. I've seen, heard and read several renditions of War of the Worlds, and this one was done quite well. The whole point of the story is the feeling of doom, of a situation that is completely unresolvable, and what people in that situation do. The sight of a person covered with the dust of his vaporized neighbors, with the breakdown of law and order. There were some visuals in this movie that were just amazing, and the action at the beginning was brilliant. The one thing in the movie that I thought completely sucked came at the very end - if you've seen the movie I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. But to me the movie seemed very true to the story as it's evolved in its many incarnations, and some of the visuals really felt like the kind of thing H.G. Wells would have wanted to see if he'd had a say in making it. Who would you want as the main character in the movie? Cruise' dissociation was perfect.
Oh, come on! Howard the Duck was great! And didn't you see Amadeus? Salieri's music is still remembered, actually. But the fact is that no decent music has been written since the Baroque era. Face it, Mozart's music is all just fluff.
:')
(Actually, I do find some of it unlistenably naive, but he wrote some good stuff too...
Maybe he can cook... After all, if they're bringing the DVD home anyway. Plus, there's the whole advantage that then she's at home with you, so there's no awkward conversation about coming in for a bit of tea.
We have a really nice TV at home these days, and there are definitely some movies we'll be watching there rather than in the theaters. But I think the original article has it right - we just haven't wanted to see that many movies this year. Most of the movies that won oscars didn't even make it into the big theatre - Capote and Syriana are both playing at art cinemas here. We never got around to seeing most of the wicked cool blockbusters that came by because they got such bad reviews, and the one really cool blockbuster this year, Serenity, didn't get promoted properly, so it tanked in the theatres. It's a damned shame.
How much did you pay for your car? Now, how much did you pay for all the software that you're currently using? Do you need me to go on?
My argument is somewhat weakened by the fact that paying more for software doesn't actually seem to achieve a higher level of quality - indeed it seems to me that in many cases the more you pay, the worse the software is. But at least when we're talking about the software we personally use, I think it's a meaningful measure. If you really paid $30k for your complete computer system, it bloody well ought to be reliable, secure and accurate. But if, like most people, you paid a lot less than that, then it doesn't make sense to talk about it on the same terms.
Another thing to consider is that unlike a car, software wants to be free. That is, in the sense that the marginal cost of each additional copy is zero. But the marginal cost isn't the entire cost - in fact, it's none of the cost - the cost of a software product is in the development, and it can be quite expensive, for a nice piece of software. But the marginal cost still dominates the way the software is sold - free software generally isn't, or it's sold on the basis of support, which generally doesn't pay for development. Non-free software is sold, but most of the extant copies are generally pirated (this is for the stuff we use - it's different for big corporate software).
My point isn't that pirates are 3v1l, that we should have to pay more for software, or anything like that. It's just that comparing the price and reliability of your car to the price and reliability of your spreadsheet is comparing apples and oranges. I don't see that changing in the future. So you're probably going to have to get used to paying for bug fixes, fixing the bugs yourself, or hoping that some open source developer fixes them without you having to do anything. From the perspective of personal responsibility, I recommend you go with choices one or two, although in practice I find that I benefit far more frequently from choice three. Which is pretty amazing, possibly even cause for celebration.
It does cost money to fix bugs, you know. You can argue that they ought not to have released the software with bugs, but it's just part of the cost equation - do I release now, with potential bugs, or release later, with no bugs? Do you want the software now, or later, or maybe not at all, because my company folded due to no revenue? Okay, so now you have the software, and it turns out not to be perfect. Do you want my company to stay in business so I can fix your problems, or go under?
:')
"Should" is a fairly useless word when it comes to commerce. "Works" is a better word.
Anyway, if you don't like the process of using commercial software, there's a cure - go open source.
Depending on where on the east coast you live, chances are that you won't be able to find a place that costs the same as what you're paying now at any size. The only exception would be if you're living in New York, but if you're living in New York, the shock from the drop in population density will nearly kill you. Before you agree to this move, go out to the Bay Area and do some house hunting, and get a good feel for what things cost and what's available.
If you do decide to do the move, consider living some place like Millbrae. This won't work if your job is way down south, but if it's anywhere from about Mountain View north, it will work. The problem is that you're likely going to be stretched between two extremes. The South Bay and Penninsula are really nice for certain things - the restaurants there are by and large much better than what you'll get in San Francisco, for example. But there are a lot more available single women in San Francisco. Or, if you swing the other way, I probably don't need to tell you that being close to San Francisco has its benefits. So being in a location that lets you get to both places conveniently is good.
If your job has decent Caltrain access, consider living close to Caltrain. This gives you the option of avoiding the car commute. Caltrain won't always be faster than driving, but it's a lot more relaxing. It can also be a very social setting if your friends also commute by train.
As far as moving goes, make sure your company is going to pay for a moving van and for packing service on your end. Sell the junk that won't fit in your Silicon Valley apartment before you move - otherwise your apartment will be a zoo, because you probably won't have time to deal with the stuff on the other end. Freecycle is your friend.
If you're at all like me, you will find driving in the Bay Area a bit of a trial. It's congested, people tend not to have a good sense of humor about it, and there are driving styles from around the world (literally) competing for roadspace.
The geek quotient in Silicon Valley is unmatched. Things that geeks like (good restaurants, toys, bookstores) are plentiful. You probably won't find any plays based on the works of Dostoevsky playing in Palo Alto, though. Bicycling and rollerblading are good outdoor fun options, and they work pretty much year round. I've never lived anywhere where the bicycling was better than the Bay Area. Be aware, though, that there's a weird cultural antagonism between some Bay Area drivers and bicyclists, so you may get yelled at seemingly for no reason. Try not to take it personally, or it'll ruin your ride.
I lived in the Bay Area for over ten years. It's a lovely place, full of really cool people. I don't think I'll ever live there again, because it's too damned expensive, but if the economics work for you, it can be a lot of fun.
Good luck!
You can already do this - just do a recursive descent of the filesystem tree. SQL is just an interface for doing the same thing. It may be that the MS filesystem is more efficiently organized for doing this kind of query, but that's another issue.
Generally speaking, if a company wants to make it difficult for you to use their product in some way that you consider important, the right thing to do is to not do business with them. That way you don't run into all of these hairy legal issues. Honestly, it's just not worth the trouble - why would you even want to go down this road?
Reverse engineering their product may be legal, depending on the jurisdiction in which you live. Litigating it will cost you more than you can afford, unless you're rich.
If you want to get a job there, you definitely mustn't release this stuff - given their (weird) stance on patents and file formats, it's extremely unlikely that the management there would let you be hired even if the geeks there were impressed with your work.
Um, hello, which country in the world consumes most of the world's resources? Is it China? Is it India? No, of course not. It's the United States.
So if the people are there, and they need something to do to pay for food and a roof, where's your beef? I mean, obviously it would be nice if they lived in the U.S., under U.S. labor law, but we aren't willing to open our borders, nor is China. So we're at an impasse. The only knob that's available to turn is the employment knob. The only thing that has any hope of fixing this problem is the death of the backwater. And in fact, the backwater is slowly dying. Romania, anyone?
He did say "gradually." Being attached to solving all the world's problems in your own lifetime is the cause of all the world's problems. (Okay, I'm exaggerating, but not without cause!)
History is a stream, not an island. And yet, it makes little sense to talk about history of fifty years ago in this context - what matters to us now is how things are now. While that includes the state vector of remembrance of things past, it is not the past itself. Frequently, the more we can do to suppress that state vector instead of attempting to redress past wrongs, the more likely we are to make real progress rather than getting embroiled in another pointless conflict.
Someone please mod the parent up. :')
Yeah, yeah, I've heard that old saw before. There are plenty of resources. The problem is that they are spread out unevenly. Spreading them out more evenly is good. Creating a world in which you can't drive something that weighs as much as most peoples' houses around without impoverishing yourself is good. Which is better: going to war, or being sensible about your energy consumption?
(a) how do you know what some other person thinks - are you a mind reader?
(b) who cares anyway?
Of course outsourcing isn't being done for altruistic means. I'm not talking about why it's being done - I'm talking about what the result is.
It's very frustrating sometimes watching people engage in political discourse, because it's axiomatic that anything your opponent says *must* be wrong. So if Bush says X, then X must be wrong. The world isn't black and white - it's complicated. Deeply, hairily complicated.
Sure, Bush appears to be pretty clueless. But even a complete idiot can say something intelligent once in a while. And sure, Bush seems to be pushing an agenda that's generally harmful. But just because he's pushing it doesn't mean he's going to succeed in the long run.
In point of fact, it might be a very good thing for the world at large if Bush pushed the U.S. economy down so far that we lost the ability to dictate intellectual property policy to the rest of the world. Personally, I hope it doesn't turn out that way, because I happen to live in the U.S. and if things do go that way I'm probably going to spend the next thirty years watching the U.S. climb back out of the pit we've dug for ourselves. But in the long run, the outcome of this is likely to be good.
China fails to control population? You've never heard of one family, one child? India? You're still mired in the 20th century. India and China are a lot different than you imagine.
If you want to see population growth reined in, pay attention: the only mechanism other than war that's ever succeeded in reining in population growth is industrialization. So if you want less population growth, what's happening in Asia right now is good news, not bad news.
Don't get too attached to your preconceptions about the power elite and class war. As long as you frame it that way, you're perpetuating the problem, not solving it.
Nono, you're not getting it. This is negative-sum economic thinking. It's not the case that it has to be that some people somewhere prosper while other people elsewhere do not prosper. It is possible for everyone to prosper. Protectionism is negative-sum thinking because it creates an artificial labor cost imbalance in order to make certain people prosper at the expense of other people.
Anyway, one of the great historic strengths of the U.S. is that at least in theory we _do_ care about the kids who are starving in China. We're spending how many billions wrecking Iraq? But we can't afford to have a few jobs shift to India? Maybe we should stop spending the money wrecking Iraq and use it to cushion the temporary local shock caused by evening out the global economy.
Just to be clear here, I'm not talking about corporate globalism. I'm just talking about evening out the economies of the world, so that nobody gets a sweetheart deal and nobody gets shafted. Outsourcing is an instance of that, so in principle it's good, even though it feels bad when you're on the receiving end.
One cool thing about outsourcing is that there are a lot of places in the U.S. where the cost of living (and therefore labor) is substantially lower than in, e.g., the San Francisco Bay area, home of the multimillion-dollar two-room house. So outsourcing is actually helping your fellow Americans, not just your fellow world citizens.
The rewrites aren't extensive. I've diffed them. Honest. There's lots of extra stuff heaped on, but that's not a rewrite - that's a barnacle. Barnacles can be useful, but they're not the same thing as a rewrite. Like I said, I'm looking forward to seeing the actual rewrite the zen dev guys are talking about.