I agree with the idea that the floppy is going to become less and less used as time goes on, as more and more people start to get / use USB key chain (thumb drive, jump drive, what ever you want to call them).
This is why I believe they will become the "next floppy":
1. I'm a teacher and I frquently see more and more students saying stuff like "My printer was busted can I use this (a USB key chain drive) to print it off your printer?
2. If your transporting art projects of any sort (music, photo shoped pictures etc) han the key chain drive is MUCH better tool than a floppy disc.
3. Other files such as drivers are also to big to fit on a floppy, but would be dumb to waste a CD on... Thumb drives are perfect for this.
4. really forget full people do attach USB drives to their key rings or wear them arround their neck... (I'm talking again about students here, as well as other teachers.)
I see scientists getting skate boards, or roller blades on and hurting them selfs as they have jousting tournaments in the thing.
On the up side, I bet they will come up with some really bad ass new kinds of armor as a result of this project... maybe even some cool really fast skate boards.
I found this story wirtten on May 5, 2004 which states "ON THE VERGE. Still, if the iPod were a stock, I'd dump my shares. It's hard to imagine Apple maintaining its dominant position in digital music. Jobs had actually predicted 100 million in iTMS song sales in the first year, and he missed by a wide mark. Apple managed to turn in only a 10% quarter-over-quarter increase in iPod sales last quarter, implying the market is slowing. And several top executives dumped millions of their own Apple shares in late April, the first major sale by insiders in years" The article goes on to say that Apple w\should spin off iPod now and pocket the cash while the gettings is good.
In regards to medical research that may be conducted for insurance companys (or governments for that matter) I found this latims story [free subscription needed to view] which talks about how many doctors are collecting stock options and paychecks form the various companys that are conducting the research. IE: the people who research nano-tech for insurance companys may be getting stock options/paychecks from insurance companys. I'm not saying that it is happening, I am saying that when ever we see research like this is is something to keep in mind.
I was able to find this link that talks about the Criminal Investigation of Monsanto Corporation for attempting to Cover up Dioxin Contamination in their Products. Here is a preview of the link
"Monsanto covered-up the dioxin contamination of a wide range of its products. Monsanto either failed to report contamination, substituted false information purporting to show no contamination or submitted samples to the government for analysis which had been specially prepared so that dioxin contamination did not exist."
"Another Monsanto study involved independent medical examinations of surviving employees by Monsanto physicians. Several hundred former Monsanto employees were too ill to travel to participate in the study. Monsanto refused to use the attending physicians reports of the illness as part of their study, saying that it would introduce inconsistencies. Thus, any critically ill dioxin-exposed workers with cancers such as Non-Hodgkins lymphoma (associated with dioxin exposures), were conveniently excluded from the Monsanto study."
side sotry: netstumbler meets tech support person.
on
NetStumbler v0.4 Released
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I've been working as a tech for belkin for awhile now (I know I should hate my self for that but it pays the bills) and a while ago a guy called saying that he had set up his router to...
1. NOT broadcast SSID and,
2. use a 128 bit wep key
But he was pissed off because his network was still "showing up as an available network!" After talking to the guy for a long time I figured out that he was using netstumbler (V3) and that SSID was showing up there, but no place other than that.
Because every one that I work with uses netstumbler, and war drives I asked them if there was any way to make iso stumberl coul dnot see the WAP. When I told this to the guy on my phone he freaked out hard core, and told us that we needed to take some sort of leagle action aginst the guy who invented netstumbler.
Anyway, my point is that WiFi networks + Americans who are afarid of everything + Netstumbler = one pissed off fear filled sue happy american.
I'm all for a resistance to things like the RIAA, companys that abuse copyright law, and absurd notions of what constitutes intellectual property.
However I feel that when people use P2P networks as the only way to fight back, but don't use things like creative commons or the the GNU than they are really hurting the resistance movement that people have created to fight back aginst abuse copyright laws, and absurd notions of intellecutal property.
IMO There has to be more reason to use P2P than "I don't have to pay for it," there has to be the desire to make a political or philosophical statement.
Anyway, I'm just preaching to the converted here...
... but just in case you did not I'll toss it up here.
Lawrence Lessing (another lawyer who has done lots of writing about the internet, and been talked about on Slashdot often) posts what IMO is some very insightful information on "cyberlaw" at his blog from time to time. If you enjoyed this interview, and have not cheked out Lessing's work.
After the US won the space race they really have not been under pressure any to make the "best" equipment to go into space. (Maybe this will change with China getting people into space now.)
The way I see it the space shuttle old technology that NEEDS to be scraped in favor som something new that is saffer, and more cost effective. Rather than just revamping a system that is out of date, and not very safe.
I think that NASA sees things the same way, which is why the are attempting to develop the Orbital Space Plane.
Congress telling NASA that they need to revamp the system that does not work very well before they will be given funding to make a new system that will work better, and be more safe, is just stupid. It's a waste of time, money, and resource.
Basicly I think the space shuttle is like an old car that has been to hell ad back, that has well over 200,000 miles on it, that a parent (parent=congress) gave to it's kid (kid=NASA)when he started to drive years ago. When it brakes down some people (IE congress) want to try and fix it rather than just geting a new car, because they think that fixing the old car will cost less than getting a new one (A new car would be the Orbital Space Plane.) I think the parent (congress) needs to just let the kid (NASA) get a new car. It is long past time, and fixing the old car again, and again, and again will end up costing more in the long run.
bfg technologies striks me as another company like this. If you go to their web site and look around you will see that theya re a group of techie gammers who made a video card company. If you look at the "Why we are different" section of their web site you will see that the
1. offer 24 hr tech support.
2. a lifetime guarantee on all their cards.
3. that the owners of the company are huge gamers who make the cards so that can use them when the play games.
I agree that VMware is not a start up, however I have been seeing more and more people running VMware now. I work in tech support and many techs, my eslf included, will run VMware because we will get calls from people running different opperating systems. So basicly we are using VMware to see what the people calling us are seeing.
I have also heard of some people running a P2P program in a VMware session, burning what they download to disc, then closing the VMware session. They do this so that the should some mega band, or the RIAA, want to sue them for the download they can't because the evidance disappears when they close the VMware session. (I have never tried this so I don't know if it would work.)
I have also seen may people using it to show demos of some of the more popular flavors of Linux, such as suse or red hat, to other people. (Even though they could just use knoppix.)
I heard os something called a "poor man's copy right" where a non published author takes a copy of his/her writing and puts in a self address stamped envelope and mails it to him/her self. The post office will stap the date that the envelope was snet on the envelope. Upon receiving the now dated writing in the mail the author should put it into a safety deposit box.
The thory here being that if someone steals the authors un-copyrighted work the author should be able to sue the thief and use th the date on a sealed envelope, and the records showing when the author put it in his/her safty deposit box as proof.
My question is if any one knows if this ever has, or would ever really work?
Linus Torvalds is not all programers wear leather and ride skate boards like the people in "Hackers" and don't know kung-fu like the people in the "The Matrix."
I do tech support for Belkin and I get no fewer than about 4-6 calls per day (I take 35-40 calls in an 8 hour shift)where a person will say something such as
"my wireless card will stop working randomly for no reason all the time."
The first question out of my mouth is do you have any cordless phones? When they say yes, I ask if they are 2.4GHz or 900MHz
if/when the person says "it's a 2.4" and I tell them that their phone will cause some interference most people are absolutely shocked.
Anyway, it's a great point to make, I wonder if it will come up in the court case.
I can just see the lawyer for the school district pointing out that the parents use the same technology that they think is so unsafe in thir homes.
-r.future
To hell with the whole idea of intellectual proper
on
Why Only Music?
·
· Score: 1
I do not believe that people should be charged money for intellectual property such as music or programs (however charging for the material that programs, and music are stored on [ie: CD's] is ok, as is charging for the service of performing the music or offering tech support for the program. It also stands to reason that I'm completely against fining any person or persons for obtaining intellectual property such as music, movies, e-books, or programs. (For what it's worth I also I believe that the internet should is a resource that should be free to people, the same way that air is.)
The thought that a person can own an idea is really just baffling to me, ideas are not material possessions; like food, clothing, homes, cars etc, and IMO can't be treated the same way.
Ideas, weather they are music, medicine, or programs should IMO be treated as open source software. After they are expressed it becomes fair game for the people who know how, to modify, and interpret the idea, or to incorporate it into other ideas. Basically both ideas and open source soft wear become stronger the more (as in number of people) work on them.
People who take ideas and turn them into intellectual property (IE: copyrighting and selling them) are working for their own personal gain rather than for the growth of the human spices, when we get rid of intellectual property (copyrights) I believe that we
Disclaimer: I believe that the internet should is a resource that should be free to people, the same way that air is. I also believe do not believe that people should be charged money for intellectual property such as music or programs (however charging for the material that programs, and music are stored on [ie: CD's] is ok, as is charging for the service of performing the music or offering tech support for the program.
Having said that...
As the computers and the internet have become more prevalent in lives of the everyday person/consumer it has, IMO, had a revolutionary effect of the lives of everyday people. It has given them more power as consumers to communicate with one and other about products that are on the supposedly "open" market. Now the consumers can, and many of them do use to internet as a tool to provide, up to date, if not instantaneous, honest information to one and other about anything and everything that is out there to buy. Prior to the internet consumers had to rely on their own experience with products, or the experiences of other people they knew (a number far less than the people who are available communicate with on the net today.) Of course they could rely on dead-tree-media such as magazines, and books, which are not nearly as convenient as the net is for information. Lastly, they could of course rely on the people selling/making the product that they were buying to provide them with non-bias judgment of the products that they sell/make.
As the complex adaptive system that we call the internet, and its user base have evolved it has become, IMO, the most power tool for information transfer that the human spices have ever experienced; and now it has evolved into a truly revolutionary tool that people can use to actually give each other stuff that they would have to otherwise have to pay for. Now people can trade, music, picture, PDFs, and programs just to name a few. Note: that when I say "revolutionary" I mean not only that it is new and cutting edge, but that it is causing people to actually rebel against profiteering corporations that have been ripping off consumers for years.
In the case pf P2P people are actively rebelling against the recording industry. A industry that charges upwards of $20.00 for a few pieces of plastic, paper, and ink that cost the company that produces them for sale no more than a few dollars to produce.
Basically what I'm saying is that P2P was inevitable when the recording industry charges so much for something that costs so little. It is a direct result of their greed, and now there is just nothing they can do to completely stop it.
UnuMondo's post put it the best "The era of paying for music is over."
And to quote Chuck D "P2P means power to the people."
Granted the comments above by ES5 , which I believe were a diplomatic masterpiece of double speak, could be seen as humble at a surface glance, but in reality they were absolutely dripping with sarcasm.
But, I think we also need to take into account that ES5, for better or for worse, is attempting to fight back against the RIAA --a group that takes children to court for downloading music! So for what it's worth my opinion is; if you want to call ES5 childish, and compare them to a grade school playground argument that's fine. Just be sure to keep in mind that the other metaphorical 3'rd grader is the RIAA.
I agree what your saying (as I believe my post above will indicate) but I wanted to know if you thought the mass emailing/faxing/phone calls etc that are organized online by places like moveon.org, commoncause.org, hrw.org, etc. Are those actions (the mass emails faxes and what not) a form of lobbying?
Reason I ask is because I'm still not sure if this is lobbying or something different, and I just wanted to see what other people though.
One thing I am sure about however, is that if movements online that create masses of people communicating to elected public officials is lobbying, (And even if it is something completely different) it is not nearly as powerful as the kind of lobbying that wealthy (in this case Microsoft) can do with money.
Seriously though, a little lobbying is just fine in my book as long as that lobbying is truly an education of lawmakers on the issues and solutions to problems. The problem becomes when individual companies have such power and control as to dominate the lobbying process with money and resources so as to eclipse all other concerns.
I agree with you, if lobbying was just people attempting to talk to, inform, and educate etc lawmakers about whatever than I would have no problem with lobbying. However, I believe that now almost all lobbying is they type that you describe as a problem; the type where people are simply...lets be frank... buying decisions of law makers.
A "democracy" where money = votes (where he/she who can make the highest bid or has the most money gets what he/she wants) is not a true democracy at all, it's an oligarchy.
I personally feel, that until there is some sort of law that completely outlaws giving money by individuals (corporations counting as individuals) to elected officials the oligarchy will continue; real democracy will only be talked about in intellectual circles, and money = votes "democracy" will continue to be a placebo of the masses.
Just FYI here is some figures to show just what elected officials in the US make each year, I have no idea what UN officials make, so I think they could get by with out taking more money form the wealthy.
President of the US (Clinton was the last to make 200,000 Bush is the first to get this much.)
$400,000
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with the idea that the floppy is going to become less and less used as time goes on, as more and more people start to get / use USB key chain (thumb drive, jump drive, what ever you want to call them).
This is why I believe they will become the "next floppy":
1. I'm a teacher and I frquently see more and more students saying stuff like "My printer was busted can I use this (a USB key chain drive) to print it off your printer?
2. If your transporting art projects of any sort (music, photo shoped pictures etc) han the key chain drive is MUCH better tool than a floppy disc.
3. Other files such as drivers are also to big to fit on a floppy, but would be dumb to waste a CD on... Thumb drives are perfect for this.
4. really forget full people do attach USB drives to their key rings or wear them arround their neck... (I'm talking again about students here, as well as other teachers.)
I see scientists getting skate boards, or roller blades on and hurting them selfs as they have jousting tournaments in the thing. On the up side, I bet they will come up with some really bad ass new kinds of armor as a result of this project... maybe even some cool really fast skate boards.
I found this story wirtten on May 5, 2004 which states "ON THE VERGE. Still, if the iPod were a stock, I'd dump my shares. It's hard to imagine Apple maintaining its dominant position in digital music. Jobs had actually predicted 100 million in iTMS song sales in the first year, and he missed by a wide mark. Apple managed to turn in only a 10% quarter-over-quarter increase in iPod sales last quarter, implying the market is slowing. And several top executives dumped millions of their own Apple shares in late April, the first major sale by insiders in years" The article goes on to say that Apple w\should spin off iPod now and pocket the cash while the gettings is good.
In regards to medical research that may be conducted for insurance companys (or governments for that matter) I found this latims story [free subscription needed to view] which talks about how many doctors are collecting stock options and paychecks form the various companys that are conducting the research. IE: the people who research nano-tech for insurance companys may be getting stock options/paychecks from insurance companys. I'm not saying that it is happening, I am saying that when ever we see research like this is is something to keep in mind.
I was able to find this link that talks about the Criminal Investigation of Monsanto Corporation for attempting to Cover up Dioxin Contamination in their Products. Here is a preview of the link
"Monsanto covered-up the dioxin contamination of a wide range of its products. Monsanto either failed to report contamination, substituted false information purporting to show no contamination or submitted samples to the government for analysis which had been specially prepared so that dioxin contamination did not exist."
"Another Monsanto study involved independent medical examinations of surviving employees by Monsanto physicians. Several hundred former Monsanto employees were too ill to travel to participate in the study. Monsanto refused to use the attending physicians reports of the illness as part of their study, saying that it would introduce inconsistencies. Thus, any critically ill dioxin-exposed workers with cancers such as Non-Hodgkins lymphoma (associated with dioxin exposures), were conveniently excluded from the Monsanto study."
I've been working as a tech for belkin for awhile now (I know I should hate my self for that but it pays the bills) and a while ago a guy called saying that he had set up his router to...
1. NOT broadcast SSID and,
2. use a 128 bit wep key
But he was pissed off because his network was still "showing up as an available network!" After talking to the guy for a long time I figured out that he was using netstumbler (V3) and that SSID was showing up there, but no place other than that.
Because every one that I work with uses netstumbler, and war drives I asked them if there was any way to make iso stumberl coul dnot see the WAP. When I told this to the guy on my phone he freaked out hard core, and told us that we needed to take some sort of leagle action aginst the guy who invented netstumbler.
Anyway, my point is that WiFi networks + Americans who are afarid of everything + Netstumbler = one pissed off fear filled sue happy american.
Anyone who is really wants some great info on Dibold, and the many flaws with electronic voting should IMO check out the following sites...
.com site has a free PDF version of a great book called blakbox voting by Bev Harris PhD. (I'm shocked the EFF did not mention her.)
blackboxvoting.com, and blackboxvoting.org.
One of the sites is alwys up, one is often down because Dibold has been doing everything that it can to shut down the sites.
The
I'm all for a resistance to things like the RIAA, companys that abuse copyright law, and absurd notions of what constitutes intellectual property.
However I feel that when people use P2P networks as the only way to fight back, but don't use things like creative commons or the the GNU than they are really hurting the resistance movement that people have created to fight back aginst abuse copyright laws, and absurd notions of intellecutal property.
IMO There has to be more reason to use P2P than "I don't have to pay for it," there has to be the desire to make a political or philosophical statement.
Anyway, I'm just preaching to the converted here...
... but just in case you did not I'll toss it up here.
Lawrence Lessing (another lawyer who has done lots of writing about the internet, and been talked about on Slashdot often) posts what IMO is some very insightful information on "cyberlaw" at his blog from time to time. If you enjoyed this interview, and have not cheked out Lessing's work.
Here are some of the groups that Lessing is working / has worked with...
creative commons
eff
puclib knowledge
fsf
The fact that SCO (a company that loves money more than ANYTHING) is parying people to not use Linux just shows me that they are losing this battle.
After the US won the space race they really have not been under pressure any to make the "best" equipment to go into space. (Maybe this will change with China getting people into space now.)
The way I see it the space shuttle old technology that NEEDS to be scraped in favor som something new that is saffer, and more cost effective. Rather than just revamping a system that is out of date, and not very safe.
I think that NASA sees things the same way, which is why the are attempting to develop the Orbital Space Plane.
Congress telling NASA that they need to revamp the system that does not work very well before they will be given funding to make a new system that will work better, and be more safe, is just stupid. It's a waste of time, money, and resource.
Basicly I think the space shuttle is like an old car that has been to hell ad back, that has well over 200,000 miles on it, that a parent (parent=congress) gave to it's kid (kid=NASA)when he started to drive years ago. When it brakes down some people (IE congress) want to try and fix it rather than just geting a new car, because they think that fixing the old car will cost less than getting a new one (A new car would be the Orbital Space Plane.) I think the parent (congress) needs to just let the kid (NASA) get a new car. It is long past time, and fixing the old car again, and again, and again will end up costing more in the long run.
-r.future
bfg technologies striks me as another company like this. If you go to their web site and look around you will see that theya re a group of techie gammers who made a video card company. If you look at the "Why we are different" section of their web site you will see that the
1. offer 24 hr tech support.
2. a lifetime guarantee on all their cards.
3. that the owners of the company are huge gamers who make the cards so that can use them when the play games.
I agree that VMware is not a start up, however I have been seeing more and more people running VMware now. I work in tech support and many techs, my eslf included, will run VMware because we will get calls from people running different opperating systems. So basicly we are using VMware to see what the people calling us are seeing.
I have also heard of some people running a P2P program in a VMware session, burning what they download to disc, then closing the VMware session. They do this so that the should some mega band, or the RIAA, want to sue them for the download they can't because the evidance disappears when they close the VMware session. (I have never tried this so I don't know if it would work.)
I have also seen may people using it to show demos of some of the more popular flavors of Linux, such as suse or red hat, to other people. (Even though they could just use knoppix.)
anyway, thats my two cents for what it's worth.
-r.future
I heard os something called a "poor man's copy right" where a non published author takes a copy of his/her writing and puts in a self address stamped envelope and mails it to him/her self. The post office will stap the date that the envelope was snet on the envelope. Upon receiving the now dated writing in the mail the author should put it into a safety deposit box.
The thory here being that if someone steals the authors un-copyrighted work the author should be able to sue the thief and use th the date on a sealed envelope, and the records showing when the author put it in his/her safty deposit box as proof.
My question is if any one knows if this ever has, or would ever really work?
Linus Torvalds is not all programers wear leather and ride skate boards like the people in "Hackers" and don't know kung-fu like the people in the "The Matrix."
To hell with this CS degree.
2.4GHz cordless phones also cause problems for 802.11X networks.
I do tech support for Belkin and I get no fewer than about 4-6 calls per day (I take 35-40 calls in an 8 hour shift)where a person will say something such as
"my wireless card will stop working randomly for no reason all the time."
The first question out of my mouth is do you have any cordless phones? When they say yes, I ask if they are 2.4GHz or 900MHz
if/when the person says "it's a 2.4" and I tell them that their phone will cause some interference most people are absolutely shocked.
Anyway, it's a great point to make, I wonder if it will come up in the court case.
I can just see the lawyer for the school district pointing out that the parents use the same technology that they think is so unsafe in thir homes.
-r.future
I do not believe that people should be charged money for intellectual property such as music or programs (however charging for the material that programs, and music are stored on [ie: CD's] is ok, as is charging for the service of performing the music or offering tech support for the program. It also stands to reason that I'm completely against fining any person or persons for obtaining intellectual property such as music, movies, e-books, or programs. (For what it's worth I also I believe that the internet should is a resource that should be free to people, the same way that air is.) The thought that a person can own an idea is really just baffling to me, ideas are not material possessions; like food, clothing, homes, cars etc, and IMO can't be treated the same way. Ideas, weather they are music, medicine, or programs should IMO be treated as open source software. After they are expressed it becomes fair game for the people who know how, to modify, and interpret the idea, or to incorporate it into other ideas. Basically both ideas and open source soft wear become stronger the more (as in number of people) work on them. People who take ideas and turn them into intellectual property (IE: copyrighting and selling them) are working for their own personal gain rather than for the growth of the human spices, when we get rid of intellectual property (copyrights) I believe that we
Disclaimer: I believe that the internet should is a resource that should be free to people, the same way that air is. I also believe do not believe that people should be charged money for intellectual property such as music or programs (however charging for the material that programs, and music are stored on [ie: CD's] is ok, as is charging for the service of performing the music or offering tech support for the program.
Having said that...
As the computers and the internet have become more prevalent in lives of the everyday person/consumer it has, IMO, had a revolutionary effect of the lives of everyday people. It has given them more power as consumers to communicate with one and other about products that are on the supposedly "open" market. Now the consumers can, and many of them do use to internet as a tool to provide, up to date, if not instantaneous, honest information to one and other about anything and everything that is out there to buy. Prior to the internet consumers had to rely on their own experience with products, or the experiences of other people they knew (a number far less than the people who are available communicate with on the net today.) Of course they could rely on dead-tree-media such as magazines, and books, which are not nearly as convenient as the net is for information. Lastly, they could of course rely on the people selling/making the product that they were buying to provide them with non-bias judgment of the products that they sell/make.
As the complex adaptive system that we call the internet, and its user base have evolved it has become, IMO, the most power tool for information transfer that the human spices have ever experienced; and now it has evolved into a truly revolutionary tool that people can use to actually give each other stuff that they would have to otherwise have to pay for. Now people can trade, music, picture, PDFs, and programs just to name a few. Note: that when I say "revolutionary" I mean not only that it is new and cutting edge, but that it is causing people to actually rebel against profiteering corporations that have been ripping off consumers for years.
In the case pf P2P people are actively rebelling against the recording industry. A industry that charges upwards of $20.00 for a few pieces of plastic, paper, and ink that cost the company that produces them for sale no more than a few dollars to produce.
Basically what I'm saying is that P2P was inevitable when the recording industry charges so much for something that costs so little. It is a direct result of their greed, and now there is just nothing they can do to completely stop it.
UnuMondo's post put it the best "The era of paying for music is over." And to quote Chuck D "P2P means power to the people."
-r.future
Granted the comments above by ES5 , which I believe were a diplomatic masterpiece of double speak, could be seen as humble at a surface glance, but in reality they were absolutely dripping with sarcasm.
But, I think we also need to take into account that ES5, for better or for worse, is attempting to fight back against the RIAA --a group that takes children to court for downloading music! So for what it's worth my opinion is; if you want to call ES5 childish, and compare them to a grade school playground argument that's fine. Just be sure to keep in mind that the other metaphorical 3'rd grader is the RIAA.
-r.future
I agree what your saying (as I believe my post above will indicate) but I wanted to know if you thought the mass emailing/faxing/phone calls etc that are organized online by places like moveon.org, commoncause.org, hrw.org, etc. Are those actions (the mass emails faxes and what not) a form of lobbying?
Reason I ask is because I'm still not sure if this is lobbying or something different, and I just wanted to see what other people though.
One thing I am sure about however, is that if movements online that create masses of people communicating to elected public officials is lobbying, (And even if it is something completely different) it is not nearly as powerful as the kind of lobbying that wealthy (in this case Microsoft) can do with money.
-r.future
Seriously though, a little lobbying is just fine in my book as long as that lobbying is truly an education of lawmakers on the issues and solutions to problems. The problem becomes when individual companies have such power and control as to dominate the lobbying process with money and resources so as to eclipse all other concerns.
I agree with you, if lobbying was just people attempting to talk to, inform, and educate etc lawmakers about whatever than I would have no problem with lobbying. However, I believe that now almost all lobbying is they type that you describe as a problem; the type where people are simply...lets be frank... buying decisions of law makers.
A "democracy" where money = votes (where he/she who can make the highest bid or has the most money gets what he/she wants) is not a true democracy at all, it's an oligarchy.
I personally feel, that until there is some sort of law that completely outlaws giving money by individuals (corporations counting as individuals) to elected officials the oligarchy will continue; real democracy will only be talked about in intellectual circles, and money = votes "democracy" will continue to be a placebo of the masses.
Just FYI here is some figures to show just what elected officials in the US make each year, I have no idea what UN officials make, so I think they could get by with out taking more money form the wealthy.
President of the US (Clinton was the last to make 200,000 Bush is the first to get this much.) $400,000
Rank and File Senators and Rep's $154,700
Senate Leadership Majority Leader - $171,900 Minority Leader - $171,900
House Leadership Speaker of the House - $198,600 Majority Leader - $171,900 Minority Leader - $171,900
Above info from usgovinfo and how stuff works