Not that I've used mp3.com lately, but I have not noticed a "mail us a check and we'll let you download some mp3's!". I have a friend who plays trombone for Broadway orchestras. He occaisionally gets recorded...and gets a royalty check. True, it's chump change, but he gets money nonetheless.
So now we have your typical net-artiste. Assuming this guy is doing it for the money, how does it (the money) get to him/her?!
You're talking to a guy who actually bought the retail counter-strike CD because he actually felt he owed it to the fine men and women who poured their lives into producing this great mod. In retrospect, I probably should have downloaded it for free and mailed 'em a $30 check in gratitude. But you see, it's the same problem. I want to support the people who make my quality of life better. I don't want them to disappear because I was too lazy or too forgetful to write a check.
First of all, a nit: it's not *all* music on the internet, it's just the music *"they" hold a copyright* on. Unless i mis-read The Standard article. All music != copyrighted music, and Good Journalism != Sensational Journalism
Second of all, who says artists have to go with a recording company to distribute in this Era of the Internet? This begs the question: "Can anyone come up with a system that will "eliminate the middle man" whilst allowing an artist to have a decent living?" I don't have an answer to that one, kids, but I agree that the current system (all money to the suits, the crumbs to the artists) stinks.
In their raw form, Man pages are G**D*** terrifying at worst, and confusing at best. That's why you have a Knowledgable Individual use them as a springboard when giving a brown bag. I would never give a novice a man page and say "Here, RTFM. Now you know everything." Unless I wanted to be a pr*ck that day.
For a true novice, you go to your Unix Tutorial Book of Choice, pick out what they consider to be The Most Important Commands (e.g. cd, ls, man, lpr, nethack) (how did nethack get in there?), add or subtract from the list as you see fit, and talk from that. I agree, in that situation I wouldn't even consider springing the man page on them.
If he doesn't reproduce it, and just talks from it, he can use it (fair use?).
I agree, if he just copies the book en-masse he's in copyright violation. If he reads the book, says "This is a rational way to present the information", and uses the book as a personal reference and develops his own handouts, he's fine.
Everything is derivitive. The important word here is derive. Word for word copy is bad. Using the text as a springboard is fine in my book;) BTW, IANAL, but I've seen "legitimate" companies do this (these same companies also encourage you to buy the book:)
It's been my experience that "free" tutorial/introduction materials are in short supply. Find a commercial book and talk from that.
I taught a UNIX class, on and off, for about six months. The springboard was an introduction to UNIX book, but the exercises and handouts were developed (and copyrighted) by the continuing education company I freelanced for. Finding the book is easy. Comming up with a "good" set of training/tutorial exercises is "hard".
Think about how much time you want to put into this, too, and the kinds of sessions you want to have. I gave informal talks at a previous employer where I did "illuminated MAN pages", i.e. print the MAN page for the topic de jure (including the MAN command;) ) and talk about all the crufty little arguments you can throw at any particualar UNIX command.
The problem of the environment is the "problem of the commons", it's everyone's property, but nobody's responsibility. While it's true that we need to protect the environment, having an active space program allows us to not have "all our eggs in one basket." (my, I'm a wealth of metaphores today).
Let's one forget one other thing we can "mine" in the asteroid belt: WATER. Water for space stations. Water for lunar colonies.
This "problem" does not supprise me. The Fine Folks at Mozilla, while developing a damnfine browser, seem to be in denial about proxy servers: the proxy "feature" was fixed and broken about three times in the last six months (at least in Linux. YMMV).
Needless to say, Moz works like a champ now (thanks guys!). I guess most of these Netscape types don't have to live behind a firewall (it doesn't seem like they have to test through a firewall, either...)
Having said that, For God's sake, Moz/Netscape guys, don't stop! We wouldn't complain if we didn't care!
As always, with this kind of operation, the issue here is control. The Powers That Be in The Company must feel that they are "in control." Of their networks. Of their computers. Of their emplouees. Hell, of their paper clips! This kind of stuff gives them the willies.
I worked as a contractor for, shall we say, a player in the intellegence community a loooooong time ago, and let me tell you this: these guys have paranoia dribbled into their veins every night, right along with their maalox. Humor is not part of the job. Especially where computers are concerned.
These poor mooks are gonna get slammed, and slammed hard for their "innovation." The Company doesn't want stars, they want people who follow orders and procedures. When they get to the executive director level, maybe then they can get creative. Oh, but I forgot, at that level you're so political that any creativity outside of political survival is a liability...
As for platform independence, I think it's highly overrated by slashdot readers. All it really does is force you to leave out advanced features and code for the weakest link in the system. Don't get me wrong, I have to swallow the pill and dumb down a lot of the work I do so it will run correctly on a Mac or Netscape to reach all of the target audience sometimes, but much 'sweeter' applications can be developed in LESS time if you consentrate on a target platform.
Congratulations! You have managed to place something intellegent inside a wrapper that's sure to be labled "flamebait". You appear to like the MS platform. It works for you, and that's great. And it's true: if I were developing for purely the MS platform, I would choose pure MS tools.
HOWEVER, the center of the galaxy is not Redmond, and your experience is not everyone's experience. There are those of us, both in commerce and in government, that must develop for a range of platforms. For us, the phrase "Just Use.NET" is not an option. So what other "solution" does Mr. Bill and his cronies offer us? What solution do you offer us?
Writing applications that are platform independent is my cross to bear, and I don't like the "solution" from Microsoft.
Does M$ "have" to care about "us". Hell no! Not with 90+% of the desktop market sown up. They can do whatever the fsck they want! Do we object to M$ cramming their soultion down our throats? HELL YES.
I feel better now. thank you for you time and attention...
I'm afraid we're "violently agreeing" here. When I typed "Journalist" with a capital "J", it was my shorthand for "mainstream media/professionally employed, and protected by corporate lawyers."
The sad fact of the matter is, it doesn't matter that he's a "journalist" (small j, all the rights, privlidges, and responsibilities thereof), he's not a "Journalist", and so finds himself in the "how must justice can you afford?" situation.
I'm not expecting The Fourth Estate to close ranks to defend this guy. Unless, of course, it'll make a nice sound bite on the 6:00 news...
The only mistake this guy made was that he was not a Journalist when he metaphorically pulled @Home's pants down. As a Little Guy, he runs the risk of being crushed like a bug (or at least be the subject of Corporate Amerika's own Denial of Service attack).
And does the fact that he is Just A Little Guy make @Home's "customer service" policy any less vile?
As far as I can tell, this really depends on your company, and your line of management as well.
I work for a company that is M$ centric for workstations, but relies on Sun machines to actually provide our service. The attitude here is "as long as it lets you do your job, and you don't bother the IS guys with Linux questions, you're fine."
The last phrase is all-important. If you use something non-standard, you bear the responsibility of making it work. And you had better not waste too much time getting things to work!
Just In Case, my machine is dual boot. If the suits want to see Windows on my machine, why should I dissapoint them.
To recap: your milage may vary. I work in a geek-centric department, for a company that provides kind of a geeky service. My brother, who works for A Financial Institution, has nowhere near as much latitude as I do.
Should you risk your job in order to get it done? My advice is pick your battles carefully.
What if a civilization decides to colonize the
galaxy. What assumptions can they make? Not
a whole frigging lot. So they build a Von Neuman probe, but instead of instructions to build copies of the creators at the target star, it has orders to fabricate anything and everything that might stay alive in whatever kind of soup it finds.
Can we say "Cambrian Explosion?"
So (to paraphrase the SA article) the colonization wave front lag is not 5000 years, but 700 million years (give or take. time for intelligent life to develop, if it develops at all).
So. The proof of extraterrestrial visitation is in our own fossil records. Maybe:)
Of course, this doesn't answer the question of where the frigging signals are. Maybe the ET's just build a bigass farday cage around us (Oort cloud?) that filters out the frequencies they use. After all, their VN probe is still here, put it to work.
Why would ET's do *that*? Ask a cop what use a one way mirror is. My brain hurts, you guys pick it up from here...
Dammit, then, there should be more porn on/. You should be mailed a twinkie every time you surf to the website, too, just so it could be fattening, and immoral. It's not illegal yet. Maybe we should start to encrypt and make "them" think that it is. After all, only criminals encrypt... I am not a number, I am a free radical number 6.2
I asked the same question in 1978. The answer depends on what you want to do with it. If you want to be a propeller-head PHD and fight the academic wars, then go for a first tier school. If (like me) you're just interested in getting a little bit of an edge on your contemporaries, then it really doesn't frigging matter. Yes, I have an MS in CS. That's as far as I went, and as far as I wanted to go. You see, academics and The Patronage System drive me nuts. If I have to suck someone's dick to get somewhere, I at least want to be well paid. In Academia, they expect you to suck dick...and be grateful for the "learning experience." Expecially if your Patron, er, "advisor" is a Big Name. Be prepared to have some of your best work have his name attached to it.
Don't get me wrong. It ain't much better in the Real World. But at least you'll be driving a late model car instead of a 1983 Nova. All depends on your value system.
"Thanks to technology, images move quickly. Truth and clarity lags far behind. When it comes to sorting out the difference, we are on our own."
I stopped listening to "mainstream" media about 10 years ago. God help me, I get my news now from National Peoples (er) Public Radio and news lists like this one. Just give me the facts, I'll tell you how I feel:)
Slashdot Mirror
You know, I would spend big bucks to go into orbit to see this.
that is, if I had big bucks...
Stirring the pot since nineteen mumblty mumble...
Not that I've used mp3.com lately, but I have not noticed a "mail us a check and we'll let you download some mp3's!". I have a friend who plays trombone for Broadway orchestras. He occaisionally gets recorded...and gets a royalty check. True, it's chump change, but he gets money nonetheless.
So now we have your typical net-artiste. Assuming this guy is doing it for the money, how does it (the money) get to him/her?!
You're talking to a guy who actually bought the retail counter-strike CD because he actually felt he owed it to the fine men and women who poured their lives into producing this great mod. In retrospect, I probably should have downloaded it for free and mailed 'em a $30 check in gratitude. But you see, it's the same problem. I want to support the people who make my quality of life better. I don't want them to disappear because I was too lazy or too forgetful to write a check.
How do we get the Web to support this?!?
First of all, a nit: it's not *all* music on the internet, it's just the music *"they" hold a copyright* on. Unless i mis-read The Standard article. All music != copyrighted music, and Good Journalism != Sensational Journalism
Second of all, who says artists have to go with a recording company to distribute in this Era of the Internet? This begs the question: "Can anyone come up with a system that will "eliminate the middle man" whilst allowing an artist to have a decent living?" I don't have an answer to that one, kids, but I agree that the current system (all money to the suits, the crumbs to the artists) stinks.
We violently agree :)
In their raw form, Man pages are G**D*** terrifying at worst, and confusing at best. That's why you have a Knowledgable Individual use them as a springboard when giving a brown bag. I would never give a novice a man page and say "Here, RTFM. Now you know everything." Unless I wanted to be a pr*ck that day.
For a true novice, you go to your Unix Tutorial Book of Choice, pick out what they consider to be The Most Important Commands (e.g. cd, ls, man, lpr, nethack) (how did nethack get in there?), add or subtract from the list as you see fit, and talk from that. I agree, in that situation I wouldn't even consider springing the man page on them.
If he doesn't reproduce it, and just talks from it, he can use it (fair use?).
I agree, if he just copies the book en-masse he's in copyright violation. If he reads the book, says "This is a rational way to present the information", and uses the book as a personal reference and develops his own handouts, he's fine.
Everything is derivitive. The important word here is derive. Word for word copy is bad. Using the text as a springboard is fine in my book ;) BTW, IANAL, but I've seen "legitimate" companies do this (these same companies also encourage you to buy the book :)
It's been my experience that "free" tutorial/introduction materials are in short supply. Find a commercial book and talk from that.
I taught a UNIX class, on and off, for about six months. The springboard was an introduction to UNIX book, but the exercises and handouts were developed (and copyrighted) by the continuing education company I freelanced for. Finding the book is easy. Comming up with a "good" set of training/tutorial exercises is "hard".
Think about how much time you want to put into this, too, and the kinds of sessions you want to have. I gave informal talks at a previous employer where I did "illuminated MAN pages", i.e. print the MAN page for the topic de jure (including the MAN command ;) ) and talk about all the crufty little arguments you can throw at any particualar UNIX command.
hope this helps
stirring the pot since nineteen mumblty mumble
The problem of the environment is the "problem of the commons", it's everyone's property, but nobody's responsibility. While it's true that we need to protect the environment, having an active space program allows us to not have "all our eggs in one basket." (my, I'm a wealth of metaphores today).
Let's one forget one other thing we can "mine" in the asteroid belt: WATER. Water for space stations. Water for lunar colonies.
Hey, a guy can dream, can't he?
stirring the pot since nineteen mumblty mumble
who moderated this obvious troll to "insightful"?!?!?
I read this because my original somehow got moderated up :o
Yeah, I want people who can follow orders working for Our Intellegence Community too. (*sigh*) I guess I can't have my cake and eat it, too...
This "problem" does not supprise me. The Fine Folks at Mozilla, while developing a damnfine browser, seem to be in denial about proxy servers: the proxy "feature" was fixed and broken about three times in the last six months (at least in Linux. YMMV).
Needless to say, Moz works like a champ now (thanks guys!). I guess most of these Netscape types don't have to live behind a firewall (it doesn't seem like they have to test through a firewall, either...)
Having said that, For God's sake, Moz/Netscape guys, don't stop! We wouldn't complain if we didn't care!
Stirring the pot since nineteen mumblty mumble...
As always, with this kind of operation, the issue here is control. The Powers That Be in The Company must feel that they are "in control." Of their networks. Of their computers. Of their emplouees. Hell, of their paper clips! This kind of stuff gives them the willies.
I worked as a contractor for, shall we say, a player in the intellegence community a loooooong time ago, and let me tell you this: these guys have paranoia dribbled into their veins every night, right along with their maalox. Humor is not part of the job. Especially where computers are concerned.
These poor mooks are gonna get slammed, and slammed hard for their "innovation." The Company doesn't want stars, they want people who follow orders and procedures. When they get to the executive director level, maybe then they can get creative. Oh, but I forgot, at that level you're so political that any creativity outside of political survival is a liability...
As they said in "The Prisoner": "Be seeing you!"
Congratulations! You have managed to place something intellegent inside a wrapper that's sure to be labled "flamebait". You appear to like the MS platform. It works for you, and that's great. And it's true: if I were developing for purely the MS platform, I would choose pure MS tools.
HOWEVER, the center of the galaxy is not Redmond, and your experience is not everyone's experience. There are those of us, both in commerce and in government, that must develop for a range of platforms. For us, the phrase "Just Use .NET" is not an option. So what other "solution" does Mr. Bill and his cronies offer us? What solution do you offer us?
Writing applications that are platform independent is my cross to bear, and I don't like the "solution" from Microsoft.
Does M$ "have" to care about "us". Hell no! Not with 90+% of the desktop market sown up. They can do whatever the fsck they want! Do we object to M$ cramming their soultion down our throats? HELL YES.
I feel better now. thank you for you time and attention...
I'm afraid we're "violently agreeing" here. When I typed "Journalist" with a capital "J", it was my shorthand for "mainstream media/professionally employed, and protected by corporate lawyers."
The sad fact of the matter is, it doesn't matter that he's a "journalist" (small j, all the rights, privlidges, and responsibilities thereof), he's not a "Journalist", and so finds himself in the "how must justice can you afford?" situation.
I'm not expecting The Fourth Estate to close ranks to defend this guy. Unless, of course, it'll make a nice sound bite on the 6:00 news...
stirring the pot since 19 mumblty mumble...
And does the fact that he is Just A Little Guy make @Home's "customer service" policy any less vile?
stirring the pot since 19 mumblty mumble
I work for a company that is M$ centric for workstations, but relies on Sun machines to actually provide our service. The attitude here is "as long as it lets you do your job, and you don't bother the IS guys with Linux questions, you're fine."
The last phrase is all-important. If you use something non-standard, you bear the responsibility of making it work. And you had better not waste too much time getting things to work!
Just In Case, my machine is dual boot. If the suits want to see Windows on my machine, why should I dissapoint them.
To recap: your milage may vary. I work in a geek-centric department, for a company that provides kind of a geeky service. My brother, who works for A Financial Institution, has nowhere near as much latitude as I do.
Should you risk your job in order to get it done? My advice is pick your battles carefully.
What if we re-think what "colonization" means.
What if a civilization decides to colonize the galaxy. What assumptions can they make? Not a whole frigging lot. So they build a Von Neuman probe, but instead of instructions to build copies of the creators at the target star, it has orders to fabricate anything and everything that might stay alive in whatever kind of soup it finds.
Can we say "Cambrian Explosion?"
So (to paraphrase the SA article) the colonization wave front lag is not 5000 years, but 700 million years (give or take. time for intelligent life to develop, if it develops at all).
So. The proof of extraterrestrial visitation is in our own fossil records. Maybe :)
Of course, this doesn't answer the question of where the frigging signals are. Maybe the ET's just build a bigass farday cage around us (Oort cloud?) that filters out the frequencies they use. After all, their VN probe is still here, put it to work.
Why would ET's do *that*? Ask a cop what use a one way mirror is. My brain hurts, you guys pick it up from here...
Just my 2 cents
Dammit, then, there should be more porn on /. You should be mailed a twinkie every time you surf to the website, too, just so it could be fattening, and immoral. It's not illegal yet. Maybe we should start to encrypt and make "them" think that it is. After all, only criminals encrypt...
I am not a number, I am a free radical
number 6.2
I asked the same question in 1978. The answer depends on what you want to do with it. If you want to be a propeller-head PHD and fight the academic wars, then go for a first tier school. If (like me) you're just interested in getting a little bit of an edge on your contemporaries, then it really doesn't frigging matter. Yes, I have an MS in CS. That's as far as I went, and as far as I wanted to go. You see, academics and The Patronage System drive me nuts. If I have to suck someone's dick to get somewhere, I at least want to be well paid. In Academia, they expect you to suck dick...and be grateful for the "learning experience." Expecially if your Patron, er, "advisor" is a Big Name. Be prepared to have some of your best work have his name attached to it.
Don't get me wrong. It ain't much better in the Real World. But at least you'll be driving a late model car instead of a 1983 Nova. All depends on your value system.
Good Luck
I stopped listening to "mainstream" media about 10 years ago. God help me, I get my news now from National Peoples (er) Public Radio and news lists like this one. Just give me the facts, I'll tell you how I feel