Yup. It seems to me that whenever people have a beef with the GPL, it's because it keeps the playing field from being tilted in whichever way they feel it should be tilted.
The GPL is an equalizer, and puts software back into the realm where it began and where I think it always belonged: cooperative science.
Having a 90% market share leads inexorably to the stalling of innovation.
I think you're confused. "Market share" suggests there's money involved. IE is given away and so is FF. Dominance would mean its developers get to lead the future of website architecture. The reason market dominance usually leads to stagnation is that the expansionistic profit motive passes away with the lack of anywhere to expand to. Since browser dominance is a game of influence rather than money, the result of dominance depends on what the top dog is in the game for.
To understand IE you must think of it as a subsidized power grab, like MSN* or the XBOX. MSFT threw a bunch of money at exterminating Netscape and capturing the Internet in order to safeguard their OS monopoly (if the web standardized on a cross-platform browser, Windows would become irrelevant!). The whole point of IE is to disrupt or commandeer web standardization. Once MSFT got what they came for, spending time and money on IE ceased to be necessary. So it stagnated. It becomes understandable why CSS2 would remain broken, and why they aren't bothering to add certain features some of us would consider show-stoppers.
With Mozilla being Open Source, there will always be developers scratching itches and coming up with interesting new things to try. I would love to live in the midst of an OSS-led monopoly, because profit motives won't cause stagnation. Only lack of interest will. And I don't see interest in web browsers waning anytime soon.
No, but it's supposed to make bundling illegal. The one big thing that is illegal for monopolies is any attempt to leverage their current monopoly to dominate other markets. Subsidized by their OS and office app monopolies, MSFT's money pits like the XBOX and MSN* continue to exist. I don't know if mere subsidization is "leveraging" enough, but I think it should be.
They got away with the clearly illegal browser bundling, and are only building upon that. This should, IMHO, make many of their powergrabs illegal. But politicians don't get careers by crusading for what they think is right. They get their careers by bending over for the deep-pocketed corporations. (Why else do you think Democrats are cooperating so nicely with the pro-business, anti-people agenda they claim to oppose?)
IE 7 is a catch-up operation. They'll bring IE up to speed with FF, and the rumor elsewhere in this thread is that tabbed browsing may not make it into IE.
So IE 7 will sit for another few years and FF will never have stopped, rocketing ahead again. And IE will *still* be the platform of WWW annoyances. I suspect the debut of IE 7 will be proof of the sluggish bureaucracy MSFT has apparently become.
...especially considering that parts of the PATRIOT Act consisted of the laundry list of expanded powers law enforcement agencies couldn't get out of Congress previously.
Don't be surprised if most of the PATRIOT Act is there because of the political opportunism and power grabs.
And unlike the headline/snippet, the argument here shouldn't be about confirmed abuses anyway. Expanded federal power is almost always a bad idea because concentrated power WILL be abused. That it might not have yet proves nothing.
First of all, I too apologize on behalf of my weird governor.
Second, "tax-and-spend liberal" a nonsensical snarl word for Democrats who want to make sure their expenses are accounted for. Covering costs epitomizes fiscal responsibility. If the government is going to do things, it needs money to pay for it. Unless, of course, your definition of "fiscal responsibility" is that of George W. Bush's, in which subsidizing megacorps and funding frivolous crusades is A-OK, "deficits don't matter," and debts can be paid by sending the Dollar the way of the Deutchmark.
>The system should take care of itself. >The world doesn't work that way.
Why not? I plug in my digital camera in MacOS, Win2k, or even Fedora and things work fine. Same with my USB thumb drive. Why shouldn't everything work this way? Software design should be sophisticated enough by now that you should be able to plug in a device and have it function properly without extensive hacking. Platform should be irrelevant.
This l33t sysadmin necessity, this driver/compatibility thing really is what's turning Linux into a headache for those who want it on their desktops. Creating software is about satisfying the needs of whoever is going to use it, and if the "community" wants to preach so loudly about Linux on the desktop they had better be listening to these problems.
My personal lack of Linux headaches stems mostly from my not using unusual hardware. Plain desktop system with plain PS/2 peripherals and a plain VGA display and a USB printer. I've learned the hard way that fancier hardware--heck, even a mouse with more than "3" buttons--is a no-no on Linux unless high maintenance is your goal.
While blogs have had an influence, it is because of their amplification of [various strata of] public opinion, not necessarily because of journalistic integrity. They were the medium through which we found out the most about the Ohio/Florida vote irregularities. We bloggers seem to have the odd ability to respond to something en masse to get a story heard on the news that otherwise might be ignored.
Do you suppose Bev Harris or the moral community in the U.S. would have made ANY progress without an online horde drumming up publicity for the common-sense notion that votes should be counted? From the stonewalling the issue has received, I think not.
Bloggers are a symptom, not some glorious revolution. If the media was doing its job, none of us [politically oriented bloggers] would bother.
You are absolutely correct that we need to consider every angle before doing something to nature. I mourn the loss of the Native American societies who lived not to domineer over nature but to be wise stewards within it.
My problem is with statements like "...consequenses would certainly be local....". How do we know that?
We know that because we already have machines that slaughter the bloodsuckers en masse. I mentioned them above. They mimic the breath of a mammal to lure mosquitos. They cut down the *local* mosquito population.
I have yet to hear of any catastrophic environmental consequences. I'm all for conservation/restoration, but the mosquito population where it's thick enough to be annoying could easily stand to be lessened and still be enough to feed birds/pollinate flowers/whatever. Realize that there can be MILLIONS of these little bastards in a single area. The out-of-control skeeter numbers are, I presume, due to some other human-caused problem. Like I said before, I think we've already wiped out any "environment" that could need protecting. In fact, I'd wager there are many of situations where actively controlling the mosquito population would be the *responsible* thing to do.
Nevertheless, as irritating as I find mosquitos, and as much as I would welcome a world without little winged vampires, the best course of action is for people to just grin and bear it--or wear some OFF. They're just mosquitos. But if/when they become a health hazard (if West Nile gets out of control, for example), I choose humans over bugs.
This thread is hitting on an important differentiation between user groups. There are people who want simplicity and others who want/need complexity. This is fine. Let the Windows users use Windows. Let the MacOS users use MacOS. Let the *nix users use *nix.
The problem that *I* see in this market landscape is how *nix gets at best completely ignored and at worst actively excluded. *nix users are relegated to a realm of scavenging for drivers or tolerating sucky ones, nitpicking on their hardware because of aforementioned drivers, and missing out on several multimedia features or extra bells and whistles of the proprietary-tech-dominated hardware and Intarweb.
To take the thread's metaphor: the Linux and BSD crowd are driving around in their beturreted Bradleys, but no manufacturer will bother to undertake the miniscule effort to build a CD player for the tanks--something all the economy cars already have. The *nix guys have to build and install their own. Not that they can't--they often do, but it's a pain in the neck and keeps them quite a bit behind the multimedia trends of the Metros and Civics putting about. Hardware and software manufacturers have in their hands the ability to make our lives a lot easier as *nix users. But either because of perceived unmarketability or a desire not to piss off the elephant in the room (MSFT), they leave us to our own--um--devices. This is what annoys me most about using *nix, but worry-free web browsing and reliable control (and zero monetary cost) is worth the occasional headache.
True. Creation has a complexity we aren't even close to understanding. But mosquitos are annoying, disease-ridden parasites. I don't see any problem at all with eliminating them from the (sub)urban landscape; there's hardly any animal life left in those places anyway. The consequences would certainly be local, and arguably minimal. And we have machines, elaborate roach motels for mosquitos, that already that do this.
You must have been running Woody. Any edition of KDE since the Cretaceous Period will look just fine. I've especially liked GNOME since 2.6. GNOME's themes usually have a nice clean polish to them.
If people are really concerned about looks, give them any iteration of SUSE since 9.0. Or show them how to use KDE-LOOK.ORG or ART.GNOME.ORG. They'll be busy all day customizing their UI.
The one REAL UI problem we've got, though, is speed. There is much faster visual feedback in Windows than on any Linux distro I've ever seen. The Windows desktop framerate is often too fast for the naked eye to catch--making window and cursor movements very smooth and easy on the eyes. X is nowhere near that I can watch the frames tick by as I move a window. And I'm on a 2.4GHz Celeron. It's one of those little touches that makes Windows look nicer even though the graphic art is inferior.
How do people get +3 Insightful for completely missing the point?
First, I don't know about anyone else, but it is an incredible pain trying to run Windows (2000, at least, in my experience) as anything but Administrator.
Second: what is this "Maybe he is just an idiot" crap? He could easily have a wife who, like anybody else, would prefer to have their computer how they want it and for others to leave it alone. I know plenty of people who get irritated if anyone changes things on their personal computers--much less use them. As for rootkits, etc., are 80% of Windows users (the people who have this problem) really going to have access to those things, the skills to use them, or even the dimmest knowledge of their existence? Of course not.
Jumping down this guy's throat over the state of his wife's computer is completely missing the point. His point is that there are millions of people just like her, and his weighing of the pros and cons makes Windows an absurd choice for a desktop OS. Address that. Stop grasping for ways to tear him down instead of his argument.
Sounds like a version of 28 Days Later based on Mars to me.
And using the doorway-into-hell story of the original game could be compared to Event Horizon. What's your point? Besides, IMHO, 28 Days Later was good. Better, in fact, than Event Horizon.
If SCO can sell imaginary "licenses," what's to stop us (FLOSS evangelists) from giving away real ones? Apparently people have gotten used to the idea that software needs some kind of strict license, cost, or license cost associated with it. So go print something fancy and give them what they want!
If people want to pay money for a silly piece of paper (which, come to think of it, is what they purchase when they "buy Windows") let them! Just slip them some software while you're at it.
Perhaps now would be a good time for Intel to launch its enigmatic ZIG program. Nobody's quite sure what it is but rumor has it that the new initiative could result in great justice.
Let me get this straight. Music sharing isn't actually hurting the music industry, maybe it's even helping them,[I think you're confusing the music "industry," the RIAA, with the music "profession," the artists.] but you should do as much of it as possible because it will bring down the evil music monopoly and then we'll be living in paradise, so don't buy a CD because it won't really help any artist, just download their copyrighted material for free so that you help end the evil empire of the RIAA after which we won't continue to just freely distribute whatever we want to through this massive network of unregulated, uncontrollable digital distribution we've created, instead somehow all the artists will be fairly compensated, I think by some kind of magical money fairy that flies right out of my ass...
I don't know if it flew out of YOUR ass exactly, but that magical money fairy has been around for a long time. That fairy comes from the fans--who pay the artists for the shows they do through ticket sales and other merchandise. "Album Sales == Artist's Income" is the premise that's on crack. It seems to be a secondary income at best. It is the major source of the RIAA's income. The RIAA companies were in the business of promotion and distribution. Now that they've become so powerful, they need to be in the business of litigation, legislation, and popularity control* if they're going to keep their monopoly.
The roles of promotion/distribution can now be filled very inexpensively and mostly by the fans. The RIAA is now only as relevant as their lawyers/marketroids are persuasive. I'm not saying they should be dissolved, but they sure as hell don't need or deserve all the power they have.
*popularity control - the device used by The One True Record Label (RIAA) to control what is/isn't popular by promoting the hell out of whatever they need to sell next, regardless of its quality. That's how we get all that crappy music crammed down our throats.
More bloggers doing their own reporting would be good for several reasons:
1: Independent viewpoint where the spin is either lesser or clearer.
2: Free of the need to please your boss' sponsors.
3: No, a single hobbyist (you're the first person I've seen to spell that correctly, congratulations) blogger couldn't compete with an army of corporate reporters. On the other hand, a grassroots mass of interdependent, peer-reviewed bloggers--open-source reporting if you will--I believe would turn out some high quality work, maybe even provide a place for AP, MPA, etc. to look for people to hire. I already trust "Democracy Now!" and Indymedia more than I do CNN or Fox. Why? The voices are independent of corporate sponsors. They are a necessary addition to CNN, et al, if I am going to consider myself informed.
Something I wish more bloggers would do is go out and do their own reporting and journalism.
At the same time I disagree with Junks Jerzey on one count: The good blogs that rehash existing news stories often come up with insightful new connections. They do have merit.
As for doing real journalism: Hey bloggers! Find a topic, figure out who it affects among the people where you are, and start asking people questions. Interview people, do research, and write about those things. Come up with original material rather than react to pre-existing news stories. It's a lot more fun and fulfilling.
There are some bloggers who do this. I aspire to do it when opportunities arise (I'm still a student so sometimes coursework takes precedence). Since I've been hired to do that kind of blogging in a newspaper's website, I figure I at least owe them some original content and not just--as the parent so aptly put it--letters to the editor.
As a bonus I'll throw in this bit of wisdom from legendary reporter and journalist Bill Moyers: Real News is the news we need to keep our freedom. That's what should guide CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX, MSNBC, and whothefuckever else dares to call themselves a news source.
The "benevolent rulers" idea is condescendingly paternalistic and doomed to fail. All it takes is one selfish ruler to ruin everything.
The American system was working the way it ought to have for quite a while. The rulers were directly accountable to the people and if they don't do a good job then the people vote the fuckers out. That way if you want to stay in power you have to keep working for the people's good. And there's lots of representation, and lots of checks and balances between arms of the gov't. That way things would grind slowly but almost always in the public interest.
How that system broke is another post altogether. It's got a lot to do with corporate power and having a free, critical and objective press.
The delusion that there are always two and only two sides to an issue would be blown away completely if our voting system didn't mathematically preclude only two dominant parties. Imagine four or five people at a presidential debate, offering their very different perspectives on issues. I've seen the third-party candidates do it, and in multi-party environments it's far easier to treat one another respectably, to not pretend the guy across a particular divide is an idiot. Like Cobb does of Badnarik. Thinks he's dead wrong about health care, but not an idiot. The parent is also right that sometimes there IS only one smart side and many stupid ones. The inverse is also true.
I don't know if America is ready for that kind of mature thinking.
Slashdot Mirror
Yup. It seems to me that whenever people have a beef with the GPL, it's because it keeps the playing field from being tilted in whichever way they feel it should be tilted.
The GPL is an equalizer, and puts software back into the realm where it began and where I think it always belonged: cooperative science.
Having a 90% market share leads inexorably to the stalling of innovation.
I think you're confused. "Market share" suggests there's money involved. IE is given away and so is FF. Dominance would mean its developers get to lead the future of website architecture. The reason market dominance usually leads to stagnation is that the expansionistic profit motive passes away with the lack of anywhere to expand to. Since browser dominance is a game of influence rather than money, the result of dominance depends on what the top dog is in the game for.
To understand IE you must think of it as a subsidized power grab, like MSN* or the XBOX. MSFT threw a bunch of money at exterminating Netscape and capturing the Internet in order to safeguard their OS monopoly (if the web standardized on a cross-platform browser, Windows would become irrelevant!). The whole point of IE is to disrupt or commandeer web standardization. Once MSFT got what they came for, spending time and money on IE ceased to be necessary. So it stagnated. It becomes understandable why CSS2 would remain broken, and why they aren't bothering to add certain features some of us would consider show-stoppers.
With Mozilla being Open Source, there will always be developers scratching itches and coming up with interesting new things to try. I would love to live in the midst of an OSS-led monopoly, because profit motives won't cause stagnation. Only lack of interest will. And I don't see interest in web browsers waning anytime soon.
No, but it's supposed to make bundling illegal. The one big thing that is illegal for monopolies is any attempt to leverage their current monopoly to dominate other markets. Subsidized by their OS and office app monopolies, MSFT's money pits like the XBOX and MSN* continue to exist. I don't know if mere subsidization is "leveraging" enough, but I think it should be.
They got away with the clearly illegal browser bundling, and are only building upon that. This should, IMHO, make many of their powergrabs illegal. But politicians don't get careers by crusading for what they think is right. They get their careers by bending over for the deep-pocketed corporations. (Why else do you think Democrats are cooperating so nicely with the pro-business, anti-people agenda they claim to oppose?)
IE 7 is a catch-up operation. They'll bring IE up to speed with FF, and the rumor elsewhere in this thread is that tabbed browsing may not make it into IE.
So IE 7 will sit for another few years and FF will never have stopped, rocketing ahead again. And IE will *still* be the platform of WWW annoyances. I suspect the debut of IE 7 will be proof of the sluggish bureaucracy MSFT has apparently become.
...especially considering that parts of the PATRIOT Act consisted of the laundry list of expanded powers law enforcement agencies couldn't get out of Congress previously.
Don't be surprised if most of the PATRIOT Act is there because of the political opportunism and power grabs.
And unlike the headline/snippet, the argument here shouldn't be about confirmed abuses anyway. Expanded federal power is almost always a bad idea because concentrated power WILL be abused. That it might not have yet proves nothing.
"IE Vulnerable..." instead of "Firefox Exploit..."
The former is hardly newsworthy. The latter is more accurate and constructive.
I'm as frustrated with MSFT as the next guy, but honestly...
First of all, I too apologize on behalf of my weird governor.
Second, "tax-and-spend liberal" a nonsensical snarl word for Democrats who want to make sure their expenses are accounted for. Covering costs epitomizes fiscal responsibility. If the government is going to do things, it needs money to pay for it. Unless, of course, your definition of "fiscal responsibility" is that of George W. Bush's, in which subsidizing megacorps and funding frivolous crusades is A-OK, "deficits don't matter," and debts can be paid by sending the Dollar the way of the Deutchmark.
>The system should take care of itself.
>The world doesn't work that way.
Why not? I plug in my digital camera in MacOS, Win2k, or even Fedora and things work fine. Same with my USB thumb drive. Why shouldn't everything work this way? Software design should be sophisticated enough by now that you should be able to plug in a device and have it function properly without extensive hacking. Platform should be irrelevant.
This l33t sysadmin necessity, this driver/compatibility thing really is what's turning Linux into a headache for those who want it on their desktops. Creating software is about satisfying the needs of whoever is going to use it, and if the "community" wants to preach so loudly about Linux on the desktop they had better be listening to these problems.
My personal lack of Linux headaches stems mostly from my not using unusual hardware. Plain desktop system with plain PS/2 peripherals and a plain VGA display and a USB printer. I've learned the hard way that fancier hardware--heck, even a mouse with more than "3" buttons--is a no-no on Linux unless high maintenance is your goal.
While blogs have had an influence, it is because of their amplification of [various strata of] public opinion, not necessarily because of journalistic integrity. They were the medium through which we found out the most about the Ohio/Florida vote irregularities. We bloggers seem to have the odd ability to respond to something en masse to get a story heard on the news that otherwise might be ignored.
Do you suppose Bev Harris or the moral community in the U.S. would have made ANY progress without an online horde drumming up publicity for the common-sense notion that votes should be counted? From the stonewalling the issue has received, I think not.
Bloggers are a symptom, not some glorious revolution. If the media was doing its job, none of us [politically oriented bloggers] would bother.
You are absolutely correct that we need to consider every angle before doing something to nature. I mourn the loss of the Native American societies who lived not to domineer over nature but to be wise stewards within it.
My problem is with statements like "...consequenses would certainly be local....". How do we know that?
We know that because we already have machines that slaughter the bloodsuckers en masse. I mentioned them above. They mimic the breath of a mammal to lure mosquitos. They cut down the *local* mosquito population.
I have yet to hear of any catastrophic environmental consequences. I'm all for conservation/restoration, but the mosquito population where it's thick enough to be annoying could easily stand to be lessened and still be enough to feed birds/pollinate flowers/whatever. Realize that there can be MILLIONS of these little bastards in a single area. The out-of-control skeeter numbers are, I presume, due to some other human-caused problem. Like I said before, I think we've already wiped out any "environment" that could need protecting. In fact, I'd wager there are many of situations where actively controlling the mosquito population would be the *responsible* thing to do.
Nevertheless, as irritating as I find mosquitos, and as much as I would welcome a world without little winged vampires, the best course of action is for people to just grin and bear it--or wear some OFF. They're just mosquitos. But if/when they become a health hazard (if West Nile gets out of control, for example), I choose humans over bugs.
This thread is hitting on an important differentiation between user groups. There are people who want simplicity and others who want/need complexity. This is fine. Let the Windows users use Windows. Let the MacOS users use MacOS. Let the *nix users use *nix.
The problem that *I* see in this market landscape is how *nix gets at best completely ignored and at worst actively excluded. *nix users are relegated to a realm of scavenging for drivers or tolerating sucky ones, nitpicking on their hardware because of aforementioned drivers, and missing out on several multimedia features or extra bells and whistles of the proprietary-tech-dominated hardware and Intarweb.
To take the thread's metaphor: the Linux and BSD crowd are driving around in their beturreted Bradleys, but no manufacturer will bother to undertake the miniscule effort to build a CD player for the tanks--something all the economy cars already have. The *nix guys have to build and install their own. Not that they can't--they often do, but it's a pain in the neck and keeps them quite a bit behind the multimedia trends of the Metros and Civics putting about. Hardware and software manufacturers have in their hands the ability to make our lives a lot easier as *nix users. But either because of perceived unmarketability or a desire not to piss off the elephant in the room (MSFT), they leave us to our own--um--devices. This is what annoys me most about using *nix, but worry-free web browsing and reliable control (and zero monetary cost) is worth the occasional headache.
True. Creation has a complexity we aren't even close to understanding. But mosquitos are annoying, disease-ridden parasites. I don't see any problem at all with eliminating them from the (sub)urban landscape; there's hardly any animal life left in those places anyway. The consequences would certainly be local, and arguably minimal. And we have machines, elaborate roach motels for mosquitos, that already that do this.
You must have been running Woody. Any edition of KDE since the Cretaceous Period will look just fine. I've especially liked GNOME since 2.6. GNOME's themes usually have a nice clean polish to them.
If people are really concerned about looks, give them any iteration of SUSE since 9.0. Or show them how to use KDE-LOOK.ORG or ART.GNOME.ORG. They'll be busy all day customizing their UI.
The one REAL UI problem we've got, though, is speed. There is much faster visual feedback in Windows than on any Linux distro I've ever seen. The Windows desktop framerate is often too fast for the naked eye to catch--making window and cursor movements very smooth and easy on the eyes. X is nowhere near that I can watch the frames tick by as I move a window. And I'm on a 2.4GHz Celeron. It's one of those little touches that makes Windows look nicer even though the graphic art is inferior.
How do people get +3 Insightful for completely missing the point?
First, I don't know about anyone else, but it is an incredible pain trying to run Windows (2000, at least, in my experience) as anything but Administrator.
Second: what is this "Maybe he is just an idiot" crap? He could easily have a wife who, like anybody else, would prefer to have their computer how they want it and for others to leave it alone. I know plenty of people who get irritated if anyone changes things on their personal computers--much less use them. As for rootkits, etc., are 80% of Windows users (the people who have this problem) really going to have access to those things, the skills to use them, or even the dimmest knowledge of their existence? Of course not.
Jumping down this guy's throat over the state of his wife's computer is completely missing the point. His point is that there are millions of people just like her, and his weighing of the pros and cons makes Windows an absurd choice for a desktop OS. Address that. Stop grasping for ways to tear him down instead of his argument.
...liberal mainstream media...
If we had one of those, the President would have been impeached and exiled to Siberia long ago.
...IE ex-developer...writes an essay on...web browser design
Ha!
Sounds like a version of 28 Days Later based on Mars to me.
And using the doorway-into-hell story of the original game could be compared to Event Horizon. What's your point? Besides, IMHO, 28 Days Later was good. Better, in fact, than Event Horizon.
If SCO can sell imaginary "licenses," what's to stop us (FLOSS evangelists) from giving away real ones? Apparently people have gotten used to the idea that software needs some kind of strict license, cost, or license cost associated with it. So go print something fancy and give them what they want!
If people want to pay money for a silly piece of paper (which, come to think of it, is what they purchase when they "buy Windows") let them! Just slip them some software while you're at it.
with the company's decline, do you suppose that they will soon be dancing in dirty suits?
Perhaps now would be a good time for Intel to launch its enigmatic ZIG program. Nobody's quite sure what it is but rumor has it that the new initiative could result in great justice.
Let me get this straight. Music sharing isn't actually hurting the music industry, maybe it's even helping them,[I think you're confusing the music "industry," the RIAA, with the music "profession," the artists.] but you should do as much of it as possible because it will bring down the evil music monopoly and then we'll be living in paradise, so don't buy a CD because it won't really help any artist, just download their copyrighted material for free so that you help end the evil empire of the RIAA after which we won't continue to just freely distribute whatever we want to through this massive network of unregulated, uncontrollable digital distribution we've created, instead somehow all the artists will be fairly compensated, I think by some kind of magical money fairy that flies right out of my ass...
I don't know if it flew out of YOUR ass exactly, but that magical money fairy has been around for a long time. That fairy comes from the fans--who pay the artists for the shows they do through ticket sales and other merchandise. "Album Sales == Artist's Income" is the premise that's on crack. It seems to be a secondary income at best. It is the major source of the RIAA's income. The RIAA companies were in the business of promotion and distribution. Now that they've become so powerful, they need to be in the business of litigation, legislation, and popularity control* if they're going to keep their monopoly.
The roles of promotion/distribution can now be filled very inexpensively and mostly by the fans. The RIAA is now only as relevant as their lawyers/marketroids are persuasive. I'm not saying they should be dissolved, but they sure as hell don't need or deserve all the power they have.
*popularity control - the device used by The One True Record Label (RIAA) to control what is/isn't popular by promoting the hell out of whatever they need to sell next, regardless of its quality. That's how we get all that crappy music crammed down our throats.
More bloggers doing their own reporting would be good for several reasons:
1: Independent viewpoint where the spin is either lesser or clearer.
2: Free of the need to please your boss' sponsors.
3: No, a single hobbyist (you're the first person I've seen to spell that correctly, congratulations) blogger couldn't compete with an army of corporate reporters. On the other hand, a grassroots mass of interdependent, peer-reviewed bloggers--open-source reporting if you will--I believe would turn out some high quality work, maybe even provide a place for AP, MPA, etc. to look for people to hire. I already trust "Democracy Now!" and Indymedia more than I do CNN or Fox. Why? The voices are independent of corporate sponsors. They are a necessary addition to CNN, et al, if I am going to consider myself informed.
Something I wish more bloggers would do is go out and do their own reporting and journalism.
At the same time I disagree with Junks Jerzey on one count: The good blogs that rehash existing news stories often come up with insightful new connections. They do have merit.
As for doing real journalism: Hey bloggers! Find a topic, figure out who it affects among the people where you are, and start asking people questions. Interview people, do research, and write about those things. Come up with original material rather than react to pre-existing news stories. It's a lot more fun and fulfilling.
There are some bloggers who do this. I aspire to do it when opportunities arise (I'm still a student so sometimes coursework takes precedence). Since I've been hired to do that kind of blogging in a newspaper's website, I figure I at least owe them some original content and not just--as the parent so aptly put it--letters to the editor.
As a bonus I'll throw in this bit of wisdom from legendary reporter and journalist Bill Moyers: Real News is the news we need to keep our freedom. That's what should guide CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX, MSNBC, and whothefuckever else dares to call themselves a news source.
The "benevolent rulers" idea is condescendingly paternalistic and doomed to fail. All it takes is one selfish ruler to ruin everything.
The American system was working the way it ought to have for quite a while. The rulers were directly accountable to the people and if they don't do a good job then the people vote the fuckers out. That way if you want to stay in power you have to keep working for the people's good. And there's lots of representation, and lots of checks and balances between arms of the gov't. That way things would grind slowly but almost always in the public interest.
How that system broke is another post altogether. It's got a lot to do with corporate power and having a free, critical and objective press.
someone who gets it.
The delusion that there are always two and only two sides to an issue would be blown away completely if our voting system didn't mathematically preclude only two dominant parties. Imagine four or five people at a presidential debate, offering their very different perspectives on issues. I've seen the third-party candidates do it, and in multi-party environments it's far easier to treat one another respectably, to not pretend the guy across a particular divide is an idiot. Like Cobb does of Badnarik. Thinks he's dead wrong about health care, but not an idiot. The parent is also right that sometimes there IS only one smart side and many stupid ones. The inverse is also true.
I don't know if America is ready for that kind of mature thinking.