...believe in IP? It's BS power grabs like this by IP power holders that make it hard to believe that intellectual property laws aren't arbitrary, capricious, and screw people over... How can someone believe that IP is good and right when companies (and governments, in this case) keep pulling this shite over and over again?
How can somebody believe those against IP seriously when all they don't actually go beyond a blurb in a blog to understand what actually is going on?
Is it really any wonder that people feel no guilt when they have no rights or say in the stuff they actually PAID MONEY to use? No other industry would ever get away with the BS that the IP industry demands...
Most of what is created these days IS intellectual property. Manufacturing has become mostly trivial, creating something useful has not. Witness how quickly knockoffs can be created in low wage countries, yet how new innovative products are still developed in Europe, Japan and the US.
That crossbow is a sad, sad joke, the sort of thing you'd sell to an ignorant tourist or use in a target range for a child. Pulling it casually with one hand the way he did, with the crossbow raised, means that it has no more power than a child's bow. 30 lb. pull, tops, and thorugh the noticeably shorter length through which the crossbow accelerates the bolt, it's going to have noticeably less energy deposited in the quarrel or the bolt than a bow of similar pull.
And in the end it doesn't matter how strong the crossbow is because it's the bolt that gave way. Just change the bolt tip with a hardened steel and it would probably easily crack the monitor.
I'm sorry but I just can't reconcile cutting out the studios altogether and still being friends with my friends and part of society.
In a cultural sense the labels and studios really have us by the balls. They own our culture.
So you've fallen into the trap of the studios that continues their ownership of culture, as well as giving them the ability to seek greater power over the lives of people. Whether you're paying, or downloading, you're feeding the corporate monster that is taking over our culture and locking it up for a price, all so you can laugh at a few more family guy jokes. This is the same way Microsoft uses piracy to dominate, if everybody uses their software (legally or not) then they control the market and people don't look for real alternatives.
Why do I need objectivity for daily life? That's like saying we should describe colors like #00FFFF so there's no subjective arguements about whether it's light blue, turquoise, glacier-blue, etc. I use SI units whenever there is something where calculations actually matter, as do most people I know.
Why doesn't everyone in the world use time which is standarized into real units. The second is fine, but the minute, hour, day, month, year are all rather useless whenever you move away from Earth nor are they intelligently related other than it made sense when clocks were circles.
Myself, I intend to forbid my kids from going outside and kicking balls. I don't want them to grow up to be jocks.
Or physically fit. Going outside and kicking a ball isn't necessarily about going on the fast track to sports stardom. Just like being on a computer can teach a child a variety of skills, going outside and kicking a ball around can also do the same.
On-demand is the ultimate way to get what you seek -- content created and offered at a sane rate for the audience that is interested in it.
On-demand is the ultimate way for you to not see what you seek. People won't get the chance to discover shows, they'll just be fed more of the exact same thing. There will be no more "surprise" hits, or cult shows that grow their audience over time. Networks will take less chances, since under current broadcasting there are a number of eyes on a station just because of what time it is, and what show precededs or follows. On demand means the network needs the show to be a hit, before they even air it; so you'll end up with the same formulaic stuff, except there's no possibility of a groundbreaking "gem" emerging from the riff-raff. Shows like "Seinfeld" would be cancelled before it could become a hit because the money to make the next episode didn't show up.
Many feel bad a bit about downloading a pay tv only show like Dexter, but SOMEONE paid for the right to view it and record it. All the companies involved got their money.
And that is what people see, they see all this IP crap as nothing more than a extra greedy money grab
I see downloading as a greedy content grab. What's wrong with creators limiting distribution to those who contribute in return.
As long as the media companies are acting insanely stupid and publically showing their insatiable greed this will not only continue but will grow in the opposite direction. If they keep it up we actually may see common folk caring about copyright to the point that they want copyright laws repealed. The one dark nightmare that make media company executives wake up screaming at night.
Then we get the wonderful utopia of the independent scene, where mediocre quality prevails... that's if you can wade through all the garbage to find it. The one dark nightmare of anybody who likes a world with less "ball hits groin" and "look how stupid I can be on camera" youtube clips.
I don't believe in IP and I don't think they deserve it. Is the amount of effort they are putting to produce a song, really worth the millions of dollars they are claiming that they must make?
Who says they must make it? How many bands, writers, movies have bombed and don't make any money. On the flip side are any of those things so important to the lives of people that the creator shouldn't have an opportunity to make money.
That's why they will lose. That's why they are losing every second. And at some point, they will really understand that resistance is futile.
Internet will prevail
Goodbye software as we know it, hello crappy software as a service - please login.
Of course not, but that's not a completely arbitrary human concept which only exists for as long as it's supported by the population composing the society from which the concept arises.
Generally if I want something in particular, I download it. Either way I never pay for it if it's from the major labels or studios. To some this is reprehensible but to me the action of giving any company associated with the RIAA money is worse.
How about not just consuming? That way you're not giving the labels money, nor are you doing something others find wrong.
In any case, your right to call British people and things 'quaint' is suspended until such a time as you stop measuring temperature in Fahrenheit
Fahrenheit is a better measurement of temperature for the everyman. When it's over 100 degrees it's damn hot, when it's under 0 it's damn cold; anywhere between 0 and 100 is something that you would normally experience at some point during the year.
When I as a programmer
make a poor design decision, I do something to make it up to my customer.
We'd probably be better off if more people took pride in their work the way you do. Unfortunately, it's all become about the paycheck and getting by doing the bare minimum.
The question is why those most responsible
for the failure of the business are not only keeping their jobs
but being rewarded for doing so.
It's not rewarding them, it's giving them incentive to not just run away from the mess. It's not just limited to executives, programmers sometimes make poor design decisions leading to software that doesn't perform well. If they are looking to jump ship, you might pay them so they stay around and fix the problems, rather than bringing in somebody new which could cause more problems. This is the U.S. everybody at every level acts selfishly, people don't have complete and total loyalty to their company like in Japan. Salesmen quit and take their accounts to other companies, ex-managers will try to hire people away from their old company, and average joe worker will just quit with no notice leaving projects unfinished.
Regardless, your analysis of the businesses is fairly accurate. It's really a very dangerous bubble. People work hard for gains in the short term. It makes some sense on a personal level--they rise up a bit because of those decisions--but it's pretty bad for the company and economy as a whole.
Yes that's the problem when you bring in those Harvard MBA's to run things. They are more tactical than strategic and all the tactical decisions end up ruining a company (Apple comes to mind). In the end you can't teach vision, which is what makes true entrepreneurs and leaders and not just execuclones.
A good analogy here is that when a sports team is under performing, generally the owner fires the coach, not the entire team.
Generally speaking the coach has little impact, he's just middle management. It's either the players, or the general manager who brought in the bad players. The firing of the coach is basically done to please the fans, not necessarily because it's a good business decison. Once you fire the coach then you get a free pass from the fans for 2-3 years to underperform so the new coach can make his "plan" work. After 4 years of underperforming, fire the coach and repeat. Firing a coach or executive staff for short term underperforming is a good way to leave your business mired in sub-par performance.
The vast majority of big business has nothing to do with sound decision making. American Airlines is the poster boy which usurped the crown from Enron and its kin
Your examples are big companies that got mismanged. They were built by a series of good decisions then somebody came in with their own agenda and mismanged them into bankruptcy (with some criminal activity thrown in). mismanagement & corruption occurs at all levels, whether it's mom & pop letting the son take over the business over a more qualified long term employee or Joe letting his friends get free fries when they come in. It's not about business it's about humans and their social tendencies.
Business work differently in other 1st world countries, but in the US, idiots with huge egos a well connected friends, by in large, run US corporations
Not really, it's pretty much like that everywhere and not just in business, but in politics and every other aspect of life.
And investors may be skittish... or happy that the idiot is leaving.
Uncertainty is the enemy of investment. Just look at the elections, tradtionally the markets dip before an election because of the uncertainty of who will be elected. Ultimately the markets rebound, because it doesn't matter who got elected, so long as the uncertainty goes away.
Right, but... aren't the people with the "institutional knowledge" the same ones who are steering the company into the ground?
But you just can't plug an entirely new executive team and expect them to fix things. Think of it like a failing programming project, if you just replace the whole development team you'll probably be worse off than if you keep the existing team in place and try to repair the bugs. Though at some point it might make more sense to just scrap everything and start over.
The question is who do you replace those executives with and how much better would their decisions be? You just can't plug somebody new into a business and expect everything to be fixed, nor do mistakes necessarily mean the management is incompetent. Should Rockstar have fired the GTA3 development team for the whole "Hot Coffee" disaster that cost them millions of dollars?
Here's a suggestion: Don't shop Circuit City even if it is convenient. Find a nice mom & pop electronics store. They're harder to find, but worth the effort.
Why? They cost more and have less selection. Circuit City or Mom & Pop shop are middle men with marginal value, I'm not going to pay extra for basically order fullfilment. Whether it's a Mom & Pop shop or a huge corporation, businesses get mismanaged and go out of business. How many Mom & Pop shops sell out to a conglomerate with Mom & Pop raking in the big bucks and leaving the employees out of luck.
And not to be dense, but couldn't said board simply fire said CEO and have him escorted off the premises? Giving an extra $200 bonus to the security guard? And saving $160,999,800 in the process?
Then lose the stockholders much more when the stock nosedives as investors get skittish. Business isn't just about numbers, there's also a psychologogical aspect to it. A stock will bleed money over time if it's peforming badly, a stock will completely implode when it looks like the management has no idea whats going on.
there is a growing trend where all Ex's are being paid more and more and the pay for the people who do the work is stagnating.
many of these Executives never do anything to justify the increases.
Executive pay has been tracking the S&P 500, further the size of companies are getting larger, so executives are responsible for more employees.
If I screw up and blow up a $40,000 vehicle, by this logic, I should get 4 grand as a severance pkg to keep me from sticking around to screw up more $40,000 cars. Yeah, lets see if that happens any time soon./sarcasm
Actually many jobs will do buyouts to prevent possible litigation backlash. I know this happens a lot in the engineering world, a technician can always come back with "Hey you fired me even though I was never trained properly, I'll sue." Outright firing is getting harder and harder unless there are specific terms (eg the probationary period) or a pattern of misconduct (documentation of multiple screw-ups). Buyout packages have replaced firings at all levels.
Slashdot Mirror
Most of what is created these days IS intellectual property. Manufacturing has become mostly trivial, creating something useful has not. Witness how quickly knockoffs can be created in low wage countries, yet how new innovative products are still developed in Europe, Japan and the US.
This is the same way Microsoft uses piracy to dominate, if everybody uses their software (legally or not) then they control the market and people don't look for real alternatives.
Why do I need objectivity for daily life?
That's like saying we should describe colors like #00FFFF so there's no subjective arguements about whether it's light blue, turquoise, glacier-blue, etc. I use SI units whenever there is something where calculations actually matter, as do most people I know.
Why doesn't everyone in the world use time which is standarized into real units. The second is fine, but the minute, hour, day, month, year are all rather useless whenever you move away from Earth nor are they intelligently related other than it made sense when clocks were circles.
Going outside and kicking a ball isn't necessarily about going on the fast track to sports stardom. Just like being on a computer can teach a child a variety of skills, going outside and kicking a ball around can also do the same.
Networks will take less chances, since under current broadcasting there are a number of eyes on a station just because of what time it is, and what show precededs or follows. On demand means the network needs the show to be a hit, before they even air it; so you'll end up with the same formulaic stuff, except there's no possibility of a groundbreaking "gem" emerging from the riff-raff. Shows like "Seinfeld" would be cancelled before it could become a hit because the money to make the next episode didn't show up.
Then we get the wonderful utopia of the independent scene, where mediocre quality prevails... that's if you can wade through all the garbage to find it. The one dark nightmare of anybody who likes a world with less "ball hits groin" and "look how stupid I can be on camera" youtube clips.
Goodbye software as we know it, hello crappy software as a service - please login.
This is the U.S. everybody at every level acts selfishly, people don't have complete and total loyalty to their company like in Japan. Salesmen quit and take their accounts to other companies, ex-managers will try to hire people away from their old company, and average joe worker will just quit with no notice leaving projects unfinished.
Once you fire the coach then you get a free pass from the fans for 2-3 years to underperform so the new coach can make his "plan" work. After 4 years of underperforming, fire the coach and repeat. Firing a coach or executive staff for short term underperforming is a good way to leave your business mired in sub-par performance.
Not really, it's pretty much like that everywhere and not just in business, but in politics and every other aspect of life.
Though at some point it might make more sense to just scrap everything and start over.
The question is who do you replace those executives with and how much better would their decisions be?
You just can't plug somebody new into a business and expect everything to be fixed, nor do mistakes necessarily mean the management is incompetent. Should Rockstar have fired the GTA3 development team for the whole "Hot Coffee" disaster that cost them millions of dollars?
Whether it's a Mom & Pop shop or a huge corporation, businesses get mismanaged and go out of business. How many Mom & Pop shops sell out to a conglomerate with Mom & Pop raking in the big bucks and leaving the employees out of luck.
Outright firing is getting harder and harder unless there are specific terms (eg the probationary period) or a pattern of misconduct (documentation of multiple screw-ups). Buyout packages have replaced firings at all levels.