I might pay five cents a song. I pay more than that in juke boxes. It just depends an the situation. I also collect CD's, so I liketo purchase media in CD format. I do ot like this idea though. From the article:
"Pearlman proposes putting all recorded music on a robust search engine -- Google would be an ideal choice, but even iTunes might work -- and charging an insignificant fee of, say, five cents a song. In addition, a 1 per cent sales tax would be placed on Internet services and new computers -- two industries that many argue have profited enormously from rampant file-sharing, but haven't had to compensate artists.
The assumption is that if songs cost only 5 cents, people would download exponentially more music. Daniel Levitin, a McGill professor also associated with the project, said that a simple computer program, such as those already in use on Internet retail sites, could track people's purchases and help them to dig through what would become a massive repository of music on the Web."
So he is going to tax computers and internet services in adition to the five cent fee. Nope! No way! First, taxes never go away. They just get bigger and bigger. Second, who is going to recieve this revenue? The music industry? How do you decide who to distribute it to? Third taxes on an industry always get passed to the consumer. The cost of everything computer related would go up The real question should be, "Would you allow the entire computer industry to be taxed to support the music industry?" My answer is, "No!"
"I have found numerous errors when reading articles."
I just recently discovered Wikipedia and think it is great! The way I found it was through Trillian. When I am in chat Trillian highlights words that have Wikipedia articles. Once I found it I immediately looked up my favorite subject, beer! Like you I found many mistakes. Of course I never completely believe anything I read even from so called experts. I still think it is a great site and project. As far as a teacher letting students use it as a source, I would allow it. There are almost as many errors in most text books.
"If that's not the case, then there's no reason to keep working while you devote yourself to finding a job that you will not hate."
I disagree. It is always easier to get a job if you are working. Employers just feel better about hiring you if you are working. If they think you will quit without having a backup job, then they think it will be easier for you to quit them. Also there is a sense of accomplishment in "stealing" a good employee from another company.
That said, I want to respond to the original question. I have turned down a lot of jobs in my life. I have always done it for the same reason, because I liked what I was doing. I have said for years, "If I did not like what I do, I would do something else."
I just recently changed jobs. I did it for job satisfaction. I switched to a job where I feel I am better respected. I get paid more. There are perks like travel and training that I did not have at the old job. I have been telling everyone, "This is the job I have worked towards for the last ten years."
Re:Why geek rap?
on
Ask mc chris
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
"If your going to work in the medium, why go after such a small sub sector?"
Well he is probably "keeping it real." My guess is he really is a geek so is rapping about what he knows.
This is from the article:
"IBM, HP and Sun are competing for market shares in the same accounts. Those days when a customer had habits and said, 'I'm a Sun user or I only trust IBM' are over," he said."
Is that really true? In everycompany I have worked for there was one brand of *NIX in the vast majority of hardware. This was because of economics. It is cheaper for a large company to go with a single vendor. They get discounts on volume and for support. Sure there are usually a few rouge servers running around, bought by someone who bypassed the normal provisioning process, but they are few and far between.
"I'm surprised Yahoo has a larger user base than Google. All the people I talk to have given up using Yahoo and use Google all the time, including me."
While that is true for most searches, I still use them for mail, maps, and directions. I see a lot of people who use yahoo. Yahoo has been around a long time and they are well known by non-tech savvy people. My seventy-five year old mother is a good example of this. When her computer was installed, MSN was her start page. It still is and she uses it for her searching. I've thought of changing it for her, but it is what she is used to and she is happy with it.
"As for this API, that's a nice move but too late in my opinion, unless they have some serious advantage compared to Google's but some reason I doubt it."
Well according to the article:
"What Yahoo is offering, Walther contends, is much broader than what's offered by the competition. In a literal sense, that's true: Each API provides developers with access to 5,000 queries per day per API, five times more than the limits placed on users of the Google Web API. "We don't just have a Web search API," he explains. "We have Web, local, news video, image, and spelling, among others." And, he says, YSDN is about more than APIs; it's about the development community."
That is a lot of features, and the higher limit is cool too. I would bet that Google matches or exceeds them in the near future though.
"If Google were to host the Start Page in different languages, would the Foundation not be able to set a different language version of the page in their localized builds?"
I thought this was kind of odd myself. You can gohere and change your preferences. If you do then the default start page comes up in your language and it can be set to only find pages in your language.
" a potato gun with a message carved into the potato or a carrier pigeon and a canon just seem so much more obvious.
It is off topic, but your message reminded me of the group of Linux enthusiasts in Bergen, Norway, who succesfilly sent a ping using Carrier Pigeon Internet Protocol.
"His second assertion that Microsoft could create a flavor of Linux with their driver-base that people would adopt is just as loony. Beyond its quality nature, isn't one of the reasons people switch to Linux to get rid of Microsoft and their business practices and high prices?"
The thing I don't get is that he acts like Microsoft owns the drivers. The hardware manufacturers own the drivers. If Linux becomes the dominant OS, hardware manufacturers will write drivers that run directly in Linux. Why would they continue to write drivers that run in HAL when it is just a piece of cruft attached to the real OS?
"I believe it would be in your companies best interest to institute a
policy that your banner advertisments cannot make sounds unless a user
is interacting with them.
You are currently running a banner add on your web site that is
extremely anoying. It says "Swat the fly and get a free $250 gift
certificate," and has a fly flying around and your mouse turns into a
fly swatter when you mouse over it. The anoying thing is that it makes
a buzzing sound even if you do not do anything.
Your web site auto refreshes at regular intervals. I usually leave my
browser open on your site durig the day while I work and periodically
check the headlines and read the articles. Imagine my surprise when,
while I am working with my browser minimized, my computer suddenly
begins to buzz. I use firefox for a browser, and usually have at least
seven news sites open in tabs at once. It took me quite some time to
find which site had an add that was playing the anoying buzzing sound.
Since I cannot prevent your site from auto refreshing, eventually that
banner add will come back up. As a result, I am not going to be able
to leave your site open today. That is a real shame because I relly
enjoy your web site and read it daily. Unfortunately that annoying
sound will drive me nuts and prevent me from getting my work
accomplished.
Thank you for your time. I hope you will take my advice and change
your advertising policy."
This was their response:
"Thanks for writing. We've been deluged with complaints about this ad. It was served by a third party advertiser, and we're working to track it down and remove it. If it does crop up again in the future, please don't hesitate to email us right away."
I was really surprised at the response. I guess since they are a legitimate news site (gonna get flamed for that), they cannot afford to have their advertisers driving their readers away from the site. Still I sent a similar email to abcnews.com for a similar ad a couple of months ago and the response was the exact oposite. I did not save the email but they basically told me to screw myself.
"There is never, and has never been a charge associated with activation."
Yeah but is it a toll free call? If I have to place a long distance call and sit on hold everytime I reinstall to remove those old dll's that I'm no longer using but did not get removed by the uninstall program and load into memory at boot I'm going to be pissed!
" Here in the Land of The Free (i.e. Western Europe)"
That is funny. I have traveled to the Czech Republic a couple of times. I have also been to Austria and Germany. My reaction was that I had more freedoms there than here. For example I was allowed to smoke in resturaunts. In fact they had cigarette machines on the streets. That is unheard of in the US. I think we have a law now that cigarette machines are only allowed in adult only areas like bars to keep the kids away from them.
When I was young, I used to hear the expression "It's a free country." I have not heard anyone say that in years.
"This would make my open WiFi node illegal, closing one of the few remaining anonymity gaps on the 'net."
Actually it would not. These are laws preventing governments from providing internet. This is about telcoms and cable providers not wanting to compete with governments for customers.
I kind of have mixed feelings about this. I am not sure I want to subsidise internet service on the government level. On the other hand, the information gap for low income people is a huge disadvantage in seeking employment. Also I take advantage of free WiFi at airports and libraries when I travel. Technically that would be considered government provided internet. I would not want to lose that service. Maybe the answer is a tax incentive to providers to subsidse low income families' service. I am of the opinion that free enterprise can always provide a service cheper than a government bureaucracy.
"Companies act like it is a cripling cost, but what $60/month for cable, when customers will use this feature if you have it, it will even draw people to your store."
I agree. I travel a lot so I am usually living out of hotels and eating in resturaunts. One of the fist things I look for in a city is a convenient resturaunt to go to that has free wifi, good food, and at least one decent beer on tap.
"All in the name of screwing the consumer over, I'd bet."
Actually it is more likely in the name of reducing staffing. When I used to work for a telco I remember complaints about cutomers that we would like to give to our competition. At three cents a minute, people who do not make many long distance calls are actually a losing proposition for carriers. It costs more to send them a bill than they make off the account.
"his examples are really nothing more than wishful impossibilities."
Maybe, but I like the idea of a grass that only grows two inches and stops. Where I am from there is a native grass that only grows four inches and stops. It is also the first to turn green in the spring and the last to turn brown in the summer. Unfortunately it is a prarie grass and does not form much of a turf. It does a pretty good job of choking out weeds, but cannot compete with turf grasses like bermuda. Even so my parents have introduced it into those areas of their yard that they do not want to maintain. It is doing pretty well, but a beefed up variety and one that did not grow quite so tall would be nice.
I thought they were rebranding themselves as an ISP. In fact I thought it was kind of a neat idea. Play off a respected name that has been out of the market long enough to be less than familiar. Oh well...
Actually I think it is something Java has needed. Think of it as sort of MS Access for Java. There are lots of applictions where a small embedded data engine would be usefull. Sure you could do it in flat files, but why? A data engine just makes the development that much simpler and faster.
"(xiv) run programs, equipment, or servers from the Premises that provide network content or any other services to anyone outside of your Premises LAN (Local Area Network), also commonly referred to as public services or servers. Examples of prohibited services and servers include, but are not limited to, e-mail, Web hosting, file sharing, and proxy services and servers;"
"Quite frankly, nobody should ever depend on the kernel having zero holes," Torvalds wrote. "We do our best, but if you want real security, you should have other shields in place."
Why would you have all your ports exposed with nothing running on them? I have a hardware firewall. I only run HTTP ad FTP when I need them and then turn them off when I am through. It is really just simple security. Be smart. Oh yeah I subscribe to security lists and patch when security patches are released.
Slashdot Mirror
Atom smasher smashes atoms"
Gee! I was thinking more along the lines of:
Particles Suck!
"Pearlman proposes putting all recorded music on a robust search engine -- Google would be an ideal choice, but even iTunes might work -- and charging an insignificant fee of, say, five cents a song. In addition, a 1 per cent sales tax would be placed on Internet services and new computers -- two industries that many argue have profited enormously from rampant file-sharing, but haven't had to compensate artists.
The assumption is that if songs cost only 5 cents, people would download exponentially more music. Daniel Levitin, a McGill professor also associated with the project, said that a simple computer program, such as those already in use on Internet retail sites, could track people's purchases and help them to dig through what would become a massive repository of music on the Web."
So he is going to tax computers and internet services in adition to the five cent fee. Nope! No way! First, taxes never go away. They just get bigger and bigger. Second, who is going to recieve this revenue? The music industry? How do you decide who to distribute it to? Third taxes on an industry always get passed to the consumer. The cost of everything computer related would go up The real question should be, "Would you allow the entire computer industry to be taxed to support the music industry?" My answer is, "No!"
I just recently discovered Wikipedia and think it is great! The way I found it was through Trillian. When I am in chat Trillian highlights words that have Wikipedia articles. Once I found it I immediately looked up my favorite subject, beer! Like you I found many mistakes. Of course I never completely believe anything I read even from so called experts. I still think it is a great site and project. As far as a teacher letting students use it as a source, I would allow it. There are almost as many errors in most text books.
I disagree. It is always easier to get a job if you are working. Employers just feel better about hiring you if you are working. If they think you will quit without having a backup job, then they think it will be easier for you to quit them. Also there is a sense of accomplishment in "stealing" a good employee from another company.
That said, I want to respond to the original question. I have turned down a lot of jobs in my life. I have always done it for the same reason, because I liked what I was doing. I have said for years, "If I did not like what I do, I would do something else."
I just recently changed jobs. I did it for job satisfaction. I switched to a job where I feel I am better respected. I get paid more. There are perks like travel and training that I did not have at the old job. I have been telling everyone, "This is the job I have worked towards for the last ten years."
Well he is probably "keeping it real." My guess is he really is a geek so is rapping about what he knows.
"IBM, HP and Sun are competing for market shares in the same accounts. Those days when a customer had habits and said, 'I'm a Sun user or I only trust IBM' are over," he said."
Is that really true? In everycompany I have worked for there was one brand of *NIX in the vast majority of hardware. This was because of economics. It is cheaper for a large company to go with a single vendor. They get discounts on volume and for support. Sure there are usually a few rouge servers running around, bought by someone who bypassed the normal provisioning process, but they are few and far between.
"Try maps.google.com and you will never go back." Sold! Thank you for the tip. It really is a great site!
While that is true for most searches, I still use them for mail, maps, and directions. I see a lot of people who use yahoo. Yahoo has been around a long time and they are well known by non-tech savvy people. My seventy-five year old mother is a good example of this. When her computer was installed, MSN was her start page. It still is and she uses it for her searching. I've thought of changing it for her, but it is what she is used to and she is happy with it.
"As for this API, that's a nice move but too late in my opinion, unless they have some serious advantage compared to Google's but some reason I doubt it."
Well according to the article:
"What Yahoo is offering, Walther contends, is much broader than what's offered by the competition. In a literal sense, that's true: Each API provides developers with access to 5,000 queries per day per API, five times more than the limits placed on users of the Google Web API. "We don't just have a Web search API," he explains. "We have Web, local, news video, image, and spelling, among others." And, he says, YSDN is about more than APIs; it's about the development community."
That is a lot of features, and the higher limit is cool too. I would bet that Google matches or exceeds them in the near future though.
I thought this was kind of odd myself. You can gohere and change your preferences. If you do then the default start page comes up in your language and it can be set to only find pages in your language.
It is off topic, but your message reminded me of the group of Linux enthusiasts in Bergen, Norway, who succesfilly sent a ping using Carrier Pigeon Internet Protocol.
The thing I don't get is that he acts like Microsoft owns the drivers. The hardware manufacturers own the drivers. If Linux becomes the dominant OS, hardware manufacturers will write drivers that run directly in Linux. Why would they continue to write drivers that run in HAL when it is just a piece of cruft attached to the real OS?
"I believe it would be in your companies best interest to institute a policy that your banner advertisments cannot make sounds unless a user is interacting with them.
You are currently running a banner add on your web site that is extremely anoying. It says "Swat the fly and get a free $250 gift certificate," and has a fly flying around and your mouse turns into a fly swatter when you mouse over it. The anoying thing is that it makes a buzzing sound even if you do not do anything.
Your web site auto refreshes at regular intervals. I usually leave my browser open on your site durig the day while I work and periodically check the headlines and read the articles. Imagine my surprise when, while I am working with my browser minimized, my computer suddenly begins to buzz. I use firefox for a browser, and usually have at least seven news sites open in tabs at once. It took me quite some time to find which site had an add that was playing the anoying buzzing sound.
Since I cannot prevent your site from auto refreshing, eventually that banner add will come back up. As a result, I am not going to be able to leave your site open today. That is a real shame because I relly enjoy your web site and read it daily. Unfortunately that annoying sound will drive me nuts and prevent me from getting my work accomplished.
Thank you for your time. I hope you will take my advice and change your advertising policy."
This was their response:
"Thanks for writing. We've been deluged with complaints about this ad. It was served by a third party advertiser, and we're working to track it down and remove it. If it does crop up again in the future, please don't hesitate to email us right away."
I was really surprised at the response. I guess since they are a legitimate news site (gonna get flamed for that), they cannot afford to have their advertisers driving their readers away from the site. Still I sent a similar email to abcnews.com for a similar ad a couple of months ago and the response was the exact oposite. I did not save the email but they basically told me to screw myself.
Yeah but is it a toll free call? If I have to place a long distance call and sit on hold everytime I reinstall to remove those old dll's that I'm no longer using but did not get removed by the uninstall program and load into memory at boot I'm going to be pissed!
That is funny. I have traveled to the Czech Republic a couple of times. I have also been to Austria and Germany. My reaction was that I had more freedoms there than here. For example I was allowed to smoke in resturaunts. In fact they had cigarette machines on the streets. That is unheard of in the US. I think we have a law now that cigarette machines are only allowed in adult only areas like bars to keep the kids away from them.
When I was young, I used to hear the expression "It's a free country." I have not heard anyone say that in years.
"This would make my open WiFi node illegal, closing one of the few remaining anonymity gaps on the 'net."
Actually it would not. These are laws preventing governments from providing internet. This is about telcoms and cable providers not wanting to compete with governments for customers.
I kind of have mixed feelings about this. I am not sure I want to subsidise internet service on the government level. On the other hand, the information gap for low income people is a huge disadvantage in seeking employment. Also I take advantage of free WiFi at airports and libraries when I travel. Technically that would be considered government provided internet. I would not want to lose that service. Maybe the answer is a tax incentive to providers to subsidse low income families' service. I am of the opinion that free enterprise can always provide a service cheper than a government bureaucracy.
I agree. I travel a lot so I am usually living out of hotels and eating in resturaunts. One of the fist things I look for in a city is a convenient resturaunt to go to that has free wifi, good food, and at least one decent beer on tap.
If only they served alcohol.
Actually it is more likely in the name of reducing staffing. When I used to work for a telco I remember complaints about cutomers that we would like to give to our competition. At three cents a minute, people who do not make many long distance calls are actually a losing proposition for carriers. It costs more to send them a bill than they make off the account.
Maybe, but I like the idea of a grass that only grows two inches and stops. Where I am from there is a native grass that only grows four inches and stops. It is also the first to turn green in the spring and the last to turn brown in the summer. Unfortunately it is a prarie grass and does not form much of a turf. It does a pretty good job of choking out weeds, but cannot compete with turf grasses like bermuda. Even so my parents have introduced it into those areas of their yard that they do not want to maintain. It is doing pretty well, but a beefed up variety and one that did not grow quite so tall would be nice.
I thought they were rebranding themselves as an ISP. In fact I thought it was kind of a neat idea. Play off a respected name that has been out of the market long enough to be less than familiar. Oh well ...
Actually I think it is something Java has needed. Think of it as sort of MS Access for Java. There are lots of applictions where a small embedded data engine would be usefull. Sure you could do it in flat files, but why? A data engine just makes the development that much simpler and faster.
I know that Beowulf is a cluster of Linux servers, but what is a Grendel?
"(xiv) run programs, equipment, or servers from the Premises that provide network content or any other services to anyone outside of your Premises LAN (Local Area Network), also commonly referred to as public services or servers. Examples of prohibited services and servers include, but are not limited to, e-mail, Web hosting, file sharing, and proxy services and servers;"
Why would you have all your ports exposed with nothing running on them? I have a hardware firewall. I only run HTTP ad FTP when I need them and then turn them off when I am through. It is really just simple security. Be smart. Oh yeah I subscribe to security lists and patch when security patches are released.
I wonder if this will block Through the wall RADAR.