This is too '90's for words. I remember when the term "cybersquatting" was coined, and domains like "furniture.com" and "syndicatednews.com" were making millions for their housewife or cab driver owners.
Really, though, what's the advantage of these generic names? Do you buy your books at books.com? I usually get mine at a place called Amazon. Do people (who actually pay for it) download their music from music.com, or iTunes? If, as another post pointed out, the importance of a domain is not in its use for browser navigation, but in the billboard/TV/magazine copy in which it appears, isn't it better to be unique and memorable?
I wonder if that's why Google's market cap is a gazillion dollars. Maybe searching the world ultimately means owning it. Web sites are only the beginning. Now print media is being cannibalized by book searches, often despite the explicit protestations of the authors and publishers. Video and audio scraping are on the way. Of course, the argument in favor is that you only get a little "context" in your search result. Ultimately, however, if you paste enough context together you have the entire work.
And how many late nights and Sundays is the beginning programmer (read: "lives alone, has no life") putting in for their $60K?
This is one of those jobs, like publishing or broadcasting, that benefits from the perceived cool factor. Better to get yourself a corporate database programming job, start at $15K more per year, and have weekends.
Someone once observed that the reason there was no German Bill Gates was that "The Ministry of You Can't Do That" is running the country. The garage tech startup would have to get special government permits allowing the use of lightbulbs to illuminate an area used for business purposes, etc., etc.
There was a Wall St. Journal article a few days ago about German regulations concerning what name you can call yourself. Hyphens are not allowed. Can you imagine what a country like that would to with a domain names registry?
Dark matter always seemed like it was in the honored high school chemistry tradition of adding a fudge factor. There was no direct observational evidence for it, but tossing it in there made the numbers fit.
"Fact: You can have the knowledge without having to pay to be Certified when it comes to computers. Another fact: Just because you have the certification does not mean you actually know the material as well as someone who is not certified. You might just be good at taking tests.
Well, the same could be said of any type of degree, couldn't it?
In his book Stone Age Economics, Marshall Sahlins writes that, if the goal of the individual in an economy is to have everything that s/he needs, there are two angles from which the goal can be approached: getting more or needing less.
Of course, we all choose some mix of the two, but the advantage of the latter approach is that it is considerably easier. Mostly, it requires a state of mind.
I don't think it's intellectually honest to dismiss people's sense of a personal narrative by saying that it's just a chain of other selves that closely resemble them. We are talking about perception here, and I doubt that you perceive life that way. If you did, then you shouldn't be bothered by someone saying that five minutes from now they are going to point a gun at your foot and pull the trigger. After all, that's someone else, so why should you care? (Or would you ask them not to do so purely out of a sense of altruism for that other entirely different person?) By the same token, making a copy of one's self to continue what one perceives to be his or her life will be very cold comfort to the source from which the copy is taken.
Thus, while the you that you "are" may be dead, the "you" that has been copied, for all intents and purposes, is still you.
Wrong. That's just philosophical gobbledegook. There is a continuity of consciousness that makes my "movie" and allows "the me behind my eyeballs" to experience being the same me now and five minutes from now. What you're talking about does that "me" absolutely no good. There could be fifty copies of me living in an underground bunker on the moon right now, but it doesn't do the person typing this post any good whatsoever.
Q: What's the difference between a western garment worker made redundant by cheap overseas labor and a western I.T. worker made redundant by cheap overseas labor?
A: The I.T. worker paid $160K for a college degree.
From an economic standpoint, students opting out of comp. sci. majors looks pretty rational.
Slashdot Mirror
Wait until our backhoe overlords start thinking for themselves. Remember Killdozer?
Really, though, what's the advantage of these generic names? Do you buy your books at books.com? I usually get mine at a place called Amazon. Do people (who actually pay for it) download their music from music.com, or iTunes? If, as another post pointed out, the importance of a domain is not in its use for browser navigation, but in the billboard/TV/magazine copy in which it appears, isn't it better to be unique and memorable?
I wonder if that's why Google's market cap is a gazillion dollars. Maybe searching the world ultimately means owning it. Web sites are only the beginning. Now print media is being cannibalized by book searches, often despite the explicit protestations of the authors and publishers. Video and audio scraping are on the way. Of course, the argument in favor is that you only get a little "context" in your search result. Ultimately, however, if you paste enough context together you have the entire work.
Charles Petzold has already covered this ground, at least the software part of it, pretty well for the general reader in his book "Code".
Why is a right-wing propaganda machine like the Cato Institute being given a forum here? At least be honest and put it in the politics forum.
Shouldn't it be "The Pods at Macworld"?
Anyone who wants to know how MS thinks they will meet the challenge over the next year should check out Ray Ozzie's latest blog entry.
Don't like your science job? There is a new opening for a scientist at M.I.T.
1999 just called. They want their irrational exuberance back.
Dear Joe,
It has come to my attention th
hould have seen the size of her knoc
uments have been shredded ahead of the auditor's vis
s the biggest assh
unch on Friday?
Sincerely,
Dave
Right. Scratch that. DBA jobs suck. Keep moving. There's nothing to see here.
This is one of those jobs, like publishing or broadcasting, that benefits from the perceived cool factor. Better to get yourself a corporate database programming job, start at $15K more per year, and have weekends.
Someone once observed that the reason there was no German Bill Gates was that "The Ministry of You Can't Do That" is running the country. The garage tech startup would have to get special government permits allowing the use of lightbulbs to illuminate an area used for business purposes, etc., etc. There was a Wall St. Journal article a few days ago about German regulations concerning what name you can call yourself. Hyphens are not allowed. Can you imagine what a country like that would to with a domain names registry?
Dark matter always seemed like it was in the honored high school chemistry tradition of adding a fudge factor. There was no direct observational evidence for it, but tossing it in there made the numbers fit.
Well, the same could be said of any type of degree, couldn't it?
Oh, sure. Smoke the best part and leave nothing but the ends for your family.
Of course, we all choose some mix of the two, but the advantage of the latter approach is that it is considerably easier. Mostly, it requires a state of mind.
The best bart was using the Netscape browser to watch the Netscape stock quote as the IPO popped.
For $200 trillion we could just about pack everybody onto star ships and head out for a more hospitable planetary system.
There appears to be an avalanche of stories bashing avalanche today.
Yeah, that's almost as bad as telling somebody that the chick in "The Crying Game" is really a guy!
Windows allowed me to pursue my passion for writing viruses because they make it so darned easy.
I don't think it's intellectually honest to dismiss people's sense of a personal narrative by saying that it's just a chain of other selves that closely resemble them. We are talking about perception here, and I doubt that you perceive life that way. If you did, then you shouldn't be bothered by someone saying that five minutes from now they are going to point a gun at your foot and pull the trigger. After all, that's someone else, so why should you care? (Or would you ask them not to do so purely out of a sense of altruism for that other entirely different person?) By the same token, making a copy of one's self to continue what one perceives to be his or her life will be very cold comfort to the source from which the copy is taken.
Wrong. That's just philosophical gobbledegook. There is a continuity of consciousness that makes my "movie" and allows "the me behind my eyeballs" to experience being the same me now and five minutes from now. What you're talking about does that "me" absolutely no good. There could be fifty copies of me living in an underground bunker on the moon right now, but it doesn't do the person typing this post any good whatsoever.
A: The I.T. worker paid $160K for a college degree.
From an economic standpoint, students opting out of comp. sci. majors looks pretty rational.