Well, let's not bash on people just because they don't want broadband at home. I have a T1 connection at work, and 56K dial-up at home. I could afford broadband at home, but I have no interest in paying more than $30 for it. I don't download music, and I have no interest in internet video. The main things I use Internet connection for is e-mail, general web surfing (a couple blogs, hobby-related sites, etc.), and downloading the odd software patch. Yeah, it might take me an hour or two to get a software patch, but it's not worth $30+ more per month just to speed that up. I just don't see the service being worth the cost. If I could get BB for $30/month, I'd be on it, because that what I feel it is worth to me. Different people with different needs come to different conclusions, of course, and that's why I know people that do have BB and feel it worth $50+/month. And for the record, I watch less than 5 hours of TV per week.
Where are the lies, exactly? I see a person who is spending some time dreaming, and writing about, a "better future" where this whole online comics thing works well. Then we see the present day situation where it doesn't seem to work well, due to the negative monetary return on investment that people are running in to, which forces them to drop their comics, or do them part time while they work a day job to support themselves. There's nothing wrong with Scott's vision, but what he doesn't do is posit a way to move from point A (the present case), to point B (the future case). If he (or someone else) could determine a way to move from point A to point B, then that would be something worthy of great acclaim. Unfortunately, I don't know how to do that.
I don't think he was comparing spam to rape. He was using rape as an example that would get your attention. His point is valid, though. Turnabout might be fair play, but it doesn't help us move beyond that sort of play and up to the next level, where we can really deal with the problem and find a solution to minimize/eliminate unwanted e-mail.
"A system of moving gaseous substances using an organic system that uses suction in combination with an imbalance in vacuum states on two sides of a biologic barrier to take a substance known as "air" (see patent #1,943,329,834,937,947,038) and move it inside of a "person" (see patent #94,395,495,693,957) or an "animal" (see patent #48,098,347,937,584,028), so that the "air" can be added to the "blood" (see patent #2,947,917,937,209,847) so that the biologic organism can function in an enhanced state that has been found through rigorous experimentation to be preferable to that which exists when not using this method. I call this method "breathing."
In your article, you make the follwing statement: "and to a shift away from brutal physical punishment in child-rearing, a practice that shows up again and again as a common factor in the background of violent criminals."
Could you please provide your source data, or (more likely) tell me where I can find it? I've heard this before, but have never seen any evidence of it. Thanks,
Suck.com had an article about this same thing a while back. They came up with ways for RIAA to fight Napster. One was "crapster", where they would record bogus MP3s that said they were everything under the sun, but every song was really "Achy Breaky Heart" by Billy Ray Cyrus.
Well, what do you expect? The guy IS an economist. Most economists argue for a market-based solution to every problem, so it comes as no surprise to me that a market-based solution is proposed here. I would hope that his book (which I haven't read) would go into a serious discussion of HOW to set up a world-wide market for these things. It seems awfully complicated to me, and doesn't strike me as the kind of thing that doctors in Iowa would want to get involved in.
Sorry that I don't have any hard evidence for this, but I believe I remember watching a TV news program about telemarketing, and they mentioned that you could contact some group to get telemarketers to not call you. However, I do not believe that this law was in effect in every state (I don't think it is a Federal law), and the TV report said that people had contacted the group, but they would still get calls from telemarketers.
This is not anything new. The concept has been around the Silicon Valley, and each company has its "burn rate," which is the amount of money that the company loses each month, because almost nobody makes any money (notable exceptions excluded). Michael Wolff wrote a good book about this, called, amazingly enough, Burn Rate. You can go to its web page by clicking here.
Yeah, I agree with that. They don't have any real "American citizen", "European citizen", etc. channels set up for selecting the non-pre-selected members. I agree with the critics that it does allow for special interests (i.e., people who provide ICANN with funding) to try to unduly affect the selection process.
"Using the model they have been puching stikes me more as a republic than a democracy. The basic difference in my view being that in a true democracy, you get majority rule etc. In a repblic, much like ICANN, elected or appointed individuals have the granted right to make policy changes how They see fit. This is the inherent flaw with the way they have structured the program."
If you read what you wrote, you will see that you just described the United States Federal government, as well as most state governments. We elect people to go make laws for us. How is this bad? Do we really want to have a system where 500,000,000 people all directly vote on something? Try keeping that straight; it just isn't feasible. When you get above a certain number of voters it just becomes untenable.
MSNBC.com has an article about this. Unfortunately the site is being stupid and won't give me the exact URL. Look for the News article "Scientists say they've struck oil with algae."
I accept your point that most lawyers don't understand technology and may even fear it to a degree. It is common for people to fear what they do not understand. However, how much of the actual underlying technology does a lawyer really need to understand? Obviously, the answer depends on the specific case they are working on, but certainly sometimes only a basic to moderate understanding of the technology itself would be sufficient, right?
I believe that the author of this piece fully believes in what he writes about. It is unfortunate that he didn't include any of his actual analysis in the article, but then again, how many of us really want to look at all of the math involved? Well, OK, I do, but I've got a degree in Accounting, so I like that stuff.
I see some comments on Slashdot saying that what is mentioned in the article is just standard business practice. That is partly true. As the accounting rules currently stand, companies are allowed to play some minor games with their earnings statements. Examples of these include how inventory is valued, and how you account for orders at year end that you don't ship out until the next year. Probably the most flagrant of these is the "pooling of interests" that companies are allowed to use in mergers so that overpaying for a company doesn't hit you as a real expense. Thankfully that goes away at the end of next year.
However, the author of the piece makes it impossible to really see the extent to which Microsoft just has smart accountants and finance folks playing the game legally, and to what extent those smart folks are "cooking the books." You just have to realize that corporate accounting is really more art than science, and you do what you can within the law to look as good as you can. If I was an investor in MS (which I'm not), I wouldn't be worried by the author's comments. In fact, MS should go up in the next few days as all Dow index funds (not that there are that many of them) have to buy the stock to stay current with the index.
I liked the comic provided with the column. I thought it succintly showed the state of the internet marketplace. And just for fun I looked up freelemonade.com. It's taken by some software company in Massachusetts. I don't even want to know what they're planning on doing with it...
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Well, let's not bash on people just because they don't want broadband at home. I have a T1 connection at work, and 56K dial-up at home. I could afford broadband at home, but I have no interest in paying more than $30 for it. I don't download music, and I have no interest in internet video. The main things I use Internet connection for is e-mail, general web surfing (a couple blogs, hobby-related sites, etc.), and downloading the odd software patch. Yeah, it might take me an hour or two to get a software patch, but it's not worth $30+ more per month just to speed that up. I just don't see the service being worth the cost. If I could get BB for $30/month, I'd be on it, because that what I feel it is worth to me. Different people with different needs come to different conclusions, of course, and that's why I know people that do have BB and feel it worth $50+/month. And for the record, I watch less than 5 hours of TV per week.
What's your source for the definitions you give of "ethics" and "morality?"
Where are the lies, exactly? I see a person who is spending some time dreaming, and writing about, a "better future" where this whole online comics thing works well. Then we see the present day situation where it doesn't seem to work well, due to the negative monetary return on investment that people are running in to, which forces them to drop their comics, or do them part time while they work a day job to support themselves. There's nothing wrong with Scott's vision, but what he doesn't do is posit a way to move from point A (the present case), to point B (the future case). If he (or someone else) could determine a way to move from point A to point B, then that would be something worthy of great acclaim. Unfortunately, I don't know how to do that.
You should know that this is a PDF version of a printed document. The GAO isn't that dumb (I work there, so I should know).
I don't think he was comparing spam to rape. He was using rape as an example that would get your attention. His point is valid, though. Turnabout might be fair play, but it doesn't help us move beyond that sort of play and up to the next level, where we can really deal with the problem and find a solution to minimize/eliminate unwanted e-mail.
If I was voting, I would vote for this one. Very funny.
"A system of moving gaseous substances using an organic system that uses suction in combination with an imbalance in vacuum states on two sides of a biologic barrier to take a substance known as "air" (see patent #1,943,329,834,937,947,038) and move it inside of a "person" (see patent #94,395,495,693,957) or an "animal" (see patent #48,098,347,937,584,028), so that the "air" can be added to the "blood" (see patent #2,947,917,937,209,847) so that the biologic organism can function in an enhanced state that has been found through rigorous experimentation to be preferable to that which exists when not using this method. I call this method "breathing."
In your article, you make the follwing statement: "and to a shift away from brutal physical punishment in child-rearing, a practice that shows up again and again as a common factor in the background of violent criminals."
Could you please provide your source data, or (more likely) tell me where I can find it? I've heard this before, but have never seen any evidence of it. Thanks,
You say that Jesus told us to share. Would you mind quoting scripture to support that? I'm not sure what you're basing this idea on.
Suck.com had an article about this same thing a while back. They came up with ways for RIAA to fight Napster. One was "crapster", where they would record bogus MP3s that said they were everything under the sun, but every song was really "Achy Breaky Heart" by Billy Ray Cyrus.
Well, what do you expect? The guy IS an economist. Most economists argue for a market-based solution to every problem, so it comes as no surprise to me that a market-based solution is proposed here. I would hope that his book (which I haven't read) would go into a serious discussion of HOW to set up a world-wide market for these things. It seems awfully complicated to me, and doesn't strike me as the kind of thing that doctors in Iowa would want to get involved in.
Sorry that I don't have any hard evidence for this, but I believe I remember watching a TV news program about telemarketing, and they mentioned that you could contact some group to get telemarketers to not call you. However, I do not believe that this law was in effect in every state (I don't think it is a Federal law), and the TV report said that people had contacted the group, but they would still get calls from telemarketers.
:)
And if it was on TV, it must be true.
This is not anything new. The concept has been around the Silicon Valley, and each company has its "burn rate," which is the amount of money that the company loses each month, because almost nobody makes any money (notable exceptions excluded). Michael Wolff wrote a good book about this, called, amazingly enough, Burn Rate. You can go to its web page by clicking here.
Yeah, I agree with that. They don't have any real "American citizen", "European citizen", etc. channels set up for selecting the non-pre-selected members. I agree with the critics that it does allow for special interests (i.e., people who provide ICANN with funding) to try to unduly affect the selection process.
"Using the model they have been puching stikes me more as a republic than a democracy. The basic difference in my view being that in a true democracy, you get majority rule etc. In a repblic, much like ICANN, elected or appointed individuals have the granted right to make policy changes how They see fit. This is the inherent flaw with the way they have structured the program."
If you read what you wrote, you will see that you just described the United States Federal government, as well as most state governments. We elect people to go make laws for us. How is this bad? Do we really want to have a system where 500,000,000 people all directly vote on something? Try keeping that straight; it just isn't feasible. When you get above a certain number of voters it just becomes untenable.
This one's a little wierd, but in the current atmosphere it makes some sense: Woman patents herself.
MSNBC.com has an article about this. Unfortunately the site is being stupid and won't give me the exact URL. Look for the News article "Scientists say they've struck oil with algae."
I accept your point that most lawyers don't understand technology and may even fear it to a degree. It is common for people to fear what they do not understand. However, how much of the actual underlying technology does a lawyer really need to understand? Obviously, the answer depends on the specific case they are working on, but certainly sometimes only a basic to moderate understanding of the technology itself would be sufficient, right?
I believe that the author of this piece fully believes in what he writes about. It is unfortunate that he didn't include any of his actual analysis in the article, but then again, how many of us really want to look at all of the math involved? Well, OK, I do, but I've got a degree in Accounting, so I like that stuff.
I see some comments on Slashdot saying that what is mentioned in the article is just standard business practice. That is partly true. As the accounting rules currently stand, companies are allowed to play some minor games with their earnings statements. Examples of these include how inventory is valued, and how you account for orders at year end that you don't ship out until the next year. Probably the most flagrant of these is the "pooling of interests" that companies are allowed to use in mergers so that overpaying for a company doesn't hit you as a real expense. Thankfully that goes away at the end of next year.
However, the author of the piece makes it impossible to really see the extent to which Microsoft just has smart accountants and finance folks playing the game legally, and to what extent those smart folks are "cooking the books." You just have to realize that corporate accounting is really more art than science, and you do what you can within the law to look as good as you can. If I was an investor in MS (which I'm not), I wouldn't be worried by the author's comments. In fact, MS should go up in the next few days as all Dow index funds (not that there are that many of them) have to buy the stock to stay current with the index.
I liked the comic provided with the column. I thought it succintly showed the state of the internet marketplace. And just for fun I looked up freelemonade.com. It's taken by some software company in Massachusetts. I don't even want to know what they're planning on doing with it...