I find the tolerance for corporate greed and power in this thread really appaling, especially from the hacker crowd.
I've read a number of arguments that boil down to this: You should have read the contract. I don't care if you don't like it.
Well first off wireless carriers in this country do not offer contracts, they offer ultimatums. A proper contract is negotiated between parties who all have a say in the matter. Not only that but breaking a contract has consequences for both parties. This simply isn't what the monopoly in this case offers. You sign the paper they wrote without input or you get nothing. They get guaranteed revenue far in excess of their expenditure on the subsidy for a period of two years with no guarantee of service, reliability, or quality. You fail to pay and they terminate your account, they fail to provide coverage and you're stuck calling tech support.
To cut this to the bone, this is about power. They can dictate any terms they want unless the consumers act in a group to protest their policies. Remember this is a company that benefited multiple times from direct subsidies from the federal government, relies on access to public infrastructure to provide its service, cooperated in violating constitutionally protected private communications, and continues to make significant profit off of outrageously priced data fees despite the rest of the economy tanking.
If you're willing to sit back and get screwed by companies like this, then they will continue to screw not only you, but the rest of us. I'm not calling for boycott or anything stupidly overplayed like that, but for goodness sake, recognise when the system is not the peoples favor and have the compassion to voice your support for the rest of us getting screwed even if you personally enjoy the feeling.
Researchers have also have discovered that Laura Croft's breast size does not significantly change the appeal of the character, Animal Crossing is just as fun as GTA, and female night elves are rarely created in WoW.
Gyms can be intimidating, but they are much better late at night. Way less crowded and with a group that is pretty focused.
Find someone who wants to get in shape, a 24 hour fitness, and hit the gym 2-3 times a week. The most important thing is going regularly, even more important than what you do when you get there.
What your missing is that RIAA is not the only promoter in town. Their success has been through control of distribution channels *paired* with promotion. Now that you don't need them to physically get your CD into stores a whole slew of music promoters can arise. The traditional costs associated with production and distribution which made new bands an expensive risk have been drastically reduced and so the power has shifted back to artists.
For example this NIN album will sell well because it is unusual and will thus get publicity. As more and more popular artists abandon traditional labels and go this route there will be diminishing returns on just putting it up on the web. Bands will have to start marketing themselves on Google, TV, Radio, Print etc. This is how things should be, it's hard to be noticed in a crowded market.
The great thing though is that it will be the artists calling the shots, and if the marketers fail to make them money, the artists will fire *them*. Not the other way around.
Having tried this in college, I can tell you a couple things.
1. You will noticeably reduce the lifespan of the discs. (Which can anger cost conscious supervisors)
2. Doing ongoing hardware maintenance, because of this reduced lifespan, on closed, used by others, boxes is a *serious* pain.
Storage setups make hot swapping discs easy, trying to do this with full blown systems just gets tiresome. The solution I eventually came up with was the following.
Implement a two tiered hardware replacement cycle where you reduce the time a user is allowed to keep any hard drive in their box before replacement. Then using the still reasonably good drives, create a centralized storage solution in which the drives can live out the rest of their useful spans. Data security, user happiness, and redundancy are all good selling points of this system. You still have to deal with monkeying around in user boxes but if it's on a schedule and it nets you more drives, it's not so bad.
At least on the machine-scanned ballots Clinton was listed first (the "randomization" letter picked was Z). Ordered results and random results almost always show these kind of statistically significant differences, which is one reason machine voting is useful. Just because your name shows up first is no reason why you should win an election. Touchscreens (w/ papertrails) that randomize the choices provide a more "fair" outcome by evenly distributing those people who are swayed by primacy effects.
Another interesting note is that all the pollsters DO randomize their lists precisely to avoid this effect.
Cancer, AIDS, MS, Alzheimer's etc, these are America's true enemy. More lives are lost or devastated by these diseases a month than by terrorism or drugs in the last decade.
These are our common enemy. I don't care if you're republican or democrat, Christian or Muslim, rich or poor, disease is out to get you, your parents, your children, all of us.
It's shameful how much money we spend ensuring we can kill and how little we spend to protect life. It's shameful how we have failed to fight that which kills more Americans than any other force. It's shameful how we bicker over petty differences while a true enemy destroys us from within.
Unlike the wars of greed and ignorance we've been fighting, A War on Disease has no casualties and every battle fought makes us stronger. A War on Disease is a campaign for all Americans and for the world, and against none. A War on Disease, is one we can win.
While the immediate winners of the race are the three teams holding checks, as well as the military which gets to pick from a field of highly successful new technology, the real beneficiaries will be the drivers of the world. I believe the importance of this hasn't quite filtered into most people's minds.
Many people know that more than 40,000 people die each year in motor vehicle accidents, however when it comes to people I feel this number is insufficient. "More than 40,000 people" have been dying each year now for more than a decade, and that's only in the US. Since I was 17 more than four hundred thousand people have died participating in an activity that machines can now do flawlessly (if very slowly). This blows my mind.
Worldwide, 1.2 million people die on the roads every year and the repercussions of these deaths on families and friends can be unusually devastating due to their sudden, unexpected nature.
The performance of these three teams is akin to three major pharmaceuticals all announcing they have come up with a cure for one of the major cancers. That, surely, would have been worldwide front-page news.
Now, of course, the real debate begins. How much more will consumers be willing to pay for safe vehicles, and what limitations on speed will they accept? Rolling out this technology (if you'll excuse the play on words) will require changes in infrastructure, law, and cultural mentality. Especially here in the states. If it means saving this many lives, will you pay twice as much and drive at half speed, at least for a little while?
>>Video game addiction is very different than gambling in my eyes.
False. Gambling is a set of variable ratio reward schedules with an extremely potent reinforcer, money (and later after the rush is established, seratonin etc.) These same reward schedules exist in video games, particularly MMOs, and while they don't have quite as potent a reinforcer as cold cash pouring out of a slot machine, leveling can feel pretty close. However there is more...
>>Players addicted to video games aren't really addicted to video games. They're addicted to being successful.
This is an additional hook, positive social interaction for some and negative social interaction (griefing) for others are extremely rewarding especially if your own self image or RL situation is less than perfect. What you call "being successful" is, in fact, a wide swath of needs which games can fulfill.
Should this be classified as an addiction? Yes, but if they use current guidelines far too many people would be diagnosed. There is a difference between being highly engaged (really fun hobby) and being addicted (all consuming and destructive habit).
Having sat in on the oral arguments and read the decision I can tell you that the reason the court was unanimous in ruling against Grokster had almost nothing to do with the technology. There was clear evidence that the founders created a business model expressly to allow copyright infringement. It was, in fact, a fairly narrow ruling that did not condemn any underlying technology, but made clear that there was a responsibility of business to respect copyright, and that knowingly enabling piracy for profit would not stand under the law.
Frankly I grow more and more disappointed with Lessig. Ever since he lost the most important copyright case of the century (Disney) I've stopped giving him the free-culture-rockstar status he seems to hold with others.
What this means is that the iPhone really costs $499 and $599 (minus the hefty markup that Apple likes to add) not the $800 some of you are assuming by factoring in a subsidy.
2. The 2-year contract and long-term partnership is a payoff to Cingular for doing what Jobs says.
Cingular demanded something to work with Apple on features like Random Access Voicemail, and not subsidizing the phone (which is a huge selling point for service based companies)
3. The price point allows Apple to continue to sell iPods at their marked-up prices.
If you can get an 8gb iPod in a phone for less than a regular iPod next time you renew your cell contract, why would you ever buy an iPod?
Jobs wants to sell phones, sell iPods, and maintain the pay-more-for-higher-quality image that Apple enjoys. This is how he's going to do it.
Starbucks as a company seems to have made over $500 million this year in simple profit.
In 2005 the outgoing CEO (Orin Smith) and Chairman (Howard Schultz) took home over $30 million *each* from selling stock.
My question is simple. Don't they have enough money?
I think they can afford to pay Ethiopian farmers more, and given that the Per Capita GDP is $900 over there even a few bucks a person could help, or better yet, buy and forgive some of their debt which consumes 106% of national GDP.
$100 million may sound like a lot, but in what ways could it be more useful?
1. Establish a fund for purchasing copywrite.
This would let you purchase more, over a longer period of time, if not the most prized or newest works.
2. Buy the copywrites but taper the prices off over time.
Making the works free can be made a good long term goal. If you reduce charges over time you can recoup some of the initial cost before turning the work over to the public domain.
3. Start a publishing house
I'll fund and publish your book, but you only get 10 years of royalties afterwhich it goes public domain. Hell this was the original intent of copywrite, so why not start it again?
That page puts the event at 41.311N, 129.114E, with an error of 9.3 miles.
That exact location is extremely mountainous. Most tests are conducted in flat areas for a number of reasons, but mainly NK will have wanted us to see this clearly.
A review of the area provided by a circle starting at the estimated coordinates and with a radius of 9.3 miles finds this location:
4123'8.07"N 129 5'51.38"E
Enter this location into Google Earth (Fly To), it is approximately 5.4 miles north west of the estimated location and is a plateau which shows heavy scarring from past bomb craters.
I have no idea how long it will be before we see an updated sattelite image of this area, but it will have a huge new crater as of today.
Slashdot Mirror
E-Textile based. Build it yourself today!
http://www.plusea.at/?p=2255
We're only at the prototype stage, but if you don't have any nanotubes lying around, try this out instead!
Ian
http://embodiedai.com/
I find the tolerance for corporate greed and power in this thread really appaling, especially from the hacker crowd.
I've read a number of arguments that boil down to this: You should have read the contract. I don't care if you don't like it.
Well first off wireless carriers in this country do not offer contracts, they offer ultimatums. A proper contract is negotiated between parties who all have a say in the matter. Not only that but breaking a contract has consequences for both parties. This simply isn't what the monopoly in this case offers. You sign the paper they wrote without input or you get nothing. They get guaranteed revenue far in excess of their expenditure on the subsidy for a period of two years with no guarantee of service, reliability, or quality. You fail to pay and they terminate your account, they fail to provide coverage and you're stuck calling tech support.
To cut this to the bone, this is about power. They can dictate any terms they want unless the consumers act in a group to protest their policies. Remember this is a company that benefited multiple times from direct subsidies from the federal government, relies on access to public infrastructure to provide its service, cooperated in violating constitutionally protected private communications, and continues to make significant profit off of outrageously priced data fees despite the rest of the economy tanking.
If you're willing to sit back and get screwed by companies like this, then they will continue to screw not only you, but the rest of us. I'm not calling for boycott or anything stupidly overplayed like that, but for goodness sake, recognise when the system is not the peoples favor and have the compassion to voice your support for the rest of us getting screwed even if you personally enjoy the feeling.
Researchers have also have discovered that Laura Croft's breast size does not significantly change the appeal of the character, Animal Crossing is just as fun as GTA, and female night elves are rarely created in WoW.
http://learn-cs.pbwiki.com/
A lot of legwork already done for you, just give Mr. Weekly credit!
Ian
Gyms can be intimidating, but they are much better late at night. Way less crowded and with a group that is pretty focused.
Find someone who wants to get in shape, a 24 hour fitness, and hit the gym 2-3 times a week. The most important thing is going regularly, even more important than what you do when you get there.
Or better yet, "Not Even Wrong!"
What your missing is that RIAA is not the only promoter in town. Their success has been through control of distribution channels *paired* with promotion. Now that you don't need them to physically get your CD into stores a whole slew of music promoters can arise. The traditional costs associated with production and distribution which made new bands an expensive risk have been drastically reduced and so the power has shifted back to artists.
For example this NIN album will sell well because it is unusual and will thus get publicity. As more and more popular artists abandon traditional labels and go this route there will be diminishing returns on just putting it up on the web. Bands will have to start marketing themselves on Google, TV, Radio, Print etc. This is how things should be, it's hard to be noticed in a crowded market.
The great thing though is that it will be the artists calling the shots, and if the marketers fail to make them money, the artists will fire *them*. Not the other way around.
-Ian
to whomever tagged this article with "vaporware." Cracked me up. -Ian
Having tried this in college, I can tell you a couple things.
1. You will noticeably reduce the lifespan of the discs. (Which can anger cost conscious supervisors)
2. Doing ongoing hardware maintenance, because of this reduced lifespan, on closed, used by others, boxes is a *serious* pain.
Storage setups make hot swapping discs easy, trying to do this with full blown systems just gets tiresome. The solution I eventually came up with was the following.
Implement a two tiered hardware replacement cycle where you reduce the time a user is allowed to keep any hard drive in their box before replacement. Then using the still reasonably good drives, create a centralized storage solution in which the drives can live out the rest of their useful spans. Data security, user happiness, and redundancy are all good selling points of this system. You still have to deal with monkeying around in user boxes but if it's on a schedule and it nets you more drives, it's not so bad.
-Ian
At least on the machine-scanned ballots Clinton was listed first (the "randomization" letter picked was Z). Ordered results and random results almost always show these kind of statistically significant differences, which is one reason machine voting is useful. Just because your name shows up first is no reason why you should win an election. Touchscreens (w/ papertrails) that randomize the choices provide a more "fair" outcome by evenly distributing those people who are swayed by primacy effects.
Another interesting note is that all the pollsters DO randomize their lists precisely to avoid this effect.
Disease.
Cancer, AIDS, MS, Alzheimer's etc, these are America's true enemy. More lives are lost or devastated by these diseases a month than by terrorism or drugs in the last decade.
These are our common enemy. I don't care if you're republican or democrat, Christian or Muslim, rich or poor, disease is out to get you, your parents, your children, all of us.
It's shameful how much money we spend ensuring we can kill and how little we spend to protect life. It's shameful how we have failed to fight that which kills more Americans than any other force. It's shameful how we bicker over petty differences while a true enemy destroys us from within.
Unlike the wars of greed and ignorance we've been fighting, A War on Disease has no casualties and every battle fought makes us stronger. A War on Disease is a campaign for all Americans and for the world, and against none. A War on Disease, is one we can win.
While the immediate winners of the race are the three teams holding checks, as well as the military which gets to pick from a field of highly successful new technology, the real beneficiaries will be the drivers of the world. I believe the importance of this hasn't quite filtered into most people's minds.
Many people know that more than 40,000 people die each year in motor vehicle accidents, however when it comes to people I feel this number is insufficient. "More than 40,000 people" have been dying each year now for more than a decade, and that's only in the US. Since I was 17 more than four hundred thousand people have died participating in an activity that machines can now do flawlessly (if very slowly). This blows my mind.
Worldwide, 1.2 million people die on the roads every year and the repercussions of these deaths on families and friends can be unusually devastating due to their sudden, unexpected nature.
The performance of these three teams is akin to three major pharmaceuticals all announcing they have come up with a cure for one of the major cancers. That, surely, would have been worldwide front-page news.
Now, of course, the real debate begins. How much more will consumers be willing to pay for safe vehicles, and what limitations on speed will they accept? Rolling out this technology (if you'll excuse the play on words) will require changes in infrastructure, law, and cultural mentality. Especially here in the states. If it means saving this many lives, will you pay twice as much and drive at half speed, at least for a little while?
>>Video game addiction is very different than gambling in my eyes.
...
3 994
False. Gambling is a set of variable ratio reward schedules with an extremely potent reinforcer, money (and later after the rush is established, seratonin etc.) These same reward schedules exist in video games, particularly MMOs, and while they don't have quite as potent a reinforcer as cold cash pouring out of a slot machine, leveling can feel pretty close. However there is more
>>Players addicted to video games aren't really addicted to video games. They're addicted to being successful.
This is an additional hook, positive social interaction for some and negative social interaction (griefing) for others are extremely rewarding especially if your own self image or RL situation is less than perfect. What you call "being successful" is, in fact, a wide swath of needs which games can fulfill.
Should this be classified as an addiction? Yes, but if they use current guidelines far too many people would be diagnosed. There is a difference between being highly engaged (really fun hobby) and being addicted (all consuming and destructive habit).
For the unusually curious: http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1223917.122
-Ian
Having sat in on the oral arguments and read the decision I can tell you that the reason the court was unanimous in ruling against Grokster had almost nothing to do with the technology. There was clear evidence that the founders created a business model expressly to allow copyright infringement. It was, in fact, a fairly narrow ruling that did not condemn any underlying technology, but made clear that there was a responsibility of business to respect copyright, and that knowingly enabling piracy for profit would not stand under the law.
Frankly I grow more and more disappointed with Lessig. Ever since he lost the most important copyright case of the century (Disney) I've stopped giving him the free-culture-rockstar status he seems to hold with others.
Maybe I'll get a +1 Funny :)
Please edit original submission for accuracy.
-Ian
1. Cingular is not subsidizing the iPhone
What this means is that the iPhone really costs $499 and $599 (minus the hefty markup that Apple likes to add) not the $800 some of you are assuming by factoring in a subsidy.
2. The 2-year contract and long-term partnership is a payoff to Cingular for doing what Jobs says.
Cingular demanded something to work with Apple on features like Random Access Voicemail, and not subsidizing the phone (which is a huge selling point for service based companies)
3. The price point allows Apple to continue to sell iPods at their marked-up prices.
If you can get an 8gb iPod in a phone for less than a regular iPod next time you renew your cell contract, why would you ever buy an iPod?
Jobs wants to sell phones, sell iPods, and maintain the pay-more-for-higher-quality image that Apple enjoys. This is how he's going to do it.
Starbucks as a company seems to have made over $500 million this year in simple profit.
In 2005 the outgoing CEO (Orin Smith) and Chairman (Howard Schultz) took home over $30 million *each* from selling stock.
My question is simple. Don't they have enough money?
I think they can afford to pay Ethiopian farmers more, and given that the Per Capita GDP is $900 over there even a few bucks a person could help, or better yet, buy and forgive some of their debt which consumes 106% of national GDP.
I'm crazy, what can I say?
$100 million may sound like a lot, but in what ways could it be more useful?
1. Establish a fund for purchasing copywrite.
This would let you purchase more, over a longer period of time, if not the most prized or newest works.
2. Buy the copywrites but taper the prices off over time.
Making the works free can be made a good long term goal. If you reduce charges over time you can recoup some of the initial cost before turning the work over to the public domain.
3. Start a publishing house
I'll fund and publish your book, but you only get 10 years of royalties afterwhich it goes public domain. Hell this was the original intent of copywrite, so why not start it again?
-Ian
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1870730456 324813920
That is footage of numerous underground tests. Please take a moment to watch it. A large majority of tests produce craters.
If you check out Yucca Flats, where we do many of our underground tests you will see the ground is covered in craters.
37 8'0.60"N 116 3'14.80"W
So, I must respectfully stand by my statement.
The following is deduction based on the following information:
u akes/ustqab.php
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Q
That page puts the event at 41.311N, 129.114E, with an error of 9.3 miles.
That exact location is extremely mountainous. Most tests are conducted in flat areas for a number of reasons, but mainly NK will have wanted us to see this clearly.
A review of the area provided by a circle starting at the estimated coordinates and with a radius of 9.3 miles finds this location:
4123'8.07"N 129 5'51.38"E
Enter this location into Google Earth (Fly To), it is approximately 5.4 miles north west of the estimated location and is a plateau which shows heavy scarring from past bomb craters.
I have no idea how long it will be before we see an updated sattelite image of this area, but it will have a huge new crater as of today.
GE is free and available here: http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html
-Ian
A clear indication this wasn't natural.
-Ian
I didn't know this. I appreciate your response! -Ian
Incorrect
I L.ASP?sid=&intObjectID=4780101
l otlist.asp?saleno=NYC1778&page=6
It actually went for $48,000. And at least to me that 8k matters.
PICARD'S RESSIKAN FLUTE - Lot 537
http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/search/LOTDETA
Lot Results
http://www.christies.com/auction/results/results_
Lot descriptions
a ry.asp?intSaleID=20723
l otlist.asp?saleno=NYC1778
http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/search/LotSumm
Final Prices
http://www.christies.com/auction/results/results_
Thousands of lots, have fun!