If you make such a mistake, you are not likely to be able to pay it off for the rest of your life without some help. But hey, shut the fuck up, and pay it off like a man. It will only take all eternity, but that builds character.
Well, perhaps it should be. Clearly, the people that get into debt with these credit cards are not aware of how they work.
You are speaking as a logical and intelligent person, so of course for you these sort of things are clear as day. Unfortunately, not everyone has the same skills and know-how that you are gifted with. In the end, they end up suffering endlessly for it. Worst of all, even if they really do want to improve their situation, there is next to no recourse, because to find a solution they need to obtain these skills the might not even know are missing.
I am not trying to argue that they are blameless, and deserve no punishment for what the did. I think we can all agree that they screwed something up pretty bad. Instead, I want to give these people the ability to fix these mistakes. If that means treating them like elementary school students, then so be it. It beats having them live their entire life hating the world, and teaching their kids that hate too.
I came off a bit strong last night, it was 6am and I just had a long week. My apologies.
If these people have proven themselves to be bad credit, it only stands to reason they will not be able to pay off the 30% interest rate. I will stick to my point, the only thing this rate can accomplish, is keep this bad credit risk firmly under the credit card company's control.
Now certainly, the situation is a lot more complex, and they do need to recoup some of this money. However, I'm arguing that they were in a good position to avoid that loss in the first place. Even now, they are well positioned to call up these customers, help them consolidate their loans, and get the money back over a longer period. This is not happening, instead they keep the 30% interest rate, until they really do force the customers into bankruptcy
Of course nothing is a bottomless pool of profit, but they are still trying to make much more profit than is reasonable, and in doing so hurting not only their customers, but inevitably themselves.
No, actually. Few, if any of us do want the evil, evil corporations around. Ask a normal person, and they would likely be much more partial to the average, everyday corporation instead. Government has its place too, though obviously not as far spread as your post seems to be implying. Specifically, government should be there to watch over the system, and make sure that corporations don't screw you over as much as they could. In addition, they should provide social services, and coordinate infrastructure development. All things that cannot, or should not be privatized, whether to provide visibility, reduce corruption, or out of necessity, since some of these areas will not be profitable for a company.
Now, please understand that I have nothing against turning a profit. After all, I too work for a large corporation, and understand at least basic economics. If you provide a service, then it is only reasonable that you get something for it. What I am against, however, is the idea that you should be able to turn a disproportionate profit by taking advantage of those not familiar with areas like finance and law as you are. In doing so, you are effectively pooling money that would have otherwise gone to a wider range of third parties. If you are a corporation that engages in this sort of behavior, then quite frankly I consider you worse than scum, and I know you deserve whatever comes to repay you the favor someday.
Now realize, CC companies already charge a per transaction fee of a few percent of every payment you make, so it's not like they have no source of revenue. Given that, what sort of reason would they have to charge upwards of 30% on your "loan". I am not arguing that they cannot, because obviously it happens, instead I ask why is this reasonable? They are effectively making significantly more more on this sum then they could in most any other market.
Further, credit cards are not your traditional loans, which you pay off over a period of time. Whereas your mortgage requires a specific monthly payment, credit cards can easily grow out of your control if not careful, and then continue growing faster than you can pay it off.
Of course, the poor idiot getting charged for this services probably has no clue how to get out of the trap. If you did not realize that living above your mean is a bad idea, you are certainly not going to have the know-how and the background to figure out how to get out credit card debt. The banks are seldom very forthcoming with this information. Sure, you might say, just google it. Unfortunately, many of the people in this situation do not even understand what Google is.
An interesting question to finish off. Why is it that I can get a credit line at the bank that charges significantly less than even 10%, but as soon as I tie a similar line of credit to a piece of plastic, the cost jumps to 30%?
The problem with these "loans" is that they only become a problem when you can no longer pay them off any time. So effectively you are saying that because you made a mistake, and signed a form you did not fully understand the implications of, you deserve to be continuously punished by the entity that fooled you. In fact, once you have been fooled by these companies, your only real chance to improve your situation is to essentially become a slave and funnel the majority of your money to them.
True, these people should have known better than to live outside their means. However, the banks most certainly did nothing to explain the situation they were in, until it was far beyond their control. In fact, this could have been a good chance to teach these people about finances, had it been caught, and explained earlier. You may say this is their punishment, but I would counter that this punishment is more extreme than what they would receive had they simply stolen that same money from the bank, and went on a shopping spree.
I don't think it's the "pay it off" part that's got people annoyed. It's more to do with the "pay off not only more than you owe, but also enough to pay for huge CC company profits, and the ludicrous incomes of the employees."
Well, you could use something like GPG. If the ISP really wants to devote the resources to tracking down and faking certificates for every single torrent file, then matching them to specific connections, then they probably have a lot more processing power than I would expect from an ISP
How about some sort of signing system. The host can provide a signed file with payload info and a certificate, then the client can verify that it is from the actual host that you are connecting to. Any sort of public key system would work for this.
From this point, you should already have secure communication channel though the certificate to the server, and can join the "net of trust". Secure connections can then be negotiated by someone already in this net of trust, be it the server, or another client.
Going further, could even make the entire system distributed over an alternate addressing system, with requests routed through other clients in the mesh. This way you could hide the IPs of any systems in the mesh that you are not directly connected to.
The difference with this picture is that the owner of the site took it down, because of the negative attention it was bringing to him. Google is just covering their own asses by apologizing. It costs them nothing, and prevents a lot of potential bad press.
I think people underestimate where technology will be in 10 years. Why use cheap ARM hardware, when you could have super computers with you for a relatively low price. With a good enough wireless technology, web apps could work, and the computer could still cache some data locally to make the programs you install run quickly.
I would like to refer your attention to Google projects like O3D, Native Client, and their ability to release libraries with actual, complete APIs.
This is an OS in its infancy. So I think this is not a matter of Chrome OS does not have anything, but more a question of Chrome OS does not have anything yet.
Have you not read the/. articles about Google Audio (iTunes), Google Android (iPhone), O3D (Games, CAD), Picasa (Photos), Google Enterprise Apps (Work from home), etc?
I honestly ca not think of many apps that Google does not, or has not offered to provide for free. They even covered the developers pretty well. Those few apps that Google does not provide are very specialized that would have next to no use for the average consumer.
I am pulling this completely out of my ass, but I wouldn't be too surprised if some Japanese like Yahoo! just because it's named "Yahoo!" Some of those people are WEIRD.
In this specific case, I would argue that the numbers involved are actually just as, if not more important than the principle in question. Or, to put it another way; while everyone has their price, the cost of knocking down Google would be well outside the realm of possibility, especially with the generally positive view that most people have of the company.
Looking deeper though, the idea is playing on the average person's view that a million dollars is a lot of money for changing a robots.txt file. However, as the GP mentioned, most of the top sites would rake in that much every few days, so you really need to change the scale. This means that to convince even a single company to block Google you not only have to offer them more than they stand to lose out on, probably to the tune of tens if not hundreds of millions, but also have to pay for the transition costs, including re-negotiating contracts, having to train the employees how to use new tools, and in general, greatly changing their business model. By this estimate, Microsoft would probably not even have enough money to do this, even if they were to pool all of their cash and assets. All that, with no guarantee that the switch will actually do anything other than drive down traffic to what was before a competitive, top 1000 website.
None of this even considers the question of why exactly a website will willingly cut of a huge group of customer. Even if it did magically happen that the top 1000 sites completely blocked Google, few users will actually get that memo. That means when Joe Average wakes up the next day, and opens up Google to search for whatever random knickknack he dreamed up last night, he will just go to the new #1 result, which might be site 1001 (Now 235, because all of the competition did something really stupid). Of course, let us not forget that before blocking Google, these sites would ALREADY be listed on all the search engines, so they would quite literally be cutting off a group of customers, and not accomplishing anything else.
In short, this idea falls into that oh so common category of "Conversation Piece." I would still like to see someone try to pull it off, but only for the entertainment value of seeing their plans collapse around them.
Pay attention to what I was responding to. If you were trying to justify the behavior of Russia's authority by appeals to popularity and mob rule, then my response is on-target. Tyranny is tyranny no matter how many hands are in the air.
If you could kindly point out specifically what you were responding to, I would appreciate it. I do not remember anyone trying to justify any bad behavior on the part of the authority. Instead, the entire thread was to address your assumption that this guy deserves no sympathy, because he MAY have spent some his time enforcing tyranny on the people. If you were to watch the video, and hear what he says, you would see that his heart is in the right place. Even if someone works for a corrupt system, it does not instantly turn their soul darker than the blackest night. Instead, it means that in addition to the good they do for society, they will also do some bad.
It does come down to the fact that in the end, someone has to take care of crime. The alternative would be anarchy, which I am sure you can agree would not work, and could make the situation even worse. However, you are now saying that because someone is doing a job that MUST be done, and just because in the process of doing this job, they may be forced to do some dirty tasks, their opinions can be ignored, even when they are trying to fix the system, as this guy is (at great risk to his life no less). So please, direct your anger to fight the system and not the low rank grunts. When you see people that are trying to change it, your effort is better spent helping the change along rather than degrading the people trying to push for change.
A key thing to see is that the world is not two dimensional. A large section of the population that lived their lives under soviet control, the new system is already more than they can handle. Even tyranny is in the eye of the beholder. For instance, I imagine if you could find someone from the year 2400, they would view all governments on the planet as hugely tyrannical. Yet, if you were to show even the Russian system to someone from the 1600s, they would be shocked and surprised how free and open the system was. So everything has shades of gray, and trying to simply draw a line, and classify everyone based on whether they are in front of the line, or behind it does a great disservice to yourself and to humanity.
So I would disagree with you. If you carry out the laws of a corrupt government, you are no different than if you carry out the laws of a utopia. It just so happens that the laws you carry out may not be something you agree with, but the other choice is not even worth entertaining.
That excuse didn't work in the Nuremberg trials.
The Nuremberg trials "tried 22 of the most important captured leaders of Nazi Germany." [Wikipedia].
Of course that excuse did not work for 22 of the people most directly responsible for the atrocities committed in the war. They were not just carrying out the law, they WERE the law. Notice a critical detail, these trials did not try the soldiers whose only crime was fighting for their country. This example illustrates my point quite well; if you were carrying out the laws of the land, and you had no choice in the matter (short of deserting, and risking a bullet to the head), then you do not bear as much guilt as the people in charge.
But when you carry out the laws of corrupt governments you're no better than a mere thug. Unless you want to talk about cops deciding which laws are just and which are unjust...
This statement has nothing to do with the point mahmud was trying to illustrate. The laws are there to keep order; whether you agree with these laws, or believe they are horrible, you cannot simply ignore them. You should understand that even totally corrupt laws offer a measure of stability, which is something humans have a great need of. Sure, it's easy to sit in the US, with all of your freedoms and wax on about how corrupt laws are bad, but imagine living in a country where no-one enforces the laws. Say someone comes into your house, and robs you. Wouldn't it be nice to have police that can respond to and investigate the crime.
So I would disagree with you. If you carry out the laws of a corrupt government, you are no different than if you carry out the laws of a utopia. It just so happens that the laws you carry out may not be something you agree with, but the other choice is not even worth entertaining.
Perhaps you are one of the people that believe the system simply needs to change. However, even here you should realize that change does not happen overnight, or over the course of a year, or even a decade. Russia was a country that spent several generations under a very different government structure. The first steps to improve the system were taken a good 20 years ago, but that process is still ongoing. You must now wait as the intermediate generation that grew up used to the old system tries to adapt to the new one, before finally giving the power up to a younger generation.
I am trying to illustrate that this is not as simple a problem as many present it to be. As such, to discount someone that clearly wants to improve the situation is doing far more harm than good.
Yeah, and maybe the majority in Nazi Germany weren't thrilled about Jews, too.
Now that's delving into troll-like behavior. I will not call you a troll, because it may simply be very idealistic beliefs on your part, but do consider how others will perceive your arguments. We are not talking about Nazi Germany, nor are we talking about a country that is anything like Nazi Germany. Yes, Russia has a problem with corruption; a problem that is slowly being approached from various levels. This does not mean that they are gathering a group of people, and killing them off. At most, they may be working to remove the power from opportunists that used the collapse of the soviet union to secure fortunes beyond any human reason. Yet again, while you may disagree with the idea based on ideology, I ask that you please apply logic to the situation: Russia is not the United States, it has a very different culture, demographic, ideology, history, and belief system. Do not ask of them to be like you, instead urge them to find their own way, like this guy is doing.
You most certainly would not, and should not; neither should many other people. This is simply not your calling in life. That does not tell us much though. Crime still exists under ANY government. Even if the government is the most corrupt entity in the universe, ignoring the crime will still leave many more to suffer than they would otherwise. The fact that some dedicated individuals will risk their own lives for next to no money, and practically no recognition or power, just to help defend those that otherwise would have no hope at all is very admirable. Suggesting otherwise is insulting to their sacrifice.
Yes, there are of course very corrupt cops in Russia, just like in any other nation with a police force. That does not mean that they are all such wastes of humanity. Likewise, there are corrupt politicians, again, as anywhere else. Yet, for some reason you do not talk quite as badly of the officers keeping your streets peaceful. So while Russia may be more corrupt (or at least more obviously corrupt), I ask us not to set a double standard where x amount of corruption is perfectly fine, but y is not.
I would take this video as what it is, a guy calling out for help, and trying to bring attention to the problems in his own country. The best thing to do, then, would be to get the message out, and hope something good comes from it.
Granted, Blizzard does stand to benefit, but I believe that the actual SC AI implementation is not likely to be usable in SC2 without quite a bit of time investment. Of course, with SC2 being somewhat close to release, they probably already have an extensive AI in place, with quite a few man-hours of development invested in it. If this conference can illuminate new AI techniques usable in the RTS genre, it might prove very beneficial for Blizzard. However, I think SC2 will be too different of a game, compared to the original SC, for the SC AI to be easily portable into whatever framework they have.
That said, I do hope that Blizzard gets something from the conference, since it would only make the game that much better when it comes out:)
I think you are forgetting something pretty important. While I'm sure Blizzard will gladly grab the AI, provided it is released under a permissible enough license, I do not think they care all that much much. StarCraft 2 is (hopefully) just around the corner, so my best guess is that they are completely focused on that. While a Brood Wars AI would be nice, it is not likely to help much for a completely new game, with a whole ton of new variables, strategies, and game play mechanics. So if Blizzard really was behind the move, this would likely be an SC2 based competition, perhaps with some special beta release of the game.
What I find more likely is that the competition organizers wanted to give AI researchers a more complex challenge than the traditional "Move a robot around a box" or "Interact with a user" project. StarCraft is a sufficiently complex, but not insurmountable challenge, allowing researchers to try out their ideas in a simple, and competitive environment. The latter being especially important in determining how each strategy stacks up, and which ones may be worth pursuing. StarCraft was just a convenient, cheap, and easily available sandbox that could be adapted for the purpose.
Very good points, you completely correct. I can't wait until someday there's actual variety in mainstream music, instead of the weird mesh we have now. The real challenge, though, is getting the message out there. Anyone with any sort of say in these matters is so far removed from places where ideas originate. These people of power are also older, thus less likely to look toward newer media for creativity. Perhaps there is sense in getting ideas like this into traditional newspapers?
On a different note, software is where I think this has the most potential (I'm a software engineer though, so the bias is obvious). League of Legends is actually doing it in a really clever way. You get the full game for free, and can work your way up to all the optional characters you can buy, or you can get the full package for the cost of a traditional game, and if that's too much, you can just buy a few individual characters for a fraction of the price. The model is ingenious; it encourages you to donate, but does not give paid members any insurmountable advantages. I'm sure trying to sell it to a corporate board would be a nightmare though.
While I am very much for people generating their own content, there is certainly room in the market for large corporate producers as well. If the world depended on individual entities to make everything, we'd be lucky to have anything more than crude hammers and drafty shacks to live in.
You asked if passive consumption of entertainment is really any good; I would venture to say that is serves some purposes. Everyone needs an escape, the human mind simply cannot deal with everything that happens in the world. This content merely provides a simple and safe avenue to reach that. Other people might work out, drink, smoke, go clubbing, waste time on the internets, or what have you.
The main issue we face today is not who produces the content, but how it is owned and handled. Right now, the only way to get something is to pay a pre-defined price for it. This has been a workable system before, since most products required you to pay a static cost for material, large scale manufacturing, delivery, sales, the wages to support all this, as well as a more fluid cost criteria for profits and R&D. With much of the content we want getting digitized, though, there are less and less static costs associated with the process. A system where the majority of the revenue goes to recoup R&D cost, and then moving to nearly pure profit, is a system that can truly support the idea of patronage.
In fact, patronage, or paying what you believe the content is worth to encourage the creation of new content, has been around for a very long time. I believe the idea needs to be updated for modern usage, for instance, by making it really simple to donate, by suggesting pre-set donations, and by adding incentives or benefits for those that do donate, while not penalizing those that do not, but that's getting into details. The fact is, you can have both corporate and individual content generators, because they would target different markets.
A common argument is that patronage would not stop piracy, but I prefer to instead see it as *nothing* will stop piracy. As long as you are selling a product that people will actually, physically have, it will be pirated, end of story. Also, when you try keeping the products out of consumers hands, or otherwise close it down, many people will simply not buy your product because it will quickly grow stale and boring. So, why fight piracy then? Instead, your business model needs to be updated to account for it, and take advantage of the human mindset behind it.
Further, a lot of pirates are actually pretty reasonable people. They will download the game, song, or movie, and if they really like it, they will buy it. The issue then becomes a matter of price. If I get a game that provided me with $30 worth of entertainment, I would be happy to pay $30 for it, but I simply will not pay $60. Some may say that I should not have downloaded the game if I was not prepared to pay for it, but that is simply not how human nature works. We are creatures of curiocity; we like to try and to explore new things, and we always want the latest and greatest. I would even venture say that trying to change this would stifle innovation, and hurt your long term profits more than anything else. The simple fact that the content is out there means that a lot of people will be interested in it. Telling people they cannot have it is like telling the oceans to part, and let you through: When you can do something like that, you get your own religion.
I'm sure the VPN blocking policy is simply a bureaucratic decision. As soon as some senior MPAA shill caught wind that you could go through VPN to "steal" their content, the studios probably told someone near the top of the Hulu corporate chain that this should be strictly US only. From there on, it's a management decision, and outside the realm of any logic. You must remember, this is the Media industry. As I'm sure you know, being a/. reader, logic is not one of their strong points.
However, if we were to take a step back, there are pros and cons to international viewing. I think a major factor is that these companies have not realized you can offer to sell advertisement time to businesses in other countries, and then play said ads based on geolocation. You could probably even go through an intermediary, and have them handle the communication, and taxes, then send you a portion of the profit as "licensing" for next to no work on your part. However, there is also the question of licensing to consider. If the distribution rights to your content are already licensed in a country, then you can not just start offering a better service that would take customers from the broadcasters in that country. They most likely paid quite well for these rights, and have a good contract in the hands of their best lawyers. Sure, it would get you more money, and more good will to go this way, but it might also get you in legal trouble that you do not want. In that respect, their hands may really be legally tied.
All good points, which, I believe, illustrate some major problems with the current system. This is not something you can change overnight, and I'm not suggesting you try. However, it is a good goal to work towards. If you hate your job, start training for something you like. Worst case, you learn about a topic you enjoy, and don't take it anywhere. Best case, you can go into a new area and enjoy work a lot more, and lead an even more fulfilling life.
My response to fiannaFailMan later in the thread elaborates on this in a lot more detail.
Corruption, greed, intolerance, jealousy, and even paranoia; all of these things which are commonly attributed to human nature, I would argue first need to take root within your psyche. If you hate your work, then you will look around at others and go, "Those guys love their jobs, but I do not. Maybe if I had their position, I would like my job more." Then if you are skilled at the game of power, you will move to take the jobs you want, most likely destroying someone in the process. When you finally get there, you will find that nothing has changed; you still hate everything you are doing, though life outside your job is a bit easier now because of the extra perks you get.
Repeat this enough times, and your sub-conscious begins to believe that there is nothing more to life than money and power, since that's the only thing that has ever relieved the tedium. At that point, you will do anything to get more, and we get back to the human nature problems that all of us are so enjoying these days.
Ahh, I would venture to say that the advice is only as simplistic as you make it. In fact, entire novels could be written about the idea. If you take it absolutely literally, then it is certainly idealistic and optimistic, but I would like to highlight the critical difference with a question: Is your goal simply fun, or it is your true passion?
I did not explain the idea very well, but I would not suggest you pick something just because you did it as a hobby in high school. Instead, I say find your true calling; you'll know you got it right if you can overcome any pains to do it. After all, most people are not REALLY passionate about the roles you listed, they just see that those roles are the ones with the most money and power, and figure they should go in there to live the good life. I am saying that you need to overcome this natural desire to gravitate towards the jobs everyone idealizes, and instead move towards the job truly meant for YOU. As someone else brought up in a reply, there are people that might even love hauling trash. I happen to know such people myself.
Your example of the garage band illustrates this perfectly. The guy might enjoy music, and might even convince himself that this is what he wants, but he goes in there, and suffers constantly. What probably happened, is he saw all the media attention, money, and power heaped upon those successful in the business, and thought to himself, "Hey, I have a band. That could be me." In my view, this illustrates that he did not really understand what the job actually entailed, instead he just saw the rosy pastures, and wandered into the field, oblivious of the thorns. In his place, I would first research what it really means to run a successful band. There are plenty of artist testimonials that explain all the pains that come with the job. If that price is something I can afford to pay in order to pursue this passion, then nothing will stop me. On the other hand, if I feel a seed of doubt that it is worth it; if I think to myself, "Well, it sounds like a huge pain, but the money must be nice," then I will know immediately that this is not the job for me. In that case, I can still keep music as a hobby, so that someday, when I have more time and freedom, I may pursue it at my leisure, but when it comes to making a living, I will find something else to do.
Of course, life is not that easy. As many people pointed out, many roles are already filled in our current system, and the dependence on the huge service industry drives skilled people into dead-end jobs. Still, even in those situations you should constantly explore and expand your horizons. Who is to say your passion will not win out over the tedium of your boring life. It is certainly better than accepting that this is all there is to live. To make matters even more complex, your passions may change over the course of your life. Eventually, you may feel that you accomplished everything you wanted in your profession. Hopefully, when that day comes, you will have a small nest egg to allow you time to train yourself, and reach success in a new field.
Slashdot Mirror
If you make such a mistake, you are not likely to be able to pay it off for the rest of your life without some help. But hey, shut the fuck up, and pay it off like a man. It will only take all eternity, but that builds character.
Well, perhaps it should be. Clearly, the people that get into debt with these credit cards are not aware of how they work.
You are speaking as a logical and intelligent person, so of course for you these sort of things are clear as day. Unfortunately, not everyone has the same skills and know-how that you are gifted with. In the end, they end up suffering endlessly for it. Worst of all, even if they really do want to improve their situation, there is next to no recourse, because to find a solution they need to obtain these skills the might not even know are missing.
I am not trying to argue that they are blameless, and deserve no punishment for what the did. I think we can all agree that they screwed something up pretty bad. Instead, I want to give these people the ability to fix these mistakes. If that means treating them like elementary school students, then so be it. It beats having them live their entire life hating the world, and teaching their kids that hate too.
I came off a bit strong last night, it was 6am and I just had a long week. My apologies.
If these people have proven themselves to be bad credit, it only stands to reason they will not be able to pay off the 30% interest rate. I will stick to my point, the only thing this rate can accomplish, is keep this bad credit risk firmly under the credit card company's control.
Now certainly, the situation is a lot more complex, and they do need to recoup some of this money. However, I'm arguing that they were in a good position to avoid that loss in the first place. Even now, they are well positioned to call up these customers, help them consolidate their loans, and get the money back over a longer period. This is not happening, instead they keep the 30% interest rate, until they really do force the customers into bankruptcy
Of course nothing is a bottomless pool of profit, but they are still trying to make much more profit than is reasonable, and in doing so hurting not only their customers, but inevitably themselves.
No, actually. Few, if any of us do want the evil, evil corporations around. Ask a normal person, and they would likely be much more partial to the average, everyday corporation instead. Government has its place too, though obviously not as far spread as your post seems to be implying. Specifically, government should be there to watch over the system, and make sure that corporations don't screw you over as much as they could. In addition, they should provide social services, and coordinate infrastructure development. All things that cannot, or should not be privatized, whether to provide visibility, reduce corruption, or out of necessity, since some of these areas will not be profitable for a company.
Now, please understand that I have nothing against turning a profit. After all, I too work for a large corporation, and understand at least basic economics. If you provide a service, then it is only reasonable that you get something for it. What I am against, however, is the idea that you should be able to turn a disproportionate profit by taking advantage of those not familiar with areas like finance and law as you are. In doing so, you are effectively pooling money that would have otherwise gone to a wider range of third parties. If you are a corporation that engages in this sort of behavior, then quite frankly I consider you worse than scum, and I know you deserve whatever comes to repay you the favor someday.
Now realize, CC companies already charge a per transaction fee of a few percent of every payment you make, so it's not like they have no source of revenue. Given that, what sort of reason would they have to charge upwards of 30% on your "loan". I am not arguing that they cannot, because obviously it happens, instead I ask why is this reasonable? They are effectively making significantly more more on this sum then they could in most any other market.
Further, credit cards are not your traditional loans, which you pay off over a period of time. Whereas your mortgage requires a specific monthly payment, credit cards can easily grow out of your control if not careful, and then continue growing faster than you can pay it off.
Of course, the poor idiot getting charged for this services probably has no clue how to get out of the trap. If you did not realize that living above your mean is a bad idea, you are certainly not going to have the know-how and the background to figure out how to get out credit card debt. The banks are seldom very forthcoming with this information. Sure, you might say, just google it. Unfortunately, many of the people in this situation do not even understand what Google is.
An interesting question to finish off. Why is it that I can get a credit line at the bank that charges significantly less than even 10%, but as soon as I tie a similar line of credit to a piece of plastic, the cost jumps to 30%?
The problem with these "loans" is that they only become a problem when you can no longer pay them off any time. So effectively you are saying that because you made a mistake, and signed a form you did not fully understand the implications of, you deserve to be continuously punished by the entity that fooled you. In fact, once you have been fooled by these companies, your only real chance to improve your situation is to essentially become a slave and funnel the majority of your money to them.
True, these people should have known better than to live outside their means. However, the banks most certainly did nothing to explain the situation they were in, until it was far beyond their control. In fact, this could have been a good chance to teach these people about finances, had it been caught, and explained earlier. You may say this is their punishment, but I would counter that this punishment is more extreme than what they would receive had they simply stolen that same money from the bank, and went on a shopping spree.
I don't think it's the "pay it off" part that's got people annoyed. It's more to do with the "pay off not only more than you owe, but also enough to pay for huge CC company profits, and the ludicrous incomes of the employees."
Well, you could use something like GPG. If the ISP really wants to devote the resources to tracking down and faking certificates for every single torrent file, then matching them to specific connections, then they probably have a lot more processing power than I would expect from an ISP
How about some sort of signing system. The host can provide a signed file with payload info and a certificate, then the client can verify that it is from the actual host that you are connecting to. Any sort of public key system would work for this.
From this point, you should already have secure communication channel though the certificate to the server, and can join the "net of trust". Secure connections can then be negotiated by someone already in this net of trust, be it the server, or another client.
Going further, could even make the entire system distributed over an alternate addressing system, with requests routed through other clients in the mesh. This way you could hide the IPs of any systems in the mesh that you are not directly connected to.
The difference with this picture is that the owner of the site took it down, because of the negative attention it was bringing to him. Google is just covering their own asses by apologizing. It costs them nothing, and prevents a lot of potential bad press.
I think people underestimate where technology will be in 10 years. Why use cheap ARM hardware, when you could have super computers with you for a relatively low price. With a good enough wireless technology, web apps could work, and the computer could still cache some data locally to make the programs you install run quickly.
I would like to refer your attention to Google projects like O3D, Native Client, and their ability to release libraries with actual, complete APIs.
This is an OS in its infancy. So I think this is not a matter of Chrome OS does not have anything, but more a question of Chrome OS does not have anything yet.
Have you not read the /. articles about Google Audio (iTunes), Google Android (iPhone), O3D (Games, CAD), Picasa (Photos), Google Enterprise Apps (Work from home), etc?
I honestly ca not think of many apps that Google does not, or has not offered to provide for free. They even covered the developers pretty well. Those few apps that Google does not provide are very specialized that would have next to no use for the average consumer.
I am pulling this completely out of my ass, but I wouldn't be too surprised if some Japanese like Yahoo! just because it's named "Yahoo!" Some of those people are WEIRD.
In this specific case, I would argue that the numbers involved are actually just as, if not more important than the principle in question. Or, to put it another way; while everyone has their price, the cost of knocking down Google would be well outside the realm of possibility, especially with the generally positive view that most people have of the company.
Looking deeper though, the idea is playing on the average person's view that a million dollars is a lot of money for changing a robots.txt file. However, as the GP mentioned, most of the top sites would rake in that much every few days, so you really need to change the scale. This means that to convince even a single company to block Google you not only have to offer them more than they stand to lose out on, probably to the tune of tens if not hundreds of millions, but also have to pay for the transition costs, including re-negotiating contracts, having to train the employees how to use new tools, and in general, greatly changing their business model. By this estimate, Microsoft would probably not even have enough money to do this, even if they were to pool all of their cash and assets. All that, with no guarantee that the switch will actually do anything other than drive down traffic to what was before a competitive, top 1000 website.
None of this even considers the question of why exactly a website will willingly cut of a huge group of customer. Even if it did magically happen that the top 1000 sites completely blocked Google, few users will actually get that memo. That means when Joe Average wakes up the next day, and opens up Google to search for whatever random knickknack he dreamed up last night, he will just go to the new #1 result, which might be site 1001 (Now 235, because all of the competition did something really stupid). Of course, let us not forget that before blocking Google, these sites would ALREADY be listed on all the search engines, so they would quite literally be cutting off a group of customers, and not accomplishing anything else.
In short, this idea falls into that oh so common category of "Conversation Piece." I would still like to see someone try to pull it off, but only for the entertainment value of seeing their plans collapse around them.
Pay attention to what I was responding to. If you were trying to justify the behavior of Russia's authority by appeals to popularity and mob rule, then my response is on-target. Tyranny is tyranny no matter how many hands are in the air.
If you could kindly point out specifically what you were responding to, I would appreciate it. I do not remember anyone trying to justify any bad behavior on the part of the authority. Instead, the entire thread was to address your assumption that this guy deserves no sympathy, because he MAY have spent some his time enforcing tyranny on the people. If you were to watch the video, and hear what he says, you would see that his heart is in the right place. Even if someone works for a corrupt system, it does not instantly turn their soul darker than the blackest night. Instead, it means that in addition to the good they do for society, they will also do some bad.
It does come down to the fact that in the end, someone has to take care of crime. The alternative would be anarchy, which I am sure you can agree would not work, and could make the situation even worse. However, you are now saying that because someone is doing a job that MUST be done, and just because in the process of doing this job, they may be forced to do some dirty tasks, their opinions can be ignored, even when they are trying to fix the system, as this guy is (at great risk to his life no less). So please, direct your anger to fight the system and not the low rank grunts. When you see people that are trying to change it, your effort is better spent helping the change along rather than degrading the people trying to push for change.
A key thing to see is that the world is not two dimensional. A large section of the population that lived their lives under soviet control, the new system is already more than they can handle. Even tyranny is in the eye of the beholder. For instance, I imagine if you could find someone from the year 2400, they would view all governments on the planet as hugely tyrannical. Yet, if you were to show even the Russian system to someone from the 1600s, they would be shocked and surprised how free and open the system was. So everything has shades of gray, and trying to simply draw a line, and classify everyone based on whether they are in front of the line, or behind it does a great disservice to yourself and to humanity.
So I would disagree with you. If you carry out the laws of a corrupt government, you are no different than if you carry out the laws of a utopia. It just so happens that the laws you carry out may not be something you agree with, but the other choice is not even worth entertaining.
That excuse didn't work in the Nuremberg trials.
The Nuremberg trials "tried 22 of the most important captured leaders of Nazi Germany." [Wikipedia].
Of course that excuse did not work for 22 of the people most directly responsible for the atrocities committed in the war. They were not just carrying out the law, they WERE the law. Notice a critical detail, these trials did not try the soldiers whose only crime was fighting for their country. This example illustrates my point quite well; if you were carrying out the laws of the land, and you had no choice in the matter (short of deserting, and risking a bullet to the head), then you do not bear as much guilt as the people in charge.
But when you carry out the laws of corrupt governments you're no better than a mere thug. Unless you want to talk about cops deciding which laws are just and which are unjust...
This statement has nothing to do with the point mahmud was trying to illustrate. The laws are there to keep order; whether you agree with these laws, or believe they are horrible, you cannot simply ignore them. You should understand that even totally corrupt laws offer a measure of stability, which is something humans have a great need of. Sure, it's easy to sit in the US, with all of your freedoms and wax on about how corrupt laws are bad, but imagine living in a country where no-one enforces the laws. Say someone comes into your house, and robs you. Wouldn't it be nice to have police that can respond to and investigate the crime.
So I would disagree with you. If you carry out the laws of a corrupt government, you are no different than if you carry out the laws of a utopia. It just so happens that the laws you carry out may not be something you agree with, but the other choice is not even worth entertaining.
Perhaps you are one of the people that believe the system simply needs to change. However, even here you should realize that change does not happen overnight, or over the course of a year, or even a decade. Russia was a country that spent several generations under a very different government structure. The first steps to improve the system were taken a good 20 years ago, but that process is still ongoing. You must now wait as the intermediate generation that grew up used to the old system tries to adapt to the new one, before finally giving the power up to a younger generation.
I am trying to illustrate that this is not as simple a problem as many present it to be. As such, to discount someone that clearly wants to improve the situation is doing far more harm than good.
Yeah, and maybe the majority in Nazi Germany weren't thrilled about Jews, too.
Now that's delving into troll-like behavior. I will not call you a troll, because it may simply be very idealistic beliefs on your part, but do consider how others will perceive your arguments. We are not talking about Nazi Germany, nor are we talking about a country that is anything like Nazi Germany. Yes, Russia has a problem with corruption; a problem that is slowly being approached from various levels. This does not mean that they are gathering a group of people, and killing them off. At most, they may be working to remove the power from opportunists that used the collapse of the soviet union to secure fortunes beyond any human reason. Yet again, while you may disagree with the idea based on ideology, I ask that you please apply logic to the situation: Russia is not the United States, it has a very different culture, demographic, ideology, history, and belief system. Do not ask of them to be like you, instead urge them to find their own way, like this guy is doing.
You most certainly would not, and should not; neither should many other people. This is simply not your calling in life. That does not tell us much though. Crime still exists under ANY government. Even if the government is the most corrupt entity in the universe, ignoring the crime will still leave many more to suffer than they would otherwise. The fact that some dedicated individuals will risk their own lives for next to no money, and practically no recognition or power, just to help defend those that otherwise would have no hope at all is very admirable. Suggesting otherwise is insulting to their sacrifice.
Yes, there are of course very corrupt cops in Russia, just like in any other nation with a police force. That does not mean that they are all such wastes of humanity. Likewise, there are corrupt politicians, again, as anywhere else. Yet, for some reason you do not talk quite as badly of the officers keeping your streets peaceful. So while Russia may be more corrupt (or at least more obviously corrupt), I ask us not to set a double standard where x amount of corruption is perfectly fine, but y is not.
I would take this video as what it is, a guy calling out for help, and trying to bring attention to the problems in his own country. The best thing to do, then, would be to get the message out, and hope something good comes from it.
Granted, Blizzard does stand to benefit, but I believe that the actual SC AI implementation is not likely to be usable in SC2 without quite a bit of time investment. Of course, with SC2 being somewhat close to release, they probably already have an extensive AI in place, with quite a few man-hours of development invested in it. If this conference can illuminate new AI techniques usable in the RTS genre, it might prove very beneficial for Blizzard. However, I think SC2 will be too different of a game, compared to the original SC, for the SC AI to be easily portable into whatever framework they have.
:)
That said, I do hope that Blizzard gets something from the conference, since it would only make the game that much better when it comes out
I think you are forgetting something pretty important. While I'm sure Blizzard will gladly grab the AI, provided it is released under a permissible enough license, I do not think they care all that much much. StarCraft 2 is (hopefully) just around the corner, so my best guess is that they are completely focused on that. While a Brood Wars AI would be nice, it is not likely to help much for a completely new game, with a whole ton of new variables, strategies, and game play mechanics. So if Blizzard really was behind the move, this would likely be an SC2 based competition, perhaps with some special beta release of the game.
What I find more likely is that the competition organizers wanted to give AI researchers a more complex challenge than the traditional "Move a robot around a box" or "Interact with a user" project. StarCraft is a sufficiently complex, but not insurmountable challenge, allowing researchers to try out their ideas in a simple, and competitive environment. The latter being especially important in determining how each strategy stacks up, and which ones may be worth pursuing. StarCraft was just a convenient, cheap, and easily available sandbox that could be adapted for the purpose.
Very good points, you completely correct. I can't wait until someday there's actual variety in mainstream music, instead of the weird mesh we have now. The real challenge, though, is getting the message out there. Anyone with any sort of say in these matters is so far removed from places where ideas originate. These people of power are also older, thus less likely to look toward newer media for creativity. Perhaps there is sense in getting ideas like this into traditional newspapers?
On a different note, software is where I think this has the most potential (I'm a software engineer though, so the bias is obvious). League of Legends is actually doing it in a really clever way. You get the full game for free, and can work your way up to all the optional characters you can buy, or you can get the full package for the cost of a traditional game, and if that's too much, you can just buy a few individual characters for a fraction of the price. The model is ingenious; it encourages you to donate, but does not give paid members any insurmountable advantages. I'm sure trying to sell it to a corporate board would be a nightmare though.
While I am very much for people generating their own content, there is certainly room in the market for large corporate producers as well. If the world depended on individual entities to make everything, we'd be lucky to have anything more than crude hammers and drafty shacks to live in.
You asked if passive consumption of entertainment is really any good; I would venture to say that is serves some purposes. Everyone needs an escape, the human mind simply cannot deal with everything that happens in the world. This content merely provides a simple and safe avenue to reach that. Other people might work out, drink, smoke, go clubbing, waste time on the internets, or what have you.
The main issue we face today is not who produces the content, but how it is owned and handled. Right now, the only way to get something is to pay a pre-defined price for it. This has been a workable system before, since most products required you to pay a static cost for material, large scale manufacturing, delivery, sales, the wages to support all this, as well as a more fluid cost criteria for profits and R&D. With much of the content we want getting digitized, though, there are less and less static costs associated with the process. A system where the majority of the revenue goes to recoup R&D cost, and then moving to nearly pure profit, is a system that can truly support the idea of patronage.
In fact, patronage, or paying what you believe the content is worth to encourage the creation of new content, has been around for a very long time. I believe the idea needs to be updated for modern usage, for instance, by making it really simple to donate, by suggesting pre-set donations, and by adding incentives or benefits for those that do donate, while not penalizing those that do not, but that's getting into details. The fact is, you can have both corporate and individual content generators, because they would target different markets.
A common argument is that patronage would not stop piracy, but I prefer to instead see it as *nothing* will stop piracy. As long as you are selling a product that people will actually, physically have, it will be pirated, end of story. Also, when you try keeping the products out of consumers hands, or otherwise close it down, many people will simply not buy your product because it will quickly grow stale and boring. So, why fight piracy then? Instead, your business model needs to be updated to account for it, and take advantage of the human mindset behind it.
Further, a lot of pirates are actually pretty reasonable people. They will download the game, song, or movie, and if they really like it, they will buy it. The issue then becomes a matter of price. If I get a game that provided me with $30 worth of entertainment, I would be happy to pay $30 for it, but I simply will not pay $60. Some may say that I should not have downloaded the game if I was not prepared to pay for it, but that is simply not how human nature works. We are creatures of curiocity; we like to try and to explore new things, and we always want the latest and greatest. I would even venture say that trying to change this would stifle innovation, and hurt your long term profits more than anything else. The simple fact that the content is out there means that a lot of people will be interested in it. Telling people they cannot have it is like telling the oceans to part, and let you through: When you can do something like that, you get your own religion.
I'm sure the VPN blocking policy is simply a bureaucratic decision. As soon as some senior MPAA shill caught wind that you could go through VPN to "steal" their content, the studios probably told someone near the top of the Hulu corporate chain that this should be strictly US only. From there on, it's a management decision, and outside the realm of any logic. You must remember, this is the Media industry. As I'm sure you know, being a /. reader, logic is not one of their strong points.
However, if we were to take a step back, there are pros and cons to international viewing. I think a major factor is that these companies have not realized you can offer to sell advertisement time to businesses in other countries, and then play said ads based on geolocation. You could probably even go through an intermediary, and have them handle the communication, and taxes, then send you a portion of the profit as "licensing" for next to no work on your part. However, there is also the question of licensing to consider. If the distribution rights to your content are already licensed in a country, then you can not just start offering a better service that would take customers from the broadcasters in that country. They most likely paid quite well for these rights, and have a good contract in the hands of their best lawyers. Sure, it would get you more money, and more good will to go this way, but it might also get you in legal trouble that you do not want. In that respect, their hands may really be legally tied.
All good points, which, I believe, illustrate some major problems with the current system. This is not something you can change overnight, and I'm not suggesting you try. However, it is a good goal to work towards. If you hate your job, start training for something you like. Worst case, you learn about a topic you enjoy, and don't take it anywhere. Best case, you can go into a new area and enjoy work a lot more, and lead an even more fulfilling life.
My response to fiannaFailMan later in the thread elaborates on this in a lot more detail.
Refer to the current "* Crisis."
Corruption, greed, intolerance, jealousy, and even paranoia; all of these things which are commonly attributed to human nature, I would argue first need to take root within your psyche. If you hate your work, then you will look around at others and go, "Those guys love their jobs, but I do not. Maybe if I had their position, I would like my job more." Then if you are skilled at the game of power, you will move to take the jobs you want, most likely destroying someone in the process. When you finally get there, you will find that nothing has changed; you still hate everything you are doing, though life outside your job is a bit easier now because of the extra perks you get.
Repeat this enough times, and your sub-conscious begins to believe that there is nothing more to life than money and power, since that's the only thing that has ever relieved the tedium. At that point, you will do anything to get more, and we get back to the human nature problems that all of us are so enjoying these days.
Ahh, I would venture to say that the advice is only as simplistic as you make it. In fact, entire novels could be written about the idea. If you take it absolutely literally, then it is certainly idealistic and optimistic, but I would like to highlight the critical difference with a question: Is your goal simply fun, or it is your true passion?
I did not explain the idea very well, but I would not suggest you pick something just because you did it as a hobby in high school. Instead, I say find your true calling; you'll know you got it right if you can overcome any pains to do it. After all, most people are not REALLY passionate about the roles you listed, they just see that those roles are the ones with the most money and power, and figure they should go in there to live the good life. I am saying that you need to overcome this natural desire to gravitate towards the jobs everyone idealizes, and instead move towards the job truly meant for YOU. As someone else brought up in a reply, there are people that might even love hauling trash. I happen to know such people myself.
Your example of the garage band illustrates this perfectly. The guy might enjoy music, and might even convince himself that this is what he wants, but he goes in there, and suffers constantly. What probably happened, is he saw all the media attention, money, and power heaped upon those successful in the business, and thought to himself, "Hey, I have a band. That could be me." In my view, this illustrates that he did not really understand what the job actually entailed, instead he just saw the rosy pastures, and wandered into the field, oblivious of the thorns. In his place, I would first research what it really means to run a successful band. There are plenty of artist testimonials that explain all the pains that come with the job. If that price is something I can afford to pay in order to pursue this passion, then nothing will stop me. On the other hand, if I feel a seed of doubt that it is worth it; if I think to myself, "Well, it sounds like a huge pain, but the money must be nice," then I will know immediately that this is not the job for me. In that case, I can still keep music as a hobby, so that someday, when I have more time and freedom, I may pursue it at my leisure, but when it comes to making a living, I will find something else to do.
Of course, life is not that easy. As many people pointed out, many roles are already filled in our current system, and the dependence on the huge service industry drives skilled people into dead-end jobs. Still, even in those situations you should constantly explore and expand your horizons. Who is to say your passion will not win out over the tedium of your boring life. It is certainly better than accepting that this is all there is to live. To make matters even more complex, your passions may change over the course of your life. Eventually, you may feel that you accomplished everything you wanted in your profession. Hopefully, when that day comes, you will have a small nest egg to allow you time to train yourself, and reach success in a new field.