Totally disagree with you. India's at 1.1 Billion+ and democracy over there is a huge success. It is what keeps India from turning into one of those awful failed states of Africa. India is poor due to lousy Economic policy, not lousy political policy. Democracy is good for the world, very good, (unless of course, the country's democratically elected government turns against USA...in which it must be bad...)
Well I disagree. The whole point of capitalism is that even thru not caring about other people, you eventually bring about "good" for society as a whole....Now in pure capitalist terms that means increase their economic standard of living. Translated into basics this means Person A wants to make money by building a better car. Person A is NOT building a better car for his love of mankind, he's doing it to make ends meet, and get personal glory. But eventually, the world gets a better car, a better manufacturing process, a cheaper computer e.t.c. Now in this system, there is still the need for a govt. but as a Caretaker not an Active Participan in the economy. And it's the caretaker's job to smoothen out the warts. But communism is one Big Wart. Why should everybody be equal in economic terms? What incentive is there to work hard, when u know that at the end of the day, you're not getting a raise, a better house/car/paycheck? I don't think communism looked good even on the chalkboard. Just like democracy, captialism is an awful system, but the best out of all the other alternatives.
You're correct. India has the world's only freely(and mostly fairly) elected communist state government, in the state of West Bengal. Now why these West bengalis want commies in power is the beyond the rest of mostly Right-Wing India... but yea, there's nothing that prevents free elections under communism. But the fact is that the Chinese have always been under authoritarian regimes for most their 5000 years, the Communist Party is just the latest in a long line. They're more a dictatorship than communist. But they will eventually crumble due to their own submission to the Free-Market. You cannot be economically free and politically chained. Eventually, the Party will fall. And then we'll all be in trouble while the country takes some time to reorganize into a democracy. With 1 billion people to manage, that'll be tough. At least in that respect, India stole the lead on China.
Nope. The fact the probably 99% of the world's population is not well-versed in computer science is what allows MS to dominate. You just aren't going to get 50 year olds to sit the fuck down, search out a Linux distro and set it up, forget use it. It's not happening now, it's not happening ever. And the only response people have to that is that they don't have time for people who are too "dumb" to use Linux. Well guess what, Microsoft spent the time and money to get at those people (by hook or by crook). So long as the Open Source community has that fucking Vietcong attitude, - "We're so cool and exclusively smarter than the rest of the world. We are smarter-than-thou because we use software named after some obscure animal or the other" you're never gonna get rid of Microsoft. Let's work on the fucking interface, distribution & marketing of the alternative solutions such that they are VISIBLE, EASILY ACCESSIBLE and IN-YOUR-FACE for everyone. Now some wiseguy is going to come along and say how much intelligence does it require to go to Google and type "Linux". The answer is not much for a software developer, or someone in a related field. But there are HUGE SWATHES OF PEOPLE out there who still think they'll get an electric shock if they try and use a computer. And not all of these people are in Sub-Saharan Africa. So let's try and fucking design software with these people in mind, and get the fuck over the fact that Microsoft has us all by the balls, temporarily, if we use our heads, and permanenently if carry on with the same shit attitude. Whether you want to admit it or not, to a first timer, Windows is easier to use than any of the other operating systems ('cept Mac, but there are other reasons behind Mac's failure).
I whole-heartedly agree with you. But these days they aren't hiring many film production house managers whose only qualification is a comp. sci degree. And in the meantime I gotta pay those bills.. I apologise for us low-talent dudes.
I've come across bad work ethics in America too. Or was Enron also outsourcing its CEOs to India? Good work ethics stems from 1 thing and one thing alone: It's called Hire & Fire. It keeps the employees in line, and since you can't Hire & Fire in India (or China), you see the ethics take a dive(In India, any company employing more than 100 people has to take the "permission" from the government when it lays off more than 5 people in a year. Till date there have been only 17 applications in 50 years...). Stop trying to associate everything with culture. Somethings are just related to idiotic laws, and poor knowledge of economics.
Wowweee, and I thought life in India was tough! 7 am to 9 pm??????? I still find that a little hard to believe. What exactly extra are Koreans learning? Situation from the other side Asia(India). School hours are 8 am to 2 pm. Some schools count Saturday as a weekday. Vacations are vacations. Period. The exams can be tough, but with 1 billion people, the problem arises with the grading. Until at least next year, the system is based on average subject percentages, i.e. Person A scored 95% in Math, 90% in English, so the avg percentage is 92.5%. The issues with this is that at least 50,000 people will get 94%, and another 10,000 people will get 96%. And there is space for only 3000 people so u have to raise the cutoffs for admission to an absurd 98% in scome schools(and yes, 97.5% is not enough to get in).... This situation does cause pretty rigourous discipline to emerge. Due to this stupidity however, they are moving to a letter-based grading system next yr, and are going to base college admissions on more 'wholesome' attributes (kinda like USA I guess..).
We do just fine without the hockey sticks, thanks. They used to wrap your wrists with a ruler, but those days are mercifully, long gone.
Hey, not all of us were lucky enough to figure out what we wanted to with our lives early enough. By that time, some of us (like me) were already walking out with our comp. sci degree. The problem is shifting out of comp sci. once u get in. Although things are worse now, the pay is still better than some other industries, and realising that you have to give up some benefits to re-start all over again is what gets to many people. Not all the 'low-talent' people in IT are there to be pretenders. Some of us just got stuck, and are in transit, trying to figure out what our higher calling actually is. Bear with us till we quit;-)
1) What if your town way out in the middle of Africa? There are places where Amazon doesn't deliver and to places outside USA, the charges are $13+. This translate into a lot of money in non-dollar terms
2) And the whole point of my tirade is that I don't want the whole CD. I want the song. And as a consumer, I have a right to choose what I want to buy. It is illegal to bundle a browser with an operating system, and it should be illegal to bundle songs together. The only reason the songs are bundled together is because that's how the record industry wants it, and now all of us are conditioned to accept it. And it's not tough luck for me. I will go to Kazaa to get that song, because it's easy, not just because it's free. Easier than hunting down that song offline, and easier on my pocket. If they made it easy for me to get that song in a legal way I would do it.
Your lesson in basic economics is correct, as far as a perfectly-competitive amrket goes. However, this NOT a prefectly-competitive market, even though it seems like that on the surface. There are HUGE barriers to entry, thus this market is more on an oligopoly/monopoly. Most airplay isn't always given to the artists that are popular. The artists that asked for the least commision, gave the right people blow jobs, e.t.c. are the ones who get promoted the most. The rest just get rejected and go back to the Garage and try again.
That sounds about right to me. Since Slashdot is THE hotbed of choice for radical revolutions, I suggest we all DO WITHOUT! Let's STOP BUYING MUSIC COMPLETELY. Let's see what the fucking RIAA does with that. I bet we all get sued for daring to not buy music, thus violating section 42(b) of the copy(divine)right.
I totally agree with you. And here are some other scenarios which people seem to miss out on:
1) Student A is from country X, and studying in USA. Student would like to get his hands on some of the latest music produced in country X. Do u think HM-Fucking-V is going to have it? Bukllshit. But thru P2P it's instantly available.
2) Person B wants an obscure song from side B of an Album by the Pet Shop Boys made in 1986. If you're in the middle of ButtocksVille, with maybe one record store, your best way of getting to that song is via Kazaa.
So apparently, making people pay $500 for a crappy operating system is evil, but $14 for CD with one half-good song is ok, legal and fair. The whole reason the industry is in this mess is because they couldn't frikkin' wake up and realize that they are in a new era of technology. iTunes and the like is a late response to what they shoulda been pioneering ages ago. If u notice, innovation in the music industry is as stifled as it is in the software industry, and for the same reason. One big conglomerate holds all the cards(RIAA vs small indies). I'm just glad Microsoft doesn't go on a suing spree over its pirated operating systems.
When you're stuck in a monopoly market, sometimes the only option u have left is to steal. Buy something else only works if the market is competitive. But this market is _heavily tilted_ towards whatever Big Music pushes on you.
Dear Kazaa Users,
our headquarters have permanently shifted from Australia to New Zealand. We are proud and happy to be able to legally provide you with our services.
U Have to be a part programmer/hacker to know that something other than "that blue E thing" exists and can be used to "Start the internet". But for all those other folks (senior citizens, Sociology Majors) getting till that "blue E thing" is it.
Jobs moving has absolutely everything to do with a shitty economy. Y'all went thru a 10 yr boom, but forgot that at the end of every boom lies a recession waiting to happen. So you're used to the near-dotcom boom levels of wages, and VIP treatment accorded to u, whereas the CEOs moved on into the world of recession. Once you guys re-align your expectations and wages, the jobs will stop leaving. So again, the outsourcing is a symptom, not the cause. This does NOT mean that you are expected to work for the same wages as the donkey-arse cleaner in Sudan. It just means biting the bullet, coming in to work from 9-6, and not expecting a wage hike in the next yr or two. Finally, I would really like a count, or some evidence of the number of American software developers who have suffered from this opursourcing thing. I have yet to see a single shred of evidence (and I want to know if this is because of whining, or just because I haven't spending as much time at slashdot as I should). How many American software devs are out work, without a roof over their heads, and without enough money to pay their last water bill, phone bill and don't have enough to eat. Gimme a link, a study something, for fucks sake. And please, I'm not talking about the lesser number of jobs in the economy. I mean like "500 Software developers are now out on the streets, adding to the homeless population of America". Is there anything like that anywhere (or is it all being suppressed by Bush in an Election year?
This is true. This is the reason most Americans/Europeans get the runs first time they visit a 3rd-world country like Mexico/India (and the local population doesn't). Having some bacteria around all the time helps you generate antibodies. You can draw quite a few conclusions from this:
1) This means that you should keep your toilet as dirty as a 3rd-world country
2) COmputer Users have better immune system
I swear I've NEVER picked my arsehole while typing. There is a goddess sitting right behind me in our cube cluster...and I'm still trying....to get her name...
In other news, this should be a fuckin' obvious subject. Toilet seats get cleaned daily. But when's the last time someone wiped down a keyboard?
If that were true,
they'd stop trying to bust Kazaa.... but they are equally concerned with the mediums used (let's not forget the VCR was considered an instrument of the devil not so long ago).
P2P is a great technology, and if the Gov't. can learn to use it, then the RIAA can too. This brings me to a patentable idea, which someone has yet to suggest (as far as I know at least). Y not let people trade MP3s online, but for a fee. Instead of a stupid one-way download from itunes, e.t.c. y not let the users share their libraries among each other, and charge a fee like say 10 cents or something? The 10 cents go to the industry/artist, the users get the songs, and we're all happy (I think). If this is the first time anybody has seen this idea and they like, please don't forget to send me a slice of the millions you'll make with this idea (I'm trying to implement it myself, but have limited resources)...
That's y u need this hard drive dude. Imagine being able to hold all the info about those Paki terrorists (and trust me, there is AT LEAST 400 GBs worth) and being able to carry it around in your briefcase. Yeehaw, we got ourselves operation Shock and Awe reloaded!
They ought to mention it terms of full-motion-pictures in DVD format, instead of amount of music. I ain't never gonna need that much for MP3s!!! i.e. "this'll hold the whole LOTR Extended edition series and Lawrence of Arabia too!"
Slashdot Mirror
Totally disagree with you. India's at 1.1 Billion+ and democracy over there is a huge success. It is what keeps India from turning into one of those awful failed states of Africa. India is poor due to lousy Economic policy, not lousy political policy. Democracy is good for the world, very good, (unless of course, the country's democratically elected government turns against USA...in which it must be bad...)
Well I disagree. The whole point of capitalism is that even thru not caring about other people, you eventually bring about "good" for society as a whole....Now in pure capitalist terms that means increase their economic standard of living. Translated into basics this means Person A wants to make money by building a better car. Person A is NOT building a better car for his love of mankind, he's doing it to make ends meet, and get personal glory. But eventually, the world gets a better car, a better manufacturing process, a cheaper computer e.t.c. Now in this system, there is still the need for a govt. but as a Caretaker not an Active Participan in the economy. And it's the caretaker's job to smoothen out the warts. But communism is one Big Wart. Why should everybody be equal in economic terms? What incentive is there to work hard, when u know that at the end of the day, you're not getting a raise, a better house/car/paycheck? I don't think communism looked good even on the chalkboard. Just like democracy, captialism is an awful system, but the best out of all the other alternatives.
You're correct. India has the world's only freely(and mostly fairly) elected communist state government, in the state of West Bengal. Now why these West bengalis want commies in power is the beyond the rest of mostly Right-Wing India... but yea, there's nothing that prevents free elections under communism. But the fact is that the Chinese have always been under authoritarian regimes for most their 5000 years, the Communist Party is just the latest in a long line. They're more a dictatorship than communist. But they will eventually crumble due to their own submission to the Free-Market. You cannot be economically free and politically chained. Eventually, the Party will fall. And then we'll all be in trouble while the country takes some time to reorganize into a democracy. With 1 billion people to manage, that'll be tough. At least in that respect, India stole the lead on China.
Nope. The fact the probably 99% of the world's population is not well-versed in computer science is what allows MS to dominate. You just aren't going to get 50 year olds to sit the fuck down, search out a Linux distro and set it up, forget use it. It's not happening now, it's not happening ever. And the only response people have to that is that they don't have time for people who are too "dumb" to use Linux. Well guess what, Microsoft spent the time and money to get at those people (by hook or by crook). So long as the Open Source community has that fucking Vietcong attitude, - "We're so cool and exclusively smarter than the rest of the world. We are smarter-than-thou because we use software named after some obscure animal or the other" you're never gonna get rid of Microsoft. Let's work on the fucking interface, distribution & marketing of the alternative solutions such that they are VISIBLE, EASILY ACCESSIBLE and IN-YOUR-FACE for everyone. Now some wiseguy is going to come along and say how much intelligence does it require to go to Google and type "Linux". The answer is not much for a software developer, or someone in a related field. But there are HUGE SWATHES OF PEOPLE out there who still think they'll get an electric shock if they try and use a computer. And not all of these people are in Sub-Saharan Africa. So let's try and fucking design software with these people in mind, and get the fuck over the fact that Microsoft has us all by the balls, temporarily, if we use our heads, and permanenently if carry on with the same shit attitude. Whether you want to admit it or not, to a first timer, Windows is easier to use than any of the other operating systems ('cept Mac, but there are other reasons behind Mac's failure).
I whole-heartedly agree with you. But these days they aren't hiring many film production house managers whose only qualification is a comp. sci degree. And in the meantime I gotta pay those bills.. I apologise for us low-talent dudes.
I've come across bad work ethics in America too. Or was Enron also outsourcing its CEOs to India? Good work ethics stems from 1 thing and one thing alone: It's called Hire & Fire. It keeps the employees in line, and since you can't Hire & Fire in India (or China), you see the ethics take a dive(In India, any company employing more than 100 people has to take the "permission" from the government when it lays off more than 5 people in a year. Till date there have been only 17 applications in 50 years...). Stop trying to associate everything with culture. Somethings are just related to idiotic laws, and poor knowledge of economics.
and clearly, they don't teach good english. That should be rap your wrists, not wrap.... I'd like to see somebody wrap anything with a ruler. My bad.
Wowweee, and I thought life in India was tough! 7 am to 9 pm??????? I still find that a little hard to believe. What exactly extra are Koreans learning? Situation from the other side Asia(India). School hours are 8 am to 2 pm. Some schools count Saturday as a weekday. Vacations are vacations. Period. The exams can be tough, but with 1 billion people, the problem arises with the grading. Until at least next year, the system is based on average subject percentages, i.e. Person A scored 95% in Math, 90% in English, so the avg percentage is 92.5%. The issues with this is that at least 50,000 people will get 94%, and another 10,000 people will get 96%. And there is space for only 3000 people so u have to raise the cutoffs for admission to an absurd 98% in scome schools(and yes, 97.5% is not enough to get in).... This situation does cause pretty rigourous discipline to emerge. Due to this stupidity however, they are moving to a letter-based grading system next yr, and are going to base college admissions on more 'wholesome' attributes (kinda like USA I guess..). We do just fine without the hockey sticks, thanks. They used to wrap your wrists with a ruler, but those days are mercifully, long gone.
Hey, not all of us were lucky enough to figure out what we wanted to with our lives early enough. By that time, some of us (like me) were already walking out with our comp. sci degree. The problem is shifting out of comp sci. once u get in. Although things are worse now, the pay is still better than some other industries, and realising that you have to give up some benefits to re-start all over again is what gets to many people. Not all the 'low-talent' people in IT are there to be pretenders. Some of us just got stuck, and are in transit, trying to figure out what our higher calling actually is. Bear with us till we quit ;-)
1) What if your town way out in the middle of Africa? There are places where Amazon doesn't deliver and to places outside USA, the charges are $13+. This translate into a lot of money in non-dollar terms
2) And the whole point of my tirade is that I don't want the whole CD. I want the song. And as a consumer, I have a right to choose what I want to buy. It is illegal to bundle a browser with an operating system, and it should be illegal to bundle songs together. The only reason the songs are bundled together is because that's how the record industry wants it, and now all of us are conditioned to accept it. And it's not tough luck for me. I will go to Kazaa to get that song, because it's easy, not just because it's free. Easier than hunting down that song offline, and easier on my pocket. If they made it easy for me to get that song in a legal way I would do it.
Your lesson in basic economics is correct, as far as a perfectly-competitive amrket goes. However, this NOT a prefectly-competitive market, even though it seems like that on the surface. There are HUGE barriers to entry, thus this market is more on an oligopoly/monopoly. Most airplay isn't always given to the artists that are popular. The artists that asked for the least commision, gave the right people blow jobs, e.t.c. are the ones who get promoted the most. The rest just get rejected and go back to the Garage and try again.
That sounds about right to me. Since Slashdot is THE hotbed of choice for radical revolutions, I suggest we all DO WITHOUT! Let's STOP BUYING MUSIC COMPLETELY. Let's see what the fucking RIAA does with that. I bet we all get sued for daring to not buy music, thus violating section 42(b) of the copy(divine)right.
I totally agree with you. And here are some other scenarios which people seem to miss out on:
1) Student A is from country X, and studying in USA. Student would like to get his hands on some of the latest music produced in country X. Do u think HM-Fucking-V is going to have it? Bukllshit. But thru P2P it's instantly available.
2) Person B wants an obscure song from side B of an Album by the Pet Shop Boys made in 1986. If you're in the middle of ButtocksVille, with maybe one record store, your best way of getting to that song is via Kazaa.
So apparently, making people pay $500 for a crappy operating system is evil, but $14 for CD with one half-good song is ok, legal and fair.
The whole reason the industry is in this mess is because they couldn't frikkin' wake up and realize that they are in a new era of technology. iTunes and the like is a late response to what they shoulda been pioneering ages ago. If u notice, innovation in the music industry is as stifled as it is in the software industry, and for the same reason. One big conglomerate holds all the cards(RIAA vs small indies). I'm just glad Microsoft doesn't go on a suing spree over its pirated operating systems.
When you're stuck in a monopoly market, sometimes the only option u have left is to steal. Buy something else only works if the market is competitive. But this market is _heavily tilted_ towards whatever Big Music pushes on you.
We should be seeing this in the near future then:
Dear Kazaa Users,
our headquarters have permanently shifted from Australia to New Zealand. We are proud and happy to be able to legally provide you with our services.
I've been running Outlook on my Windows box for ages with no issues....now Wordpad on the other hand.....
U Have to be a part programmer/hacker to know that something other than "that blue E thing" exists and can be used to "Start the internet". But for all those other folks (senior citizens, Sociology Majors) getting till that "blue E thing" is it.
Jobs moving has absolutely everything to do with a shitty economy. Y'all went thru a 10 yr boom, but forgot that at the end of every boom lies a recession waiting to happen. So you're used to the near-dotcom boom levels of wages, and VIP treatment accorded to u, whereas the CEOs moved on into the world of recession. Once you guys re-align your expectations and wages, the jobs will stop leaving. So again, the outsourcing is a symptom, not the cause. This does NOT mean that you are expected to work for the same wages as the donkey-arse cleaner in Sudan. It just means biting the bullet, coming in to work from 9-6, and not expecting a wage hike in the next yr or two. Finally, I would really like a count, or some evidence of the number of American software developers who have suffered from this opursourcing thing. I have yet to see a single shred of evidence (and I want to know if this is because of whining, or just because I haven't spending as much time at slashdot as I should). How many American software devs are out work, without a roof over their heads, and without enough money to pay their last water bill, phone bill and don't have enough to eat. Gimme a link, a study something, for fucks sake. And please, I'm not talking about the lesser number of jobs in the economy. I mean like "500 Software developers are now out on the streets, adding to the homeless population of America". Is there anything like that anywhere (or is it all being suppressed by Bush in an Election year?
This is true. This is the reason most Americans/Europeans get the runs first time they visit a 3rd-world country like Mexico/India (and the local population doesn't). Having some bacteria around all the time helps you generate antibodies. You can draw quite a few conclusions from this:
1) This means that you should keep your toilet as dirty as a 3rd-world country
2) COmputer Users have better immune system
I swear I've NEVER picked my arsehole while typing. There is a goddess sitting right behind me in our cube cluster...and I'm still trying....to get her name...
In other news, this should be a fuckin' obvious subject. Toilet seats get cleaned daily. But when's the last time someone wiped down a keyboard?
If that were true, they'd stop trying to bust Kazaa.... but they are equally concerned with the mediums used (let's not forget the VCR was considered an instrument of the devil not so long ago).
P2P is a great technology, and if the Gov't. can learn to use it, then the RIAA can too. This brings me to a patentable idea, which someone has yet to suggest (as far as I know at least). Y not let people trade MP3s online, but for a fee. Instead of a stupid one-way download from itunes, e.t.c. y not let the users share their libraries among each other, and charge a fee like say 10 cents or something? The 10 cents go to the industry/artist, the users get the songs, and we're all happy (I think). If this is the first time anybody has seen this idea and they like, please don't forget to send me a slice of the millions you'll make with this idea (I'm trying to implement it myself, but have limited resources)...
which one?
Now how much is that in Shark's fins and horse testicles?
That's y u need this hard drive dude. Imagine being able to hold all the info about those Paki terrorists (and trust me, there is AT LEAST 400 GBs worth) and being able to carry it around in your briefcase. Yeehaw, we got ourselves operation Shock and Awe reloaded!
They ought to mention it terms of full-motion-pictures in DVD format, instead of amount of music. I ain't never gonna need that much for MP3s!!! i.e. "this'll hold the whole LOTR Extended edition series and Lawrence of Arabia too!"