Then again, maybe the companies selling the spammed crap would be just as happy to pay for a text ad too?
Probably, but the goal here is targeted ads, and an ad that "targets" everyone isn't really a targeted ad. I think this is pretty interesting, because it means the Gmail admins will have a direct financial incentive to develop really smart spam detection.
To be consistent you must apply the same rules to every market, so you have no right bitching the next time OPEC decides to cap production to drive up oil prices.
I certainly wouldn't bitch about that. Driving up oil prices does more to reduce oil consumption and promote alternative fuels than all the environmental lobbies combined.
I don't complain about gas prices. If I couldn't handle paying $20 for 250 miles of driving, then I would have bought a Prius instead of a Jetta.
Although if we're pushing for actual correctness, not just moral equivalency, neither OPEC nor RIAA really qualifies as an example of free-market capitalist principles, so it's not that simple to rule good/bad on their market decisions. Also, RIAA's product can be replicated at virtually no cost and new supply created as long as the funds are there, wherease OPEC's cannot. As such, I think RIAA's model should push for volume more than margin. But I'm not an expert, and I don't run OPEC or RIAA. I'm just saying, if you can state your position in one sentence, you're probably ridiculously oversimplifying the important stuff.
Thanks.
The only reason I still read RIAA/MPAA/MS related comments here is in the hope of finding ones like this.
Another couple points:
It's not just that kids love the current music, but that kids are paying money for the current music. While your average slashdot reader is performing some sort of protest against RIAA's business model by downloading their favorite music for free, your average teenager is paying $15 for each and every N'Sync album they can find.
You can complain about how today's music sucks, and radio stations only play five songs over and over, but you're actively contributing to that situation by not paying for the music you like. And I mean paying "the System". RIAA, Virgin, Tower, Best Buy. There aren't that many great bands who quit making music because they made 30% less money than they were expecting. However, I'm sure there are hordes of great bands who most people never heard, because their record label thought they wouldn't be commercially viable.
The "cause" of file sharing is not universal. Like many people here on slashdot, I download lots of music, then if I like it, I buy the albums. Free music sharing is, for me, a very effective tool to decide which CDs to buy, and ultimately helps the RIAA by increasing the number of my purchases. HOWEVER, unlike most people here on slashdot, I do not reflexively assume that everyone else thinks like I do. Most people I know who download mp3s do it because they can. They almost never buy CDs. CDs require you to go to a store (or even some site like amazon) and spend money, which most people would rather not do. I believe that this mindset makes up the bulk of the music-downloading population. Plus, for every person like me who makes a point of buying the CDs they like on principle, I think there's at least one person who refuses to buy them on principle.
I know two people right now who rent tons of DVDs and copy them. With the costs of the rental, the media, and the burner, they're paying something like 80% of what it would have cost to just buy these movies. I doubt they've even processed the economics of it, or considered the morality of the situation (why bother, ripping off big corporations is always moral, right?). They do it because they can. Because it feels to them like they've found some special advantage. They're smarter than the world. They're not just some regular sucker who pays for stuff that should be really cheap.
Lastly, everyone is tossing around the $30 album figure. The only online music store I've personally used is iTunes, but it usually has a small price incentive for buying an entire album. $1/song, but $10 for a 12 song album. Part of the reason $1/song is problematic for the RIAA's business model is that it vastly decreases album sales. The vast majority of customers want the hit single they heard on the radio. For a while, most of them would buy the album it was on. Sure, they'd grumble when they didn't like the rest of the songs, (or occasionally, be pleasantly surprised that they did) but they'd still drop the $10-15 bucks. Now they can just buy the song for a buck, where they would have otherwise spent ten. Looking at it from this perspective, even $3/song is decreasing RIAA profits for albums with three or fewer singles. HOWEVER, if you're willing to buy the whole album, I bet they'd still be willing to give it to you for $15, whether you buy a plastic disc or click a button on iTunes.
I'm reading these people's posts, and... I know that slashdotters can be pretty dumb, and many of us are the type to get wedgies in high school, but we don't project a face that's that lame, do we?
"Lame" feels like a soothing balm after a bunch of posts complaining the the Microsoft weblog on MSDN doesn't render correctly in Firebird/Firefox* version 0.something, or that it's not Standards Compliant, or that it uses ActiveX, modded up to 5. Wow, that's pretty Interesting. A Microsoft site that blatantly caters to ninety-something-percent of people, who use a Microsoft browser. How horrible.
Some days I feel like I only read Slashdot comments to remind myself that being a geek does not mean you're smart.
* - As a sidenote, I'm using Mozilla 1.5 right now, and the page looks fine to me.
And, of course, ripping off tabbed browsing and pop up blockers.
If they didn't do this, you'd be bitching about how stupid they were for not having incorporated these great features that the open-source-community has.
There are plenty of legitimate complaints you could make about Microsoft. This is not one of them.
If they really wanted to "Learn by listening. When our customers speak, learn from them. Don't get defensive, don't argue for the sake of argument. Listen and take what benefits you to heart." Microsoft would have fixed the glaring security holes that the open source community has been pointing out for years a very long time ago.
Little mental exercise, Venn diagram:
Draw "Microsoft customers"
Now draw "the open source community"
The (really, really small) size of that overlap represents the degree to which your comment relates to their quote.
"My arguments are that percieved dangers of terrorism are far overstated and that our essential liberty is undervalued. The chances of me being killed by my wife are much higher than my demise being at the hands of terrorists."
This is a good point, although by choosing the example of your wife, you weaken it. There aren't many good ways in which a few billions could be rerouted from "the war on terror" to placate your wife. Nor would special powers in law enforcement prevent this (although I'm reminded of the beginning of Minority Report...)
A better example would have been automobile accidents or gun ownership. Both cause tons of deaths which could be prevented by a deprevation of freedoms and an increase in government power and discretion.
At least, they do in the USA. Handgun deaths are far, far more scarce in England than in the USA, largely because England does not grant as much freedom as the US does in this respect. The US Constitution tells us that particular freedom is more important than the safety which could be bought from its removal. As we speak, more and more Americans are becoming convinced that the Constituion is outdated in this respect, and that this freedom is now less important, while the safety is now more important. This is a debate of degrees, not principles, else it's one where England comes down on the side of safety, not freedom.
You refer to England as one extreme on this dichotomy, and I think that perception may be the root of our disagreement. Both the US and England are just slightly on the freedom side of moderate, all things considered. Sure, they're far freer than East Germany or Russia was, but if you're making that comparison, then Bush and the PATRIOT Act are also highly permissive and liberal.
Prostitution. Drugs. Driving really fast. In general, people seem to agree the we can give up these freedoms in exchange for some more safety. I'm not saying I agree with them, just that England is not the pure bastion of Freedom that you make it out to be. On the principle of freedom, it is no better than the US. On values and degrees, it is simply different. Sometimes it leans farther towards freedom, and at others towards safety.
As for the NSA, I agree there is probably a temptation for them to get the most out of their powers, I simply disagree as to whether or not that is a bad thing.
I cannot believe that any sane person would say this. You must protect your freedom at all costs.
Not only sane, but rational. The phrase "at all costs" should set of warning sirens in your mind that you've left logic behind. I think freedom is hugely important, but not worth "all costs". If I have a choice between someone telling me exactly what time I have to wake up and go to sleep, or dying painfully, I'll give up that chunk of freedom. It's not worth the cost.
I love the Ben Franklin quote posted above (and posted almost everyday here on slashdot), but lets go over it one more time:
"They that would give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." (emphasis mine)
It's pretty irrational to sacrifice all safety in exchange for any freedom, on principle. Franklin's quote sounds like it's espousing Freedom at all costs, on principle, but there's a value judgement in there. He includes "essential" and "a little temporary" for a reason. His point was just that people have a tendency to foolishly underestimate the value of their freedom. Now you're welcome to argue whether or not the NSA reading your email is a bigger infringement on my freedom than I think it is, or that it doesn't provide the security that I think it does. I'd be happy to listen to such an argument, and if it's well-reasoned and supported, then maybe I'd change my mind and start supporting a rollback in the NSA's powers and discretions. But don't come to me with bold generalizations about how Freedom is the most important thing ever, in all cases, and is worth all costs. That is, at best, preaching to a choir that I'm not in.
"I am sure that every person would be serving some kind of jail time if they had had their entire lives under total scrutiny."
I actually agree with this, but you seem to see the solution as increasing or maintaining privacy. I think that just leads to selective enforcement. If the cops are ticked at you, and they happen to catch you "on a bicycle drunk", as you put it, then your punishment is no longer in the hands of Democracy, or Republic, or the Law, but rather in the hands of a specific cop and a specific prosecutor. I think if everyone in a Democracy/Republic had their lives under total scrutiny, then laws which call for imprisonment for vending machine kickers and jaywalkers would be voted off the books pretty quickly.
I'm not actually suggesting such a total-scrutiny system, but I think this issue is a bit more complicated that just "Which is more important, safety or freedom?", and I think you've got to look at the value of the individual policy in question. As to this one, I'm content for the NSA to read my mail. It's okay if they know that I jaywalk. I don't think they care. You're welcome to convince me otherwise.
Already the US presidential race is about taxes. What makes taxes more important than international policy?
I assume you've gotten so saturated by the year-long barrage of Iraq news that you just filter it out?
I hear ten times as much crap about whether Bush's policies in Iraq are idiotic, or whether Kerry opposes Bush's policies in Iraq enough, as I hear about taxes. Iraq, which is actually not part of the USA, is "international policy"
My real perception is that this election is about who can whip up their base the most. The margin of undecideds is tiny, and neither candidate is really making much effort to woo moderates.
And as for "Less population to try to lull into a sense of contentment", I don't see this as representative of the US either. I see both the politicians and the media in a great effort to scare the crap out of the public, so that we're convinced that we have to vote for Bush/Kerry or else the terrorists will get us. Neither seems to me to be lulling anyone into contentment.
I'm an IT consultant, on a long term project with a government department. Time and again we warn them about the consequences of bad policies and advise testing programs or documentation to be implemented, but they can't be bothered. Then, as a result, something breaks, and they don't mind pouring five times as much money on fixing it.
Personally, I do network support, but I frequently program my own tools to deal with the problems I find which are unique to our network.
I find it a nice compromise, since I really like programming, but couldn't stand to pound out code 8hx5d, much less the 12hx6d that some developers end up with.
Re:Yes, yes, yes, Apple's dying, blah blah blah
on
Why iPod Can't Save Apple
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Based on the fact that old announcements of Apple's pending demise turned out to be false, you reach the conclusion that this undermines the arguments and trustworthiness of the person who is now predicting their demise. That's not a logical conclusion, it's an emotional one.
If, hypothetically, someone was to discover that G5 chips self-destruct after one year of use, that fact is not made any less significant by the volume of false doomsaying that preceded it. The argument stands or falls on the truth of its statements, not the credibility of people who made similar arguments in the past.
That's classic ad hominem.
I agree that someone announcing Apple is about to fail does not prove that Apple is failing, but neither do previous false predictions disprove the current one.
Re:Yes, yes, yes, Apple's dying, blah blah blah
on
Why iPod Can't Save Apple
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Yes, but the "people have said this before and it hasn't happened yet, therefore it isn't happening now" argument is also avoiding logical discussion of the topic.
The original post doesn't refer to any discrepancies in the financial analysis, or even attempt to make predictions about the effectiveness of new Apple business initiatives, it just makes the logically invalid (though fairly relevant) point that these death-of-Apple predictions are common and thusfar inaccurate.
Say you're tracking a piece of stolen equipment. You have a suspect. You find the equipment for sale on eBay, and he's the seller account.
From an evidence standpoint, what does it take to confirm his identity links to the account? Is eBay obligated to provide that information? Is that information admissiable in court, and is is considered substantial proof?
Slashdot Mirror
Then again, maybe the companies selling the spammed crap would be just as happy to pay for a text ad too?
Probably, but the goal here is targeted ads, and an ad that "targets" everyone isn't really a targeted ad. I think this is pretty interesting, because it means the Gmail admins will have a direct financial incentive to develop really smart spam detection.
To be consistent you must apply the same rules to every market, so you have no right bitching the next time OPEC decides to cap production to drive up oil prices.
I certainly wouldn't bitch about that. Driving up oil prices does more to reduce oil consumption and promote alternative fuels than all the environmental lobbies combined.
I don't complain about gas prices. If I couldn't handle paying $20 for 250 miles of driving, then I would have bought a Prius instead of a Jetta.
Although if we're pushing for actual correctness, not just moral equivalency, neither OPEC nor RIAA really qualifies as an example of free-market capitalist principles, so it's not that simple to rule good/bad on their market decisions. Also, RIAA's product can be replicated at virtually no cost and new supply created as long as the funds are there, wherease OPEC's cannot. As such, I think RIAA's model should push for volume more than margin. But I'm not an expert, and I don't run OPEC or RIAA. I'm just saying, if you can state your position in one sentence, you're probably ridiculously oversimplifying the important stuff.
Thanks.
The only reason I still read RIAA/MPAA/MS related comments here is in the hope of finding ones like this.
Another couple points: It's not just that kids love the current music, but that kids are paying money for the current music. While your average slashdot reader is performing some sort of protest against RIAA's business model by downloading their favorite music for free, your average teenager is paying $15 for each and every N'Sync album they can find.
You can complain about how today's music sucks, and radio stations only play five songs over and over, but you're actively contributing to that situation by not paying for the music you like. And I mean paying "the System". RIAA, Virgin, Tower, Best Buy. There aren't that many great bands who quit making music because they made 30% less money than they were expecting. However, I'm sure there are hordes of great bands who most people never heard, because their record label thought they wouldn't be commercially viable.
The "cause" of file sharing is not universal. Like many people here on slashdot, I download lots of music, then if I like it, I buy the albums. Free music sharing is, for me, a very effective tool to decide which CDs to buy, and ultimately helps the RIAA by increasing the number of my purchases. HOWEVER, unlike most people here on slashdot, I do not reflexively assume that everyone else thinks like I do. Most people I know who download mp3s do it because they can. They almost never buy CDs. CDs require you to go to a store (or even some site like amazon) and spend money, which most people would rather not do. I believe that this mindset makes up the bulk of the music-downloading population. Plus, for every person like me who makes a point of buying the CDs they like on principle, I think there's at least one person who refuses to buy them on principle.
I know two people right now who rent tons of DVDs and copy them. With the costs of the rental, the media, and the burner, they're paying something like 80% of what it would have cost to just buy these movies. I doubt they've even processed the economics of it, or considered the morality of the situation (why bother, ripping off big corporations is always moral, right?). They do it because they can. Because it feels to them like they've found some special advantage. They're smarter than the world. They're not just some regular sucker who pays for stuff that should be really cheap.
Lastly, everyone is tossing around the $30 album figure. The only online music store I've personally used is iTunes, but it usually has a small price incentive for buying an entire album. $1/song, but $10 for a 12 song album. Part of the reason $1/song is problematic for the RIAA's business model is that it vastly decreases album sales. The vast majority of customers want the hit single they heard on the radio. For a while, most of them would buy the album it was on. Sure, they'd grumble when they didn't like the rest of the songs, (or occasionally, be pleasantly surprised that they did) but they'd still drop the $10-15 bucks. Now they can just buy the song for a buck, where they would have otherwise spent ten. Looking at it from this perspective, even $3/song is decreasing RIAA profits for albums with three or fewer singles. HOWEVER, if you're willing to buy the whole album, I bet they'd still be willing to give it to you for $15, whether you buy a plastic disc or click a button on iTunes.
To quote my girlfriends mother talking about John Ashcroft, "I hope their [Members of the RIAA] stomachs explode and the devil comes take them".
I'm confused. Was she talking about Ashcroft, or the RIAA?
I'm not a big fan of either, but when you start lumping separate groups into one big nefarious "them", you're on your way to the tin foil hat crowd.
I'm reading these people's posts, and ... I know that slashdotters can be pretty dumb, and many of us are the type to get wedgies in high school, but we don't project a face that's that lame, do we?
"Lame" feels like a soothing balm after a bunch of posts complaining the the Microsoft weblog on MSDN doesn't render correctly in Firebird/Firefox* version 0.something, or that it's not Standards Compliant, or that it uses ActiveX, modded up to 5. Wow, that's pretty Interesting. A Microsoft site that blatantly caters to ninety-something-percent of people, who use a Microsoft browser. How horrible.
Some days I feel like I only read Slashdot comments to remind myself that being a geek does not mean you're smart.
* - As a sidenote, I'm using Mozilla 1.5 right now, and the page looks fine to me.
And, of course, ripping off tabbed browsing and pop up blockers.
If they didn't do this, you'd be bitching about how stupid they were for not having incorporated these great features that the open-source-community has.
There are plenty of legitimate complaints you could make about Microsoft. This is not one of them.
If they really wanted to "Learn by listening. When our customers speak, learn from them. Don't get defensive, don't argue for the sake of argument. Listen and take what benefits you to heart." Microsoft would have fixed the glaring security holes that the open source community has been pointing out for years a very long time ago.
Little mental exercise, Venn diagram:
Draw "Microsoft customers"
Now draw "the open source community"
The (really, really small) size of that overlap represents the degree to which your comment relates to their quote.
"My arguments are that percieved dangers of terrorism are far overstated and that our essential liberty is undervalued. The chances of me being killed by my wife are much higher than my demise being at the hands of terrorists."
This is a good point, although by choosing the example of your wife, you weaken it. There aren't many good ways in which a few billions could be rerouted from "the war on terror" to placate your wife. Nor would special powers in law enforcement prevent this (although I'm reminded of the beginning of Minority Report...)
A better example would have been automobile accidents or gun ownership. Both cause tons of deaths which could be prevented by a deprevation of freedoms and an increase in government power and discretion.
At least, they do in the USA. Handgun deaths are far, far more scarce in England than in the USA, largely because England does not grant as much freedom as the US does in this respect. The US Constitution tells us that particular freedom is more important than the safety which could be bought from its removal. As we speak, more and more Americans are becoming convinced that the Constituion is outdated in this respect, and that this freedom is now less important, while the safety is now more important. This is a debate of degrees, not principles, else it's one where England comes down on the side of safety, not freedom.
You refer to England as one extreme on this dichotomy, and I think that perception may be the root of our disagreement. Both the US and England are just slightly on the freedom side of moderate, all things considered. Sure, they're far freer than East Germany or Russia was, but if you're making that comparison, then Bush and the PATRIOT Act are also highly permissive and liberal.
Prostitution. Drugs. Driving really fast. In general, people seem to agree the we can give up these freedoms in exchange for some more safety. I'm not saying I agree with them, just that England is not the pure bastion of Freedom that you make it out to be. On the principle of freedom, it is no better than the US. On values and degrees, it is simply different. Sometimes it leans farther towards freedom, and at others towards safety.
As for the NSA, I agree there is probably a temptation for them to get the most out of their powers, I simply disagree as to whether or not that is a bad thing.
I cannot believe that any sane person would say this. You must protect your freedom at all costs.
Not only sane, but rational. The phrase "at all costs" should set of warning sirens in your mind that you've left logic behind. I think freedom is hugely important, but not worth "all costs". If I have a choice between someone telling me exactly what time I have to wake up and go to sleep, or dying painfully, I'll give up that chunk of freedom. It's not worth the cost.
I love the Ben Franklin quote posted above (and posted almost everyday here on slashdot), but lets go over it one more time:
"They that would give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." (emphasis mine)
It's pretty irrational to sacrifice all safety in exchange for any freedom, on principle. Franklin's quote sounds like it's espousing Freedom at all costs, on principle, but there's a value judgement in there. He includes "essential" and "a little temporary" for a reason. His point was just that people have a tendency to foolishly underestimate the value of their freedom. Now you're welcome to argue whether or not the NSA reading your email is a bigger infringement on my freedom than I think it is, or that it doesn't provide the security that I think it does. I'd be happy to listen to such an argument, and if it's well-reasoned and supported, then maybe I'd change my mind and start supporting a rollback in the NSA's powers and discretions. But don't come to me with bold generalizations about how Freedom is the most important thing ever, in all cases, and is worth all costs. That is, at best, preaching to a choir that I'm not in.
"I am sure that every person would be serving some kind of jail time if they had had their entire lives under total scrutiny."
I actually agree with this, but you seem to see the solution as increasing or maintaining privacy. I think that just leads to selective enforcement. If the cops are ticked at you, and they happen to catch you "on a bicycle drunk", as you put it, then your punishment is no longer in the hands of Democracy, or Republic, or the Law, but rather in the hands of a specific cop and a specific prosecutor. I think if everyone in a Democracy/Republic had their lives under total scrutiny, then laws which call for imprisonment for vending machine kickers and jaywalkers would be voted off the books pretty quickly.
I'm not actually suggesting such a total-scrutiny system, but I think this issue is a bit more complicated that just "Which is more important, safety or freedom?", and I think you've got to look at the value of the individual policy in question. As to this one, I'm content for the NSA to read my mail. It's okay if they know that I jaywalk. I don't think they care. You're welcome to convince me otherwise.
Already the US presidential race is about taxes. What makes taxes more important than international policy?
I assume you've gotten so saturated by the year-long barrage of Iraq news that you just filter it out?
I hear ten times as much crap about whether Bush's policies in Iraq are idiotic, or whether Kerry opposes Bush's policies in Iraq enough, as I hear about taxes. Iraq, which is actually not part of the USA, is "international policy"
My real perception is that this election is about who can whip up their base the most. The margin of undecideds is tiny, and neither candidate is really making much effort to woo moderates.
And as for "Less population to try to lull into a sense of contentment", I don't see this as representative of the US either. I see both the politicians and the media in a great effort to scare the crap out of the public, so that we're convinced that we have to vote for Bush/Kerry or else the terrorists will get us. Neither seems to me to be lulling anyone into contentment.
This is exactly my experience.
I'm an IT consultant, on a long term project with a government department. Time and again we warn them about the consequences of bad policies and advise testing programs or documentation to be implemented, but they can't be bothered. Then, as a result, something breaks, and they don't mind pouring five times as much money on fixing it.
Personally, I do network support, but I frequently program my own tools to deal with the problems I find which are unique to our network.
I find it a nice compromise, since I really like programming, but couldn't stand to pound out code 8hx5d, much less the 12hx6d that some developers end up with.
Based on the fact that old announcements of Apple's pending demise turned out to be false, you reach the conclusion that this undermines the arguments and trustworthiness of the person who is now predicting their demise. That's not a logical conclusion, it's an emotional one.
If, hypothetically, someone was to discover that G5 chips self-destruct after one year of use, that fact is not made any less significant by the volume of false doomsaying that preceded it. The argument stands or falls on the truth of its statements, not the credibility of people who made similar arguments in the past.
That's classic ad hominem.
I agree that someone announcing Apple is about to fail does not prove that Apple is failing, but neither do previous false predictions disprove the current one.
Yes, but the "people have said this before and it hasn't happened yet, therefore it isn't happening now" argument is also avoiding logical discussion of the topic.
The original post doesn't refer to any discrepancies in the financial analysis, or even attempt to make predictions about the effectiveness of new Apple business initiatives, it just makes the logically invalid (though fairly relevant) point that these death-of-Apple predictions are common and thusfar inaccurate.
Say you're tracking a piece of stolen equipment. You have a suspect. You find the equipment for sale on eBay, and he's the seller account.
From an evidence standpoint, what does it take to confirm his identity links to the account? Is eBay obligated to provide that information? Is that information admissiable in court, and is is considered substantial proof?