I followed one of the links, clicked around a bit and ended up bearing witness to this travesty .
It reminded me of a game that never quite made it to market. You can read about it at this highly educational site . [NOTE: Once you get to the page, please do a text search of the page for the words "cheers me up." Sorry for the inconvenience, but it's a long page and I can't figure out a way to link directly to the material.]
Clay
I'm sorry, I'm just not clever enough to come up with a signature line.
>Money is a secondary issue now. What these >companies are really after now is control.
You're correct and the point bears emphasis.
Anyone catch the recent discussion re: Costco and Sam's Club/Wal-Mart? The former is paying its employees a fair chunk of change more than the latter and, despite healthy bottom lines for both companies, Costco's generosity has their investors concerned. Cause, see, if the employees get it into their heads that they're entitled to ten or eleven bucks an hour, they might decide that, next year, they want fifteen bucks an hour. And if they're unionized - or just noisy and stubborn - they might be able to force management to pay it. But that's not the real fear. The real fear is that the employees might simply take over the company. Maybe that sounds kind of ridiculous, but think about it for a minute. As mattcelt pointed out, it's not ultimately about money but, rather, control. But the two are really synonomous. If I have control over the company, I'll get the money. And if I'm getting the money, it's because I have control over the company.
Similarly, I don't think the ultimate fear of the record companies is that they'll lose money. I think it's that the public will discover that they're not needed.
Seriously... how close are we to having the technology and, hell, even the motive to record, publicize, and distribute the music and the movies and the video games our own damn selves? There are always going to be artists, musicians, film makers, actors, performers... who want to do their thing. As long as they're earning a living (exactly what sort of a living - decent, impressive, downright extravagant - is another issue), what do they care whether the check is coming from a corporation or a loose network of fans, computer geeks and everyday shmucks? How long before we look around and think to ourselves... 'wait a second... Columbia Records is doing absolutely nothing useful, nothing that we can't do. There's no reason why they should be getting a piece of this pie."?
I don't know how long it'll take, but I do believe that the corporations have an instinctive (one might even say healthy) fear that that day is a comin'.
Clay
I'm not clever enough to come up with a signature line. Sorry.
Maybe what we need is free-lance tech support. Instead of running to MS with your windows issues or asking Dell about your Optilux PC, you could call up Bob's Computer Service and his staff would take care of you. But wait, how would Bob earn a profit? Who'd pay for the service? Well, instead of offering tech support themselves, the manufacturers could scrap those services and use the money to provide their customers with 'gift certificates' for one year of tech support... redeemable at the tech support vendor of their choice. Included when you buy the product new.
I mean, companies are already contracting out their tech support anyway, right? From their point of view, would this even constitute much of a change?
Clay
I'm not clever enough to come up with a signature line. Sorry.
A lot of what I'm reading in the "tech support horror stories" excerts are anecdotes in which the customer just doesn't apply common sense to the problem. For example, they *know* the computer is online and they do have at least a general idea as to what a com port is, yet they still somehow don't seem to understand why the operating system reports that the com port is in use.
I blame this on education. No, seriously, I do.
Maybe it's just because I've been reading a lot of Chomsky and this is one of his favorite rants, but I feel pretty strongly that the main point of what we call education is to make sure that students don't grow up to think for themselves.
One of the most insidious methods used to accomplish this is what I'll call, in honor of Chomsky, the "smart guy principle." This principle sort of divides knowledge into two categories: there are simple, ordinary every day things that everyone, more or less, understands. Driving cars, operating a TV, figuring out the standing of your favorite professional sports team, etc. But then there's other stuff that most people don't understand: how pharmecueticals are made and tested, distinguishing between a competent symphony conductor and a truly great symphony conductor, the methods used to "bring democracy to Iraq", etc. Each subdivsion whithin this category of information operates, apparently, according to some very complicated principles that we can only understand if we study for years and years at an accredited institution. So if we want answers about them, we cannot simply apply common sense or use our own experiences as a guide; the stuff we already know has nothing to do with these subjects. Instead, if we have a question on one of these topics, we have to ask the "experts," the smart guys, the ones who've got letters after their names or who are paid by large companies or by the government to... well, to be experts. I need a doctor to tell me which medical treatments I should use, an historian to tell me whether Christopher Columbus was a good guy or a bad guy, and Thomas Aquinas to tell me whether it's okay to execute murderers.
Computers, of course, fall into this category. They exist in a realm unto themselves where the logic with which I'm familiar doesn't necessarily apply. Sure, to a common, ordinary shmuck like me, it might make perfect sense that, if the modem's online, the com port is in use. But since computers operate according to some complex system of logic that only geeks/experts understand, I have no way of knowing whether my simple, common sense logic holds true in in computer-land. In computer-land, it may be that com ports are *never* in use unless something's wrong. Best to not assume. If I assume, I might say or do something stupid. And that would be humiliating. I might get a D on my report card. Or worse, my boss might not give me a promotion. Best to just leave it to the experts.
Clay
I'm not clever enough to come up with a signature line. Sorry.
The same thing that's wrong with the Tooth Fairy; they're a nice enough fantasy, they just don't exist.
No country simply allows market forces to rule; everyone controls these forces as much as they can through tariffs, subsidies, regulation, state ownership, and so on. In countries that have fewer restrictions on what may be bought and sold - i.e. South American and Asian countries forced to "liberalize" their economies - crushing poverty and authoritarian regimes are the norm. And for very simple reasons. If you allow anything to be bought and sold, foreign investors quickly buy up everything worth having; land, natural resources, etc. (Indeed, that's the whole point of "liberalizing" a country's economy; to "attract foreign investment"). That's why we have "outsourcing" (here I'm using the term "outsourcing" to denote *any* job that a US company sends to another country, not just IT or other skilled jobs), because businesses are allowed to move their factories to any one of several dozen countries. That's what we call "investing" in the country even though the companies don't pay much in the way of taxes and their profits go back to their home countries or to banks in the Bahamas.
If people can't patent things (like AIDS medication) they will not invent it because they will never recoup their R&D costs
They don't need to recoup their R&D costs because you and I will pay for those through our tax dollars. Science has always been a seven monkeys / seven typwriters / seven years sort of affair. You have to have lots of scientists in lots of labs working on a lot of stuff and only a small percentage of this work will actually produce something that's comercially viable. And furthermore, there's no way of identifying ahead of time which line of research that will be. From a business standpoint, it's a total disaster.
That's why we have universities, grants, NASA, and, most importantly, massive amounts of Pentagon funded research and development. Without all this taxpayer supported R&D, the internet, CD players, jet airplanes, and a long list of other technologies might not exist. Or, anyway, if they did, we'd have to import them from other countries that had the sense to publically fund their R&D. Which would include all the other developed countries.
But it's interesting to me that the "people only do things if there's a profit motive" argument should rear its head on Slashdot of all places, a universe where everyone, it seems, insists most emphatically that non profit-motivated user participation is essential for creating quality software. Open source software is one of the best arguments against profit motive I've seen. Indeed, you could make a pretty good argument that the very principles of science and technology (objectivity, the sharing of information, the constant pursuit of better explanations and methods, etc.) aren't compatible with free markets (every-capitalist-for-himself, proprietary technology and ideas, etc.) and use the Microsoft vs. open source story as a case in point.
Clay
I'm not clever enough to come up with a signature line. Sorry.
Seriously. I'm a word geek, not a tech geek, so I know precious little about providing documentation on complex subjects for specialized audiences.
However, I do have extensive experience dealing with writing projects that I can't finish. Based on this experience, I have two pieces of advice:
1. Know the ending before you begin. I realize that, at least at first glance, this makes a lot more sense as advice for fiction writing than for tech writing. But let's stop and think about it. If you could imagine what your last chapter will look like - if you had a definite idea of what you wanted your audience to be thinking when they finished reading your documentation - then it'd be a lot easier to write your first chapter. Or anyway, that's what I've found.
2. Follow a thread. You can always revise, but your first draft absolutely needs a beginning, a middle, and an end. Again, I know it sounds like advice better suited for wannabe novelists, but even tech books follow this rule. So begin with "first, this happens" and, as quickly as possible, move to "next, this happens." And so forth until you reach, "and finally, this happens." Then, once you have that structure, it's going to be a lot easier to go back and add a couple instances of "this happens" here and there along the way. If you try to put together the information without first having the structure, you'll never be able to figure out what to leave in and what to leave out.
3. Set limits. Set a time limit. Or set a length limit. Or, perhaps better yet, set both. If you're sincerely worried about getting lost in a sea of details and "oh yeah, and another thing"s (and lord knows I've lived that nightmare myself), then having a page limit or a deadline may be the only thing that can save you.
Anyway, I hope something I've said was worth the reading.
Clay
I'm not clever enough to come up with a signature line. Sorry.
Slashdot Mirror
"the electoral college is supposed to prevent fads and trends of the people..."
In other words, we want the results of the vote to reflect the will of the majority, except that we don't.
Clay
I'm not clever enough to come up with a signature line. Sorry.
I followed one of the links, clicked around a bit and ended up bearing witness to this travesty .
It reminded me of a game that never quite made it to market. You can read about it at this highly educational site . [NOTE: Once you get to the page, please do a text search of the page for the words "cheers me up." Sorry for the inconvenience, but it's a long page and I can't figure out a way to link directly to the material.]
Clay
I'm sorry, I'm just not clever enough to come up with a signature line.
>Money is a secondary issue now. What these >companies are really after now is control.
You're correct and the point bears emphasis.
Anyone catch the recent discussion re: Costco and Sam's Club/Wal-Mart? The former is paying its employees a fair chunk of change more than the latter and, despite healthy bottom lines for both companies, Costco's generosity has their investors concerned. Cause, see, if the employees get it into their heads that they're entitled to ten or eleven bucks an hour, they might decide that, next year, they want fifteen bucks an hour. And if they're unionized - or just noisy and stubborn - they might be able to force management to pay it. But that's not the real fear. The real fear is that the employees might simply take over the company. Maybe that sounds kind of ridiculous, but think about it for a minute. As mattcelt pointed out, it's not ultimately about money but, rather, control. But the two are really synonomous. If I have control over the company, I'll get the money. And if I'm getting the money, it's because I have control over the company.
Similarly, I don't think the ultimate fear of the record companies is that they'll lose money. I think it's that the public will discover that they're not needed.
Seriously... how close are we to having the technology and, hell, even the motive to record, publicize, and distribute the music and the movies and the video games our own damn selves? There are always going to be artists, musicians, film makers, actors, performers... who want to do their thing. As long as they're earning a living (exactly what sort of a living - decent, impressive, downright extravagant - is another issue), what do they care whether the check is coming from a corporation or a loose network of fans, computer geeks and everyday shmucks? How long before we look around and think to ourselves... 'wait a second... Columbia Records is doing absolutely nothing useful, nothing that we can't do. There's no reason why they should be getting a piece of this pie."?
I don't know how long it'll take, but I do believe that the corporations have an instinctive (one might even say healthy) fear that that day is a comin'.
Clay
I'm not clever enough to come up with a signature line. Sorry.
Maybe what we need is free-lance tech support. Instead of running to MS with your windows issues or asking Dell about your Optilux PC, you could call up Bob's Computer Service and his staff would take care of you. But wait, how would Bob earn a profit? Who'd pay for the service? Well, instead of offering tech support themselves, the manufacturers could scrap those services and use the money to provide their customers with 'gift certificates' for one year of tech support... redeemable at the tech support vendor of their choice. Included when you buy the product new.
I mean, companies are already contracting out their tech support anyway, right? From their point of view, would this even constitute much of a change?
Clay
I'm not clever enough to come up with a signature line. Sorry.
A lot of what I'm reading in the "tech support horror stories" excerts are anecdotes in which the customer just doesn't apply common sense to the problem. For example, they *know* the computer is online and they do have at least a general idea as to what a com port is, yet they still somehow don't seem to understand why the operating system reports that the com port is in use.
I blame this on education. No, seriously, I do.
Maybe it's just because I've been reading a lot of Chomsky and this is one of his favorite rants, but I feel pretty strongly that the main point of what we call education is to make sure that students don't grow up to think for themselves.
One of the most insidious methods used to accomplish this is what I'll call, in honor of Chomsky, the "smart guy principle." This principle sort of divides knowledge into two categories: there are simple, ordinary every day things that everyone, more or less, understands. Driving cars, operating a TV, figuring out the standing of your favorite professional sports team, etc. But then there's other stuff that most people don't understand: how pharmecueticals are made and tested, distinguishing between a competent symphony conductor and a truly great symphony conductor, the methods used to "bring democracy to Iraq", etc. Each subdivsion whithin this category of information operates, apparently, according to some very complicated principles that we can only understand if we study for years and years at an accredited institution. So if we want answers about them, we cannot simply apply common sense or use our own experiences as a guide; the stuff we already know has nothing to do with these subjects. Instead, if we have a question on one of these topics, we have to ask the "experts," the smart guys, the ones who've got letters after their names or who are paid by large companies or by the government to... well, to be experts. I need a doctor to tell me which medical treatments I should use, an historian to tell me whether Christopher Columbus was a good guy or a bad guy, and Thomas Aquinas to tell me whether it's okay to execute murderers.
Computers, of course, fall into this category. They exist in a realm unto themselves where the logic with which I'm familiar doesn't necessarily apply. Sure, to a common, ordinary shmuck like me, it might make perfect sense that, if the modem's online, the com port is in use. But since computers operate according to some complex system of logic that only geeks/experts understand, I have no way of knowing whether my simple, common sense logic holds true in in computer-land. In computer-land, it may be that com ports are *never* in use unless something's wrong. Best to not assume. If I assume, I might say or do something stupid. And that would be humiliating. I might get a D on my report card. Or worse, my boss might not give me a promotion. Best to just leave it to the experts.
Clay
I'm not clever enough to come up with a signature line. Sorry.
What's wrong with free markets?
The same thing that's wrong with the Tooth Fairy; they're a nice enough fantasy, they just don't exist.
No country simply allows market forces to rule; everyone controls these forces as much as they can through tariffs, subsidies, regulation, state ownership, and so on. In countries that have fewer restrictions on what may be bought and sold - i.e. South American and Asian countries forced to "liberalize" their economies - crushing poverty and authoritarian regimes are the norm. And for very simple reasons. If you allow anything to be bought and sold, foreign investors quickly buy up everything worth having; land, natural resources, etc. (Indeed, that's the whole point of "liberalizing" a country's economy; to "attract foreign investment"). That's why we have "outsourcing" (here I'm using the term "outsourcing" to denote *any* job that a US company sends to another country, not just IT or other skilled jobs), because businesses are allowed to move their factories to any one of several dozen countries. That's what we call "investing" in the country even though the companies don't pay much in the way of taxes and their profits go back to their home countries or to banks in the Bahamas.
If people can't patent things (like AIDS medication) they will not invent it because they will never recoup their R&D costs
They don't need to recoup their R&D costs because you and I will pay for those through our tax dollars. Science has always been a seven monkeys / seven typwriters / seven years sort of affair. You have to have lots of scientists in lots of labs working on a lot of stuff and only a small percentage of this work will actually produce something that's comercially viable. And furthermore, there's no way of identifying ahead of time which line of research that will be. From a business standpoint, it's a total disaster.That's why we have universities, grants, NASA, and, most importantly, massive amounts of Pentagon funded research and development. Without all this taxpayer supported R&D, the internet, CD players, jet airplanes, and a long list of other technologies might not exist. Or, anyway, if they did, we'd have to import them from other countries that had the sense to publically fund their R&D. Which would include all the other developed countries.
But it's interesting to me that the "people only do things if there's a profit motive" argument should rear its head on Slashdot of all places, a universe where everyone, it seems, insists most emphatically that non profit-motivated user participation is essential for creating quality software. Open source software is one of the best arguments against profit motive I've seen. Indeed, you could make a pretty good argument that the very principles of science and technology (objectivity, the sharing of information, the constant pursuit of better explanations and methods, etc.) aren't compatible with free markets (every-capitalist-for-himself, proprietary technology and ideas, etc.) and use the Microsoft vs. open source story as a case in point.
Clay
I'm not clever enough to come up with a signature line. Sorry.
Seriously. I'm a word geek, not a tech geek, so I know precious little about providing documentation on complex subjects for specialized audiences.
However, I do have extensive experience dealing with writing projects that I can't finish. Based on this experience, I have two pieces of advice:
1. Know the ending before you begin. I realize that, at least at first glance, this makes a lot more sense as advice for fiction writing than for tech writing. But let's stop and think about it. If you could imagine what your last chapter will look like - if you had a definite idea of what you wanted your audience to be thinking when they finished reading your documentation - then it'd be a lot easier to write your first chapter. Or anyway, that's what I've found.
2. Follow a thread. You can always revise, but your first draft absolutely needs a beginning, a middle, and an end. Again, I know it sounds like advice better suited for wannabe novelists, but even tech books follow this rule. So begin with "first, this happens" and, as quickly as possible, move to "next, this happens." And so forth until you reach, "and finally, this happens." Then, once you have that structure, it's going to be a lot easier to go back and add a couple instances of "this happens" here and there along the way. If you try to put together the information without first having the structure, you'll never be able to figure out what to leave in and what to leave out.
3. Set limits. Set a time limit. Or set a length limit. Or, perhaps better yet, set both. If you're sincerely worried about getting lost in a sea of details and "oh yeah, and another thing"s (and lord knows I've lived that nightmare myself), then having a page limit or a deadline may be the only thing that can save you.
Anyway, I hope something I've said was worth the reading.
Clay
I'm not clever enough to come up with a signature line. Sorry.