Interesting analysis. One problem with it is that much of the "payment" demanded for digital goods is not actually directly linked to the labor used to produce it. A lot of the resistance to paying for music would go away, if the people paying were confident that a) the money was going to the people who created the music, and b) it was a "fair" payment for that music. Most people don't mind if Paul McCartney makes a billion dollars, but much of the music industry is designed to siphon money away from the artists and distribute it to parasites.
In the past, people couldn't do anything about that, it was buy an LP/CD or nothing. Now consumers have choices, and they'd rather go to a lot of trouble to download for free, than pay $.99 for a song where $.01 goes to the actual artists.
It may not be illegal in the US, but that may change now the Democrats are in power. HOWEVER, I'd say the gamer has a good chance of suing M$ and getting a lot of money. I find it hard to believe that even Microsoft could be that stupid...
What this story really illustrates is that we as a society have a bigger problem. Namely, we're letting crazy people run around loose. When will people like Mr. Thompson be confined and medicated for their own good? Is it really that hard to draw the line between dissent and stark raving lunacy?
"Why are we replacing free service with paid expensive service with lock in from the media monopoly of our choice?"
How much did those media monopolies donate to politicians last year? Just askin'.
WTF? Don't those idiots realize if they don't delay it, there are people WHO WON'T BE ABLE TO WATCH THEIR TV? How do they expect the country to survive a blow like that? I don't know about you, but I'm stocking up on canned food and ammunition.
Hey, if it's "obviously" a geologic process, would you mind exactly WHAT process it is? Keep in mind that Mars has no current volcanic activity. And if there is/was no life, it's not a fossil fuel.
And he serves for Virginia. As a resident of that great Commonwealth, I can't figure it out.:) Fortunately the Representative from my district looks to be more the typical reactionary obstructionist we expect.
Gorshkov (932507) said:...there's a butt load and a half of network administrators working for the state that need to be fired - and the sooner, the better.
Unless Arkansas' IT department is radically different from those of states I'm familiar with, this is pretty much a given. You didn't really need the qualifying "if".
If you want to make sure no one else can read and/or understand your code, by all means use Perl. Use as many expert "tricks" as you can to make it indecipherable. On the other hand, if you want to produce reliable, working code, and still understand it years later, go with Python.
Actually many Chinese get around those restrictions. However, there does seem to be a different psychology at work there, as well. The Chinese accept many restrictions we'd find outrageous.
With all those people being cut off, what about the claim the internet "heals itself" and routes around damage? It looks like these big corporations have partitioned things so that's no longer true. If there's any possible route between me and http://slashdot.org/ I want the system to find it, dammit!
Considering that most developers using "object-oriented" languages don't seem to understand object-oriented programming, their failure to understand a particular pattern is not at all surprising. You can take a functional design, wrap it in an object, and say you're doing object-oriented programming, but that doesn't make it right.
Because like many others on this thread, you're drawing conclusions about his family life from a single post on/.. You don't know him, you don't know the kid, you don't know how they interact -- but you know enough to decide he's doing it all wrong. Personally, I like to have some data before I reach a conclusion, but that's just me.
If you think human police or soldiers are bad, just wait until a whole army of robots malfunctions. Hasn't anybody read "With Folded Hands", "Fondly Fahrenheit", or any of Fred Saberhagen's Berserker novels? This is a bad bad bad bad idea.
The more sophisticated you make a robot or computer, the more its failure modes resemble organic dysfunction -- until they're indistinguishable from insanity.
Seventy-nine percent [...] do not know the Bill of Rights expressly prohibits establishing an official religion for the U.S.
Twenty-seven percent cannot name even one right or freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment.
Fifty-four percent do not know the Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war. Thirty-nine percent think that power belongs to the president, and 10% think it belongs to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
This is why the Supreme Court has to strike down so many stupid laws. And since WWII, apparently even Congress has forgotten that the power to declare war resides with Congress.
A democracy only works with a well-educated populace. We used to know that.
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting analysis. One problem with it is that much of the "payment" demanded for digital goods is not actually directly linked to the labor used to produce it. A lot of the resistance to paying for music would go away, if the people paying were confident that a) the money was going to the people who created the music, and b) it was a "fair" payment for that music. Most people don't mind if Paul McCartney makes a billion dollars, but much of the music industry is designed to siphon money away from the artists and distribute it to parasites.
In the past, people couldn't do anything about that, it was buy an LP/CD or nothing. Now consumers have choices, and they'd rather go to a lot of trouble to download for free, than pay $.99 for a song where $.01 goes to the actual artists.
You're seriously equating protesting Gulf War 2 with giving the nuclear bomb to an enemy country? What drugs are you on?
This brings up a serious thought. Combine the following:
What's to keep Russia from unilaterally taking over the Station? What, exactly, would we be able to do about it?
Let's relocate the frickin' humans. Crocodiles belong in the Everglades, people don't belong in its drained and sterilized remnants.
It may not be illegal in the US, but that may change now the Democrats are in power. HOWEVER, I'd say the gamer has a good chance of suing M$ and getting a lot of money. I find it hard to believe that even Microsoft could be that stupid...
What this story really illustrates is that we as a society have a bigger problem. Namely, we're letting crazy people run around loose. When will people like Mr. Thompson be confined and medicated for their own good? Is it really that hard to draw the line between dissent and stark raving lunacy?
"Why are we replacing free service with paid expensive service with lock in from the media monopoly of our choice?"
How much did those media monopolies donate to politicians last year? Just askin'.
WTF? Don't those idiots realize if they don't delay it, there are people WHO WON'T BE ABLE TO WATCH THEIR TV? How do they expect the country to survive a blow like that? I don't know about you, but I'm stocking up on canned food and ammunition.
Hey, if it's "obviously" a geologic process, would you mind exactly WHAT process it is? Keep in mind that Mars has no current volcanic activity. And if there is/was no life, it's not a fossil fuel.
Nobody is seriously talking about taking your guns away. With the modern mind-control technologies, it's really not necessary.
There were a lot more flavors, but 3.0 and 2.6 ganged up and ate them all. Don't even ask about poor version 3.14159...
And he serves for Virginia. As a resident of that great Commonwealth, I can't figure it out. :) Fortunately the Representative from my district looks to be more the typical reactionary obstructionist we expect.
ultrabot said:"(Apart from the obvious ones,such as the internet being full of a*holes)" Really? I hadn't noticed! ;)
Gorshkov (932507) said: ...there's a butt load and a half of network administrators working for the state that need to be fired - and the sooner, the better.
Unless Arkansas' IT department is radically different from those of states I'm familiar with, this is pretty much a given. You didn't really need the qualifying "if".
If you want to make sure no one else can read and/or understand your code, by all means use Perl. Use as many expert "tricks" as you can to make it indecipherable. On the other hand, if you want to produce reliable, working code, and still understand it years later, go with Python.
Actually many Chinese get around those restrictions. However, there does seem to be a different psychology at work there, as well. The Chinese accept many restrictions we'd find outrageous.
Wrong. The GPL says the person you give it to can, in turn, give it to anybody.
With all those people being cut off, what about the claim the internet "heals itself" and routes around damage? It looks like these big corporations have partitioned things so that's no longer true. If there's any possible route between me and http://slashdot.org/ I want the system to find it, dammit!
Considering that most developers using "object-oriented" languages don't seem to understand object-oriented programming, their failure to understand a particular pattern is not at all surprising. You can take a functional design, wrap it in an object, and say you're doing object-oriented programming, but that doesn't make it right.
As opposed to IS students, who can write reams of code but have no idea what's actually going on?
What do you think this is, wikipedia?
Because like many others on this thread, you're drawing conclusions about his family life from a single post on /.. You don't know him, you don't know the kid, you don't know how they interact -- but you know enough to decide he's doing it all wrong. Personally, I like to have some data before I reach a conclusion, but that's just me.
If you think human police or soldiers are bad, just wait until a whole army of robots malfunctions. Hasn't anybody read "With Folded Hands", "Fondly Fahrenheit", or any of Fred Saberhagen's Berserker novels? This is a bad bad bad bad idea.
The more sophisticated you make a robot or computer, the more its failure modes resemble organic dysfunction -- until they're indistinguishable from insanity.
Elected Officials:
This is why the Supreme Court has to strike down so many stupid laws. And since WWII, apparently even Congress has forgotten that the power to declare war resides with Congress.
A democracy only works with a well-educated populace. We used to know that.
No, D is correct. If Tax = Spend, then Tax/person = Spend/person, since the number of people is constant.