I don't like to see rising unemployment in the tech sector, either, but unionizing and legislating are not the answers. Innovation, entrepreneurship, and low tax overhead will help. We also have to face up to the fact that there are industrious and hard working people out there who will do our job on the cheap. We in the West need to wake up, start thinking more innovatively, and compete with our best tools: our creativity, education, and tremendous freedom to explore new business opportunities.
Listen, buddy, you're not going to get anywhere making sober, rational, actually true statements like that here on slashdot. If you can't make your point by bashing large companies and demonizing people in India, then you're just a Corporate Stooge(tm). Like me!
Like me, in the sense that I've still got a tech job in the US because I'm making sure that I do work for people that need something beyond simple certifications. The key to having a tech career in the US is in demonstrating how you can connect your comfort with the culture, language, and business habits of the country directly with the IT project at hand. A SQL query, a backup drive, and NAT settings don't really depend too much on cultural history or a smooth use of American English. But the execution of a project that faces North American business users and consumers is only going to shine if the people working on it don't have to have certain idioms translated, or certain Americanisms explained in detail before a dialog box can be well written or a menu hot key wisely selected.
More importantly, those e-mail threads and meetings that shape the budgets around projects or choose a technology strategy for some problem can be maddeningly derailed by the wrong-continent-ness of off-shored team members, no matter how inately talented or well trained. In short: get tech savvy, and then get in the business of helping tech-dependent organizations use tech resources, even if some of them are overseas. Being the resource is risky, but being an astute student of US culture and knowing which resources make the most sense to use - that's a less vulnerable line of work (and it pays better).
Again, they were considered "useful" in the very recent past
The employment landscape is not static. When you live in a town with only a couple of major employers (say, a textile or steel plant), and the thing that those plants do is now economically unviable... well, the people who worked there are actually not as employable today as they were yesterday. Just like buggywhip makers.
When a town is no longer attractive to a big business, that business will go away. If there is no new business that needs the same sort of skills, then the potentially thousands of people that worked at the old business aren't really all that useful to anybody until they either adjust their income expectations, move to where they're needed, or learn to do something that is needed right where they are. Currently needed skills don't always stay that way. If they did, we'd never see new technologies and more efficient manufacturing (except overseas).
Or they might be nervous because the car is borrowed and they aren't on the insurance of the car, and they don't know where the owner put the little card. Then they really panic because they don't know if the car actually has insurance...
Know anyone who was friends with a cop that was killed while making a simple traffic stop because a car was speeding and ran a red light? Know anyone who had a cop family member nearly die because someone not wanting to get caught out on a warrant tried to run him down with his car?
It doesn't matter that most people don't do these things. The point is that some people do. Cops have every right (out of sheer survival interests) to make sure that the person they're talking to isn't one of those that would just as soon see them dead. I've seen countless traffic stops where the cop didn't even have a hand on his weapon. Why? Because after doing it for a few years, they get a pretty good sense of when something's not right. It's not "magic," it's called experience. And do you really think that the nervous guy with the beer bottle in the back is really going to opt for running down the cop? If someone is that likely flip out and be recklessly deadly like that, they've got no business even driving a car. They certainly have no business wondering why a cop would eye them sideways if they're telegraphing that sort of readiness for Freaking Out.
Or they might be nervous because the car is borrowed and they aren't on the insurance of the car, and they don't know where the owner put the little card. Then they really panic because they don't know if the car actually has insurance...
So? Don't they have their own insurance? And if not, what the hell are they doing driving a 2000 pound vehicle around on the road not even sure if it's legal? Again, why are you worried about the professional judgement of the cop when it's someone with judgement that poor that's acting squirrely?
Ever had to call the police about a nearby domestic disturbance, a stolen vehicle, a person threatening someone in your business, or someone actively breaking into your neighbor's car? Cops respond to all sorts of situations, and their lives truly, literally are at risk every time. People who drive around on expired tags, or that run stop signs or don't have working brake lights are very often on the edge enough to also have other issues (like warrants, or like a a bucket o' crack in the trunk). But cars like that go past cops all the time without getting pulled over - it's a gamble. When they do stop someone who is polite and forthcoming, it's usually completely painless. I've been pulled over, and never gave the officers any body-language reason to think that I was doing anything other than driving with my mind on how to fix a bad server or some other distraction. Beligerant, non-communicative people are usually that way for a reason, and can't object to being treated exactly as their behavior demands. A little bit of civility goes a long way. A lack of it invites serious caution from people that get spat on, shot at, and underpaid.
You mean, the contracts they sign when they choose a label are actually fraudulent? Or do you mean that the contracts are written well, but that bands like U2 or the Foo Fighters or perhaps the Boston Symphony Orchestra are too dumb to notice that they're not actually getting the percentage that the contract says they'll get. Do you really think that a judge wouldn't hugely penalize a record label, like they do other businesses, for obvious breech of contract?
Or, do you mean that since you don't want to pay $15 for a CD, that you think you'll express your displeasure by making sure that the artist gets nothing.
This is what I do.. I download all the music I like off of free P2P services. Then, if I like the music, I send a $5 check for every track's worth of music I download directly to the artists. The artists definitely do not get this big of a cut when you buy a CD in a store.
First, reply with the URL of a scan of a check, cashed by an artist with a real label deal, showing that you've done this (let alone that you do in continually). You can block out the sensitive stuff, but I'll bet that you probably just fake it up in Photoshop anyway. I call BS on this.
Second, the artist isn't expecting to get $50 for a 10-track CD. They sign a deal that probably gets them a buck or so. Maybe two. They know that, the label knows that. And if the label does their work and gets a couple hundred thousand CDs sold, then the artist can consider themselves as having made an OK living that year - without having to personally handle a bunch of imaginary personal checks, including the ones that bounce.
Give me a way to direct my contribution DIRECTLY to the artist, and I will happily do it.M
This part always amazes me. The artist has chosen to use the business services of a record label. The label deals with a jillion details for the artist - from venue contracting, accounting, marketing, distribution and fronting cash for studio time and more. There is overhead involved, and they often lose a ton of money on some artists - most, in fact. Your point is that you think the overhead is too high, and so to show how unhappy you are, you'd rather that the artist (instead of getting the deal they know they signed up for) gets nothing. Way to show your support for the artist, by thinking so little of their business arrangements that you're willing to deny them royalties - the very thing they set up the relationship with the label to get in the first place. Artists have other choices, and many use them. But if you so disrespect the artist for using a record label to deal with all of the business BS, then why would you want to listen to their music? If you have such disdain for them, intellectually and ethically, how can you possibly say you enjoy their intellectual output (their music) and not recognize the hypocrisy? Respect the entire person of the musician (and all that they do, including deciding how they want to get paid for their efforts and reduce their financial risks) or don't - but you can't have it both ways.
If the artists that choose to use labels don't get any fans, then they'll make different decisions. But for now, we've got people who like the music, but use the lame excuse of protesting percentages to explain why they're willing to rip off the people they say they like. Incredible.
Why would I want to use this when I can just download music for free off a real P2P network. This makes no sense at all.
Um... so that you're not ripping off the artists that you think you respect (yes, and the companies that those artists have chosen to work with)? Or, so that you don't risk getting slapped with a nice fat lawsuit?
Why pay for anything that someone is offering for sale if you can be quick enough, or tricky enough, or ethically bankrupt enough to just skip out on paying? Good question! Possible answer: because that way you're not a hypocrite for saying you truly like the musician you're slimily getting to entertain you for free.
Wouldn't it be worth to also know which businesses hired/paid money to this man's marketing company to carry out such unsoliciated marketing campaign.....I reckon those businesses which paid for such services must also be prosecuted
That might be harder than it sounds. Many of these guys are set up as affiliate marketers. Meaning, no one pays them to do this, they only pay them when some twit happens to buy some V1@gra. The actual vendor can (with almost a straight face) claim that they established an affiliate program so that legitimate partner sites could honestly pass along real referrals... and that, gee, they can't police the activities of every affiliate, and all they knew was that they were getting traffic, and gosh, etc.
It's up to the affilate engines to sniff this stuff out and simply shut down the offenders (by disabling their accounts). Of course, the affiliate engines make their piece of every transaction, too, so they're not going to be terribly motivated. Especially if they have no redeeming social graces whatsoever, sons of bitches.
That being said, there are some first rate affiliate engines with real, certifiably well-behaved partner networks (see Performics and CJ as decent examples. They're not without their abusive users, but those get slammed pretty hard, and money can get locked up with you play naughty, so that usually works.
I wonder if this Aussie was using one of the more notorious AM engines from Australia (DarkBlue).
If an average commercial spam is about 5KB... What a waste!!!
Except that the 5kb of the message itself is only the tip of the iceberg. The DNS lookups, the SMTP handshakes, the blacklist queries, the POP3 downloads and filter checks, and then the huge bandwidth of displaying the no doubt numerous tag-embedded images... all adds up to way, way more than 5kb per typical message. I'd be really amazed, if you added up all the overhead, if it wasn't more like 256k. And that doesn't count processer use, storage, human hours throwing it out, and sheer mind-numbing info-noise in all of our brains.
nothing but propaganda tools to trick citizens into thinking that gettign pulled over for a burnt out license plate light is enough justification to search the entire car and cart someone off for magicaly finding a bunch of drugs under the spare tire
Um, if that's not such a problem (running drugs), why hide them under the spare tire? You watch shows like that, and you see exactly why a cop pulling you over for a safety violation (or for trying to hide your identity by not having a lit license plate, etc) can tell pretty much immediately when someone is nervously hiding their contraband. Most casual smugglers/dealers are really, really terrible liars. They act busted before they are busted, just like dogs and kids.
Or make people think it is acceptable to get shot for not stoping when a police officer yells at you.
Why are you running away from a cop? Why not just stand there and say hi, and talk? By the time you're running, and a cop is having to shout at you, you're already holding up a big sign that says, "I'm Doing Something Illegal, And I'm Willing To Act Like A Crazy Person Rather Than Get Caught." Now, you're the guy who's supposed to protect everyone else from crazy people - do you get just a little suspicious when someone would rather back over you with their car than stop and talk?
Calling copyright infringment stealing and getting the public used to acknowledging it as the same only paves the way to introduce laws declaring it as stealing
No, actually it just boils it down to the simplest concept imagineable, for the most people: it's getting the artist to entertain you for free. It's knowing that the material you've just laid hands on is something that someone produced with the express intent of selling it to you for your entertainment, and you're skipping around the terms under which the entertainer decided to release the material in the first place. This isn't some new attempt to brainwash people - this is a long standing attempt to remind them that there's built-in hypocrisy in saying you like and respect the artist, and want to be entertained by them, but that you don't respect the artist enough to actually do what they ask in exchange (buy their performance).
Right now people see it as the big corps trying to punish the little guy who cannot afford to pay thier extorionate fees.
No they don't. They see it as a chance to skip paying for something they want, with a fairly low chance of getting caught doing it. If they really like the artist, I wonder if they'd be willing to look that musician in the eye, in person, and say, "Hey! great new album! I've just downloaded a copy from a P2P, and I'll be listening to it when I drive to work. The lyrics are great, and it's got a cool groove. I just like your creative work so much, but not enough to pay you for it! Keep up the good work!" Oh, and I don't think "extortion" means what you think it means.
Wait until file swapper are disliked as much as the welfare families that drain tax dollars from important projects like ball stadiums just because they think they have a right to eat and live
Whether a particular city's local officials decide to tax local businesses to build a ballpark (and whether the local voters put up with it - these things are usually on a referendum) doesn't have much to do with federal welfare dollars going to anybody. If having a "right to live" means that everybody can lean on everybody else for food, who's actually making the food? And if no one ever pays for laboriously made, high-end recordings, who's going to foot the bill for producing them, and for attracting the talent needed to make it work?
In Texas you can shoot somebody for little more than trespassing, yet now a company can push you right off your land legally?
No, now (and still) and company cannot push you off your land legally. That didn't happen in this case, either. The people that did the pushing were the local officials that wanted more tax revenue. They argued that a bigger local tax base would be good for the town. It doesn't even matter if they're right or wrong - the point is that it was local politics, basically outside of the scope of federal activity. The famously liberal people of Connecticut are squarely to blame on this one. The court just ruled that the law was constitutional and the local officials are in a better position to decide how it's applied. Glad I don't live in CT, though. Although Maryland is actually worse, in some ways.
State's can pass laws all they want but when the run afoul of the Constitution they typically get struck down.
The problem here was that the law isn't unconstitutional. It's a long standing process. The issue is the question of who decides when the property taking is in the public interests? The court just ruled that the local authorities are in a better position to make those calls. While I find this particular example pretty reprehensible, I also lean towards the old "all politics are local" notion, because it's a lot easier to punish stupid local politicians than it is stupid national-level ones.
Seems like whether you support right or left-based politics, the way things go, the corporations win every time
No, the people that "won" here were the local tax-hungry state and municipal authorities that were drooling at the prospect of getting millions in taxes instead of the paltry thousands that the few remaining residents on that property were generating.
This property taking could not have happend without the local city officials wanting it to, and they wouldn't be there without the local voters backing them. The feds (as the court just ruled) don't really have much to do with it at all. You can vote against the developers by not patronizing the businesses they develop, but you can stop the whole process in its tracks by not putting tax-addicts into local offices with local zoning powers.
If you're surprised at this, then you obviously haven't been paying attention.
Right. You'd need to have been paying attention to two things. First, a long, drawn-out Connecticut zoning issue. If the prospects of what that city council wanted to do were so horrible, maybe people should have been bitching about it then or not voted those people into a position to make decisions they don't like. This wouldn't have happened if, say, Connecticut's own laws didn't allow it. Which brings me to the other thing you'd have wanted to pay attention to... Secondly, this was a states'-rights issue. The Supreme Court didn't rule that people can have their property taken away (that's always been the case). No, they ruled the local governments are better judges of what's reasonable on a case-by-case basis. I think this was a lousy example, and shouldn't have stood, but it wasn't about the SCOTUS weighing in on the particular case at hand.
Especially if you live in Connecticut, or in the city in question, since that's where the local officials that want to re-assign the land are doing their business. The court essentially found in favor of states' rights to handle their zoning business themselves. It's the people running Connecticut that are the tax-hungry tyrants, here.
If nobody is buying up all the talent anymore, who do you think will create the local access shows?
OK. So you're being sarcastic, I get that. But just in case someone else doesn't: let's pretend that the talent is free anyway. These things still cost money. The whole distribution system costs money. Just complying with federal regs costs money. The local access channels only have local access because the for-profit parts of the industry have to pay for that as part of their deal with local cable charters. The whole "I want top quality entertainment for free, and Peter Jackson should be able to make a living off of selling the t-shirts" sentiment is such an intellectual pothole. And it only happens because people want to be at peace with themselves as they rip off music and films. As a Plan B, they're willing to settle for "the government" (um, taxpayers... themselves!) paying for things. Sigh.
I'll look at ads when I have no way to avoid it. It's dopes like you that sit and stare at commercials thinking it will improve the quality of TV shows.
'Quality' shows require professional creativity, equipment, talent, and distribution resources. Unless you think you can get everyone involved to entertain you for free, at their own expense, you've got to either pay for the programming directly (like cable), or let someone else pay, on their own terms. Like ads.
If no one will pay people to make a run a quality show, what will you be left with? Taxpayer-subsidized entertainment? Local access shows run by high schools?
Market forces do work efficiently, in that they don't run as a charity. If the market goes out of its way to take the revenue away from broadcasting (or webcasting), then the market will find something else to do with its capital. And there goes the incentive for NBC to make the next Seinfeld, etc.
Just remember that when you're driving on the "taxpayer subsidized" way!
I don't know about where you're from, but around here we never stop talking about how much the roads cost the taxpayers. The connection between that service/infrastructure and the huge tax collections (from fuel sales, land development, etc) that fund it. No one characterizes the roads as "free." That's exactly why I'm bugged when a very different type of service (WiFi) would be characterized in that way - it's as if someone is trying to seduce someone else into something, only to later say, "Oh, you didn't think this would stay off of your tax bill, did you? Too bad! If we kill it now, all of those 20-year-old WiFi addicts who think it's 'free' will scream bloody murder."
So, better (just like with roads) to talk long and loud about who's paying for it, and how much.
[That's hardly an indication of corruption - more like giving a local vendor the business so that the increase in their local economic activity pumps a piece of that company's revenue right back into the local tax base.]
That's often an argument from left-wing politicians. Create a project because it will create jobs. Look up "broken window syndrome" sometime
Well, no one ever accused me of being left-wing on fiscal matters, that's for sure! I think my point was that if a city is going to spend money on technology services, there's a strong and rational incentive for keeping the business local, where the people that get paid are part of the local tax ecosystem. Unless, of course, the savings for going elsewhere are so huge that there's simply no arguing with the math. Or if the guy that got the business happens to be the contracting officer's brother in law, that sort of thing.
broken window syndrome
I think refers more to law enforcement - as in, hold people responsible for things like building code violations, and a decaying part of a town will start to look a little more civilized. That in turn makes the area more attractive to new residents and businesses, which boosts the tax base and brings more investment, happier residents, less petty crime, and so on. The best example of this is actually from the right side of the political spectrum, that was Rudy Guliani's policies in New York City... which paid off big time in crime reduction and happier New Yorkers.
Maybe they meant free as in freedom, not free as in "without charge".
But seriously, if you can't use the word "free" for this, what can you use it for?
Well, maybe you can't, really. I mean... free sunshine, that sort of thing. But "free" WiFi just is not free. Someone has to pay for it. Whenever we disconnect, mentally, those sorts of services and the underlying taxes that pay for them, we get into that weird mindset that just jacks up taxes, inefficiently provides services, and sets another whole generation's expectations about what sorts of technology and services are just "part of the environment," as if WiFi and the huge infrastructure that makes it possible just grow on trees.
Don't get me wrong: there are things that government (state, local, federal) are absolutely the best providers for (emergency services, police, defense, roads, that sort of thing). But this isn't one of them, and there are going to be untold millions of people who are years and years away from owning anything that will connect to WiFi, and if they understand that they're footing the bill for internet access for the person with enough disposable income to afford that nice laptop or high-end PDA, that won't sit too well, and it shouldn't.
Please just give me money, you can have your government-subsidized WIFI
You mean, give you back your money (um, if you pay taxes). Otherwise, you mean, give you my money. There is no "government" money. Honestly, where do these memes come from?
The company that provides the equipment is local; looks like a typical corrupt local govt. deal
That's hardly an indication of corruption - more like giving a local vendor the business so that the increase in their local economic activity pumps a piece of that company's revenue right back into the local tax base. That's more like recycling than corruption. Doesn't matter: I'd rather hear about "free" cell phone service, anyway. At least I'd be more likely to use it during those hours I spend sitting in traffic because my city can't get around to building decent roads with my other tax dollars.
don't most website statistics count an IP address once and call it a unique visit for x number of hours?
Not if they want to count correctly. Take, for example, the handful of IP addresses that represent AOL's proxies. Thousands of unique visitors could be behind the traffic from half a dozen IP addresses. For many corporate networks (hell, or schools, for that matter), you could easily have a few hundred surfers popping out of the firewall on a single IP address. Nope... to track visitors you've got to look at what they do, or hope they'll take a cookie.
There is one fallacy in your argument, just because a law is written, doesn't mean it is legal. If that were true, the court system would not be able to invalidate laws.
Let's be clear about the distinction between "illegal" and "unconstitutional." There are plenty of laws that have been found, appropriately, to be unconstitutional. Those, at that point, are no longer laws. Until the court says they're not, though, they are laws, and describe how the legal system works. Years can go by between a law being created and judicial action undoing it. In the meantime, it's legal, by definition. Let's also not confuse "legal" with "morally right." Plenty of laws, even those that pass consitutional tests, are just plain wrong-headed. But that won't keep you out of jail if you break them. Only changing the law will do that... and if the law in question passes a challenge at the court, then only legislative actions will be able to change the law. So, vote! Your elected congressional and senate representatives are the people that make the laws, and are the people that can un-make them when they no longer mesh well enough with society.
The EFF said it was a rumor, which means that they're not sure if it's true or not. This isn't anything like the Bush administration because Bush didn't come out and say "I heard a rumor that them thar' terrorists is gonna blow s**t up again."
Um... that's because it's not a rumor. They have blown stuff up again (know anyone that lives in Madrid?), and keep saying how they're going to do more of it, and death to America, etc. It's not really a matter of rumor when you can follow the money from shady businesses to people buying and selling weapons, to the people who are actually, demonstrably tied to people that are blowing up restaurants, chopping off heads on video, and saying they won't rest until democracy (a "true evil") is banished from the world. Come on, now, the fact that these clowns are out there, and willing to kill/die working against basic stuff like represntative government or women being allowed to work if they want to... that's not rumor. It's just medievalist jackasses with enough cash to buy decidedly post-medieval weapons and enough young people in their thrall to talk them into shredding themselves in a restaurant and taking innocent people with them.
Calling it a rumor is like saying that crackers and blackhats are a rumor, just because you've never personally had your box owned. Any chance that you've never had malware running on your machine not because there's no such thing as crackers, but because you're careful, and can think abstractly about the consequences if you were to let your guard down? National security has become just like that. And since our public memory is about 12 minutes long, all of that post-9/11 caution is regarded as "Bush=Nazi," and very few people can think abstractly about the consequences of not fending off the bad guys. You'd think, after watching New York, or that Beslan school in Russia, or the trains Madrid, that it would be a no-brainer and everyone would get that there really are people that happy to kill - but since most of us can't think like those people, it's hard to imagine that their past acts are anything other than an abberation. But they're not, and they're not going to be for a long time. Generations, probably (since that how long it will take for all of the kids in the middle east and other oppressive places to shake off the whole doom-and-gloom as a way of life thing). Generations before the whole 70 Virgins concept starts to look a little shaky as a reason to kill police cadets as they eat their lunch.
You might be more on target if you aimed that at the california village-grown fools.
Um... hence my reference to "those people that..."
You're way in the minority, and I'm glad you're out there. But the vast majority of public school kids are basically uninformed, and worse, lack any critical thinking skills whatsoever. Enough of them vote (uncritically), or bitch at their legislators based on shallow, emotional, short-attention-span-driven reactions to things that we get ridiculous spending priorities. Our high tech/space programs do more to expand our tech economy, help with looming security issues, and keep us ahead of our competition in so many ways... if only the average kid was taught to think in terms of causal relationships and rational economics. Oh well.
I'm glad to hear about astronomy being taught by an engineer in the home-school environment. Unfortunately, too many of the home-schooling families I'm aware of do so because they don't think normal schools put enough Jesus into astronomy, etc., so it's in some ways worse than the public schools. That certainly varies.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't like to see rising unemployment in the tech sector, either, but unionizing and legislating are not the answers. Innovation, entrepreneurship, and low tax overhead will help. We also have to face up to the fact that there are industrious and hard working people out there who will do our job on the cheap. We in the West need to wake up, start thinking more innovatively, and compete with our best tools: our creativity, education, and tremendous freedom to explore new business opportunities.
Listen, buddy, you're not going to get anywhere making sober, rational, actually true statements like that here on slashdot. If you can't make your point by bashing large companies and demonizing people in India, then you're just a Corporate Stooge(tm). Like me!
Like me, in the sense that I've still got a tech job in the US because I'm making sure that I do work for people that need something beyond simple certifications. The key to having a tech career in the US is in demonstrating how you can connect your comfort with the culture, language, and business habits of the country directly with the IT project at hand. A SQL query, a backup drive, and NAT settings don't really depend too much on cultural history or a smooth use of American English. But the execution of a project that faces North American business users and consumers is only going to shine if the people working on it don't have to have certain idioms translated, or certain Americanisms explained in detail before a dialog box can be well written or a menu hot key wisely selected.
More importantly, those e-mail threads and meetings that shape the budgets around projects or choose a technology strategy for some problem can be maddeningly derailed by the wrong-continent-ness of off-shored team members, no matter how inately talented or well trained. In short: get tech savvy, and then get in the business of helping tech-dependent organizations use tech resources, even if some of them are overseas. Being the resource is risky, but being an astute student of US culture and knowing which resources make the most sense to use - that's a less vulnerable line of work (and it pays better).
Again, they were considered "useful" in the very recent past
The employment landscape is not static. When you live in a town with only a couple of major employers (say, a textile or steel plant), and the thing that those plants do is now economically unviable... well, the people who worked there are actually not as employable today as they were yesterday. Just like buggywhip makers.
When a town is no longer attractive to a big business, that business will go away. If there is no new business that needs the same sort of skills, then the potentially thousands of people that worked at the old business aren't really all that useful to anybody until they either adjust their income expectations, move to where they're needed, or learn to do something that is needed right where they are. Currently needed skills don't always stay that way. If they did, we'd never see new technologies and more efficient manufacturing (except overseas).
Or they might be nervous because the car is borrowed and they aren't on the insurance of the car, and they don't know where the owner put the little card. Then they really panic because they don't know if the car actually has insurance...
Know anyone who was friends with a cop that was killed while making a simple traffic stop because a car was speeding and ran a red light? Know anyone who had a cop family member nearly die because someone not wanting to get caught out on a warrant tried to run him down with his car?
It doesn't matter that most people don't do these things. The point is that some people do. Cops have every right (out of sheer survival interests) to make sure that the person they're talking to isn't one of those that would just as soon see them dead. I've seen countless traffic stops where the cop didn't even have a hand on his weapon. Why? Because after doing it for a few years, they get a pretty good sense of when something's not right. It's not "magic," it's called experience. And do you really think that the nervous guy with the beer bottle in the back is really going to opt for running down the cop? If someone is that likely flip out and be recklessly deadly like that, they've got no business even driving a car. They certainly have no business wondering why a cop would eye them sideways if they're telegraphing that sort of readiness for Freaking Out.
Or they might be nervous because the car is borrowed and they aren't on the insurance of the car, and they don't know where the owner put the little card. Then they really panic because they don't know if the car actually has insurance...
So? Don't they have their own insurance? And if not, what the hell are they doing driving a 2000 pound vehicle around on the road not even sure if it's legal? Again, why are you worried about the professional judgement of the cop when it's someone with judgement that poor that's acting squirrely?
Ever had to call the police about a nearby domestic disturbance, a stolen vehicle, a person threatening someone in your business, or someone actively breaking into your neighbor's car? Cops respond to all sorts of situations, and their lives truly, literally are at risk every time. People who drive around on expired tags, or that run stop signs or don't have working brake lights are very often on the edge enough to also have other issues (like warrants, or like a a bucket o' crack in the trunk). But cars like that go past cops all the time without getting pulled over - it's a gamble. When they do stop someone who is polite and forthcoming, it's usually completely painless. I've been pulled over, and never gave the officers any body-language reason to think that I was doing anything other than driving with my mind on how to fix a bad server or some other distraction. Beligerant, non-communicative people are usually that way for a reason, and can't object to being treated exactly as their behavior demands. A little bit of civility goes a long way. A lack of it invites serious caution from people that get spat on, shot at, and underpaid.
Artists already get ripped off when you buy music
You mean, the contracts they sign when they choose a label are actually fraudulent? Or do you mean that the contracts are written well, but that bands like U2 or the Foo Fighters or perhaps the Boston Symphony Orchestra are too dumb to notice that they're not actually getting the percentage that the contract says they'll get. Do you really think that a judge wouldn't hugely penalize a record label, like they do other businesses, for obvious breech of contract?
Or, do you mean that since you don't want to pay $15 for a CD, that you think you'll express your displeasure by making sure that the artist gets nothing.
This is what I do.. I download all the music I like off of free P2P services. Then, if I like the music, I send a $5 check for every track's worth of music I download directly to the artists. The artists definitely do not get this big of a cut when you buy a CD in a store.
First, reply with the URL of a scan of a check, cashed by an artist with a real label deal, showing that you've done this (let alone that you do in continually). You can block out the sensitive stuff, but I'll bet that you probably just fake it up in Photoshop anyway. I call BS on this.
Second, the artist isn't expecting to get $50 for a 10-track CD. They sign a deal that probably gets them a buck or so. Maybe two. They know that, the label knows that. And if the label does their work and gets a couple hundred thousand CDs sold, then the artist can consider themselves as having made an OK living that year - without having to personally handle a bunch of imaginary personal checks, including the ones that bounce.
Give me a way to direct my contribution DIRECTLY to the artist, and I will happily do it.M
This part always amazes me. The artist has chosen to use the business services of a record label. The label deals with a jillion details for the artist - from venue contracting, accounting, marketing, distribution and fronting cash for studio time and more. There is overhead involved, and they often lose a ton of money on some artists - most, in fact. Your point is that you think the overhead is too high, and so to show how unhappy you are, you'd rather that the artist (instead of getting the deal they know they signed up for) gets nothing. Way to show your support for the artist, by thinking so little of their business arrangements that you're willing to deny them royalties - the very thing they set up the relationship with the label to get in the first place. Artists have other choices, and many use them. But if you so disrespect the artist for using a record label to deal with all of the business BS, then why would you want to listen to their music? If you have such disdain for them, intellectually and ethically, how can you possibly say you enjoy their intellectual output (their music) and not recognize the hypocrisy? Respect the entire person of the musician (and all that they do, including deciding how they want to get paid for their efforts and reduce their financial risks) or don't - but you can't have it both ways.
If the artists that choose to use labels don't get any fans, then they'll make different decisions. But for now, we've got people who like the music, but use the lame excuse of protesting percentages to explain why they're willing to rip off the people they say they like. Incredible.
Why would I want to use this when I can just download music for free off a real P2P network. This makes no sense at all.
Um... so that you're not ripping off the artists that you think you respect (yes, and the companies that those artists have chosen to work with)? Or, so that you don't risk getting slapped with a nice fat lawsuit?
Why pay for anything that someone is offering for sale if you can be quick enough, or tricky enough, or ethically bankrupt enough to just skip out on paying? Good question! Possible answer: because that way you're not a hypocrite for saying you truly like the musician you're slimily getting to entertain you for free.
Wouldn't it be worth to also know which businesses hired/paid money to this man's marketing company to carry out such unsoliciated marketing campaign.....I reckon those businesses which paid for such services must also be prosecuted
That might be harder than it sounds. Many of these guys are set up as affiliate marketers. Meaning, no one pays them to do this, they only pay them when some twit happens to buy some V1@gra. The actual vendor can (with almost a straight face) claim that they established an affiliate program so that legitimate partner sites could honestly pass along real referrals... and that, gee, they can't police the activities of every affiliate, and all they knew was that they were getting traffic, and gosh, etc.
It's up to the affilate engines to sniff this stuff out and simply shut down the offenders (by disabling their accounts). Of course, the affiliate engines make their piece of every transaction, too, so they're not going to be terribly motivated. Especially if they have no redeeming social graces whatsoever, sons of bitches.
That being said, there are some first rate affiliate engines with real, certifiably well-behaved partner networks (see Performics and CJ as decent examples. They're not without their abusive users, but those get slammed pretty hard, and money can get locked up with you play naughty, so that usually works.
I wonder if this Aussie was using one of the more notorious AM engines from Australia (DarkBlue).
If an average commercial spam is about 5KB ... What a waste!!!
Except that the 5kb of the message itself is only the tip of the iceberg. The DNS lookups, the SMTP handshakes, the blacklist queries, the POP3 downloads and filter checks, and then the huge bandwidth of displaying the no doubt numerous tag-embedded images... all adds up to way, way more than 5kb per typical message. I'd be really amazed, if you added up all the overhead, if it wasn't more like 256k. And that doesn't count processer use, storage, human hours throwing it out, and sheer mind-numbing info-noise in all of our brains.
nothing but propaganda tools to trick citizens into thinking that gettign pulled over for a burnt out license plate light is enough justification to search the entire car and cart someone off for magicaly finding a bunch of drugs under the spare tire
Um, if that's not such a problem (running drugs), why hide them under the spare tire? You watch shows like that, and you see exactly why a cop pulling you over for a safety violation (or for trying to hide your identity by not having a lit license plate, etc) can tell pretty much immediately when someone is nervously hiding their contraband. Most casual smugglers/dealers are really, really terrible liars. They act busted before they are busted, just like dogs and kids.
Or make people think it is acceptable to get shot for not stoping when a police officer yells at you.
Why are you running away from a cop? Why not just stand there and say hi, and talk? By the time you're running, and a cop is having to shout at you, you're already holding up a big sign that says, "I'm Doing Something Illegal, And I'm Willing To Act Like A Crazy Person Rather Than Get Caught." Now, you're the guy who's supposed to protect everyone else from crazy people - do you get just a little suspicious when someone would rather back over you with their car than stop and talk?
Calling copyright infringment stealing and getting the public used to acknowledging it as the same only paves the way to introduce laws declaring it as stealing
No, actually it just boils it down to the simplest concept imagineable, for the most people: it's getting the artist to entertain you for free. It's knowing that the material you've just laid hands on is something that someone produced with the express intent of selling it to you for your entertainment, and you're skipping around the terms under which the entertainer decided to release the material in the first place. This isn't some new attempt to brainwash people - this is a long standing attempt to remind them that there's built-in hypocrisy in saying you like and respect the artist, and want to be entertained by them, but that you don't respect the artist enough to actually do what they ask in exchange (buy their performance).
Right now people see it as the big corps trying to punish the little guy who cannot afford to pay thier extorionate fees.
No they don't. They see it as a chance to skip paying for something they want, with a fairly low chance of getting caught doing it. If they really like the artist, I wonder if they'd be willing to look that musician in the eye, in person, and say, "Hey! great new album! I've just downloaded a copy from a P2P, and I'll be listening to it when I drive to work. The lyrics are great, and it's got a cool groove. I just like your creative work so much, but not enough to pay you for it! Keep up the good work!" Oh, and I don't think "extortion" means what you think it means.
Wait until file swapper are disliked as much as the welfare families that drain tax dollars from important projects like ball stadiums just because they think they have a right to eat and live
Whether a particular city's local officials decide to tax local businesses to build a ballpark (and whether the local voters put up with it - these things are usually on a referendum) doesn't have much to do with federal welfare dollars going to anybody. If having a "right to live" means that everybody can lean on everybody else for food, who's actually making the food? And if no one ever pays for laboriously made, high-end recordings, who's going to foot the bill for producing them, and for attracting the talent needed to make it work?
In Texas you can shoot somebody for little more than trespassing, yet now a company can push you right off your land legally?
No, now (and still) and company cannot push you off your land legally. That didn't happen in this case, either. The people that did the pushing were the local officials that wanted more tax revenue. They argued that a bigger local tax base would be good for the town. It doesn't even matter if they're right or wrong - the point is that it was local politics, basically outside of the scope of federal activity. The famously liberal people of Connecticut are squarely to blame on this one. The court just ruled that the law was constitutional and the local officials are in a better position to decide how it's applied. Glad I don't live in CT, though. Although Maryland is actually worse, in some ways.
State's can pass laws all they want but when the run afoul of the Constitution they typically get struck down.
The problem here was that the law isn't unconstitutional. It's a long standing process. The issue is the question of who decides when the property taking is in the public interests? The court just ruled that the local authorities are in a better position to make those calls. While I find this particular example pretty reprehensible, I also lean towards the old "all politics are local" notion, because it's a lot easier to punish stupid local politicians than it is stupid national-level ones.
Seems like whether you support right or left-based politics, the way things go, the corporations win every time
No, the people that "won" here were the local tax-hungry state and municipal authorities that were drooling at the prospect of getting millions in taxes instead of the paltry thousands that the few remaining residents on that property were generating.
This property taking could not have happend without the local city officials wanting it to, and they wouldn't be there without the local voters backing them. The feds (as the court just ruled) don't really have much to do with it at all. You can vote against the developers by not patronizing the businesses they develop, but you can stop the whole process in its tracks by not putting tax-addicts into local offices with local zoning powers.
If you're surprised at this, then you obviously haven't been paying attention.
Right. You'd need to have been paying attention to two things. First, a long, drawn-out Connecticut zoning issue. If the prospects of what that city council wanted to do were so horrible, maybe people should have been bitching about it then or not voted those people into a position to make decisions they don't like. This wouldn't have happened if, say, Connecticut's own laws didn't allow it. Which brings me to the other thing you'd have wanted to pay attention to... Secondly, this was a states'-rights issue. The Supreme Court didn't rule that people can have their property taken away (that's always been the case). No, they ruled the local governments are better judges of what's reasonable on a case-by-case basis. I think this was a lousy example, and shouldn't have stood, but it wasn't about the SCOTUS weighing in on the particular case at hand.
This is really a sad day
Especially if you live in Connecticut, or in the city in question, since that's where the local officials that want to re-assign the land are doing their business. The court essentially found in favor of states' rights to handle their zoning business themselves. It's the people running Connecticut that are the tax-hungry tyrants, here.
If nobody is buying up all the talent anymore, who do you think will create the local access shows?
OK. So you're being sarcastic, I get that. But just in case someone else doesn't: let's pretend that the talent is free anyway. These things still cost money. The whole distribution system costs money. Just complying with federal regs costs money. The local access channels only have local access because the for-profit parts of the industry have to pay for that as part of their deal with local cable charters. The whole "I want top quality entertainment for free, and Peter Jackson should be able to make a living off of selling the t-shirts" sentiment is such an intellectual pothole. And it only happens because people want to be at peace with themselves as they rip off music and films. As a Plan B, they're willing to settle for "the government" (um, taxpayers... themselves!) paying for things. Sigh.
I'll look at ads when I have no way to avoid it. It's dopes like you that sit and stare at commercials thinking it will improve the quality of TV shows.
'Quality' shows require professional creativity, equipment, talent, and distribution resources. Unless you think you can get everyone involved to entertain you for free, at their own expense, you've got to either pay for the programming directly (like cable), or let someone else pay, on their own terms. Like ads.
If no one will pay people to make a run a quality show, what will you be left with? Taxpayer-subsidized entertainment? Local access shows run by high schools?
Market forces do work efficiently, in that they don't run as a charity. If the market goes out of its way to take the revenue away from broadcasting (or webcasting), then the market will find something else to do with its capital. And there goes the incentive for NBC to make the next Seinfeld, etc.
Just remember that when you're driving on the "taxpayer subsidized" way!
I don't know about where you're from, but around here we never stop talking about how much the roads cost the taxpayers. The connection between that service/infrastructure and the huge tax collections (from fuel sales, land development, etc) that fund it. No one characterizes the roads as "free." That's exactly why I'm bugged when a very different type of service (WiFi) would be characterized in that way - it's as if someone is trying to seduce someone else into something, only to later say, "Oh, you didn't think this would stay off of your tax bill, did you? Too bad! If we kill it now, all of those 20-year-old WiFi addicts who think it's 'free' will scream bloody murder."
So, better (just like with roads) to talk long and loud about who's paying for it, and how much.
[That's hardly an indication of corruption - more like giving a local vendor the business so that the increase in their local economic activity pumps a piece of that company's revenue right back into the local tax base.]
That's often an argument from left-wing politicians. Create a project because it will create jobs. Look up "broken window syndrome" sometime
Well, no one ever accused me of being left-wing on fiscal matters, that's for sure! I think my point was that if a city is going to spend money on technology services, there's a strong and rational incentive for keeping the business local, where the people that get paid are part of the local tax ecosystem. Unless, of course, the savings for going elsewhere are so huge that there's simply no arguing with the math. Or if the guy that got the business happens to be the contracting officer's brother in law, that sort of thing.
broken window syndrome
I think refers more to law enforcement - as in, hold people responsible for things like building code violations, and a decaying part of a town will start to look a little more civilized. That in turn makes the area more attractive to new residents and businesses, which boosts the tax base and brings more investment, happier residents, less petty crime, and so on. The best example of this is actually from the right side of the political spectrum, that was Rudy Guliani's policies in New York City... which paid off big time in crime reduction and happier New Yorkers.
Maybe they meant free as in freedom, not free as in "without charge".
But seriously, if you can't use the word "free" for this, what can you use it for?
Well, maybe you can't, really. I mean... free sunshine, that sort of thing. But "free" WiFi just is not free. Someone has to pay for it. Whenever we disconnect, mentally, those sorts of services and the underlying taxes that pay for them, we get into that weird mindset that just jacks up taxes, inefficiently provides services, and sets another whole generation's expectations about what sorts of technology and services are just "part of the environment," as if WiFi and the huge infrastructure that makes it possible just grow on trees.
Don't get me wrong: there are things that government (state, local, federal) are absolutely the best providers for (emergency services, police, defense, roads, that sort of thing). But this isn't one of them, and there are going to be untold millions of people who are years and years away from owning anything that will connect to WiFi, and if they understand that they're footing the bill for internet access for the person with enough disposable income to afford that nice laptop or high-end PDA, that won't sit too well, and it shouldn't.
Please just give me money, you can have your government-subsidized WIFI
You mean, give you back your money (um, if you pay taxes). Otherwise, you mean, give you my money. There is no "government" money. Honestly, where do these memes come from?
The company that provides the equipment is local; looks like a typical corrupt local govt. deal
That's hardly an indication of corruption - more like giving a local vendor the business so that the increase in their local economic activity pumps a piece of that company's revenue right back into the local tax base. That's more like recycling than corruption. Doesn't matter: I'd rather hear about "free" cell phone service, anyway. At least I'd be more likely to use it during those hours I spend sitting in traffic because my city can't get around to building decent roads with my other tax dollars.
I'm always a little amazed that people will use the word "free" when they mean "taxpayer subsidized."
don't most website statistics count an IP address once and call it a unique visit for x number of hours?
Not if they want to count correctly. Take, for example, the handful of IP addresses that represent AOL's proxies. Thousands of unique visitors could be behind the traffic from half a dozen IP addresses. For many corporate networks (hell, or schools, for that matter), you could easily have a few hundred surfers popping out of the firewall on a single IP address. Nope... to track visitors you've got to look at what they do, or hope they'll take a cookie.
There is one fallacy in your argument, just because a law is written, doesn't mean it is legal. If that were true, the court system would not be able to invalidate laws.
Let's be clear about the distinction between "illegal" and "unconstitutional." There are plenty of laws that have been found, appropriately, to be unconstitutional. Those, at that point, are no longer laws. Until the court says they're not, though, they are laws, and describe how the legal system works. Years can go by between a law being created and judicial action undoing it. In the meantime, it's legal, by definition. Let's also not confuse "legal" with "morally right." Plenty of laws, even those that pass consitutional tests, are just plain wrong-headed. But that won't keep you out of jail if you break them. Only changing the law will do that... and if the law in question passes a challenge at the court, then only legislative actions will be able to change the law. So, vote! Your elected congressional and senate representatives are the people that make the laws, and are the people that can un-make them when they no longer mesh well enough with society.
The EFF said it was a rumor, which means that they're not sure if it's true or not. This isn't anything like the Bush administration because Bush didn't come out and say "I heard a rumor that them thar' terrorists is gonna blow s**t up again."
Um... that's because it's not a rumor. They have blown stuff up again (know anyone that lives in Madrid?), and keep saying how they're going to do more of it, and death to America, etc. It's not really a matter of rumor when you can follow the money from shady businesses to people buying and selling weapons, to the people who are actually, demonstrably tied to people that are blowing up restaurants, chopping off heads on video, and saying they won't rest until democracy (a "true evil") is banished from the world. Come on, now, the fact that these clowns are out there, and willing to kill/die working against basic stuff like represntative government or women being allowed to work if they want to... that's not rumor. It's just medievalist jackasses with enough cash to buy decidedly post-medieval weapons and enough young people in their thrall to talk them into shredding themselves in a restaurant and taking innocent people with them.
Calling it a rumor is like saying that crackers and blackhats are a rumor, just because you've never personally had your box owned. Any chance that you've never had malware running on your machine not because there's no such thing as crackers, but because you're careful, and can think abstractly about the consequences if you were to let your guard down? National security has become just like that. And since our public memory is about 12 minutes long, all of that post-9/11 caution is regarded as "Bush=Nazi," and very few people can think abstractly about the consequences of not fending off the bad guys. You'd think, after watching New York, or that Beslan school in Russia, or the trains Madrid, that it would be a no-brainer and everyone would get that there really are people that happy to kill - but since most of us can't think like those people, it's hard to imagine that their past acts are anything other than an abberation. But they're not, and they're not going to be for a long time. Generations, probably (since that how long it will take for all of the kids in the middle east and other oppressive places to shake off the whole doom-and-gloom as a way of life thing). Generations before the whole 70 Virgins concept starts to look a little shaky as a reason to kill police cadets as they eat their lunch.
You might be more on target if you aimed that at the california village-grown fools.
Um... hence my reference to "those people that..."
You're way in the minority, and I'm glad you're out there. But the vast majority of public school kids are basically uninformed, and worse, lack any critical thinking skills whatsoever. Enough of them vote (uncritically), or bitch at their legislators based on shallow, emotional, short-attention-span-driven reactions to things that we get ridiculous spending priorities. Our high tech/space programs do more to expand our tech economy, help with looming security issues, and keep us ahead of our competition in so many ways... if only the average kid was taught to think in terms of causal relationships and rational economics. Oh well.
I'm glad to hear about astronomy being taught by an engineer in the home-school environment. Unfortunately, too many of the home-schooling families I'm aware of do so because they don't think normal schools put enough Jesus into astronomy, etc., so it's in some ways worse than the public schools. That certainly varies.