And who are you? How are we identifying you? We're talking about a currency here with a billionaire "Satoshi Nakamoto", who no-one knows for sure who the hell is.
A currency that allows for that level of anonymity doesn't lend itself to taxes.
How would you feel about your customers sending tracking images to you with orders/complaints/queries? Just to "fine-tune" whether they deal with you again? I imagine it could be statistically enlightening to see how quickly you open emails, how often, and how long the response takes. Not so keen?
I appreciate your efforts to ensure that your emails lists are on target and not spammy, many companies are not so diligent. (Particularly with confirmed opt-ins.) But you have no automatic right to collate any further information about your customers unless they intentionally provide it. Tracking images are sneaky and most certainly not used by your customers intentionally. There is a reasonable expectation of privacy when reading your own email on your own computer.
You're right about two things though. The days are long gone when spammers cared about whether an address was valid or not. They are not incurring any costs spamming to invalid addresses. All they care about is how many suckers they hook with a response. And yes, the cached image hits are yet more information being sucked up by google, that will inevitably be sold in some way in the future.
The value of your insight is severely compromised by your idea that you can quantitatively measure "good music acts" and "quality musical artists".
The quality of the act and the music they play is almost entirely a matter of opinion. It cannot be measured without being influenced by your taste in music. Therefore you cannot demonstrate in any meaningful way that they are increasing in number.
Fact is, the "boy bands" and "talentless whores" you describe will continue to make money because people are willing to pay them. Even when playing live. Your evaluation of their quality makes zero difference to their business model.
I was all for it until you mentioned his dinner. At that point a line was crossed!
This guy does nothing to deserve our sympathy. He was on the school grounds, using the school's tennis courts after being specifically told he did not have permission to be there. Then he decides it's a good idea to plug into the school's electricity to get a free charge for his car. What kind of thinking allows him to do that? And when he's called on it, he gives the cop grief.
He knew exactly what he was doing, and he knew he had no right to that electricity. We only have his word for it that it was only 20mins charge. He could have been doing this every day for weeks. Anything that happened to him is a result of him purposely being a dick.
Privacy as a right is not an absolute unchanging concept because "privacy" is not an absolute concept. It changes.
Someone's idea of privacy in Victorian London 1880 may not to be regarded as either a right, or even reasonable, in Atlanta in 2013. Whether it's a change for the better or worse is a matter of opinion, of course.
There is nothing to suggest that the concept of "privacy" won't continue to change in the future, while still remaining what people think of as a right. Obviously your example is extreme and unlikely, but if it becomes common place for others to enter your property, then your expectation of privacy there may become questionable.
What is so special about artists, that they should be paid in perpetuity for having done a performance?
So you are suggesting that musicians, rather than being on a commission based on sales, become employees of some music company, paid by the hour? Like, say, a programmer. It's an idea. But people tend to disparage treating music as a production line. They value the freedom given to an artist. That's what makes them special.
maybe you should lay your guitar aside, and learn how to make a living
Or are you saying that musicians become amateurs, and fit in their hobby around their real living? Again, an idea, as long as everyone is happy to accept that no-one really has the time to produce as much music, or devote a lifetime to mastering it.
You are placing all the value of music in its ability of being written by amateurs, performed by amateurs, played and enjoyed in a pub, with beer. That's a really narrow definition of music.
Not all music is like that. Not all music lovers are like that. Some music really does take full time professionals to compose and master. Some music you really don't want to listen to in a pub.
Or maybe it's just some guy on the internet who holds an opinion? Sometimes the opinion is unpopular and contrary to others. Sometimes it appears incorrect (depending on your evaluation of the facts). Sometimes, like many personal opinions, it isn't entirely unbiased.
It can happen, isn't illegal, and kind of the point of having the discussion.
I'd want to see a comparison of the quality of the predictions.
Astrologers excel at predictions that can be interpreted in many ways, until after the fact, at which point they (sometimes) become amazingly accurate. But only when you look at them the right way and are prepared to give them artistic, mystical licence. Unfortunately it's a skill that's totally useless in predicting anything real and actual, unless you place a value on smug "I warned you!"s Some may even suggest it's a skill that goes no further than being a good bullshitter.
Economists are generally no good at this, and often fall into the trap of discussing real things that can be actually measured with hard figures. Amateurs.
And how is this drone going to ring my doorbell? Fail to stuff the package through the letterbox? Hide it under the bush at the side of the house? Write a description of where it is on a card?
If they can barely get a human delivery driver to manage this, how is a drone going to do it?
What if I don't have a suitable landing site at my address? How is it going to verify that I am the package recipient? How is it going to stop someone stealing the package, and it?
The only way it would work is if people start making special provision for "the Amazon drone" at their address. A pre-registered landing site, a guaranteed secure drop point, clear of all possible obstruction. They don't do that presently, so what's going to make them do it for a drone?
So you see the future of music to be a return to the days where a musician had to spend their life on tour, music that didn't work in a live setting (or sell t-shirts) was unheard of, and if a musician couldn't gather together enough fans in one single physical location they had no career?
Goodbye to musicians being able to produce an opus over the course of a year. Goodbye to any music that can't be enjoyed in a crowd. Goodbye to any act that doesn't attract the kind of fans who like to identify with their music through the clothes they wear. Goodbye to any act whose fans are thinly spread across the globe.
First step in completing a successful con; get the mark to think that they are smarter than you. If the mark thinks you are a ignorant third-worlder who can barely speak English (the natural language of all intelligent people), you will find it easier to scam them.
Who says its the opposite of what they were hoping for? You don't know what they were hoping for.
It sounds like an excellent way of stopping any bad news ending up on your company's wiki page. Start editing it prior to the bad news breaking, make sure everyone knows you're paid editing it. Page gets locked. No-one can then add the bad news when it breaks.
Or an excellent way to ruin a competitor's article.
One of the key principals of Wikipedia is that page locking is a last resort, for as short a time as possible. Otherwise it wouldn't be the encyclopaedia everyone can edit. Page locking is not a device to shame companies.
Yeah, this is great. Now you can have endless "conversations" with people you don't care enough about to actually keep up-to-date with, asking them questions you don't care the answer to.
Slashdot Mirror
that purchase is now and forever tied to me
And who are you? How are we identifying you? We're talking about a currency here with a billionaire "Satoshi Nakamoto", who no-one knows for sure who the hell is.
A currency that allows for that level of anonymity doesn't lend itself to taxes.
How would you feel about your customers sending tracking images to you with orders/complaints/queries? Just to "fine-tune" whether they deal with you again? I imagine it could be statistically enlightening to see how quickly you open emails, how often, and how long the response takes. Not so keen?
I appreciate your efforts to ensure that your emails lists are on target and not spammy, many companies are not so diligent. (Particularly with confirmed opt-ins.) But you have no automatic right to collate any further information about your customers unless they intentionally provide it. Tracking images are sneaky and most certainly not used by your customers intentionally. There is a reasonable expectation of privacy when reading your own email on your own computer.
You're right about two things though. The days are long gone when spammers cared about whether an address was valid or not. They are not incurring any costs spamming to invalid addresses. All they care about is how many suckers they hook with a response. And yes, the cached image hits are yet more information being sucked up by google, that will inevitably be sold in some way in the future.
I think you'll find the extrapolation of choice by all crazy people was that it would lead to people marrying goats.
Which was kind of like saying if a shop offers the choice of buying bread or milk, that will inevitably lead to the sale of heroin and automatic guns.
If only the OP had mentioned this useful and relevant function, you could have read it there.
How to get modded informative; repeat what the OP says.
Well done.
The value of your insight is severely compromised by your idea that you can quantitatively measure "good music acts" and "quality musical artists".
The quality of the act and the music they play is almost entirely a matter of opinion. It cannot be measured without being influenced by your taste in music. Therefore you cannot demonstrate in any meaningful way that they are increasing in number.
Fact is, the "boy bands" and "talentless whores" you describe will continue to make money because people are willing to pay them. Even when playing live. Your evaluation of their quality makes zero difference to their business model.
I was all for it until you mentioned his dinner. At that point a line was crossed!
This guy does nothing to deserve our sympathy. He was on the school grounds, using the school's tennis courts after being specifically told he did not have permission to be there. Then he decides it's a good idea to plug into the school's electricity to get a free charge for his car. What kind of thinking allows him to do that? And when he's called on it, he gives the cop grief.
He knew exactly what he was doing, and he knew he had no right to that electricity. We only have his word for it that it was only 20mins charge. He could have been doing this every day for weeks. Anything that happened to him is a result of him purposely being a dick.
Privacy as a right is not an absolute unchanging concept because "privacy" is not an absolute concept. It changes.
Someone's idea of privacy in Victorian London 1880 may not to be regarded as either a right, or even reasonable, in Atlanta in 2013. Whether it's a change for the better or worse is a matter of opinion, of course.
There is nothing to suggest that the concept of "privacy" won't continue to change in the future, while still remaining what people think of as a right. Obviously your example is extreme and unlikely, but if it becomes common place for others to enter your property, then your expectation of privacy there may become questionable.
amateur = not full time job. Done in a minority of their time either unpaid, or for extra cash.
professional = a full time job. Majority of days spent doing this as a living.
It's not an evaluation of their talent, it's a simple matter of how much time they can devote to it, and how much they can invest in it.
The Rolling Stones are hardly a typical example, and I'm sure Toronto love it, but not exactly helpful for everyone else.
What is so special about artists, that they should be paid in perpetuity for having done a performance?
So you are suggesting that musicians, rather than being on a commission based on sales, become employees of some music company, paid by the hour? Like, say, a programmer. It's an idea. But people tend to disparage treating music as a production line. They value the freedom given to an artist. That's what makes them special.
maybe you should lay your guitar aside, and learn how to make a living
Or are you saying that musicians become amateurs, and fit in their hobby around their real living? Again, an idea, as long as everyone is happy to accept that no-one really has the time to produce as much music, or devote a lifetime to mastering it.
You are placing all the value of music in its ability of being written by amateurs, performed by amateurs, played and enjoyed in a pub, with beer. That's a really narrow definition of music.
Not all music is like that. Not all music lovers are like that. Some music really does take full time professionals to compose and master. Some music you really don't want to listen to in a pub.
Or maybe it's just some guy on the internet who holds an opinion? Sometimes the opinion is unpopular and contrary to others. Sometimes it appears incorrect (depending on your evaluation of the facts). Sometimes, like many personal opinions, it isn't entirely unbiased.
It can happen, isn't illegal, and kind of the point of having the discussion.
I didn't. You've got the wrong address. Or I am someone who had it delivered to the wrong address on purpose, so I can steal it.
Or at the very least, come up with a new joke. We've heard this one.
I think I've said it before, but it only keeps getting truer.
The whole "let's pretend that zombies are real" lark got old very quickly. It was hardly hilarious at first and now it's just very unoriginal.
Maybe we leave it where it belongs in the realms of fiction now, and get back to researching/discussing actual diseases that affect real people?
I'd want to see a comparison of the quality of the predictions.
Astrologers excel at predictions that can be interpreted in many ways, until after the fact, at which point they (sometimes) become amazingly accurate. But only when you look at them the right way and are prepared to give them artistic, mystical licence. Unfortunately it's a skill that's totally useless in predicting anything real and actual, unless you place a value on smug "I warned you!"s Some may even suggest it's a skill that goes no further than being a good bullshitter.
Economists are generally no good at this, and often fall into the trap of discussing real things that can be actually measured with hard figures. Amateurs.
And how is this drone going to ring my doorbell? Fail to stuff the package through the letterbox? Hide it under the bush at the side of the house? Write a description of where it is on a card?
If they can barely get a human delivery driver to manage this, how is a drone going to do it?
What if I don't have a suitable landing site at my address? How is it going to verify that I am the package recipient? How is it going to stop someone stealing the package, and it?
The only way it would work is if people start making special provision for "the Amazon drone" at their address. A pre-registered landing site, a guaranteed secure drop point, clear of all possible obstruction. They don't do that presently, so what's going to make them do it for a drone?
So you see the future of music to be a return to the days where a musician had to spend their life on tour, music that didn't work in a live setting (or sell t-shirts) was unheard of, and if a musician couldn't gather together enough fans in one single physical location they had no career?
Goodbye to musicians being able to produce an opus over the course of a year. Goodbye to any music that can't be enjoyed in a crowd. Goodbye to any act that doesn't attract the kind of fans who like to identify with their music through the clothes they wear. Goodbye to any act whose fans are thinly spread across the globe.
How is this progress?
Absolutely. The compex nature of money should be left to people who know more about it than economists.
Like... err...
Maybe Astrologists aren't such a bad idea...
...which was exactly the point being made.
Mitchell and Webb have this covered...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS9ptA3Ya9E
First step in completing a successful con; get the mark to think that they are smarter than you. If the mark thinks you are a ignorant third-worlder who can barely speak English (the natural language of all intelligent people), you will find it easier to scam them.
Looks like "Mike" has successfully achieved this.
Who says its the opposite of what they were hoping for? You don't know what they were hoping for.
It sounds like an excellent way of stopping any bad news ending up on your company's wiki page. Start editing it prior to the bad news breaking, make sure everyone knows you're paid editing it. Page gets locked. No-one can then add the bad news when it breaks.
Or an excellent way to ruin a competitor's article.
One of the key principals of Wikipedia is that page locking is a last resort, for as short a time as possible. Otherwise it wouldn't be the encyclopaedia everyone can edit. Page locking is not a device to shame companies.
Yeah, this is great. Now you can have endless "conversations" with people you don't care enough about to actually keep up-to-date with, asking them questions you don't care the answer to.
Not bragging about it.
So there goes that.