I lost brain cells reading that article. It was entirely the work of uncredited Guardian staff (sorry, I skimmed quickly to ease the pain) without citations from an academic authority to bolster the wild conjectures. Since we're making shit up out of thin air then, let's try this. Bhutan was a completley isolated and closed dictatorial monoculture for millenia, overnight exposed to the entirety of the Western low-brow culture at a single blow. The flood of new ideas and concepts are the root of disruption. The Bhutan case makes as good an argument against Eve biting the apple.
Asia? Many Japanese broadcast programs are full of sex and nudity, and more than a few classic Hong Kong flicks would be considered soft-core in the US. You couldn't have meant Thailand. Perhaps you were thinking Sinapore, where (it's said) even chewing gum is illegal? I do agree your country's mores are beginning to have a lot in common with the religiously fundamentalist sectors of the Middle East. Why you consider having elements in common with dictatorships and theocracies an argument for your point is another question entirely.
You're labouring under the erroneous assumption 'distributed media' gives a rat's ass about some alien concept called fairness. How do you justify that? In my 25+ years of experience in the industry I've seen no evidence. Media conglomerates act in the interests of the bottom line and shareholders, believing the 'magic hand' of the market will alter that aspect of human nature is an unfortunately common religious belief but nothing more. It takes a great deal of money to own and operate broadcast media and it's only natural the result reinforces the interests of those with a great deal of money.
"I think complaining there aren't emough women in tech is disingenuous and a little condescending towards women. There has been a wide open door for women for years, self-taught, or otherwise. To claim otherwise ignores so many other attempts and programs."
Engineering departments were doing everything they could to attract female applicants way back when I was working towards a BAScEE in the mid-Seventies. You can't force anyone.
"In X-Men 3, they developed a computer effects algorithm that made Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart look very young."
No, it didn't. The end result came off looking like bad cosmetic surgery shot through a Vaseline-smeared lens. Not that it doesn't work for Penthouse. On the other hand, making it a Bob Guccione my finally, after a generation, result in a Strek movie worth seeing.
"The Borg were very simply an overpowering force that sought to equalize and harmonize the universe at the expense of individuality and free expression. I 5hink that describes socialism pretty well, don't you?;)"
When you phrase it that way, now I see the connection with Norway and Sweden and their unstoppable, all-consuming colonial aspirations.
No shit. I've run a 50-user, 24/7 newsroom since 2001 on 2K and LUAs without a single virus or malware incident. Sure, keeping crapware (flash, quicktime, etc.) updated is a pain but one that's paid off many times over in an otherwise bug free operating environment. Incidentally, games like UT2004 and HL1 ran fine in a user account. It's the newer games - BF2 and anything Steam for examples - that don't seem to run properly other than admin. Punkbuster refuses to in 2K.
You're either lucky or running old boards. I've seen plenty of motherboards fail with visibly swollen electrolytics around high temp components like the CPU.
"If publishers want to cut off their revenue with stupid restrictions then let them."
If it were that simple. There is no 'opt' in 'opt-in'. Content providers in many cases own the hardware companies manufacturing media players or work in concert with nominally unrelated industries such as Microsoft, Phoenix and Intel to create 'standards' which leave the consumer little option. Theses oligarchies are backed by now-federal, criminal law resulting from generations of lobby effort preventing work-arounds. Consumers have no choice when purchasing the artistic efforts which represent the vast bulk of contemporary culture, artists have no choice if they want wide distribution, anyone attempting to break the stranglehold risks imprisonment. Car bomber appears a better analogy than suicide, the media/hardware oligarchies will take popular culture with them.
"...something that's often neglected is that websites are relatively inexpensive to maintain when compared to a brick and mortar location.."
Possibly, however maintenance isn't start-up. Many of these Web 2.0 ventures are exactly that, capital ventures, and those are typically anything but lean and mean. My employer company jumped on the 'portal' thing with Excite a few years back and dropped $70 million, some on the typical Web essentials of designer chairs and oxygen dispensers, over a period of a couple years before snapping back to reality and dissolving the lot. This from an organization with deep roots in media and content distribution too, so I can't imagine what some VC's are spending on this latest run.
"Evil Empires usually don't last that long once they're in full swing."
Good point. To judge from 20th Century history the worst we can expect is four or five generations of tyranny and tens of millions dead from each 'evil empire'. Hardly worth bothering over, especially when smokers still roam free in public places and violent video games fill retail shelves.
What information are we intended to draw from that link? That mean sea levels have riden ~120 metre in the last 20,000 years? That the current climb as shown in the top graph would appear to be a mere insignificant variation of the general 8,000 year trend shown in the last? Or that the Sydney Opera House is more than 5" above sea level?
"Linux played catch-up not only in market share, but in features for a long time."
And thank the gods for that. I can't be the only one who thinks Windows 'features' are generally a curse, and quite likely more the result of internal departmental politics than demonstrated user benefit.
What a load of crap. Crying foul over a port sniffer? Leveraging their weight against the entire 'sniffing industry'? Imagine if they included a fully functional TCP/IP stack! So we're now reduced to fantasy in defending MS.
" Whether the output has any artistic value or not is irrelevant."
Evidently true inside the RIAA but out here, in the land of copyright, the intent was 'the advancement of Arts and Sciences'. Value of output was once very relevant.
A couple quibbles, a Rodin exhibit is a fixed, singular physical entity. The range of paying patrons is very small and limited local residents and tourists. You can't reproduce 1,000,000 authentic Rodins and sell then at the mall, hence the intense marketing requirements. The analogy is false. All music is art? You don't hold visual media to that standard judging by the Yu-Gi-Oh comment. What makes music different? Or is every 15-year-old kid's squiggle now art too?
I doubt it would have much effect, the RIAA already tried tricking them into 'work for hire' contracts - http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,38129,00 .html - and they still keep coming back for lack of any viable distribution alternatives.
Interesting historical overview but one that ultimately argues against your point. NATO was established to counter the Soviet Bloc threat, now long gone. Replacing the threat of total, mutually assured destruction with 'terrorism' only sells in the US and maybe the UK so NATO's original reason for existing is now gone as well and it's only natural for sovereign countries to re-examine the nature of the agreements which stemmed from it. Rephrased another way, the UK has the option of an armament which completely meets foreseeable needs and over which they have essentially full control, or an equivalent, perhaps slightly better armament at the cost of being totally dependent on a foreign nation. From a military perspective Option 2 makes no sense to a layman.
No kidding. Somewhere along the line the parent poster forgot the military branch works for the civilian population in a democratic republic, not the 'leaders'. Disclosure is part package. Maybe he was thinking Cuba.
"We could all roll around in bubbles with cameras recording our every move, and I'm sure that would make this a safer society..."
That's a lesson the American founders knew so well, society wouldn't be safer. They knew, without the benefit of living through our 20th Century, that the biggest killer of all is governments. The people behind the cameras and assigning bubbles will eventually become a far greater danger to life than an armed populace.
The poor didn't get richer, technology got cheaper. Or will you also maintain shopping carts full of shiny modern platic bags makes them 'richer' than a blanket on a stick?
Slashdot Mirror
I lost brain cells reading that article. It was entirely the work of uncredited Guardian staff (sorry, I skimmed quickly to ease the pain) without citations from an academic authority to bolster the wild conjectures. Since we're making shit up out of thin air then, let's try this. Bhutan was a completley isolated and closed dictatorial monoculture for millenia, overnight exposed to the entirety of the Western low-brow culture at a single blow. The flood of new ideas and concepts are the root of disruption. The Bhutan case makes as good an argument against Eve biting the apple.
Asia? Many Japanese broadcast programs are full of sex and nudity, and more than a few classic Hong Kong flicks would be considered soft-core in the US. You couldn't have meant Thailand. Perhaps you were thinking Sinapore, where (it's said) even chewing gum is illegal? I do agree your country's mores are beginning to have a lot in common with the religiously fundamentalist sectors of the Middle East. Why you consider having elements in common with dictatorships and theocracies an argument for your point is another question entirely.
Good post.
"Dear merciful God, no."
You're labouring under the erroneous assumption 'distributed media' gives a rat's ass about some alien concept called fairness. How do you justify that? In my 25+ years of experience in the industry I've seen no evidence. Media conglomerates act in the interests of the bottom line and shareholders, believing the 'magic hand' of the market will alter that aspect of human nature is an unfortunately common religious belief but nothing more. It takes a great deal of money to own and operate broadcast media and it's only natural the result reinforces the interests of those with a great deal of money.
"I think complaining there aren't emough women in tech is disingenuous and a little condescending towards women. There has been a wide open door for women for years, self-taught, or otherwise. To claim otherwise ignores so many other attempts and programs."
Engineering departments were doing everything they could to attract female applicants way back when I was working towards a BAScEE in the mid-Seventies. You can't force anyone.
"In X-Men 3, they developed a computer effects algorithm that made Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart look very young."
No, it didn't. The end result came off looking like bad cosmetic surgery shot through a Vaseline-smeared lens. Not that it doesn't work for Penthouse. On the other hand, making it a Bob Guccione my finally, after a generation, result in a Strek movie worth seeing.
"The Borg were very simply an overpowering force that sought to equalize and harmonize the universe at the expense of individuality and free expression. I 5hink that describes socialism pretty well, don't you? ;)"
When you phrase it that way, now I see the connection with Norway and Sweden and their unstoppable, all-consuming colonial aspirations.
"Uh, Run As?"
No shit. I've run a 50-user, 24/7 newsroom since 2001 on 2K and LUAs without a single virus or malware incident. Sure, keeping crapware (flash, quicktime, etc.) updated is a pain but one that's paid off many times over in an otherwise bug free operating environment.
Incidentally, games like UT2004 and HL1 ran fine in a user account. It's the newer games - BF2 and anything Steam for examples - that don't seem to run properly other than admin. Punkbuster refuses to in 2K.
You're either lucky or running old boards. I've seen plenty of motherboards fail with visibly swollen electrolytics around high temp components like the CPU.
"If publishers want to cut off their revenue with stupid restrictions then let them."
If it were that simple. There is no 'opt' in 'opt-in'. Content providers in many cases own the hardware companies manufacturing media players or work in concert with nominally unrelated industries such as Microsoft, Phoenix and Intel to create 'standards' which leave the consumer little option. Theses oligarchies are backed by now-federal, criminal law resulting from generations of lobby effort preventing work-arounds. Consumers have no choice when purchasing the artistic efforts which represent the vast bulk of contemporary culture, artists have no choice if they want wide distribution, anyone attempting to break the stranglehold risks imprisonment. Car bomber appears a better analogy than suicide, the media/hardware oligarchies will take popular culture with them.
"...something that's often neglected is that websites are relatively inexpensive to maintain when compared to a brick and mortar location.."
Possibly, however maintenance isn't start-up. Many of these Web 2.0 ventures are exactly that, capital ventures, and those are typically anything but lean and mean. My employer company jumped on the 'portal' thing with Excite a few years back and dropped $70 million, some on the typical Web essentials of designer chairs and oxygen dispensers, over a period of a couple years before snapping back to reality and dissolving the lot. This from an organization with deep roots in media and content distribution too, so I can't imagine what some VC's are spending on this latest run.
"Evil Empires usually don't last that long once they're in full swing."
Good point. To judge from 20th Century history the worst we can expect is four or five generations of tyranny and tens of millions dead from each 'evil empire'. Hardly worth bothering over, especially when smokers still roam free in public places and violent video games fill retail shelves.
What information are we intended to draw from that link? That mean sea levels have riden ~120 metre in the last 20,000 years? That the current climb as shown in the top graph would appear to be a mere insignificant variation of the general 8,000 year trend shown in the last? Or that the Sydney Opera House is more than 5" above sea level?
"Linux played catch-up not only in market share, but in features for a long time."
And thank the gods for that. I can't be the only one who thinks Windows 'features' are generally a curse, and quite likely more the result of internal departmental politics than demonstrated user benefit.
What a load of crap. Crying foul over a port sniffer? Leveraging their weight against the entire 'sniffing industry'? Imagine if they included a fully functional TCP/IP stack! So we're now reduced to fantasy in defending MS.
Untrue, artists figure highly when the RIAA is trying to screw them over:
o rkforhire.php
http://www.riaa.com/news/newsletter/052500.asp
Contrast with:
http://www.recordingartistscoalition.com/issues_w
" Whether the output has any artistic value or not is irrelevant."
Evidently true inside the RIAA but out here, in the land of copyright, the intent was 'the advancement of Arts and Sciences'. Value of output was once very relevant.
A couple quibbles, a Rodin exhibit is a fixed, singular physical entity. The range of paying patrons is very small and limited local residents and tourists. You can't reproduce 1,000,000 authentic Rodins and sell then at the mall, hence the intense marketing requirements. The analogy is false. All music is art? You don't hold visual media to that standard judging by the Yu-Gi-Oh comment. What makes music different? Or is every 15-year-old kid's squiggle now art too?
I doubt it would have much effect, the RIAA already tried tricking them into 'work for hire' contracts - http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,38129,00 .html - and they still keep coming back for lack of any viable distribution alternatives.
Interesting historical overview but one that ultimately argues against your point. NATO was established to counter the Soviet Bloc threat, now long gone. Replacing the threat of total, mutually assured destruction with 'terrorism' only sells in the US and maybe the UK so NATO's original reason for existing is now gone as well and it's only natural for sovereign countries to re-examine the nature of the agreements which stemmed from it. Rephrased another way, the UK has the option of an armament which completely meets foreseeable needs and over which they have essentially full control, or an equivalent, perhaps slightly better armament at the cost of being totally dependent on a foreign nation. From a military perspective Option 2 makes no sense to a layman.
No kidding. Somewhere along the line the parent poster forgot the military branch works for the civilian population in a democratic republic, not the 'leaders'. Disclosure is part package. Maybe he was thinking Cuba.
To care more about fellow countrymen is indeed a normal human trait, by 200+:1 ratio it becomes an inhuman trait.
"We could all roll around in bubbles with cameras recording our every move, and I'm sure that would make this a safer society..."
That's a lesson the American founders knew so well, society wouldn't be safer. They knew, without the benefit of living through our 20th Century, that the biggest killer of all is governments. The people behind the cameras and assigning bubbles will eventually become a far greater danger to life than an armed populace.
"Nobody (or at least most people) argues that Microsoft doesn't come up with original ideas. "
Like? I'm serious, what have they put on my desktop not seen elsewhere first? And no, Bob doesn't count.
The poor didn't get richer, technology got cheaper. Or will you also maintain shopping carts full of shiny modern platic bags makes them 'richer' than a blanket on a stick?