And even the tie-in is wrong. The "Navi" was just essentially any net terminal, not the network itself, and the term pre-exists Lain. Truly elephantine naivete at hand.
The real logic behind this, ultimately, will be to allow book publishers - and, ultimately, the producers of anything - to collect royalties for each resale. Mark my words, this is exactly what this is about.
I like the idea of calling Dr. Villanueva (that's his name, not Dr. Nuñez) the "St. Thomas Aquinas" of the free software movement. Although, his letter is really a lot more concise than the Summa Theologica ever was. It's telling that a Peruvian politician has made a stronger, clearer, and more irrefutable business-case for free software than Red Hat, ESR or IBM have.
How many of the PhD's or JD's in Congress or industry use the title "Doctor" in correspondence or in dealings with the press? Virtually none. However, in Latin America the practice is common and expected.
"I was just following orders." Frankly, I'll blame both. And the fact that programming has the least sense of professional responsibility of any profession I can think of, even less than lawyers. (Gasp! But it's generally true.)
That is because the context of a research talk makes it clear. The question is in dealing with the general public - and the discouragement is largely a matter of custom (it's seen as pretentious.)
Peruvians and other people from countries without the largest military in the world are usually polite.
OK, that dig aside, it's true that Peruvians and Mexicans both have a reputation for courtesy and thoughtfulness. As sharply distinct from, say, Argentines and Americans.
It is also far more acceptable in Spanish speaking countries to use the title of "Doctor" for have any doctorate degree at all. In the US, PhD's are discouraged from using the title unless they are, in fact, MD's. Also, those who have bachelor's degrees frequently are called (and can call themselves) Licenciado, abbreviated as, e.g, "Lic. Lemmy Caution."
Your warning has gone relatively unnoticed here, but it is altogether too likely that the US will somehow intervene to protect "free trade" (which, for all of those who aren't in the US, we know is really a code word for US-based-multinational-corporate interests: if there was real free trade, then Mexicans could freely go north to look for better work.) There's a long, ugly history of the US propping up dictatorships, rigging elections, and dumping graft into the countries of Latin America. And insofar as this measure threatens not only Microsoft, but also Oracle, Adobe, Autodesk and the like, it's quite concievable that they and the rest of Silicon Valley will flex its considerable political muscle to make sure that this does not pass.
You do not remember correctly - the stabilization you mention did occur, but it had more to do with monetary policy than macroeconomic changes. And Brazil's much less open economy is currently thriving far more than Argentina's or Peru's more open ones. Only Chile has the success story you allude to.
(Sigh) I'm probably the only Peruvian in Slashdot, and while I'm happy that this is happening, it saddens me how little perspective about the place there is. Peru is a mess right now. It's suffering from over-centralization, the economy is not stable, unemployment is going through the rough. The infrastructure is a mess, the government is still reeling from the scandals of Fujimori's government. Toledo was trained as an economist, and that (in addition to his indian heritage) was one of the reasons he was elected ahead of the disastrous Alan Garcia, but he hasn't really translated his knowledge into policy at this point.
Ultimately, what Peru lacks isn't an information economy, it's a manufacturing economy. Most of Peru's wealth (such as it is) comes from the export of raw resources - tin, copper, and fish, along with some bauxite. The goods from these resources are made and sold elsewhere. The standard of living is too low to keep those few people who get good educations: there are more Peruvians with advanced educations living in Miami, FL and Hartford, CT than in just about any city in Peru.
I'm half Peruvian, and all thrilled by this (in fact, I believe I'm distantly related to the esteemed doctor), but if you think that Peru's political process is by any measure clean, untainted by cash or other considerations, or anything of a model for other countries, I am deeply saddened that I must inform you otherwise. Peru is, to put it bluntly, hell of fucked up. And the Sendero is coming back.
There are many Peruvians of extraordinary virtue and principle when it comes to themselves, but unfortunately they (we) have weak spots when it comes to our families. We may turn down bribes for ourselves, but offer nice jobs, scholarships, promotions and other goodies to our family members (or, inversely, somehow threaten them), and we get maudlin and weak.
Re:Syd Mead is the vision of the future...
on
Tron 2.0 Game
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· Score: 2
It was funny going to Tomorrowland in Disneyworld in the late 1980's and seeing how dated and goofy it looked. "Futuristic" changes with the times. Things never really looked like Tomorrowland, and while it was a good crack at "futuristic" circa 1972, it turns out "futuristic" is as much a product current pop culture as anything else.
Of course, Disney got smart and remodelled Tomorrowland in a classic "30's futuristic" look, which will always be cool (although I've never seen it in person). Something can only look "futuristic" (as in what things might actually look like) for a few years. Then it just looks kinda sad.
Yeah, I agree completely. In fact, the original Tron itself is interesting as part of the past of the history of the future. I've sort of got a guilty fondness for the utopian yearnings of the Disney theme-parks, and I thought the move to retrofuturism was both aesthetically satisfying, and at the same time part of the ongoing capitulation of Disney's (occassionally twisted) dream of creating a model for living to the realities of Disney Inc.
I'd love to see "First Spaceship to Venus" - the only Soviet science-fiction I could find on DVD was Aelita, Queen of Mars. Is it available anywhere?
Re:Syd Mead is the vision of the future...
on
Tron 2.0 Game
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· Score: 2
Oy, cultural amnesia. "Futuristic" as a style goes back way before that.
I just looked at all the articles, and I don't think it tells us what platform(s) the game is going to be released on at all. Playstation? Xbox?
It's being put out by Disney Interactive. It looks like it will have FPS elements in it, which will be weird coming from Disney (yay, MickeyHunter 3000!). Just what platforms does Disney usually develop for?
Hey, wait a minute, isn't Disney evil? Oh, that's right. Shiny.
If you removed all the components of an operating system that someone else may at one point have charged for as a separate product, you'd be in pretty dire straits. Didn't Chameleon once sell a TCP/IP stack? Should MS and Apple remove the TCP/IP stack from their OS' to prevent "unfair competition?" Should all network protocols be removed because Novell is trying to sell one?
There's a lot of places where I think Microsoft should be slapped down. The bundling issue and their heavy-handed tactics with their channels may be one of them. The browser one isn't, and IMO is an ugly precedent.
I'll defend to the death, the rights of a content creator, to control how s/he chooses to redistribute their content.
Prepare to die, then. This has nothing to do with the GPL. This has everything to do with not having a clue how "that internet thingee" works. It's also very foolish: if they are successful, all they do is take themselves out of the cloud of referred news articles - and substantially reduce their ad exposure. No one - I repeat, *no one* - is going to say, "oh, you should go to the front page of the Dallas Morning News, then click on Archive, then April..." etc. People will refer elsewhere. But even if that's what the DMN wants, it is *not* a reasonable expectation given the reality of http. It's just bone ignorance all around.
If anything, a patch to a game won't be the most terrible thing you could do.
I was thinking about this the other day: one advantage that console games have in a certain respect is that the game platform makes patches virtually impossible (the only possible "patch" would be a very painful, costly all-out recall and replacement). This motivates the developers to get *everything right* before RTM. The attitude that PC game developers betray - 'oh, what the hell, we can patch it later' - leads to soft sales for initial releases, frustrated users, and can also increase costs in the long run since you need to keep a team of developers on hand after release. As more PC games are co-released with console games, I'm hoping the attention to quality will improve.
That said, would not overly restrictive legislation like this provide strong incentive for consumers to adopt freely available formats that are not encumbered?
It hasn't worked that way in the US. People buy what's available and at hand, what's been distributed to them; what all the information they get tells them is the one to get, in formats that the content distributors provide. If you want to hear your favorite band, it doesn't do much good for me to say, "well, you can listen to *my* band, the Righteous Geeks of Cambridge, without the restrictive content control." You're likely to say "who the hell are they? I want the Faves."
No, I mean that a lot of the 'sweatshops' are actually subsidiaries, and then are covered by license - and I mean in the case of in-house development branches for major US software companies, like the one I work for.
Slashdot Mirror
And even the tie-in is wrong. The "Navi" was just essentially any net terminal, not the network itself, and the term pre-exists Lain. Truly elephantine naivete at hand.
That you truly believe this is part of the problem.
Except that the resale of all these goods (in used book stores and the like) is already taxed in sales tax/VAT and the like.
It rolls down hill. The hospital probably will be sued, and then in turn sue their vendor/subcontractor.
The real logic behind this, ultimately, will be to allow book publishers - and, ultimately, the producers of anything - to collect royalties for each resale. Mark my words, this is exactly what this is about.
I like the idea of calling Dr. Villanueva (that's his name, not Dr. Nuñez) the "St. Thomas Aquinas" of the free software movement. Although, his letter is really a lot more concise than the Summa Theologica ever was. It's telling that a Peruvian politician has made a stronger, clearer, and more irrefutable business-case for free software than Red Hat, ESR or IBM have.
How many of the PhD's or JD's in Congress or industry use the title "Doctor" in correspondence or in dealings with the press? Virtually none. However, in Latin America the practice is common and expected.
Got this Saturday off? Thank the unions.
"I was just following orders." Frankly, I'll blame both. And the fact that programming has the least sense of professional responsibility of any profession I can think of, even less than lawyers. (Gasp! But it's generally true.)
That is because the context of a research talk makes it clear. The question is in dealing with the general public - and the discouragement is largely a matter of custom (it's seen as pretentious.)
OK, that dig aside, it's true that Peruvians and Mexicans both have a reputation for courtesy and thoughtfulness. As sharply distinct from, say, Argentines and Americans.
He is probably a Doctor of Law or some such.
Your warning has gone relatively unnoticed here, but it is altogether too likely that the US will somehow intervene to protect "free trade" (which, for all of those who aren't in the US, we know is really a code word for US-based-multinational-corporate interests: if there was real free trade, then Mexicans could freely go north to look for better work.) There's a long, ugly history of the US propping up dictatorships, rigging elections, and dumping graft into the countries of Latin America. And insofar as this measure threatens not only Microsoft, but also Oracle, Adobe, Autodesk and the like, it's quite concievable that they and the rest of Silicon Valley will flex its considerable political muscle to make sure that this does not pass.
I think between the 3 of us on this thread, we have the makings of slashdot.pe.
(Sigh) I'm probably the only Peruvian in Slashdot, and while I'm happy that this is happening, it saddens me how little perspective about the place there is. Peru is a mess right now. It's suffering from over-centralization, the economy is not stable, unemployment is going through the rough. The infrastructure is a mess, the government is still reeling from the scandals of Fujimori's government. Toledo was trained as an economist, and that (in addition to his indian heritage) was one of the reasons he was elected ahead of the disastrous Alan Garcia, but he hasn't really translated his knowledge into policy at this point.
Ultimately, what Peru lacks isn't an information economy, it's a manufacturing economy. Most of Peru's wealth (such as it is) comes from the export of raw resources - tin, copper, and fish, along with some bauxite. The goods from these resources are made and sold elsewhere. The standard of living is too low to keep those few people who get good educations: there are more Peruvians with advanced educations living in Miami, FL and Hartford, CT than in just about any city in Peru.
There are many Peruvians of extraordinary virtue and principle when it comes to themselves, but unfortunately they (we) have weak spots when it comes to our families. We may turn down bribes for ourselves, but offer nice jobs, scholarships, promotions and other goodies to our family members (or, inversely, somehow threaten them), and we get maudlin and weak.
I'd love to see "First Spaceship to Venus" - the only Soviet science-fiction I could find on DVD was Aelita, Queen of Mars. Is it available anywhere?
Oy, cultural amnesia. "Futuristic" as a style goes back way before that.
It's being put out by Disney Interactive. It looks like it will have FPS elements in it, which will be weird coming from Disney (yay, MickeyHunter 3000!). Just what platforms does Disney usually develop for?
Hey, wait a minute, isn't Disney evil? Oh, that's right. Shiny.
There's a lot of places where I think Microsoft should be slapped down. The bundling issue and their heavy-handed tactics with their channels may be one of them. The browser one isn't, and IMO is an ugly precedent.
I wonder if you can be an "underpants gnome."
Prepare to die, then. This has nothing to do with the GPL. This has everything to do with not having a clue how "that internet thingee" works. It's also very foolish: if they are successful, all they do is take themselves out of the cloud of referred news articles - and substantially reduce their ad exposure. No one - I repeat, *no one* - is going to say, "oh, you should go to the front page of the Dallas Morning News, then click on Archive, then April..." etc. People will refer elsewhere. But even if that's what the DMN wants, it is *not* a reasonable expectation given the reality of http. It's just bone ignorance all around.
No, I mean that a lot of the 'sweatshops' are actually subsidiaries, and then are covered by license - and I mean in the case of in-house development branches for major US software companies, like the one I work for.