In many ways, the French attitude towards war then is similar to the American attitude to war now: they favored a go-slow approach in order to reduce casualties. The French, unlike the British and the Germans, did not have pronounced differences in class between the officers and rank-and-file. Generals like Petain were known to adopt primarily defensive stances in the interests of protecting their men. British and German officers were taught by both upbringing and military doctrine to be fairly indifferent to the lives of their enlisted men.
During the First World War, the French fielded an army of over eight million men, as compared to the one million fielded by the US. A little over one million French soldiers were killed in the trenches, and 4 million injured. (I think the US body count was a couple thousand.) It was the horror of this experience that led Petain to surrender what was left of France after the Germans invaded Paris during the Second World War.
But like I said, if you're dumb enough to agree to both pay for the recording and marketing of your record and still give up ownership, you deserve to be shit on.
I'm for completely revolutionizing the model of paying artists into a service/patronage/grant-based model myself, but let's be fair. Musicians are *musicians.* They aren't lawyers, they aren't rocket scientists, they aren't MBA's. Many spend 8 hours a day practicing - and as a rule, they aren't all that worldly-wise. Each one can only work in the system they find themselves in. The institutional aspect of market is something that you are overlooking: the industry pretty much controls the distribution and recording system, and actively goes out and recruits acts to get them into it. No one *deserves* to be shit on if they don't have obvious available alternatives, and it's wrong-headed to invoke that sort of granite-fisted Darwinism to this sort of activity.
Somehow I could never imagine this completely bizarre development happening at Intel, although I could be wrong. Anyway, TI is, by many reports, a pretty messed up place.
The Oregon Institute's "petition" is a hoax. The names are largely made-up. I recall Captain Kangeroo being among their number. The OISM is run from a small warehouse in rural Oregon. Their scientific credibility is on a par with the Flat Earth Society.
Of course, those are different "theys." The "they" that let Richard Reed on the plane was airline security at the point of departure. Whether he was to be allowed into the country after he landed is up to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. And whether to allow his stuff in, and how much he'll have to pay as a tarriff, is up to Customs, also at the point of entry into the country (rather than the point of departure) who would, presumably, have taken away his Dreamcast serial cable.
The story is here. Seattle law enforcement chose not to execute the sub-poena, and the one suspect who was the target of the investigation committed suicide.
Law enforcement agencies in Ohio ordered Amazon to give them a list of all individuals who had ordered certain sexually-oriented CD's. That's a pretty wide net.
The problem is that, while the US population extolls "freedom" as an abstract virtue, in reality there is little concern for actual freedoms, when warranting those freedoms proves inconvenient, uncomfortable, or unpleasant. And, increasingly, the freedoms of others have become less important to many Americans - people who don't read could care less about freedom of the press, the War on Drugs doesn't strike your typical beer- or wine-guzzling alcoholic as a problem, racial profiling doesn't bother people who aren't in the profile, and so forth. And in each case, a "reasonable" argument can be made for the contraction of freedom.
Personally, I would rather things end in their prime than survive as animated corpses. The X-Files has outlived its usefulness. The whole Star Trek franchise is overdue for euthanasia. The Simpsons, oddly enough, still seems to have some legs, but I don't know for how much longer.
My attitude to these things is "let it go." The talent associated with the old series will find a new place to go, and often revitalize itself there. Writing and production teams get stale and insular if they don't go out and mix it up after a while.
I have the book, and it's not so much a general "gee, artists are getting into science" book but more of a fairly detailed catalog and study of the way specific artists are using new technologies, often in ways that (in true self-conscious post-modern - yes, the word has a meaning - form) ask questions about the nature and role of the technology at hand. I recommend the book as a reference, as well as a speculative work.
Living in a technological society isn't a reflection of the level of advancement of that society, it's a reflection of the stances inherent in everyday life. Heidegger's "The Question Concern Technology" addresses this - that we approach the world as a set of problems to be addresed technologically, and this in turn structures our perception of society and nature. Technologies themselves will also transform how we percieve of the world.
Insofar as some (not all) artists see themselves as having the task of documenting the unconscious of a society, they may immerse themselves in technologies in order to retrieve insights about their effects on our culture.
I just read this article, and it occurred to me that we have to be willing to deal with the export of better jobs. Otherwise we are simply taking the best of globalization and leaving the rest of the world with the worst.
I don't want to evoke Schadenfreude either, but what is happening to the tech industry is the same thing that happened to all other production and manufacturing jobs over the past couple decades: the value of their work decreases as productivity of systems increases, as markets saturate, as margins thin, as processes become easier to automate. In a recession, the people who are really worth their weight in gold are people who can grow demand. That's why sales organizations, and those who work at a strategic level, get compensated so far beyond the rank and file, modulo a handful of hotshot engineers. I think it's wrong, mind you, but it's pretty much inherent in the way of things.
But that link definitely moderated any sense of sympathy or pity I had for the lay-offees - and made me grateful for the fact that I'm enjoying a standard of living and security that, frankly, I don't inherently deserve.
Any given business starts somewhere. This one has started in the US. It could be duplicated elsewhere without much issue. The article could easily inspire a non-US entrepreneur to launch the service elsewhere.
There have been articles about wireless services in Europe and Japan. Sometimes there's a wistful observation in the body of the article to the effect that "gee, I wish we could get that here in Michigan," but there's no warning that "NOTE: THIS ONLY IS AVAILABLE IN DENMARK!" in the header.
I'm as hostile to US-Uber-Alles myopia as anyone, but you're firing blanks here.
Are you willing to work at the bargain-basement prices that a part-time VB coder who actually has another role in the department s/he works in, so that the small little VB app that serves a group of, say, 20 people can get done in budget?
Worse managers are those who can't play the politics game, and so your department runs out of resources and projects, and gets hit with disproportionate layoffs, because your management didn't know how to fight for your best interests and represent you well.
Countries don't have sense. People do. Australia's internet policy is so astoundingly fucked up, and the environment there becoming quite censorious. This one development is a good one, but the civil liberties grass is NOT greener on that side of the Big Lake.
By no means just in the US. The BSA has garnered the support of dozens of governments, often in questionable circumstances. In Latin America, there's cases of collusion between government officials and the BSA, in which the government brings the fury of the BSA on companies which are politically unpopular or threatening, or even onto non-governmental and non-profit organizations that are doing work the governments don't like.
This means, of course, that the anti-Microsoft community was represented by a goatse.cx link.
My first reaction was that anti-Microsoft loonies would, by their zealous over-reaction, bile, vitriol, and social incompetence, play right into the hands of Microsoft. Of course, there's a handful of loonies on the pro-Microsoft, or anti-regulation side of the barricades, as well, but for the most part, even though I'm not a part of either of those camps, I suspect that none of their partisans are quite as fanatical about their cause, and so probably appear more reasoned and sensible. However, I'm sure that some loonies on each side posed as loonies on the other, and it all came out in the wash.
Like T.S. Eliot said in The Waste Land, "The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate
intensity".
You don't evolve. You are an atom, a monad, the finest level of granularity in the evolutionary process. Species evolve. You just get born, maybe have sex, and die.
Slashdot Mirror
During the First World War, the French fielded an army of over eight million men, as compared to the one million fielded by the US. A little over one million French soldiers were killed in the trenches, and 4 million injured. (I think the US body count was a couple thousand.) It was the horror of this experience that led Petain to surrender what was left of France after the Germans invaded Paris during the Second World War.
Somehow I could never imagine this completely bizarre development happening at Intel, although I could be wrong. Anyway, TI is, by many reports, a pretty messed up place.
And here is the expose.
The Oregon Institute's "petition" is a hoax. The names are largely made-up. I recall Captain Kangeroo being among their number. The OISM is run from a small warehouse in rural Oregon. Their scientific credibility is on a par with the Flat Earth Society.
Well, it's pretty tacky. Want some Aphex Twin mp3s?
Of course, those are different "theys." The "they" that let Richard Reed on the plane was airline security at the point of departure. Whether he was to be allowed into the country after he landed is up to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. And whether to allow his stuff in, and how much he'll have to pay as a tarriff, is up to Customs, also at the point of entry into the country (rather than the point of departure) who would, presumably, have taken away his Dreamcast serial cable.
A warrant, or ten bucks, or cocaine and hookers...
The story is here. Seattle law enforcement chose not to execute the sub-poena, and the one suspect who was the target of the investigation committed suicide.
Law enforcement agencies in Ohio ordered Amazon to give them a list of all individuals who had ordered certain sexually-oriented CD's. That's a pretty wide net.
The problem is that, while the US population extolls "freedom" as an abstract virtue, in reality there is little concern for actual freedoms, when warranting those freedoms proves inconvenient, uncomfortable, or unpleasant. And, increasingly, the freedoms of others have become less important to many Americans - people who don't read could care less about freedom of the press, the War on Drugs doesn't strike your typical beer- or wine-guzzling alcoholic as a problem, racial profiling doesn't bother people who aren't in the profile, and so forth. And in each case, a "reasonable" argument can be made for the contraction of freedom.
My attitude to these things is "let it go." The talent associated with the old series will find a new place to go, and often revitalize itself there. Writing and production teams get stale and insular if they don't go out and mix it up after a while.
Living in a technological society isn't a reflection of the level of advancement of that society, it's a reflection of the stances inherent in everyday life. Heidegger's "The Question Concern Technology" addresses this - that we approach the world as a set of problems to be addresed technologically, and this in turn structures our perception of society and nature. Technologies themselves will also transform how we percieve of the world.
Insofar as some (not all) artists see themselves as having the task of documenting the unconscious of a society, they may immerse themselves in technologies in order to retrieve insights about their effects on our culture.
I don't want to evoke Schadenfreude either, but what is happening to the tech industry is the same thing that happened to all other production and manufacturing jobs over the past couple decades: the value of their work decreases as productivity of systems increases, as markets saturate, as margins thin, as processes become easier to automate. In a recession, the people who are really worth their weight in gold are people who can grow demand. That's why sales organizations, and those who work at a strategic level, get compensated so far beyond the rank and file, modulo a handful of hotshot engineers. I think it's wrong, mind you, but it's pretty much inherent in the way of things.
But that link definitely moderated any sense of sympathy or pity I had for the lay-offees - and made me grateful for the fact that I'm enjoying a standard of living and security that, frankly, I don't inherently deserve.
Any given business starts somewhere. This one has started in the US. It could be duplicated elsewhere without much issue. The article could easily inspire a non-US entrepreneur to launch the service elsewhere.
There have been articles about wireless services in Europe and Japan. Sometimes there's a wistful observation in the body of the article to the effect that "gee, I wish we could get that here in Michigan," but there's no warning that "NOTE: THIS ONLY IS AVAILABLE IN DENMARK!" in the header.
I'm as hostile to US-Uber-Alles myopia as anyone, but you're firing blanks here.
I didn't think so.
Worse managers are those who can't play the politics game, and so your department runs out of resources and projects, and gets hit with disproportionate layoffs, because your management didn't know how to fight for your best interests and represent you well.
Countries don't have sense. People do. Australia's internet policy is so astoundingly fucked up, and the environment there becoming quite censorious. This one development is a good one, but the civil liberties grass is NOT greener on that side of the Big Lake.
Not all of them, but some of them, apparently. Have you heard of a non-disclosure agreement? That infringes on one's right of free speech, after all.
The moment you first clicked your approval of an EULA.
By no means just in the US. The BSA has garnered the support of dozens of governments, often in questionable circumstances. In Latin America, there's cases of collusion between government officials and the BSA, in which the government brings the fury of the BSA on companies which are politically unpopular or threatening, or even onto non-governmental and non-profit organizations that are doing work the governments don't like.
You're right. I was thinking of The Hollow Men. Similar themes, different poem.
My first reaction was that anti-Microsoft loonies would, by their zealous over-reaction, bile, vitriol, and social incompetence, play right into the hands of Microsoft. Of course, there's a handful of loonies on the pro-Microsoft, or anti-regulation side of the barricades, as well, but for the most part, even though I'm not a part of either of those camps, I suspect that none of their partisans are quite as fanatical about their cause, and so probably appear more reasoned and sensible. However, I'm sure that some loonies on each side posed as loonies on the other, and it all came out in the wash.
Like T.S. Eliot said in The Waste Land, "The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate
intensity".
D'oh. Erm. Never mind. Nothing to see here. Carry on.
(whistle)
You don't evolve. You are an atom, a monad, the finest level of granularity in the evolutionary process. Species evolve. You just get born, maybe have sex, and die.