Not true. You're ignoring the potential change in behavior that comes from "proving" we have no free will. If that is shown to be the case then, no matter what you do, even kill your wife and kids, it has been preordained.
Personally, I don't believe this crap - science is edging pretty far into metaphysical claptrap these days, which feels like a pretty clear sign we're missing some fundamental knowledge and are instead creating a rehashed version of "Gods Bowling In The Sky" to explain things we don't fully understand. But if this is "proven" scientifically, you can bet your ass it will have a pretty deep impact on how people behave.
Well, there's no question that BoingBoing *wanted* to believe this - they're pretty strong anti-DRM crusaders and they're supposedly very anti-Apple because of this. But I'm pretty sure BoingBoing is, if not the most read, then certainly in the top 10 blogs read, so I honestly doubt they did this for more traffic.
But there is a strong whiff of hypocrisy around BoingBoing. For example - Cory Doctorow leaves the US because it invades personal freedoms and moves to...London? The most surveilled city in the world? And they make a big deal about not having ads on their site...except for the ads packed on the right column of the site for Cory's books and "friend organizations".
Yeah! And it's just a goddamned piece of code that runs a computer! Who cares if anyone else runs the same OS as you, regardless of whether it's Linux or FreeBSD or Windows?!
Of course, that means you've just argued this site out of existence, and subsequently, your post is irrelevant.
'Just wondering if anyone has seen links to other examples of this glitch? I mean, I imagine if it's a flaw in their sonar system that it would've shown up somewhere else, right?
... if you're stupid enough and that willing to give up your civil liberties to a cardboard cutout that looks like an authority figure, you don't deserve any. If you want rights, you damn well better be ready to protect them. Otherwise, you're just a spineless whiner.
I wholeheartedly agree that the teacher had no right to take those notes - they belong to the students, pure and simple. It becomes the same situation as another student coming up to you and saying "Give me all your class notes for the year". If you're wimpy enough to just hand them over, then you just got exactly the freedom you deserve.
Given that our country is so utterly unwilling to prosecute him, when is someone going to do the right thing and lynch Karl Rove? If there was ever anyone more deserving of frontier justice, I've not heard of them. The man is a clear and present danger to the idea of democracy and representative government.
I think the fact that you're looking for a way to be "low-key" about this should be an indication to you that your gut is trying to tell you something - you should listen to it. If you can't be fully above-board with this, then your company really isn't accepting of it. Try to be a little more creative in your rewards. It sounds like your solution isn't a terribly good one, and will inevitably cause more problems than it's worth. Also consider that this isn't the best business environment in which to be painting yourself and your department as spoiled - deservedly or not. You might not be doing anyone any favors in the long run, especially when it comes time to review departmental budgets and productivity and who gets trimmed back. Perception is more important than reality in these situations.
Try being a little more creative with your rewards.
I find cooking to use a some of the same skills I use in my day job, but in a totally different way. I've created a cookie recipe and am now in the process of ramping up baking to sell to local small markets. Eventually, if this takes off, I'd like to open a storefront.
Has anyone read Corey Doctorow's "Little Brother"? It not only describes this situation, but also the most likely response to it.
Anyone who thinks this is a good idea is not only an idiot, but is also the vilest danger to the American way of life I can imagine. First it's criminals. Then it's truant kids. Then it's all kids in school - to protect against child abuse you know. Then it's everyone, and objection to the policy is immediate grounds for suspicion ("Why are you complaining if you've got nothing to hide?").
Funny thing is, when we try to hold our government or corporations or even school boards up to the same transparency, they immediately throw hissy fits and start claiming executive privilege and "losing" emails. Why are they complaining if they have nothing to hide?
What makes you say that "a lot of" people are "sick of it"? It seems pretty clear that a majority of people buy Macs because they don't want to deal with the hassle attached to using Windows and Linux computers. Hacking OSX to run on non-Apple hardware isn't easy, so the folks doing aren't really Apple's target market anyway. In any case, I find it hard to believe that the folks jumping through these hoops represent "a lot of people".
Let me repeat that because so few people seem to get it: hackers are not Apple's core market. Apple doesn't market to hackers, they don't have the infrastructure to support hackers, they don't design products for hackers. It's a different market, just like you won't find aftermarket performance minivan parts (requisite car allegory).
Also, why do you think this stems from frustration with Apple's hardware? Do you also think that people porting Linux to run on watches and PDAs are doing it because they're sick of commodity PC hardware? Seems more like they're doing it to see if they can.
First - I also pay for all my music. Mainly because iTunes purchases are incredibly friction-free and I value my time more at more than the $0.99/song or @$11/album they charge me.
Having said that, there's a few flaws in your argument. You're conflating the major labels and their proxy the RIAA with artists. The majors have effectively based their entire business models on ripping off artists. Do some research if you don't believe me - there are many many many easily-found stories by artists covering just this topic.
Second - no matter what the transgression, nothing justifies the abuses of our legal system and violations of our laws that the RIAA and their hired goons are undertaking. BusinessWeek (not a terribly great source, but a widely-read one and certainly not exactly a magazine targeted at activist geeks) just did a story that was particularly damning of the RIAA's "investigative" actions. Check it out.
Third - the whole point of the RIAA's tactics have nothing to do with actually compensating artists for "stolen" music. Check around and see how many artists have received compensation checks from the money the RIAA has recovered from its successful shakedowns.
Fourth - there is no indication that any recording artist has lost any money due to online piracy. The RIAA claims of piracy costing them $N billion dollars is based on wholly theoretical assumption that every download is a lost sale. This is provably not true. On the contrary, more music in varied styles is available now than at any point in the last 20 years. The music *industry* (and by that I mean the recording labels with their attendant flacks, parties, insanely large retinue of middlemen) is in disarray, because they have based their industry on moving atoms instead of bits and that industry is changing rapidly beneath their feet as artists dialogue directly with their audience, but starting out as a musician today, you have a better chance of earning a living than at any time in the past 20 (perhaps even 50) years. What you are seeing is the music industry moving from a feudal oligarchy to a far more democratic one. The feudal oligarchy is, understandably, somewhat upset.
Your suggestions are spot on, and very appropriate for the currently emasculated workplace where little ever actually gets done. However, let me suggest an alternative:
8) Invite the person out for drinks. Over a beer, grow a pair and tell the person that if he/she/yo ever talks to you like that again, you will beat the crap out of them, regardless of their position in the company, regardless of the consequences. Make it clear that when someone talks to you like that, normal hierarchies go out the window.
Otherwise, my personal opinion is that you should suck it up. You can go "by the book" all you want, but even if you win the battle (unlikely) you will still lose the respect of your coworkers and consequently lose the war. It might not be fair and you might not like it, but that's the way the real world (not the one described in your HR handbook or the business section of Barnes & Noble) works.
"If you can look me in the eye and tell me that you're okay with the notion that I can write "You must give me all your money" on a baseball, hurl it at your head, and thusly legally obligate you to obey my baseball--"
I laughed at the silliness of this when I read it, but I did take the time to test this thesis. Here's the thing: it worked! Admittedly, I used a small statistical sample, but I'm heading out to Boston Commons right now to conduct further tests. I am carrying several other baseballs as well, some read "You must provide oral sex" and "You cannot arrest me under any circumstances". I'll let you know how that works out.
Agree with Teacher. You could just as easily have said "Why can't the world be happy with a good old mainframe?". I'm getting kind of annoyed by all these people who were on the cutting edge of tech, advocating radical change 10 years ago, and today are advocating holding back the tide of change they rode to success. It was annoying when the boomers did it, and it's just as annoying when GenXers do it today.
My guess is it stems from the same source - a fear of change, fear of becoming irrelevant and/or having your skills become outdated. Learn to surf or drown, but shut up in either case.
I call bs on this. Every single election I've voted in (5 so far, in Maryland and Massachusetts) your name had to be on a list, and was marked off that list when you voted. There's simply no way someone who isn't registered to vote could have voted. While it's possible an illegal alien could be registered to vote, it would be a short matter of time before INS tracked them down that way. I think your uncle was having a double laugh - at both the incompetence and gullibility of Americans. You fell for it. I prefer to believe that than you're knowingly trying to shift focus form this very real issue to the phantom issue of illegal aliens (oooooo! scary!) usurping the rights of naturalized citizens.
Our media is dying because people don't trust it. It's not rocket science. The media's role (or lack thereof) during the two terms of the Bush administration is just the last straw in a process that's been going on in this country for a while. I don't claim to know the mechanism behind it, but the visible result is the transformation of our media from a "4th Estate" to a propaganda mouthpiece for the state not unlike what one sees in countries that have state-controlled media. I'm lucky enough to be reasonably fluent in French and fully fluent in Spanish, and I regularly read several European and Latin-American online newspapers. The information presented in other countries is dramatically different, in the general and in the specific. While I'm not quite ready to don a tinfoil hat, it's hard not to see something systematic in this, and the reality is undeniable. Most Americans my age (40) have so little trust in the traditional media that they turn to political satire shows to get their news. Seriously - who cares about Heath Ledger's suicide to that extent? Especially when there are so many other important issues that should be covered?
As for the previous poster who mentioned the election coverage - while this is an extremely important election for this country, I have to agree that the coverage has been ridiculous. At this point, the "analysts" have the gall to claim that the public is suffering from "election fatigue", which is basically their way of saying "We've exhausted every possible detail and want to talk about something different". Just another example of the American media's race to irrelevance.
"The reason we see such an erosion of our freedoms is that Freedom and Trust go hand in hand. "
No - the reason we see such an erosion of our freedoms is that the so-called American People are a bunch of overfed, sackless sheep who have never experienced hardship, don't know the meaning of the word sacrifice, and as a group are rapidly becoming the stupidest people on earth, yet cling to this myth of individualism and strength in the face of all evidence to the contrary. Twenty or Thirty years ago I would have said that the American People should fight to regain their lost power. Today, it's clear that giving the American People any kind of power would be the biggest unmitigated disaster possible - they are simply unfit for anything but slowly rotting into an undifferentiated mass of flesh-colored goop on their couches while watching mind-controlling HappyNews(tm) on their hi-def televisions, stuffing their faces full of overprocessed food and farting in surprise every time a neuron fires. But at least they all have the right to buy automatic weapos. How many wake-up calls does this country need to ignore? Bush, Iraq, Katrina, the Patriot Act, Obesity epidemic, DMCA, Religious intolerance, Columbine, worst race relations in generations, etc. ad nauseum. Americans are the biggest pussies in the world - they can't even talk about a single one of these problems anymore, much less begin to address them.
It's only a matter of a generation or two before America becomes irrelevant at this rate. I wonder if anyone will notice.
Does anyone really play Halo 2? Besides the guys making Red Vs. Blue? Judging by the number of responses on this thread, doesn't seem like it. I'm guessing maybe MS/Bungie should have released it on Mac & PC. I still play Halo on my Mac, but never even considered buying an XBox for Halo 2.
And what is new about Halo 2? Near as I can tell it's shinier. And has some more moving parts. And...um...a sword?........Sorry, fell asleep for a minute there.
I've owned both a 15" 1ghz and a 17" 1ghz. The processor speed isn't hte limiting factor for just about anything I've tried. One machine had 1gb RAM and the 17" has only 512mb RAM. The most intensive app I've used (and I do print production, some video, audio and web development) has easily been GarageBand. GarageBand ran *mcuh* faster on my G5 with 2gb RAM than on the PowerBooks. Not sure whether this is a RAM issue or a G5 optimization issue.
I will say this: I'm not so interested in a G5, G6, or G-Googleplex. I *am* interested in running my apps as quickly as possible so they get out of my way and let me accomplish what I set out to do. Who really gives a shit about specs nowadays anyway? I'd say RAM is far more important than processor speed, but whatever it takes to make apps run faster I want.
Slashdot Mirror
Heh-heh. You said "Wang".
Not true. You're ignoring the potential change in behavior that comes from "proving" we have no free will. If that is shown to be the case then, no matter what you do, even kill your wife and kids, it has been preordained.
Personally, I don't believe this crap - science is edging pretty far into metaphysical claptrap these days, which feels like a pretty clear sign we're missing some fundamental knowledge and are instead creating a rehashed version of "Gods Bowling In The Sky" to explain things we don't fully understand. But if this is "proven" scientifically, you can bet your ass it will have a pretty deep impact on how people behave.
Well, there's no question that BoingBoing *wanted* to believe this - they're pretty strong anti-DRM crusaders and they're supposedly very anti-Apple because of this. But I'm pretty sure BoingBoing is, if not the most read, then certainly in the top 10 blogs read, so I honestly doubt they did this for more traffic.
But there is a strong whiff of hypocrisy around BoingBoing. For example - Cory Doctorow leaves the US because it invades personal freedoms and moves to...London? The most surveilled city in the world? And they make a big deal about not having ads on their site...except for the ads packed on the right column of the site for Cory's books and "friend organizations".
Yeah! And it's just a goddamned piece of code that runs a computer! Who cares if anyone else runs the same OS as you, regardless of whether it's Linux or FreeBSD or Windows?!
Of course, that means you've just argued this site out of existence, and subsequently, your post is irrelevant.
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=44.559163,-159.873047&spn=10.082074,16.896973&z=6
'Just wondering if anyone has seen links to other examples of this glitch? I mean, I imagine if it's a flaw in their sonar system that it would've shown up somewhere else, right?
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=-71.635993,-152.62207&spn=4.467196,16.896973&z=6
Took about 5 minutes of looking around.
... if you're stupid enough and that willing to give up your civil liberties to a cardboard cutout that looks like an authority figure, you don't deserve any. If you want rights, you damn well better be ready to protect them. Otherwise, you're just a spineless whiner.
I wholeheartedly agree that the teacher had no right to take those notes - they belong to the students, pure and simple. It becomes the same situation as another student coming up to you and saying "Give me all your class notes for the year". If you're wimpy enough to just hand them over, then you just got exactly the freedom you deserve.
Given that our country is so utterly unwilling to prosecute him, when is someone going to do the right thing and lynch Karl Rove? If there was ever anyone more deserving of frontier justice, I've not heard of them. The man is a clear and present danger to the idea of democracy and representative government.
mmmm. Well, by definition, we'll never have any more than one data point.
I think the fact that you're looking for a way to be "low-key" about this should be an indication to you that your gut is trying to tell you something - you should listen to it. If you can't be fully above-board with this, then your company really isn't accepting of it. Try to be a little more creative in your rewards. It sounds like your solution isn't a terribly good one, and will inevitably cause more problems than it's worth. Also consider that this isn't the best business environment in which to be painting yourself and your department as spoiled - deservedly or not. You might not be doing anyone any favors in the long run, especially when it comes time to review departmental budgets and productivity and who gets trimmed back. Perception is more important than reality in these situations.
Try being a little more creative with your rewards.
I find cooking to use a some of the same skills I use in my day job, but in a totally different way. I've created a cookie recipe and am now in the process of ramping up baking to sell to local small markets. Eventually, if this takes off, I'd like to open a storefront.
Has anyone read Corey Doctorow's "Little Brother"? It not only describes this situation, but also the most likely response to it.
Anyone who thinks this is a good idea is not only an idiot, but is also the vilest danger to the American way of life I can imagine. First it's criminals. Then it's truant kids. Then it's all kids in school - to protect against child abuse you know. Then it's everyone, and objection to the policy is immediate grounds for suspicion ("Why are you complaining if you've got nothing to hide?").
Funny thing is, when we try to hold our government or corporations or even school boards up to the same transparency, they immediately throw hissy fits and start claiming executive privilege and "losing" emails. Why are they complaining if they have nothing to hide?
What makes you say that "a lot of" people are "sick of it"? It seems pretty clear that a majority of people buy Macs because they don't want to deal with the hassle attached to using Windows and Linux computers. Hacking OSX to run on non-Apple hardware isn't easy, so the folks doing aren't really Apple's target market anyway. In any case, I find it hard to believe that the folks jumping through these hoops represent "a lot of people".
Let me repeat that because so few people seem to get it: hackers are not Apple's core market. Apple doesn't market to hackers, they don't have the infrastructure to support hackers, they don't design products for hackers. It's a different market, just like you won't find aftermarket performance minivan parts (requisite car allegory).
Also, why do you think this stems from frustration with Apple's hardware? Do you also think that people porting Linux to run on watches and PDAs are doing it because they're sick of commodity PC hardware? Seems more like they're doing it to see if they can.
Is replying to your own post bad form? Meh, who cares.
Interestingly, I just came across this relevant article on OReilly: http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2008/04/when-authors-ask-us-about-the-consequences-of-piracy.html
First - I also pay for all my music. Mainly because iTunes purchases are incredibly friction-free and I value my time more at more than the $0.99/song or @$11/album they charge me.
Having said that, there's a few flaws in your argument. You're conflating the major labels and their proxy the RIAA with artists. The majors have effectively based their entire business models on ripping off artists. Do some research if you don't believe me - there are many many many easily-found stories by artists covering just this topic.
Second - no matter what the transgression, nothing justifies the abuses of our legal system and violations of our laws that the RIAA and their hired goons are undertaking. BusinessWeek (not a terribly great source, but a widely-read one and certainly not exactly a magazine targeted at activist geeks) just did a story that was particularly damning of the RIAA's "investigative" actions. Check it out.
Third - the whole point of the RIAA's tactics have nothing to do with actually compensating artists for "stolen" music. Check around and see how many artists have received compensation checks from the money the RIAA has recovered from its successful shakedowns.
Fourth - there is no indication that any recording artist has lost any money due to online piracy. The RIAA claims of piracy costing them $N billion dollars is based on wholly theoretical assumption that every download is a lost sale. This is provably not true. On the contrary, more music in varied styles is available now than at any point in the last 20 years. The music *industry* (and by that I mean the recording labels with their attendant flacks, parties, insanely large retinue of middlemen) is in disarray, because they have based their industry on moving atoms instead of bits and that industry is changing rapidly beneath their feet as artists dialogue directly with their audience, but starting out as a musician today, you have a better chance of earning a living than at any time in the past 20 (perhaps even 50) years. What you are seeing is the music industry moving from a feudal oligarchy to a far more democratic one. The feudal oligarchy is, understandably, somewhat upset.
Your suggestions are spot on, and very appropriate for the currently emasculated workplace where little ever actually gets done. However, let me suggest an alternative:
8) Invite the person out for drinks. Over a beer, grow a pair and tell the person that if he/she/yo ever talks to you like that again, you will beat the crap out of them, regardless of their position in the company, regardless of the consequences. Make it clear that when someone talks to you like that, normal hierarchies go out the window.
Otherwise, my personal opinion is that you should suck it up. You can go "by the book" all you want, but even if you win the battle (unlikely) you will still lose the respect of your coworkers and consequently lose the war. It might not be fair and you might not like it, but that's the way the real world (not the one described in your HR handbook or the business section of Barnes & Noble) works.
"If you can look me in the eye and tell me that you're okay with the notion that I can write "You must give me all your money" on a baseball, hurl it at your head, and thusly legally obligate you to obey my baseball--"
I laughed at the silliness of this when I read it, but I did take the time to test this thesis. Here's the thing: it worked! Admittedly, I used a small statistical sample, but I'm heading out to Boston Commons right now to conduct further tests. I am carrying several other baseballs as well, some read "You must provide oral sex" and "You cannot arrest me under any circumstances". I'll let you know how that works out.
Agree with Teacher. You could just as easily have said "Why can't the world be happy with a good old mainframe?". I'm getting kind of annoyed by all these people who were on the cutting edge of tech, advocating radical change 10 years ago, and today are advocating holding back the tide of change they rode to success. It was annoying when the boomers did it, and it's just as annoying when GenXers do it today.
My guess is it stems from the same source - a fear of change, fear of becoming irrelevant and/or having your skills become outdated. Learn to surf or drown, but shut up in either case.
I call bs on this. Every single election I've voted in (5 so far, in Maryland and Massachusetts) your name had to be on a list, and was marked off that list when you voted. There's simply no way someone who isn't registered to vote could have voted. While it's possible an illegal alien could be registered to vote, it would be a short matter of time before INS tracked them down that way. I think your uncle was having a double laugh - at both the incompetence and gullibility of Americans. You fell for it. I prefer to believe that than you're knowingly trying to shift focus form this very real issue to the phantom issue of illegal aliens (oooooo! scary!) usurping the rights of naturalized citizens.
Our media is dying because people don't trust it. It's not rocket science. The media's role (or lack thereof) during the two terms of the Bush administration is just the last straw in a process that's been going on in this country for a while. I don't claim to know the mechanism behind it, but the visible result is the transformation of our media from a "4th Estate" to a propaganda mouthpiece for the state not unlike what one sees in countries that have state-controlled media. I'm lucky enough to be reasonably fluent in French and fully fluent in Spanish, and I regularly read several European and Latin-American online newspapers. The information presented in other countries is dramatically different, in the general and in the specific. While I'm not quite ready to don a tinfoil hat, it's hard not to see something systematic in this, and the reality is undeniable. Most Americans my age (40) have so little trust in the traditional media that they turn to political satire shows to get their news. Seriously - who cares about Heath Ledger's suicide to that extent? Especially when there are so many other important issues that should be covered?
As for the previous poster who mentioned the election coverage - while this is an extremely important election for this country, I have to agree that the coverage has been ridiculous. At this point, the "analysts" have the gall to claim that the public is suffering from "election fatigue", which is basically their way of saying "We've exhausted every possible detail and want to talk about something different". Just another example of the American media's race to irrelevance.
"The reason we see such an erosion of our freedoms is that Freedom and Trust go hand in hand. "
No - the reason we see such an erosion of our freedoms is that the so-called American People are a bunch of overfed, sackless sheep who have never experienced hardship, don't know the meaning of the word sacrifice, and as a group are rapidly becoming the stupidest people on earth, yet cling to this myth of individualism and strength in the face of all evidence to the contrary. Twenty or Thirty years ago I would have said that the American People should fight to regain their lost power. Today, it's clear that giving the American People any kind of power would be the biggest unmitigated disaster possible - they are simply unfit for anything but slowly rotting into an undifferentiated mass of flesh-colored goop on their couches while watching mind-controlling HappyNews(tm) on their hi-def televisions, stuffing their faces full of overprocessed food and farting in surprise every time a neuron fires. But at least they all have the right to buy automatic weapos. How many wake-up calls does this country need to ignore? Bush, Iraq, Katrina, the Patriot Act, Obesity epidemic, DMCA, Religious intolerance, Columbine, worst race relations in generations, etc. ad nauseum. Americans are the biggest pussies in the world - they can't even talk about a single one of these problems anymore, much less begin to address them.
It's only a matter of a generation or two before America becomes irrelevant at this rate. I wonder if anyone will notice.
Linux runs Macs.
Does anyone really play Halo 2? Besides the guys making Red Vs. Blue? Judging by the number of responses on this thread, doesn't seem like it. I'm guessing maybe MS/Bungie should have released it on Mac & PC. I still play Halo on my Mac, but never even considered buying an XBox for Halo 2.
And what is new about Halo 2? Near as I can tell it's shinier. And has some more moving parts. And...um...a sword?........Sorry, fell asleep for a minute there.
I've owned both a 15" 1ghz and a 17" 1ghz. The processor speed isn't hte limiting factor for just about anything I've tried. One machine had 1gb RAM and the 17" has only 512mb RAM. The most intensive app I've used (and I do print production, some video, audio and web development) has easily been GarageBand. GarageBand ran *mcuh* faster on my G5 with 2gb RAM than on the PowerBooks. Not sure whether this is a RAM issue or a G5 optimization issue.
I will say this: I'm not so interested in a G5, G6, or G-Googleplex. I *am* interested in running my apps as quickly as possible so they get out of my way and let me accomplish what I set out to do. Who really gives a shit about specs nowadays anyway? I'd say RAM is far more important than processor speed, but whatever it takes to make apps run faster I want.
Might I suggest you step outside for a few moments and take in the sunshine and fresh air? Because, you see, it REALLY DOESN"T FUCKING MATTER!!!