"There's an inverse relationship between income and charity. The more you make, the less you give, proportionally speaking."
Compounding this problem is the fact that we tolerate it.
A recent example of this is with the recent Philippines tsunami. The NBA players association decided to give 250,000 in relief aid, as mentioned in a PR statement that was apparently issued with some pride. In case it's not clear, we're talking about a group of crazy-rich athletes with an average salary of $5,000,000 donating about $600 each. To see just how terrible this, consider this. If you earn $50,000 a year, and you decided to forego a $25 pizza for the family for one week and donated that money to the disaster victims, mathematically you're FOUR TIMES as generous as an NBA player.
They recently decided to double it to $500,000. What a bunch of heroes.
And yeah, before you ask, I gave. I earn less than $30,000 a year, and I sent over $100. I'm not knocking anybody in my pay range for not sending as much. I'm talking about the superrich expecting accolades for doing jack shit, and the idiotic masses obliging them.
I downloaded the image for a Live CD a few days ago but hadn't installed it -- lucky me -- and I was wondering, are the new Live CD downloads updated yet? Or do I have to apt-get something straight away?
I've had interesting problems at some Internet rooms (PC Bangs) here in Korea. Every now and then you'll see odd websites blocked by some strange sort of filtering system. The one I used to go to had Fark.com blocked, Youtube blocked, ESPN was blocked, and even Google.com was blocked. Now, google.co.kr was not blocked, and when I wanted to check my analytics page, google.com/analytics was blocked, but another google analytics page accessed by https:/// (not http:/// was available. I'm not very bright when it comes to networks (or Korean, for that matter), so I'm not sure whose fault it was, but the webpage that came up instead had a graphic that made it clear this was to protect children.
This is NOT a widespread epidemic, but it has occurred occasionally at various internet rooms around the country under different ownership (ie: not a chain). As someone else mentioned, Naver has brand strength (company commercials approach it very similarly to the way AOL used keywords), but these sorts of filtering anomalies don't hurt.
Uh, no, I didn't... Ad Hominem means "against the man". It's a logical fallacy by trying to prove something wrong by directing criticism away from the thing and towards the thing that's responsible for the thing. It's applicable here.
Any scandal that erupts out of this is largely Ad Hominem. That doesn't mean it's hostile, but it is flawed.
If a known insane blatering fool comes up to you and says the sky is blue, does that mean it's automatically not blue? Of course not, you have to verify the information yourself.
This is at the heart of Wikipedia. You judge it by its content, not by its contributors, who are often anonymous anyway. There are still legitimate complaints about the potential for the abuse, but in the end, the abuse itself is what marks it as suspect, not the possibility of an abuser.
I've been using Gmail and getting used to their "labels" idea long before "tagging" started showing up. Quotes are on both those terms because that's really what this is -- a question of defining terms. We don't even have a standardization on the way tags should be used, why should google (or gmail) feel any pressure to change their nomenclature for some nebulous standard?
Backing off from the specifics of this for a second, tags on most websites are "extra" data. The way Slashdot uses tags (eg: yes, no, maybe, fud, notfud... etc.) is not going to be as useful as the way I use gmail labels for categorizing my own mail. Slashdot (and other) tags are meant as quick commentary. A "project" label in my gmail might not mean the same thing as a "project" label in somebody's else's... and since I don't particularly need (or want) my categorization systems to be universal, why should they be submitted to some abstract universal standard?
I think you're underestimating the importance of branding. One of the reasons Coke and Pepsi throw so much into branding is not so that you'll recognize their names, but so that, when you go to the local supermarket, you WON'T recognize the names of their competition.
Also, who wouldn't want to upgrade their porn site domain from "www.ihavethebestboobsontheinternet.com" to "www.boobs.xxx"? I think that opportunity for a more recognizable brand would open up the market a whole lot. Playboy would fork out a lot of money to make sure that nobody else gets Playboy.xxx, and conversely, somebody who's been sitting on the fringe of the porn industry has a chance to jump right into the middle of it with a better domain name.
Never mind that this domain might come into existence anyway so that the.com can be "cleaned up" for safe mass consumption. Not that I like that idea on a philosophical level, but this is pragmatics we're talking about.
Besides, what sounds better? "Playboy dot com?" or "Playboy dot triple-x"? The latter actually sounds like what it is.
Capitalism trumps puritanism on this one, I think. These things are guaranteed income. Who wouldn't pay a premium price for the rights to the www.sex.xxx domain?
But for the most part, these anomalies serve a purpose -- they help push the story forward, or at the very least keep it from getting pushed back. Consider this... every Slashdotter here is an expert when it comes to toilet use. Do we cry out in anger when an entire movie goes by and nobody uses the can? Of course not. It's just not important to the story, and I consider a character that never uses the facilities during the course of most movies' narrative timeframe to be a LOT more unrealistic than an overly flashy GUI.
Movies, ESPECIALLY Hollywood sci-fi movies, aren't made primarily to be depictions of reality. Verisimilitude has its place, but not when it's going to slow down the narrative progress.
Ok ok, we get the point about the UI in Minority Report, but COME ON, it's not like it's the most implausible thing about the movie. Same with Star Trek... Oh yeah, a computer that speaks and understands English, that's weird. Fifteen space alien races we encounter for the first time that speak and understand English, TOTALLY NORMAL. A kid saving the day with a 3d unix interface. Yeah, that just totally ruined the whole movie for me, because up until that point I was totally believing in THE DINOSAURS...
"Man, I love the smell they have around this planet. Where's it coming from again? Oh, right, this 'KFC' place. Goodness, it smells good. And hey! There's the logo. Tell me, Xghrth, why don't we come here more often?"
I call bullshit. This is the same thinking that is going to be applied with indiscriminant stupidity as cubicles, open work environments, etc. Managers will read this and start making everybody stand while they work -- everybody but themselves, since they have to satisfy that little thrill they get knowing that you only sit if you're important enough.
Want good work done? Hire good people and keep them happily motivated about their job. Sitting, standing, hopping on one leg, it won't matter. They'll do you proud.
What? That's it? That's all I'm going to get? That's the funniest thing I've witnessed since dot Net. I bet the shorties are all begging you to stop, and the most play your lap sees is from your laptop. I could go on, but you ain't worth the time, You ain't worth the effort, you ain't worth the rhyme. I'm the real thing, boy, and you're just a MIME. Not since Sony's rootkit have I witnessed such a crime. Try again later when you've got the nerdcore touch, In the meantime, don't abuse your "joystick" too much.
Fingers to the keys to the code I be typing I'll bash that script, like a process I be sniping You're lamer than some h4x0r saying "Yo! Yo! Whatsup?!" I wish that somebody would terminate ya with a kill -HUP. I'm flying like Apache, you're slower than concrete. You're built like a gnome, and I ain't talking 'bout no suite. No shortcuts'll save you, your doom is complete No Alt-F4'll help you, no Ctl-Alt-Delete will stop this feat, you better believe it this ain't no superstition, I'll open all your ports and your hardrive repartition.
So, you say you're fighting for the nerdcore crown... But I'd say that you're closer to a nerdcore clown. Pack it in, save your ass, yo H4x getthefuckouttadodge! You're a Beowulf unclustered, with its power cords dislodged. You're too l4me for this g4me, wanna fl4me? It's all the s4me Cuz you're an Apple 2c and I'm a mainframe. You're inept! Can't even play dead, you play sick. We couldn't pityyoumore if you were Visual Basic. You like that kid? Yeah, that's what I'm talking about! It's a rout! I flout my stout clout with this cool cool cout and I'm out.
Executing a football play is a complex thing. The play has to be decided upon, the players have to huddle up, each player needs to know their role. The offensive line needs to know who to block, each receiver needs to know their route exactly, tight ends and running backs need to know if they're blocking or receiving. Running plays might be a bit more controlled, but think about possible reverses, options, trick plays, etc. Now, you're actually going to the line of scrimmage, and the defense shows you an alignment you don't like. Now you've got to audible. It's really quite a miracle that with all of this chaos, football players can still go out and execute.
The reason why football plays succeed in real life is because those 11 men on the field practice together like crazy before football comes up every Sunday. Who out there is going to want to try to get 11 buddies out there to practice there this much? Never mind conflicting schedules from real life that could make this impossible, or trying to audible using only your gamepad... it just doesn't make it as much fun. If you're the quarterback, you're involved in every passing play. If you're the running back, you're involved in every running play. If you only get to be a receiver, though, the ball might get passed to you a half-dozen to a dozen times per game. If you're a fullback, you're basically limited to running into people and trying to knock them down. Who's going to want that skill position? And it is a skill position, because of the possibility of getting to do a short-yardage running play or catching the odd pass out of the pocket, etc.
The only way to make sure that everybody holding a gamepad gets to be involved in every play is to make sure that the guy with the gamepad is the one with the ball. That's 1 guy out of 11.
I'm not passionate about this or anything, just not sure how this could work and be both practical and fun. Even in baseball, for instance, where coordinated execution isn't as important as football, it still means a whole bunch of bored guys sitting around waiting for something to happen.
Delusion of grandeur isn't the principle at work. North Korea has no intention to disarm anything because to do so would appear weak in the face of America's brinkmanship. You'll notice South Korea isn't willing to sign on for similar reasons, even though the landmines are hardly protection against artillery. Are the South Koreans suffering from delusions of grandeur as well?
Oh, and, by the way, America IS the occupying force in Iraq. It was a lack of faith in the Arabs ability to govern themselves in Iraq that led to American aid for the party that led to Hussein's regime in the first place.
North Korea's holding onto the landmines based on principle. The best deterrent it has right now against invasion is neither landmine- nor nuke-related, has to do with all the conventional artillery within bombardment range of Seoul city.
I wonder, though, was at what point did you have to cross off "paranoid" next to Iraq, in order to replace it with it's new, updated, Occupied-By-Foreign-Invaders status? Makes you wonder why some of the others might still be paranoid...
I'm not saying the artists get tax-based payments, only that whatever income they manage to generate doesn't get taxed (eg: musicians who do live shows and such).
I remember being told that in Ireland, you're allowed to live there tax-free so long as you're a writer or an artist -- I also heard that situation was being re-assessed, but anyhoo...
I think all of these taxes might potentially be a good way to promote the arts. Give artists tax-free status, and offset the potential tax revenue loss by using these tech-media taxes as a substitute.
It's not like the artists actually make money on the deal unless their stuff sells, so it's not pure communism or anything.
Slashdot Mirror
This sounds a lot like the advice Groupon got.
"There's an inverse relationship between income and charity. The more you make, the less you give, proportionally speaking."
Compounding this problem is the fact that we tolerate it.
A recent example of this is with the recent Philippines tsunami. The NBA players association decided to give 250,000 in relief aid, as mentioned in a PR statement that was apparently issued with some pride. In case it's not clear, we're talking about a group of crazy-rich athletes with an average salary of $5,000,000 donating about $600 each. To see just how terrible this, consider this. If you earn $50,000 a year, and you decided to forego a $25 pizza for the family for one week and donated that money to the disaster victims, mathematically you're FOUR TIMES as generous as an NBA player.
They recently decided to double it to $500,000. What a bunch of heroes.
And yeah, before you ask, I gave. I earn less than $30,000 a year, and I sent over $100. I'm not knocking anybody in my pay range for not sending as much. I'm talking about the superrich expecting accolades for doing jack shit, and the idiotic masses obliging them.
I downloaded the image for a Live CD a few days ago but hadn't installed it -- lucky me -- and I was wondering, are the new Live CD downloads updated yet? Or do I have to apt-get something straight away?
People are surprised by this? Awwwww.... that's so cute...
Newsflash. This is what governments do. Something bad happens, and they use it as an excuse to take away rights.
English speaking countries may mock the French as much as they want, at least THOSE guys know how to have a Revolution.
I've had interesting problems at some Internet rooms (PC Bangs) here in Korea. Every now and then you'll see odd websites blocked by some strange sort of filtering system. The one I used to go to had Fark.com blocked, Youtube blocked, ESPN was blocked, and even Google.com was blocked. Now, google.co.kr was not blocked, and when I wanted to check my analytics page, google.com/analytics was blocked, but another google analytics page accessed by https:/// (not http:/// was available. I'm not very bright when it comes to networks (or Korean, for that matter), so I'm not sure whose fault it was, but the webpage that came up instead had a graphic that made it clear this was to protect children.
This is NOT a widespread epidemic, but it has occurred occasionally at various internet rooms around the country under different ownership (ie: not a chain). As someone else mentioned, Naver has brand strength (company commercials approach it very similarly to the way AOL used keywords), but these sorts of filtering anomalies don't hurt.
Uh, no, I didn't... Ad Hominem means "against the man". It's a logical fallacy by trying to prove something wrong by directing criticism away from the thing and towards the thing that's responsible for the thing. It's applicable here.
Any scandal that erupts out of this is largely Ad Hominem. That doesn't mean it's hostile, but it is flawed.
If a known insane blatering fool comes up to you and says the sky is blue, does that mean it's automatically not blue? Of course not, you have to verify the information yourself.
This is at the heart of Wikipedia. You judge it by its content, not by its contributors, who are often anonymous anyway. There are still legitimate complaints about the potential for the abuse, but in the end, the abuse itself is what marks it as suspect, not the possibility of an abuser.
I've been using Gmail and getting used to their "labels" idea long before "tagging" started showing up. Quotes are on both those terms because that's really what this is -- a question of defining terms. We don't even have a standardization on the way tags should be used, why should google (or gmail) feel any pressure to change their nomenclature for some nebulous standard?
Backing off from the specifics of this for a second, tags on most websites are "extra" data. The way Slashdot uses tags (eg: yes, no, maybe, fud, notfud... etc.) is not going to be as useful as the way I use gmail labels for categorizing my own mail. Slashdot (and other) tags are meant as quick commentary. A "project" label in my gmail might not mean the same thing as a "project" label in somebody's else's... and since I don't particularly need (or want) my categorization systems to be universal, why should they be submitted to some abstract universal standard?
I think you're underestimating the importance of branding. One of the reasons Coke and Pepsi throw so much into branding is not so that you'll recognize their names, but so that, when you go to the local supermarket, you WON'T recognize the names of their competition.
.com can be "cleaned up" for safe mass consumption. Not that I like that idea on a philosophical level, but this is pragmatics we're talking about.
Also, who wouldn't want to upgrade their porn site domain from "www.ihavethebestboobsontheinternet.com" to "www.boobs.xxx"? I think that opportunity for a more recognizable brand would open up the market a whole lot. Playboy would fork out a lot of money to make sure that nobody else gets Playboy.xxx, and conversely, somebody who's been sitting on the fringe of the porn industry has a chance to jump right into the middle of it with a better domain name.
Never mind that this domain might come into existence anyway so that the
Besides, what sounds better? "Playboy dot com?" or "Playboy dot triple-x"? The latter actually sounds like what it is.
Capitalism trumps puritanism on this one, I think. These things are guaranteed income. Who wouldn't pay a premium price for the rights to the www.sex.xxx domain?
But for the most part, these anomalies serve a purpose -- they help push the story forward, or at the very least keep it from getting pushed back. Consider this... every Slashdotter here is an expert when it comes to toilet use. Do we cry out in anger when an entire movie goes by and nobody uses the can? Of course not. It's just not important to the story, and I consider a character that never uses the facilities during the course of most movies' narrative timeframe to be a LOT more unrealistic than an overly flashy GUI.
Movies, ESPECIALLY Hollywood sci-fi movies, aren't made primarily to be depictions of reality. Verisimilitude has its place, but not when it's going to slow down the narrative progress.
Ok ok, we get the point about the UI in Minority Report, but COME ON, it's not like it's the most implausible thing about the movie. Same with Star Trek... Oh yeah, a computer that speaks and understands English, that's weird. Fifteen space alien races we encounter for the first time that speak and understand English, TOTALLY NORMAL. A kid saving the day with a 3d unix interface. Yeah, that just totally ruined the whole movie for me, because up until that point I was totally believing in THE DINOSAURS...
Methinks a bit of perspective is called for...
This here's a must-read if you haven't read it yet... Bill Hicks's rant on marketing.
http://sennoma.net/main/edits/Hicks.html
This is how it starts... "By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself."
It only gets better.
Wouldn't we know if the test was successful before we actually conducted it?
"Man, I love the smell they have around this planet. Where's it coming from again? Oh, right, this 'KFC' place. Goodness, it smells good. And hey! There's the logo. Tell me, Xghrth, why don't we come here more often?"
[15 minutes and an empty box later]
"Ungh.... THAT'S why..."
1) Decide to produce a game console.
2) Look at every decision Sony has made for the Playstation 3, and do the opposite
3) Profit
I call bullshit. This is the same thinking that is going to be applied with indiscriminant stupidity as cubicles, open work environments, etc. Managers will read this and start making everybody stand while they work -- everybody but themselves, since they have to satisfy that little thrill they get knowing that you only sit if you're important enough.
Want good work done? Hire good people and keep them happily motivated about their job. Sitting, standing, hopping on one leg, it won't matter. They'll do you proud.
What? That's it? That's all I'm going to get?
That's the funniest thing I've witnessed since dot Net.
I bet the shorties are all begging you to stop,
and the most play your lap sees is from your laptop.
I could go on, but you ain't worth the time,
You ain't worth the effort, you ain't worth the rhyme.
I'm the real thing, boy, and you're just a MIME.
Not since Sony's rootkit have I witnessed such a crime.
Try again later when you've got the nerdcore touch,
In the meantime, don't abuse your "joystick" too much.
Fingers to the keys to the code I be typing
I'll bash that script, like a process I be sniping
You're lamer than some h4x0r saying "Yo! Yo! Whatsup?!"
I wish that somebody would terminate ya with a kill -HUP.
I'm flying like Apache, you're slower than concrete.
You're built like a gnome, and I ain't talking 'bout no suite.
No shortcuts'll save you, your doom is complete
No Alt-F4'll help you, no Ctl-Alt-Delete
will stop this feat, you better believe it
this ain't no superstition,
I'll open all your ports and your hardrive repartition.
So, you say you're fighting for the nerdcore crown...
But I'd say that you're closer to a nerdcore clown.
Pack it in, save your ass, yo H4x getthefuckouttadodge!
You're a Beowulf unclustered, with its power cords dislodged.
You're too l4me for this g4me, wanna fl4me? It's all the s4me
Cuz you're an Apple 2c and I'm a mainframe.
You're inept! Can't even play dead, you play sick.
We couldn't pityyoumore if you were Visual Basic.
You like that kid? Yeah, that's what I'm talking about!
It's a rout! I flout my stout clout with this cool cool cout
and I'm out.
Who fact checked this story? It's udderly ridiculous.
Executing a football play is a complex thing. The play has to be decided upon, the players have to huddle up, each player needs to know their role. The offensive line needs to know who to block, each receiver needs to know their route exactly, tight ends and running backs need to know if they're blocking or receiving. Running plays might be a bit more controlled, but think about possible reverses, options, trick plays, etc. Now, you're actually going to the line of scrimmage, and the defense shows you an alignment you don't like. Now you've got to audible. It's really quite a miracle that with all of this chaos, football players can still go out and execute.
The reason why football plays succeed in real life is because those 11 men on the field practice together like crazy before football comes up every Sunday. Who out there is going to want to try to get 11 buddies out there to practice there this much? Never mind conflicting schedules from real life that could make this impossible, or trying to audible using only your gamepad... it just doesn't make it as much fun. If you're the quarterback, you're involved in every passing play. If you're the running back, you're involved in every running play. If you only get to be a receiver, though, the ball might get passed to you a half-dozen to a dozen times per game. If you're a fullback, you're basically limited to running into people and trying to knock them down. Who's going to want that skill position? And it is a skill position, because of the possibility of getting to do a short-yardage running play or catching the odd pass out of the pocket, etc.
The only way to make sure that everybody holding a gamepad gets to be involved in every play is to make sure that the guy with the gamepad is the one with the ball. That's 1 guy out of 11.
I'm not passionate about this or anything, just not sure how this could work and be both practical and fun. Even in baseball, for instance, where coordinated execution isn't as important as football, it still means a whole bunch of bored guys sitting around waiting for something to happen.
Delusion of grandeur isn't the principle at work. North Korea has no intention to disarm anything because to do so would appear weak in the face of America's brinkmanship. You'll notice South Korea isn't willing to sign on for similar reasons, even though the landmines are hardly protection against artillery. Are the South Koreans suffering from delusions of grandeur as well?
Oh, and, by the way, America IS the occupying force in Iraq. It was a lack of faith in the Arabs ability to govern themselves in Iraq that led to American aid for the party that led to Hussein's regime in the first place.
North Korea's holding onto the landmines based on principle. The best deterrent it has right now against invasion is neither landmine- nor nuke-related, has to do with all the conventional artillery within bombardment range of Seoul city.
I wonder, though, was at what point did you have to cross off "paranoid" next to Iraq, in order to replace it with it's new, updated, Occupied-By-Foreign-Invaders status? Makes you wonder why some of the others might still be paranoid...
I'm not saying the artists get tax-based payments, only that whatever income they manage to generate doesn't get taxed (eg: musicians who do live shows and such).
I remember being told that in Ireland, you're allowed to live there tax-free so long as you're a writer or an artist -- I also heard that situation was being re-assessed, but anyhoo...
I think all of these taxes might potentially be a good way to promote the arts. Give artists tax-free status, and offset the potential tax revenue loss by using these tech-media taxes as a substitute.
It's not like the artists actually make money on the deal unless their stuff sells, so it's not pure communism or anything.