Word of mouth ain't trivial
on
Bad Day To Be Sony
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Just had to jump on here for a minute... Many of the posts today are what we, the 'enraged geeks of society' should do about Sony's practices. Might I suggest one -- post on slashdot.
You laugh, but I call a recent article on Tom's Hardware into witness. The reason that the graphics card companies (nVidia, ATI) go so intensely after that performance crown is that the people who care deeply about it tend to be influencers -- I think the article claimed something like those graphics card companies can be assured of 20 mainstream target purchases due to the influence of one high-end customer.
Point being, people here care, and deeply, about the stuff Sony has been up to, and in many of these markets, *we* are the influencers.
If your company gets bad press on Slashdot, and you do technology, that's not just bad, that's very very bad, because for every post and every reader, there may well be 20 or more people who are going to stop doing business with you. And if you get repeated bad articles, over and over again, well, golly. This is only worse when there is a choice in the market, and for almost everything Sony makes, somebody else makes something like it.
Ahhhhh, I find that parent very informative indeed. So this is really like 8 cores and quad level hyperthreading, where the first thread will be running 70%+ of the time, and the second thread will get scheduled when the first thread blocks, and run for 25% of the time, and the third thread will get scheduled when the first two are both blocked, and run for 4.8% of the time, and that fourth thread, well, 0.2% is all it gets. (And yes, I just pulled these numbers out of the air).
Just out of curiousity, shouldn't there be some kind of 'quality of service' notion when claiming how many threads you run simultaneously? I just seem to recall that hyperthreading on the P4 gives about a 15% throughput increase with a second thread, and I can't imagine that you get anything other than similarly diminishing returns if all four threads are fighting for the same memory bandwidth and execution units.
Just to explain, it is my understanding that hyperthreading is little more than opportunistic hardware level thread scheduling -- while one is blocked on I/O or something, two can use the same execution units *carefully* to accomplish work. If my analysis is right, and I could be out in space, you might as well build a chip that can run 1024 or 1048576 threads simultaneously (sure, you need a little extra hardware per thread), but you're still only going to see work get done by the first 2, maybe 3, although I doubt even that many.
I think portable code is awesome. I also think as long as the world has commercial operating systems, those operating systems will do their best to differentiate from each other (otherwise, noncommercial operating systems will win). Therefore, as programmers become arbitrarily good at writing portable code, I'm afraid that commercial O/Ses will do their best to make sure that they break common portability (through extensions, unsupported standards, there are plenty of examples).
As one example, consider Windows Vista and DirectX vs. OpenGL. Windows essentially is saying that if you want hardware accelerated video, it's going to be DirectX only (on Windows) through a complete 'nerfing' of OpenGL support.
I think both the parent and grandparent have some validity. I'm a master's student in CS who has managed never to take a software engineering class before this semester (and I graduate in December). This has been an eye opening experience. Let me point out some of the well known highly advocated techniques which, as far as I can tell, most graduates and many 'out in the field' software engineering professionals don't do that would help avoid these bugs.
1. Design reviews, by peers and independents
2. Code reviews, by peers and independents
3. Regulary, organized, unit testing
4. Correctness proving
5. Documentation is about a bazillion forms
6. Defect tracking
7. Effective software process metrics measurement and improvement
8. Continuing education
9. Humility / egoless programming
This list was assembled in about a minute off the top of my head. I work in a CMM3/4 type organization, and although there are processes for these things, most people don't use them, or consider them a hassle.
So my point is, the parent is right -- creating good software, even when done by properly trained experts with great experience -- is hard. But the grandparent is right too -- doing all of the above to 'do it right' takes time and money, and many organizations, and by this I mean software process management as well as the actual engineers, don't understand the value / aren't willing to pay for or aren't willing to do all that work. And occasionally, as the article shows, the piper comes and takes his payment.
No technology company should make extravagant claims about the capabilities of their product until they have a genuine, working demo.
I think you're right, *if* said company wants to fork over all the cash for research, developing, and marketing. However, in our real world, almost nobody pays for anything up front that costs more than a few hundred dollars, and we're probably talking about several million to fully develop and market a seemingly cool technology.
All this really means is that they're trying to attract funding, be it from banks, venture capitalists, private and public investors, etc., as they probably don't have the resources to see it all through, or at least, not budgeted for that. I always view research announcements like this as a subtle request for a loan, or a precursor to such a request.
When the same thing happens for a finished product, they're usually just after free marketing and press time (and they usually get it).
That being said, I think research and paper launches are of some business value. If I'm a venture capitalist firm looking for the Next Big Thing, these kind of announcements can attract me to focus my research time better. These kinds of things can help connect investment opportunities with investors, especially higher risk / higher reward type investments like this one.
I guess this leaves me wondering when they'll finally figure that they need to be building their operating systems from the sky down. That would solve everything.
If you recall my original statement, it was something to the effect of 'there is nothing morally wrong with using them, other than violating the licensing terms'. My only point with the above sentence was that it is wrong because blizzard has declared it to be wrong, not because it leads to an inherent decay in the moral fiber of the universe (examples of inherently wrong actions: kicking babies, pushing old ladies in front of buses, that kind of thing). Blizzard could turn around tomorrow and declare all such 'cheat program' practices legitimate (I doubt they will) and still the world would continue to function.
Otherwise, I agree with you. If one agrees not to cheat with the EULA and then does so anyway, indeedy, one is a person of lesser integrity.
Well, I have to disagree with you a bit, or at least, what I perceive to be underwriting your comment. I don't think people who write these kinds of tools that Blizzard is trying to stop are necessarily bad.
I've played a few MMO games, and many of them are very repetitive. I myself have considered trying to write some macroing programs, because hey, I'm paying for the time, and I believe in automation.:) Besides, trying to write something to automate such a complicated game system as most MMOs provide is a nontrivial, and tempting, challenge (for me).
Point being, these kinds of tools are in demand, and there is nothing morally wrong with using them, other than a license agreement that says no -- you pay for the bandwidth to their servers, a log on, and the right to interact with their servers according to their well defined, well hidden within a beautiful graphical interface, protocol. The fact that Blizzard expects you to initiate all of those interactions manually with a human interface device is somewhat artificial to maintain some notion of 'fairness' within the game world -- which I certainly understand, by the way.
I think these kinds of 'cheating' tools ruin the games, certainly, they take the fun out of it, and that's one reason I don't use 'em / don't write them. But it is hard for me to get mad at someone who produces and sells these tools, because I think they're using their skills to solve interesting problems to make a dollar, in a perfectly legitimate (meaning 'not against the law') way.
I've read the top moderated 100 posts so far, and several things haven't been mentioned enough, so I'll mention 'em, since they're my reasons and all.
1. Free-ness. Free as in beer, free as in food, free as in do-whatever-the-heck you want with it free.
2. Package management. I prefer gentoo for this, and there is something poignantly beautiful to me about the concept of 'emerge sync' & 'emerge world'. Windows update somehow makes me want to grab a weapon and get medieval (though to be fair, so does/did the red hat update network, but see the next reason).
3. Choice. If there's some software application I need, it probably can be found on sourceforge or via my package manager of choice. The biggest difficulty is choosing which of the many alternatives to use.
4. Community. I read slashdot mostly because I find opinions of people like me whose opinions don't match mine. Nerdly as it may sound, I use Linux because Linux 'gets' me, it works for me in most of the ways that Windows drives me insane. Linux users by choice form a club, and I find that generally, the people in that club are the kind of people I like to hang with, or at least can hold a coherent conversation with. Amusingly, this doesn't hold for me and the Mac, but that's a post for another day.
What do you mean, not much prime real estate in Arizona or New Mexico? I just bought 50 acres of beachfront Arizona property last week from this guy selling door to door. I don't know why it doesn't sell like hotcakes, I only paid a few hundred thousand cash from my retirement account.
Don't get me wrong, I think if they can get it to work, it is fantastic, but... I could release right now my plans to develop a 64-core 2 THz processor available in 2 years too. Fine idea, but this sounds more to me like a small company looking for publicity to raise investment money rather than something I'll plan to see on the established timeline.
And since Intel has redefined its roadmaps in terms of performance / watt, I have to say in terms of brain trusts and sheer man power, if Intel can't do it, a little startup probably can't either, or if they do, by the time they get there, Intel will have been there and done that.
But I'll be rooting for the little guy. I favor good competition in the workplace, as long as they're not competing against me.:)
ALONtm is virtually scratch resistant, offers substantial impact resistance, and provides better durability and protection against armor piercing threats, at roughly half the weight and half the thickness of traditional glass transparent armor, said the lieutenant.
Virtually scratch resistant? It *ALMOST* resists scratching! WOW! Now that is astounding.
The italic comments in the parent look remarkably like the kind of mass emails I do my best not to get sent. One man's price gouging is another man's business model.... Let's see if we can come up with any other businesses where the startup costs are low and the recurring costs are where the real money is made...
Oh, wait, that's essentially the subscription model, except with printer ink, you get to decide (generally) when you want your next product to arrive.
I'm sure that if the industry / government decided that all ink should be free, that the printer businesses would be happy to sell you your monochrome 5ppm laser for $4000.
Personally, I prefer the flexibility of the current model. It is only unethical (bait-and-switch style) if you were misled / deceived about how much that ink would cost or how often you'd have to buy it (and I grant you, you have to look for that information, so you have a point there).
But as for price fixing? Nahhh, I don't buy that. The industry has simply decided on a model where you sell the hardware at a loss and make up for that loss in supplies. I don't see anything terribly exciting in that, and anyone who wants to use a different model is welcome to, they just won't sell any printers at three times the cost of their competitors, because people are bad at long term financial planning and cost benefit analysis in general.
Any art collection with pieces like "Higgs Field 3 (Interaction with third generation fermions), ink on canvas, 42x56" is just freaking cool.
Sure beats, "Man on a chair" in my book any day.
Re:This sort of thing...
on
RIAA Sues a Child
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I agree with much of the parent's comments, but have a few counterpoints to make.
Income is only deprived if the person receiving the "free" copy would have paid for it in the first place had they not been able to get the free copy. I would love to see someone argue that a 14 year old kid with $10,000 "worth" of songs would have paid $10,000 for them had they not been able to download.
I can't find a real argument in here anywhere. Consider the set of songs valued at $10000. Obviously, the 14 year old kid values the music somewhat, or they wouldn't have gone to the trouble of downloading it in the first place. Therefore, the kid acquired the songs for free, when the kid thought that they had inherent worth (even if it might be as low as a small fraction of a cent for the lot of them). Just because the kid believes the songs are horribly overpriced is no good reason to take them without paying (common theft). If the kid has no sufficient funds to acquire them at the current prices, that is still no good reason to take them (see common theft again -- we aren't talking life/death here). We are therefore left with the logical conclusion that the kid believes that the songs have some real fiscal value, but has circumvented the owner / distributor rights and acquired them for nothing. I see no way to ethically justify this.
Clearly arguing that the kid would have paid $10K for the songs if they weren't available for download is unlikely to succeed, but that's just an argument against the cost of the owner/distributor's sale prices relative to the likely fiscal resources of the 14 year old -- I argue that the kid feels that having those songs is worth $Q, and by downloading them freely, they have defrauded the owners of the media out of at least that value.
There is no inherent right to earn income from a creative work, and that is not the intention of copyright law. For example, this post I am writing is actually a creative work, and usually something like this is automatically copyrighted under the law. Should you guys pay me?
I am no copyright law expert, so I appeal to what I believe is a universal human concept -- that if someone invests personal resources (time / money / something else) to produce something, they deserve (at least partial) ownership and control of that which is produced, probably in some rational proportion to their own investment. The point of this entire debate is not whether or not we should pay you to read your postings, but rather, if you insisted that we did pay you to read your post, and we read it anyway without your permission, that you have lost something that common sentiment is you were reasonably entitled to. Just because it is easy to replicate your efforts doesn't mean that you deserve to lose control over them, unless you voluntarily give up those rights (as you do when posting to slashdot, according to the terms of use for the site).
I recognize I have committed a cardinal sin in mixing common sense and law, but I hope I can someday be forgiven.
I thought the parent made some excellent points, and I just have a thought or two on the same lines.
I have felt that I have a responsibility to give back to [the world | society | deity | whatever] some of the richesse I have managed to acquire. Before you get too excited, I'm mid twenties with a wife, no kids, a mortgage, and I'm putting my wife through nursing school on about $50K / year, and finishing an MS in CS.
When we were first married, I started at a CS internship making $2000 a month, and that was enough to live on comfortably, in a small apartment. I eventually graduated at the top of the dot-com bust, and was grateful to find a job starting me at $36K. I've done well there and moved up to my current salary over a short few years time (and the company has good benefits, including having paid for my graduate degree).
To the point -- I have never yet had more money than I can spend, and no matter how large my salary gets, I imagine I never will have more than I can spend. This has philosophically led me to the question of, given that I feel like I should 'give back' somehow, how much money is actually enough. My base expenses have roughly doubled since I got married, and my standard of living has markedly gone up, but I was pretty happy then, and I'm pretty happy now.
So I guess my point is, I'm starting to think that I'll be best off if I just fix myself a standard of living number. Give up on chasing that brass ring or whatnot -- find a level of lifestyle that I am happy with, and stay there. If I make more money than that, save / invest / retire / give it away to good causes.
I can't help but think that that system is at least as good as digging myself a hole like the parent described. I shudder to think of having that life. If you're living not only beneath your income, but significantly beneath it, you have untold flexibility to find the job that makes you happy.
I'm afraid your post is altogether too well thought-out for this discussion... Perhaps you didn't read enough of the other comments?
The only legitimate responses must contain references to how horrible this all is and how both companies are the devil. Your rationality about the whole thing is disturbing.
I have to say, the creation of the concepts "big balls of suck", "critical mass of suck", and "sheer density of suckage" are too beautiful. If I had mod points for awesomeness, you'd get 'em.
First, the article claims that since Intel took the time to craft such a strongly worded reply, they must consider AMD to be a serious threat. I disagree with the reasoning (although not the conclusion), and call as reference a dispute between Pitney-Bowes and HP over some patent question some years ago, which was settled for $250,000,000.00 or so. In an environment where a single lawsuit can cost you a full month's profit, or almost a full percentage point of your gross revenues, EVERYONE should be considered a serious threat from a legal liability point of view. Maybe we need more legal advice to high level management. (Did I just recommend the use of more lawyers? Hmmmm...)
Second, just a quick observation, if you wonder who will win this lawsuit, I like to keep in mind the following algorithm, where A is litigating against B, and default behavior is next step:
1. Is B able to afford costs of litigation?
No: out of court settlement, B loses
2. Is A able to afford costs of litigating?
No: what idiot thought this was a good idea? A loses.
3. Is A obviously "right" to the most casual observer?
Yes: A will probably win
4. Who has deeper pockets?
A: A will probably win.
B: B will probably win.
My point being, I'm jaded enough to believe that whoever can afford the best legal team for the longest *cough Intel cough* is likely to come out on top here, as opposed to who violated who or who broke whatever law. Following my algorithm, this will be a long, protracted lawsuit, where SUM(LegalFees) > VALUE(Settlement) in high likelihood, and Intel will likely come out just fine.
I think it may be worth considering the purpose of certifications in the first place to properly respond to your questions.
A certification is a claim about you made by someone else, in its broadest sense. It can be made by names you trust (say, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on slashdot) or by names you don't trust (Auntie Edna's resume acronyms *CHEEP*).
The only thing that matters about a certification is how your target audience feels about the certifier and what is being certified. If the hiring manager for your dream job has packed the job description full of acronyms and certifications, you should care about them, and if not, you're probably fine without.
The key idea? The certificate only has value if the person you're trying to convince is convincable by that certificate. Since everyone is different, each certification will have variable value. Figure out what you want to do, and who you have to convince, and then the certificate question will, for you, be as clear as night and day.
Don't get me wrong, I don't care for my house being heated by computer heat the way it is now by my small LAN. But...
Fundamentally, most markets of any age undergo specialization, niches form, and those most fitted to the niches, do best. But having a unified architecture between server / laptop / desktop flies in the face of that; it either claims there is no niche market anywhere, or that there is a "killer chip" which fits all niches better than anything else.
Now, I can guess what Intel would choose of those options, but is there something about the chip industry that makes it immune to this specialization idea? What am I missing?
Slashdot Mirror
You laugh, but I call a recent article on Tom's Hardware into witness. The reason that the graphics card companies (nVidia, ATI) go so intensely after that performance crown is that the people who care deeply about it tend to be influencers -- I think the article claimed something like those graphics card companies can be assured of 20 mainstream target purchases due to the influence of one high-end customer.
Point being, people here care, and deeply, about the stuff Sony has been up to, and in many of these markets, *we* are the influencers.
If your company gets bad press on Slashdot, and you do technology, that's not just bad, that's very very bad, because for every post and every reader, there may well be 20 or more people who are going to stop doing business with you. And if you get repeated bad articles, over and over again, well, golly. This is only worse when there is a choice in the market, and for almost everything Sony makes, somebody else makes something like it.
Just out of curiousity, shouldn't there be some kind of 'quality of service' notion when claiming how many threads you run simultaneously? I just seem to recall that hyperthreading on the P4 gives about a 15% throughput increase with a second thread, and I can't imagine that you get anything other than similarly diminishing returns if all four threads are fighting for the same memory bandwidth and execution units.
Just to explain, it is my understanding that hyperthreading is little more than opportunistic hardware level thread scheduling -- while one is blocked on I/O or something, two can use the same execution units *carefully* to accomplish work. If my analysis is right, and I could be out in space, you might as well build a chip that can run 1024 or 1048576 threads simultaneously (sure, you need a little extra hardware per thread), but you're still only going to see work get done by the first 2, maybe 3, although I doubt even that many.
As one example, consider Windows Vista and DirectX vs. OpenGL. Windows essentially is saying that if you want hardware accelerated video, it's going to be DirectX only (on Windows) through a complete 'nerfing' of OpenGL support.
1. Design reviews, by peers and independents
2. Code reviews, by peers and independents
3. Regulary, organized, unit testing
4. Correctness proving
5. Documentation is about a bazillion forms
6. Defect tracking
7. Effective software process metrics measurement and improvement
8. Continuing education
9. Humility / egoless programming
This list was assembled in about a minute off the top of my head. I work in a CMM3/4 type organization, and although there are processes for these things, most people don't use them, or consider them a hassle.
So my point is, the parent is right -- creating good software, even when done by properly trained experts with great experience -- is hard. But the grandparent is right too -- doing all of the above to 'do it right' takes time and money, and many organizations, and by this I mean software process management as well as the actual engineers, don't understand the value / aren't willing to pay for or aren't willing to do all that work. And occasionally, as the article shows, the piper comes and takes his payment.
I think the most appropriate weapon for these ships to carry would be cruise missiles.
Thanks, I'll try not to post again all week.
(And yes, I had that version of the compiler, and was quite amused by the sample program.)
I think you're right, *if* said company wants to fork over all the cash for research, developing, and marketing. However, in our real world, almost nobody pays for anything up front that costs more than a few hundred dollars, and we're probably talking about several million to fully develop and market a seemingly cool technology.
All this really means is that they're trying to attract funding, be it from banks, venture capitalists, private and public investors, etc., as they probably don't have the resources to see it all through, or at least, not budgeted for that. I always view research announcements like this as a subtle request for a loan, or a precursor to such a request.
When the same thing happens for a finished product, they're usually just after free marketing and press time (and they usually get it).
That being said, I think research and paper launches are of some business value. If I'm a venture capitalist firm looking for the Next Big Thing, these kind of announcements can attract me to focus my research time better. These kinds of things can help connect investment opportunities with investors, especially higher risk / higher reward type investments like this one.
I guess this leaves me wondering when they'll finally figure that they need to be building their operating systems from the sky down. That would solve everything.
Otherwise, I agree with you. If one agrees not to cheat with the EULA and then does so anyway, indeedy, one is a person of lesser integrity.
I've played a few MMO games, and many of them are very repetitive. I myself have considered trying to write some macroing programs, because hey, I'm paying for the time, and I believe in automation. :) Besides, trying to write something to automate such a complicated game system as most MMOs provide is a nontrivial, and tempting, challenge (for me).
Point being, these kinds of tools are in demand, and there is nothing morally wrong with using them, other than a license agreement that says no -- you pay for the bandwidth to their servers, a log on, and the right to interact with their servers according to their well defined, well hidden within a beautiful graphical interface, protocol. The fact that Blizzard expects you to initiate all of those interactions manually with a human interface device is somewhat artificial to maintain some notion of 'fairness' within the game world -- which I certainly understand, by the way.
I think these kinds of 'cheating' tools ruin the games, certainly, they take the fun out of it, and that's one reason I don't use 'em / don't write them. But it is hard for me to get mad at someone who produces and sells these tools, because I think they're using their skills to solve interesting problems to make a dollar, in a perfectly legitimate (meaning 'not against the law') way.
1. Free-ness. Free as in beer, free as in food, free as in do-whatever-the-heck you want with it free.
2. Package management. I prefer gentoo for this, and there is something poignantly beautiful to me about the concept of 'emerge sync' & 'emerge world'. Windows update somehow makes me want to grab a weapon and get medieval (though to be fair, so does/did the red hat update network, but see the next reason).
3. Choice. If there's some software application I need, it probably can be found on sourceforge or via my package manager of choice. The biggest difficulty is choosing which of the many alternatives to use.
4. Community. I read slashdot mostly because I find opinions of people like me whose opinions don't match mine. Nerdly as it may sound, I use Linux because Linux 'gets' me, it works for me in most of the ways that Windows drives me insane. Linux users by choice form a club, and I find that generally, the people in that club are the kind of people I like to hang with, or at least can hold a coherent conversation with. Amusingly, this doesn't hold for me and the Mac, but that's a post for another day.
What do you mean, not much prime real estate in Arizona or New Mexico? I just bought 50 acres of beachfront Arizona property last week from this guy selling door to door. I don't know why it doesn't sell like hotcakes, I only paid a few hundred thousand cash from my retirement account.
And since Intel has redefined its roadmaps in terms of performance / watt, I have to say in terms of brain trusts and sheer man power, if Intel can't do it, a little startup probably can't either, or if they do, by the time they get there, Intel will have been there and done that.
But I'll be rooting for the little guy. I favor good competition in the workplace, as long as they're not competing against me. :)
Virtually scratch resistant? It *ALMOST* resists scratching! WOW! Now that is astounding.
Oh, wait, that's essentially the subscription model, except with printer ink, you get to decide (generally) when you want your next product to arrive.
I'm sure that if the industry / government decided that all ink should be free, that the printer businesses would be happy to sell you your monochrome 5ppm laser for $4000.
Personally, I prefer the flexibility of the current model. It is only unethical (bait-and-switch style) if you were misled / deceived about how much that ink would cost or how often you'd have to buy it (and I grant you, you have to look for that information, so you have a point there).
But as for price fixing? Nahhh, I don't buy that. The industry has simply decided on a model where you sell the hardware at a loss and make up for that loss in supplies. I don't see anything terribly exciting in that, and anyone who wants to use a different model is welcome to, they just won't sell any printers at three times the cost of their competitors, because people are bad at long term financial planning and cost benefit analysis in general.
Sure beats, "Man on a chair" in my book any day.
Income is only deprived if the person receiving the "free" copy would have paid for it in the first place had they not been able to get the free copy. I would love to see someone argue that a 14 year old kid with $10,000 "worth" of songs would have paid $10,000 for them had they not been able to download.
I can't find a real argument in here anywhere. Consider the set of songs valued at $10000. Obviously, the 14 year old kid values the music somewhat, or they wouldn't have gone to the trouble of downloading it in the first place. Therefore, the kid acquired the songs for free, when the kid thought that they had inherent worth (even if it might be as low as a small fraction of a cent for the lot of them). Just because the kid believes the songs are horribly overpriced is no good reason to take them without paying (common theft). If the kid has no sufficient funds to acquire them at the current prices, that is still no good reason to take them (see common theft again -- we aren't talking life/death here). We are therefore left with the logical conclusion that the kid believes that the songs have some real fiscal value, but has circumvented the owner / distributor rights and acquired them for nothing. I see no way to ethically justify this.
Clearly arguing that the kid would have paid $10K for the songs if they weren't available for download is unlikely to succeed, but that's just an argument against the cost of the owner/distributor's sale prices relative to the likely fiscal resources of the 14 year old -- I argue that the kid feels that having those songs is worth $Q, and by downloading them freely, they have defrauded the owners of the media out of at least that value.
There is no inherent right to earn income from a creative work, and that is not the intention of copyright law. For example, this post I am writing is actually a creative work, and usually something like this is automatically copyrighted under the law. Should you guys pay me?
I am no copyright law expert, so I appeal to what I believe is a universal human concept -- that if someone invests personal resources (time / money / something else) to produce something, they deserve (at least partial) ownership and control of that which is produced, probably in some rational proportion to their own investment. The point of this entire debate is not whether or not we should pay you to read your postings, but rather, if you insisted that we did pay you to read your post, and we read it anyway without your permission, that you have lost something that common sentiment is you were reasonably entitled to. Just because it is easy to replicate your efforts doesn't mean that you deserve to lose control over them, unless you voluntarily give up those rights (as you do when posting to slashdot, according to the terms of use for the site).
I recognize I have committed a cardinal sin in mixing common sense and law, but I hope I can someday be forgiven.
I have felt that I have a responsibility to give back to [the world | society | deity | whatever] some of the richesse I have managed to acquire. Before you get too excited, I'm mid twenties with a wife, no kids, a mortgage, and I'm putting my wife through nursing school on about $50K / year, and finishing an MS in CS.
When we were first married, I started at a CS internship making $2000 a month, and that was enough to live on comfortably, in a small apartment. I eventually graduated at the top of the dot-com bust, and was grateful to find a job starting me at $36K. I've done well there and moved up to my current salary over a short few years time (and the company has good benefits, including having paid for my graduate degree).
To the point -- I have never yet had more money than I can spend, and no matter how large my salary gets, I imagine I never will have more than I can spend. This has philosophically led me to the question of, given that I feel like I should 'give back' somehow, how much money is actually enough. My base expenses have roughly doubled since I got married, and my standard of living has markedly gone up, but I was pretty happy then, and I'm pretty happy now.
So I guess my point is, I'm starting to think that I'll be best off if I just fix myself a standard of living number. Give up on chasing that brass ring or whatnot -- find a level of lifestyle that I am happy with, and stay there. If I make more money than that, save / invest / retire / give it away to good causes.
I can't help but think that that system is at least as good as digging myself a hole like the parent described. I shudder to think of having that life. If you're living not only beneath your income, but significantly beneath it, you have untold flexibility to find the job that makes you happy.
Just some thoughts.
The only legitimate responses must contain references to how horrible this all is and how both companies are the devil. Your rationality about the whole thing is disturbing.
Thank you,
The Conformity Police
well said. :)
First, the article claims that since Intel took the time to craft such a strongly worded reply, they must consider AMD to be a serious threat. I disagree with the reasoning (although not the conclusion), and call as reference a dispute between Pitney-Bowes and HP over some patent question some years ago, which was settled for $250,000,000.00 or so. In an environment where a single lawsuit can cost you a full month's profit, or almost a full percentage point of your gross revenues, EVERYONE should be considered a serious threat from a legal liability point of view. Maybe we need more legal advice to high level management. (Did I just recommend the use of more lawyers? Hmmmm...)
Second, just a quick observation, if you wonder who will win this lawsuit, I like to keep in mind the following algorithm, where A is litigating against B, and default behavior is next step:
1. Is B able to afford costs of litigation?
No: out of court settlement, B loses
2. Is A able to afford costs of litigating?
No: what idiot thought this was a good idea? A loses.
3. Is A obviously "right" to the most casual observer?
Yes: A will probably win
4. Who has deeper pockets?
A: A will probably win.
B: B will probably win.
My point being, I'm jaded enough to believe that whoever can afford the best legal team for the longest *cough Intel cough* is likely to come out on top here, as opposed to who violated who or who broke whatever law. Following my algorithm, this will be a long, protracted lawsuit, where SUM(LegalFees) > VALUE(Settlement) in high likelihood, and Intel will likely come out just fine.
A certification is a claim about you made by someone else, in its broadest sense. It can be made by names you trust (say, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on slashdot) or by names you don't trust (Auntie Edna's resume acronyms *CHEEP*).
The only thing that matters about a certification is how your target audience feels about the certifier and what is being certified. If the hiring manager for your dream job has packed the job description full of acronyms and certifications, you should care about them, and if not, you're probably fine without.
The key idea? The certificate only has value if the person you're trying to convince is convincable by that certificate. Since everyone is different, each certification will have variable value. Figure out what you want to do, and who you have to convince, and then the certificate question will, for you, be as clear as night and day.
3.1 to Bob is tough to classify, but I'd have to say that Bob -> not Bob was a fantastic idea, and worthy of note.
Wow. I've always found that for me, real bloodletting kind of ruined the roleplay experience. Good for you for really getting into your character!
Fundamentally, most markets of any age undergo specialization, niches form, and those most fitted to the niches, do best. But having a unified architecture between server / laptop / desktop flies in the face of that; it either claims there is no niche market anywhere, or that there is a "killer chip" which fits all niches better than anything else.
Now, I can guess what Intel would choose of those options, but is there something about the chip industry that makes it immune to this specialization idea? What am I missing?