Subsidizing the biased terror tactics of the &^AA's and the BSA is clearly using our government power to unjustly enrich these greedy and evil entity's.
Public Funding of elections is what is really needed to stop this.
So, you are advocating that it is not ok for the government to use our money to support the RIAA. Yet, the government should be allowed to take people's money and spend it on politicians, some of whom the said people are very likely to disapprove of. I am personally horrified that they have the ability to spend my tax dollars on Republicans who support bombing Iraq, or Democrats who insist I live my life in certain ways. I don't see any way to reconcile your statement.
Furthermore, it is not clear at all how public funding would stop this RIAA madness.
I can definitely appreciate the many posts so far on this story that condem this blatant corporate/government abuse of our education system. However, it's too bad that many people don't see the root of this problem. This type of philandering has been the modus operandi of our government for years, in just about every industry. The government's interference in the technology and entertainment markets are just as heinous as paying farmers not to grow crops in order to keep prices up, or appropriating money from social security into their pet pork projects. I look forward to the day when peaceful citizens do not have their resources forcibly taken from them in order to fund completely irrelevant ventures that mostly profit the wealthy, moneyed interests of our country. Unfortunately, it is all too easy to mis-use money when it is not yours to begin with. Especially when it is almost never in line with the "public interest", whatever that means.
IBM is a great hardware company. It has never been known for great software. Ask anybody who has had to use JCL. The inventors of IEFBR14 could never be known as a great software company.
Ever hear of their Webphere Commerce suite of products? There are large companies all over the place that are built on it. My employer consults with and builds web sites for many of them. In fact I'd say their software is more solid than anything from Oracle or Sun. These last few months I have been building an internal application based on Oracle's technology/middleware stack and let me tell you, it is flaky as hell. I guess there's a reason most of my company uses Websphere Commerce to build enterprise applications...
Not to wander too far off topic, but do you see the humor in posting this...
Why should I have to download or buy software to get basic features like resizing and cropping?...directly over your signature, to wit...
TANSTAAFL - There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
Gave me a good laugh. Thanks.
It may be free for me, but it's still not a free lunch because someone else is willing to bear the development costs.
I think you're missing the point. Why should I have to download or buy software to get basic features like resizing and cropping? This web based stuff clearly isn't meant for heavy processing or filtering. Half the time all people want to do is resize a crappy pic taken with their phone. This works just fine for that. And no I'm not gonna use windows paint because it sucks ass even for that.
If there's anybody who can challenge the current state of copyright madness it's Google. They've already made copyrighted text material so readily available. Weren't there legal challenges to that to (I'm too lazy to look it up right now)? In this case they aren't simply doing the same thing to video as they did with text searches to begin with?
Actually, I'm blaming failing state controled services IN ALL ARENAS on corporations not paying for the services they use. Education of workers should be a primary value of any long range thinking company that needs skilled workers- yet for the past 20 years we've had a tax revolt removing money from the schools and making sure corporations pay a significantly lower percentage than they did in the 1950s. Education is just the most visible.
I would get state expenditures too, but hopefully you get the point. And yet, our state funded school system continues to fall well below expectations (to put it lightly). I don't blame people for not wanting to put money into failure. Given the amount of money we spend and the results we have achieved, it seems to me that there are some fundamental problems with state controlled education. I doubt that throwing more money around will fix it. Just like thorwing more money at failed development projects often don't save those either.
When a society decides that corporations are priviledged citizens, corporations decide that profit [fastcompany.com] and Tax Evasion [wikipedia.org] matter more than Education [ocpp.org], how can the country NOT fall behind in technology?
So let me get this straight. You're blaming failed State controlled education on corporations? Hmm, makes sense to me.
Your post is along my thoughts... When I can get a phone the size of a nano (and maybe looks like a nano) that holds 30-80gb, only then will I be happy. I don't care as much about pda functionality since I am almost always on my laptop. And my volume of email isn't high enough to require mobile connectivity.
One problem with your thesis. And that is there is no such thing as a "natural right". You have what rights are given to you by the community you live in. Unfortunately, the state has taken away the ability for the community to hand out rights, and now claims that to itself.
Actually, yes there is such a thing as a natural right. That is the right to the ownership of your body. If we don't own our own bodies, there is only one alternative. Which is that we are slaves. And if we do own our bodies, that means we also have a natural right to put whatever we want into them, including pot.
I work for the company that is designing their new website, and was at their corporate office for a month. They are putting a lot of money into their new site. The architecture is very solid, and I think it will definitely be competitive.
In the same way, I have found myself downloading MP3's of music that I already own on CD because it is faster for me to download the music that I already have, than to go through my CD collection and rip all the music.
I'm not so sure about this. I have all but given up on downloading most music, with the exception of a few tracks here and there from Itunes. But I do buy used CDs from Amazon Marketplace, rip them, and sell them again. Downloading can often take longer than ripping a CD, and it is often hard for me to find a torrent for a CD I want. Amazon Marketplace has most everything I want, and once I sell it again I end up getting the music for a few dollars per CD. Plus I know they are quality rips because I do it myself, at my chosen bitrates.
Except the big difference is the students at college are PAYING to be there and are not your children. They are supposed to be beyond nursemaid age, so stop treating them like babies.
Nobody is forcing the students to pay for this. If they don't like it, they can always go to a different college that doesn't have this rule. That is the beauty of private property. If the college is paying for the backbone access, why shouldn't be able to restrict access should they so choose?
Well, if you're an ISP and built your network using money the government gave you which they took from me under threat of prison time, I'd say I ethically should have some say in how my money is used. Also, if the government is granting you special exceptions from laws that restrict my actions, under the claim that it is because you're providing a public good, well maybe you should be held accountable when your actions are demonstrably not in the public good in that particular way.
It sounds good, but the problem then becomes: how do you define what is a public good? And who gets the last say in this definition, and why?
You can't store enough food to last your entire population for a year! Anyway, you could import your food from stable countries/allies etc only
It certainly is possible for individuals to do this. The LDS church (mormons) advises their members to keep 2 years of food storage, and many of them follow through. Removing tarriffs and importing food from less stable countries would improve their economic conditions and therefore their stability.
Sure, as long as you don't mind waiting a year or so for your next meal;-)
I just realized the stability issue would also be addressed in these countries with a more constant economic growth, lessening the risk of disruptions for us. Also, that is what food storage is for.:)
Because food is cheaper to import than produce locally so all the farms would go out of business. And you don't want to depend on other, potentially unstable, countries for food.
I don't see anything wrong with using these cheap food sources. If they ever dried up we could always go back to growing our own food. Also, if we really cared about impoverished countries, buying food from them instead of producing it ourselves might be more effective than any type of foreign aid, which is usually wasted by governments anyway.
Can you show me why it is necessary for drug companies to invest this huge sum of money in order to ensure the survival of the human race? Or why we the taxpayers should be forced to subsidize the profits of big pharma via the government enforcement of intellectual property? Do you honestly propose to tell me that humans would cease to be interested in scientific development and research without these government enforced patents? Your case for patents are seriously not as slam dunk as you make it out to be.
I have definitely thought about doing this. I'm pretty sure my contract expires soon and this is definitely an option. I just need to compare rates with my average times from the last few months to make sure it is worth switching.
Slashdot Mirror
I can definitely appreciate the many posts so far on this story that condem this blatant corporate/government abuse of our education system. However, it's too bad that many people don't see the root of this problem. This type of philandering has been the modus operandi of our government for years, in just about every industry. The government's interference in the technology and entertainment markets are just as heinous as paying farmers not to grow crops in order to keep prices up, or appropriating money from social security into their pet pork projects. I look forward to the day when peaceful citizens do not have their resources forcibly taken from them in order to fund completely irrelevant ventures that mostly profit the wealthy, moneyed interests of our country. Unfortunately, it is all too easy to mis-use money when it is not yours to begin with. Especially when it is almost never in line with the "public interest", whatever that means.
Haha, I almost spit out my daily morning moutain dew reading that.
I think you're missing the point. Why should I have to download or buy software to get basic features like resizing and cropping? This web based stuff clearly isn't meant for heavy processing or filtering. Half the time all people want to do is resize a crappy pic taken with their phone. This works just fine for that. And no I'm not gonna use windows paint because it sucks ass even for that.
If there's anybody who can challenge the current state of copyright madness it's Google. They've already made copyrighted text material so readily available. Weren't there legal challenges to that to (I'm too lazy to look it up right now)? In this case they aren't simply doing the same thing to video as they did with text searches to begin with?
2001- 42,230,821,000
2002- 49,935,599,000
2003- 53,113,709,000
2004- 55,661,673,000
2005- 56,576,928,000
2006- 56,552,764,000
2007- 57,473,200,000
2008- 55,996,794,000
I would get state expenditures too, but hopefully you get the point. And yet, our state funded school system continues to fall well below expectations (to put it lightly). I don't blame people for not wanting to put money into failure. Given the amount of money we spend and the results we have achieved, it seems to me that there are some fundamental problems with state controlled education. I doubt that throwing more money around will fix it. Just like thorwing more money at failed development projects often don't save those either.
Your post is along my thoughts... When I can get a phone the size of a nano (and maybe looks like a nano) that holds 30-80gb, only then will I be happy. I don't care as much about pda functionality since I am almost always on my laptop. And my volume of email isn't high enough to require mobile connectivity.
I work for the company that is designing their new website, and was at their corporate office for a month. They are putting a lot of money into their new site. The architecture is very solid, and I think it will definitely be competitive.
Now we can kill trees even faster than ever before!
Not that I have read that many of them yet, but here is one of my favorite books on ethics and morality, free online version: http://www.mises.org/rothbard/ethics/ethics.asp
Can you show me why it is necessary for drug companies to invest this huge sum of money in order to ensure the survival of the human race? Or why we the taxpayers should be forced to subsidize the profits of big pharma via the government enforcement of intellectual property? Do you honestly propose to tell me that humans would cease to be interested in scientific development and research without these government enforced patents? Your case for patents are seriously not as slam dunk as you make it out to be.
I have definitely thought about doing this. I'm pretty sure my contract expires soon and this is definitely an option. I just need to compare rates with my average times from the last few months to make sure it is worth switching.