Economists like to pretend that they're dealing with a hard science but they are wrong, so very wrong. Economics is certainly a complex field of study but it is also one of the squishiest sciences there is. Economics is psychology with graphs and math. You can talk about supply and demand, this curve and that, but we're ultimately talking about human psychology. You can't use normal logic to figure this stuff out, you have to work with crowd dynamics, herd instinct, quit talking about how people should behave and pay attention to how they really behave.
I suggest you study advanced economics before making a claim like that. Bullshit armchair economists are much different than real academic economists, and it seems quite clear that you're only familiar with one of the two.
Remember: "States" - and Indian Tribes - in the United States are separate countries. The States just happened to join a federation for dealing with other countries - a federation like Common Europe, NATO, the UN, the League of Nations, etc.
(And of course the federation has progressively encroached on the States' sovereignty ever since, eroding the safeguards intended to retard such behavior. That's exactly what was expected at the time. But it's also a separate issue.)
That's a gross oversimplification. Many of the people who contributed to the Constitution were in favor of a strong Federal government (hence the term 'Federalist' used to describe them). While some were vociferously against a strong Federal government, it is mistaken to say that the United States was intended to be a federation like those you mention -- the original intent, as ratified by each of the states, was to be a much stronger union than any of those federations.
I will not disagree that the federal government has subsumed much of the authority of the states; I will, however, point out that the original States were not considered to be independent countries, otherwise foreign relations would not have been assigned to the federal government.
As for Indian tribes, they truly are more like sovereign nations, but there are entanglements that make them not quite independent.
To get back to the meat of your post, though -- states do have certain sovereign rights, and while sometimes they act without considering the impact of their actions on other states, this is one reason why we have a federal government -- to mediate disputes. It is a valid point that the OP makes, that it's somewhat screwy for a state or country to make unilateral proclamations that affect the rest of the country (or world). It's a very provincial attitude that pisses other people off.
Fixed costs (product development, research, testing, manufacturing equipment, etc) are far higher unless they are selling millions of the pills.
I know, pharma costs are super high, and the sales/marketing expense side is just disgusting... but it's really annoying when people look at the marginal cost to produce a good and forget that the retail price is influenced by other costs as well.
Given time, and a mature product and market, perhaps wholesale price will come down somewhat near marginal cost of the pill... but all that overhead still needs to be paid for.
Another example would be those magazines that were once useful but then became so overrun by ads they easily outnumbered the content - and a magazine is bought and paid for.
Are you familiar with the financial models of magazine publishers? Subscription fees don't even come close to covering production expenses. You can claim a magazine is bought and paid for, but you are paying a *heavily* advertising-subsidized price. Smaller magazines (especially trade pubs) derive most of their revenue from subscriptions, but this is not so for large circulation books.
The reason I bring this up is that the same is true for lots of media types. For Pandora, they simply can't cover expenses from their current subscription fees. They could play with the fees (e.g., increase the price, reduce services for non-subscribers to increase demand for subscriptions, etc), but I'm guessing modeling would show that to do so would not be enough. They may be at a good price point, and increasing the price might result in fewer subscribers and potentially LESS revenue. Reducing services for non-subscribers might alienate a lot of potential subscribers, which is a big mistake.
So what is their best way of increasing revenues? Seems to me advertising may be their best choice.
I'd also point out that ads are being served to only a subset of their users. Maybe it's based on demographics, maybe only non-subscribers are being served ads. I don't know.
What I'd like to see is tiered subscription levels, so that every user is generating enough revenue to cover the cost of serving that user. I think this could help Pandora stay in business, while allowing those who don't want ads to do so. And the nice thing is, it keeps people who don't view ads from freeloading off those who do (which is the current problem wrt adblock and tech sites (such as slashdot) with ad-based revenue models).
"Gold" members pay a fee large enough to account for the fact that they receive their music ad-free. "Silver" members pay a small fee to put a cap on ads served (say, 2 minutes per hour). "Brown" members pay nothing, but have uncapped advertising levels. Pandora will need to figure out the optimal mix of music/advertising to keep their user base high, but still generate sufficient revenue.
In short, TINSTAAFL. Pandora can raise revenues or go out of business... hopefully they will choose a revenue model that will still allow users to have the choice of receiving ad-free music.
Those with snide remarks should be aware that (A) this is legitimately needed by military and police to keep your life safe and comfortable
Based on what assumptions? That a military with efficient snipers is required to keep me safe and comfortable? That a police force with efficient snipers is required for the same?
Do you really mean to suggest that we live in such a dangerous world that the *only* way to ensure general public safety is by using anonymous-kill-at-a-distance tools, that without improving the efficiency of these killing machines I'm in mortal danger?
I'm a pretty hard cynic, but you've got me beat by far. Seems to me that if violence is your primary answer for how to maintain general safety, you're fighting a losing battle.
They're trying to extract the money due to the user's agreement to a EULA, which (if that means in this context what it usually does) binds the user to some terms on the condition of using the copyrighted software.
The way almost all of these scams work is that the EULA is not on the copyrighted software, but on the download mechanism. They are charging her for use of their download service, not for use of OpenOffice.
It's nitpicky, but it's an important distinction, since the donwload service EULA does not modify or sublicense the OpenOffice LGPL.
You mistake what I've written, and what my intent was.
I personally feel that it is unjust to treat exceptionally gifted criminals better than run-of-the-mill criminals, hence to me there is no distinction in how they should be handled.
The way I see it, you believe one of two things: Do you think brilliance makes crime justifiable, and punishment improper? Or do you think that people who can help catch other criminals should be given a free pass because they are useful to society once caught and mined for information?
If you want brilliant people to help you find criminals, give them a good incentive to do so, other than "I won't put you in jail".
Your views seem to advocate tolerating criminal actions because the criminal can help you. Seems to me like a VERY unjust system.
Would you let a big criminal run free because he donates a couple million dollars to a law enforcement agency? This is the same as what you're advocating.
Couldn't it have been proved accurate by using the Breathalyzer along with a blood test in X different situations with Y different people. If the company didn't already do that then it should be thrown out as evidence.
If you're using a breathalyzer as definitive proof of intoxication, it's not good enough to "prove" the accuracy by demonstrating concurrence with blood tests... especially since breathe and blood tests taken simultaneously have been shown to not agree 100%.
As soon as you have 1% failure, it means that the evidence cannot be considered definitive proof... what is to say any particular defendant wasn't the 1-in-a-100 where the breathalyzer was inaccurate?
IANAL, etc, but it seems to me that concurrence with blood tests would have to be 100%, which it's not.
Also, why is a brethelyzer needed as evidence. Any test like that could be faulty. If someone fails a brethelyzer, why not bring them in for a blood test.
Because blood tests are intrusive? I don't want to live in a society where I can be forced to submit to a blood test just because some potentially-rigged machine says I'm under the influence. I say it's potentially rigged because we can't see the source, which is what this is all about.
Sorry to respond to your post twice, but there is a separate point I wanted to make tat has nothing to do with my prior post.
luckily, in real life, this is exactly what the feds and the banks did. in real life, you capture and use highly intelligent crooks to... drum roll please... capture more highly intelligent crooks. get it?
Yes, the feds and the banks did this in real life, and the banks have motive to see that it gets carried out properly. Find the holes (by any means necessary, including employing those who abused the holes) and plug them.
The feds, on the other hand, have a whole list of motives for how they operate... and one of those motives is to ensure that they are needed and can grow. The federal, state, and to some extent, local law enforcement agencies have an agenda which requires a continuance of crime. From a strategic standpoint, it is in their interests to ensure that lots of crime occurs, while appearing to be succeeding against that crime.
This is why we don't have a rational drug policy; this is why we do not spend enough money on effective (criminal) rehabilitation programs in the prison systems. Our law enforcement agencies can claim that they are doing a good job because they arrested 10% more criminals this year, meanwhile the laws and policies they support are not designed to actually prevent crime -- nor are they designed to remove the incentive for crime.
It's a mistake to use the fed's past actions as an example without considering their motives and their long-term strategies.
I'm not saying there's no place for using brilliant criminals as resources in crime fighting, but I *am* saying that it's a small part of the equation.
Also please note I didn't intend to advocate violence in earlier posts to this article, apparently my feeble attempt at humor was taken seriously.
You make a good point, but there is a huge flaw to your system.
There is no disincentive to do wrong.
I know there's a big philosophical issue with deterrence as a reason for punishment, but the truth of the matter is that people will tend to not commit crimes when the
[risk of getting caught]*[punishment when caught] is greater than [benefit from committing crime]
I think your philosophy tries to tip the balance by increasing the risk of getting caught for potential criminals... but that doesn't help when the punishment is minimal and the potential gains so large. Let's see... a life of luxury vs. a short stint in country club prison and a consulting gig with a three-letter-agency.
The key is to increase the chances of catching criminals, while having punishment severe enough to factor into the potential criminal's decision-making process.
I'd also note... the interviewee mentions that it was a gradual change to intentionally writing malware, and the incremental decisions to do what he did were easy to make. He valued pleasing his employer over not doing wrong, even if he didn't consciously realize it. If there is a risk of severe punishment for his actions, maybe those incremental decisions would have been made differently (note that at the time, legality was not an issue, however).
To sum up, increased success at catching criminals solves nothing if it does not come with punishment for those criminals. As you point out, there will always be more brilliant people who will fulfill the role of criminal... we need to ensure that they don't *want* to commit those crimes.
In particular, things involving human interactions don't have to be perfect, because groups of humans have all these self-regulations built in. If you and I have an agreement and you screwed me over badly, you've always got in the back of your mind the nagging worry that I'm going to show up on your doorstep with a club and kill you.
Times change. In order for this to continue to be a factor, we need to make sure that occasionally, someone *does* show up on a doorstep and club someone over the head.
I suggest we start with people who have kidded themselves that the abusive software they've written does not make them a villain.
And journalism isn't dying. It still exists but has a WEALTH of new contributors
That's a myth... can't find the source right now (truthfully, can't be bothered to search for it:)), but it turns out that most of the "new contributors" you mention don't meet the modern definition of journalist; they also don't contribute any new information. Most, instead, rehash others' stories. Even the big orgs mostly just use newswire feeds.
Rigorous investigative journalism is dying, because it simply costs too much to do, when weighed against the income to be made from it.
As you rightly point out, good journalists are leaving the field because it is too hard to compete with the hundreds of thousands of hack journalists ("bloggers") out there... and the badsis for competition isn't quality of work, it's clicks.
Information, especially "news" information, has gotten so cheap that there is little profit to be made from quality journalism.
Say some organization wants to reduce offshoring in the US, as a means of stimulating employment in the US.
Say that one way to 'encourage' bringing offshore jobs back onshore is to limit the benefits (or increase the costs) of offshoring.
Say that there is a small number of vulnerable points, that disabling of would greatly increase costs/reduce benefits of offshoring.
Say that the organization mentioned above has access to the greatest naval materiel in the world.
I know it's a stretch, but in the interest of a good old conspiracy[1] theory, is it possible that the US Government is disabling global information infrastructure in order to bring jobs back onshore?
[1]Besides which, you can't spell "conspiracy" without "piracy", which just about seals the deal for me, that's too much of a coincidence to believe that this theory is false.
So, in summary, the problem is economics. And Cthulu.
He Who Lies Dead but Dreaming has no part to play in the damage to undersea cables, I have this on good authority. The Telcos are actually agents of Cthulhu (duh! -- you should know this by now if you've ever called telco tech support); the internet is just one of his dreams, which will serve to increase chaos and drive us all to madness.
Seriously, though, blaming the problem on economics is a copout. Why are costs to lay redundant cables so high? What can be done to convince the telcos that laying redundant cables is a good idea? What can tip the CBA to the B side? (br>There are lots of reasons a truly redundant system is prohibitively expense. The cost of negotiating rights-of-way through multiple nations, for example. The increased costs to shipping (external cost to the telcos) from avoiding cable paths (and this is magnified with true redundancy, since redundant cables should not follow the same path). The costs of running and maintaining landlines in politically unstable areas. And, not least of all, the costs in materials, capital, and labor to run redundant lines.
The way to tip the scale in favor of running redundant lines is to either reduce the cost of doing so, or increase the benefit from doing so. How much money do the telcos lose when a line goes down? Over time, is that more than the cost of running redundant lines?
So yes, it's economics, but saying it's economics is glossing over the important details.
Hmm. Sounds like you have worked for some pretty crappy employers.
Your strategy, of embracing all that your superiors want, is a good way to look pretty good -- but in the end, bad for your employer.
While I agree that it is not a good idea to knock down ideas during a meeting (which will make your superiors look bad), I would hesitate at embracing those ideas fully if I really felt there were problems.
You should make sure to bring up your objections in a private correspondence that will not make your boss/superior look bad... an "impromptu" discussion by the coffee machine, walking by their office, etc.
And here's the key to raising objections: Always include a solution to the objection. The way it works is by making sure the person you are discussing it with understands the costs of the solution. Volunteer to head up the team overcoming the problems... and point out that you'll need to drop projects X,Y, and Z to make it happen. Tell him you'll send a write-up of the issues and solutions (this is important, more below).
This method has a lot of benefits -- it makes your objections private so your boss doesn't look bad; it enables your boss to be aware of and head off problems during idea implementation; it highlights your efforts to be constructive and to take leadership roles; and it gives your boss the choice of dropping the project if he/she chooses. It also allows your boss a chance to convince you, one-on-one, that their idea really does have merit. There may be considerations from his side that were not presented during the meeting, that you have no idea of.
The write-up of issues and solutions is an important piece here. It reminds your boss of your contribution, and makes it *much* more likely that your boss will either follow some or all of your recommendations, or drop the project. Communicating something twice, via different methods, really increases the likelihood that you'll get your message through.
Anyway, embracing all the ideas of your superiors (even when you disagree) is a great way to make sure you're in a job you hate. It also reduces your value to your employer. The trick is to find a way to disagree without appearing to disagree.
I used to metamoderate daily, until the updates to slashdot broke metamoderation for IE users (since I normally browse slashdot from my work machine on which there can be no Firefox).
I don't know if it's intentional, but it seems to me that slashdot is intentionally broken for IE users... while that's fine by me from a philosophical standpoint, if it gets worse, I'll go elsewhere. I just hope the powers-that-be recognize that the 'screw IE' development of the site drives users, and therefore content, away. I'm pretty sure they understand and are willing to lose some cash from lost users... but I'm not so sure they realize the impact of the redesign on the content (comments) of the site, which has scarier implications for the future of slashdot.
I know I post less than I did before the crappy redesign, and I'm also quite certain the quality of my posts has dropped as well.
I know I'm going off on a tangent here, but the user page is awful and barely usable. Clean(ish) design was why I liked slashdot's UI... that's going away, and at some point, so will I.
How many stories like this do we have to read? When will the internets finally be recognised as a medium rather than an entity?
As soon as government agencies begin to properly recognise this fact [...]
Government agencies DO recognize this fact. They use the internet as a medium for recruitment, for propaganda, etc. Government agencies have their share of intelligent people working for them, it's a mistake to assume they are so stupid.
The public, on the other hand...
When the public is scared, it's easy to justify spending on security, etc. Where does a lot of that money end up going? To consultants. And guess who wrote the TFA?
It may be partly FUD... but mostly the article is a marketing piece.
Did you bother to read the judge's logic as to how indefensible the claims of state secrets were? Or did you just dismiss the judge out of hand because you're a simple-minded brain-washed ex-military troll?
That need-to-know crap is just bullshit. Unless the agency in question can demonstrate the need for secrecy, then the documents in question should be made public. There needs to be an authority which can determine if there really are state secrets that shouldn't be exposed... and guess what? The judiciary IS that authority.
If anyone's an asshole, it's you -- for supporting an executive that need answer to no one.
Slashdot Mirror
I suggest you study advanced economics before making a claim like that. Bullshit armchair economists are much different than real academic economists, and it seems quite clear that you're only familiar with one of the two.
That's been covered a few times on slashdot already.
Yes, the WTO ruled against the US in favor of Antigua -- but it doesn't matter. Antigua is powerless.
The US is simply removing gambling from the treaties governing the operation of the WTO.
Make no bones about it... the WTO is a tool of the big players, and Antigua is playing shorthanded against the big stack at the table.
That's a gross oversimplification. Many of the people who contributed to the Constitution were in favor of a strong Federal government (hence the term 'Federalist' used to describe them). While some were vociferously against a strong Federal government, it is mistaken to say that the United States was intended to be a federation like those you mention -- the original intent, as ratified by each of the states, was to be a much stronger union than any of those federations.
I will not disagree that the federal government has subsumed much of the authority of the states; I will, however, point out that the original States were not considered to be independent countries, otherwise foreign relations would not have been assigned to the federal government.
As for Indian tribes, they truly are more like sovereign nations, but there are entanglements that make them not quite independent.
To get back to the meat of your post, though -- states do have certain sovereign rights, and while sometimes they act without considering the impact of their actions on other states, this is one reason why we have a federal government -- to mediate disputes. It is a valid point that the OP makes, that it's somewhat screwy for a state or country to make unilateral proclamations that affect the rest of the country (or world). It's a very provincial attitude that pisses other people off.
2 cents to make... marginal cost.
Fixed costs (product development, research, testing, manufacturing equipment, etc) are far higher unless they are selling millions of the pills.
I know, pharma costs are super high, and the sales/marketing expense side is just disgusting... but it's really annoying when people look at the marginal cost to produce a good and forget that the retail price is influenced by other costs as well.
Given time, and a mature product and market, perhaps wholesale price will come down somewhat near marginal cost of the pill... but all that overhead still needs to be paid for.
Are you familiar with the financial models of magazine publishers? Subscription fees don't even come close to covering production expenses. You can claim a magazine is bought and paid for, but you are paying a *heavily* advertising-subsidized price. Smaller magazines (especially trade pubs) derive most of their revenue from subscriptions, but this is not so for large circulation books.
The reason I bring this up is that the same is true for lots of media types. For Pandora, they simply can't cover expenses from their current subscription fees. They could play with the fees (e.g., increase the price, reduce services for non-subscribers to increase demand for subscriptions, etc), but I'm guessing modeling would show that to do so would not be enough. They may be at a good price point, and increasing the price might result in fewer subscribers and potentially LESS revenue. Reducing services for non-subscribers might alienate a lot of potential subscribers, which is a big mistake.
So what is their best way of increasing revenues? Seems to me advertising may be their best choice.
I'd also point out that ads are being served to only a subset of their users. Maybe it's based on demographics, maybe only non-subscribers are being served ads. I don't know.
What I'd like to see is tiered subscription levels, so that every user is generating enough revenue to cover the cost of serving that user. I think this could help Pandora stay in business, while allowing those who don't want ads to do so. And the nice thing is, it keeps people who don't view ads from freeloading off those who do (which is the current problem wrt adblock and tech sites (such as slashdot) with ad-based revenue models).
"Gold" members pay a fee large enough to account for the fact that they receive their music ad-free.
"Silver" members pay a small fee to put a cap on ads served (say, 2 minutes per hour).
"Brown" members pay nothing, but have uncapped advertising levels. Pandora will need to figure out the optimal mix of music/advertising to keep their user base high, but still generate sufficient revenue.
In short, TINSTAAFL. Pandora can raise revenues or go out of business... hopefully they will choose a revenue model that will still allow users to have the choice of receiving ad-free music.
I'm not sure that if you evaporate liqud H2O you get oceans as a result, you might want to check a phase diagram or something :)
Also the amount of ice is much too little for what you are proposing.
I think we'd have a higher chance of success if instead we tried to bombard Mars with captured comets... in other words, not much chance at all.
Based on what assumptions? That a military with efficient snipers is required to keep me safe and comfortable? That a police force with efficient snipers is required for the same?
Do you really mean to suggest that we live in such a dangerous world that the *only* way to ensure general public safety is by using anonymous-kill-at-a-distance tools, that without improving the efficiency of these killing machines I'm in mortal danger?
I'm a pretty hard cynic, but you've got me beat by far. Seems to me that if violence is your primary answer for how to maintain general safety, you're fighting a losing battle.
The way almost all of these scams work is that the EULA is not on the copyrighted software, but on the download mechanism. They are charging her for use of their download service, not for use of OpenOffice.
It's nitpicky, but it's an important distinction, since the donwload service EULA does not modify or sublicense the OpenOffice LGPL.
You mistake what I've written, and what my intent was.
I personally feel that it is unjust to treat exceptionally gifted criminals better than run-of-the-mill criminals, hence to me there is no distinction in how they should be handled.
The way I see it, you believe one of two things: Do you think brilliance makes crime justifiable, and punishment improper? Or do you think that people who can help catch other criminals should be given a free pass because they are useful to society once caught and mined for information?
If you want brilliant people to help you find criminals, give them a good incentive to do so, other than "I won't put you in jail".
Your views seem to advocate tolerating criminal actions because the criminal can help you. Seems to me like a VERY unjust system.
Would you let a big criminal run free because he donates a couple million dollars to a law enforcement agency? This is the same as what you're advocating.
If you're using a breathalyzer as definitive proof of intoxication, it's not good enough to "prove" the accuracy by demonstrating concurrence with blood tests... especially since breathe and blood tests taken simultaneously have been shown to not agree 100%.
As soon as you have 1% failure, it means that the evidence cannot be considered definitive proof... what is to say any particular defendant wasn't the 1-in-a-100 where the breathalyzer was inaccurate?
IANAL, etc, but it seems to me that concurrence with blood tests would have to be 100%, which it's not.
Because blood tests are intrusive? I don't want to live in a society where I can be forced to submit to a blood test just because some potentially-rigged machine says I'm under the influence. I say it's potentially rigged because we can't see the source, which is what this is all about.
Yes, the feds and the banks did this in real life, and the banks have motive to see that it gets carried out properly. Find the holes (by any means necessary, including employing those who abused the holes) and plug them.
The feds, on the other hand, have a whole list of motives for how they operate... and one of those motives is to ensure that they are needed and can grow. The federal, state, and to some extent, local law enforcement agencies have an agenda which requires a continuance of crime. From a strategic standpoint, it is in their interests to ensure that lots of crime occurs, while appearing to be succeeding against that crime.
This is why we don't have a rational drug policy; this is why we do not spend enough money on effective (criminal) rehabilitation programs in the prison systems. Our law enforcement agencies can claim that they are doing a good job because they arrested 10% more criminals this year, meanwhile the laws and policies they support are not designed to actually prevent crime -- nor are they designed to remove the incentive for crime.
It's a mistake to use the fed's past actions as an example without considering their motives and their long-term strategies.
I'm not saying there's no place for using brilliant criminals as resources in crime fighting, but I *am* saying that it's a small part of the equation.
Also please note I didn't intend to advocate violence in earlier posts to this article, apparently my feeble attempt at humor was taken seriously.
Hmm... On second thought, maybe I should just get some counseling.
There is no disincentive to do wrong.
I know there's a big philosophical issue with deterrence as a reason for punishment, but the truth of the matter is that people will tend to not commit crimes when the
I think your philosophy tries to tip the balance by increasing the risk of getting caught for potential criminals... but that doesn't help when the punishment is minimal and the potential gains so large. Let's see... a life of luxury vs. a short stint in country club prison and a consulting gig with a three-letter-agency.
The key is to increase the chances of catching criminals, while having punishment severe enough to factor into the potential criminal's decision-making process.
I'd also note... the interviewee mentions that it was a gradual change to intentionally writing malware, and the incremental decisions to do what he did were easy to make. He valued pleasing his employer over not doing wrong, even if he didn't consciously realize it. If there is a risk of severe punishment for his actions, maybe those incremental decisions would have been made differently (note that at the time, legality was not an issue, however).
To sum up, increased success at catching criminals solves nothing if it does not come with punishment for those criminals. As you point out, there will always be more brilliant people who will fulfill the role of criminal... we need to ensure that they don't *want* to commit those crimes.
I grew up on a farm, where we did not have to dilute the whack-a-FOO experience with carnival games.
Juvenile groundhogs leaving the nest to dig their own burrow were frequent targets of a well-timed shovel strike.
Potentially-rabid raccoons, whether in the bottom of a 55-gallon drum, or in a wire mesh trap, proved no match for a well-placed pitchfork thrust.
Voracious, ridiculously fecund rabbits proved much easier to deal when their heads were separated from their bodies via garden hoe.
Pesky, time-wasting, crop-damaging field/woodland creatures QUIVERED before the mightiness of the farmer's kids.
It'd be a better world if malware writers trembled before the wrath of internet users.
Times change. In order for this to continue to be a factor, we need to make sure that occasionally, someone *does* show up on a doorstep and club someone over the head.
I suggest we start with people who have kidded themselves that the abusive software they've written does not make them a villain.
That's a myth... can't find the source right now (truthfully, can't be bothered to search for it :)), but it turns out that most of the "new contributors" you mention don't meet the modern definition of journalist; they also don't contribute any new information. Most, instead, rehash others' stories. Even the big orgs mostly just use newswire feeds.
Rigorous investigative journalism is dying, because it simply costs too much to do, when weighed against the income to be made from it.
As you rightly point out, good journalists are leaving the field because it is too hard to compete with the hundreds of thousands of hack journalists ("bloggers") out there... and the badsis for competition isn't quality of work, it's clicks.
Information, especially "news" information, has gotten so cheap that there is little profit to be made from quality journalism.
Hm, let me adjust my tinfoil hat for a second...
Say some organization wants to reduce offshoring in the US, as a means of stimulating employment in the US.
Say that one way to 'encourage' bringing offshore jobs back onshore is to limit the benefits (or increase the costs) of offshoring.
Say that there is a small number of vulnerable points, that disabling of would greatly increase costs/reduce benefits of offshoring.
Say that the organization mentioned above has access to the greatest naval materiel in the world.
I know it's a stretch, but in the interest of a good old conspiracy[1] theory, is it possible that the US Government is disabling global information infrastructure in order to bring jobs back onshore?
[1]Besides which, you can't spell "conspiracy" without "piracy", which just about seals the deal for me, that's too much of a coincidence to believe that this theory is false.
Even if they do, that's not nepotism, unless his companies are run by his family members.
I believe the phrase you are looking for is Modern American "Democracy".
He Who Lies Dead but Dreaming has no part to play in the damage to undersea cables, I have this on good authority. The Telcos are actually agents of Cthulhu (duh! -- you should know this by now if you've ever called telco tech support); the internet is just one of his dreams, which will serve to increase chaos and drive us all to madness.
Seriously, though, blaming the problem on economics is a copout. Why are costs to lay redundant cables so high? What can be done to convince the telcos that laying redundant cables is a good idea? What can tip the CBA to the B side?
(br>There are lots of reasons a truly redundant system is prohibitively expense. The cost of negotiating rights-of-way through multiple nations, for example. The increased costs to shipping (external cost to the telcos) from avoiding cable paths (and this is magnified with true redundancy, since redundant cables should not follow the same path). The costs of running and maintaining landlines in politically unstable areas. And, not least of all, the costs in materials, capital, and labor to run redundant lines.
The way to tip the scale in favor of running redundant lines is to either reduce the cost of doing so, or increase the benefit from doing so. How much money do the telcos lose when a line goes down? Over time, is that more than the cost of running redundant lines?
So yes, it's economics, but saying it's economics is glossing over the important details.
Hmm. Sounds like you have worked for some pretty crappy employers.
Your strategy, of embracing all that your superiors want, is a good way to look pretty good -- but in the end, bad for your employer.
While I agree that it is not a good idea to knock down ideas during a meeting (which will make your superiors look bad), I would hesitate at embracing those ideas fully if I really felt there were problems.
You should make sure to bring up your objections in a private correspondence that will not make your boss/superior look bad... an "impromptu" discussion by the coffee machine, walking by their office, etc.
And here's the key to raising objections: Always include a solution to the objection. The way it works is by making sure the person you are discussing it with understands the costs of the solution. Volunteer to head up the team overcoming the problems... and point out that you'll need to drop projects X,Y, and Z to make it happen. Tell him you'll send a write-up of the issues and solutions (this is important, more below).
This method has a lot of benefits -- it makes your objections private so your boss doesn't look bad; it enables your boss to be aware of and head off problems during idea implementation; it highlights your efforts to be constructive and to take leadership roles; and it gives your boss the choice of dropping the project if he/she chooses. It also allows your boss a chance to convince you, one-on-one, that their idea really does have merit. There may be considerations from his side that were not presented during the meeting, that you have no idea of.
The write-up of issues and solutions is an important piece here. It reminds your boss of your contribution, and makes it *much* more likely that your boss will either follow some or all of your recommendations, or drop the project. Communicating something twice, via different methods, really increases the likelihood that you'll get your message through.
Anyway, embracing all the ideas of your superiors (even when you disagree) is a great way to make sure you're in a job you hate. It also reduces your value to your employer. The trick is to find a way to disagree without appearing to disagree.
I used to metamoderate daily, until the updates to slashdot broke metamoderation for IE users (since I normally browse slashdot from my work machine on which there can be no Firefox).
I don't know if it's intentional, but it seems to me that slashdot is intentionally broken for IE users... while that's fine by me from a philosophical standpoint, if it gets worse, I'll go elsewhere. I just hope the powers-that-be recognize that the 'screw IE' development of the site drives users, and therefore content, away. I'm pretty sure they understand and are willing to lose some cash from lost users... but I'm not so sure they realize the impact of the redesign on the content (comments) of the site, which has scarier implications for the future of slashdot.
I know I post less than I did before the crappy redesign, and I'm also quite certain the quality of my posts has dropped as well.
I know I'm going off on a tangent here, but the user page is awful and barely usable. Clean(ish) design was why I liked slashdot's UI... that's going away, and at some point, so will I.
Some people deem self-defense to be an immoral act. Pacifism is a tenet of many moral codes.
Am I mistaken, or did you just claim violence against another person is a moral act?
*Your* moral code is not *the one true* moral code.
Government agencies DO recognize this fact. They use the internet as a medium for recruitment, for propaganda, etc. Government agencies have their share of intelligent people working for them, it's a mistake to assume they are so stupid.
The public, on the other hand...
When the public is scared, it's easy to justify spending on security, etc. Where does a lot of that money end up going? To consultants. And guess who wrote the TFA?
It may be partly FUD... but mostly the article is a marketing piece.
Funny, just yesterday someone on slashdot was linking to a security book written by a "senior analyst" at Yankee Group.
Boy, you sureley are a retard.
Did you bother to read the judge's logic as to how indefensible the claims of state secrets were? Or did you just dismiss the judge out of hand because you're a simple-minded brain-washed ex-military troll?
That need-to-know crap is just bullshit. Unless the agency in question can demonstrate the need for secrecy, then the documents in question should be made public. There needs to be an authority which can determine if there really are state secrets that shouldn't be exposed... and guess what? The judiciary IS that authority.
If anyone's an asshole, it's you -- for supporting an executive that need answer to no one.
*DAMN* I forgot not to feed the trolls...