Good thing it's a quiet week between x-mas and new years and the boss is out of the office, cause I think I'll be laughing periodically for the rest of the day.
As someone from NY, now living just outside of Boston...
Parking is easier(believe it or not)
Not true. It isn't easier, or cheaper, and you're more likely to need parking in Boston because of the inadequate mass transit system.
Boston drivers may be insane, but they're reasonably polite. NYC drivers are suicidal- and downright mean.
That's an outright lie. 'Reasonable' and 'polite' are two words that should never be used to describe Boston drivers. NYC drivers may not be better, but at least you have straight, wide avenues to maneuver in.
It's safer- crime's a fraction of NYC
Don't know about that one...I haven't been mugged in either city, even after spending the night in Central Park.
By the time Linuxworld gets here, the Big Dig will be totally done and traffic smooth- and you'll be able to get to Boston downtown from the airport in a matter of maybe 5-10 minutes, and out of the city in 15. Try that in NYC.
Did you RTFA? They're not talking about LinuxWorld 2050. Yes, PARTS of the Big Dig are done. But phrases like 'the Bid Dig will be totally done' should be followed by phrases like 'not in our lifetime.'
Boston/eastern MA is the birthplace of the revolution. 30 minutes out from Boston is Concord, MA- the first major battle in the revolution.
Very true. Lot's of great history in the area.
Boston actually has charm. NYC has nothing but rudeness, dirt, crime, overpopulation...
That's 100% opinion. Personally, I don't get Boston charm, but I won't deny it exists.
Where else can you take a tour that's half on land, half on water, SAME vehicle? Hmm?
If you're into that short of thing...
Museum of Science. Museum of Fine Arts. New England Aquarium. Quincy Market. Fanuel Hall. Old Meetinghouse church.
Seriously dude. You do not want to get into a culture war with NYC. Boston has lots of great stuff to see and do, but it isn't in the same league. Example, Quincy Market is a mall. A friggin' mall! That's your great attraction? What is this, New Jersey? Although the NE Aquarium r0x0rs.
MIT. Harvard. Tufts. BC. BU. Northeastern. In fact, MA as a whole has more colleges than any other state- something like 220 total.
Our subway costs HALF yours. The system may be dirty+unpredictable, but did I mention it costs half?
I guess you get what you pay for. The Boston subway doesn't cover half the area the NYC system does and runs for about half as long. Bars closing, clubs letting out...good thing you got that great parking space, cause the buses and trains are all in dream land.
Our mayor doesn't suck. In fact, he gets re-elected. Imagine that. He also doesn't support a police department that beats up minorities and officers that get routinely arrested for drunk driving.
Of course, the Boston FBI is playing look-out for the local mob and will hide evidence proving you're innocence while you do 30 years for murder. I don't think either city has much to be proud of in law enforcement
In the end, welcome to Boston, I'm sure it'll be a great move for LinuxWorld and the city. But in the end, Boston doesn't have the hotel rooms, the mass transit, or the titty bars to be a world-class convention destination.
Strange; one year during summer vacation, I lived in a basement with no windows and no clocks -- my body quickly changed to a 36-hour cycle. I was alseep for 13 hours, then awake for 23.
Wouldn't your clock reset when you left your parents' basement?
It is very unfortunate that the train isn't the less expensive choice, but it may be the most time-efficient one.
Ah, you'd think that would be true. Going from downtown Boston to mid-town Manhattan by plane, you have to get out to Logan, fly, then get into Manhattan by cab from Queens or Newark. The train, on the other hand, is direct city to city.
But you'd be wrong. A couple different Boston media outlets have run tests, and even with the extra cab rides out to Logan and in from Laguardia, the plane guy always beats the train guy. (I think they always do this without checking baggage.)
The only advantage to the train is not shutting off all electronics for take-off and landing and no post-9/11 anal prob security to get to the gate.
But this is the good ole US of A. The most time-efficient and (short term) cost effective mode of transport between Boston and NYC is also the most environmentally unfriendly--drive a car.
BTW, the trains between Boston and NYC are not every 15 mins--more like every hour. About as often as the air shuttles.
Ruth Hamilton of The Yorkhill NHS Trust told an amusing variant in which a lawyer, an accountant and a physicist are discussing, over a beer, whether life is better with a wife or with a girlfriend.
"A wife is better," declares the lawyer, "because of the family support and the help she'll be to your career."
"Nonsense," says the accountant. "A girlfriend is better: you can keep your independence and go out with your friends more."
They turn to the physicist, who says, "It's better to have both. That way, the wife thinks you're with the girlfriend, the girlfriend thinks you're with the wife, and meanwhile you can be down at the lab!"
Absurd! The accountant will say the wife-- she's tax deducible.
The story isn't about India==Bad, it's about going to your class in making buggy whips and the teacher passes you in an automobile.
It's about MIT ripping these students (and the US tax payer through government loans, grants, etc) to the tune of US$150,000+ while helping to devalue the degree those students earn.
And it is also example of how stupid the 'company M contracts company S who out-sources to country I based on blindly following consultant G' business model is.
Not only does MIT have a stable of cheap labor in house (ie, students), but heck, those students might have actually learned something in the process, enhancing MIT's product. And might have done better then a couple million dollars just to serve up static HTML.
The main idea is not India==Bad, but that everyday we read about PHBs making decisions that sounds like something right out of Dilbert, but we'd expect a little better from what is supposed to be one of the country's leading education and research institutions.
There (unfortunately) isn't anything out of the ordinary here. But I know if I spent the money, and did the work, to get an MIT degree and didn't get anything out of the ordinary, I'd be kinda pissed.
In case of slashdotting.
No favors
They've decided to go it alone, without venture capital. Meet some Israeli bootstrap start-ups.
Batya Feldman
1 Dec 0316:54
In recent years, there have been quite a few entrepreneurs wandering around with good ideas (at least in their heads), but unable to raise capital. There are no more angels willing to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars. The number of venture capital funds making seed investments has sharply contracted, and those still willing to invest do so only after long and painstaking study, especially in cases of entrepreneurs without prior experience.
The chasm between the supply of technology entrepreneurs and the demand for them is evidence that the great high-tech and venture capital crisis did not suppress the spirit of the average Israeli entrepreneur. Last week, Walden Israel general partner Eyal Kaplan told "Globes" that following a lecture at the Israel Center for Management (MIL) start-up forum, he was handed 17 business plans by new companies seeking financing. The situation is similar at other funds that have announced plans to make seed investments.
But it turns out that there is another way, too: "bootstrap companies" in the venture capital jargon. These are entrepreneurs who simply go it alone rather than making the rounds from one venture capital fund to another. To those who wonder, the phrase originated in the tales of Baron Munchausen, who described how he saved himself from drowning by using his own bootstraps. Translated into the language of high-tech, the concept refers to a company that finances itself. No venture capital and no directors. Can you imagine?
It was possible to find such Israeli companies in the late 1980s and early 1990s, before the domestic venture capital industry began to flourish. Dov Moran's M-Systems Flash Disk Pioneers (Nasdaq: FLSH) and Yanki Margalit's Aladdin Knowledge Systems (Nasdaq: ALDN) were just two of the companies that established themselves almost without external financing. They developed an idea, then a product, and initial sales were miniscule. Company growth was directly related to success on the market.
"The funds were in the bunker"
Nir Ben-Halevy and Oren Rossen are the entrepreneurs and sole employees of start-up Huminity. Rossen was previously an analyst at Investec Israel (TASE:INSI) and Ben-Halevey was a member of the high-tech team at Deloitte and Touche - Brightman Almagor. Over a year ago, they decided to found a company based on the concept of a social networking product that combines chat and instant messaging, enabling users to share their personal networks.
After a brief round among the venture capital funds, they realized that they could not raise money and decided to go it alone. Ben-Halevy reminisces, "A year ago, it was simply impossible to raise money from the funds. They had gone down into the bunker. We believed that if we had a working product, their attitude might change. We believed that we could get it up and running on our own."
Ben-Halevy and Rossen left everything behind, moved to Turkey to lower costs and for the past year dedicated themselves to developing the product. Last month, they announced that they had raised $2 million, at a company value of $10 million, after money, from the same venture capital funds they had approached previously. The deal is now being closed. This time, they came to the funds with a working product and 400,000 registered users.
"We did everything very cheaply. We developed the product on an open source code system. It's true that Oracle's (Nasdaq:ORCL) system is more stable, but on the other hand we don't pay a $5,000 a month license fee," says Ben-Halevy. Huminity's open code-based product also allows the company to obtain the help of the operators com
What is important as consumers of media is to realise that behind every news item may well be slanted toward the leanings of whoever presents it.
Yes, that is very important. What I love most about the whole 'liberal media' myth is, we all know about it because the story was reported by the media that was supposedly so biased!
(Media (in the sense of television, newspapers, et al) are biased, but not in a liberal/conservative way. It's all about the benjamins. CREAM.)
I can't prove the existence of God any more than you can prove we evolved from apes.
That's the difference between a sensable person and a raving nut job.
Just because belief in the existence of god is an article of faith does not mean all beliefs are faith-based. And just because one unproven thing is unprovable does not mean all unproven things are unprovable.
The existence of god cannot be proven. It's not an issue of current technology or knowledge. As the old argument goes; god depends on faith. If you prove god exists, that would remove faith involved in believing in god, and hence god would cease to be.
Direct evolution of humans from other primates, even if not proven at this time, could be proven (or conclusively disproven) at some point with the proper technology. The probability of human evolution has nothing to with its provability. Improbable events happen all the time. Many things that have favorable probability don't happen.
And the line from War Games is, "The only winning move is not to play."
None of which has anything to do with water on the moon.
I wanted pictures, so I went with quality and got a great photographer and great pictures. If you don't want a photographer or professional-quality pictures, don't get 'em. You'll never over pay if you don't buy what you don't want.
You wife on the other hand...how much did you pay for her? (j/k!! oh, I'm gonna pay for that...)
1)Typical vig on a residential sale is 5-6%. So a good agent is looking at 2.5%, maybe 3, but most likely 2.5 or less because of competition from real estate web sites. So the agent may get 5% for covering both the selling and buying sides. Which isn't that hard to pull off--most folks don't know about buyer-agents, and most agents will 'discount' the commission (only take 2.5% rather than the full 5%) if the work both ends to help the sale go through. (When you're working 100% commission, just because each sale is big doesn't mean you don't worry about that next sale. Especially in a biz as seasonal as residential real eastate.)
The cheapest price they could find for a wedding photographer was $1200 in the Houston area. They didn't want to pay that so they got the UH school paper photographer to come and do it for $200!
LOL! I hope the happy couple have a good sense of humor. When they get their pics back, they may wish they paid a little more.
What many people are missing is, you aren't paying thousands of dollars for someone to stand around and shoot pictures. Any idiot can do that for $200.
To some small extent you are paying for access to better equipment. But mostly, you are paying for expertise. Those pics will have to be processed--some areas will have too much light, some will be in shadows.
Ever tried to take a picture of a colorful sunset? How about a sunset with something in the shadows in the foreground? How did the pic turned out? Not at all like you remembered the scene? Yeah, cause it takes skill to get that crap to look good.
Let us know how the school paper photographer did when the pics gets back.
I have a great shot from my wedding of the bride and I walking off into the sunset. The proof, before the phorographer earned his money, is our backs, in the shadows, facing a dull, washed-out sky.
The picture in the album has all the colors of the sunset in perfect detail, while at the same time we are well lit, in focus, and not over-shadowed.
It isn't because he had a midrange digital camera, took 100s of pics, and happened to have one good one. It's because he has skill. And I gladly paid for the benefit of that skill.
I'll post a scan of my sunset pic, you post yours. Then we can see who sucks. (Btw, my wedding photographer was so far from being a jerk, my sister-in-law hired him for her wedding a year later.)
Plus, for the unenlightened (including the original article's author) think about what a photographer actually does.
In addition to the highly skilled work in developing the pictures, there's the hard manual labor of 6-8 hours on his feet, lugging around many pounds of eq. (Not to mention the thousands of dollars that eq cost.)
Oh, and btw, after the developing and printing is done, something has to be done with all those chemicals. You can't just pour that stuff down the drain.
I paid $3k for a wedding photographer in New England, and I feel like I ripped him off! (He did raise prices after I signed my contract.)
Well, sure. Any idiot can over pay any other idiot.
My wedding photographer ($3k in New England, btw) is giving us the negatives. He keeps them for 3 years and then hands them off, no extra change. I have and will gladly for reprints cause he was way underpaid (for the market) for the original job.
Photocopy my prints? Why would I photocopy a picture? Scan my pics? Well, yes, I asked if I could (I'd want someone to ask me if they wanted to use my code), and he had no problem. I have scans up on my website. His only request was I put his name in a watermark somewhere in the pic.
Digital versions? Well, I have my high-res scans, but the photographer actually just went digital. It was after my wedding, but he also shot my sister-in-law's wedding. She's down south; wedding and photographer are up north. All the proofs are on line for the happy couple (and family) to see.
I don't remember any clause about our pics in his portfolio, but if he wanted to, we'd have no problem. And if we requested he didn't, I'm sure he would have no problem with that.
Just cause some people do a horrible job when comes to hiring a wedding photographer doesn't mean all photogrphers are crooks.
Slashdot Mirror
Good thing it's a quiet week between x-mas and new years and the boss is out of the office, cause I think I'll be laughing periodically for the rest of the day.
thanks.
You may be surprised, but rather than admit ignorance I'll just say that sentence is meaningless.
You hid an ipod battery up your ass for two years??
Wouldn't it be easier to use pennies?
Boston vs NYC:
As someone from NY, now living just outside of Boston...
- Parking is easier(believe it or not)
- Boston drivers may be insane, but they're reasonably polite. NYC drivers are suicidal- and downright mean.
- It's safer- crime's a fraction of NYC
- By the time Linuxworld gets here, the Big Dig will be totally done and traffic smooth- and you'll be able to get to Boston downtown from the airport in a matter of maybe 5-10 minutes, and out of the city in 15. Try that in NYC.
- Boston/eastern MA is the birthplace of the revolution. 30 minutes out from Boston is Concord, MA- the first major battle in the revolution.
- Boston actually has charm. NYC has nothing but rudeness, dirt, crime, overpopulation...
- Where else can you take a tour that's half on land, half on water, SAME vehicle? Hmm?
- Museum of Science. Museum of Fine Arts. New England Aquarium. Quincy Market. Fanuel Hall. Old Meetinghouse church.
- MIT. Harvard. Tufts. BC. BU. Northeastern. In fact, MA as a whole has more colleges than any other state- something like 220 total.
- Our subway costs HALF yours. The system may be dirty+unpredictable, but did I mention it costs half?
- Our mayor doesn't suck. In fact, he gets re-elected. Imagine that. He also doesn't support a police department that beats up minorities and officers that get routinely arrested for drunk driving.
In the end, welcome to Boston, I'm sure it'll be a great move for LinuxWorld and the city. But in the end, Boston doesn't have the hotel rooms, the mass transit, or the titty bars to be a world-class convention destination.Not true. It isn't easier, or cheaper, and you're more likely to need parking in Boston because of the inadequate mass transit system.
That's an outright lie. 'Reasonable' and 'polite' are two words that should never be used to describe Boston drivers. NYC drivers may not be better, but at least you have straight, wide avenues to maneuver in.
Don't know about that one...I haven't been mugged in either city, even after spending the night in Central Park.
Did you RTFA? They're not talking about LinuxWorld 2050. Yes, PARTS of the Big Dig are done. But phrases like 'the Bid Dig will be totally done' should be followed by phrases like 'not in our lifetime.'
Very true. Lot's of great history in the area.
That's 100% opinion. Personally, I don't get Boston charm, but I won't deny it exists.
If you're into that short of thing...
Seriously dude. You do not want to get into a culture war with NYC. Boston has lots of great stuff to see and do, but it isn't in the same league. Example, Quincy Market is a mall. A friggin' mall! That's your great attraction? What is this, New Jersey? Although the NE Aquarium r0x0rs.
I guess you get what you pay for. The Boston subway doesn't cover half the area the NYC system does and runs for about half as long. Bars closing, clubs letting out...good thing you got that great parking space, cause the buses and trains are all in dream land.
Of course, the Boston FBI is playing look-out for the local mob and will hide evidence proving you're innocence while you do 30 years for murder. I don't think either city has much to be proud of in law enforcement
Wouldn't your clock reset when you left your parents' basement?
[pause]
Nevermind.
Ah, you'd think that would be true. Going from downtown Boston to mid-town Manhattan by plane, you have to get out to Logan, fly, then get into Manhattan by cab from Queens or Newark. The train, on the other hand, is direct city to city.
But you'd be wrong. A couple different Boston media outlets have run tests, and even with the extra cab rides out to Logan and in from Laguardia, the plane guy always beats the train guy. (I think they always do this without checking baggage.)
The only advantage to the train is not shutting off all electronics for take-off and landing and no post-9/11 anal prob security to get to the gate.
But this is the good ole US of A. The most time-efficient and (short term) cost effective mode of transport between Boston and NYC is also the most environmentally unfriendly--drive a car.
BTW, the trains between Boston and NYC are not every 15 mins--more like every hour. About as often as the air shuttles.
Download kiddie pr0n, send spam, launch a DoS attack...in short, the types of things that can get you in trouble.
Seriously, jokers like you ruin the internet for the rest of us. "So I'm running an open relay, what's the worst they can do?" Dipshit.
Absurd! The accountant will say the wife-- she's tax deducible.
The story isn't about India==Bad, it's about going to your class in making buggy whips and the teacher passes you in an automobile.
It's about MIT ripping these students (and the US tax payer through government loans, grants, etc) to the tune of US$150,000+ while helping to devalue the degree those students earn.
And it is also example of how stupid the 'company M contracts company S who out-sources to country I based on blindly following consultant G' business model is.
Not only does MIT have a stable of cheap labor in house (ie, students), but heck, those students might have actually learned something in the process, enhancing MIT's product. And might have done better then a couple million dollars just to serve up static HTML.
The main idea is not India==Bad, but that everyday we read about PHBs making decisions that sounds like something right out of Dilbert, but we'd expect a little better from what is supposed to be one of the country's leading education and research institutions.
There (unfortunately) isn't anything out of the ordinary here. But I know if I spent the money, and did the work, to get an MIT degree and didn't get anything out of the ordinary, I'd be kinda pissed.
In case of slashdotting. No favors They've decided to go it alone, without venture capital. Meet some Israeli bootstrap start-ups. Batya Feldman 1 Dec 0316:54 In recent years, there have been quite a few entrepreneurs wandering around with good ideas (at least in their heads), but unable to raise capital. There are no more angels willing to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars. The number of venture capital funds making seed investments has sharply contracted, and those still willing to invest do so only after long and painstaking study, especially in cases of entrepreneurs without prior experience.
The chasm between the supply of technology entrepreneurs and the demand for them is evidence that the great high-tech and venture capital crisis did not suppress the spirit of the average Israeli entrepreneur. Last week, Walden Israel general partner Eyal Kaplan told "Globes" that following a lecture at the Israel Center for Management (MIL) start-up forum, he was handed 17 business plans by new companies seeking financing. The situation is similar at other funds that have announced plans to make seed investments.
But it turns out that there is another way, too: "bootstrap companies" in the venture capital jargon. These are entrepreneurs who simply go it alone rather than making the rounds from one venture capital fund to another. To those who wonder, the phrase originated in the tales of Baron Munchausen, who described how he saved himself from drowning by using his own bootstraps. Translated into the language of high-tech, the concept refers to a company that finances itself. No venture capital and no directors. Can you imagine?
It was possible to find such Israeli companies in the late 1980s and early 1990s, before the domestic venture capital industry began to flourish. Dov Moran's M-Systems Flash Disk Pioneers (Nasdaq: FLSH) and Yanki Margalit's Aladdin Knowledge Systems (Nasdaq: ALDN) were just two of the companies that established themselves almost without external financing. They developed an idea, then a product, and initial sales were miniscule. Company growth was directly related to success on the market.
"The funds were in the bunker"
Nir Ben-Halevy and Oren Rossen are the entrepreneurs and sole employees of start-up Huminity. Rossen was previously an analyst at Investec Israel (TASE:INSI) and Ben-Halevey was a member of the high-tech team at Deloitte and Touche - Brightman Almagor. Over a year ago, they decided to found a company based on the concept of a social networking product that combines chat and instant messaging, enabling users to share their personal networks.
After a brief round among the venture capital funds, they realized that they could not raise money and decided to go it alone. Ben-Halevy reminisces, "A year ago, it was simply impossible to raise money from the funds. They had gone down into the bunker. We believed that if we had a working product, their attitude might change. We believed that we could get it up and running on our own."
Ben-Halevy and Rossen left everything behind, moved to Turkey to lower costs and for the past year dedicated themselves to developing the product. Last month, they announced that they had raised $2 million, at a company value of $10 million, after money, from the same venture capital funds they had approached previously. The deal is now being closed. This time, they came to the funds with a working product and 400,000 registered users.
"We did everything very cheaply. We developed the product on an open source code system. It's true that Oracle's (Nasdaq:ORCL) system is more stable, but on the other hand we don't pay a $5,000 a month license fee," says Ben-Halevy. Huminity's open code-based product also allows the company to obtain the help of the operators com
Of course there is air in space.
There's an air in space museum.
"Is this shirt clean enough to wear again?"
/.
Oh, I forgot...this is
Shut up and drive.
wouldn't it be mp3.mp3.com.com?
Yes, that is very important. What I love most about the whole 'liberal media' myth is, we all know about it because the story was reported by the media that was supposedly so biased!
(Media (in the sense of television, newspapers, et al) are biased, but not in a liberal/conservative way. It's all about the benjamins. CREAM.)
So what you're saying is, the "media" doesn't exist!
That's the difference between a sensable person and a raving nut job.
Just because belief in the existence of god is an article of faith does not mean all beliefs are faith-based. And just because one unproven thing is unprovable does not mean all unproven things are unprovable.
The existence of god cannot be proven. It's not an issue of current technology or knowledge. As the old argument goes; god depends on faith. If you prove god exists, that would remove faith involved in believing in god, and hence god would cease to be.
Direct evolution of humans from other primates, even if not proven at this time, could be proven (or conclusively disproven) at some point with the proper technology. The probability of human evolution has nothing to with its provability. Improbable events happen all the time. Many things that have favorable probability don't happen.
And the line from War Games is, "The only winning move is not to play."
None of which has anything to do with water on the moon.
Which is why the post read sealed as in closed, and not isolated.
Besides, how does the sunlight replace water?
What we should do is power the ships by oxidizing hydrogen. When they reach the moon, they can drink the waste.
Evolt.org
The HTML Writers Guild: www.hwg.org
The Association of Internet Professionals went tits up, but many of the local associations are still active.
The Society of Internet Professionals: www.sipgroup.org
I wanted pictures, so I went with quality and got a great photographer and great pictures. If you don't want a photographer or professional-quality pictures, don't get 'em. You'll never over pay if you don't buy what you don't want.
You wife on the other hand...how much did you pay for her? (j/k!! oh, I'm gonna pay for that...)
1)Typical vig on a residential sale is 5-6%. So a good agent is looking at 2.5%, maybe 3, but most likely 2.5 or less because of competition from real estate web sites. So the agent may get 5% for covering both the selling and buying sides. Which isn't that hard to pull off--most folks don't know about buyer-agents, and most agents will 'discount' the commission (only take 2.5% rather than the full 5%) if the work both ends to help the sale go through. (When you're working 100% commission, just because each sale is big doesn't mean you don't worry about that next sale. Especially in a biz as seasonal as residential real eastate.)
LOL! I hope the happy couple have a good sense of humor. When they get their pics back, they may wish they paid a little more.
What many people are missing is, you aren't paying thousands of dollars for someone to stand around and shoot pictures. Any idiot can do that for $200.
To some small extent you are paying for access to better equipment. But mostly, you are paying for expertise. Those pics will have to be processed--some areas will have too much light, some will be in shadows.
Ever tried to take a picture of a colorful sunset? How about a sunset with something in the shadows in the foreground? How did the pic turned out? Not at all like you remembered the scene? Yeah, cause it takes skill to get that crap to look good.
Let us know how the school paper photographer did when the pics gets back.
Bullshit. I'm calling you out, swv3752.
I have a great shot from my wedding of the bride and I walking off into the sunset. The proof, before the phorographer earned his money, is our backs, in the shadows, facing a dull, washed-out sky.
The picture in the album has all the colors of the sunset in perfect detail, while at the same time we are well lit, in focus, and not over-shadowed.
It isn't because he had a midrange digital camera, took 100s of pics, and happened to have one good one. It's because he has skill. And I gladly paid for the benefit of that skill.
I'll post a scan of my sunset pic, you post yours. Then we can see who sucks. (Btw, my wedding photographer was so far from being a jerk, my sister-in-law hired him for her wedding a year later.)
Plus, for the unenlightened (including the original article's author) think about what a photographer actually does.
In addition to the highly skilled work in developing the pictures, there's the hard manual labor of 6-8 hours on his feet, lugging around many pounds of eq. (Not to mention the thousands of dollars that eq cost.)
Oh, and btw, after the developing and printing is done, something has to be done with all those chemicals. You can't just pour that stuff down the drain.
I paid $3k for a wedding photographer in New England, and I feel like I ripped him off! (He did raise prices after I signed my contract.)
Well, sure. Any idiot can over pay any other idiot.
My wedding photographer ($3k in New England, btw) is giving us the negatives. He keeps them for 3 years and then hands them off, no extra change. I have and will gladly for reprints cause he was way underpaid (for the market) for the original job.
Photocopy my prints? Why would I photocopy a picture? Scan my pics? Well, yes, I asked if I could (I'd want someone to ask me if they wanted to use my code), and he had no problem. I have scans up on my website. His only request was I put his name in a watermark somewhere in the pic.
Digital versions? Well, I have my high-res scans, but the photographer actually just went digital. It was after my wedding, but he also shot my sister-in-law's wedding. She's down south; wedding and photographer are up north. All the proofs are on line for the happy couple (and family) to see.
I don't remember any clause about our pics in his portfolio, but if he wanted to, we'd have no problem. And if we requested he didn't, I'm sure he would have no problem with that.
Just cause some people do a horrible job when comes to hiring a wedding photographer doesn't mean all photogrphers are crooks.