Most millionaires are first generation in the USA.
I suppose it's no coincidence that for every new millionaire, there are many new poor and/or people who should qualify for bankruptcy.. I wonder where all those millionaires are coming from?
The influx of goods and money allowing that balance to remain a zero-sum game can only go on so long.. and we're reaching a point where the instability of markets like this one are causing the scales to tip.
I've been curious for quite some time as to which direction this will send us.
Careful, now. You are practically begging someone to cut 'n paste that trite passage from Ayn Rand. I've never even read the book, and I think I could paraphrase it pretty well just from reading/.
While so much of her writing is way off the mark, on that particular subject she was spot on. She saw that sort of behavior for what it is: unabashed desire for absolute power.
So while people may get sick of seeing it, on that point I think it's a good quote to remember.. I will spare you the cut'n'paste, however:)
Oh they didn't forget about it, they are trying to brainwash people into believing Fair Use means not owning what you paid for.
Well.. and propogandizing the general public to believe that well, while you DO have fair use rights, only criminals actually use them and you're not a criminal, are you? You COULD use fair use rights, but wouldn't you feel BETTER about yourself to pay for the exact same media 7 times because we've made it illegal for you to format shift?
Agghhhhh... sometimes I want to puke. And people really swallow this stuff, too, I didn't believe it once but after some rather.. uncomfortable conversations.. with people I find otherwise ridiculously brilliant, my faith in humanity has reached a new low.
By the way, your sig says you spend your entertainment dollars elsewhere for 7 years.. 7 years!! Nice work. Where do you spend it?
I know some people like this personally. If they could make it illegal for you to breathe without paying, they would do so and see it as their god-given right.
And when you vehemently disagreed, you would be accused of being a Communist, a thief, a scourge upon the world who is unwilling to pay his fair share of what everyone else works hard to provide. And the whole of society would accept that dogma, and it would become 'normal', never to be discussed again.
And replace 'air' with 'music' or 'food' or 'water' and you have the same argument. We're all prisoners, and we can see the bars, but we aren't like most prisoners who want freedom, no - we love our bars, and we feel safer behind them.
There is some benefit to having hate speech in the open. When it is in broad daylight, you can see who is involved, and they are more likely to get cocky and cross the line. Otherwise they go underground and become subversive. This is not a good situation. Wackos speaking in broad daylight look like wackos. Wackos driven underground look like 'rebels' and gain support.
To me, that is so intuitive that it is blindingly obvious, and I have often wondered why governments don't understand that. There is little to be gained by playing a cat-and-mouse game of "who can beat who next" in terms of who gets disappeared versus who the next big leader of the 'rebels' is. Let the public decide how wacko those people are. In 99.9999% of cases the public will deal with the wackos; in the tiny percentage where those wackos may have a point, the society gains something. And in neither case is the society itself ever in any real danger.
But then, we've long since know that logic and reason have little to do with why anyone does anything...
realize that the American people won't take this stuff any more,
And upon what do you base this assertion? The American people have shown time and time again that they'll accept any injustice, no matter how grave, so long as their bread and circuses aren't endangered.
They wanted to ensure that the citizens would not be subject to surveillance, interference, or harrasment by a tyrannical government...or at least that was the spirit of the whole "free country" concept.
Freedom is slavery, Comrade.. slavery is freedom.
The notion of a free society is long dead. Sometimes I can't escape the overwhelming sense that I'm imprisoned in a world from which I scream to escape, only to find myself further enclosed by the walls that do not go away...
Once the illusions fall away, what is left is generally so frightening that either you go mad or you lose all will to fight.
They don't need to know my checking account number. All it takes is for them to mangle a payment and deduct $200 instead of $100, and checks all go bouncy bouncy, potentially costing me hundreds of dollars in overdraft fees and penalties from other payees.
The law is on your side in that case. Payees are not authorized to withdraw anything other than the hand written value on the check - not the numbers, the actual words. So long as you write your checks correctly, if Comcast takes any other dollar amount, they are liable for every dollar you lose as a result - fees, bounced payments, you name it.
'Course, getting them to admit they made a mistake and pay up would be the hard part, but if it were to actually go to court a judge would laugh them all the way to the bank.
That said, I have never had a problem with Comcast deducting the right amount. They use a 3rd party EFT processor to do their check payments.
Choose another ISP than Comcast. Convince your friends, family and relatives to use something else. (you should of course also convince them to not use IE:) )
Tell that to the 60,000 residents of my city who are offered no other alternative than Comcast.
Honestly, that response irks me. Many of the cable providers have monopolies in their areas, and if they don't have monopolies in fact, they negotiate with the various real estate management agencies to make sure only their service is offered in apartment complexes, condos, housing projects, etc.
This whole free market thing is nowhere to be found where cable is concerned.
The techs like to use a CD installer which uses Internet Explorer to configure the cable modem. In my experience, however, it doesn't actually appear to be necessary. I've gone through the process twice, and I just stay on the phone with a tech and give them some numbers from the bottom of the modem and they configure it remotely. No need for a CD-based installer.
Although I'm running Windows XP, and I have been a Comcast customer for nearly 3 years, I have never once used the install CD's - they've always configured my cable modem remotely. Never had a problem.
That installer that requires IE doesn't appear to actually be necessary.
Um, except... people DO win the lottery, some people do win at a casino and then have the brains to get up and leave, and people who don't have everything they wish they could have aren't "oppressed." People DO live the dream. Not everyone does or is equipped to.
And that's the grand delusion of it all, and it's exactly what the GPP meant: Some people DO live the dream; but much if not most of the American (and most of the developed world, really) way of life is predicated on the idea that YOU CAN TOO, if you're lucky enough or work hard enough.
But as you so eloquently point out, no they can't. The vast majority can't, but they try, because someone else has. It's what keeps us working, and supposedly moving forward.
It's also what keeps us blind to the many things that will never work the way we think they do - patents and copyright, for one.
We're incapable of conceptualizing in their entirety, our own inventions. It's an interesting conceptual limitation.
We don't want to give up smoking, we expect someone to make tobacco healthy somehow. We don't want to give up cars, we expect engines to magically become completely non-polluting and the packed city streets to clear miraculously. We don't want to save power, someone will figure out how to stop and reverse global warming. We don't want to give up stuffing our faces, it's the damn fructose's fault, they should make a better fructose.
Self-delusion, the greatest show on Earth.
I feel exactly the same way when I see people post things like "the only solution to this problem is technological." No, technology created the problem, and your behavior exacerbates it. Changing your behavior IS part of the solution but hey, as long as we're depending on technology to solve all our problems for us let's just start believing in magic pixie dust and prey that everyone suddenly starts singing Cum-ba-ya.
The real solution is just a good diet - different meats/veggies/etc. in at least dinner, and cooked yourself. That, and at least some movement in a day, and you'll be hard pressed to gain weight. (This means visiting McDonalds when need it, not when you want it...) I eat fast food/restaurant two, maybe three times a month. Lay off the fast food/restaurants, the cokes, and the honey buns, and you'll be fine. Moderation - that's all it takes.
The only time I ever eat fast food anymore is when I'm traveling and it's unrealistic to bring a cooler of veggies along to make my own sandwich. Sworn off soda and sugary breakfast foods.. It's amazing how much better I've felt. Mix in a good workout 3 times a week and by god, I can finally sleep again.
For quite some time, sleep was an enemy of mine I simply couldn't run from..
If you've never done it, go low-carb for a month. For many Americans, you can kind of cheat on this by simply not drinking sweet drinks and not eating candy or other sweets for a month -- you don't have to go full anti-bread and pasta and rice. Cut out diet drinks too and just drink water or unsweetened tea.
Somewhere over the course of this month, you will begin to realize just how much sugar is hidden in fast food. McDonalds and Burger King buns as well as Pizza Hut pizza sauce taste repulsively sweet once you're no longer used to a certain minimum amount of sugar in each meal. I've tried to avoid fast food ever since I did this a few years ago by accident when I tried to switch to only drinking water to save money and lose weight. It's really obscene.
My girlfriend and I have sworn off soda as a staple; I've only had it twice in the past 3 months. Each time I've had it, I had the sense of it being an extremely unfulfilling experience. The sugar is just too much and there's nothing in it that my body seems to want. It doesn't taste very good anymore.
It's interesting how the experience changes once your body is no longer addicted to high-fructose corn syrup and your liver is no longer going wacko trying to keep up the insulin production.
Any time a corporation tries to state that less competition is better for the consumer, they're lying through their teeth.
My favorite is when they try to pass off their monopoly as "competition." Lately there have been ads on Comcast talking about how "When cable companies compete, you win." Uhh, yeah, except none of them are competing. They've carved out their niches and they guard them very carefully.
Movies though are very expensive to make, and I could see where they would want longer time periods.
Another issue that could up though is big corporations using your work to make millions of dollars. If Star Wars copyright expired after 14 years, anybody in the world could left frames from the movie and do their own "promotions" whenever the next movie came out. Scenes from the original could be plastered on fast food soda cups all over the world just in time for the next movie release.
Hey! No copying your own comments from Ars:D
Seriously though I think people over there did address well how this relates more to trademark than to copyright. If the people who own Star Wars still have a vested interest in the characters created, they can trademark them. If they don't bother to do that, it's a fair assumption that they don't have enough interest in them to CARE if someone smacks them on a cup.
The FBI is trying to find people breaking the law? This must be stopped!!!
No, they're trying to find out IF people have broken the law. If they know or suspect they already have, they can get a warrant for the search. Otherwise, what they're doing is illegal and immoral.
What they're engaging in is essentially no better than a witch hunt. Don't call it gravy when you know perfectly well it's barf.
Actually, I don t think it is human nature. It's just the nature of the sort of people who seek offices of power. Those who seek power are almost always people who desire to control others. There are many such as myself who don t wish to control others, but simply want to be able to reasonably run their own lives and let others run theirs.
While I agree, the distinction is somewhat academic. It's a behavior to be completely anticipated from those who occupy those positions, and so is reasonable to restrict that power as much as possible.
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I suppose it's no coincidence that for every new millionaire, there are many new poor and/or people who should qualify for bankruptcy.. I wonder where all those millionaires are coming from?
The influx of goods and money allowing that balance to remain a zero-sum game can only go on so long.. and we're reaching a point where the instability of markets like this one are causing the scales to tip.
I've been curious for quite some time as to which direction this will send us.
While so much of her writing is way off the mark, on that particular subject she was spot on. She saw that sort of behavior for what it is: unabashed desire for absolute power.
So while people may get sick of seeing it, on that point I think it's a good quote to remember.. I will spare you the cut'n'paste, however
Well.. and propogandizing the general public to believe that well, while you DO have fair use rights, only criminals actually use them and you're not a criminal, are you? You COULD use fair use rights, but wouldn't you feel BETTER about yourself to pay for the exact same media 7 times because we've made it illegal for you to format shift?
Agghhhhh... sometimes I want to puke. And people really swallow this stuff, too, I didn't believe it once but after some rather.. uncomfortable conversations.. with people I find otherwise ridiculously brilliant, my faith in humanity has reached a new low.
By the way, your sig says you spend your entertainment dollars elsewhere for 7 years.. 7 years!! Nice work. Where do you spend it?
And when you vehemently disagreed, you would be accused of being a Communist, a thief, a scourge upon the world who is unwilling to pay his fair share of what everyone else works hard to provide. And the whole of society would accept that dogma, and it would become 'normal', never to be discussed again.
And replace 'air' with 'music' or 'food' or 'water' and you have the same argument. We're all prisoners, and we can see the bars, but we aren't like most prisoners who want freedom, no - we love our bars, and we feel safer behind them.
Crap. So now picking up a woman by whispering sweet nothings in her ear is a crime.
Well here are my wrists, haul me to jail!
To me, that is so intuitive that it is blindingly obvious, and I have often wondered why governments don't understand that. There is little to be gained by playing a cat-and-mouse game of "who can beat who next" in terms of who gets disappeared versus who the next big leader of the 'rebels' is. Let the public decide how wacko those people are. In 99.9999% of cases the public will deal with the wackos; in the tiny percentage where those wackos may have a point, the society gains something. And in neither case is the society itself ever in any real danger.
But then, we've long since know that logic and reason have little to do with why anyone does anything...
And upon what do you base this assertion? The American people have shown time and time again that they'll accept any injustice, no matter how grave, so long as their bread and circuses aren't endangered.
Freedom is slavery, Comrade.. slavery is freedom.
The notion of a free society is long dead. Sometimes I can't escape the overwhelming sense that I'm imprisoned in a world from which I scream to escape, only to find myself further enclosed by the walls that do not go away...
Once the illusions fall away, what is left is generally so frightening that either you go mad or you lose all will to fight.
I wish it were hilarious. It stopped being hilarious to me a long time ago.. these days I just get sick to my stomach.
The law is on your side in that case. Payees are not authorized to withdraw anything other than the hand written value on the check - not the numbers, the actual words. So long as you write your checks correctly, if Comcast takes any other dollar amount, they are liable for every dollar you lose as a result - fees, bounced payments, you name it.
'Course, getting them to admit they made a mistake and pay up would be the hard part, but if it were to actually go to court a judge would laugh them all the way to the bank.
That said, I have never had a problem with Comcast deducting the right amount. They use a 3rd party EFT processor to do their check payments.
Tell that to the 60,000 residents of my city who are offered no other alternative than Comcast.
Honestly, that response irks me. Many of the cable providers have monopolies in their areas, and if they don't have monopolies in fact, they negotiate with the various real estate management agencies to make sure only their service is offered in apartment complexes, condos, housing projects, etc.
This whole free market thing is nowhere to be found where cable is concerned.
You mean the Comcast.com webpage where you log in to pay your bill?
I've never used IE to pay my bill through that site - I've always used Firefox.. what website are you talking about?
The techs like to use a CD installer which uses Internet Explorer to configure the cable modem. In my experience, however, it doesn't actually appear to be necessary. I've gone through the process twice, and I just stay on the phone with a tech and give them some numbers from the bottom of the modem and they configure it remotely. No need for a CD-based installer.
Although I'm running Windows XP, and I have been a Comcast customer for nearly 3 years, I have never once used the install CD's - they've always configured my cable modem remotely. Never had a problem.
That installer that requires IE doesn't appear to actually be necessary.
And that's the grand delusion of it all, and it's exactly what the GPP meant: Some people DO live the dream; but much if not most of the American (and most of the developed world, really) way of life is predicated on the idea that YOU CAN TOO, if you're lucky enough or work hard enough.
But as you so eloquently point out, no they can't. The vast majority can't, but they try, because someone else has. It's what keeps us working, and supposedly moving forward.
It's also what keeps us blind to the many things that will never work the way we think they do - patents and copyright, for one.
We're incapable of conceptualizing in their entirety, our own inventions. It's an interesting conceptual limitation.
You are correct, thanks for the correction.
I feel exactly the same way when I see people post things like "the only solution to this problem is technological." No, technology created the problem, and your behavior exacerbates it. Changing your behavior IS part of the solution but hey, as long as we're depending on technology to solve all our problems for us let's just start believing in magic pixie dust and prey that everyone suddenly starts singing Cum-ba-ya.
The only time I ever eat fast food anymore is when I'm traveling and it's unrealistic to bring a cooler of veggies along to make my own sandwich. Sworn off soda and sugary breakfast foods.. It's amazing how much better I've felt. Mix in a good workout 3 times a week and by god, I can finally sleep again.
For quite some time, sleep was an enemy of mine I simply couldn't run from..
My girlfriend and I have sworn off soda as a staple; I've only had it twice in the past 3 months. Each time I've had it, I had the sense of it being an extremely unfulfilling experience. The sugar is just too much and there's nothing in it that my body seems to want. It doesn't taste very good anymore.
It's interesting how the experience changes once your body is no longer addicted to high-fructose corn syrup and your liver is no longer going wacko trying to keep up the insulin production.
My favorite is when they try to pass off their monopoly as "competition." Lately there have been ads on Comcast talking about how "When cable companies compete, you win." Uhh, yeah, except none of them are competing. They've carved out their niches and they guard them very carefully.
What a world worthy of pride have we built..
Hey! No copying your own comments from Ars
Seriously though I think people over there did address well how this relates more to trademark than to copyright. If the people who own Star Wars still have a vested interest in the characters created, they can trademark them. If they don't bother to do that, it's a fair assumption that they don't have enough interest in them to CARE if someone smacks them on a cup.
No, they just didn't let their wallets do the thinking for them. They actually had those old-fashioned whatchacallit.. ideals.
No, they're trying to find out IF people have broken the law. If they know or suspect they already have, they can get a warrant for the search. Otherwise, what they're doing is illegal and immoral.
What they're engaging in is essentially no better than a witch hunt. Don't call it gravy when you know perfectly well it's barf.
While I agree, the distinction is somewhat academic. It's a behavior to be completely anticipated from those who occupy those positions, and so is reasonable to restrict that power as much as possible.