Some people use the Internet to find new acquaintances or make new friends. Some people use the Internet to maintain relationships with existing friends. Doubtless many people do both.
I find myself in the second category. While I occasionally make acquaintances via the Internet, my primary mechanism for forming friendships is still meatspace. The Internet is tremendously helpful to me in maintaining relationships with friends who no longer live where I live. I can communicate with friends from my years on the East Coast, friends from my time in the military, college, and even back to high school.
The quality of that communication is up to the parties involved, but the mechanism is there. It is simply easier for me to send an email than it ever was to write a letter. A group of about eight or ten friends, spread all over the country, communicate via a small discussion group.
I think back to the early 1990s. I was geographically isolated for three years, far from anything or anyone familiar. The friends with whom I communicated most often were those who had email addresses, and there were many times when those email conversations boosted my spirits and helped me feel connected.
My feeling is that the Internet makes a wide array of communication possible - everything from the shallow smack-talking of game boards and in-game messaging to deep philosophical conversation and truly meaningful sharing of thoughts and feelings. As others in this discussion have suggested, how you use that technology is your own choice.
If I scan the organic results and don't find anything there, rather than moving to the second page, on occasion I'll click on a paid link. However, I only click on links that look reputable. A text ad that makes exorbitant claims or just seems like it's hucksterism won't get a click.
The advantage of well-done paid text links for the advertiser is that they can drive potential customers - people who are looking for exactly the sort of product/service you provide - to your site.
The advantage for users when such ads are done properly is that the user is likely to be fairly certain that ads coming out at the top of the list are going to be for sites that offer what the user is trying to find. It's a means of matching a buyer and a seller, rather than a way to trick potential customers into visiting a site.
To me there is nothing distasteful about advertising per se. Companies have to let people know they exist, or they'll have no customers. The use of innocuous, targeted text ads seems to me to be a good compromise between the needs of advertisers and the needs of web users. Even if a given ad link is only folllowed a very small percentage of the time, it can be worth it for the advertiser. At the same time, if I can ignore ads except when I want to scan them, as a web user I feel like I'm not being bashed over the head the way I do when I encounter popups and other bullshit from companies that just don't get it.
They rely on their reputation, and part of that reputation is the lack of annoyances.
What amazes me is that this is not more obvious to so many people in the business world. The Web really just a series of interconnected user experiences. The author of this WSJ piece seems to think Craigslist is wacky - just plumb daft! - for forgoing potential revenue in favor of taking care of customers. After all, if Craigslist is taking care of its employees and making money, why wouldn't it want to have 10x the employees and 20x the profits! Why wouldn't it want to control the world?!
This snarky little tidbit reveals how little Mr. Carney understands Craigslist, the Web, and customer satisfaction. At the end of the day, all he can think of is all of that (vaporous, as biendamon pointed out) potential profit that *someone* is missing out on:
Having taken advantage of their hospitality for the better part of an afternoon, I stand to take my leave, but my hosts insist on driving me back to my hotel. Once there, we say our good-byes and, belatedly, a thought occurs to me -- an afterthought, perhaps. If Craigslist does what its users ask of it, and Craigslist doesn't need or seem to want all the ad revenue it declines to collect, maybe we, as end-users, should ask them to post some banner ads and give us the money instead.
There's something wrong, I suppose, in that reasoning. But I like the idea.
Argh! Someone put some banner ads on Craigslist, and do it quick, before Carney gets an aneurysm!
Downloaders know what the perfect price for music is. It's free. The perfect price for film is also free. Money will be made through product placement and advertising.
I'm not so sure about that. If the user experience of watching a film is negatively affected by product placement and advertising, I may not even want to watch it. Free or not, if customers don't watch it, corporate sponsorship of the film won't provide the sponsors sufficient return on investment. A film made with eggregious product placement is not the same script filmed without product placements. For example, the magic of the second and third Matrix films was destroyed for me because of the annoying Cadillac, Ducati, and Samsung product placements.
Admittedly, I am probably more averse to over the top product placement than most moviegoers. However, if movies become essentially funded by brand corporations, their quality is bound to suffer. I suspect that there are quite a few consumers who are willing to spend money in order to avoid advertising. We already see this online, where companies offering services via the Web frequently have tiered pricing. Free with advertising or paid with no advertising? Take your pick.
If a content provider is able to deliver something that satisfies the consumer in a way that the free version does not, there is certainly a place for paid content. I can download the contents of The Wind in the Willows in PDF form, but I prefer to read books in the traditional dead tree format, so I'll probably buy it either at Amazon or at my local bookstore. Similarly, I can obtain the song "Still in Hollywood" by Concrete Blonde via a P2P network for free, but I'm not interested in opening up my computer to potential security problems, I don't like getting content from unreliable sources, and I know that even in the screwed-up RIAA-controlled world we live in, at least when I pay iTunes, the Concrete Blonde artists are at least getting something, however small the amount. iTunes also provides recommendations, staff picks, and other tools that provide value over a free service.
It seems to me that in the future there will be a wide variety of methods to access professional content, be it music, movies, games, or other forms of electronic entertainment. The RIAA/MPAA folks are used to having a stranglehold on distribution, but they're going to have to get used to a wide variety of forms of distribution, in order to accomodate a consumer market that is much less concentrated than it used to be. Some folks will still want to listen for free to the latest bubblegum pop via terrestrial radio. Some people will want high-bitrate downloads from an online music service, and will pay to get higher quality. Other consumers will put up with the vagaries of P2P networks and will get their music and movies that way. Your idea for advertiser-supported movies will likely catch on as well, and we may start to see differential pricing at the movie theater. Want to watch the latest Toyota-sponsored flick? Go to screen 1. Want to take in the latest Woody Allen movie? Screen 2 is for you.
Reporters Without Borders tested Chinese search engines by using the following "subversive" key words: "6-4" (4 June, date of the Tiananmen Square massacre), "Falungong", "Tibet Independence", "Democracy", "Human rights" and "press freedom". The first ten results displayed by each search engine were analysed and then divided into "authorized" and "unauthorized" sources of information.
This seems like a rather simplistic analysis to me. Are most Chinese citizens going to use such obvious terms to search for information about topics they know the government is attempting to block? My understanding of how Chinese citizens use the Internet is limited, so I'm likely off base. It just seems to me that most Chinese users of Yahoo would be gathering information using terms less likely to be aggressively filtered. A broader comparison might be more useful in determining just how aggressively each engine is filtering results.
The intellectual property industry and law enforcement officials estimate...
In other news, today The Big Bad Wolf announced that small children were causing serious damage to the forest ecosystem, and that in the future trespassing children would be punished more severely.
And just like the robber barons the 1800s, I have no doubt that Gates will be viewed as a wonderful benefactor of humanity a hundred years from now. Only the historians will remember how many people and companies he mercilessly crushed to create his fortune.
Free Software is about sharing. Open Source is about curiosity. I can do what I want with a truly Free piece of software, including repackaging and selling it. With Open Source, all I usually get to do is look at the code (curiosity), and if I see anything I want to fix, I usually have to give my fix back to the original owner.
There are something like 60 OSI-certified Open Source licenses, so discussing all of them as if they were the same only leads to confusion. In fact, the GPL is an OSI-certified Open Source license.
Also, Stallman's arguments about the GPL providing more freedom than other licenses aren't shared by everyone. The BSD license and other academic licenses have no reciprocality requirement. In that sense they are more free than the GPL, which has a strong reciprocity requirement. One interpretation I've heard is that the GPL reinforces community freedom, while the BSD license reinforces individual freedom.
I'm in my late 30s. I've been on the Internet for twelve or thirteen years, and I'm usually pretty aware of major Web trends. I've been using LinkedIn for some time, and while I don't find it earthshatteringly useful, from time to time I invite people into my LinkedIn network.
Just a couple of days ago, I invited one of my law school classmates, who is in his mid-20s. He jokingly replied to the invitation email, "What, you're too good for Facebook and MySpace?" He had never even heard of LinkedIn. By the same token, I had never even heard of MySpace or Facebook until the first Slashdot stories about them started appearing.
I thought about it some more, and realized that for me the Internet arrived after I had graduated from college. For most of my life to date, the Internet was not part of my existence. Someone in their mid-20s has likely been using the Internet since their teenage years or before. I wonder if in some sense this sort of juvenile behavior on the Net will be regarded in the future the way marijuana use and protesting in college was after the 1960s. Subsequent generations might not get a free pass, but this particular generation, because of its size alone, may. Employers, particularly in businesses where computer skills and creativity are required, may simply choose to gloss over or not inquire too deeply into someone's MySpace/Facebook past.
If history is any indicator, however, the subsequent generation will find the atmosphere much different, and they may be trained from an early age to mind their Ps and Qs on the Net.
Upon getting a job with a large corporation, I was amazed at the amount of BS there. It made the military look like an efficient & well-oiled machine.
I agree. After leaving the Army, I moved through several jobs. The nonprofit world was amazing. Determining accountability for anything was like trying to nail jello to a wall. Government contracting made me realize that people who create small contracting companies and latch onto a contract or two are on the gravy train. The way government spending works, you pretty much *must* spend the money your contracting agency has allocated for you. If I had the stomach to put up with Inside-the-Beltway bullshit, I would have gone into government contracting. Big businesses (I speak only from experience with the Silicon Valley kind) are often full of energy, but the biggest problem, as with the rest of the civilian world, is that organizational leaders simply do not have much leadership training.
I don't know how it was for you in the Air Force, but I was in general impressed with the leaders I worked for in the Army. I'm sure to some degree it's a matter of your specialty, plus luck of the draw. But when you find a set of good leaders in the civilian world, in my experience it is a rare treat. Even the juggernauts of the Information Age have a great deal of employee churn, and they seldom devote necessary resources to adequately training leaders (mid-level managers in particular). That's where the Dilbert Factor is nurtured and brought to full bloom.
Others have mentioned this, but you may truly find that going small and/or going it alone may work for you. If you can maintain the military work ethic, you'll probably have an advantage over most of your competitors, at least in the areas of initiative, attention to detail, knowledge of the importance of planning, and ability to prioritize.
It is not about facts, truth, or knowledge, it's all about spin.
It is funny, isn't it? In this age of abundant information, understanding seems to be slipping from our (collective) grasp. Since everything is subjective anyway, apparently we should all simply abandon to even attempt objectivity.
That seems to be the gestalt: In essence, the world is too crazy to figure out. Too many facts. Too many opinions. Just give up and read stuff that makes you feel good about your own assumptions. Dvorak obviously thinks so. He just figures it's all entertainment anyway, so why bother working from facts, when pure conjecture and baiting will serve his purpose much better?
Sheesh. The incompetence around here. IBM is buying Apple. Actually, before that happens, Apple will buy Nintendo. Then IBM will buy Sun, at which point IBM/Sun/Apple/Nintendo (iSunNipple) will buy out Disney/Pixar. From there, world domination is pretty much assured, as iNippleDix will be unstoppable.
My guess is in the year 2133 people will be arguing about whether BrainOS 4 is better than OpenBrain II. There are certain patterns of behavior in the computer industry that just won't go away. People still search for silver bullets. They still argue about what sucks/doesn't suck. They still set up binary comparisons between things that are not in opposition to each other. Maybe it's broader than programmers; it's just human nature.
Loved your article, btw. If only more people would read it.
the point *I* was making was one you failed to address: the simple fact that, by accepting the job of press secretary, one essentially disowns any views that one might have. IT IS PART AND PARCEL OF THE JOB.
I concur wholeheartedly. I just thought the ancillary commentary in your original post were a bit out in left field. When I see words like "anyone who thinks otherwise... is being silly," "All other press secretaries are..." and "who never, not ever..." I just feel compelled to post a rebuttal, in order to point out that life is seldom binary. Obviously, since you've seen "Thank You for Smoking" and enjoyed it, you understand what I'm talking about.
You're cute. And, yes, warm, fuzzy, and silly.
That's the nicest thing anyone on Slashdot has said about me in years. Although, maybe the fuzzy part isn't so good, now that I think about it.
Anyone who thinks otherwie -- and mind you, this is totally regardless of party affiliation -- is being silly.
Anyone? Really? Anyone who disagrees with your binary interpretation of all the people who have ever held the office of White House Press Secretary is being silly? I guess I'm silly, then.
All other press secreteries are simply PR figureheads, who never -- not ever -- present their own views, if, indeed, they even have any.
Wow. Not ever. Not once. I'm sure most of them have no party affiliation, no convictions about any issues. Probably most of them just got picked up on the street corner, and would work for either a Democrat or a Republican, given enough money. I'm sure Pierre Salinger, who moved to France after George W. Bush was elected President, or Bill Moyers would have worked for anyone who bounced into office.
If this company bribes the right politicians, and promises some kind of benefit to a given congressman's state, then it WILL happen.
Provided the congresscritter believes the public won't get too freaked out by the results. The folks in Congress are still elected. Also, there are plenty of other private interests that are likely opposed to RFID tagging of immigrants. After all, business lobbies are already putting up a fight against more restrictive immigration controls.
For every private interest or public interest group in favor of particular legislation, there are almost always some on the other side fighting vigorously for their interests. While immigrants don't have a strong lobby, big business makes a buttload of money off them, and don't want to see that revenue stream disappear.
Time to be bitchslapped back to reality. Linux is not ready for the masses just because you can use it.
Thanks, I really needed that. I appreciate you taking the time to make me see the light.
But seriously, don't you think this *does* give Microsoft's competitors some very obvious marketing hooks? I see it as a net gain for OSes that compete with Windows. Do you see Microsoft's admission of its own massive failure to make its software reasonbly secure as somehow beneficial to Microsoft?
And don't think for even one minute that whoever succeeds Bush will change anything about this.
After the excesses of the CIA were revealed in the Church Report, the Agency's oversight was increased radically, and its human intelligence operations were pared down to the bone. The history of U.S. government spying on citizens is filled with ups and downs like this. The fact that we're at a new low doesn't mean it will continue to get works. The polls seem to indicate that Americans are finally waking up. I wouldn't be surprised if we start to see a shift, as voters start to pressure Congress to demand more oversight over the Executive Branch's conduct of intelligence operations.
Slashdot Mirror
Some people use the Internet to find new acquaintances or make new friends. Some people use the Internet to maintain relationships with existing friends. Doubtless many people do both.
I find myself in the second category. While I occasionally make acquaintances via the Internet, my primary mechanism for forming friendships is still meatspace. The Internet is tremendously helpful to me in maintaining relationships with friends who no longer live where I live. I can communicate with friends from my years on the East Coast, friends from my time in the military, college, and even back to high school.
The quality of that communication is up to the parties involved, but the mechanism is there. It is simply easier for me to send an email than it ever was to write a letter. A group of about eight or ten friends, spread all over the country, communicate via a small discussion group.
I think back to the early 1990s. I was geographically isolated for three years, far from anything or anyone familiar. The friends with whom I communicated most often were those who had email addresses, and there were many times when those email conversations boosted my spirits and helped me feel connected.
My feeling is that the Internet makes a wide array of communication possible - everything from the shallow smack-talking of game boards and in-game messaging to deep philosophical conversation and truly meaningful sharing of thoughts and feelings. As others in this discussion have suggested, how you use that technology is your own choice.
No wonder nobody says that these days.
*ducks*
Why would anyone do it?
If I scan the organic results and don't find anything there, rather than moving to the second page, on occasion I'll click on a paid link. However, I only click on links that look reputable. A text ad that makes exorbitant claims or just seems like it's hucksterism won't get a click.
The advantage of well-done paid text links for the advertiser is that they can drive potential customers - people who are looking for exactly the sort of product/service you provide - to your site.
The advantage for users when such ads are done properly is that the user is likely to be fairly certain that ads coming out at the top of the list are going to be for sites that offer what the user is trying to find. It's a means of matching a buyer and a seller, rather than a way to trick potential customers into visiting a site.
To me there is nothing distasteful about advertising per se. Companies have to let people know they exist, or they'll have no customers. The use of innocuous, targeted text ads seems to me to be a good compromise between the needs of advertisers and the needs of web users. Even if a given ad link is only folllowed a very small percentage of the time, it can be worth it for the advertiser. At the same time, if I can ignore ads except when I want to scan them, as a web user I feel like I'm not being bashed over the head the way I do when I encounter popups and other bullshit from companies that just don't get it.
They rely on their reputation, and part of that reputation is the lack of annoyances.
What amazes me is that this is not more obvious to so many people in the business world. The Web really just a series of interconnected user experiences. The author of this WSJ piece seems to think Craigslist is wacky - just plumb daft! - for forgoing potential revenue in favor of taking care of customers. After all, if Craigslist is taking care of its employees and making money, why wouldn't it want to have 10x the employees and 20x the profits! Why wouldn't it want to control the world?!
This snarky little tidbit reveals how little Mr. Carney understands Craigslist, the Web, and customer satisfaction. At the end of the day, all he can think of is all of that (vaporous, as biendamon pointed out) potential profit that *someone* is missing out on:
Argh! Someone put some banner ads on Craigslist, and do it quick, before Carney gets an aneurysm!
Downloaders know what the perfect price for music is. It's free. The perfect price for film is also free. Money will be made through product placement and advertising.
I'm not so sure about that. If the user experience of watching a film is negatively affected by product placement and advertising, I may not even want to watch it. Free or not, if customers don't watch it, corporate sponsorship of the film won't provide the sponsors sufficient return on investment. A film made with eggregious product placement is not the same script filmed without product placements. For example, the magic of the second and third Matrix films was destroyed for me because of the annoying Cadillac, Ducati, and Samsung product placements.
Admittedly, I am probably more averse to over the top product placement than most moviegoers. However, if movies become essentially funded by brand corporations, their quality is bound to suffer. I suspect that there are quite a few consumers who are willing to spend money in order to avoid advertising. We already see this online, where companies offering services via the Web frequently have tiered pricing. Free with advertising or paid with no advertising? Take your pick.
If a content provider is able to deliver something that satisfies the consumer in a way that the free version does not, there is certainly a place for paid content. I can download the contents of The Wind in the Willows in PDF form, but I prefer to read books in the traditional dead tree format, so I'll probably buy it either at Amazon or at my local bookstore. Similarly, I can obtain the song "Still in Hollywood" by Concrete Blonde via a P2P network for free, but I'm not interested in opening up my computer to potential security problems, I don't like getting content from unreliable sources, and I know that even in the screwed-up RIAA-controlled world we live in, at least when I pay iTunes, the Concrete Blonde artists are at least getting something, however small the amount. iTunes also provides recommendations, staff picks, and other tools that provide value over a free service.
It seems to me that in the future there will be a wide variety of methods to access professional content, be it music, movies, games, or other forms of electronic entertainment. The RIAA/MPAA folks are used to having a stranglehold on distribution, but they're going to have to get used to a wide variety of forms of distribution, in order to accomodate a consumer market that is much less concentrated than it used to be. Some folks will still want to listen for free to the latest bubblegum pop via terrestrial radio. Some people will want high-bitrate downloads from an online music service, and will pay to get higher quality. Other consumers will put up with the vagaries of P2P networks and will get their music and movies that way. Your idea for advertiser-supported movies will likely catch on as well, and we may start to see differential pricing at the movie theater. Want to watch the latest Toyota-sponsored flick? Go to screen 1. Want to take in the latest Woody Allen movie? Screen 2 is for you.
"One source" [cough]Robbie Bach[/cough]", who has seen a demonstration of the service, said it was an improvement over iTunes."
I only barely avoided spewing coffee all over the keyboard. A shame I have no mod points.
Seriously, though. One source said it was "better." Using what criteria? Did this source see actual hardware working with actual software?
From the article:
This seems like a rather simplistic analysis to me. Are most Chinese citizens going to use such obvious terms to search for information about topics they know the government is attempting to block? My understanding of how Chinese citizens use the Internet is limited, so I'm likely off base. It just seems to me that most Chinese users of Yahoo would be gathering information using terms less likely to be aggressively filtered. A broader comparison might be more useful in determining just how aggressively each engine is filtering results.
The intellectual property industry and law enforcement officials estimate...
In other news, today The Big Bad Wolf announced that small children were causing serious damage to the forest ecosystem, and that in the future trespassing children would be punished more severely.
And just like the robber barons the 1800s, I have no doubt that Gates will be viewed as a wonderful benefactor of humanity a hundred years from now. Only the historians will remember how many people and companies he mercilessly crushed to create his fortune.
Are you a historian?
Free Software is about sharing. Open Source is about curiosity. I can do what I want with a truly Free piece of software, including repackaging and selling it. With Open Source, all I usually get to do is look at the code (curiosity), and if I see anything I want to fix, I usually have to give my fix back to the original owner.
There are something like 60 OSI-certified Open Source licenses, so discussing all of them as if they were the same only leads to confusion. In fact, the GPL is an OSI-certified Open Source license.
Also, Stallman's arguments about the GPL providing more freedom than other licenses aren't shared by everyone. The BSD license and other academic licenses have no reciprocality requirement. In that sense they are more free than the GPL, which has a strong reciprocity requirement. One interpretation I've heard is that the GPL reinforces community freedom, while the BSD license reinforces individual freedom.
Or, as in this case, any story with a headline that will start an instant flame war.
Hey, it works for Dvorak. Why shouldn't it work for Slashdot? ;-)
1) War on Drugs. Drugs are bad. Legalizing drugs will ruin our country.
B) Millions of kids on Ritalin. Widespread use of "performance-enhancing" drugs in professional sports. Drug ads on TV.
I'm in my late 30s. I've been on the Internet for twelve or thirteen years, and I'm usually pretty aware of major Web trends. I've been using LinkedIn for some time, and while I don't find it earthshatteringly useful, from time to time I invite people into my LinkedIn network.
Just a couple of days ago, I invited one of my law school classmates, who is in his mid-20s. He jokingly replied to the invitation email, "What, you're too good for Facebook and MySpace?" He had never even heard of LinkedIn. By the same token, I had never even heard of MySpace or Facebook until the first Slashdot stories about them started appearing.
I thought about it some more, and realized that for me the Internet arrived after I had graduated from college. For most of my life to date, the Internet was not part of my existence. Someone in their mid-20s has likely been using the Internet since their teenage years or before. I wonder if in some sense this sort of juvenile behavior on the Net will be regarded in the future the way marijuana use and protesting in college was after the 1960s. Subsequent generations might not get a free pass, but this particular generation, because of its size alone, may. Employers, particularly in businesses where computer skills and creativity are required, may simply choose to gloss over or not inquire too deeply into someone's MySpace/Facebook past.
If history is any indicator, however, the subsequent generation will find the atmosphere much different, and they may be trained from an early age to mind their Ps and Qs on the Net.
Upon getting a job with a large corporation, I was amazed at the amount of BS there. It made the military look like an efficient & well-oiled machine.
I agree. After leaving the Army, I moved through several jobs. The nonprofit world was amazing. Determining accountability for anything was like trying to nail jello to a wall. Government contracting made me realize that people who create small contracting companies and latch onto a contract or two are on the gravy train. The way government spending works, you pretty much *must* spend the money your contracting agency has allocated for you. If I had the stomach to put up with Inside-the-Beltway bullshit, I would have gone into government contracting. Big businesses (I speak only from experience with the Silicon Valley kind) are often full of energy, but the biggest problem, as with the rest of the civilian world, is that organizational leaders simply do not have much leadership training.
I don't know how it was for you in the Air Force, but I was in general impressed with the leaders I worked for in the Army. I'm sure to some degree it's a matter of your specialty, plus luck of the draw. But when you find a set of good leaders in the civilian world, in my experience it is a rare treat. Even the juggernauts of the Information Age have a great deal of employee churn, and they seldom devote necessary resources to adequately training leaders (mid-level managers in particular). That's where the Dilbert Factor is nurtured and brought to full bloom.
Others have mentioned this, but you may truly find that going small and/or going it alone may work for you. If you can maintain the military work ethic, you'll probably have an advantage over most of your competitors, at least in the areas of initiative, attention to detail, knowledge of the importance of planning, and ability to prioritize.
It is not about facts, truth, or knowledge, it's all about spin.
It is funny, isn't it? In this age of abundant information, understanding seems to be slipping from our (collective) grasp. Since everything is subjective anyway, apparently we should all simply abandon to even attempt objectivity.
That seems to be the gestalt: In essence, the world is too crazy to figure out. Too many facts. Too many opinions. Just give up and read stuff that makes you feel good about your own assumptions. Dvorak obviously thinks so. He just figures it's all entertainment anyway, so why bother working from facts, when pure conjecture and baiting will serve his purpose much better?
I'm so confused.
Sheesh. The incompetence around here. IBM is buying Apple. Actually, before that happens, Apple will buy Nintendo. Then IBM will buy Sun, at which point IBM/Sun/Apple/Nintendo (iSunNipple) will buy out Disney/Pixar. From there, world domination is pretty much assured, as iNippleDix will be unstoppable.
Maybe in another three years..
My guess is in the year 2133 people will be arguing about whether BrainOS 4 is better than OpenBrain II. There are certain patterns of behavior in the computer industry that just won't go away. People still search for silver bullets. They still argue about what sucks/doesn't suck. They still set up binary comparisons between things that are not in opposition to each other. Maybe it's broader than programmers; it's just human nature.
Loved your article, btw. If only more people would read it.
Keeping Food on John Dvorak's Table, since 1997.
Katz is gone, so maybe we should ask Dvorak to write for Slashdot. That'd be swell.
What I Hate About Your Programming Language, by Chromatic
Programming, it seems, is just one big suckfest. The names change, but the dance is the same.
the point *I* was making was one you failed to address: the simple fact that, by accepting the job of press secretary, one essentially disowns any views that one might have. IT IS PART AND PARCEL OF THE JOB.
I concur wholeheartedly. I just thought the ancillary commentary in your original post were a bit out in left field. When I see words like "anyone who thinks otherwise... is being silly," "All other press secretaries are..." and "who never, not ever..." I just feel compelled to post a rebuttal, in order to point out that life is seldom binary. Obviously, since you've seen "Thank You for Smoking" and enjoyed it, you understand what I'm talking about.
You're cute. And, yes, warm, fuzzy, and silly.
That's the nicest thing anyone on Slashdot has said about me in years. Although, maybe the fuzzy part isn't so good, now that I think about it.
Anyone who thinks otherwie -- and mind you, this is totally regardless of party affiliation -- is being silly.
Anyone? Really? Anyone who disagrees with your binary interpretation of all the people who have ever held the office of White House Press Secretary is being silly? I guess I'm silly, then.
All other press secreteries are simply PR figureheads, who never -- not ever -- present their own views, if, indeed, they even have any.
Wow. Not ever. Not once. I'm sure most of them have no party affiliation, no convictions about any issues. Probably most of them just got picked up on the street corner, and would work for either a Democrat or a Republican, given enough money. I'm sure Pierre Salinger, who moved to France after George W. Bush was elected President, or Bill Moyers would have worked for anyone who bounced into office.
1) I'm a man fanboy.
Well, that's one way to come out of the closet.
If this company bribes the right politicians, and promises some kind of benefit to a given congressman's state, then it WILL happen.
Provided the congresscritter believes the public won't get too freaked out by the results. The folks in Congress are still elected. Also, there are plenty of other private interests that are likely opposed to RFID tagging of immigrants. After all, business lobbies are already putting up a fight against more restrictive immigration controls.
For every private interest or public interest group in favor of particular legislation, there are almost always some on the other side fighting vigorously for their interests. While immigrants don't have a strong lobby, big business makes a buttload of money off them, and don't want to see that revenue stream disappear.
Time to be bitchslapped back to reality. Linux is not ready for the masses just because you can use it.
Thanks, I really needed that. I appreciate you taking the time to make me see the light.
But seriously, don't you think this *does* give Microsoft's competitors some very obvious marketing hooks? I see it as a net gain for OSes that compete with Windows. Do you see Microsoft's admission of its own massive failure to make its software reasonbly secure as somehow beneficial to Microsoft?
And don't think for even one minute that whoever succeeds Bush will change anything about this.
After the excesses of the CIA were revealed in the Church Report, the Agency's oversight was increased radically, and its human intelligence operations were pared down to the bone. The history of U.S. government spying on citizens is filled with ups and downs like this. The fact that we're at a new low doesn't mean it will continue to get works. The polls seem to indicate that Americans are finally waking up. I wouldn't be surprised if we start to see a shift, as voters start to pressure Congress to demand more oversight over the Executive Branch's conduct of intelligence operations.