I guess that makes me one of the 17. I think you're severely under-estimating the number of people who aren't trying to see how many "friends" they can get on Facebook. If I get a request from a random stranger, I will send them a message trying to strike up a conversation. If they don't reciprocate, or their reciprocation sucks, I won't add them.
What is the point of having hundreds of "friends". The signal to noise ratio gets insane. You probably end up "Hiding" the large majority of them anyway.
The same legislature can't even pass a budget. Some how they can find time to debate the various pros and cons of the state rock, but they can't pass a budget. I swear that politicians are a layer of middle management that need to be downsized out of the system. We can call it an efficiency improvement.
I know that you mentioned that you already asked the museum, but have you spoken with the registrars? There should be a record of the deaccessioning process. They should at least be able to tell you what they did with it.
Why should I face even limited harassment for participating in the political process?
You're confusing voting with petitions. I fully agree that the voting process should be anonymous. The petition process shouldn't be and here is why. In a democracy, we the voters deserve to be fully informed about what we are voting on. Part of being informed means knowing who is supporting a particular agenda. If you as an American feel so strongly about something that you are going to bring it to the attention of your fellow citizens, they deserve to know about it.
Look at it this way. Imagine the shoe is on the other foot, and someone is pushing an agenda that you don't like. Don't you want to know who is behind it? Can I trust you not to harass people with an opposing view point to your own?
A friend of mine has a dog that is missing one of its back legs. The dog runs around at full speed, fetches the ball and plays with other dogs. Unless you look really closely, if your first sight of the dog was it playing and running around, you'd never notice that it was missing a leg.
Does that purpose outweigh the very real possibility of harassment?
Harassment builds character. As other people have stated, if a person feels strongly enough to go on the record in support of something, they should do so knowing that at some point they may have to actually stand up for their beliefs. As a country we seem to spend a lot of time protecting ourselves from each other. We constantly turn to third parties, rather than dealing directly with each other. At some point, everyone has to drum up the courage to look another human being in the eye and say, "You can take your ignorance and go fuck yourself."
The whole point of petitions and voting and change revolves around standing up for yourself or others. It involves doing what you believe in. Standing up for a belief often times bring grief, especially when that belief lies far enough outside of the mainstream. Change often times hurt. The more extreme the change, the more likely there will be negative reprocussions.
In response to your questions about what good public disclosure serves, it serves the purpose of shining light on a cause. It shows the rest of society just how many people are willing to stand up for their beliefs. As Ghandi said, "First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. THEN THEY FIGHT YOU. Then you win." There are plenty of laws on the books to deal with harassment. Harassment may be effective for limited times in certain circumstances. In the long run, the harassers will get theirs.
Harassment sucks. I'm not trying to minimize that fact. As a human being, you can't hide behind anonyminity. You have to face your harassers and overcome them. Often times the best way to do it involves simply ignoring them. "Sticks and stones..." and all that. Communities form for reasons. A sad fact of human beings seems to be that we will never always get along with everyone else. There will always be division and strife. Band together with those who are of like mind.
the problem is people put money in the stock market because they want to make money, not because they give a sh*t about the companies they're investing in or their products/services. the result is everything becomes about making profit now instead of building long-term stability
The "people" that you talk about are not any different than me or you. If you don't like short term investment, don't do it. Instead of investing in a mutual fund, invest your money in particular stocks. Invest in companies that you want to see grow. You can totally remove the middle man if you're so inclined. If you're in it for the right reasons, who gives a flying... what "everyone" else is doing?
How many of the companies on the 13000 value stock market have since ceased to exist? Surely some of the market value has to have been wiped out by companies that have failed and/or been absorbed.
As much as Apple fans like to tout Apple's uniqueness and originality, the reality seems to be closer to the fact that Apple is shovelling the same thing as everyone else. Their packaging might be slightly different, and their marketing department is pushing some industrial strength Kool Aid, but at the end of the day they aren't that different from anyone else.
All of these patent claims over mobile devices puts me in mind a car analogy. If Ford were like Apple, they would have patented the "steering wheel". They would have patented "brakes". They would have patented each individual part of the car. Taken to the extreme, nobody else would have been able to produce an automobile because all of the key parts of the automobile would be patent encumbered. Luckily for the world, Ford wasn't run by Steve Jobs and so we have a wide range of automobiles to choose from.
Another thing to consider is that "100Gb" is also a measure of bandwidth. While a switch might be able to handle 100Gb, it won't be able to handle 100Gb to every port at the same time. Even on a 12 port switch that is less than 10Gb per port. That is still a lot of bandwidth, but you can obviously predict how it will degrade as the port count increases.
To use your original words, in what way are movies and music "useful information"? I'd suggest that they aren't. They are entertainment. They are a luxury. If you want a luxury, pay for it. If you aren't willing to pay for it and you obtain it anyway, admit to yourself that you're a thief. Whether your theft is done for convenience or for some other justification that you've conceived does not make it anything other than theft.
I spent my teenage years swapping zero day warez. I fully understand that it was theft. In some cases I felt less guilty than others. In many cases I would have never bought the game in the first place. However just because I realized after I stole it that it was worthless does not free me from the reality that I stole it in the first place.
Sorry, you don't get to call other people dishonest because you disagree with their beliefs.
You don't get to NOT be dishonest simply because you are wishy washy with your morals. Nor do you get to dodge the title simply because you're okay with lying to yourself.
If you disagree with the price someone wants for something, do without it. Prove to them that their expectations of value are unreasonable. Stealing what you're too cheap to buy just shows that your character is flawed.
I'm not sure what courts you've been involved with, but playing the stupid card has never flown with any judge I've ever been in the presence of. In fact it seems to be almost universal that judges have contempt for people who claim to not know any better.
I see the exact opposite. I rarely use any filters or tags on my emails. I sort them the old fashioned way with folders for each category and a whole slew of rules to filter them on arrival. On the other hand whenever I visit various executive assistants workstations, they seem to have everything filtered and categorized and tagged up the wazoo. It seems to functionality that is appreciated.
For a while I thought that Google's short comings were the by-product of uber nerd hubris and the belief that they simply know the best way to do everything. Their lack of maturity shines through most visibly when it comes to support, documentation and long term planning. Their pre-sales processes are about the worst I have dealt with.
Wisdom comes from age. As people grow and mature, they tap into different sensibilities during different phases of their lives. An older person might not have the grasp of complex search algorithms, or the glue that ties Wave together that a 30 year old engineer in their prime might have. On the other hand, that 30 year old super engineer probably knows fuck all about actually running a company, or balancing a departmental budget, or dozens of other things that have to be in place if a company will have long term success.
I use my dad as an example. He's a 65 year old retired Harvard MBA. He could be taking it easy but he enjoys what he does. He consults with startups and small businesses. He helps them establish the fundamental financial foundations that they need to be successful. There are plenty of people out there who are good enough at something to start a business doing it. However those businesses often falter and teeter on the bring of failure because the owner's brilliance in providing a service or inventing a widget doesn't translate into running a company. In his case, one of his assests is his age. He has been exposed to decades worth of macro economic trends and worked across different industries.
I'm not saying that Google should be snatching up 65+ year old retired folks simply because they have a lot of wisdom and experience. On the other hand, they could use some maturity. Take a look at the wifi debacle they're in. That is a great example of what happens when people lack maturity. They simply don't care about the consiquences of their actions, or if they do they minimize them. Personally I tend to agree with the prevailing thought process that if a person is broadcasting an unencrypted signal they shouldn't expect privacy. On the other hand, I have enough maturity to realize that the law is vague in those areas. I wonder if Google even bothered to have any competent lawyers review their plans, or if their conversation went something along the lines of,
"Hey, wouldn't it be cool if we just snarfed wifi traffic as we drove along?"
"Yeah! It would be like war driving on a massive scale!"
"Why not? We're already taking pictures of every square foot of property along side every paved surface in the developed world, we might as well map every wireless AP out there too."
The Chinese have a saying to the effect of, "At the times when things are going very well, that is when you have to be the most concerned about danger."
Google is entering that phase in their life. Their IPO is behind them. They are sitting on billions of dollars. They are introducing new products that are having some success. But now everyone wants a piece of them.
When society turns upon itself and starts to cannabilize the productive parts of itself, doom can't be too far away. It makes me sad that in the land of plenty, our state governments are so starved for resources that they have to go after Google to generate revenue.
This which hunt has nothing to do with really protecting privacy and everything to do with trying to fine Google. If the states were concerned about privacy they'd be up in arms over the PATRIOT Act.
Innovation in a new technology outpaces innovation in a multi-decade old technology. This is news? Say it ain't so!
The "innovations" taking place in the PC world are innovations of software. The chips are powerful enough to run pretty much whatever anyone can throw at them. At this point the instruction set has been pretty well defined. Developers are focused on developing applications. Look at OSX versus Windows. Both are running on x86 hardware. They deliver different user experiences, while doing fundamentally the same things. Ie, they run similar applications to do similar things like checking email, browsing web, producing documents and the like.
In contrast mobile devices are new. Mobile device devs don't have the luxury of having insanely powerful chips to run their applications on. They have to contend with pesky variables like battery life, interface irregularities, screen sizes, and a whole slew of other things. Therefore it is easier to "innovate" because the landscape hasn't settled yet. For all intents and purposes the foundation is still being poured. Just look at how Apple, HTC, Nokia and the like are suing each other over patents. They all want to do more or less the same thing, so they're looking to the government to punish the competition.
Footage analysis software seems to be getting very well tuned. There was some footage of the riots after the Lakers game that was released to the press not long after it was shot (about 30-60 minutes after the recorded incident). The released still retained the "trouble spots" that were much lighter than the surrounding areas. The footage was urban night footage of a LARGE crowd. Dispite all of the "noise" in the crowd, the highlighted area instantly drew focus to exactly what needed to be paid attention to. Although such highlighting is only marginally helpful when viewed on a single frame, I could understand how it could aid someone watching the frame live, at 30+fps.
As far as crimes go, it seems like some would probably be easier to identify than others. An assault for example is probably fairly easy to train a computer to detected. It just has to locate two objects of about a similar size, spending too much time in close proximity to each other. In fact I'd bet that most of algorithms are probably spacial and time sensitive. Ie. Blob of X size stays in Y predetermined area for Z amount of time.. send alert. That might be the case for a burgular or security system.
What do you guys think the practical limits of auto-detection are, given the computational power available to security companies, and/or the government? Are there any experts in sensors and robotics and signal analysis around?
And in cases such as data or premium SMS, where the occurrences may have gone months without the consumer noticing, only an initial credit can be issued.
I'm not sure which legislative body was asleep at the switch, but AT&T does the same thing with billing mistakes. They can make mistakes in billing and charge you too much for months or even years. However when you bring up their mistake, by law they only have to credit you for the amount on the latest bill.
The above situation is one of the many situations that reenforces my belief that the government and corporations do not only not have the consumer's best interests in mind, they also aren't concerned about being held accountable. If I'm a contractor and I defraud a customer due to a "billing error", they can take me to court and sue my ass off. Yet Verizon, AT&T (and probably other telcos that I haven't had personal experience with) can defraud people for extended periods of time, and their liability is legally limited to the last billing cycle.
The only value that Getty Images could add would be offering legal services to those who photos are used in violation of whatever the licensing terms are. Any photographer can monetize their photos under a particular license. Unless they are willing to spend time and money to collect royalities that they are due, the license is worthless. Now if Getty Images offers some sort of revenue tracking services, that's a different story. If I were a photographer and Getty Images want to take 10-20% to list my photos in their catalogue and also manage the collection of royalities for me, that would be a good deal.
When I used to consult I worked at an accounting firm that tracked royalities for music artists. That was a labor intensive business.
As the article mentions, and as I mentioned to everyone I knew when I originally read it, the news about minerals in Afghanistan is old. It is a poorly kept secret that the USGS has satellite surveys of mineral maps for the entire planet. Those maps were further enforced by studies done on the ground, in the field in Afghanistan.
The ONLY reason this was brought up is because the war is falling apart. The "war on terror" meme is losing steam. Allies of the United States are jumping ship left and right. Even the Brits are making noise about wanting to get out. Since "fear" isn't working as well anymore, the powers that be are turning to another, nearly universal emotional trigger... greed. Money fixes everything. Right? Right?!
The parallels between Iraq and Afghanistan are blatant. In Iraq, we were promised that Iraq's oil resources would be easily tapped and could fund the war effort plus rebuild the country. Replace "oil" with "minerals" and otherwise the dialogue reads the same.
I used to read a site... whatreallyhappened.com. There are some pretty fringe views expressed there, but the site is worthwhile to get a view of "the other side" of the conflict and propaganda that is "anti-American". That site is where I first learned about the SCO, and other key regional alliances that are being built to counter-act United States influence in the region. The reality of the situation is that we're over there for resources. We don't give two shits about democracy or freedom or any crap like that. We want oil, and resources and Afghanistan happens to be either a source of, or a transit route for a lot of our economy needs. I use "we" loosely. I certainly don't support the effort, and I realize that we're going to bankrupt our country and end up worse off for trying to steal from others. Karma is a big fat bitch. You can only beat it back with guns and bombs for so long.
You're right, they were both made by other companies. I guess it never dawned on you that Interplay employees might play games made by other publishers after work, back in the days before people could afford to network a bunch of computers together in their home.
You pay for the curation of the videos. Anyone can go watch random YouTube videos. Anyone can curate their own show for their friends. Heck, you can probably even put together a playlist and share it through whatever medium you want. It all comes down to the curation though.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess that makes me one of the 17. I think you're severely under-estimating the number of people who aren't trying to see how many "friends" they can get on Facebook. If I get a request from a random stranger, I will send them a message trying to strike up a conversation. If they don't reciprocate, or their reciprocation sucks, I won't add them.
What is the point of having hundreds of "friends". The signal to noise ratio gets insane. You probably end up "Hiding" the large majority of them anyway.
The same legislature can't even pass a budget. Some how they can find time to debate the various pros and cons of the state rock, but they can't pass a budget. I swear that politicians are a layer of middle management that need to be downsized out of the system. We can call it an efficiency improvement.
I know that you mentioned that you already asked the museum, but have you spoken with the registrars? There should be a record of the deaccessioning process. They should at least be able to tell you what they did with it.
Actually developing their own probably calls more attention to themselves than just using something where they can hide in the herd.
Not only that, it also makes it easier to shut down.
Why should I face even limited harassment for participating in the political process?
You're confusing voting with petitions. I fully agree that the voting process should be anonymous. The petition process shouldn't be and here is why. In a democracy, we the voters deserve to be fully informed about what we are voting on. Part of being informed means knowing who is supporting a particular agenda. If you as an American feel so strongly about something that you are going to bring it to the attention of your fellow citizens, they deserve to know about it.
Look at it this way. Imagine the shoe is on the other foot, and someone is pushing an agenda that you don't like. Don't you want to know who is behind it? Can I trust you not to harass people with an opposing view point to your own?
A friend of mine has a dog that is missing one of its back legs. The dog runs around at full speed, fetches the ball and plays with other dogs. Unless you look really closely, if your first sight of the dog was it playing and running around, you'd never notice that it was missing a leg.
Does that purpose outweigh the very real possibility of harassment?
Harassment builds character. As other people have stated, if a person feels strongly enough to go on the record in support of something, they should do so knowing that at some point they may have to actually stand up for their beliefs. As a country we seem to spend a lot of time protecting ourselves from each other. We constantly turn to third parties, rather than dealing directly with each other. At some point, everyone has to drum up the courage to look another human being in the eye and say, "You can take your ignorance and go fuck yourself."
The whole point of petitions and voting and change revolves around standing up for yourself or others. It involves doing what you believe in. Standing up for a belief often times bring grief, especially when that belief lies far enough outside of the mainstream. Change often times hurt. The more extreme the change, the more likely there will be negative reprocussions.
In response to your questions about what good public disclosure serves, it serves the purpose of shining light on a cause. It shows the rest of society just how many people are willing to stand up for their beliefs. As Ghandi said, "First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. THEN THEY FIGHT YOU. Then you win." There are plenty of laws on the books to deal with harassment. Harassment may be effective for limited times in certain circumstances. In the long run, the harassers will get theirs.
Harassment sucks. I'm not trying to minimize that fact. As a human being, you can't hide behind anonyminity. You have to face your harassers and overcome them. Often times the best way to do it involves simply ignoring them. "Sticks and stones..." and all that. Communities form for reasons. A sad fact of human beings seems to be that we will never always get along with everyone else. There will always be division and strife. Band together with those who are of like mind.
the problem is people put money in the stock market because they want to make money, not because they give a sh*t about the companies they're investing in or their products/services. the result is everything becomes about making profit now instead of building long-term stability
The "people" that you talk about are not any different than me or you. If you don't like short term investment, don't do it. Instead of investing in a mutual fund, invest your money in particular stocks. Invest in companies that you want to see grow. You can totally remove the middle man if you're so inclined. If you're in it for the right reasons, who gives a flying... what "everyone" else is doing?
How many of the companies on the 13000 value stock market have since ceased to exist? Surely some of the market value has to have been wiped out by companies that have failed and/or been absorbed.
As much as Apple fans like to tout Apple's uniqueness and originality, the reality seems to be closer to the fact that Apple is shovelling the same thing as everyone else. Their packaging might be slightly different, and their marketing department is pushing some industrial strength Kool Aid, but at the end of the day they aren't that different from anyone else.
All of these patent claims over mobile devices puts me in mind a car analogy. If Ford were like Apple, they would have patented the "steering wheel". They would have patented "brakes". They would have patented each individual part of the car. Taken to the extreme, nobody else would have been able to produce an automobile because all of the key parts of the automobile would be patent encumbered. Luckily for the world, Ford wasn't run by Steve Jobs and so we have a wide range of automobiles to choose from.
Another thing to consider is that "100Gb" is also a measure of bandwidth. While a switch might be able to handle 100Gb, it won't be able to handle 100Gb to every port at the same time. Even on a 12 port switch that is less than 10Gb per port. That is still a lot of bandwidth, but you can obviously predict how it will degrade as the port count increases.
What?
Me first?
What moral superiority act? What lies?
To use your original words, in what way are movies and music "useful information"? I'd suggest that they aren't. They are entertainment. They are a luxury. If you want a luxury, pay for it. If you aren't willing to pay for it and you obtain it anyway, admit to yourself that you're a thief. Whether your theft is done for convenience or for some other justification that you've conceived does not make it anything other than theft.
I spent my teenage years swapping zero day warez. I fully understand that it was theft. In some cases I felt less guilty than others. In many cases I would have never bought the game in the first place. However just because I realized after I stole it that it was worthless does not free me from the reality that I stole it in the first place.
Sorry, you don't get to call other people dishonest because you disagree with their beliefs.
You don't get to NOT be dishonest simply because you are wishy washy with your morals. Nor do you get to dodge the title simply because you're okay with lying to yourself.
If you disagree with the price someone wants for something, do without it. Prove to them that their expectations of value are unreasonable. Stealing what you're too cheap to buy just shows that your character is flawed.
I'm not sure what courts you've been involved with, but playing the stupid card has never flown with any judge I've ever been in the presence of. In fact it seems to be almost universal that judges have contempt for people who claim to not know any better.
I see the exact opposite. I rarely use any filters or tags on my emails. I sort them the old fashioned way with folders for each category and a whole slew of rules to filter them on arrival. On the other hand whenever I visit various executive assistants workstations, they seem to have everything filtered and categorized and tagged up the wazoo. It seems to functionality that is appreciated.
For a while I thought that Google's short comings were the by-product of uber nerd hubris and the belief that they simply know the best way to do everything. Their lack of maturity shines through most visibly when it comes to support, documentation and long term planning. Their pre-sales processes are about the worst I have dealt with.
Wisdom comes from age. As people grow and mature, they tap into different sensibilities during different phases of their lives.
An older person might not have the grasp of complex search algorithms, or the glue that ties Wave together that a 30 year old engineer in their prime might have. On the other hand, that 30 year old super engineer probably knows fuck all about actually running a company, or balancing a departmental budget, or dozens of other things that have to be in place if a company will have long term success.
I use my dad as an example. He's a 65 year old retired Harvard MBA. He could be taking it easy but he enjoys what he does. He consults with startups and small businesses. He helps them establish the fundamental financial foundations that they need to be successful. There are plenty of people out there who are good enough at something to start a business doing it. However those businesses often falter and teeter on the bring of failure because the owner's brilliance in providing a service or inventing a widget doesn't translate into running a company. In his case, one of his assests is his age. He has been exposed to decades worth of macro economic trends and worked across different industries.
I'm not saying that Google should be snatching up 65+ year old retired folks simply because they have a lot of wisdom and experience. On the other hand, they could use some maturity. Take a look at the wifi debacle they're in. That is a great example of what happens when people lack maturity. They simply don't care about the consiquences of their actions, or if they do they minimize them. Personally I tend to agree with the prevailing thought process that if a person is broadcasting an unencrypted signal they shouldn't expect privacy. On the other hand, I have enough maturity to realize that the law is vague in those areas. I wonder if Google even bothered to have any competent lawyers review their plans, or if their conversation went something along the lines of,
"Hey, wouldn't it be cool if we just snarfed wifi traffic as we drove along?"
"Yeah! It would be like war driving on a massive scale!"
"Why not? We're already taking pictures of every square foot of property along side every paved surface in the developed world, we might as well map every wireless AP out there too."
The Chinese have a saying to the effect of, "At the times when things are going very well, that is when you have to be the most concerned about danger."
Google is entering that phase in their life. Their IPO is behind them. They are sitting on billions of dollars. They are introducing new products that are having some success. But now everyone wants a piece of them.
When society turns upon itself and starts to cannabilize the productive parts of itself, doom can't be too far away. It makes me sad that in the land of plenty, our state governments are so starved for resources that they have to go after Google to generate revenue.
This which hunt has nothing to do with really protecting privacy and everything to do with trying to fine Google. If the states were concerned about privacy they'd be up in arms over the PATRIOT Act.
Innovation in a new technology outpaces innovation in a multi-decade old technology. This is news? Say it ain't so!
The "innovations" taking place in the PC world are innovations of software. The chips are powerful enough to run pretty much whatever anyone can throw at them. At this point the instruction set has been pretty well defined. Developers are focused on developing applications. Look at OSX versus Windows. Both are running on x86 hardware. They deliver different user experiences, while doing fundamentally the same things. Ie, they run similar applications to do similar things like checking email, browsing web, producing documents and the like.
In contrast mobile devices are new. Mobile device devs don't have the luxury of having insanely powerful chips to run their applications on. They have to contend with pesky variables like battery life, interface irregularities, screen sizes, and a whole slew of other things. Therefore it is easier to "innovate" because the landscape hasn't settled yet. For all intents and purposes the foundation is still being poured. Just look at how Apple, HTC, Nokia and the like are suing each other over patents. They all want to do more or less the same thing, so they're looking to the government to punish the competition.
Footage analysis software seems to be getting very well tuned. There was some footage of the riots after the Lakers game that was released to the press not long after it was shot (about 30-60 minutes after the recorded incident). The released still retained the "trouble spots" that were much lighter than the surrounding areas. The footage was urban night footage of a LARGE crowd. Dispite all of the "noise" in the crowd, the highlighted area instantly drew focus to exactly what needed to be paid attention to. Although such highlighting is only marginally helpful when viewed on a single frame, I could understand how it could aid someone watching the frame live, at 30+fps.
As far as crimes go, it seems like some would probably be easier to identify than others. An assault for example is probably fairly easy to train a computer to detected. It just has to locate two objects of about a similar size, spending too much time in close proximity to each other. In fact I'd bet that most of algorithms are probably spacial and time sensitive. Ie. Blob of X size stays in Y predetermined area for Z amount of time.. send alert. That might be the case for a burgular or security system.
What do you guys think the practical limits of auto-detection are, given the computational power available to security companies, and/or the government? Are there any experts in sensors and robotics and signal analysis around?
And in cases such as data or premium SMS, where the occurrences may have gone months without the consumer noticing, only an initial credit can be issued.
I'm not sure which legislative body was asleep at the switch, but AT&T does the same thing with billing mistakes. They can make mistakes in billing and charge you too much for months or even years. However when you bring up their mistake, by law they only have to credit you for the amount on the latest bill.
The above situation is one of the many situations that reenforces my belief that the government and corporations do not only not have the consumer's best interests in mind, they also aren't concerned about being held accountable. If I'm a contractor and I defraud a customer due to a "billing error", they can take me to court and sue my ass off. Yet Verizon, AT&T (and probably other telcos that I haven't had personal experience with) can defraud people for extended periods of time, and their liability is legally limited to the last billing cycle.
The only value that Getty Images could add would be offering legal services to those who photos are used in violation of whatever the licensing terms are. Any photographer can monetize their photos under a particular license. Unless they are willing to spend time and money to collect royalities that they are due, the license is worthless. Now if Getty Images offers some sort of revenue tracking services, that's a different story. If I were a photographer and Getty Images want to take 10-20% to list my photos in their catalogue and also manage the collection of royalities for me, that would be a good deal.
When I used to consult I worked at an accounting firm that tracked royalities for music artists. That was a labor intensive business.
As the article mentions, and as I mentioned to everyone I knew when I originally read it, the news about minerals in Afghanistan is old. It is a poorly kept secret that the USGS has satellite surveys of mineral maps for the entire planet. Those maps were further enforced by studies done on the ground, in the field in Afghanistan.
The ONLY reason this was brought up is because the war is falling apart. The "war on terror" meme is losing steam. Allies of the United States are jumping ship left and right. Even the Brits are making noise about wanting to get out. Since "fear" isn't working as well anymore, the powers that be are turning to another, nearly universal emotional trigger... greed. Money fixes everything. Right? Right?!
The parallels between Iraq and Afghanistan are blatant. In Iraq, we were promised that Iraq's oil resources would be easily tapped and could fund the war effort plus rebuild the country. Replace "oil" with "minerals" and otherwise the dialogue reads the same.
I used to read a site... whatreallyhappened.com. There are some pretty fringe views expressed there, but the site is worthwhile to get a view of "the other side" of the conflict and propaganda that is "anti-American". That site is where I first learned about the SCO, and other key regional alliances that are being built to counter-act United States influence in the region. The reality of the situation is that we're over there for resources. We don't give two shits about democracy or freedom or any crap like that. We want oil, and resources and Afghanistan happens to be either a source of, or a transit route for a lot of our economy needs. I use "we" loosely. I certainly don't support the effort, and I realize that we're going to bankrupt our country and end up worse off for trying to steal from others. Karma is a big fat bitch. You can only beat it back with guns and bombs for so long.
You're right, they were both made by other companies. I guess it never dawned on you that Interplay employees might play games made by other publishers after work, back in the days before people could afford to network a bunch of computers together in their home.
You pay for the curation of the videos. Anyone can go watch random YouTube videos. Anyone can curate their own show for their friends. Heck, you can probably even put together a playlist and share it through whatever medium you want. It all comes down to the curation though.
I used to play Command and Conquer, and Quake on the Interplay LAN after hours in Irvine back in the 90s. They've released some great games.