The reasoning behind: if you cannot skip trailers in the movie theater why would you be able to do so in your home theater, eh? See, both are theaters.
that discuses the costs of drug testing and how different it is treated opposed some other things that are as much a threat to life as drugs (ex: peanut allergy is as deadly as many drugs, but food industry doesn't go through length testing phases).
OF COURSE, no one wants anything remotely resembling talidomyde to happen again, but there is some truth in that article, and the costs of that testing phase add up to the investment.
I don't think pharma companies will change course, but with the current advances in simulation of living cells and organisms, soon much of research will be more of an informatics activity. This will hopefully drop down R&D costs and even allow universities to do the research or, why not, individuals or open sourced drug projects releasing results to the public domain.
Do you think pharma companies will lobby against this?
I have the strong feeling that on the long term, all these extensions will backfire to the owners of the copyright, making their content much more expensive and impossible to monetize.
If, at the same time, unknown/less-known/well-known artists start using other methods (like Creative Commons), new+good+free will defeat old+good+expensive.
I agree with the fact that there are today a lot of media outlets than ever before (and that a lot of those are more or less independent), so laws like these should disappear (we use to have one in my country).
However, i think that in the interest of democracy (in every country) this should be pushed in time for 10 years (at least). The fact is that a large part of the population does not use the internet. The net is still not as widespread in use as we (regular and avid users) like to thing. Keeping in place some limits to enhance chances of non-internet users seems like a good thing to me (at present time).
If i remember correctly, this "wise plan" of software in the net is not new to MS. Circa 1997 (i think), when Java was starting to grow in the heart of everybody, MS started talking about office and the like in the net (but technology was immature and they figured out they loose money in the short term). The pricing they talked about seemed to be like this "model".
Yet here we are!
The problem with this is that huge software development is starting to be a very risky business for companies. There is an estimated development cost for Vista and it's supposed to be in the order of many billions (i think these numbers are likely wrong, but a 5 years dev cicle is a very expensive proposition). Yet, Vista sales are not closing! And they won't because it's heavy, slow and obnoxious (i "try" to use it every day).
Free and Open Source Software, on the other hand, does not have this "risk" component (as time and effort is rewarded differently).
The problem MS is facing now is that to go into this model, a huge amount of money will have to be spent over a number of years (as this will not be ready tomorrow) and, at the end, alternatives will keep getting better. Alternatives that very well might be free at the end. It's worst if you consider that a merge with Yahoo! could divert MS attention in the next year or two.
I remember reading a piece from a well know developer (maybe Joel Spolsky) that said something on the line: don't worry about speed, don't worry about technology limitations, worry about function and ease of use. Speed and limitations always disappear. When that happens, you might have a killer app.
I really don't know if MS has some valid option now. They have been pushing against software on the net for so long (claiming that users wan't the desktop), while others started to migrate. Now could be too late for this. And limitations are certainly disappearing.
What DHS is doing makes a lot of sense! There is a lot of information around about tech-skilled people shortage (not just in the USA, but in many places of the world).
It's also false that salaries are going down and in general (but specially in the US) people does not apply to tech careers, and among people, women are much less prone to tech careers.
As i said, the shortage affects the whole world, but i admit that i'm in programming. Demand for software has increased a lot in the last decade, while at the same time less people goes into tech careers (that should rise salaries as there is much more demand than offer).
I agree that what China is doing is absurd, but there is a possible different reading to it. The fact that the population in China is so big and they have nuclear capacity, combined with what happened on USSR after opening (social unbalances, mob and wheapon blach market, etc), might indicate that the gov is trying to make a controlled shift to capitalism. Well, i don't think that it is at all possible (or realistic) to do that, but maybe...
**ALSO**, you (US citizens) may do the little an exercise of reading many of your own comments from an non-US-citizen perspective.
Let's see: "a free country", "nuke them", etc
Yes, of course. You live in a country where your current president didn't make it's first term with an election that he didn't win (Florida, i think?). Of course, you do not live in a country where the e-voting machines are completely fucked up and the government does all it can to fix it. No, no radiation tests on (unaware) civilians. Health care is superb. No humans rights violations (torture? where? but if it is for the greater good!), etc, etc.
*EVERY* country has good and bad things and all they must be pointed out (i live in Argentina, so i know...).
You then go wondering how is it possible that "americans" are not liked in the rest of the world (you ARE liked, your attitudes are NOT). I've been in USA and i know you are very kind people and you have a beautiful country, so i hope you understand the real (honest) meaning of the next sentence as an observation and not an insult:
some of this (blind) thinking is akin to fanatism, as it is not well funded and one sided and stubborn. You also send your youngs to die being heroes (claiming that you have god and the law in your side).
Hopefully you are now thinking if some of this might be real and not being offended! Realy!
I think a good example of content advertisement is the way presidential candidates can be evaluated based on their speeches.
I'm not talking about the specific policies, but the way they address problems, the way they talk to people, etc. Think about the differences between old/new school.
That (i think) is a very good example of content and advertisement (sadly frequently disguised). They all want to rule the world (as companies want to make money, etc).
All this BS lawsuits cost money (not just to the direct parts in the lawsuit, but also to the justice system).
You (US) are going into an economic recession and the government is planing to give money to alleviate the problem. Granted this is probably state (non federal) tax money, but it is money anyway, that could go to infrastructure, health, social services, etc.
Related to this are all the bogus patent lawsuits filed in WHO-KNOWS-WHERE/Texas. Maybe the best strategy to stop the hoarders is to raise awareness of the costs to Texas citizens.
DISCLAIMERS:
-I will sue you if i don't like your answer to this comment.
-This comment is copyrighted.
-BUH!
Good for Resnor, but this is something that a decade ago, music labels where already doing.
In 1996, i bought from Griffin Music a numbered pack (15000 units) of David Bowie concert in Santa Monica (1972) that included a CD and a 7" two sided vinil single.
I think that at some point, music labels decided to disregard this kind of packaging to focus on their main products, that would be CDs :-0
At first, i reacted to this "France story" thinking that the problem is the "extreme conservatory right" in the government (you must acknowledge that this has been a trend in last years, specially in USA/UK/France). And it may have something to do with it (as "extreme" as banning can get), but i'm guessing is more in the line of "age difference".
Most of the judges/deans+principals/teachers are way over 50/50/30 years old and have life experiences where only main stream media (news & news papers/magazines) existed. A bad comment in one of these media was an (atmost) CERTAIN career death.
Now, the young students are all way bellow 18 years old, and their life experience COMPLETELY includes the internet, forums, comments, rating, etc, etc. They have a thick neurons layer in their brains to filter out all the stupid/immature/moronic comments around sites, and they do.
This is just the result of a new technology not being well understood by older people. This also clearly explains the so called "streisand effect".
What still wonders me is:
1) what (in the mind of these people) keeps the same stupid students from giving immature answers in the written revisions?
2) is it that these revisions are done for the sake of appearances only or do they give it some value and so something with the answers?
mike, your research sounds like very interesting reading, i look forward to read it once is public and (hopefully) i'll know more to fully grasp it.
Thanks for taking the time to answer!
Is this flame discussion starting again with Corey+other people?
i've just took time to write something on the other thread. I'm bored with this. It seems to produce no result and has no end.
i was aware of the change from the gold standard in the USA (i think it happen during nixon's presidency?). Here in Argentina the same change was made 10 years ago (i believe), but we (as many 3rd world countries with weak economies, specially in Latin America) still do need some backup and we use (guess...) USD in our central banks.
That presents a whole lot of problems per se (not just for us, but for the USA also as your Fed decisions now affect other countries that you want to be "friendly"). This is not helping USA's image in the world, as dependency on USD tends to result in abuse (you have reported it many times, the last about Antigüa and gambling).
Anyway, i don't completely understand the mechanics of all these (remember, i've asked about reading materials because to me, what economists say sounds mostly like bullshit :-). However, i will start to read about this and (maybe) i'll become very convinced that what economists say is BS ;-)
The part of goods/services being scarce i do understand, but then i start to think that as long as this scarcity remains, poverty (and bad distribution of power, illiteracy, no health, etc) will exist?
This would mean that, opposed to common thinking, poverty is not intrinsically related to bad distribution of money?
what follows is a long shot (at best), probably ridiculous and likely, a bogus business idea... I assume that you are a reasonably good writer, because if not, you are really screwed, as a "fact book" on history is probably redundant, given that internet is right here and information is everywhere.
So, you are good, you love being an historian and you love writing books. Lets say you decide to start writing a blog about your activities in the process of your writing (posting articles about parts of what will be in your books and all kind of notes of when you are traveling). Given your online presence, you do your job in SEO (search engine optimization) and web site design, web site analitics, etc.
In this hypotethic future, one friend of yours decides that (s)he is going to travel to the place you usually go to do research and (s)he wants some advice on this, advice that you give for free.
Then, you start thinking that a lot of people travels and much of this people goes to historic places when traveling, and you have some expertise/advice on both (and as you are a **KNOWN** book writer, your advice deserves some respect).
You make some changes to your web site to rank well for history AND travel, you give your book for free and you make some arrangements with a travel agent to get paid for customer referrals from your site. You also recommend places to visit.
Heck! You even create a special version of your free e-book to be used on the very smart browser's that phones will have, and you give this for free.
So, here you are. You will not be selling books. You have lost your (small) readership, but you tapped into the much bigger business/market that is travel. Also, having a biz relation with a travel agent, your research expenses go down as a side-effect.
That, plus you are still doing what you love (history and writing) and maybe you are making a lot more money.
In this future, one day a writer friend of yours that is struggling because cook books don't sell, comes complaining and you start telling that THE problem is the business model. You then recomend this friend to make arrangements with restaurants for her/his book's recipes tasting...
This maybe a very stupid idea (or not), but please think of other options. In all your messages, you are tying readership with technology will free and complain about there not being a 100X increase when you might very well have it, if you just dare imagine other alternatives...
My brain seems not to follow the whole idea (maybe it's that i don't understand economy, or i'm stupid or the whole economy/money is self sustained autodefinition...).
If money is really (and not artificially) scarce, then the amount available for distribution is relatively constant, right?
But everybody considers economy growth somehow endless and the size of the economy is tied to the total amount of available money.
We then have an endless amount of money (that is a contradiction with it being scarce). Also, who get's to decide that now or tomorrow is a proper (and realistic) moment to increase the total amount of available money?
And how this relates to "opportunity"? It seems obvious that money distribution is somehow affected by opportunity (not alone, but to some extent). Opportunity is not a scarce resource, i think...
Yes, i agree with what you say, but i was pondering the fact that in the origins of the "money" concept, it was precious metals (gold, silver) and the value of that was driven by it being scarce.
We then changed to coins (made of less valuable metal) and paper. In all these, the security measures where placed there to maintain scarcity.
But today, it seems to me that somehow, money appears to be infinite. When you see valuations of companies and the way economists talk about billions and trillions (and these numbers get bigger everyday). At the same time, it is all becoming digital also.
Economy seems to be growing exponentially (despite one or other recession announcement). At least, countries (USA specially) seem to expand their money base at will (is it so?).
I wonder if more (abundant) money will trigger the eradication of poverty and a more even distribution of power (the "power" usually attached to having a lot of money).
As said before, i'm not seasoned in economy, but i started to think about the fact that money is being replaced (faster every day) with it's electronic version.
I would say that the product itself (the paper bill or coin) has some production cost (the security stripes, the special paper, the ink, etc). These costs no longer exist on the electronic version and i might seem reasonable (or incredibly stupid???) to believe that once the good becomes completely digital the same forces Mike talks about will apply to money.
Is it so? I can imagine that governments will try to "put a serial number" on bits just to keep the "world from falling". Is it that at some point, money will be so readily available that we will stop worrying about it? Will we start using other thing (such as "entertainment" to define value?).
Maybe this has always been the case (you know: money doesn't buy happiness) and this will only make it more obvious...
This doesn't happen only in the US. Here in Argentina it's exactly the same: you are forced to see the trailers and notices (not from FBI, of course).
Highly paid executives at their finest!!!
The reasoning behind: if you cannot skip trailers in the movie theater why would you be able to do so in your home theater, eh? See, both are theaters.
Drug testing...
A few weeks ago, i read this article:
http://www.econlib.org/Library/Columns/y2008/HooperFDA.html
that discuses the costs of drug testing and how different it is treated opposed some other things that are as much a threat to life as drugs (ex: peanut allergy is as deadly as many drugs, but food industry doesn't go through length testing phases).
OF COURSE, no one wants anything remotely resembling talidomyde to happen again, but there is some truth in that article, and the costs of that testing phase add up to the investment.
I don't think pharma companies will change course, but with the current advances in simulation of living cells and organisms, soon much of research will be more of an informatics activity. This will hopefully drop down R&D costs and even allow universities to do the research or, why not, individuals or open sourced drug projects releasing results to the public domain.
Do you think pharma companies will lobby against this?
Backfire...
I have the strong feeling that on the long term, all these extensions will backfire to the owners of the copyright, making their content much more expensive and impossible to monetize.
If, at the same time, unknown/less-known/well-known artists start using other methods (like Creative Commons), new+good+free will defeat old+good+expensive.
They will end up without their "pensions" anyway.
LOL
I've read here many times the "piracy hurts corn farmers" but i think is the first time you written the whole "explanation" (the popcorn effect).
You made my morning :-)
Maybe you could start the "BestNetTech - most stupid quotes" and include one or two in a post every day. You will certainly not be short on material.
Yes and No...
I agree with the fact that there are today a lot of media outlets than ever before (and that a lot of those are more or less independent), so laws like these should disappear (we use to have one in my country).
However, i think that in the interest of democracy (in every country) this should be pushed in time for 10 years (at least). The fact is that a large part of the population does not use the internet. The net is still not as widespread in use as we (regular and avid users) like to thing. Keeping in place some limits to enhance chances of non-internet users seems like a good thing to me (at present time).
If i remember correctly, this "wise plan" of software in the net is not new to MS. Circa 1997 (i think), when Java was starting to grow in the heart of everybody, MS started talking about office and the like in the net (but technology was immature and they figured out they loose money in the short term). The pricing they talked about seemed to be like this "model".
Yet here we are!
The problem with this is that huge software development is starting to be a very risky business for companies. There is an estimated development cost for Vista and it's supposed to be in the order of many billions (i think these numbers are likely wrong, but a 5 years dev cicle is a very expensive proposition). Yet, Vista sales are not closing! And they won't because it's heavy, slow and obnoxious (i "try" to use it every day).
Free and Open Source Software, on the other hand, does not have this "risk" component (as time and effort is rewarded differently).
The problem MS is facing now is that to go into this model, a huge amount of money will have to be spent over a number of years (as this will not be ready tomorrow) and, at the end, alternatives will keep getting better. Alternatives that very well might be free at the end. It's worst if you consider that a merge with Yahoo! could divert MS attention in the next year or two.
I remember reading a piece from a well know developer (maybe Joel Spolsky) that said something on the line: don't worry about speed, don't worry about technology limitations, worry about function and ease of use. Speed and limitations always disappear. When that happens, you might have a killer app.
I really don't know if MS has some valid option now. They have been pushing against software on the net for so long (claiming that users wan't the desktop), while others started to migrate. Now could be too late for this. And limitations are certainly disappearing.
Missinformed...
What DHS is doing makes a lot of sense! There is a lot of information around about tech-skilled people shortage (not just in the USA, but in many places of the world).
It's also false that salaries are going down and in general (but specially in the US) people does not apply to tech careers, and among people, women are much less prone to tech careers.
Check:
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=111369
http://technews.acm.org/archives.cfm?fo=2008-04-apr/apr-04-2008.html#356306
http://www.cra.org/wp/index.php?p=141
http://technews.acm.org/archives.cfm?fo=2008-03-mar/mar-28-2008.html#355267
As i said, the shortage affects the whole world, but i admit that i'm in programming. Demand for software has increased a lot in the last decade, while at the same time less people goes into tech careers (that should rise salaries as there is much more demand than offer).
A grain of salt....
I agree that what China is doing is absurd, but there is a possible different reading to it. The fact that the population in China is so big and they have nuclear capacity, combined with what happened on USSR after opening (social unbalances, mob and wheapon blach market, etc), might indicate that the gov is trying to make a controlled shift to capitalism. Well, i don't think that it is at all possible (or realistic) to do that, but maybe...
**ALSO**, you (US citizens) may do the little an exercise of reading many of your own comments from an non-US-citizen perspective.
Let's see: "a free country", "nuke them", etc
Yes, of course. You live in a country where your current president didn't make it's first term with an election that he didn't win (Florida, i think?). Of course, you do not live in a country where the e-voting machines are completely fucked up and the government does all it can to fix it. No, no radiation tests on (unaware) civilians. Health care is superb. No humans rights violations (torture? where? but if it is for the greater good!), etc, etc.
*EVERY* country has good and bad things and all they must be pointed out (i live in Argentina, so i know...).
You then go wondering how is it possible that "americans" are not liked in the rest of the world (you ARE liked, your attitudes are NOT). I've been in USA and i know you are very kind people and you have a beautiful country, so i hope you understand the real (honest) meaning of the next sentence as an observation and not an insult:
some of this (blind) thinking is akin to fanatism, as it is not well funded and one sided and stubborn. You also send your youngs to die being heroes (claiming that you have god and the law in your side).
Hopefully you are now thinking if some of this might be real and not being offended! Realy!
Peace
Re: Re:
I think a good example of content advertisement is the way presidential candidates can be evaluated based on their speeches.
I'm not talking about the specific policies, but the way they address problems, the way they talk to people, etc. Think about the differences between old/new school.
That (i think) is a very good example of content and advertisement (sadly frequently disguised). They all want to rule the world (as companies want to make money, etc).
It's bad on so many levels....
All this BS lawsuits cost money (not just to the direct parts in the lawsuit, but also to the justice system).
You (US) are going into an economic recession and the government is planing to give money to alleviate the problem. Granted this is probably state (non federal) tax money, but it is money anyway, that could go to infrastructure, health, social services, etc.
Related to this are all the bogus patent lawsuits filed in WHO-KNOWS-WHERE/Texas. Maybe the best strategy to stop the hoarders is to raise awareness of the costs to Texas citizens.
DISCLAIMERS:
-I will sue you if i don't like your answer to this comment.
-This comment is copyrighted.
-BUH!
Not a new idea....
Good for Resnor, but this is something that a decade ago, music labels where already doing.
In 1996, i bought from Griffin Music a numbered pack (15000 units) of David Bowie concert in Santa Monica (1972) that included a CD and a 7" two sided vinil single.
I think that at some point, music labels decided to disregard this kind of packaging to focus on their main products, that would be CDs :-0
Ooops!
This comment is banned!
At first, i reacted to this "France story" thinking that the problem is the "extreme conservatory right" in the government (you must acknowledge that this has been a trend in last years, specially in USA/UK/France). And it may have something to do with it (as "extreme" as banning can get), but i'm guessing is more in the line of "age difference".
Most of the judges/deans+principals/teachers are way over 50/50/30 years old and have life experiences where only main stream media (news & news papers/magazines) existed. A bad comment in one of these media was an (atmost) CERTAIN career death.
Now, the young students are all way bellow 18 years old, and their life experience COMPLETELY includes the internet, forums, comments, rating, etc, etc. They have a thick neurons layer in their brains to filter out all the stupid/immature/moronic comments around sites, and they do.
This is just the result of a new technology not being well understood by older people. This also clearly explains the so called "streisand effect".
What still wonders me is:
1) what (in the mind of these people) keeps the same stupid students from giving immature answers in the written revisions?
2) is it that these revisions are done for the sake of appearances only or do they give it some value and so something with the answers?
mike, your research sounds like very interesting reading, i look forward to read it once is public and (hopefully) i'll know more to fully grasp it.
Thanks for taking the time to answer!
dejá vù
Is this flame discussion starting again with Corey+other people?
i've just took time to write something on the other thread. I'm bored with this. It seems to produce no result and has no end.
Mike,
i was aware of the change from the gold standard in the USA (i think it happen during nixon's presidency?). Here in Argentina the same change was made 10 years ago (i believe), but we (as many 3rd world countries with weak economies, specially in Latin America) still do need some backup and we use (guess...) USD in our central banks.
That presents a whole lot of problems per se (not just for us, but for the USA also as your Fed decisions now affect other countries that you want to be "friendly"). This is not helping USA's image in the world, as dependency on USD tends to result in abuse (you have reported it many times, the last about Antigüa and gambling).
Anyway, i don't completely understand the mechanics of all these (remember, i've asked about reading materials because to me, what economists say sounds mostly like bullshit :-). However, i will start to read about this and (maybe) i'll become very convinced that what economists say is BS ;-)
The part of goods/services being scarce i do understand, but then i start to think that as long as this scarcity remains, poverty (and bad distribution of power, illiteracy, no health, etc) will exist?
This would mean that, opposed to common thinking, poverty is not intrinsically related to bad distribution of money?
Re: Re:
Corey,
what follows is a long shot (at best), probably ridiculous and likely, a bogus business idea... I assume that you are a reasonably good writer, because if not, you are really screwed, as a "fact book" on history is probably redundant, given that internet is right here and information is everywhere.
So, you are good, you love being an historian and you love writing books. Lets say you decide to start writing a blog about your activities in the process of your writing (posting articles about parts of what will be in your books and all kind of notes of when you are traveling). Given your online presence, you do your job in SEO (search engine optimization) and web site design, web site analitics, etc.
In this hypotethic future, one friend of yours decides that (s)he is going to travel to the place you usually go to do research and (s)he wants some advice on this, advice that you give for free.
Then, you start thinking that a lot of people travels and much of this people goes to historic places when traveling, and you have some expertise/advice on both (and as you are a **KNOWN** book writer, your advice deserves some respect).
You make some changes to your web site to rank well for history AND travel, you give your book for free and you make some arrangements with a travel agent to get paid for customer referrals from your site. You also recommend places to visit.
Heck! You even create a special version of your free e-book to be used on the very smart browser's that phones will have, and you give this for free.
So, here you are. You will not be selling books. You have lost your (small) readership, but you tapped into the much bigger business/market that is travel. Also, having a biz relation with a travel agent, your research expenses go down as a side-effect.
That, plus you are still doing what you love (history and writing) and maybe you are making a lot more money.
In this future, one day a writer friend of yours that is struggling because cook books don't sell, comes complaining and you start telling that THE problem is the business model. You then recomend this friend to make arrangements with restaurants for her/his book's recipes tasting...
This maybe a very stupid idea (or not), but please think of other options. In all your messages, you are tying readership with technology will free and complain about there not being a 100X increase when you might very well have it, if you just dare imagine other alternatives...
Re: Re: Re: Re: Is money an (artificially) scarce
My brain seems not to follow the whole idea (maybe it's that i don't understand economy, or i'm stupid or the whole economy/money is self sustained autodefinition...).
If money is really (and not artificially) scarce, then the amount available for distribution is relatively constant, right?
But everybody considers economy growth somehow endless and the size of the economy is tied to the total amount of available money.
We then have an endless amount of money (that is a contradiction with it being scarce). Also, who get's to decide that now or tomorrow is a proper (and realistic) moment to increase the total amount of available money?
And how this relates to "opportunity"? It seems obvious that money distribution is somehow affected by opportunity (not alone, but to some extent). Opportunity is not a scarce resource, i think...
Re: Re: Is money an (artificially) scarce good?
Yes, i agree with what you say, but i was pondering the fact that in the origins of the "money" concept, it was precious metals (gold, silver) and the value of that was driven by it being scarce.
We then changed to coins (made of less valuable metal) and paper. In all these, the security measures where placed there to maintain scarcity.
But today, it seems to me that somehow, money appears to be infinite. When you see valuations of companies and the way economists talk about billions and trillions (and these numbers get bigger everyday). At the same time, it is all becoming digital also.
Economy seems to be growing exponentially (despite one or other recession announcement). At least, countries (USA specially) seem to expand their money base at will (is it so?).
I wonder if more (abundant) money will trigger the eradication of poverty and a more even distribution of power (the "power" usually attached to having a lot of money).
Is money an (artificially) scarce good?
As said before, i'm not seasoned in economy, but i started to think about the fact that money is being replaced (faster every day) with it's electronic version.
I would say that the product itself (the paper bill or coin) has some production cost (the security stripes, the special paper, the ink, etc). These costs no longer exist on the electronic version and i might seem reasonable (or incredibly stupid???) to believe that once the good becomes completely digital the same forces Mike talks about will apply to money.
Is it so? I can imagine that governments will try to "put a serial number" on bits just to keep the "world from falling". Is it that at some point, money will be so readily available that we will stop worrying about it? Will we start using other thing (such as "entertainment" to define value?).
Maybe this has always been the case (you know: money doesn't buy happiness) and this will only make it more obvious...