Still waiting for the legalized snake oil salesmen
So how long before some company comes up with a test and cure for some unknown potentially serious condition (FUBAR as an example) that doesn't really exist. All the pieces are there and have been used for various purposes.
1. Have bogus 'Journal' publish papers on the seriousness of FUBAR and the wonderful 'cure' developed by company X.
2. Company X produces bogus test for FUBAR that randomly returns 33% positive result.
3. Company X produces and sells 'cure' for FUBAR to the ignorant sheeple (tm).
4. ....
5. Profit
And since it's all patented nobody else can reliably reproduce or refute the results without a patent infringement suit.
My tinfoil hat got a little crushed when wife used it to wrap up the leftovers last night, so I'm using a Wax Paper one today, but it's just not the same.....
They probably don't really care about the code so much as the comments that indicate how the various pieces "manipulate markets in unfair ways".
as an example:
Sub StealFromCustomerPurchases (stock, customer, price)
'This function will take a customers stock purchase request, get the price of the stock before the transaction (using the unfair advantage in timing we purchased), purchase the shares at the pre-customer price, then initiate multiple purchase/sale cancellations to inflate the cost of the stock before processing the customers order.
'This function can be used to skim 5-10% from all our customers by selling the stocks to them at a higher price than we purchased them for only seconds earlier..
Do FOO...
Ok, so probably not, but the code itself may not have been the important part, info on which transactions to insert at which point in time may have been more important than the code itself (knowing that it will take 1000 purchase/cancel transactions to raise the stock price $.10 in a minute would be useful knowledge if you had the ability to process those transactions and buy and sell the stock).
"Backing high-risk loans with tax money? Yeah...that'll work."
Actually on a small scale in special circumstances it probably would have worked, the problems is that as soon as the system was setup people started gaming the system to push as many high risk loans as they could thru (so that they could turn around and roll them into CDO's to resell to the next sucker).
At this point the system stopped being about helping out the needy with government backed loans, and became one of who can push the most crap (high risk loans and CDO's) through the system before it collapses. You can bet that the ones making the most profit knew that it WAS going to crash in a bad way, but they were making so much money doing nothing that they didn't care.
I don't think the comment was intended to be derogatory towards TechDirt, but to point out how ridiculous some of these 'real' issues are, by comparing them to the Onion's Satire. Some of the ideas these 'industry types' come up with are just so far out there that you almost hope that it is satire, but then they continue to push their stupid ideas on the rest of the world and we realize that they were actually serious....
It's been said before, but this poem makes the point, just replace the various groups with our privacy rights and you can see where things end....
In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then... they came for me... And by that time there was no one left to speak up."
They started taking pictures of cars, and I didn't speak up because I didn't have anything to hide;
and then they started taking pictures of groups of people, and I didn't speak up because I didn't have anything to hide;
and then they started taking pictures of individuals crossing state borders, and I didn't speak up because I didn't have anything to hide;
and when they changed the laws to make it illegal to "FOO", they came for me because they had a picture of me in a group of people "FOOING";
DAMN I WISH I WOULD HAVE HAD THE COMMON SENSE TO SPEAK UP SOONER....
("FOO" can be anything that isn't currently illegal, but suddenly becomes illegal when the laws change, could be as small as spitting on the sidewalk, or protesting the current political leaders, it doesn't really matter what FOO is.... but if the FOO SH*TS, WEAR IT).
Are we following the money? Where's the rest of the story?
I'm willing to accept that this 'could' just be a mistake, but has anyone looked closer at where the money is going? I'm not talking about the 23 quadrillion x however many customers were charged, but how much money VISA earned on the 'float' that would be involved in transactions of this size. My guess is that the interest earned by 'someone' on these funds over an hour or two would be more than most US families are likely to see in income in an entire year (including both spouses salaries and all their kids part time jobs).
The term 'Gaming the system' comes to mind, and I have a feeling that 'someone' 'somewhere' knew exactly what they were doing when they caused this to happen. And yes, my tinfoil hat may be a little tight today (with the recession and all).
"is there a website that lists public domain material?"
There was a great website, but unfortunately it was shut down due to potential copyright infringement claims by big media companies. Apparently all the big media companies claimed they owned the various pieces of public domain material, and to prevent the pending lawsuit, the website listing of all public domain material was taken out of the public domain.
Lets say I wanted to market a highly addictive and toxic substance to millions of consumers, would that be legal or not? If I'm 'big tobacco' than it's fine, go ahead and kill the populace as long as you are giving the government enough money they don't care. Try bringing a similar product to market today (without the lobbiests and bribes that sustained big tobacco in the early years) and see what happens.
Laws are written by humans, and like everything else we do, they are not perfect. Most of them are a 'forced morality' to try and get society to fit into somebody's model (the ones passing the laws usually), when the majority of society no longer recognizes a law as valid, it's time to throw out the law, not jail everyone who disagrees. What happened during prohabition? Why isn't alchahol still illegal, I mean it was at one point, so it must still be right? Oh that's right, we as a society decided that law was CRAP and needed to go.
Things are coming to a tipping point and there are going to be some serious changes coming soon. People are only going to stand for this 'corporate welfare' mentality for so long before they realize that we do have the power to change things, it was given to us in the constitution by our founding fathers (who apparently saw the current situation coming from hundreds of years ago, which is pretty amazing coming from a bunch of stoners who liked to dress up in powdered wigs and shirttails and sit around swapping stories.)
The law is only the law as long as people accept it as the law, if the majority of the people don't recognize a law, then good luck enforcing it, and if you do try to enforce it, be prepared for the backlash that it will bring.
Just remember.... if the world didn't suck, we'd all fall off.
To the people who don't understand and think that the radio stations are already paying a licensing fee to play the music they play.... DING DING DING....
YOU ARE CORRECT...
1 point for you.
Now follow along (since you didn't read the article), this can get complicated... RIAA claimed internet/satellite was 'different' than terrestrial radio and had laws passed that required them to pay an ADDITIONAL licensing fee (that supposedly goes to the performers, when actually the majority of the fees goes directly in their pockets) which made licensing costs for internet/satellite much more expensive than terrestrial radio. NOW they are claiming that terrestrial radio needs to pay the same licensing fees as the other guys 'to be fair'....
To put this in perspective, lets say there are 2 5 year old kids, a 15 year old, and an 18 year old bully. First the bully shakes down the two 5 year old kids and takes their lunch money (because he can - he had laws passed to make it legal to do so), now he comes to you the 15 year old and demands that you pay up as well 'to be fair'.... Seems reasonable right? Nope seems like extortion and anti-competitive monopolistic business practices to me, and the whole industry should be taken out back and shot (or just make them actually pay out all the money they have collected 'for the artists' over the years, I'm sure the end result would be the same).
I'm with Shawn above, who hasn't 'upgraded' a movie/video player and had it search your entire computer attempting to locate every single sound and video file along with attempting to make itself the default player for all the types of files it finds.
Are we sure the tech didn't just install the software that came with the actual DVD drive, and watched as it scanned the hard drive returning video files like: kiddy pron1, junior does daddy, or similar sick crap. At the time this case was happening, the delivered OS tools weren't that great on their own and almost every DVD drive came with it's own 'software' package consisting of drivers, management software, and viewing software (which always tried to make itself the default for all file types they could support, along with cataloging them for easier viewing in the future).
They are attempting to implement the historical 'kings count', where the king would divide out the loot/goods/etc highly in their own favor.
One (1 item) for you, Two (2 items) for me, two (the second item) for you, three (3 items) for me. So at this point you have 2 items, and I have 5, which is all fair and equitable (according to the one doing the distribution, not the one receiving it).
The problem is that when you implement this type of count with a virtual item like 'votes' it's hard to make sure your loops are correct, if they aren't then you end up dividing out more than you actually had in the first place.
It must be time for Big tobacco to do another educational campaign, since it seems to be the 'big' thing for corporate bullies to do.
They can push all the 'benefits' of smoking to the youth of tomorrow:
Lower cost of living (8 to 10 years off your life = lower overall cost of living, right?)
Higher perceived 'coolness' factor among peers (It used to be 'cool' so it must still be 'cool' to smoke right?), Lower your families cost of living by 5-10% (by cutting 3-4 years off everyone's lifespan, which reduces the family's overall cost of living, right?)
Less altering but more addictive (tobacco today has no relation to the 'wacky tobacco' that our forefathers grew/smoked, it has almost none of the psychoactive properties, but almost 4 times the addictive and toxic substances, this may not be entirely accurate as 67% of statistics are made up on the spot)
I'm sure they could come up with some great new propaganda to get the youth of tomorrow addicted to their product so that they can continue to make billions (for themselves and the health care industry) while slowly killing off their customers. If the MPAA and RIAA could figure out a way to make their product highly addictive but slowly fatal to their customers, they would probably jump on the chance in a heartbeat (get more money out of customers today, without any regard for long term survival).
Obligatory tin foil hat reference (of course I'm wearing mine, aren't you?)
If a company is needing to borrow a BILLION dollars just to survive, then how can they really justify any bonuses? The problem is that the bonus isn't usually tied to the same metrics that we would think of when we wonder how the company is doing.
When looking at company performance we may look at things like the debt/equity ratio, current year profits, price/earnings ratios, etc.
When Exce's are designing bonus plans, they make sure they aren't tied to any 'real' figures, but to more abstract things like: Provided a strong face for the company (ie. actually attended all 4 board meetings this year, bigger bonus for actually being sober at all 4 meetings...), Made a suggestion for saving the company money (ie. sack all first year employees), and Improved Management morale (ie. Hired a cute intern to provide 'reach around' assistance in the Executive washroom, received additional 'personal bonuses' from all managers caught using the service in exchange for not sharing the info with their 'significant others').
On the post: Doctors Concerned About The Patenting Of Basic Science
Still waiting for the legalized snake oil salesmen
1. Have bogus 'Journal' publish papers on the seriousness of FUBAR and the wonderful 'cure' developed by company X.
2. Company X produces bogus test for FUBAR that randomly returns 33% positive result.
3. Company X produces and sells 'cure' for FUBAR to the ignorant sheeple (tm).
4. ....
5. Profit
And since it's all patented nobody else can reliably reproduce or refute the results without a patent infringement suit.
My tinfoil hat got a little crushed when wife used it to wrap up the leftovers last night, so I'm using a Wax Paper one today, but it's just not the same.....
On the post: Is The Goldman Sachs Stolen Code A Big Deal?
it's probably all about the comments.....
as an example:
Sub StealFromCustomerPurchases (stock, customer, price)
'This function will take a customers stock purchase request, get the price of the stock before the transaction (using the unfair advantage in timing we purchased), purchase the shares at the pre-customer price, then initiate multiple purchase/sale cancellations to inflate the cost of the stock before processing the customers order.
'This function can be used to skim 5-10% from all our customers by selling the stocks to them at a higher price than we purchased them for only seconds earlier..
Do FOO...
Ok, so probably not, but the code itself may not have been the important part, info on which transactions to insert at which point in time may have been more important than the code itself (knowing that it will take 1000 purchase/cancel transactions to raise the stock price $.10 in a minute would be useful knowledge if you had the ability to process those transactions and buy and sell the stock).
Obligatory Tin Foil Hat Reference
On the post: Can The Public Be Heard On Copyright Issues?
But where did the money go?
Actually on a small scale in special circumstances it probably would have worked, the problems is that as soon as the system was setup people started gaming the system to push as many high risk loans as they could thru (so that they could turn around and roll them into CDO's to resell to the next sucker).
At this point the system stopped being about helping out the needy with government backed loans, and became one of who can push the most crap (high risk loans and CDO's) through the system before it collapses. You can bet that the ones making the most profit knew that it WAS going to crash in a bad way, but they were making so much money doing nothing that they didn't care.
On the post: Associated Press Tries To DRM The News
Re the Onion comment and response
On the post: Tiburon Wants To Photograph Every Car Entering And Leaving... But Don't Worry About Your Privacy
It all starts somewhere.....
In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then... they came for me... And by that time there was no one left to speak up."
They started taking pictures of cars, and I didn't speak up because I didn't have anything to hide;
and then they started taking pictures of groups of people, and I didn't speak up because I didn't have anything to hide;
and then they started taking pictures of individuals crossing state borders, and I didn't speak up because I didn't have anything to hide;
and when they changed the laws to make it illegal to "FOO", they came for me because they had a picture of me in a group of people "FOOING";
DAMN I WISH I WOULD HAVE HAD THE COMMON SENSE TO SPEAK UP SOONER....
("FOO" can be anything that isn't currently illegal, but suddenly becomes illegal when the laws change, could be as small as spitting on the sidewalk, or protesting the current political leaders, it doesn't really matter what FOO is.... but if the FOO SH*TS, WEAR IT).
On the post: Visa Accidentally Charges People $23 Quadrillion
Are we following the money? Where's the rest of the story?
The term 'Gaming the system' comes to mind, and I have a feeling that 'someone' 'somewhere' knew exactly what they were doing when they caused this to happen. And yes, my tinfoil hat may be a little tight today (with the recession and all).
On the post: Should There Be A Penalty For Falsely Claiming Copyright Over Public Domain Material?
Website for Public Domain Material
There was a great website, but unfortunately it was shut down due to potential copyright infringement claims by big media companies. Apparently all the big media companies claimed they owned the various pieces of public domain material, and to prevent the pending lawsuit, the website listing of all public domain material was taken out of the public domain.
/sarcasm off
On the post: Andy Kessler: Piracy Happens, Get Over It
leagle scheagle.... is grey area
Laws are written by humans, and like everything else we do, they are not perfect. Most of them are a 'forced morality' to try and get society to fit into somebody's model (the ones passing the laws usually), when the majority of society no longer recognizes a law as valid, it's time to throw out the law, not jail everyone who disagrees. What happened during prohabition? Why isn't alchahol still illegal, I mean it was at one point, so it must still be right? Oh that's right, we as a society decided that law was CRAP and needed to go.
Things are coming to a tipping point and there are going to be some serious changes coming soon. People are only going to stand for this 'corporate welfare' mentality for so long before they realize that we do have the power to change things, it was given to us in the constitution by our founding fathers (who apparently saw the current situation coming from hundreds of years ago, which is pretty amazing coming from a bunch of stoners who liked to dress up in powdered wigs and shirttails and sit around swapping stories.)
The law is only the law as long as people accept it as the law, if the majority of the people don't recognize a law, then good luck enforcing it, and if you do try to enforce it, be prepared for the backlash that it will bring.
Just remember.... if the world didn't suck, we'd all fall off.
On the post: How The Recording Industry Changes Its Own Story
It's all about the moolah
YOU ARE CORRECT...
1 point for you.
Now follow along (since you didn't read the article), this can get complicated... RIAA claimed internet/satellite was 'different' than terrestrial radio and had laws passed that required them to pay an ADDITIONAL licensing fee (that supposedly goes to the performers, when actually the majority of the fees goes directly in their pockets) which made licensing costs for internet/satellite much more expensive than terrestrial radio. NOW they are claiming that terrestrial radio needs to pay the same licensing fees as the other guys 'to be fair'....
To put this in perspective, lets say there are 2 5 year old kids, a 15 year old, and an 18 year old bully. First the bully shakes down the two 5 year old kids and takes their lunch money (because he can - he had laws passed to make it legal to do so), now he comes to you the 15 year old and demands that you pay up as well 'to be fair'.... Seems reasonable right? Nope seems like extortion and anti-competitive monopolistic business practices to me, and the whole industry should be taken out back and shot (or just make them actually pay out all the money they have collected 'for the artists' over the years, I'm sure the end result would be the same).
On the post: Elsevier Reveals More Details About Its Fake Journal Division
That's a good one.. eh! But do they make good beer?
On the post: Supreme Court Won't Hear Case Over Computer Tech's Right To Search Your Computer
Overzealous Software... OMG
Are we sure the tech didn't just install the software that came with the actual DVD drive, and watched as it scanned the hard drive returning video files like: kiddy pron1, junior does daddy, or similar sick crap. At the time this case was happening, the delivered OS tools weren't that great on their own and almost every DVD drive came with it's own 'software' package consisting of drivers, management software, and viewing software (which always tried to make itself the default for all file types they could support, along with cataloging them for easier viewing in the future).
On the post: Yet Another E-Voting Glitch; This One Adds 5,000 Phantom Votes
It's all in the method
One (1 item) for you, Two (2 items) for me, two (the second item) for you, three (3 items) for me. So at this point you have 2 items, and I have 5, which is all fair and equitable (according to the one doing the distribution, not the one receiving it).
The problem is that when you implement this type of count with a virtual item like 'votes' it's hard to make sure your loops are correct, if they aren't then you end up dividing out more than you actually had in the first place.
On the post: Entertainment Industry Propaganda Moves Into Schools In Australia As Well
Time for Big Tobacco's Educational Campaign
They can push all the 'benefits' of smoking to the youth of tomorrow:
Lower cost of living (8 to 10 years off your life = lower overall cost of living, right?)
Higher perceived 'coolness' factor among peers (It used to be 'cool' so it must still be 'cool' to smoke right?), Lower your families cost of living by 5-10% (by cutting 3-4 years off everyone's lifespan, which reduces the family's overall cost of living, right?)
Less altering but more addictive (tobacco today has no relation to the 'wacky tobacco' that our forefathers grew/smoked, it has almost none of the psychoactive properties, but almost 4 times the addictive and toxic substances, this may not be entirely accurate as 67% of statistics are made up on the spot)
I'm sure they could come up with some great new propaganda to get the youth of tomorrow addicted to their product so that they can continue to make billions (for themselves and the health care industry) while slowly killing off their customers. If the MPAA and RIAA could figure out a way to make their product highly addictive but slowly fatal to their customers, they would probably jump on the chance in a heartbeat (get more money out of customers today, without any regard for long term survival).
Obligatory tin foil hat reference (of course I'm wearing mine, aren't you?)
On the post: Suggestion For Warner Music: Maybe Look At How Much You're Paying Your Execs
It's all in the definition
When looking at company performance we may look at things like the debt/equity ratio, current year profits, price/earnings ratios, etc.
When Exce's are designing bonus plans, they make sure they aren't tied to any 'real' figures, but to more abstract things like: Provided a strong face for the company (ie. actually attended all 4 board meetings this year, bigger bonus for actually being sober at all 4 meetings...), Made a suggestion for saving the company money (ie. sack all first year employees), and Improved Management morale (ie. Hired a cute intern to provide 'reach around' assistance in the Executive washroom, received additional 'personal bonuses' from all managers caught using the service in exchange for not sharing the info with their 'significant others').
Is my tin foil hat too pointy today?
Next >>