The internet might not be as tightly controlled but think of the Great Firewall of China. In addition, it's an excellent tool for surveillance.
People periodically realize that they are being screwed over, yet most of the time after the initial outrage nothing happens. There may be some scandals but wait 6 months and it's all forgotten.
slaves vs slave owners. bourgeoisie vs proletariat. Class conflict has been here since the beginning of human history. Those who have power will always exploit those who don't have power. This will never change. It's human nature.
You can either beat the system or game the system. But it's incredibly hard. Guess how much chance does an Ethiopian have to make it really rich. Not much. Just like you. You need to be born to the right family to get in there. The culture of yincubator seems to reinforce this. Sure, work your ass off, have no life, no health, just do 80 hours per week for your startup, and then the investment angels come in and take half of that, while they do no work. I know that this is how investment works, but I still find it unfair. Not even talking about all the exploitative economic processes that are created by the 0.1% without our knowledge and oversight.
Do you know where all those companies are that follow ethical practices?
Out of business.
This is a dog eats god world. Survival of the fittest. Google didn't get this big by having an excellent search algorithm. That's only half the story. They elbowed out all their competition until it was only them left on top. They are unethical assholes who win.
I'm taking a Masters Machine Learning class at a top UK university and I must say that I'm sure the lecturer is an expert in ML but he's got absolutely no teaching skills. 90% of the class has absolutely no idea what's going on, and the 10% has extensive previous ML experience. Professor Ng's lectures are like a life savor to me. They help me understand the basic concepts of ML so that I can go on and study in the deep waters.
Every generation thinks that they are somehow unique. That they face problems that could mean the end of humanity. That they reached some kind of singularity and at this stage evolution stops unless they somehow do something about it.
I think the current age is no different than any previous age. Sure we have a different set of problems to cope with, but in the end we will advance and get over them. There's really nothing extraordinary. There will be humans in 100 years time and they will more developed than us.
Some people will retreat into virtual realities and be entertainment junkies. Some won't and will make the world go forward. Just like some people took drugs in the 60s and got high all day, and some people didn't.
I plan to do a PhD in AI and start my own company after that. I already have a very solid software engineering background. I think in order to truly appreciate your education and efforts, you need to start your own company. Otherwise, you're just generating money to someone else and your work gets averaged by everyone else's work.
I don't think this is a viable strategy in the long run. He managed to make it work for now because of all the media attention and sending it viral on social networking sites. In addition, he puts lots of moralistic pressure on the buyer which may work for him because it fits his comedy style. Also, with this experiment we prove a point to the public that this model can work, so that we, the consumers, can continue to torrent high quality entertainment material for free and not having to pay for it. Yes, it's pure selfishness.
In all other cases for all other "content producers", making it easier for people to torrent your stuff is equal to shooting yourself in the foot. That's the only reason people still pay for stuff like this nowadays anyway: (1) They either haven't got a clue what torrenting means or (2) they're too lazy to do it or (3) they're feeling morally generous.
You can combat (1) by keeping silent about it, (2) by putting as much protection on it as possible, (3) having skill in manipulating masses. Yes, it's manipulation. YOU'RE NOT PAYING 5 DOLLARS FOR THE SHOW, YOU'RE PAYING 5 DOLLARS TO FEEL GOOD ABOUT YOURSELF BEING MORAL.
Thanks but no thanks, I can feel good about myself whenever I want to, I don't need to pay 5 dollars to a dude for it. His show is great by the way but let's face it, it's essentially free.
I think college is like better business bureau. A scam. You can learn everything you want yourself for free, instead of going to a college and pay an enormous amount of money for it. Especially now with the Internet, most materials you find online are multiple times better quality than what you get at college. Most graduates need to receive considerable additional training when they join a company. Bottom line is:
You don't go to college to learn; you go to college to get a paper certificate that you can show to others.
It's the problem of signalling and unfortunately, there's no easy solution for it. Colleges profit from the information imbalance and lack of trust in the job market. Some people recommend that instead of your certificates, your past projects should make up your resume. But then you get a catch 22 because others won't risk starting a project with you, unless they can see that you're capable from your resume. The only way to break out of this is the people you're going to work with must already know your abilities beforehand. Hence, you can start a start-up with your close friends or on your own, or become a vice president by knowing the right people at a company. For everything else, you need a resume for which Colleges are the gate keepers. And they won't give away that power for free. So enjoy your debt.
sure video games help you build skills. But question is, could you spend that time on building skills that are MORE relevant to your goals? I am of the opinion, that almost everything you do builds skills. For example, even watching soap operas on TV can increase your social skills in some way. However, what you need is FOCUS on obtaining the most RELEVANT skills that takes you closer to achieving your goals in the SHORTEST amount of time possible.
You only need these features because you are a programmer. A lot of people never even open the Terminal. Arguably, Linux or Windows is better match for programmers.
I wouldn't say it's more convenient. It's rather the case that most people have no clue about how to pirate music. It's an information asymmetry. You need to be at least minimally technically skilled to pirate.
Once you install an extension to chrome, it's actually easier to just go to youtube, search for a song, and click the download link. In iTunes, you have to set up a credit card, you can't copy the songs to any device, only works with iPhone ... etc. There are lots of inconveniences.
the biggest fraud in the history of a european country (> 100 million USD) was committed by a broker who had no qualifications whatsoever, didn't even graduate from high school but was the vice president of one of the largest banks in the country and knew all the top political and legal figures.
> he was a friggin' VP of a $100 million company
x 10 +
>But damn, I didn't think it would happen to me. I mean, I was prepared! I read a lot of books! I knew all about bad employees and how to avoid them! I was smart, dammit!
Obviously, that author didn't read Influence by Cialdini as he was deceived by one of the oldest tricks: "influence by authority"
Efficiency does not kill jobs. Efficiency only kills OLD jobs and creates NEW jobs. Specialization ensures that everybody has a job. We're not coming to some futuristic scenario where machines will do everything for us and people will have nothing to do. This is complete nonsense. We're only advancing, like we've done since the stone age. There's nothing new here.
ok. wtf is going on. why does this story have 314 points? it's about a man taking a photo of a couple. Is this supposed to be a top quality post or what? Why does it matter that the man was Steve Jobs and not some random dude? Did you get more out of this story one way or the other? HN FAIL.
I've got a feeling the iPhone 4 Steve is a very clever marketing ploy by Apple. "I'll be buying an iPhone 4 Steve this friday." Emotional manipulation in its subtlest form.
People periodically realize that they are being screwed over, yet most of the time after the initial outrage nothing happens. There may be some scandals but wait 6 months and it's all forgotten.