[gmku]

Harsh? They're all brats. They deserve far worse than what I can hand out.

Originally Posted by Genteel Death

We've had a similar problem with the pin machines at work recently. Something to do with the wireless connection in the building, and other technical stuff you don't want me to list on here to spare you some extra anxiety to deal with. Luckily in the UK people normally don't seem as harsh as you when ''kids'' are handling their transactions going wrong. I know this because I am their first port of call when it comes to complaints.

[gmku]

Shits or not, and most of them are, there have been real cases, in my town and elsewhere, where college kids have been found guilty, in courts of law, of doing this. I'm not making this up because I'm mean and hate kids (although both points might be true).

Originally Posted by Genteel Death

It's not that, it's just that I've never heard once someone blaming those little shits. Not even my mate Lord Archer, who's a first class arsehole when he talks to his servants.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by schizophrenicroom

which beck song?

eh! i missed this post earlier...

THIS ONE! of course ha ha

Originally Posted by schizophrenicroom

and eh, i could, but given my precarious situation here i don't like drawing attention to myself.

ohhhhhh.... i understand now

when are you moving?

Originally Posted by schizophrenicroom

what they'd change? i just use spotify nowadays

proof that you're smart-- unlike... cough cough... others.

Originally Posted by schizophrenicroom

passed my test, whoo.

as i was saying-- and congrats!-- your focus issues now resolved i'm guessing? opportunities for más dinero?

[evollove]

Originally Posted by PLips

i demanded from my social worker today to speak to a psychologist which isnt covered by my mental health care. my brother said hed pay for it.
we'll see what happens.

Awesome brother. He's a keeper.

----

I'm not technologically adept, so I really don't get the itunes hate.

I've never signed up for an account, and yet they've given me about 1000 hours of podcast goodness for free. Improved my life drastically. I don't use the player much, but when I do I'm impressed with the "sound enhancer" feature, and the EQ is fun to tweak.

I used spotify once, but I couldn't find what I wanted. When I did eventually find something, I was depressed by the lousy sound quality. Never went back.

I'm sure someone can explain why I'm wrong, but I probably wouldn't understand.

---

Now I'm slightly freaking out about getting my finances stolen. On the other hand, I'm a little offended no one has yet bothered. What, my money's not good enough to steal?

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by evollove

I'm not technologically adept, so I really don't get the itunes hate.

i know i'll sound like the 20h century dinosaur i am but for me winamp 2.8 or 2.9 was the apex of digital music playing (it really kicked the llama's ass-- ha ha ha). winamp just played what you fed it and left your files alone.

itunes is good at selling shit, but for my distaste, it shifts shit around, moves your files to wherever the hell it wants and hides them from you, adds up a very larded file structure and basically claims them for itself. i have never liked it. here is an example of people bitching about this particular feature:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5450218?tstart=0

i store my shit in a synology diskstation, not a mac, so itunes has a problem with that. the ds puts out an itunes stream thingy, which opens in a computer, but the iphone doesnt read it-- so i use the ds audio app for playback, which is total crap, but at least it's the crap you'd expect from as an afterthought from a chinese manufacturer of network storage.

as for spotifried, it has audio quality settings-- the defaults are indeed quite shitty, just change them to a higher bitrate and blam.

[Rob Instigator]

Originally Posted by PLips

i demanded from my social worker today to speak to a psychologist which isnt covered by my mental health care. my brother said hed pay for it.
we'll see what happens.

best of luck Plips, and remember, it is a process and takes time and patience.

[Keeping It Gimple]

i hate itunes, and any service that tries to profit from file sharing

winamp was the shit but sadly its gone now.

it disgusts me that people will pay for streaming and file sharing services.

we need free p2p and file sharing networks - theres a political urgency to this because capitalism will try and hoard and profit off data that should be free.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Keeping It Gimple

i hate itunes, and any service that tries to profit from file sharing

winamp was the shit but sadly its gone now.

it disgusts me that people will pay for streaming and file sharing services.

we need free p2p and file sharing networks - theres a political urgency to this because capitalism will try and hoard and profit off data that should be free.

i don't understand this notion that ALL data should be free. theoretically, everything is data-- say, your kidneys, they're an information system, that doeans't mean anyone can harvest them.

but as for reproducible information being free-- removing the possibility of profit from intellectual property removes the incentive to create that information the first place.

if my job is to make up things that can be digitized but nobody wants to pay for them, must i be homeless and hungry?

i suppose in a more enlightened society such people would be taken care of by a disinterested populace, but such conditions do not exist.

otherwise wed be able to get the best shit from the creative commons. wikipedia is great, but it's more of an exception.

we all know what happens to any kind of commons-- people take take take but give very little. human nature is sad that way.

so i don't mind paying for streaming services that give me what i want. IP is an abstraction, but it's one that has served us well by creating incentives to production. i don't pay for file sharing secrecy--paying to steal is a bit too hypocritical.

[Keeping It Gimple]

the incentive of profit didnt create linux or winamp or any of the myriad programmes which are better than their for profit counterparts in a million and one ways

the incentive of profit leads to destroying programmes and hoarding their best features

this is all because capitalism

but file sharing is a mechanism that works without profit and thus keeping profit out of it is our best shot at distributing information - medical and technical, to aid the majority of the world, which is poor, and spread tech and data that can liberate people from the profit motive in at least some aspects of their lives

as a compute repair guy, i know that if i freely share the info i have im literally taking money away from other guys trying to survive off their skills.

but at the same time, its definitely the best thing to do because it frees up a larger amount of people from having to spend what little they have on stuff they can do themselves for free

and eventually the capitalist aspect of the profession becomes obsolesced which is good overall.

[Keeping It Gimple]

whereas your argument can be used to support a scenario in which one doctor has the cure for a disease and noone else does, but instead of sharing it he patents it and profits of the few who can afford to pay for his cure

which is why your argument is popular

[Rob Instigator]

I buy a book I read it, I let someone borrow it, they read it.

I buy an album of music, I listen to it. I let someone else borrow it, they listen to it.

There is no law against sharing anything for free, unless it is "digital". That is the double standard lie that Gimple is pointing at which allows ridiculous monopolies like Itunes and shit like that.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Keeping It Gimple

whereas your argument can be used to support a scenario in which one doctor has the cure for a disease and noone else does, but instead of sharing it he patents it and profits of the few who can afford to pay for his cure

which is why your argument is popular

the argument is popular within capitalism because that's how capitalism works.

i didn't invent capitalism, i just live in it. would i like a different system? sure. what is it? i don't see it-- i ony see the historical nightmares from broken utopias.

there are a few people who devote their lives to the service of others but those are few and far between. most people are pigs, and work mostly for self-interest. very sad, but true. i'm not championing selfishness by the way, i just observe it everywhere. read brecht's the good soul of szechuan.

and so the information born of self-interest is often better developed because it has the economic resources for that development.

take linux-- it's great, but if it was so great everyone would use it. as it is, only geeks do. i tried it, but holy shit what a pain in the ass it was. even the simplest upgrade was a headache.

so now i use osx-- which derives from unix but it's easy even for a moron to use. and so it's worth money.

the open source movement is still a good thing though, except that it's not disinterested-- it's a prestige market. you get paid in fame points and then cash them in for jobs/contracts/investors. every open source monk will burn their robes at the first sign of big money.

i don't think file sharing will overthrow capitalism-- if anything, it exacerbates capitalism by making people more selfish and entitled-- "i want it all and i want it yesterday".

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

I buy a book I read it, I let someone borrow it, they read it.

I buy an album of music, I listen to it. I let someone else borrow it, they listen to it.

There is no law against sharing anything for free, unless it is "digital". That is the double standard lie that Gimple is pointing at which allows ridiculous monopolies like Itunes and shit like that.

that assumes that the universe is perfectly logical and should always make sense logically from top to bottom. contradictions and paradoxes exist. limits always stretch the mind.

there's a difference between lending your friend a book-- and making infinite copies of the book at no cost to you and letting anyone have them-- or worse, charging people for you to give it to them in secret. why are we even arguing this.

[evollove]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

I buy a book I read it, I let someone borrow it, they read it.

I buy an album of music, I listen to it. I let someone else borrow it, they listen to it.

versus

"I buy an album, upload a torrent, thousands download it for free."

or worse:

"I downloaded a torrent. It got taken down. I re-upped it from my downloaded files."

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

i don't think file sharing will overthrow capitalism-- if anything, it exacerbates capitalism by making people more selfish and entitled-- "i want it all and i want it yesterday".

Funny, I was just watching a clip of Noel Gallagher bewildered that someone would pay a few bucks for a cup of coffee that'll last a few minutes but will bitch about paying for a record that could change a life. A bit romantic, but a fair point.

A generation from now, hopefully we'll figure out how scientists can freely exchange info to cure cancer, while artists can make a living. What's with this either/or shit?

[Rob Instigator]

No one cries foul about every single music organization and school and program in the country buying one copy of a musical score and making endless photocopies for all the musicians.

putting a digital file on a torrent site is no different than leaving books in a public place and hoping someone grabs it and reads it. No one makes $$ off it, unless they repackage the file and sell it to those without computers. THAT is illegal as fuck

[Keeping It Gimple]

linux might be a pain but ubuntu isnt, its easier than windows and its free. the reason people dont use it is because they arent used to it because they have to know windows to survive economically

peoples self interest is not some magic supernatural fulcrum that orders reality around it. its actually produced by the necessity the system they live in produces in them.

your idea about what capitalism is and what an alternative is is not accurate.

people being selfish and greedy has nothing to do with why we have capitalism - that is in fact a capitalist myth

[Keeping It Gimple]

file sharing wont overthrow capitalism, i never said it would/

it will obsolesce parts of it and help me survive and thrive tho

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

No one cries foul about every single music organization and school and program in the country buying one copy of a musical score and making endless photocopies for all the musicians.

right. musicals scores drive the economy.

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

putting a digital file on a torrent site is no different than leaving books in a public place and hoping someone grabs it and reads it. No one makes $$ off it, unless they repackage the file and sell it to those without computers. THAT is illegal as fuck

1. when you leave a book in a public place you give up your book so another can have it

2. file sharers don't get money, but they get other files for which they would otherwise have to pay. so there is "money" made.

--

it's always people on a salary who think this way-- that IP is nothing. their paycheck arrives every friday from the big boss or government or donor in the clouds and they don't have to worry about a thing. if they don't get paid accurately and on time they make a racket, bang on the table, go on strike, demand their worker's rights.

but shit, the poor fucker who stays up all night creating a product of mental activity gets ripped off from all sides and those consumers who get salaries ask "but why does he complain?"

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Keeping It Gimple

peoples self interest is not some magic supernatural fulcrum that orders reality around it. its actually produced by the necessity the system they live in produces in them.

your idea about what capitalism is and what an alternative is is not accurate.

people being selfish and greedy has nothing to do with why we have capitalism - that is in fact a capitalist myth

right-- that was the post-facto claim that brecht made for his play. that the system made altruism impossible. hence i recommended it-- i didn't say "go read ayn rand". but that's where we are. so we can't go around forcing altruism out of people who haven't chosen it for themselves. "i'm taking your wallet-- altruism, dude"

but it's not capitalism proper that creates that-- it's our desires that generate scarcity. we always want more than there is available. hence, "not enough to go around." ever. under any system. scarcity is the basic fact of economics.

capitalism is just a modern system to manage that scarcity. wanting more for less however is fucking ancient. it has always been.

[Rob Instigator]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

r

it's always people on a salary who think this way-- that IP is nothing. their paycheck arrives every friday from the big boss or government or donor in the clouds and they don't have to worry about a thing. if they don't get paid accurately and on time they make a racket, bang on the table, go on strike, demand their worker's rights.

but shit, the poor fucker who stays up all night creating a product of mental activity gets ripped off from all sides and those consumers who get salaries ask "but why does he complain?"

I am both. I EARN a salary by working my ass off 40-50 hours a week, and I EARN extra $$ by creating artworks and trying to sell them to people.

No one gave a flying fuck about "artists" when it was the giant conglomerates who controlled the means of production, the means of marketing, and the means of distribution. The only people who gave a shit about Napster were these same giant media conglomerates, whose fully artificial and wasteful and self-gratifying business system went out the fuckiing window.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

I am both. I EARN a salary by working my ass off 40-50 hours a week, and I EARN extra $$ by creating artworks and trying to sell them to people.

No one gave a flying fuck about "artists" when it was the giant conglomerates who controlled the means of production, the means of marketing, and the means of distribution. The only people who gave a shit about Napster were these same giant media conglomerates, whose fully artificial and wasteful and self-gratifying business system went out the fuckiing window.

but you realize that the fully artificial wasteful self-gratifying model is actually possible because they are the only ones who can enforce the right of artists with some measure of success, yes?

because the artist alone is naked in the world. and so they must pay "protection" to a media racket by selling their rights to them.

because as little as they get, a little is more than the nothing they would get from the oh-so-generous (yeah right) public.

in other words, if we were a less cunning and thieving predatory exploitative species we'd all pay the artists directly and need no lawyers. we'd all be writing checks to cat power-- "thanks for those great moments! here's $1,000!". but as it is, artists need lawyers if they want to eat, and we can blame the lawyers all we want but that's just not being honest with ourselves.