From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V12 #211 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Thursday, June 12 2003 Volume 12 : Number 211 Today's Subjects: ----------------- A distraction: look over yonder ["Rex.Broome" ] Re: Safari, so good [Miles Goosens ] RE: Advanced text editing in OS X. Advanced music downloading everywhere else. [Capuchin ] Re: look over yonder at the run of the mill [Tom Clark ] Re: run of the mill [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] Re: look over yonder at the run of the mill ["Jason R. Thornton" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 15:11:47 -0700 From: "Rex.Broome" Subject: A distraction: look over yonder Brought to my attention by Glen Uber: http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Music/06/05/countrys.best.list.ap/ Thought this might foster some alternative discussion 'round here. I got my opinions, but I'll let y'all have at it and catch up when the digest comes out. Or ignore it, it don't make no never mind. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 17:28:18 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: where? there! there goes Jeannie with her new boyfriend At 03:11 PM 6/12/2003 -0700, Rex.Broome wrote: >Brought to my attention by Glen Uber: > >http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Music/06/05/countrys.best.list.ap/ > >Thought this might foster some alternative discussion 'round here. I got my >opinions, but I'll let y'all have at it and catch up when the digest comes >out. > >Or ignore it, it don't make no never mind. Looking at it, it's a much better list than I would have expected. If you must have a Garth song in the top 10, they got the right one, and you have to go all the way to #14 to get to the first puke-inducing piece of crap (Garth again, of course). It's way presentist, of course, but that doesn't surprise me, since a more critically-inclined Top 100 Country Songs list would be hard-pressed to include anything at all from the last ten years, and CMT isn't likely to alienate their Faith/Tim/Garth/Lonestar-lovin' audience. By that same token, I think if CMT's audience pays any attention to this list, it will do a *lot* of good since it would expose them to a lot of great material. I mean, complain all you like about Ken Burns' THE CIVIL WAR, but it got a lot of people excited about something that took place more than a century ago and got people reading those dusty heavy old things I think they call books, and how many things do that anymore? To my way of thinking, seeing Faith, Garth, and Toby right alongside Lefty, Hank, and Loretta is a small price to pay to get some of the fans of the former thinking about and maybe even listening to the latter. So at this juncture I'm not likely to quibble, though I'm sure subsequent discussion (even if it's just between me and Rex) might bring up some more points I'd like to make. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 15:27:42 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: Safari, so good On Thu, 12 Jun 2003 stevetalkowski@mac.com wrote: > On Wednesday, June 11, 2003, at 07:38 PM, Capuchin wrote: > > So which of those would I have used to offset each layer of an image > > progressively in one direction (4, 8, 16, 32.. pixels), darkening each > > layer in a similarly geometric progression? > > Uhm, Actions. But, you don't use Photoshop so never mind. > > >> What type of graphics work do you do that requires total scripting? > > > > If you have no choice but to do repetitive tasks, the application has a > > flaw that needs to be corrected. > > Uhm, Actions. But, you don't use Photoshop, so never mind. This isn't argument, but curiosity and I do end up using Photoshop a fair amount, so it's not totally dismissable. I was under the impression that Actions were for recording motions, selections, and tool modifications. I didn't know you could do things programatically (like iterate through the layers and double the offset of the previous every time). How is this done? > > Everything needs scripting. I'm sure I've written on this list at > > least once about how disappointed I was when a friend got the first CD > > player I'd ever seen and it DIDN'T have a scripting interface. > > And just how many average users were going to take advantage of that > when they were first released? No man can say. But the single-purpose black box mentality of the consumer electronics industry panders to the lowest common denominator and utterly fails to provide any kind of structure in which the people can choose their own path toward improving their own lives. The path is in the choice of the consumables, not in how the consumables are used. The consumer electronics industry is essentially waging war on the tinkerer, the hacker, and the hobbyist; the very people to whom the industry used to cater, the very people that made the industry possible, the very people that progress human capability and shape the way we interact with our world. > It took quite awhile for them to even be integrated with computers. They weren't integrated with computers because of the fear of "piracy". More of the monopoly playing against the public. > > I couldn't imagine why anyone would bother with a (somewhat) > > non-linear, digital system and not put some kind of programming > > interface on the thing. > > Apparently, a huge amount did, thus making the CD format extremely > popular. There's no cause and effect there. Your "thus" is totally unjustified. To paraphrase: Apparently a huge amount of people bothered to make a non-linear, digital system and not put some kind of programming interface on the thing. THUS, The CD format is extremely popular. Huh? A huge number of people bought CD players WITHOUT programming interfaces, but not because it was the prefered type of CD player, but because it was the ONLY type available. The format was popular for its superiority (in some respects) over the LP and prerecorded audio cassette and the significant marketting push. The failings of the manufacturers to provide MORE useful interfaces was not a key to the format's success. > You are aware how non-linear has totally revolutionized the film, > commercials and video world? Absolutely. And they've done so because of detailed programmatic interfaces for the editting devices. They are not "press this button to play the preset track from beginning to end" (essentially the interface on a standalone CD player). In fact, I'm saying that the very thing that makes non-linear formats so incredibly useful to the film and video world was completely ignored when the concept came to mass produced digital audio. > (not to mention that technology filtering down to the masses - hey, > iMovie comes FREE with OSX) Just because it's free software doesn't mean it's Free Software. This isn't entirely about paying... it's also about the right to tinker and share that with which you have tinkered. > > Anyway, what's wrong with the Gimp? > > For starters, the name. It reminds me of that creepy scene in Pulp > Fiction. So far, that's all either of the two people who have dissed the Gimp (you and Ferris) have been able to point out. The name. Good one. So much for function over ideology. > > The point is that this stuff is still just put out for entertainment's > > sake and anyone that thinks they're producing anything lasting, > > important, or meaningful is deluding themself. > > *sigh* Do I even need to bother listing all the great directors from the > past who made this a valid art form? No, please. Point out the great directors who have made feature-length digital animation into a valid art form. > > (And most of what I see in the CG animated short world these days is > > just a shaggy dog story with a little punchline "payoff" tacked onto > > the end.) > > Toy Story I and II? hmm, no shaggy dog there. > A Bug's Life? - nope, no dogs in that one. > Monster's Inc.? Well, Sully WAS shaggy... > Finding Nemo? Fish > Ice Age? Yes, lots O shaggy characters. > Shrek? ehh - er, the donkey has hair > > Oh wait, you referred to shorts - hmmm, Sony Pictures "Chubb Chubbs" > had shaggy creatures in it. Yeah, I guess it did have a corny punchline > tacked on - didn't care for this one myself. Our Oscar winning short, > Bunny, was about "where do you go when you die?" (hey, actual RH > reference!) Oooh, and Tom Waits did the music for it. He's not a sell > out, is he? Well, he did Mystery Men and Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula. I think the guy knows on which side his bread is buttered. I may have confused you with my use of the phrase "shaggy dog story". A shaggy dog story, in the parlance of my region, is a long, pointless joke with an absurd, unrewarding punchline... the kind where success is measured in the volume of the groan and is ultimately just a trial of patience. And since I said "most" and you pointed out a single exception, I'll consider you in agreement (until otherwise countered, of course). > > The entertainment industry (the entire copyright industry, in fact) is > > built on the absolute requirement that information does not fall into > > the hands of those who do not pay. > > Information? Dude, it's entertainment - you said it yourself. Do you > think everything should be free? Information can be entertainment, but not all entertainment is information. I think that hiding information from people because you don't think they've paid you enough is an abomination regardless of the intentions of the person who wants the information. It's anti-social and anti-civilization. It's destructive, wrong-headed, and ultimately inhuman. Entertainment can also be a performance, which is not information but an event that has finite existence in space and time. That sort of entertainment has no pure information substitute and is, therefore, scarce and valuable. And yeah, I do think everything SHOULD be free. Unfortunately, there are some realistic constraints with regard to scarcity that we must accept. However, scarcity of information in existence is entirely artificial. > > These days, that includes the curtailing, subjugation, and outright > > suppression of technologies that would make it easier for people to > > communicate with one another and share their ideas and culture. > > Thank God for the Internet! (oops, wrong again, you have to PAY to > PLAY) Huh? What does that mean? > > The handful of commercially successful artists are held up as > > justification for the oppression of the hundreds of thousands of > > non-commercial artists and the entire rest of human culture and > > civilization. > > Man, where do you GET this stuff? The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, CNN, etc. An active culture of small home production and distribution of information (audio, video, software, literature, etc.) is being deliberately hampered by the large conglomerates who know that the dissemination of the means of production and distribution to the people will destroy their way of life. They hold up their shining commercial stars as folks whom we, the public, should care about "surviving" the ravages of this "piracy" and "theft" that is being promoted on the internet. The few sanctioned commercial successes (and there is no better example than the music industry, where the popular acts are not any more talented or capable performers than the second, third, or fifth tier) are somehow more important than the thousands who will not be able to distribute their work to large audiences without the help of a Napster, Grokster or Kazaa. > > Feature film will probably never be a medium of the people, that's for > > sure. The number of people and amount of money that go into producing > > even the "low-budget" films are staggering. > > You obviously haven't worked on a true "low-budget" film before... I've worked on "low-budget" films intended for distribution and "low-budget" films intended for home entertainment. The ones intended for distribution cost tens of thousands of dollars. For the average person, that is a staggering amount of money to put forward for art. > > Part of this is a the self-perpetuating machine of the copyright > > industry and the tight controls on the means of production that is > > necessary to keep the film industry profitable, but it's difficult to > > say how much that is. > > This is just plain misinformed. You can buy (or rent, if you don't want > to contribute to corporate greed) a relatively cheap mini-DV camcorder, > shoot your own film and edit it on your home computer. Woah! Rental is BY FAR more corrupt and contributes FAR MORE to greed than sale. Rental is usury. Rental is the reaping of profits without work. It is making money by having money. Sale is trade. Sale is potentially fair to both parties. Rental is never so. > This has EMPOWERED many artists, just like Postscript and a Laserwriter > empowered the desktop publishing folk, etc. > > Of course, you still have to pound the pavement to get it distributed, > but wait - there's this thing called the "Internet" where short > independent films are starting to thrive and be seen. Uh oh, if you've > ever visited www.ifilm.com or perused a music video online you've > already "paid" for it. > Though, I suspect you're an avid "file-sharing" kind of guy and pride > yourself on cheating the system (and those who spent time to create what > you so readily "deserve" for free) Great. So somebody sets up an unfair, anti-social system and I'm "cheating" by not participating in it and developing a system that promotes civilization, democracy, and freedom. Excellent. I'm sure that's what "cheating" is supposed to mean. You quote the word "deserve". Note that I've NEVER said (in this thread) that anybody DESERVES anything. The whole concept of "deserving" makes me kind of sick. > Do you really live in a vacuum? Nope. I live in a large civilization that was built by the free expression and incorporation of ideas from one person to another for millenia. > Why do you even bother to use a computer and the internet? Because it is the best means we have for distributing expressions and ideas for the incorporation into new ways of thinking, living, and working. > Why am I grabbing bait from Jabba-The-Hutt?!? > > http://www.fegfotos.com/gallery/jabba.htm I love that sleeping bag. > > I do believe that one goal of literature (and, indeed, art) is to > > comment on that which is common to the human condition regardless of > > local culture or personal orientation, but when ALL of your art and > > literature is going for that kind of mass appeal > > according to WHO? Me. Do you think there is something beyond opinion being expressed here? You'd be gravely mistaken. I believe that if there IS such a thing as "universal truth and morality", it is beyond our ken and, therefore, useless. > > Um, sure. I didn't mean it to be ambiguous. I'm just saying that you > > work for the copyright industry. It's your job to produce information > > that can be kept from people who don't pay. > > Not entirely true (there ya go again with those general assumptions) - I > also work on commercials that people can view on basic, non-cable > TeeVee. Oops, they have to pay for the electricity to power the damn > things. And am I free to reproduce those commercials in whole or in part for my own purposes without respect for its original creator or intent? No. They're copyrighted. You work in the copyright industry and it is your job to produce information that can be kept from people who don't pay (or otherwise do not comply with the wishes of your paymasters). J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 17:39:58 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: Safari, so good At 03:27 PM 6/12/2003 -0700, Capuchin wrote: >I believe that if there IS such a thing as "universal truth and morality", >it is beyond our ken and, therefore, useless. Wait, I thought Our Ken explained those concepts just a few minutes ago... later, Miles, still oscillating between dismay and an odd sense of comfort at the full-on Grand Reopening of Jeme's Feglist House of Idiosyncratic Self-Contradictary Idealism and Pancakes ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 15:36:55 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: RE: Advanced text editing in OS X. Advanced music downloading everywhere else. On Thu, 12 Jun 2003, Terrence Marks wrote: > And if we're talking about supporting software or not supporting > software, I don't mind paying for a decent application. We weren't. We were talking about supporting people versus exploiting people. > If you've got any kind of file-sharing program, you need Spybot > (http://security.kolla.de) to keep this off your machine. That's absolutely false. You can use lopster. I can personally assure you that there is no spyware, pop-ups, or tie-ins of any kind. And if you don't take my word for it, you can read the source. > Everybody's all talking about, you know, "Me and Kazaa versus the > corporate bigwigs at the RIAA", as if Sharman Networks were some great > force for freedom and equality that were on your side. File sharing is > just bait. People these days don't know (or don't care) what their > computer is doing to them. I care and know. And just like anything else that people truly recognize as useful and good, file sharing is being exploited by the profit-makers and perverted into another tool for the greed machine. If you want to share information with the rest of the people in the world and reap the benefits of living in a world where such sharing is possible, use lopster, gnapster, or something similar. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 15:47:39 -0700 From: "Rex.Broome" Subject: (Paul) McCartney's holdings Eb: >>Riders in the Sky (huh...I always thought this was called GHOST >>Riders in the Sky) It's generally written as "(Ghost) Riders in the Sky"... I guess the parentheses in this case mean "it's not really part of the title but you'll never know what it is unless we put this word here". - -Rex "knows it back and forth on bass, key of e-minor" Broome ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 15:45:52 -0700 From: Tom Clark Subject: Re: look over yonder at the run of the mill on 6/12/03 3:11 PM, Rex.Broome at Rex.Broome@preferredmedia.com wrote: > http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Music/06/05/countrys.best.list.ap/ > > Thought this might foster some alternative discussion 'round here. I got my > opinions, but I'll let y'all have at it and catch up when the digest comes > out. Devil Went Down To Georgia? Puhleeze. And where's Jerry Reed's "She Got The Gold Mine, I Got The Shaft"? on 6/12/03 3:00 PM, ken ostrander at jesuspresley@hotmail.com wrote: > greetings fegs! amy and i are still getting settled in orlando - or, > perhaps as jeme might say, whorlando. Good to see you survived the migration. Good luck down there! > pascal claimed that all man's miserys derive from not being able to sit > quietly in a room alone. and buddah said that desire is the root of all > suffering. the stuff doesn't make us happy. only we can make ourselves > happy. > And Paul Westerberg said: "All I know is I'm sick of everything that my money can buy The fool who wastes his life, God rest his guts" > it's like going to rent a movie these days. some new films are only being > released on dvd. at least that's what they say at cockbuster. i've been > leary of buying into the dvd thing for several reasons; but this may be the > one that gets me. i am excited about the prospect of being able to watch > everything in widescreen format (is that really an option on all dvd's?); > but wonder if i'll be able to record my own. chances are that i'll need the > vcr and the dvd player. though i've noticed that even videotapes have > protections against copying. Not all DVD's can be viewed in widescreen. Some come with both versions on the same disc, others sell two different versions. Unfortunately, a lot of your less popular titles are only available in pan & scan. Check out the combo VCR & DVD players on the market now. Saves energy, shelf space and remote clutter. > > it's all about choices. and what's important to us. what we put our energy > and focus into is what will flourish in our lives. i agree with jeme when > he says that the way we do things is just as important as what you do. it > may sound pompous and it may be annoying; but you have to answer for > yourself why that is. > > Agreed. I try to live by the "you've got to pick your battles" credo. It's such a complicated world that you've got to go out of your way to live with a feeling of worth. - -tc ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 17:50:15 -0500 From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: run of the mill Quoting ken ostrander : > anyway, the point is that anyone can be an artist. Yes, but not anyone can be a good artist. Even if you assume everyone has talent, or that everyone has a different definition of talent and someone somewhere is bound to agree with yours, there are also skills involved. I mean, I *could* claim to be a dancer...but trust me, no one else on the planet would buy it for a second. ..Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html :: Some days, you just can't get rid of a bomb :: --Batman ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 16:04:25 -0700 From: "Jason R. Thornton" Subject: Re: look over yonder at the run of the mill At 03:45 PM 6/12/2003 -0700, Tom Clark wrote: >on 6/12/03 3:11 PM, Rex.Broome at Rex.Broome@preferredmedia.com wrote: > > > http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Music/06/05/countrys.best.list.ap/ > > > > Thought this might foster some alternative discussion 'round here. I > got my > > opinions, but I'll let y'all have at it and catch up when the digest comes > > out. > >Devil Went Down To Georgia? Puhleeze. And where's Jerry Reed's "She Got >The Gold Mine, I Got The Shaft"? And where, oh where, is Al Dexter's "Pistol Packin' Mama"? - --Jason "Only the few know the sweetness of the twisted apples." - Sherwood Anderson ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 16:11:46 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: RE: Safari, so good On Thu, 12 Jun 2003, FS Thomas wrote: > > > > People NEED software and people can PRODUCE software. That > > relationship means, in this economic system, money can be made. But > > you don't have to SELL THE SOFTWARE to make that happen. > > > > Writing software is like any other form of skilled labor with the > > exception that its fruits are not scarce AFTER their production. The > > scarcity in the software equation comes BEFORE the software is > > written. So you get paid to write software, but there's no reason to > > charge for the software once it's written. > > Ugh. I really don't even know where to start with this. At the beginning. > > No, the scarcity of software is 100% artificial. > > As is the scarcity of music. Yes, absolutely. It's information. Information is FREE unless constrained by a medium of transfer. The medium of transfer is no longer much of an issue, so the freedom of the information itself is becoming much more apparent. This scares the shit out of some people. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. The nature of information, as Jefferson expresses so beautifully, is that it cannot be moved only copied from person to person. When I share knowledge or data with you, I do not have to give up my own knowledge or data. It is truly an additive experience with no loss. I lose nothing when I share information with you. Nobody loses anything in the transaction. Everyone gains and nobody loses. How many different ways must it be written? > Are you against the idea of paying musicians for their most recent > collection of songs? I'm against the idea of paying anyone for information. That's not to say that it isn't an unfortunate happening in my life, too... just that I'm against it. > If you ARE against the idea (and I'm banking that you would be) is that > opinion based on principle, or on the fact that new systems have come > into the mainstream that greatly reduce the cost of duplication and > transfer? Both. The two are inextricably intertwined. The PRINCIPLE is that abundance should REPLACE scarcity as our model of operation as technology and society create it. Instead, abundance destroys our economic models and throws industry into fits. Yet, abundance is truly the goal of industrialization. The whole point of increasing productivity is to bring cost of production as close to zero as possible and bring about human prosperity. > Continuing to look at the current whipping boy, photo software; twenty > years ago, if you wanted to engage in intricate image manipulation, you > would have had to commission an experienced darkroom technician. It > would have been a pricey venture for a very nominal return of one or two > prints. Not exactly "open" to the masses because you're paying, each > time you need it, for ABILITY. Now, with widely available software > (whether it's a legit or cracked Photoshop, free GIMP, or almost-free > Ifran) people have access to photo manipulation on that scale. The mode > has changed and, simply because the ability to do a task is based in > ones and zeros on a spinning magnetic platter rather than in a living > person, should you have free access to that ability? Is there some > ingrained belief of self-entitlement here that I'm missing? There is no ingrained belief of self-entitlement that you're missing. You're equating photographs and the skills of a person with information. Skills are clearly not information. Photographs CONTAIN information, but are not, themselves, information. You paid, in the past, for the time of a skilled technician and the materials he must use to perform the task. Did you pay him every time you looked at the picture, or just for his work? Do you pay him when you show the picture to more people? Do you pay him when you duplicate the photo mechanically or chemically? The programmer is a skilled technician. Some are even artists (as the photo manipulators could be). He performs a task. Perhaps he does it for pay because someone else would like the fruits of his labor (just as you might like your photograph retouched by the manipulator). The programmer incurs costs and materials in his work. If his pay is reasonable, that will be covered in the cost of production of the software. But once the software is produced, the programmer is done. He has been compensated for his time and effort to his own satisfaction (unless he is some kind of slave, of course). > In the economic climate of the US--the market economy--there's an idea > of creation for profit. (GASP!) Let's assume market capitalism, then. It is the purpose of the market to bring profit as close to zero as possible. The market is based on supply and demand. Anything that interferes with either of those is a "market flaw" and destructive to society. It's all in The Wealth of Nations (Smith, 1790). > You get an idea in your head ("digital image manipulation for print > media", say) and you lay out some groundwork. Plans for an application, > say. Is the idea to manipulate images for profit or to manipulate a particular image? Oh, wait... it's neither. Your idea is to exploit the ignorance of others for profit instead of teaching people and improving society. Got it. > Then you stable some engineers (i.e. developers) and pay them a salary > to create an application to complete a task. I love that term: stable. How very humanizing and respectful. > Eventually, should you finish it, you pay someone to duplicate it (or > host it on a site for download). There may be marketing and > distribution. God forbid even advertising. Suddenly there's a demand > for this product that you dreamt up. Is it an artificial demand? > Perhaps partially, but you may just find yourself filling a void in the > market. Is it villainous, then, to charge for the rights to use the > product that you worked on? Whose foundations are based on your ideas > and concepts? Not in my opinion, it isn't. That's because you think it's OK to hinder progress for profit. Even though it can cost you NOTHING to share that data with the world, you choose, instead, to hoard the information even though you could keep it for your own use AND share it with others at no loss. > > The JPEG compression is a routine that is independent of you and > > infinitely reproducible after you've written it. Once it's out of > > your head and on a disk, there is no scarcity and therefore no market > > value. > > > > However, scarcity can be created by using the coercive power of the > > state and its threats of force to prohibit the otherwise free and > > natural copying of the software. > > There is market value if the right to distribute that routine is > protected by copyright law. I believe that's exactly what I wrote. > In this country, if you play your cards right (and by the rules) you can > use--and, gasp again, benefit from--copyright laws. And that's shameful. > I'll admit that there are fine examples of copyright run amok in our > society today. Then, again, there aren't too many parts of the judicial > system here in the States that don't need some slapping around to get > back into shape. Well, let's do some reforming, then. I thought that's what was supposed to make this country great; it's malleability and subjectivity to the will of the people. But after a bit of research I find that rigidity was much more the intent and the people have always been feared. > > The ABILITY of the software is something the software can do whether > > you (the programmer) are there or not. And that ability can be > > reproduced with a simple command or click of the mouse. > > True, however the SOFTWARE wouldn't be there in the first place if it > weren't for a programmer. As the creator of a commodity (in this case a > computer application), I should be able to control the duplication and > distribution of it if I want to. Information isn't a commodity. Commodities are scarce. The programmer's skill is a commodity, but the software that comes out the end is no more a commodity than the letter T or the idea of beauty is a commodity. > > The programmer's market value is in the programs he has not yet > > written. The programs already written may flow freely from one to > > another without cost or burden to any in the path. > > They MAY, yes. Should they? Yes. That's how people benefit from civilization and progress is made. > Is a songwriter's value in the songs not yet written, with those that > came before supposedly flowing freely? Yes. That's how the new songwriter benefits from civilization and progress is made. > If that's the case, then in light of their recent works, Dylan and the > Stones aren't worth a hill of beans, are they? Well, that's a matter of opinion. I value all people. But their market value of songwriters and performers is very much in decline. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V12 #211 ********************************