Technological stupidity

by Svelmoe 4. February 2010 20:11

Time to rant a bit about a "new technological advantage" I saw the other day.

I just got my BluRay player hooked up to the internet, so I can marvel at the genius of all the technologies now available for me.
Sure it is fun to watch YouTube videos on the BluRay/TV without having to hook up a computer - but well, this isn't about that....

I popped in some disc I just bought and there was a notice for some kind of "chat" system.
Interested to see what benefits I could take advantage off now that my player was finally hooked up, I navigated over with my remote.

Well - in essence it was just a basic chat system, which would place a big chat box in the side of the screen and I could then invite my friends to "watch the movie" with me and "chat with them" while doing it ..... all from the comfort of each our own couch.
Now that is stupid enough to begin with - if I want to watch movies with friends, I - you know - visit them, and if we watch movies, I sure as heck would not want a chat box taking up the screen.

But that was not what struck me .... one method of chatting was using the remote and the keys like on phones, but the alternative was using a computer to type on, which of course also needs to be online.
But if you have a computer, hooked up to the internet, and you can use to chat on - why on earth would you then chat via a BluRay movie system?

Isn't that what you would use a - you know - chat software on your computer for? Wouldn't it be much better to just use your usual IM client and chat on the computer, if you have a computer anyway? Seriously - How irrelevant can one technology be.....

(And yes, I understand the irony in me complaining about such technology after hooking my BluRay player up to the net)

 

Celebrating stupidity – Game shows and Reality TV

by Svelmoe 27. March 2009 19:31

Recently I’ve grown increasingly tired of television and the fact that stupidity and mediocrity is celebrated to the degree it is. The most annoying thing is that we pay good money for the privilege to have half-assed game shows or reality programs with people whose only prerequisite is – well, what’s the opposite of talent and smarts.

Not a few days ago I was channel surfing and stumbled upon a game show where some random person had to tell answer truthfully to some (very) private questions, and they’d win money if the lie detector matched their answers. 

Of course these people are casted so the ones with most dirty laundry are accepted – nobody would reward me for sitting there revealing mundane secrets: “Are you afraid of spiders?”, “yes”, “congratulations you’ve won XXX money”.
Anyways – the questions I’ve been able to bring myself to watch before moving on in despair for the human race, was about how the person had been cheating on a significant other, or taken drugs, or stolen from friends, or been in jail for violence or.....
Okay, one thing is bringing yourself to tell these things on public television – but what struck me as most annoying, most insane, most absurd – was the audience reaction.
They applauded and cheered the person on when answering truthfully. “Have you stolen money from somebody who’ve helped you get out of drug problems?”, “Yes”, queue audience cheering and applauding.

One thing is these sad people get on TV, another is celebrating them. Who’s the culprit – the ones visiting the show, getting paid for being messed up;  Or the ones cheering them on?
As much as I dislike the stupidity of the people going on the shows – I dislike the audiences even more. The people watching and the people reading the tabloids for new exciting information about the breakfast of contestants, and what not.

Another show I saw recently was somebody who where in economical problems. Now granted that is serious problems – but the real kicker here is that they earned so much money to begin with. They were rather wealthy and still used a load more than they could afford.
What about instead of using resources on wealthy people, the networks take those money and spend on the real unfortunate ones. The ones without job, without income, actually living on the street. But I digress – that isn’t TV worthy and doesn’t pull in ratings – but somebody spending 10 grand more than the 50 they already earn each month is?
Seriously....what is up with this?

Well sure, some credit is due, some TV shows do celebrate talent and brains and what not, and reward those – however it does not seem to be what is focused on even in those instances most of the time anyway.

Take something like the “singing contests” shows which we see en mass now in all countries and in various forms. Who do people turn in to see? The people who’re awful at it, getting chewed out by the judges – how we celebrate their stupidity. Quiz shows, then we still root for them to fail, to make a fool of themselves.  Because then we’ll all feel much better about ourselves. Beauty contestants answering poorly regarding atlas and education is celebrated online.
Survival shows or Big Brother or lock somebody away in a luxury hotel where they’ll have to vote each other off – oh the human drama aspect, the conflicts which pop up – that draw people in.

Are our own lives getting to be so damn boring that we have to celebrate the stupidity for it to somehow make our own lives more bearable or is it some sort of vindictiveness. “They’re not better than me; see how awful/stupid/evil they act/are”.

And strangely enough – I just saw the movie "Live!" ..... What a view into the future of television, and when thinking about it, the movie suddenly doesn’t seem that farfetched. Is it just a picture of things to come? Most likely.

Saving that newspaper

by Svelmoe 11. February 2009 08:04

I saw the editorial in Time Magazine by Walter Isaacson about how to save newspapers.
Basically the premise is that newspapers are going under, or cancelling out “good journalism” to save money because fewer and fewer are buying the physical papers but reading the content online for free.
His solution is to get people to pay “micropayments” for reading news-material on the web, a small cost per article or something like that.
Now granted, I agree with him on a number of situations, but I question the methods.
Yes, journalists must be paid to do journalistic work. Naturally.
Yes, newspapers are currently too depending on advertisement companies then their reader because their revenue comes from advertisement. This can create a conflict of interests.
But that’s about as much in agreement as I can be.

I see many problems with starting to charge for online reading of news.
1) It only takes one of two companies to shoot down everybody else. If a few companies doesn’t charge for their content, then people will just go to the free alternatives and leave behind the ones you have to pay for. This is how most online services have worked.

2) Legality. If everybody starts charging, then I’m all but sure that several “gray” providers will pop up. It happens with everything online and it is a problem, but it is also a reality. Gaming, Music and Movie industry suffers from this. Some people spend their free time ripping off content providers and posting it up for free. That would open up for a whole can of “allofmp3” or “piratebay” problems. Charging for content opens up for those doors and the cost of keeping your content yours might prove way to high to be cost-effective.

3) By charging (more) for content, people will likely stop reading a multitude of different providers.
Personally- when I bought newspapers I read perhaps two at the most. Now when I read news online, I read about 8 different news sites. This provides me with a better chance of getting an unbiased picture of events and forming my own opinion. If I were to be charged for the content, I doubt I’d read more than a couple again.
And anybody who’ve seen Fox News for example, knows how unbiased “news” providers can be. I think it’ll hurt.
Now granted, this is also a risk under the current model cause if many providers go bankrupt, you are faced with fewer avenues through the physical medias, but that still mean there are free alternatives online.

4) By charging, you start implying that only those who can afford it, are allowed to read the news coverage. It can quickly create a divided segment where those who can’t afford to go through multiple sites either as in item 3) sticks with 1 or 2 or none at all.

5) Journalism will be much more entertainment then news. One of the arguments was to make journalists dependant on the readers and not the advertiser. Well nice and idealistic goal, but what do we usually see when a content provider becomes depending on its subscribers. Much more populism and sensationalism. It becomes content for entertainment and not enlightenment. These companies will want to attract most people, and well – unfortunately that usually means catering to the lowest common denominator. That will counter the “good journalistic principles” it was meant to promote.

6) Country barriers. If providers start charging online, then they must remember that it is global. I read occasionally US and UK news sites. If I were to pay, would I be allowed to? Or will it be like iTunes where I can only buy from my local store and not from the US or UK store?
The web is global, and the world is as well. But payments aren’t always.

7) Nationally subsidized alternatives. In this country – and many others – we have national supported, public service, channels we already pay for – either via taxes or license fee. Payment we can’t avoid. If we also were to start paying, or pay more, for other content providers, we’re back in item 4. People will leave them behind because they can get their news coverage from the public service channels. It will be a problem for competition.

Now, I do not have the answers – but I would think the way forward would be to offer a split plan. Subscription and free. Subscribe if you want to know more, more in depth articles, forums to talk to the editors and journalists and so on – but keep some content free, if nothing else to lure people into it.
Otherwise it’ll start to spell doom for the majority of content providers in a state we haven’t seen yet. Look at the music industry and how well it fares because they have problems adjusting to a global and intangible reality of the internet – and that is a more physical product which you can keep and take with you. News is much more intangible and fleeting.
Micro transactions on its own? I think it’ll be a big step in bring the industry all the way down, or weed out so we have one or two mega-corporations.

Social networks and common sense. Can they mix?

by Svelmoe 9. February 2009 07:06

I want to touch on something – again – which I’ve mentioned a few times.
I have problems understanding all these “new” social websites, the entire web 2.0 wave and the continued pull on so many people to judge their self-worth based on these site.
And yes – I am so very aware of the irony of using similar services myself and even more blogging about it. There is no need to point it out – I am just a lemming, although one of my reasons is “keeping up” with the technologies due to professional interest. But I’m also a lemming who view these things critically.
Anyways – as I see it, much of it is just a continued development of the usage of the internet, to a degree. The popularity of something increases (drastically), more people, new technologies and so on.
Back in the “old days” of being online it was the bulletin boards which were the big thing, then the web struck it big and everybody and their dog had to have a website. IRC chat, ICQ and UseNet groups existed and people socialized via them, but it was for the nerds and geeks and people with no life. But it was Web 2.0, and it was it before anybody had even thought about calling anything for Web 2.0.
But then development stepped up pace discussion boards where big and sites such as “MySpace” popped up and now everybody and their dog had to have a MySpace page and be a member of umpteen forums, and share their thoughts and often private details with the world. Websites were a thing of the past. Well not really, but it wasn’t “cool” any more.

Nowadays it is Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and the likes – there are a ton of social sites out there, where ICQ and IRC have died out. People have moved on to the next new thing. No big surprise there.
But where does this development take us? It is almost a race to keep up. New social network and “big thing” and people flock towards that without judging whether it is worth it or not.
Reports are flowing around now that Facebook sells the information it gathers on its users  for advertisement purpose – logically I’d say. Of course they’ll do that, almost anybody would much like Google does – few people give away services for absolutely nothing.

But combine such reports with so many people’s inability to separate their private sphere, or business sphere from their online Facebook (for example) activity, it results in confidential, private or even harmfull material is flowing around an mass.
And then enters the security risk of all the hundreds of applications people spam other people with, all masked with the approval of friends, meaning the critical sense and safeguards are clouded which would otherwise safeguard you from clicking links you shouldn’t.
Just imagine the amount of data which shouldn’t be there, based on the cases we actually hear.
I even saw some analyst suggest that people should hurry on to these sites and simply create a profile to reserve their name and avoid fake profiles, so you/your company wouldn’t be spoofed?

I mean where have common sense gone? Why is it common anymore? My Facebook profile is mostly used as a contact book for friends, and so I can keep up with what they are doing and have an easy way to contact them in case I need/want. But why do people post private pictures on what is essentially a network they have no control over? People post they go on vacation alongside their full name and address/home town.
I’ve also start seeing reports in the news that “kids” these days measure their worth in how many friends they have on services as Facebook. “Oh noes, I only have 20 friends, so I must be less popular and interesting and worthwhile then that one who has 200”.

I’ve often wondered whether the expansion of the internet have made common sense go away as it becomes a larger part of our life – or it is because lack of common sense is a constant and we just see it much more visible than ever before due to modern technology?
Are these social networks really beneficial for many people? Can they not control themselves when the border between private and public becomes blurred out due to technology?
Has technology moved too fast? Or have it just exposed the people who lack common sense?

 

The pope speak

by Svelmoe 17. April 2008 10:38

In the light of the number of scandals which have been seen in various public media involving catholic clergy over the years, I fell over the reporting of the Popes speech.
It can be seen here at the New York Times

Being atheist I’m sure there would be many passages in the speech which I would disagree with (strongly), however one snippet which I felt was ….. especially worrying, was the following:

What does it mean to speak of child protection when pornography and violence can be viewed in so many homes through media widely available today? We need to reassess urgently the values underpinning society, so that a sound moral formation can be offered to young people and adults alike.

I do not care how much pornography and violence you watch in your everyday life, but whenever you see a child only one thing should be going through your mind … it is a child and “you” are an adult.
Trying to blame “society” for people’s abuse of children is such a cup out that I can’t believe that any sentient person could even said that without some sort of hidden agenda, which obviously for this guy looks to be trying to take some heat of the catholic church in lieu of these child-abuse scandals which have been revealed. 

On top of this, what the does it matter that if somebody else is watching all that porn and violence, it have still been clergy which have abused children as well. Do they also watch all that porn and violence which warp them? Leaders of faith indeed.

I am personally atheist but I do respect people’s entitlement to their faith as long as they leave me and mine alone, but this …. I can’t believe the head of one of the largest faiths publicly tries to place responsibility for people’s abuse of children on something as society.  No matter what – it is a child.

Now sure, I do very well know the fact that (hopefully) only a small amount of clergy abuses children, and other people also abuse children – but in my view the instant we start to shift responsibilities away from the individual doing the violations onto something as vague and intangible as “society” it is a worrying step away from accountability.

 

Religion in IT

by Svelmoe 17. January 2008 12:45

Now, I’m going to start with a big generalization here. The majority of people I know within the it-buinsess are either a-religious, anti-religious or just agnostic, and I expect this holds true for the majority of it-people in our parts of the world.

Then why is it that whenever a discussion takes place regarding various it-aspects, that it bears so many traits similar to religion?
The most obvious issues currently are the ever popular Microsoft versus …. well everybody.

Watching a debate where Microsoft or a MS product is mentioned often turns into an religious anti-/pro-Microsoft bickering match.
“My God is installed on 80% of computers”
“Yeah, but My God can run on 16 MB Ram”
“My God outsells your God”
“My God is free”

Yadda yadda yadda….. and thus it goes. And if people think that – oh, well it is because M$ is the “evil empire”, well – consider Apple.
Its religious following often clashes with pretty much anybody else.
“My God is pretty to look at.”
“My God is easier to upgrade.”

And it has been like this for a loooong time. Remember Quake and Duke Nuke’m 3D?
“My God is real 3D.”
“Yeah, but My God doesn’t look like brown blurry dots.”

But, is it because “we” are non-religious people, and everybody needs to have something fundamental to believe in, so we substitute our religious struggles with (irrelevant) other principles?

Now, personally, I’m lucky that I have few (if any  ) principles, because it makes it so much easier to view the madness around. Sure, I primarily use Microsoft products – however, I also use Open Source products where I feel they are supriour – FireFox being a great example, or this blog-engine. I care little about Open Source vs. Closed Source, as long as the product has superior cost-benefit for me…… meaning what does it “cost” me (time, money) versus what I can get out of it.

It is good to be pragmatic.

Television is bad for kids .... apparently

by Svelmoe 9. November 2007 13:36

I heard something on the news last weekend which I wanted to write about, but was away from my computer, and thus it isn’t done before now.

A Danish media (www.dr.dk) reported on the 2007-11-04 from a study done in the USA that children/young people had higher risk of increased blood pressure if they spend 2 hours a day watching television.

Now, we’ve heard of the dangers of television for many years, so that aspect in itself was not really enough to make me focus on it.

However the caveat was not actually the television watching itself, but - now this is fun – the fact that the children were sitting still when they did so. (if I could roll my eyes in text, I would)

Now, I don’t know about everybody else, but …. *hmmmm* that sounds odd.

If it is because the kids were sitting still for 2 hours a day, does it actually have anything at all to do with television?
Because from that wording of the conclusion, it would seem to me that they might as well could have said that 2 hours of reading a book a day increases the risk of high blood pressure.  Or sitting outside on a hill enjoying the view for 2 hours a day increases the risk. If you jumped up and done once every hour, would you half that risk, even though you watched TV?
But of course, it would be bad if the media went out and said that reading a book for 2 hours were bad for your health. Imagine the outcries from librarians.

Being a person who enjoys comptuergames, we often in that setting hear the usual suspects being blamed for all trouble in the world – oh, he watched violent movies, or he played violent computer games, so of course he got run over by that car by the drunken driver.

However, I do not understand how television was suddenly implicated into that conclusion, when it was the action of sitting still which was okay.

Unfortunately there wasn’t a link to the study itself, simply a vague reference to Swedish Television, and I did not really feel up to doing the detective work to find it, but either a) the study is populistic and rather useless, or b) the media simply conveys things uncritical and flawed or c) all of the above.


My money is currently on c. :)

Cyclist rant - not the way you think....

by Svelmoe 19. October 2007 13:37

I’m going to rant a bit today (quell suprise ?), and today it’s going to be about …. bicyclists.
Living in Denmark, we have a pretty extensive traffic net for cyclists, and the traffic laws benefit this type of transportation, and in fact it is my favored one as well, to the degree that I’ve never bothered getting a driver’s licenses. Why do that, when I can get where I need to go as fast, much cheaper and much healthier then using a car …. well, most of the time anyway.
‘Cause biking exposes me to my main pet peeve in the traffic, which is other cyclists.
Being a cyclist myself, I really get to see all the stupid and annoying thing other cyclists do in the traffic, and I fully sympathize with the drivers who get annoyed by these moving speed bumps.
Everybody who’ve ridden a bike knows the types I’m talking about, and thankfully, having been hit once to many times by the pavement via automobiles and lorries, I myself now mostly bike very politely, yet I have these urges to do bodily harm to other cyclists cause of their inconsiderate movements.

1) My main pet peeve of these annoying moving speed bumps are the ones whose life is so danged interesting, that they are forced to talk on their cell phone while biking. Easily identifiable by their wobbling movement across the entire path with just one hand on the handlebar (if you are lucky) while they have to convey their fascinating life via the phone at the total disregard of their own safety and worse … others.

You see, I have little problem with people doing reckless behavior, if they’d only take themselves down – however more often than not, innocent people get hurt.
Now, I usually bike at a decent speed – not especially fast as such, just around a couple of twenty km per hour, but still fast enough that I’ll have to overtake most of these people, and I must admit that I have a secret fantasy of jamming a stick into their front wheel while they do this – I think, fair’s fair – quid pro quo and all that.
Of course, being the gentle and respectful human being I am, I would never do this in real life, but a guy can fantasize.

2) In the same group are the one who’re texting on their cell while biking. In fact I might be tempted to label these as worse than group number 1, cause they at least look where they are going most of the time. These texting menaces mostly look down as their thumb dances across the phones keypad … where was my stick?

3) Another group I dislike in the traffic is the ones who just can’t seem to keep their bike going in a somewhat straight line, but have to utilize the entire path akin to how we see people stopped for drunk driving stumble along.
These people fascinate me as much as they scare me. If they truly are that taxed by cycling, you’d think that the old geometry knowledge from preschool: “The straight line between two points is the shortest path” type thing would really come in handy. But apparently they are so tired from their long bike ride that they hardly have the strength to keep the bike going straight, so they’ll take the double length route from the left, to the right, to the left, to the right of the path. These people are annoying to overtake, because if you startle them by passing – then they’ll surely swing out a lot.

4) Group 3 is often the same people who find it so taxing to bike through the city that they look like a non-epo doped rider going up Alpe d’huez in Tour De France.  They seem to have to touch the handle bar ever second thread with their forehead.
At least these people aren’t dangerous, just amusing.

5) Finally comes the group of oblivious people. These – people – seem oblivious to what else goes on in the traffic, so they’ll come from a side path, just straight out in front of you, or worse – motorized traffic … or is that worse, I forgot.
They are also the group who find it fun to ride half way across a traffic light while waiting for it to turn yellow, so they can ….. slowly ….. ride along, simply cause they are too impatient to wait for green. Or at least it might because they are too impatient, but it could also be that because they bike so slowly, that they do not have 5 seconds to wait. I do not have count on how many times I’ve seen a car come late and run a red light from the other direction, simply because he knows that it is still red or yellow for other traffic, this group of cyclists are just waiting to get run down.


Now, I’m by no means a perfect cyclist myself but I do signal in the traffic, I keep a sharp eye as to minimize problems for myself and that is why I see these people – or moving speed bumps as was mentioned to me by a friend several years back. At least I do not belong to any of these groups.

And of course, I would never wish bodily harm on other people (okay, that’s a lie – some are just so reckless, that I would not mind nature taking its cause, as long as nobody innocent gets hurt) but the apparent lack of respect for other people just annoys me.
Rant off for today.

Personality test

by Svelmoe 1. October 2007 13:39

I stumbled upon one of my old(er) personality tests, which I took at a XML course back some years ago when I was unemployed.  And I got to thinking about how easy it is to actually just answer the tests on how you want the result to come out.

“But you are supposed to be truthful” I hear as a response… well, yeah, but there is a thing called context.

There is a context of how you want to present yourself, and there is the context – or actually often lack of – in the questions of said test.

The context you function in, decides the outcome you want out of the test. So despite I’m a major introvert when it comes to my personal life, then when I am in specific settings, I want to present myself as an extrovert.  This means that if I am taking one of these personality tests – I’ll try to deduct what kind of persona I want to “show” and I’ll answer given that context.  This means that if I’m being tested in a situation where I feel being an extrovert is more advantageous then otherwise, I’ll score high in that aspect... that is the context.
It is in my view easy to read these tests, and if you just put some care into it, you can form the result pretty much as you want, and nobody will be the wiser. Underhanded, perhaps, but I think most everybody does it to some degree, whether they'll admit it or not. Some people change their behaviour given who's around them for example, and that is the same.

Another issue with many of these tests is that they lack context in the questions.  If one then look at many of the questions some of these tests present, then it is quite clear that the questions also revolve around a hypothetical situation, however it is impossible – in my opinion – to answer truthful on a hypothetical situation without knowing the context: “Do you work well with others”, well duh … that depends fully on who the others are. If it is slackers who do not want to put in any effort but just reap the rewards, then no. But that is difficult to answer.
And such things are in my view fundamental flaws with all these personality type tests, and that is why I have difficulty understanding many institutions focus on such tests.  Many of the statements I’ve read over the years from companies utilizing such tests in an application situation, excuse a focus on them with the argument that it is the only way a company can get to “know” the person before hiring him – and my response usually is that, well they do not get to know the applicant. They only get to know the persona the applicant wants to present.  And even if the person answers “truthful” without attempting to fit into the context of taking the test – the result is rather useless because the context of the questions themselves are mostly lacking (or understated) and thus can’t count for anything in real life.

My guess is that it is just easier to group and box people up if they think the results are quantifiable that easy. But ….. outside fun party tricks, I do not see anything useful in them.


Just to mention, the test I fell over was a Jung type personal test, and I scored INTP.

New way of thinking

by Svelmoe 8. September 2007 15:20

I’m going to touch on something which have been on my mind for a long time, and I’ve debated with others – namely piracy and copying of material without the right to do so.

One of the most common arguments I hear when debating piracy with anybody is that “It is not stealing”, and well, I do not know other countries legislation well enough, but in Denmark that is technically true.
No actual physical entity of the product have been removed without paying for it, it is “just a copy”.
Our legislation and society takes its foundation in the days of yonder, where a goat was a goat and if you removed said goat, it was gone. Our – well most of us – ethics tell us that stealing is wrong, because you haven’t paid for it and somebody else is going to lose their stuff.

I am wondering if it isn’t time for a completely new way of thinking. This way of thinking strikes me as completely out of tune with the modern day and reality.

Our world is moving to an increasingly technologistic world, where virtual money carries real life implications, virtual goods are sold for millions and companies base their entire existing on these virtual goods.

I myself am a programmer. My company lives by making software. We basically sell 0 and 1s which on their own hold no value what so ever. It is just numbers – however put together they serve a purpose; whether it is to display a webpage, generate an electronic catalogue or as a gateway to buy physical goods and all such things.
It is however “not real” in the essences of a physical world. You can’t touch a webpage, or another piece of software.  Yet, we sell this and people buy it, and many more people use it – it is creating income (or at least redistributing it :D) from customers to vendors.
Similar, this income is often also handled electronically – it is 0 and 1s moved from one bank account, a virtual place, to another – not physical money actually changing hands, or no number of goats changing owners.
Thus we already have a mindset in our world where virtual goods are worth a bundle of money - If somebody hacked my bank and removed the 0 and 1s from my account – I would have lost no physical goods, yet I’d be a danged lot poorer.

Why then this difference when it comes to copying material without permission or piracy basically?

If a customer takes my software without paying us – my company loses money. If somebody else copy it and uses it, we lose potential money. Now I use the word “potential” because another argument in this piracy debate is that “a copied copy does not equal a lost sale”. And yes, that is also true …. technically.
However it also means somebody wanted the software/music – the 0 and 1s – bad enough they’d break the law to get it. So instead of paying for it, they copy it.

And this is where my fascination comes into play. Suppose a piece of music  – it is much more accepted in our societies to copy the work of the web, downloading the music as a file, then stealing the physical disc it is placed on, even though the value of the disc itself is marginally.
When we buy music we buy the content of the disc as well as the disc, but the disc makes up for a very low percentage of the price – it is the content, the music, which holds the value we pay money for. So why this different perception of ethics?
I think it is because we – as society – are still locked in a way of thinking which is outdated. We no longer live exclusively in a physical world – much of our existence is based on virtual goods and money.

We need a new way of thinking. It was the same which happened once we moved from a barter system to paying with a metal because “somebody” deemed that metal valuable. You can’t eat the metal, it doesn’t grow if you plant it – yet we somehow accepted this metal was worth something which could buy a goat. A goat was no longer a goat, it was interchangeable with metal …. for some.
It was again the same when we switched the metal out for paper. Paper which were valuable because somebody specific had printed some numbers on it. A goat was now interchangeable with paper. It was again the same which happened once electronic cards were introduced. These 0 and 1s on my credit card was now worth something.

Virtual goods are worth something, each and every copy is worth something. Even if somebody never planned on buying said copy but “took” it anyway – that copy represent value, somebody have put value into the copy , others pay for similar copies.

We need a new way of thinking. We need a paradigm change of our mindset, as we have before. I just wonder when society and ethics catches up with reality.

About Svelmoe

My real name is Allan Svelmøe Hansen.

I live in Denmark, where I work as a developer for hedal:kruse:brohus using SQL Server and the .NET framework since 2004. Svelmoe.dk is a place for my every day thoughts and reactions and the occasional technical blog entry.

I also blog about SQL and MS SQL Server at www.execsql.com so in case you are looking for more about that, please visit that website.



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