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New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff

blog.ebaum.tv

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Re: New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff

#51
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A building is intrinsically stable. [...] if the building displaces itself one centimeter to the left, the forces in the building pull it back. No part of it is intrinsically unstable. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A03EFDA1F3BE... January 4, 1914, Sunday [...] Several of New York City's skyscrapers are away out of plumb and have a tendency to emulate the famous leaning tower of Pisa according to the…

The "out-of-plumb" is their set-point then. No law of nature says buildings have to be straight up. If what I described didn't happen, they'd fall over, so therefore it must happen.

To whomever thought they needed to downmod that, I recommend a study (or review) of elementary static Newtonian physics. I'm hardly making stuff up, this is Physics 101. My comment was deliberately drawn in parallel to the discussion of normal force that everyone should get when they first forget to include normal force in their force diagram, but remember gravity; if that was true, the object would fall through the table (or whatever surface), therefore clearly there is a normal force. If the forces on a building didn't stabilize it, it would therefore fall over. It sounds simple when you say it, but it's not so simple the first ten times you hand in your force diagram and get a big red mark on it, until you learn.

(Looking at the downmod pattern, though, there's someone who isn't liking the idea that regulation may not be perfect, and expressing that with downmods. Interestingly, my real point is that it can't be perfect for mathematical reasons, which is actually a completely different argument from whether or not it can improve things. But you do need to set out from a policy perspective with the goal of improving, not perfecting, because plans based on perfecting things always cause more trouble when they go wrong. The plan has no slack left over.)

Re: New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff

#52
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's regulating itself like a poorly built skyscraper that is being regulated by gravity: collapsing. We have rules about how to build skyscrapers to keep people from getting hurt. Why not the economy? Take what works, throw out what hurts. There has to be an incentive for people to make money, but it should be ok if it's required to be within a set of guidelines. Unfettered capitalism builds an unstable system. Unst…

Yep, you would think so. But the economy is mind-bogglingly complex and nuanced, full of billions of actors who act rationally and irrationally. Lately we have computer systems thrown into the mix that move billions of dollars around without a human decision involved. The one thing economists can say is that people usually act in their own best interests. If there is a loophole to be found, people will find it. Howev…

"economics are chaotic, not Newtonian..." This is hugely important. First, there never will be a set of equations, that given a gazillion variables will pump out a usable long term economic forecast, but the reliance on faulty models will exacerbate the risk. Case in point: nearly all the players in the derivatives markets used the Value-at-risk model to price the riskd of their derivatives. Guess what, it was wrong, and it was so wrong that last year all the companies tanked, not just one. It was wrong because it couldn't handle the psychology of panic.

Second, the Newtonian fallacy that every effect has a direct cause, leads politicians and economists to rely on flawed models like VAR and misguided social programs where the belief is that, if you tweak the cause, the desired effect will follow.

Re: New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff

#53
post #2

The more I read about it, the less I am convinced that capitalism is all ponies and manna from heaven, like some here believe. And it's close to its end, anyway, at least as we know it. No, I am not some raving conspiracy theorist. Automation and innovation almost guarantee that the world in 100 years will look drastically different than it does now.

Look what you started.

Re: New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff

#54
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot steal anything with Bittorrent. Stealing necessarily involves the previous owner being a previous owner, but Bittorrent and other copying methods don't remove the item from the owner. Refusing to let someone get their files from a computer is more like stealing (though since the computer itself is rightfully owned by the new owners of ebaumsworld, it's certainly arguable that it's just rude, not stealing).…

Downloading a file with bittorrent (lets assume a illegal one) is copyright infringement , which is illegal, and still a crime. One issue is that most copyright infringement cases these days are civil rather than criminal , but the criminal proceedings do exist.

I thought it was the other way round... If you ask me for a copy of Serenity, and i give it to you, then I have infringed on universal studio's copyright. You however have done nothing wrong, because unless you broke into my computer, you would be unable to make a copy without my consent.

Your way makes the whole internet ... broken. anybody can ask for anything, but the guy in control of the resource does not have to honor the request.

Re: New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are missing the systemic causes -- the low cost of money and its devaluation through inflation cause makes taking risks more economical (safe investments lose money). The markets are more regulated now than they've ever been. The cause of this crises has been building for a long time, and goes back to the 70s when the united states went off the gold standard. Additionally, there were things that happened…

Ah, the old gold standard canard again. Not even worth refuting these days, so I won't try. " As for CEOs if they were acting wrongly then their board, or shareholders should revolt." Hasn't happened yet, but it's a nice pie-in-the-sky fantasy. I'm perplexed by many people's ideas here that the best way the system self-corrects is by effectively allowing the system to self-immolate. Is there no better way? "Productiv…

System Correction: Sure you can try to go in and fix a system, but a lot of people disagree with how you are going to do it. Central planning doesn't work due to information problems (lack of prices), and freedom issues. So any change you make to the system will be short lived, but then open up a can of worms as people are free to take risks and not worry about the downside. Second, a lot of people object to forcing people to do things at the point of a gun.

Productivity & Wage Increase I think you are missing a fundamental point, when productivity increases it is normally the result of a capital investment. The person who makes that investment is the one who profits, not normally the person whose productivity has increased. For instance if I'm making shoes, and my boss buys a machine that allows me to increase my productivity 10 fold, well he will see most of that reward while I may see a small increase in my wages. He took the risk of investing in that machine, and thus should see the reward.

2500 years of banking: As for you last post I don't know if that is true or not, how much actual money have the banks lost -- not lost for their clients, but lost themselves.

Re: New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff

#56
post #20
post #3

eBaum has a reputation for plagiarism and copyright infringement-- what goes around comes around I guess.

Yeah, I would have more sympathy if it was someone else. It sounds like they were just tossed out on the street. I do find it somewhat ironic that Eric accused the new C.E.O. of basically stealing some of his personal computer files when he took all the company's computers without letting staff remove files. Link to description of eviction: http://blog.ebaum.tv/2009/01/so-this-is-how-it-all-went-down...

Personal files shouldn't be on a company computer, simple as. I know ebaum's situation is slightly different being a startup and all, however in reality there should never be personal files on a company computer even if you own the company.

Re: New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff

#57
post #2

The more I read about it, the less I am convinced that capitalism is all ponies and manna from heaven, like some here believe. And it's close to its end, anyway, at least as we know it. No, I am not some raving conspiracy theorist. Automation and innovation almost guarantee that the world in 100 years will look drastically different than it does now.

Capitalism I think is as much a necessary evil as democracy, we know it isn't perfect but we've found it to be very very hard to come up with a working alternative. The best way to prove your point of course is to live it, and I'm very curious what proposal you have to replace capitalism. Socialism has been tried in the sovblock countries and it failed (due to greed and incompetence), so it seems that capitalism is b…

Do you even know what socialism, capitalism and communism are?

You appear to be stuck in the dogmatic anti-communist teachings that date back to the cold war.

All western countries are socialist, capitalism simply doesn't exist. There is a varying degree of socialism in the west, the US notoriously the least and its citizens suffer for it. A study showed that the UK's poor is healthier than the US's richest and pay less for the privilege. An American citizen pays twice as much as a UK citizen yet is sicker. The US does have better cancer treatment rates, but awful care for basic conditions like heart disease because you have to pay for it.

I moved to Canada and I've noticed one thing, everyone here is happier than people back in the UK and there's still free health care to boot. I would never live in the US because they don't have free health care, I'm a naturally healthy person, but I don't want to worry about falling off my ladder when I'm working.

You site the USSR, however they didn't have a financial crisis, they stopped themselves developing it's a completely different thing. The USSR was a perverted form of communism, they believed that everyone should have a job and then stopped allowing people to lose their job, this meant that when combine harvesters were becoming widespread in the west, the USSR refused because it would cost people jobs. Ironically, most of the people who would have lost their job could have been trained to fix the machines that replaced them!

Similar problems exist in the west. There was mass complaints here in Canada about the closure of a GM plant that produced 4 speed gearboxes. I found this absolutely absurd because I didn't even know 4 speeds existed, I thought they went the way of the dodo! I learnt on a 5 speed, my dad had a 6 speed and Volkswagen is bringing out a 7 speed. People wanted the plant to stay open, producing something that was nearly half as efficient as modern technology! That's exactly why the USSR failed, and exactly why the Chinese are succeeding, because the Chinese are working for the improvement of the whole and if it had to be done the government would close down entire industries.

Thankfully the GM plant is closed, sadly some people are out of their jobs but either they'll begin working in the plants producing 5/6 speeds, in a new plant producing 7 speeds or they'll move to another business.

It's like the phone companies trying to block VoIP usage. VoIP is the next step, instead of trying to block it phone companies should be embracing it, offering 'digital phone' for free when you subscribe to high-speed internet! It'd nail skype and give them great business. Thankfully our system isn't going the way of the USSR and governments are preventing phone companies from blocking VoIP traffic, meaning technology advances even if it will end up costing jobs in the short term.

If you haven't realised, you're already living in the alternative to capitalism!

Re: New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff

#58
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Eric Bauman makes a site that profits from stealing other people's content. A song is written insulting him. An entire website blames their mayhem on him in revenge. He is caught altering watermarks and removing citations. He gets enough money to buy an apartment building and sponsor a boxer. His father writes insulting emails. Then suddenly another shady company buys him out and ruins his company, and it's proof…

Except, I'd think, for the bit where Eric Bauman makes even more money in the sale and faces no charges for a decade of illegal business that funneled capital away from the creators who deserved it. Dear lord, I think I just gave myself enough cognitive dissonance to stop using Bittorrent for hours. But my point is that Bauman hasn't really repaid his debt to society. He's been shamed, and a lot of us are glad for th…

Punishing people for breaking the law is the role of Government- not business. This is not an example of failed capitalism, but of failed government.

Re: New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff

#59
post #54
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downloading a file with bittorrent (lets assume a illegal one) is copyright infringement , which is illegal, and still a crime. One issue is that most copyright infringement cases these days are civil rather than criminal , but the criminal proceedings do exist.

I thought it was the other way round... If you ask me for a copy of Serenity, and i give it to you, then I have infringed on universal studio's copyright. You however have done nothing wrong, because unless you broke into my computer, you would be unable to make a copy without my consent. Your way makes the whole internet ... broken. anybody can ask for anything, but the guy in control of the resource does not have t…

[deleted]

Re: New owners of eBaum's World fire ebaum and his staff

#60
post #54
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downloading a file with bittorrent (lets assume a illegal one) is copyright infringement , which is illegal, and still a crime. One issue is that most copyright infringement cases these days are civil rather than criminal , but the criminal proceedings do exist.

I thought it was the other way round... If you ask me for a copy of Serenity, and i give it to you, then I have infringed on universal studio's copyright. You however have done nothing wrong, because unless you broke into my computer, you would be unable to make a copy without my consent. Your way makes the whole internet ... broken. anybody can ask for anything, but the guy in control of the resource does not have t…

I should clarify: technically this is the case. However, it is technically illegal to purchase/receive stolen goods (and you can't really argue that you were under the impression that torrented files were legit, at least for the most common torrents).

I oversimplified because it is tiresome hearing the "But it's not stealing because you don't deprive them of anything" argument.

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