That's only true for the largest companies -- and even they won't be able to predict what they'll run out of.

Consider video/moviemaking. The big ones have "runners" to get what's needed. This service replaces them -- probably at a lower cost. But most production teams are too small to have a dedicated runner, so this service is a godsend.

This is actually one of the main benefits of Esperanto, a regular, constructed language that's much easier to learn than a "national" language.

Students who first study Esperanto and then go on to study another language learn the second language better than those who studied only the second language -- even if they had less time to learn it.

The science: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaedeutic_value_of_Esperanto

"the 18k gold used costs over $8,000"

Whatever you're smoking, I want some. Gold spot price is currently a bit below $1,200. Are you suggesting there's nearly 7 ounces of gold in these watches???

Oh, and spot price is for 24-karat gold, each ounce of which makes 1-1/3rd an ounce of 18-karat gold. So... does one of these watches weigh 10 ounces?

Of course there's a way to verify permission for such photos. It's called a model release.

{Citation needed}

...among computer technologists, going back to 1945. Why reuse it for this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

I'm a videojournalist, and fairly long-time geek (see my Slashdot user number? ;) ). But I found Blender completely inappropriate for my uses. It's not built for what I do; it's too hard to learn; it's too hard to use. I wish it weren't so, but: No sale.

"that's too bad but we have our own corrupt politicians here"

True, but your scale is off by 100x.

How much extra did you have to pay the last time you renewed your driver's license? The last time you took a bus? How much kickback do you pay your boss every week to keep your job? When a loved one is in the hospital, how much does the nurse demand directly from you to make sure they get fed?

Be real here.

What you say is true, but it's not the main issue IMHO. Rather, it's that people rip copyrighted materials whole-cloth and post them as CC.

I produce short videos for a client, on a moderate budget. I was using lots of CC and public-domain labeled stuff from archive.org and YouTube. Then I realized, "Hey, wait! This TV show from the '50s is *not* public domain! Neither is this educational film from the '70s!"

This is what comes from people misunderstanding the slogan, "Information wants to be free." You get ignoramuses thinking, "Yeah, and I'm the one who'll set [someone else's stuff] free." There's a word for that -- theft. And that's what sadly permeates collections of "CC/PD" content

Here's a video I produced for ACM when Dr. Lamport won the 2013 award:

https://vimeo.com/95177539

And here's the brief article from Communications of the ACM:

http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2014/6/175174-qa-divide-and-conquer/fulltext

Every date on the calendar is sacred to some group. It's impossible to choose a date that wouldn't conflict with anything.

Also, they apparently didn't choose it: It was a continuation of an earlier tradition. So blame those students.

A man with an atomic watch is better than two in the bush.

I wrote an article about long-term storage *hardware* in CACM -- "The Forever Disc". My favorite musing had to do with writing the data into a population's genetics, and letting redundancy correct errors/mutations..

Microsoft's Pear Street office across the street houses at least two ACM A.M. Turing Award winners: Leslie Lamport and Chuck Thacker (http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/news/features/lamport-031814.aspx). I wonder what the company will do with them, if anything....

(I had the honor of interviewing Dr. Lamport when he won: See http://vimeo.com/95177539 . Nice guy!)

I'm disappointed by the many people (all Americans, as far as I can tell) who post here to say, "fuck no! I'd never be so stupid!!!". This, I think, shows an extremely narrow understanding of the world. Because:

a) America is not the world. There are *many* places where you're expected to pay for your job, in one way or another. Sometimes it's above-board, sometimes not. I don't know about Malaysia, but wouldn't be surprised at all if that was the custom there.

b) Oh, wait, we have this in America, too! I paid LOTS of money to my managing broker when I was a real-estate agent. These are standard fees: Everyone at every agency pays them. And let's not forget the *MINIMUM WAGE* workers forced to pay for their uniforms and so forth.

So stop with the high-and-mighty. You're speaking from ignorance, not strength.