Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Spookiness, France, Reds
Revenge of the naysayers' naysayers: Just yesterday, jamie sallied forth with the theory that Stephen King was setting himself up for disappointment by expecting enough paying customers for his new online book to justify the experiment.
jheinen writes, though, "According to MSNBC, of the 41,000 downloads for the first installment so far, 32,000 (~78%) have already paid via credit card. Kinda shoots to hell the theory that people won't pay."
[Jamie adds: I stand by my prediction that "Stephen King is never going to have to publish the end of his novel." I'd love to see him succeed, but I just don't think so this time around. We'll see in September!]
Red Five, I'm going in. You may recall the story a little while ago about a distributed anti-cracking bot at Sandia National Laboratory. Rest assured, those clever folks don't confine themselves to practicing only one side of the ol' thrust-and-feint.
In fact, leb writes: "Over the past two years, a group at Sandia National Laboratories known informally as the Red Team has, at customer invitation, either successfully invaded or devised successful mock attacks on 35 out of 35 information systems at various sites, along with their associated security technologies. Their work - challenged only by a new style of defense, also developed at Sandia, called an "intelligent agent" - demonstrates that competent outsiders can hack into almost all networked computers as presently conformed no matter how well guarded, say spokespeople for the group, formally known as the Information Design Assurance Red Team or IDART. Check out their site here."
Stir, leave plot overnight to thicken. vjlen writes: "Now it sounds like corinthians.com is just another cybersquatting case. From an article in USA Today: 'But the case is not as black-and-white as it seems, says Dave Fogelson, a spokesman for the team, which recently put up its own site in Brazil. Fogelson says the arbitrator had to consider several factors, including the fact that Sallen did not use the site for Bible quotes until after he contacted the team to talk about selling the name, which suggests his main motive was profit.'"
Or ... or ... or ... we'll strike! stattouk writes "The BBC has a story on a court case currently happening in France over whether Yahoo France can be held responsible for people being able to access auctions of Nazi memorabilia. The courts say that even though fr.yahoo.com has blocked access, the fact that www.yahoo.com can still be used to get them amounts to no action by Yahoo." Asking Yahoo! to block Internet auctions in the first place seemed rather stretchy; now it seems that Yahoo! is supposed to police the entire world.
Penguins do come from that hemisphere, after all ... Tsujigiri writes "To follow up a previous story on Slashdot about the Australian InstallFest 2000, Fairfax IT is running this story about the recently held (well, July the 15th) Adelaide InstallFest 2000 and its "unexpected surge in interest". Quite successfull all round. Congratulations to all involved, and good luck to the rest of the Australian Install Season. (For anyone who'd like to see some pictures, go here)"
If there's an "install season" down there, one questions leaps to mind: Is there a limit on those things?
However, before we pronounce that it just shows that the 'Stree Performer Model' really works, let us not forget the following facts:
- there is a significant novelty factor attached to this test - this will skew results
- the website cannnot determine how many copies of the novel have been distributed with payment - ie pirate copies of the novel may be exchanging hands through email which can't be tracked and therefore the payment ratio is much lower
.. possibly - the payment was only for $1 which you can take two ways:
- it doesn't represent the real price of a book and if you charged more, you would get less people paying, or
- the amount is to low to cover the overhead associated with handling credit cards
All of these factors will skew the results. Now I'm not saying that the results themselves aren't worthy, just that the hype proclaiming that the results are revolutionary, extraordinary, amazing, change the world etc etc is a little over the top.He didn't say she sucks, he just says she wouldn't be able to get published. You played into Big Media's hands when you inferred that not being able to get published is equivalent to sucking. (And getting published means you don't suck, I guess.)
Keep believing that, and they will always take care of the words you hear, the songs you sing, the pictures that give pleasure to your eyes.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The '%-honest' metric is flawed anyhow, even absent the robot factor. It is symptomatic of an unhealthy 'mine, all mine' obsession. Does Stephen King get all worked up like this when I check out one of his books from the public library instead of buying a copy? I certainly hope not, so why, then, should they obsess over the possibility that someone might download the electronic version without paying? As long as enough people pay, that is, as long as the author makes enough money to satisfy him, why should he worry about all the other downloads?
Regarding the possibility of not getting the entire story, it seems to me that this is a risk of serialization that has little or nothing to do with online distribution. Even with traditional publishing, if the first novel of a trilogy sells poorly enough, the remainder of the series might be cancelled. If the possibility of not seeing the end bothers you, then wait until the entire series is complete before you buy the first one.
-rpl
According to a report on RFI (sorry, all audio in french), the court was told by a Canadian company that filtering based on country was very simple and they had a product (or patent, it went by quickly) to do this. Could this be iCraveTV? The report didn't say.
So the judge is going to wait a month (because the whole country goes on vacation the month of August) and then appoint a commission to investigate if filtering can be done country by country. The anti-hate groups asked the judge to impose 1 million FRF fines for each day that french citizens could access nazi memorabilia on yahoo, but the judge declined to do so until after the commission issues a preliminary report.
What might happen if yahoo doesn't implement some kind of system (it doesn't have to be 100%, just good enough) is that all french ISPs will be forced to drop all packets to/from yahoo's IP address range. They could have their business licenses revoked if they don't.
I understand why many european countries have laws against nazism. There is still a very strong racial hatred powering extremist politics using nazism as a symbol. In a region where memories of wrongdoing go back 1500 years, events that happened to people still alive are very recent. The war may have ended, but nazism was not eradicated, only driven underground. The anti-hate laws are there to remove the fuel from the fire, in the hopes that in another few generations the worst of the hatred will be extinguished.
It is interesting to see how american court cases try to attack "dirty pictures" outside the US, where nobody cares if women bare their breasts on the beach. There is a double standard at work, and when an american company is on the losing end of a judgement, americans hear more about it. The double standard goes both ways, when european companies lose to american laws, only europeans hear the rants.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
Information warfare includes a fairly broad range of activities ... As one example, both physical and cyber attacks can result in system effects that are physical and cyber. ... A bomb (physical) may be used to damage a company facility (physical).
:-)
:-) :-)
I knew there was one aspect we've been leaving out of our security audits
Hey, boss, can we include explosives in our hacking arsenal? Just little ones. Please?
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
Here here! This is the crux of the argument. Massive corporations have taken over enterprises because it pays to be big. They have been able to control a market place and charge high prices through schemes that would be illegal if only they didn't control so much of the government (through campaign contributions, lobbying, etc.). The RIAA, the MPAA, and the publishing houses have locked up the content world into a feedback loop where their most prominent and profitable content creators get to keep publishing, and the little guys never get heard.
The net is the great equalizer in that it allows content creators and consumers to connect directly. I fully anticipate within this year a new content site just for texts, similar to MP3.com for independent music and Atom Filmz (and others) for independent videos and shorts.
You know why authors love to be able to publish hardcovers? Because, on a US$20 hardcover, they are able to make $1 in profit. That's right, the AUTHOR GETS ONE BUCK FOR EACH BOOK. On a paperback they get only a few cents. This system is so top heavy and bueracratic that the content creator is given nothing for his/her efforts. Being able to directly reach the consumer means much lower prices, and much higher profits for the actual author. Innovations like the eBooks will make publishing obsolete.
What is important is some kind of promotion mechanism so that authors get noticed. Book reviews are good, but they are always too few too late, thanks to the incredible number of printed works on the market. Something like Amazon.com's review system needs to be implemented on an independent site, complete with their form of karma (the "Top 1000 reviewers"), and accessibility to all.
This is where content is headed. The rest of these gizmos and innovations are just gravy on top.
And finally, he thought, a future to look forward to among the drivel
Now imagine that he released the first chapter of the next Dark Tower novel. I'd wager he'd get over a million downloads the first day (probably more like 2-3 million) and most of them would pay.
Regardless, it did better than anyone predicted.
-Vercingetorix
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
I don't think the Net is the death of creavity, or even of creativity-for-hire. But it does threaten the demise of the top-heavy, soul-crushing pyramid-scheme-like distribution networks that have heretofore dominated music, the movies, and books.
In fact, I brashly predict that the sudden freeing of the artist -- the ability for anyone with interest to form an effective distribution network -- will spark a great surge forward in creativity.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
This argument has one major fallacy, if you do not reside in a country , swear allegence to that country ,or volentarily(?) submit to their rules, laws and regulations of that country , why should you be compelled to force that country's beliefs on others? To expect others to bend to your will just because you decree it , is well..typically french .
.. from now on, alas.
l
King's mechanism for sales is based on the Street Performer Protocol, which you can read more about there:
http://www.counterpane.com/street_performer.htm
Doesn't actually matter if it becomes known as Kings method, as long as it becomes known as a popular method for artists to bypass the industry leeches and actually make their own decent profit...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Due to your article posted at Slashdot.org the other day, entitled "Big Publishing's Worst Nightmare", I was forced into paying a dollar for a novel I will never read. I hold you responsible for linking directly to the pdf file without first mentioning that by clicking on this link users would be held morally responsible for paying Stephen King one US dollar. After reading the comments I found out what you had gotten me into - and have since sent in my one US dollar to Stephen King. I'm asking that you reimburse me that dollar due to your negligance in the matter.
You can send check, money order, or simply US currency in the amount of 1 US dollar to:
Joseph Elwell
*address removed*
on another point, what protects me and other honest purchasers of installments, from some rabid programmer with a net connection and a grudge against the author - script-based downloading of thousands of copies to stack the odds against the final installment appearing?
i really hope that if this does catch on, they'll at least still print real books, for those of us willing to pay vast amount for the entire story (& support the middle man...)
Three words, get a life.
The most direct route to getting a life can also be summed up in three words: stand for something.
"I will gladly pay you today, sir, and eat up
Sacred cows make the best burgers.