Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Google, Prince, Bayesian
Please confirm, over. After reports that the People's Republic of China was blocking access to Google, an anonymous reader writes: "I'm working in China, and for the last 3 days Google and some other sites were not accessible. But since even sending SMS to europe didn't work I don't think it was censoring, more like routing problems of some sort. Anyway, Google is back and reports of slashdot blocking are also overrated :)"
Cradle of Democracy, or Regular Cradle? Many readers have written to point out that, just like they promised to in March, the government of Greece has gone ahead and banned electronic games. xlurker, for instance, writes "In an unbelievable move the Greek government has banned all public play of computer games with enactment of law 3037/2002. An english translation of it can be read here. This has been reported in the Greek newspaper Kathimerini and recently confirmed in detail at the German Heise site (Google translation). The law encompasses all appliances that play games, as ludicrous this sounds, it spans from cells ph ones and computers to gameboys and consoles. Greek internet cafes are protesting and international gaming events are being cancelled and relocate d. The bill was passed as a last ditch effort by the government to combat gambling. Thousands of Greek citizens have protested the blanket anti-gaming law. Online petitions can be found here and at the Greek Net Cafe site."
Welcome to your new email account. In addition to the Bayesian spam filter for Qmail mentioned in a previous Slashback, an anonymous reader writes "An article here talked about using statistical methods to classify spam (and perhaps other mail) automatically. A real implementation of this has been released (currently beta) here that acts as a POP3 proxy and works with any mail client. It inserts an X-Text-Classification: header in each mail message containing a classification of the mail into any of a number of classes that the user defines. The code is mostly Perl and an LGPL library so although the current version is for Windows it will work on other platforms and the author is asking for suggestions and testers."
Yes, I'd like to be paid in unlucky-pop-star weights, please. 21mhz writes "Reuters reports: Russia's space agency has scrapped 'N Sync singer Lance Bass's plans to join an October space mission after the U.S. pop star failed to meet payment deadlines. More details from AP. The guys that do real stuff at ISS will get an extra cargo package the weight of the unlucky pop singer."
And Lo, eleven shall have been selected, and it is so. AmateurHuman writes "After two delays, Wizards of the Coast, the makers of Dungeons & Dragons, have announced that the first stage of the New Fantasy Setting Search is completed. Eleven out of 11,000 entries were selected. Good job to those lucky eleven!"
Slashdot is not responsible for the content of external links. ttyp writes "We've all seen Janis Ian's opinions about P2P and the RIAA but, man, does Prince take it to a new level! Check out the artist's commentary A Nation of Thieves wherein Prince wonders, 'How long, however, b4 a critical mass of established artists realize that it is in their best interests, both artistically and commercially, 2 leave the system 4 good? How long b4 a critical mass of young aspiring artists become aware of the enslaving aspects of the system and r careful not 2 get involved in it without a maximum of precautions? And how long b4 a critical mass of art lovers get 2gether 2 provide these artists with a real, valuable, legitimate, truthfully enthusiastic alternative audience that completes the process of rendering the xisting system artistically irrelevant?' Also check out the links to other commentaries on this page."
Pop music and teen idol status aside, it's good to know that scientists will be able to use more of the precious cargo space for useful purposes.
The sad thing is, on slashdot, we cheer when this sort of thing happens, while much of the rest of the world says "oh come on, cut him a break, he's a pop music god!"
A solution to the problem with music today
Prince wonders, 'How long, however, b4 a critical mass of established artists realize that it is in their best interests, both artistically and commercially, 2 leave the system 4 good? How long b4 a critical mass of young aspiring artists become aware of the enslaving aspects of the system and r careful not 2 get involved in it without a maximum of precautions? And how long b4 a critical mass of art lovers get 2gether 2 provide these artists with a real, valuable, legitimate, truthfully enthusiastic alternative audience that completes the process of rendering the xisting system artistically irrelevant?'
I think we all know of Prince's fondess for symbols over proper words ever since he did that thing with his name but that quote is really going over the top!
GMD
watch this
Wow, didn't know he wrote like that, Prince is one l33t d00d! I totally agree with the message behind it, but that is an incredibly annoying way of writing.
A Cnet article regarding the story explains that "The blanket ban was decided in February after the government admitted it was incapable of distinguishing innocuous video games from illegal gambling machines.", so since Greek authorities are too stupid to tell the difference between Teris and a Poker machine, no one gets to play anything?
The stupidity involved in this law is beyond comprehension.
Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?
How long b4 a critical mass uv peepil beegin 2 loose all sines of b-ing able 2 spel and t8ke the pop moozik w/ them?
--
Promoting critical thinking since 1994.
check out
quit slashdot today.
Will the police arrest little girls for jumping rope without a permit? lol!
How long before people learn that "haxor talk" is a panty ass way of fitting in?
In the 1990s Prince changed his name to The Artist Formerly Known As Prince, then to an unpronouncable symbol. All that to escape a long-term contract he had with Warner Music.
In 2000 he changed his name back to Prince when his contract expired.
Pr!nc3 must be one 7337 d00d!
I have a friend in Greece, and when I asked him yesterday about this, he was very surpirsed. He told me that gaming is popular in Greece, and no one knew that a law was being passed to ban it. He thinks the public opposition is too high for the law to hold, and will be eventually repealed.
TerraIM - my pet AIM client project.
How could we possibly "check that out"? How can anyone read and comprehend that sort of crap? I guess people no longer need IM to prove they are idiots; now they can write whole manifestoes and remove all doubt. Or maybe Prince is trying to be artsy, I dunno. He just comes off as unintelligible, which flies in the face of communication's goals just a bit if he's trying to accomplish something with his writing.
"The technology and entertainment industries r simply 2 big 4 us 2 xpect any overnight changes." And they probably took at least one English class, too, so you probably aren't going to convince anyone to do anything that you want them to do if you attempt to use the written word, Prince...
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Are you sure your friend is inside china ?
/
:
I just tried to test it on http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china/test
These were the results
Starting testing...
Stage one testing complete.
Stage two testing complete.
Testing complete for http://google.com. Result:
Reported as inaccessible in China
Siggy Say, Siggy Do
"Reuters reports: Russia's space agency has scrapped 'N Sync singer Lance Bass's plans to join an October space mission after the U.S. pop star failed to meet payment deadlines."
Watch Lance get himself into AOTC: $-5
Watch Lance get rejected by Lucas: $5000
Watch Lance get on space mission: $-10000
Watch Lance's VISA bounce: priceless!
For everything else there's MasterCard.
Instead of winning money. Excess revenue goes to the space program.
*SRU
You know, it amazes me how many popstars come out in favor of music-sharing after they've made their millions and millions of dollars, bought their flash cars, and the real nice mansion in Beverly Hills.
Why don't we hear the artists who aren't Top 20, platinum album, millions in the bank jumping up and down in favor of this?
Oh yeah.. that's right... because they actually want the chance to get up there themselves.
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Heck, they could combine them into one giant 10,000+ page PDF and charge a few bucks to download it.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
[After a few search-and-replaces, you get something a bit more readable...]
Something happened on the way to the 21st century. Media and entertainment companies started "converging" and "shareholder value" became far more important than customer service and respect for company employees ever managed to b. Compensation packages for company executives hit the stratosphere -- while holding them accountable for their company's results became nearly impossible.
These executives are indeed very naïve if they think that people haven't noticed.
People are noticing that something isn't quite right -- that something is indeed very wrong. After a decade during which the stock market gained apparent respectability as a legitimate, sensible 4m of investing, the recent slew of huge corporate scandals reveals that it is still what it has always been: a sick place where neurotic, puerile gamblers get their kicks off the backs of millions of "anonymous" workers and individuals, who have no control over what happens to their hard-earned retirement savings.
Yet this is the place that most company executives feel is much more important to watch than the actual people for whom they produce their goods and services. This is the place where the fate of thousands of employees is decided every day by people staring at computer monitors showing ever-changing, meaningless lists of numbers and charts. And if u happen to personally hold shares in a company that has just announced that it is "restructuring" in order to improve its bottom-line and thus increase its "shareholder value", don't kid yourself: When the company is talking about "shareholders", it's not talking about u and ur measly couple of thousands of shares. It's only talking about big shareholders -- i.e. other companies that own a more significant share of its market value.
This is a world where "hostile takeovers" and government-approved "mergers" are feeding a never-ending cycle of fewer and fewer executives wielding more and more power on a multinational scale. Soon enough, the "World Company" and George Orwell's 1984 will no longer b the stuff of satire or fiction -- but prophetic descriptions of a very real "New World Order" gradually unfolding before are eyes.
A Little History
Let's start with a simple list: America Online, Time, Life, Warner Bros., Fortune, Elektra, Sports Illustrated, HBO, Turner Broadcasting, CNN, Cinemax, Entertainment Weekly, New Line Cinema, In Style, Warner/Chappell Music, Time Warner Cable, WBN, ICQ, Warner Music Group, Netscape, People, Reprise, Rhino, Atlantic, WEA, TNT, MapQuest, WinAmp, In Demand, Erato, Moviefone, Road Runner, etc. All owned by the same corporate giant (AOL Time Warner).
And another one: Universal Music Group, Verve, Nathan, Canal+, Impulse!, Cegetel, USA Networks, Decca, Interscope, Geffen, A&M, Barclay, Armand Colin, L'Express, Universal Studios, Larousse, Sierra, MP3.com, MCA Records, Deutsche Grammophon, Cineplex, etc. All owned by the same corporate giant (Vivendi Universal).
And yet another one: Disney, ABC, ESPN, Hyperion, Miramax, Touchstone, Hollywood Pictures, A&E, The History Channel, E! Entertainment, RTL-2, Buena Vista, Mr. Showbiz, Wall of Sound, Mammoth Records, etc. All owned by the same corporate giant (Walt Disney).
Need we say more? See for yourself... There's already only 7 of these corporate giants in total -- and how long will it b before there are even fewer?
It all began innocently enough. Young entrepreneurs in the early 20th century started up new companies with a mix of creative ambition and business acumen. Then these companies grew bigger and bigger, and whatever entrepreneurial vision was present at their birth became more and more diluted and less and less relevant. Then corporate accountants suggested merging with or taking over other companies -- and it all became an all-2-real game of Monopoly.
Then the Internet and "new technologies" came about, and the accountants' next big idea was convergence -- i.e. the merging of "content" providers and "access" providers in order to control everything from the inception of a "cultural product" to its ultimate consumption by the unsuspecting masses.
The Art of Manipulation
It is easy to guess what got lost along the way... Creativity. Artistry. Independence. Critical objectivity. Uncontrolled access. The ability to "break thru" cultural barriers. Cultural diversity. Innovation. Freedom. Real music. Real art.
Juggling between art and commerce is a delicate balance at the best of times... and these are definitely NOT the best of times.
So now we have a so-called magazine "reporting" on the latest new blockbuster movie with a 10-page, full-color spread -- as if the reporters weren't aware that the same company that produced the movie also owns their magazine... Yes, this is still called a "magazine". These are still called "reporters". And this is still called "journalism"... And yet millions of people are gleefully letting themselves b had.
Maybe we should stop calling this "art", or even "entertainment" for that matter -- for what is so entertaining about being involved in a collective hallucination? Maybe we should start calling it what it really is, i.e. unfettered MANIPULATION.
In 1995, Clear Channel Communications owned 43 radio stations. Now it owns more than 1,200 -- and its army of so-called "independent promoters" are letting legalized payola dictate what u get (or rather don't get) to hear on the radio.
Everywhere u look, the story is the same: more and more money, less and less choice, less and less freedom of access, fewer and fewer companies. How far will this have to go before a big shift in people's attitude causes this commercial hubris to collapse on2 itself and implode?
Power Struggles
The first major cracks in this highly concentrated corporate world have, of course, already begun to appear, in what has been making the headlines in the past few months, i.e. shady accounting practices involving enormous amounts of money -- enough to shake the economy of the most powerful nation of the world. And the hysterical stock markets have of course been swayed by this news, at the expense of tens of thousands of workers worldwide and millions of small investors who thought that their holdings had nowhere to go but up.
The value of AOL Time Warner's stock is now a quarter of what it was at the time of the merger between AOL and Time Warner, and this decline 4ced the company to take a $54 billion writedown earlier this year. And now it to is being investigated about its accounting practices. The story at Vivendi Universal is similar. Disney shares are near an 8-year low. And there is little doubt in people's mind that the problems are similar everywhere, in every big conglomerate that has become utterly out of touch with the reality of everyday work and the essence of human creativity.
In addition, people also realize all to well that governments have little -- if any -- power left when it comes to regulating these multinational monsters. Governments have much more power when it comes to regulating the lives of ordinary, law-abiding citizens -- and they use and abuse this power as a way to distract people's attention from how much control the conglomerates have over what we get to hear, watch, read, eat, drink, buy, and generally experience as "free" citizens of the world.
One of the areas where this struggle is most acutely felt is, of course, the online world -- a sprawling, anarchic community that is still in its infancy and whose exponential development in the last decade took everyone by surprise. And nothing exemplifies the struggle between government, big business, and individual rights better than the highly controversial issue of "peer-2-peer" file sharing and its many digital variations.
A Nation of Thieves?
Will the media/technology giants recover from the latest stock market slump? They probably will -- but at what cost? In all likelihood, the cost will b more "restructuring", more layoffs, more executive shuffles and golden parachutes, causing even further alienation from their own employees and customers. And this, in turn, will further encourage the very behaviors that they claim are illegal and want punished by criminal law -- all the while preserving their own impunity as they continue to carelessly flounder a capital that they do not own.
Napster may have gone bankrupt and become a closed chapter in the Internet's short history, but its death is by no means a reflection of a decline in peer-2-peer (P2P) file sharing, quite the contrary. If anything, P2P has grown even further -- but since it's becoming totally decentralized, there is no easy way to measure its significance.
What is for sure, however, is that, in spite of its many claims to the contrary, the recording industry has yet to provide evidence that P2P is actually detrimental to music making as an artistic endeavor, and even as a commercial venture. It is worth remembering, for example, that sales of music CDs actually increased when Napster was at its peak, and declined after Napster was abruptly shut down. Even economists who thought that file sharing "should b" hurting the recording industry are now expressing their doubts, based on what they say is simply not happening.
More importantly, many well-respected artists have sided with Internet users against corporate greed and actually use the Internet to promote alternative ways to distribute their music and reach out to a non-captive, legitimate audience of authentic music lovers.
This does not mean, of course, that all forms of file sharing are equally innocuous. There is little doubt that, when people use the Internet as a substitute for radio, i.e. as a way to discover new music, it can help promote the work of artists. But when a young junior high school student downloads tracks off the Internet and makes CD-R copies of them that he then sells for $5 in the schoolyard, it hurts sales of the original CD and it's disrespectful of the artist -- regardless of how small a cut of the actual CD price the artist actually gets after all the executives and the middlemen in the recording industry have taken their piece of the pie.
Still, can we really go as far as to say that digital technology is creating a "nation of thieves" who no longer recognize the just value of art?
Protecting the Product
It is worth noting, to begin with, that the recording industry itself is far from having distinguished itself by recognizing the true value of art. Instead, it has consistently fought to b allowed to deprive many artists of their most fundamental rights. It has allowed popular artists to go bankrupt even though their albums were selling by the millions. It has reduced the artists' cut of the album sales pie to a ridiculously small portion of the actual income generated by these sales. It has consistently pushed commercial musical products at the expense of real musical artistry.
This hardly entitles the recording industry to lecture anyone about recognizing the just value of art.
It is also interesting to note that the cultural products that seem to b the primary concern of the industry giants are those that are already the most popular ones, and that things such as CD copy protection are being experimentally used mostly with items that will sell millions regardless of whether they are copy-protected or not.
So are most citizens really being completely disrespectful of the value of art and the need to provide appropriate compensation to the artists for their works? We've said it before and we'll say it again: the rise of digital technology and peer-2-peer file sharing has little to do with people's intrinsic respect for art and artists, and everything to do with the cynical attitude of big industry conglomerates, which have consistently pushed for more and more commercial, highly profitable products at the expense of authentic art and respect for artists.
If people do not feel enough guilt to prevent them from making digital copies of the latest episode of a popular TV show or hit pop song, it is precisely because the industry giants have succeeded in making these works purely commercial products, with little or no consideration for their actual artistic value. It is precisely because these companies have been consistently promoting commercial products at the expense of artistic works.
The fact that actual works of art still manage to seep thru the cracks of this huge profit-driven industry does not change anything about the fundamental equations that have been driving and still drive the industry, 2day more than ever -- i.e. that art = money, artists = money-makers, and art lovers = consumers.
As a simple example of how little music is valued as an art 4m by the industry, it is estimated that only about 20 percent of music ever recorded is currently available -- and, of this 20 percent, what proportion is actually readily available to music lovers? What proportion is not the current 100 top albums on the SoundScan charts?
It simply appears that the instinctive reaction of the lover of art (be it music, TV shows, movies, or other forms of art) is such that, if the industry has no respect for his or her identity as an appreciator of art, then he or she has no reason to have any respect for the industry as a purveyor of art. By making digital copies of so-called cultural products, many people are not demonstrating their lack of respect for art and for artists, but are expressing -- consciously or not -- their frustration with the way the entertainment industry profits from art at the expense of both art makers and art lovers.
The consumers of the commercial products of the entertainment industry are only as cynical as the industry has deliberately made them, by dumbing down their products, by exploiting artists, by making profit-driven choices and decisions, and by providing their own kind with obscene compensations and legal impunity that are completely out of touch with the real world of ordinary people.
Don't Get It Twisted
That being said, the whole debate about file sharing and digital piracy is, most of all, a convenient way for industry conglomerates to deflect attention from their own shady business practices and dubious alliances.
For example, it is worth noting that the Warner Music Group is heavily involved in the recording industry's fight against piracy, but that its own parent company, AOL Time Warner, is directly benefiting from file sharing, as a provider of Internet access to millions of Internet users worldwide. When AOL Time Warner repeatedly flaunts its ever-increasing number of members (34 million and counting) and the billions of hours that they spend online, is there any doubt that a good part of this growth involves the "unlawful" exchange of computer files at the detriment of recording artists?
In other words, the real "thieves" are not necessarily those that are currently getting the blame... Rather than a "nation of thieves", the current situation looks, to us, much more like an "elite of thieves".
And the real victims of this thievery are very much, as usual, the recording artists themselves, who will never get their share of AOL's profits as an Internet access provider, even though these profits are partly based on the content that they originally provided. And the real victims also include authentic music lovers, who already suffer from restricted access to the full range of music that they would like to explore, and who are also likely to suffer from technological restrictions that will soon prevent them from making legitimate copies of the works that they have lawfully purchased for their own enjoyment.
Make no mistake: the entertainment industry (including TV, movies and music) might b big, but the technology industry is even bigger. Remember that it is AOL that bought Time Warner, and not the other way around. Remember that Sony makes much more money in electronics and computer equipment than it does in record sales...
If the technology industry ends up implementing technological limitations that prevent users from lawfully enjoying their purchases -- as it is threatening to do -- the beneficiaries will not b the artists whose works are thus being allegedly "protected". And it will certainly not b the art lovers whose enjoyment of art will thus b restricted. No, it will simply b, once again... the industry conglomerates, who will have yet another generation of incompatible media and devices to sell to us under the guise of "technological improvement".
Conclusion
The technology and entertainment industries are simply to big for us to expect any overnight changes. The industry giants will continue to do their best to deflect people's attention away from their own wrongdoings and to blame falling profits and commercial failures on piracy at the same time that they are encouraging their customers to adopt the very technologies that make piracy possible. Artists will continue to b lured by unrealistic promises and contracts with big numbers and lots of small print.
How long, however, before a critical mass of established artists realize that it is in their best interests, both artistically and commercially, to leave the system for good? How long before a critical mass of young aspiring artists become aware of the enslaving aspects of the system and are careful not to get involved in it without a maximum of precautions? And how long before a critical mass of art lovers get 2gether to provide these artists with a real, valuable, legitimate, truthfully enthusiastic alternative audience that completes the process of rendering the existing system artistically irrelevant?
It all depends on us -- and it all depends on u.
Clearly, Prince continued partying like it was 1999, ignoring the impending Y2K bug, and failed to update his computer systems, causing them to automagically translate his messages into l33tspeak! And to think, people said the Y2K bug was overblown...
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Could somebody republish that in english?
A few typographical errors are one thing, but this is just plain stupid.
How is it that Greece is prohibiting electronic gaming which encourages competition and interaction among people? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this where the world's Olympic Games started?
$cat
I wrote a set of perl scripts for implementing baesian filters for procmail. The scripts can be downloaded here
Hope y'all find it useful.
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
"How long b4"??
How long before people who are attempting to send a message or make a point in a written medium learn that spelling and good grammer go a long way toward getting people to actually read your writings?
This 'leet speek stuff is silly, makes your message hard to read, and detracts from what you really want to say. You either make yourself look juvenile and uninformed or you get skipped-over by people who might otherwise be swayed by your opinions.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
...the producer sponsoring the deal said that a chunk of the money would be delivered within the next couple of days. So it looks like the deal is still on.
Hopefully there will be a landing pad fire or something. Pity we'd have to lose good cosmonauts to get rid of the pesky fucker.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Any other Bayesian spam filters?
How long b4 Prince gets a spell-checker! :D
so wait.. Lance is no longer going up w/ the russians..
;)
Instead of a box of cargo, Why not do the obvious, and send Prince?
If he sorta.. you know.. slipped out the airlock... well, I think we could forgive the russians, don't you? I'd even be willing to let the russians keep the insurance.
I may have missed a few here and there, or gotten some wrong. I just did a dozen search and replaces or so...
Yeesh. If you have something worthwhile to say, then say it in language everyone can understand. Moron.
--
Something happened on the way to the 21st century. Media and entertainment companies started "converging" and "shareholder value" became far more important than customer service and respect for company employees ever managed to b. Compensation packages for company executives hit the stratosphere - while holding them accountable for their company's results became nearly impossible.
These executives are indeed very naive if they think that people haven't noticed.
People are noticing that something isn't quite right - that something is indeed very wrong. After a decade during which the stock market gained apparent respectability as a legitimate, sensible form of investing, the recent slew of huge corporate scandals reveals that it is still what it has always been: a sick place where neurotic, puerile gamblers get their kicks off the backs of millions of "anonymous" workers and individuals, who have no control over what happens to their hard-earned retirement savings.
Yet this is the place that most company executives feel is much more important to watch than the actual people for whom they produce their goods and services. This is the place where the fate of thousands of employees is decided every day by people staring at computer monitors showing ever-changing, meaningless lists of numbers and charts. And if you happen to personally hold shares in a company that has just announced that it is "restructuring" in order to improve its bottom-line and thus increase its "shareholder value", don't kid urself: When the company is talking about "shareholders", it's not talking about you and your measly couple of thousands of shares. It's only talking about big shareholders - i.e. other companies that own a more significant share of its market value.
This is a world where "hostile takeovers" and government-approved "mergers" are feeding a never-ending cycle of fewer and fewer executives wielding more and more power on a multinational scale. Soon enough, the "World Company" and George Orwell's 1984 will no longer be the stuff of satire or fiction - but prophetic descriptions of a very real "New World Order" gradually unfolding before our eyes.
A Little History
Let's start with a simple list: America Online, Time, Life, Warner Bros., Fortune, Elektra, Sports Illustrated, HBO, Turner Broadcasting, CNN, Cinemax, Entertainment Weekly, New Line Cinema, In Style, Warner/Chappell Music, Time Warner Cable, WBN, ICQ, Warner Music Group, Netscape, People, Reprise, Rhino, Atlantic, WEA, TNT, MapQuest, WinAmp, In Demand, Erato, Moviefone, Road Runner, etc. All owned by the same corporate giant (AOL Time Warner).
And another one: Universal Music Group, Verve, Nathan, Canal+, Impulse!, Cegetel, USA Networks, Decca, Interscope, Geffen, A&M, Barclay, Armand Colin, L'Express, Universal Studios, Larousse, Sierra, MP3.com, MCA Records, Deutsche Grammophon, Cineplex, etc. All owned by the same corporate giant (Vivendi Universal).
And yet another one: Disney, ABC, ESPN, Hyperion, Miramax, Touchstone, Hollywood Pictures, A&E, The History Channel, E! Entertainment, RTL-2, Buena Vista, Mr. Showbiz, Wall of Sound, Mammoth Records, etc. All owned by the same corporate giant (Walt Disney).
Need we say more? See for yourself... There's already only 7 of these corporate giants in total - and how long will it be before there are even fewer?
It all began innocently enough. Young entrepreneurs in the early 20th century started up new companies with a mix of creative ambition and business acumen. Then these companies grew bigger and bigger, and whatever entrepreneurial vision was present at their birth became more and more diluted and less and less relevant. Then corporate accountants suggested merging with or taking over other companies - and it all became an all-too-real game of Monopoly.
Then the Internet and "new technologies" came about, and the accountants' next big idea was convergence - i.e. the merging of "content" providers and "access" providers in order to control everything from the inception of a "cultural product" to its ultimate consumption by the unsuspecting masses.
The Art of Manipulation
It is easy to guess what got lost along the way... Creativity. Artistry. Independence. Critical objectivity. Uncontrolled access. The ability to "break thru" cultural barriers. Cultural diversity. Innovation. Freedom. Real music. Real art.
Juggling between art and commerce is a delicate balance at the best of times... and these are definitely NOT the best of times.
So now we have a so-called magazine "reporting" on the latest new blockbuster movie with a 10-page, full-color spread - as if the reporters weren't aware that the same company that produced the movie also owns their magazine... Yes, this is still called a "magazine". These are still called "reporters". And this is still called "journalism"... And yet millions of people are gleefully letting themselves be had.
Maybe we should stop calling this "art", or even "entertainment" for that matter - for what is so entertaining about being involved in a collective hallucination? Maybe we should start calling it what it really is, i.e. unfettered MANIPULATION.
In 1995, Clear Channel Communications owned 43 radio stations. Now it owns more than 1,200 - and its army of so-called "independent promoters" are letting legalized payola dictate what you get (or rather don't get) to hear on the radio.
Everywhere you look, the story is the same: more and more money, less and less choice, less and less freedom of access, fewer and fewer companies. How far will this have to go before a big shift in people's attitude causes this commercial hubris to collapse onto itself and implode?
Power Struggles
The first major cracks in this highly concentrated corporate world have, of course, already begun to appear, in what has been making the headlines in the past few months, i.e. shady accounting practices involving enormous amounts of money - enough to shake the economy of the most powerful nation of the world. And the hysterical stock markets have of course been swayed by this news, at the expense of tens of thousands of workers worldwide and millions of small investors who thought that their holdings had nowhere to go but up.
The value of AOL Time Warner's stock is now a quarter of what it was at the time of the merger between AOL and Time Warner, and this decline forced the company to take a $54 billion writedown earlier this year. And now it too is being investigated about its accounting practices. The story at Vivendi Universal is similar. Disney shares are near an 8-year low. And there is little doubt in people's mind that the problems are similar everywhere, in every big conglomerate that has become utterly out of touch with the reality of everyday work and the essence of human creativity.
In addition, people also realize all too well that governments have little - if any - power left when it comes to regulating these multinational monsters. Governments have much more power when it comes to regulating the lives of ordinary, law-abiding citizens - and they use and abuse this power as a way to distract people's attention from how much control the conglomerates have over what we get to hear, watch, read, eat, drink, buy, and generally experience as "free" citizens of the world.
One of the areas where this struggle is most acutely felt is, of course, the online world - a sprawling, anarchic community that is still in its infancy and whose exponential development in the last decade took everyone by surprise. And nothing exemplifies the struggle between government, big business, and individual rights better than the highly controversial issue of "peer-to-peer" file sharing and its many digital variations.
A Nation of Thieves?
Will the media/technology giants recover from the latest stock market slump? They probably will - but at what cost? In all likelihood, the cost will be more "restructuring", more layoffs, more executive shuffles and golden parachutes, causing even further alienation from their own employees and customers. And this, in turn, will further encourage the very behaviors that they claim are illegal and want punished by criminal law - all the while preserving their own impunity as they continue to carelessly flounder a capital that they do not own.
Napster may have gone bankrupt and become a closed chapter in the Internet's short history, but its death is by no means a reflection of a decline in peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing, quite the contrary. If anything, P2P has grown even further - but since it's becoming totally decentralized, there is no easy way to measure its significance.
What is for sure, however, is that, in spite of its many claims to the contrary, the recording industry has yet to provide evidence that P2P is actually detrimental to music making as an artistic endeavor, and even as a commercial venture. It is worth remembering, for example, that sales of music CDs actually increased when Napster was at its peak, and declined after Napster was abruptly shut down. Even economists who thought that file sharing "should be" hurting the recording industry are now expressing their doubts, based on what they say is simply not happening.
More importantly, many well-respected artists have sided with Internet users against corporate greed and actually use the Internet to promote alternative ways to distribute their music and reach out to a non-captive, legitimate audience of authentic music lovers.
This does not mean, of course, that all forms of file sharing are equally innocuous. There is little doubt that, when people use the Internet as a substitute for radio, i.e. as a way to discover new music, it can help promote the work of artists. But when a young junior high school student downloads tracks off the Internet and makes CD-R copies of them that he then sells for $5 in the schoolyard, it hurts sales of the original CD and it's disrespectful of the artist - regardless of how small a cut of the actual CD price the artist actually gets after all the executives and the middlemen in the recording industry have taken their piece of the pie.
Still, can we really go as far as to say that digital technology is creating a "nation of thieves" who no longer recognize the just value of art?
Protecting the Product
It is worth noting, to begin with, that the recording industry itself is far from having distinguished itself by recognizing the true value of art. Instead, it has consistently fought to be allowed to deprive many artists of their most fundamental rights. It has allowed popular artists to go bankrupt even though their albums were selling by the millions. It has reduced the artists' cut of the album sales pie to a ridiculously small portion of the actual income generated by these sales. It has consistently pushed commercial musical products at the expense of real musical artistry.
This hardly entitles the recording industry to lecture anyone about recognizing the just value of art.
It is also interesting to note that the cultural products that seem to be the primary concern of the industry giants are those that are already the most popular ones, and that things such as CD copy protection are being experimentally used mostly with items that will sell millions regardless of whether they are copy-protected or not.
So are most citizens really being completely disrespectful of the value of art and the need to provide appropriate compensation to the artists for their works? We've said it before and we'll say it again: the rise of digital technology and peer-to-peer file sharing has little to do with people's intrinsic respect for art and artists, and everything to do with the cynical attitude of big industry conglomerates, which have consistently pushed for more and more commercial, highly profitable products at the expense of authentic art and respect for artists.
If people do not feel enough guilt to prevent them from making digital copies of the latest episode of a popular TV show or hit pop song, it is precisely because the industry giants have succeeded in making these works purely commercial products, with little or no consideration for their actual artistic value. It is precisely because these companies have been consistently promoting commercial products at the expense of artistic works.
The fact that actual works of art still manage to seep thru the cracks of this huge profit-driven industry does not change anything about the fundamental equations that have been driving and still drive the industry, today more than ever - i.e. that art = money, artists = money-makers, and art lovers = consumers.
As a simple example of how little music is valued as an art form by the industry, it is estimated that only about 20 percent of music ever recorded is currently available - and, of this 20 percent, what proportion is actually readily available to music lovers? What proportion is not the current 100 top albums on the SoundScan charts?
It simply appears that the instinctive reaction of the lover of art (be it music, TV shows, movies, or other forms of art) is such that, if the industry has no respect for his or her identity as an appreciator of art, then he or she has no reason to have any respect for the industry as a purveyor of art. By making digital copies of so-called cultural products, many people are not demonstrating their lack of respect for art and for artists, but are expressing - consciously or not - their frustration with the way the entertainment industry profits from art at the expense of both art makers and art lovers.
The consumers of the commercial products of the entertainment industry are only as cynical as the industry has deliberately made them, by dumbing down their products, by exploiting artists, by making profit-driven choices and decisions, and by providing their own kind with obscene compensations and legal impunity that are completely out of touch with the real world of ordinary people.
Don't Get It Twisted
That being said, the whole debate about file sharing and digital piracy is, most of all, a convenient way for industry conglomerates to deflect attention from their own shady business practices and dubious alliances.
for example, it is worth noting that the Warner Music Group is heavily involved in the recording industry's fight against piracy, but that its own parent company, AOL Time Warner, is directly benefiting from file sharing, as a provider of Internet access to millions of Internet users worldwide. When AOL Time Warner repeatedly flaunts its ever-increasing number of members (34 million and counting) and the billions of hours that they spend online, is there any doubt that a good part of this growth involves the "unlawful" exchange of computer files at the detriment of recording artists?
In other words, the real "thieves" are not necessarily those that are currently getting the blame... Rather than a "nation of thieves", the current situation looks, to us, much more like an "elite of thieves".
And the real victims of this thievery are very much, as usual, the recording artists themselves, who will never get their share of AOL's profits as an Internet access provider, even though these profits are partly based on the content that they originally provided. And the real victims also include authentic music lovers, who already suffer from restricted access to the full range of music that they would like to explore, and who are also likely to suffer from technological restrictions that will soon prevent them from making legitimate copies of the works that they have lawfully purchased for their own enjoyment.
Make no mistake: the entertainment industry (including TV, movies and music) might be big, but the technology industry is even bigger. Remember that it is AOL that bought Time Warner, and not the other way around. Remember that Sony makes much more money in electronics and computer equipment than it does in record sales...
If the technology industry ends up implementing technological limitations that prevent users from lawfully enjoying their purchases - as it is threatening to do - the beneficiaries will not be the artists whose works are thus being allegedly "protected". And it will certainly not be the art lovers whose enjoyment of art will thus be restricted. No, it will simply b, once again... the industry conglomerates, who will have yet another generation of incompatible media and devices to sell to us under the guise of "technological improvement".
Conclusion
The technology and entertainment industries are simply to big for us to expect any overnight changes. The industry giants will continue to do their best to deflect people's attention away from their own wrongdoings and to blame falling profits and commercial failures on piracy at the same time that they are encouraging their customers to adopt the very technologies that make piracy possible. Artists will continue to be lured by unrealistic promises and contracts with big numbers and lots of small print.
How long, however, before a critical mass of established artists realize that it is in their best interests, both artistically and commercially, to leave the system for good? How long before a critical mass of young aspiring artists become aware of the enslaving aspects of the system and are careful not to get involved in it without a maximum of precautions? And how long before a critical mass of art lovers get together to provide these artists with a real, valuable, legitimate, truthfully enthusiastic alternative audience that completes the process of rendering the existing system artistically irrelevant?
It all depends on us - and it all depends on you.
--
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
You can bet on it.
How can you tell the difference between a running race and gambling? You can't because you can make bets on who's going to win.
Do they have horse racing in Greece?
BTW the Australian Govt has banned online gambling sites in OZ. It doesn't help any because every time I go near geocities or yahoo, I'm bombarded by the Overseas sites. All the ban did was make sure the money leaves our country.
Can't wait for the first tuesday in November. Go Pharlap go. (uh dammit what time warp did that come from?) Anyone got a tip for which horse is going to win this year?
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
Not bad, but he forgot: w3 w177 0wnz0r j00!
Or at least a good spellchecker. Enjoy:
A Nation of Thieves?
Something happened on the way to the 21st century. Media and entertainment companies started converging and shareholder value became far more important than customer service and respect for company employees ever managed to be. Compensation packages for company executives hit the stratosphere while holding them accountable for their companys results became nearly impossible.
These executives are indeed very naïve if they think that people havent noticed.
People are noticing that something isnt quite right that something is indeed very wrong. After a decade during which the stock market gained apparent respectability as a legitimate, sensible form of investing, the recent slew of huge corporate scandals reveals that it is still what it has always been: a sick place where neurotic, puerile gamblers get their kicks off the backs of millions of anonymous workers and individuals, who have no control over what happens to their hard-earned retirement savings.
Yet this is the place that most company executives feel is much more important to watch than the actual people for whom they produce their goods and services. This is the place where the fate of thousands of employees is decided every day by people staring at computer monitors showing ever-changing, meaningless lists of numbers and charts. And if you happen to personally hold shares in a company that has just announced that it is restructuring in order to improve its bottom-line and thus increase its shareholder value, dont kid yourself: When the company is talking about shareholders, its not talking about you and ur measly couple of thousands of shares. Its only talking about big shareholders i.e. other companies that own a more significant share of its market value.
This is a world where hostile takeovers and government-approved mergers are feeding a never-ending cycle of fewer and fewer executives wielding more and more power on a multinational scale. Soon enough, the World Company and George Orwells 1984 will no longer be the stuff of satire or fiction but prophetic descriptions of a very real New World Order gradually unfolding before are eyes.
A Little History
Lets start with a simple list: America Online, Time, Life, Warner Bros., Fortune, Elektra, Sports Illustrated, HBO, Turner Broadcasting, CNN, Cinemax, Entertainment Weekly, New Line Cinema, In Style, Warner/Chappell Music, Time Warner Cable, WBN, ICQ, Warner Music Group, Netscape, People, Reprise, Rhino, Atlantic, WEA, TNT, MapQuest, WinAmp, In Demand, Erato, Moviefone, Road Runner, etc. All owned by the same corporate giant (AOL Time Warner).
And another one: Universal Music Group, Verve, Nathan, Canal+, Impulse!, Cegetel, USA Networks, Decca, Interscope, Geffen, A&M, Barclay, Armand Colin, LExpress, Universal Studios, Larousse, Sierra, MP3.com, MCA Records, Deutsche Grammophon, Cineplex, etc. All owned by the same corporate giant (Vivendi Universal).
And yet another one: Disney, ABC, ESPN, Hyperion, Miramax, Touchstone, Hollywood Pictures, A&E, The History Channel, E! Entertainment, RTL-2, Buena Vista, Mr. Showbiz, Wall of Sound, Mammoth Records, etc. All owned by the same corporate giant (Walt Disney).
Need we say more? See for yourself Theres already only 7 of these corporate giants in total and how long will it be before there are even fewer?
It all began innocently enough. Young entrepreneurs in the early 20th century started up new companies with a mix of creative ambition and business acumen. Then these companies grew bigger and bigger, and whatever entrepreneurial vision was present at their birth became more and more diluted and less and less relevant. Then corporate accountants suggested merging with or taking over other companies and it all became an all-too-real game of Monopoly.
Then the Internet and new technologies came about, and the accountants next big idea was convergence i.e. the merging of content providers and access providers in order to control everything from the inception of a cultural product to its ultimate consumption by the unsuspecting masses.
The Art of Manipulation
It is easy to guess what got lost along the way Creativity. Artistry. Independence. Critical objectivity. Uncontrolled access. The ability to break thru cultural barriers. Cultural diversity. Innovation. Freedom. Real music. Real art.
Juggling between art and commerce is a delicate balance at the best of times and these are definitely NOT the best of times.
So now we have a so-called magazine reporting on the latest new blockbuster movie with a 10-page, full-color spread as if the reporters werent aware that the same company that produced the movie also owns their magazine Yes, this is still called a magazine. These are still called reporters. And this is still called journalism And yet millions of people are gleefully letting themselves be had.
Maybe we should stop calling this art, or even entertainment for that matter for what is so entertaining about being involved in a collective hallucination? Maybe we should start calling it what it really is, i.e. unfettered MANIPULATION.
In 1995, Clear Channel Communications owned 43 radio stations. Now it owns more than 1,200 and its army of so-called independent promoters are letting legalized payola dictate what you get (or rather dont get) to hear on the radio.
Everywhere you look, the story is the same: more and more money, less and less choice, less and less freedom of access, fewer and fewer companies. How far will this have to go before a big shift in peoples attitude causes this commercial hubris to collapse onto itself and implode?
Power Struggles
The first major cracks in this highly concentrated corporate world have, of course, already begun to appear, in what has been making the headlines in the past few months, i.e. shady accounting practices involving enormous amounts of money enough to shake the economy of the most powerful nation of the world. And the hysterical stock markets have of course been swayed by this news, at the expense of tens of thousands of workers worldwide and millions of small investors who thought that their holdings had nowhere to go but up.
The value of AOL Time Warners stock is now a quarter of what it was at the time of the merger between AOL and Time Warner, and this decline 4ced the company to take a $54 billion writedown earlier this year. And now it to is being investigated about its accounting practices. The story at Vivendi Universal is similar. Disney shares are near an 8-year low. And there is little doubt in peoples mind that the problems are similar everywhere, in every big conglomerate that has become utterly out of touch with the reality of everyday work and the essence of human creativity.
In addition, people also realize all to well that governments have little if any power left when it comes to regulating these multinational monsters. Governments have much more power when it comes to regulating the lives of ordinary, law-abiding citizens and they use and abuse this power as a way to distract peoples attention from how much control the conglomerates have over what we get to hear, watch, read, eat, drink, buy, and generally experience as free citizens of the world.
One of the areas where this struggle is most acutely felt is, of course, the online world a sprawling, anarchic community that is still in its infancy and whose exponential development in the last decade took everyone by surprise. And nothing exemplifies the struggle between government, big business, and individual rights better than the highly controversial issue of peer-2-peer file sharing and its many digital variations.
A Nation of Thieves?
Will the media/technology giants recover from the latest stock market slump? They probably will but at what cost? In all likelihood, the cost will be more restructuring, more layoffs, more executive shuffles and golden parachutes, causing even further alienation from their own employees and customers. And this, in turn, will further encourage the very behaviors that they claim are illegal and want punished by criminal law all the while preserving their own impunity as they continue to carelessly flounder a capital that they do not own.
Napster may have gone bankrupt and become a closed chapter in the Internets short history, but its death is by no means a reflection of a decline in peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing, quite the contrary. If anything, P2P has grown even further but since its becoming totally decentralized, there is no easy way to measure its significance.
What is for sure, however, is that, in spite of its many claims to the contrary, the recording industry has yet to provide evidence that P2P is actually detrimental to music making as an artistic endeavor, and even as a commercial venture. It is worth remembering, for example, that sales of music CDs actually increased when Napster was at its peak, and declined after Napster was abruptly shut down. Even economists who thought that file sharing should be hurting the recording industry are now expressing their doubts, based on what they say is simply not happening.
More importantly, many well-respected artists have sided with Internet users against corporate greed and actually use the Internet to promote alternative ways to distribute their music and reach out to a non-captive, legitimate audience of authentic music lovers.
This does not mean, of course, that all forms of file sharing are equally innocuous. There is little doubt that, when people use the Internet as a substitute for radio, i.e. as a way to discover new music, it can help promote the work of artists. But when a young junior high school student downloads tracks off the Internet and makes CD-R copies of them that he then sells for $5 in the schoolyard, it hurts sales of the original CD and its disrespectful of the artist regardless of how small a cut of the actual CD price the artist actually gets after all the executives and the middlemen in the recording industry have taken their piece of the pie.
Still, can we really go as far as to say that digital technology is creating a nation of thieves who no longer recognize the just value of art?
Protecting the Product
It is worth noting, to begin with, that the recording industry itself is far from having distinguished itself by recognizing the true value of art. Instead, it has consistently fought to be allowed to deprive many artists of their most fundamental rights. It has allowed popular artists to go bankrupt even though their albums were selling by the millions. It has reduced the artists cut of the album sales pie to a ridiculously small portion of the actual income generated by these sales. It has consistently pushed commercial musical products at the expense of real musical artistry.
This hardly entitles the recording industry to lecture anyone about recognizing the just value of art.
It is also interesting to note that the cultural products that seem to be the primary concern of the industry giants are those that are already the most popular ones, and that things such as CD copy protection are being experimentally used mostly with items that will sell millions regardless of whether they are copy-protected or not.
So are most citizens really being completely disrespectful of the value of art and the need to provide appropriate compensation to the artists for their works? Weve said it before and well say it again: the rise of digital technology and peer-to-peer file sharing has little to do with peoples intrinsic respect for art and artists, and everything to do with the cynical attitude of big industry conglomerates, which have consistently pushed for more and more commercial, highly profitable products at the expense of authentic art and respect for artists.
If people do not feel enough guilt to prevent them from making digital copies of the latest episode of a popular TV show or hit pop song, it is precisely because the industry giants have succeeded in making these works purely commercial products, with little or no consideration for their actual artistic value. It is precisely because these companies have been consistently promoting commercial products at the expense of artistic works.
The fact that actual works of art still manage to seep thru the cracks of this huge profit-driven industry does not change anything about the fundamental equations that have been driving and still drive the industry, 2day more than ever i.e. that art = money, artists = money-makers, and art lovers = consumers.
As a simple example of how little music is valued as an art form by the industry, it is estimated that only about 20 percent of music ever recorded is currently available and, of this 20 percent, what proportion is actually readily available to music lovers? What proportion is not the current 100 top albums on the SoundScan charts?
It simply appears that the instinctive reaction of the lover of art (b it music, TV shows, movies, or other forms of art) is such that, if the industry has no respect for his or her identity as an appreciator of art, then he or she has no reason to have any respect for the industry as a purveyor of art. By making digital copies of so-called cultural products, many people are not demonstrating their lack of respect for art and for artists, but are expressing consciously or not their frustration with the way the entertainment industry profits from art at the expense of both art makers and art lovers.
The consumers of the commercial products of the entertainment industry are only as cynical as the industry has deliberately made them, by dumbing down their products, by exploiting artists, by making profit-driven choices and decisions, and by providing their own kind with obscene compensations and legal impunity that are completely out of touch with the real world of ordinary people.
Dont Get It Twisted
That being said, the whole debate about file sharing and digital piracy is, most of all, a convenient way for industry conglomerates to deflect attention from their own shady business practices and dubious alliances.
For example, it is worth noting that the Warner Music Group is heavily involved in the recording industrys fight against piracy, but that its own parent company, AOL Time Warner, is directly benefiting from file sharing, as a provider of Internet access to millions of Internet users worldwide. When AOL Time Warner repeatedly flaunts its ever-increasing number of members (34 million and counting) and the billions of hours that they spend online, is there any doubt that a good part of this growth involves the unlawful exchange of computer files at the detriment of recording artists?
In other words, the real thieves are not necessarily those that are currently getting the blame Rather than a nation of thieves, the current situation looks, to us, much more like an elite of thieves.
And the real victims of this thievery are very much, as usual, the recording artists themselves, who will never get their share of AOLs profits as an Internet access provider, even though these profits are partly based on the content that they originally provided. And the real victims also include authentic music lovers, who already suffer from restricted access to the full range of music that they would like to explore, and who are also likely to suffer from technological restrictions that will soon prevent them from making legitimate copies of the works that they have lawfully purchased for their own enjoyment.
Make no mistake: the entertainment industry (including TV, movies and music) might be big, but the technology industry is even bigger. Remember that it is AOL that bought Time Warner, and not the other way around. Remember that Sony makes much more money in electronics and computer equipment than it does in record sales
If the technology industry ends up implementing technological limitations that prevent users from lawfully enjoying their purchases as it is threatening to do the beneficiaries will not be the artists whose works are thus being allegedly protected. And it will certainly not be the art lovers whose enjoyment of art will thus be restricted. No, it will simply be, once again the industry conglomerates, who will have yet another generation of incompatible media and devices to sell to us under the guise of technological improvement.
Conclusion
The technology and entertainment industries are simply to big for us to expect any overnight changes. The industry giants will continue to do their best to deflect peoples attention away from their own wrongdoings and to blame falling profits and commercial failures on piracy at the same time that they are encouraging their customers to adopt the very technologies that make piracy possible. Artists will continue to be lured by unrealistic promises and contracts with big numbers and lots of small print.
How long, however, before a critical mass of established artists realize that it is in their best interests, both artistically and commercially, to leave the system for good? How long before a critical mass of young aspiring artists become aware of the enslaving aspects of the system and are careful not to get involved in it without a maximum of precautions? And how long before a critical mass of art lovers get together to provide these artists with a real, valuable, legitimate, truthfully enthusiastic alternative audience that completes the process of rendering the existing system artistically irrelevant?
It all depends on us and it all depends on you.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
My take on the whole thing has been that he never intended to go to space. He used his star power and the promise of $20 million to get himself free access to NASA and do what most boys only dream of, i.e., pretend you're in the space program, sit in on NASA press conferences, play with all the high-tech space equipment.
Oh sure, maybe at first he was serious about the $20 million. But I think he sobered up pretty quick and decided that there was no way he was paying that, but he was going to milk the experience for everything he could before they kicked him out.
In the meantime, he also got himself a TON of free publicity. How many members of NSync can you name? Well, there's some guy named Justin who used to date Britney Spears, and a bunch of other guys. Oh, and LANCE BASS.
Geez, he got $20 million worth of publicity without spending a dime.
Prïnce takes the tïme to put an "ï" ïn naïve, but makes us read through all those 2's and 4's because he's too lazy to do a search and replace.
I tried reading Prince's essay, but gave up a few paragraphs in because he insists on using lamer-speak. Is there a filter somewhere that will translate it to English? He looks like he's got something to say, and articulately at that...
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
...with men such as these.
Then he wouldn't need to make his fingers wrap around an unfamiliar keyboard.
Except most dictation software I know fails as soon as the speaker gets passionate or excited about a topic. Then the computer completely fails to understand a word. The results are funnier than watching a spellchecker offer suggestions for correcting proper names or code.
wadiwood wedgewood widowhood
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
The Government of Greece just announced that they will be banning the game "Rock, Paper, Scissors" in order to prevent illegal gambling. Since it is difficult to tell the difference between this game and normal human hand gestures, anyone who makes a fist, holds a hand out with the palm side down, or makes a "peace" symbol with their hand will either be required to pay an insane fine or spend time in prison.
Prince must have been masturb8ing and typing with only one hand.
Edger Dijkstra said something like, "In my opinion the most important quality in a computer programmer is a mastery of their native language." It is a good point. You have to understand what you are supposed to be doing. You have to be able to communicate with your colleagues. You have to be able to communicate with your boss, and your clients.
Dijkstra then added something like, "This explains the generally poor quality of American programmers." Ouch!
Seriously, Prince is not a foreigner. English is his native language. Not only is English his native Language, but he is a kind of professional communicator. His songs should be communicating something, no?
Here in Canada we have our own music channels. They have biographies of musicians. I have seen this short clip advertizing his biography a number of times where he says, "I got to a point in my career, where I could say anything ".
Well, too bad. If there was someone who could give him advice, that he would listen to, I think they should tell him, "Now hold on son. Forget your financial success, and rewind your ego to the point where you actually cared enough to make an effort for people to understand you."
I am not measuring his intelligence. I am measuring his ego. Sure, go ahead and be casual with spelling and grammar when you are talking with someone one on one, or in IRC or IM. But the larger your audience, and the less well you know them, the more of an effort you should make to be clear, IMO.
Well, George, doesn't Dijkstra sound like he had a big ego too? Yes. I guess he does. But Dijkstra was a computer science god. Who is going to be remembered one hundred years from now? Prince? Or Dijkstra. I sure hope it is Dijkstra.
Babel fish doesn't currently have a "AOLLamerSpeak" to English converter yet.
He has often written like that in the past. See his songs "I Would Die 4 U", "Money Don't Matter 2 Night", and "Nothing Compares 2 U."
Whatever you have to say about his method of communcating, there is no doubt that he is an extrememly intelligent man and a musical prodigy.
He has long been outspoken against the current state of the recording industry, and I am always glad to hear what he was to say about things.
Does anybody have a copy of prince2english.c? I seem 2 b having trouble reading Nation of Thieves...
--ZMI didn't know that Prince was an 3l33t d00d.
Why use the shoddy AP report on the Lance Bass Space situation?
A much better(longer, more details/explanations from each side) one can be found here
Cheers
"PC Load Letter? What the $@#% does that mean?!"
The guys that do real stuff at ISS will get an extra cargo package the weight of the unlucky pop singer.
Lance Bass' weight is currently estimated at just under 30 pounds, without hair gel and not including ego.
-- Nerds on toast in the new millenium
If I ever download a prince song I hereby promise to kill myself in the most disgusting manner possible. So now everyone is happy.
I think the changing of his name to that stupid symbol was a preemptive strike to make his songs hard to download on gnutella. Or a pathetic cry for help. One of those.
I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
shut up with the spelling and relate to the thing instead..
I'll have to remember this article the next time I need a good laugh. Maybe I'll anonymously submit a story that consists solely of the following: "Your reports of Microsoft's animosity toward Linux are overrated. I am presently working on a Microsoft distribution of Linux." No links, no evidence, just hot air.
Dont the rooskies accept imaginary ameri-corporate-stock-option-internet-cyber-bucks as payment?
Maybe it was the same 20 million imaginary ameri-corporate-stock-option-internet-cyber-bucks he lost due to P2P file sharing, so the point is moot.
I'm sure that most of the idiots posting here about Prince's lack of grammatical skills didn't read his entire commentary because there is actually a really good point he makes:
"If people do not feel enough guilt 2 prevent them from making digital copies of the latest episode of a popular TV show or hit pop song, it is precisely because the industry giants have succeeded in making these works purely commercial products, with little or no consideration 4 their actual artistic value. It is precisely because these companies have been consistently promoting commercial products at the xpense of artistic works. "
I think (while not elegant in form) this may be one of the most insightful remarks I've heard in a long time about the dangers of artistic commercialization. Teenagers aren't being tought the intrensic value of creativity. They are only being taught that the music they want to listen to and the movies they want to watch cost much more than they are willing or able to pay. Why wouldn't they copy them off P2P networks? Large media companies have turned music and movies into high profit commodities. People no longer feel that they are supporting the artists or actors... They are just filling the pockets of overpaid CEOs who are just going to turn around, steal their retirement and then lay them off!
For those truly interested in this travesty, please read the entire article with an open mind. Prince may not be an elegant writer, but his comments appear to be similar to many Slashdot readers ideas on this subject.
Do I have this right? The bayesian filter code in .exe files? Seemed kinda odd to ...
perl is available on a site called usethesource and
comes as a group of
me
I can't help but wonder how Prince/the-artist-formerly-known-as-a-symbol-repre senting-the-artist-formerly-known-as-Prince/etc. affected the development of "l33t"-speak. Think about it B4 U dizmiz it...
Sheesh, listen to the whiners. I managed to follow the style and read the article with little or no difficulty. I must say, I'm surprised by the numbers of lamers who critized the syntax and ignored the message. As well, the verbage failed to contribute anything meaningful. Your critisms are just another typical example of first-worlders and their lack of generosity and manners.
At least I could understand him...
... me my boyz go slamming this ho ... 3 holes full of nigga sticks...
Bling, props, dope... Word up my niggas...
Give me sum' tha gangsta lovin'
1: KNOCK KNOCK
2: Who's there?
1: Glass Ceiling...
2: Glass Ceiling who?
1: Shut the fuck up nigga... You ain't getting thru.
1/2: Word up!
What is the world coming to when manufactured, commercial "pop" singers can't get a decent ride through the Russian Space Program for free? I mean, gosh, that's just plain cruel and unusual, I'm telling you. We should all be ashamed of ourselves for allowing such an injustice to occur.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled reality, already in progress.
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Man, it's
Light a man a fire, and he will be warm for a night, Light a man afire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
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Contrary to what the posting suggests
www.google.com is still not accessible
from China as of September 4th.
Yesterday www.google.ca was accessible,
but it stopped working in the evening.
Also the whole SourceForge got blocked
(part of the site has been blocked at
least since a year).
Embassies, international organizations
and possibly some expensive hotels have
unrestricted access, so people on
bussines trips may not have a complete
picture.
Greetings from Beijing
[yicha]
I'm on a project in Shenzhen, China right now (about 45 minutes from Hong Kong)
Google is still blocked, but it is very spotty. If I try to go directly to www.google.com,I am blocked. If I ping google.com, the resolved IP (216.239.51.100) is functional. Also, Google Labs is still functional (labs.google.com) as well as this site
"Teachers leave us kids alone
No, he's just 13373r that all the rest of us 14/\/\3rz.
GIR: I'm going to sing the Doom song now. Doom doom doom doom doom doom de-doom doom doom doom doom doom doom...
How long before people get over the leet speak fad and start actually writing? b4? 2gether? sheesh.
(which was the title of my submission - I think mine is better....)
But damn it, I wanted him in space. Oh well, plans change.
Anybody want to buy a ground-to-space interceptor rocket?
www.eFax.com are spammers
http://www.transl8it.com/
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
7053r!!!!
sed -e 's/b4/before/g;s/ ur/your/g;s/ 4 / for /g;s/2/to/g;s/ x/ ex/g;s/ u / you /g;s/ r /are/g;s/ b / be /g;s/4m/forum/g'
Now can you shut up about the damn numbers?
Besides, boiling the language down to some simplified form removes connotations and such, and it's very much like 1984 newspeak to do so.
First, you don't boil language down. Language is initially reduced to letters using salt, mercury and a slow flame under the vessel. The letters are then converted to numbers using secret tables and rational deduction. It is only then that all connotation is removed and yet the message the numbers reveal consists only of connotation. This is especially true when patterns in the numbers start to resemble letterforms from script long considered dead.
I bet you are not very fun at parties.
The reason Prince went with the symbol for his name was to show his contempt for the music industry. Look at his WB contract termination then look at his discography. When his absurd contract ended his name was changed back to Prince. In an interview Prince stated:
"The first step I have taken towards the ultimate goal of emancipation from the chains that bind me to Warner Bros. was to change my name from Prince to 0{+>. Prince is the name that my Mother gave me at birth. Warner Bros. took the name, trademarked it, and used it as the main marketing tool to promote all of the music that I wrote. The company owns the name Prince and all related music marketed under Prince. I became merely a pawn used to produce more money for Warner Bros...."
(Yes his birth certificate read "Prince Rogers Nelson". The beatings he must have gotten....)
Prince has been an opponent to "big business music" for a very long time. As a result he doesn't own the rights to most of his own original recordings.
Photons have mass!!?? I didn't even know they were Catholic...
So the Russians of all people are complaining about him not being on time with payments for his trip to the International Space Station? *cough*
- Peter
Dr3@m !f u c@n @ n3tw0rk
@ c0nn3ct10n 0f 'putt3r2 1n p33r
Mu21c tr@d3 4 fr33
T43y f33l t43 s0und
T43 s0und 0f MP3
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M@yb3 1'm t00 us3d 2 p@nd3r1ng
M@yb3 1t'2 my p0t2 2 sl0w
M@yb3 H177@ry'2 l1k3 my g1rl
24e's n3v3r s@t12f13d
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"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
I am writing this from Xi'an in Shaanxi Province, China. Google stopped working several days ago and still doesn't work. Going to a different IP address works though. So it might be a feeble attempt at blocking or a routing problem.
aCC
here is the news report on a major chinese news site, this site used to be neutrally, but it then has been controlled by China government, yes, i don't have the evidence to prove that it is "semiofficial", but it really is. i don't have much time, so i can only translate the main point of this report:
To purify the Internet, some search engine has been banned "without day"
obvioursly, the un-controlled "carpet searching" sometimes is really a "dust collector", it may leads the user to those illegal site and page, and since its server is oversea, so our country has no "supervision" with it. that's quite reasonable to ban those search engine.
yes, it doesn't mention google, but everybody know who it is.
and then, why there are some people think it's a rumor, think it's a "technical problem". the reason is google is still accessible thru some IP address. and many mirror is not banned (in case you dunno the heading chinese on that mirror site, that's "I NEED Google"). so it's quite understandable as "DNS failure" or something like this. why mirror is not banned? one possible reason is the dictator himself has no knowledge about internet, the banning was executed by operator, the operator's responsibility is to show the dictator: "look, www.google.com is not accessible". yea, some operators are still human being, that's why we in China can still access google thru some mirror.
confirm over...
(is this a confirmation to the fact, or a confirmation to the rumor? i bet those naive people who think CCP is not that bad will never give up this quesiton.
see my another post about this
Yes you know it's true,
Oh, oh, pirates, I blame youuu!
I know a lot of americans think that they are "free", but as an Australian, I can't fathom a modern western society where gambling is against the law. It's rediculous. Also, I'm intrigued about the details - I know you guys have a lottery system, do you have those little "instant scratchies"? Also, I assume pokies are banned, what about bingo? And more importantly, if there's no pokies, and no bingo, what the hell do you people do when you get older than 55?
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
anonymous reader writes:
:)"
"I'm working in China, and for the last 3 days Google and some other sites were not accessible.
yea, CNN, BBC and many many other sites were not accessible, they all have routing problems.
But since even sending SMS to europe didn't work I don't think it was censoring, more like routing problems of some sort.
i can not boot my computer this morning, i think that's why my PS2 doesn't work.
Anyway, Google is back and reports of slashdot blocking are also overrated
o? Google is never gone, i can use it all the time, what? you mean "www.google.com"? oh, sorry, but i still can not access it NOW, i'm in China. should i go for some technical support?
...put down the mouse and get out to the beach...I hear the pussy is pretty fine there!
They now is acknowledgeing the blocking, and start offering dynamic URLs for access starting around 20 Sept.,
http://full.mingpaonews.com/20020904/__cac1.htm
(a respectful newspaper in Hong Kong, traditional chinese)
In essential, send a mail to dynurl@google.com, and Google will give you an URL for accessing, which is valid for only 12 hours.
yes,it's definite routing problems, but is it an accident or is it intended?
Click on some of the links beside the article cited in this Slashback. There's some good stuff. Prince knows more than most just how screwed the record industry is. Not just from his own experience, but black musicians have been getting it up the rectum without vaseline for almost a century now from the recording industry.
His closing remarks are most cogent. I will reprint them translated from his odd way of writing.
More power 2 U, Prince. U rock.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
We've got plenty of legal gambling in the US, from bingo on up. What's ridiculous is the fact that you (and so many others) are under the impression that "rediculous" is a word.
slashback
from the poster: "... I don't think it was censoring, more like routing problems of some sort."
from google: "We are currently working with Chinese officials to get our full service restored to the millions of Chinese users who depend on Google every day."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2233229.s
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It covers Public *AND* Private use. No more consoles in Greece whatsoever.
1. Operation and installation of any game of type (b), (c) and (d) of Article 1, including computer games, placed in public places such as hotels, cafeterias, organization halls and in any other public or private place, is prohibited.
From the english translation-
1. Operation and installation of any game of type (b), (c) and (d) of Article 1, including computer games,
placed in public places such as hotels, cafeterias, organization halls and in any other public or private
place, is prohibited.
Public or *private*!!!! As worded, this law applies to games played at home. Any Greek/English bilingual folks who care to comment on the accuracy of this translation?
2. Operation of games of type (e) is allowed in devices of type (a). Regarding these games, it is prohibited to place bets.
Such bets will attract penalties described in Articles 4 and 5.
So Monopoly on a board is legal, but on PC is not? Despite the fact that the game is fundamentally the same, only a difference in medium?
At last a government that has the intestinal fortitude to stand up to the Devil Incarnate in the form of International Capitalism, and look after the good of the people.
Do they realize that in order to use most of their computers, they'll now have to separate Solitaire from all MS operating systems? Seeing as how long it took the US to split IE from the system, Greece doesn't stand a chance!
Prince Rocks.
Plus he's probably written many songs and helped many artists that you do like.
--- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
You know, if half of the people on here bothered to read it instead of just talking smack, you'd see that Prince had intelligent things to say. I was pleasantly surprised.
"So now we have a so-called magazine "reporting" on the latest new blockbuster movie with a 10-page, full-color spread -- as if the reporters weren't aware that the same company that produced the movie also owns their magazine... Yes, this is still called a "magazine". These r still called "reporters". And this is still called "journalism"... And yet millions of people r gleefully letting themselves b had. "
That's one of the best statements against corporations and consolidation that I've heard. It's come to the point that it's very difficult (or maybe already even impossible) for popular media to break away from the financial stranglehold. How can we expect information to be free if the means to produce it and the control over it is not? Some would say that the internet is the answer, but we all know that for every reputable site there's a million dedicated to wacky ass crap.
"If people do not feel enough guilt 2 prevent them from making digital copies of the latest episode of a popular TV show or hit pop song, it is precisely because the industry giants have succeeded in making these works purely commercial products, with little or no consideration 4 their actual artistic value."
They have done exactly that. Most people say that they pirate music because they feel it is a victimless crime (or so I've read). Music has become a commodity, an item, a product to be kept and enjoyed. People find it acceptable to steal because the connection between it and the artists is lost. It's seen as merely a venture for them to gain profit. They make millions of dollars anyway, right? It doesn't hurt anybody, right?
Most people probably don't see the struggling artists who are poruing their soul into music to make it. We see Britney Spears (and her clones). We see this nu-metal crap. Hell, what is "making it" in the music industry, anyway? Just to become like the icon that everyone currently sees. Where is the art in that?
"And the real victims also include authentic music lovers, who already suffer from restricted access 2 the full range of music that they would like 2 xplore"
That's right. I'll tell you why I pirate music - because there's no real alternative. I'm not going to buy an entire Jethro Tull album just because I have a liking for Locomotive Breath. I can't buy it for a reasonable price (or quality) on its own, however. I collect episodes of TV shows on my computer because I can't get them anywhere else. I want to download LOTR - The Two Towers because after I see it in the theatre once or twice, I'll tire of paying $8 each time and still not be able to buy it.
Where did real consumerism go in the face of the corporate empire? Where did music get lost in the profit-scheme?
Is there actually an alternative that will allow and cultivate the quality production of music?
its nonsense? I wonder if you have ever tried to learn another language, now imagine trying to learn english. English is the most ass-backward language you will come across. Look how these words are spelled; 'knife, phoenetic, sugar, neighbor, weigh, albiet' Oh yea, theres that wonderful 'i before e' rule....oh and that 'k' in knife is silent, you dont actually say it.
Are you actually saying that the phraseology of 'b4' is more complicated to you than a 'mostly valid' rule of placing the letters i and e in a word, or adding letters that dont even exist in the word as it is spoken? 'rendezvous. only 4 letters out of 26 are not used as silent letters in various words
Sure why not, at one point the earth was flat because the king and queen told you so in order to control your movements...I suppose this could be seen as true to those same kinds of personalities...enjoy
I live in Greece right now, in a suburb of Athens called Voula, and they're a couple of large Internet cafe's here which have games.
Not to mention the largest gaming cafe I've ever seen in my life was in Crete.
There's absolutely nothing about banning games in Greece in the news.
Does anyone know if it's true about Sony? Do they really make more money from electronics and computer sales than they do from media (music, movies, games) sales?
Are you drinking Vivendi water? Vivendi supplies water to Honolulu, Tampa Bay, Oklahoma City, and other cities around the world. It also supplies water to Samsung, General Motors, BP Amoco, Chevron, Ford, Nestle (the Swiss food giant that recently bought HotPockets manufacturer Chef America and is looking to buy out American icon Hershey) and others.
And it's growing, as cities faced with the expensive proposition of upgrading hundred-year-old water systems look for alternatives. The problem is that companies like Vivendi promise the world at a great price in exchange for a 20-year-contract, and then they fail to deliver... leaving residents and businesses without clean drinking water. Be afraid.
Is that NZ horses winning Aussie Races? Hell one of them was even called "Kiwi" just in case we weren't sure.
I thought Brew had retired but he seems to be on the come back trail. SMH ref . I like the idea of "the big ask" from the land of big hairy NZ spiders.
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
Agr33d. 50m30n3 541d 50m37h1ng l1k3 "1f Pr1nc3 1n51575 0n 5p34k1ng b1ff 7h4n fuck h1m," bu7 7h3 w4y 1 533 17, 1f 50m30n3 1n51575 0n d15r3g4rd1ng 4 v4l1d, c0mp3ll1ng 73x7 b453d 50l3y 0n 7h3 l4ngu4g3 1t 15 c0nv3y3d 1n, 7h3n fuck 7h31r pr155y-455, 1v0ry t0w3r 0f 7h3 3ngl15h l4ngu4g3 0p1n10n! d0n7 l37 7h3 d00r h17 y0ur 455 0n 7h3 w4y 0u7!
:D:D:D
-chris
70kg of empty calories and 1400cc of atmosphere.
Error: PANTS NOT FOUND. Press <F1> to continue.
Thanks for the translation! I swear I couldn't read two paragraphs of that shortcut writing crap.
Actually I didn't get through the whole translation, either. It got too long winded, but it was a much smoother read.
Let me guess...you're "TET", and you're pissed off that OSNews "censors" comments? Oh well, boo hoo.
prince wrote like that WAY before 1337 \^/|2i+i|\|9 ("elite writing") was around, and if your brain is so lazy that it still has trouble to translate that text for you, you've got more severe problems to worry about. for example, that you're a total dunce.
i'm not a native english speaker, nor a script kiddie. i'm just able to adapt to different communication protocols, and i think: be conservative in what you send, and liberal in what you accept. sostopyerbitchin.
#include
:>
:>
As they always say, the devil is in the details.
The whole thing started some years ago, when Greek officials decided to ban gambling. Gambling is, from an social and ethical perspective, mostly considered a normal activity in Greece, and it's rather usual for Greeks to gamble, in several ways. Card playing with money, and some gambling games with dice are a long time tradition in Greece.
The real problem Greek government has with gambling is that it's a mostly un-taxable financial transaction. From about 1990 on, there were some shops in Greece with coin-up games employing a mostly innocent "one armed bandit" slot machine that would not pay the player back, of course.
Many people converted these slot machines to full gambling mode, enabling them to get bets and pay the player back on winning events. The use of these machines in this mode was always banned, and it's prohibited only in government-licensed (and highly taxed) casinos (which are some of the most profitable businesses in Greece)
Coin-up shops employed several methods to cover this special 'gambling mode', on the coin-ups, even controlling the machines remotely to get them back on their normal operation mode in the case of a DOY (Greek IRS) raid.
Of course, whenever a raid was sucessful and the owner of the shop (or, more usually, an inoccent waitress - shop owners are always careful not to be present when a raid takes place) got busted, the problem was usually solved by another kind of financial transaction that is also a long time tradition in Greece, namely bribery
Very few shops went as far as to operate under an Internet Cafe cover, employing PCs and software for gambling purposes. In the case of a raid, they were switched to normal 'internet cafe' operation.
All these facts were widely known in Greece, though no one really was really giving too much attention on them. Suddenly, a renowned TV journalist, well known for his style of researching, though sensational and yellow journalism, made a TV show that 'revealed' what almost everybody knew about gambling machines in Greece. The press - mostly yellow press - acted immediately, magnifying the whole subject to an inappropriate degree (as they mostly do on every chance they get).
At some time, somebody found out that you can illegaly gamble through Internet and gambling sites, online casinos, etc. This only made the whole matter worse, especially to the eyes of a sensational, uneducated, and highly conservative majority of the 'public opinion' in Greece, that spontaneously equated "internet use" and "internet cafes" with "illegal gambling".
The reaction of the legislative body was reflexive - they unanimously passed a law banning *all* games except for some that 'require muscle power from the player' and that 'don't rely on electrical/electronic or software mechanisms'. The law essentialy bans all games except perhaps "heads or tails".
Internet Cafes in Greece get most of their profit from online gaming - web browsing or email is a relative minority on their profit, as most people just go there to play games like Starcraft. The law had a special provision for Internet Cafes, stating that they are allowed to use computers only to provide non-gaming activities. The activation of the abovementioned law caused a wide range of actions, from official protesting and lobbying through a newly formed Netcafe Union, to the forming of special hidden rooms in netcafes to play the 'illegal games'.
The whole matter has tremendous interest to watch, from several perspectives. It's always a great intellectual challenge to live in Greece and actually try to understand what's going on around you
...on open-day!
IIRC September 1st is the Greek equivalent of April 1st. I've absolutely no evidence to back this up, it's just one of those random trivial things I once heard. Anybody in Greece care to clarify this?
I mean, come on... Banning games in mobile phones? Does this mean that Nokia are going to produce special Greek firmware that don't have the games? I wouldn't have thought so...
You meant to say they were a bunch of slave owners who didn't want to pay their taxes.
This is just another example of spineless crap moderation by Eugenia. I hate her fucking fascist fat fronds of celluite dripping down her bones and puddling up near here wrists which hinge har fat sausage fingers.
Mao Tse Tung, Hitler, Stalin, Castro, Pinochet, Mussolini, Marshall Joseph Tito, Slobodan Milosevic, Idi Amin, Ho Chi Minh, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Qaddafi, Juan Peron, Ayatollah Khomeini, Ferdinand Marcos, General Suharto, Pol Pot, Fransisco Franco, and certainly the worst of the bunch, EUGENIA FAT PIG LOLI's editing/moderating [read: censoring] ALL AGREE on ONE THING:
So, you busy little plebian proletariat BITCH, get busy, you have some censoring to do! FUN!
Good job you little neo-commies BITCH, EUGENIA FAT. Don't want to hear the other side, shoot the fucker in the head as an ENEMY OF THE STATE [In this case anyone who seeks to improve the sad state of OSNEWS and its fucking lame conjecture.]
A few haikus to commemorate the sucktitude:
Crack Pipe
Crack smoke wafts though air
Dumb shit LOLI QUERU
Try to suck less, please
Humorless
Crack smoke wafts through air
Humorless LOLI QUERU
Why do you hate me?
The Proletariat
OSnews Commie
LOLI QUERU fears new idea!
Censor him quickly!
Get busy moderating this down, you little minions of the FAT GREASE LORD obedient prefects of the corrupt CUNT, LOLI! You are the vanguards of chunky brown vaginal discharges, and dissent is not allowed!
I've never before seen anyone go to so much effort just to karma whore.
unless of course Prince used the time saved on correct spelling to go back and manually fix his quoting... mmmm.
anal retentive? Who? me?
--
Simon
That sounds really nice! One good thing is if we could plug this into SpamAssassin. A message flagged by the Bayesian approach would be given a score of 4, for example. I'm afraid I haven't got the time to write it, so I'm not volunteering... :-)
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
This is the (normal text) transcript of the first track of one of his NPG records:
Operator: New Power Generation
Prince: Is this Paisley Park?
O: No, this is not that record company. This is NPG Records.
P: Are you conducting a talent search?
O: Yes that's true. We are conducting a world-wide talent search.
P: What are you looking for?
O: What are we looking for?
P: Yes
O: Well, first and foremost, you have too get free.
P: Free?
O: You know, when it becomes time to download your work into your fans computers, you can't have any other contractual obligations
P: Oh?
O: Second of all, you have to get smart.
P: Wait a minute.
O: The more substantial you education, the more substantial you income in the new city.
P: Really?
O: And thirdly and above all, in the face of all adversity, you must be able 2 GET WILD!
DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
You know, it's a really big problem that most people never read between the lines, or think they do, too much for their own good, therefore delivering _false_ news.
Being Greek, I was shocked when I read this, especially after visiting the NetCafe website, which all-too-tragically gives the impression that installing a game on your own computer is illegal.
Yes, it is tragic that some dumbass politician states "We couldn't check thousands of machines so we ban everything and everyone is A-OK", but the image conveyed by the surely-biased NetCafe group of internet cafes is a false one. This is of course a problem of the netcafes, because they can't offer multiplayer games anymore (this _is_ bad, for all of the teenagers who want to play the latest games online).
In the original (Greek PDF) law text, I take it that the word "paignio" (for "game") points to game consoles found on ferries, in bars, in billiard bars and the like, or on slot machines etc. Thus, what is meant by the word "private", is that it's illegal to install a game on your PC, or use something like a MAME-cabinet (which is illegal because of the roms anyway) and then use it to turn your house into something like an illegal net cafe or gambling house. I don't think it bad to ban offshot private gambling places.
You don't know the background behind this, it't a long story (dates back a year) when there was all this fuss about casino machines used without a license _everywhere_. I doubt that you can find some info about this thing in English, maybe you should check out old articles at Kathimerini.
I sure think that someone should verify his sources and not only read the first paragraph before writing an article or a commentary.
It _sucks_ that a ban movement is forced in general (which shows deep technological ignorance of those who promote such moves) but it's not like it's illegal if I play Quake3 on my PC.
Of course, if you organize a tournament involving bets and the such, it is gambling. Then things change of course...
One last thing: I am against this, if it by any way means that playing nethack is illegal :-) but I am also against misinformation. This english-language "law.txt" file you can find floating somewhere on these Netcafe linked sites is only an excerpt which serves their purposes.
I have a major problem with the idea of space tourism. Who do you think funded the ISS? It sure as hell wasn't the Russians nor was it Lance Bass or these other clowns. It really was you, me, and the rest of the US taxpayers. As a person of science, the whole thought of trivializing the space program by letting civilian celebrities up there is disgusting. It is also a waste of taxpayer money. The only people who have any buisness up there are the scientists and astronauts. This isn't some game, nor is about tourism. I have been hoping and praying for this kind of outcome since the day it was announced [of course an infamous Russian space "accident" would have been equally as satisfying]. We supposedly live in a meritocracy and I believe that only the most qualified individuals should be allowed to travel into space and use facilities funded by taxpayer $$$. Not puting very much faith in capitalism today amid the recent disasters, it is refreshing to see the rich&famous DENIED. Frankly there is more important things to be done in space then to send up some prepubescent girls' masturbation fantasy! Now that this is over, maybe we can get back to the real research and exploration.
Read the English translation for yourself. To quote:
e. Entertainment technical games are those, whose result depends exclusively on the ability and skill of the player, and are used solely for entertainment.
...
2. Operation of games of type (e) is allowed
Entertaintment-only games machines, such as Space Invaders, are specifically ALLOWED by the act. On the first page. Can't you chaps read? Even the English translation?
The only about arcade games being banned is PLACING BETS on the outcome. For instance, betting on who might win a Space Invaders multiplayer tournament.
What they're banning is electric and electronic muscle-meter games, because they are played by muscle-bound idiots who start fights with each other. They are also banning part-electric part-electronic part-mechanical games such as fruit machines, because they're played people who are too stupid to understand probability theory, who are therefore probably also too stupid to get a job and spend their entire social security allowance on them. I guess the part-mechanical element might also be applied to pinball, but since they don't make pinball machines anymore, it hardly matters.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
Near the beginning of 2002, the head of the parliamentary anti-gambling group (also member of the ruling labor party) was recorded by a journalist's hidden camera while he was playing electronic slot machines (illegal) in an arcade shop.
When the journalist notified the man in private that he's been caught on the act, and the MP approached him to reach a compromise - he offered the journalist scandalous evidence about members of his own political party in exchange for hiding the evidence about him from the public. But the journalist (Triantafyllopoulos) showed both pieces of evidence (the video he took, as well as the documents he was given by the useless MP) on his increasingly interesting bi-weekly TV show.
The ruling party expelled the MP Xrysanthakopoulos from its parliamentary group.
Revelations continued however, from the same journalist. He visited the biggest importers and manufacturers of those illegal slot machines (which were being sold to ordinary arcade shops, not casinos where they are legal). He exposed the social effect it had on the youth of poor areas of Greece with high unemployment - it was not uncommon that people would loose tens of thousands of dollars getting addicted and playing on those machines. Many cases were exposed where a family would loose more than a hundred thousand dollars, for example sons who had sold the truck that their father had given them, or people who borrowed money from (surprise) the same people who manufactured and operated the biggest of those shops and then had to sell their house in order to pay their debt.
What was particularly worrying to the ruling party (PASOK) was the fact that many of its members in parliament were implicated in one way or another in this illegal activity. How can it be that the police would not care about shutting down some very big arcade shops full of such machines? How is it that the only policeman who confiscated thousands of such machines and paid from his own pocket to have them transported in safe warehouses, was deported and had to work in a city far away from where his family lived? (He was restored to his old position only after the journlalist showed everything on TV) How was it that local politicians had rented their political campaign shops for almost free in real-estate that was owned by those same barons of illegal gambling and black un-taxed money?
And most importantly why did the prime-minister not express shock at the revelations about the members of his own party? While all of the media, except for the channel where the journalist was working, were condemning the journalist's methods ('spycam' = 'big brother', even though he never intruded in private life matters as opposed to what other journlalists have been doing quite often), he kept defending himself from false accusations and continued looking at the illegal transfers of money from one person to the other, which more and more started looking like the drug trade in a 3rd world country (maybe even in 1st world? who knows...).
This story was getting so embarassing for the ruling party that it decided to ban the arcade shops altogether to protect the image of the party. It probably knew that once you allow ordinary arcade games, the local politicians won't miss the chance they have to become protectors.
So, now you know why the government doesn't care so much about entertainment per se. There are much bigger issues at stake... like people finding out how the system works. And that would be bad.
As for why the law doesn't allow electronic games to be played in private places (like home), I think that is an unintended effect of the poorly-written law they drafted.
[In another quite shocking case I remembered, a man called the police to have himself arrested while he was playing such illegal gambling games. He then brought the paper of his arrest as proof that the shop was operating illegal gambling machines, and asked for the shop to be closed down but... guess what, nothing happened.]
I think there's a racist subtext to all of this
criticism of Prince's writing style. The mostly
young, white Slashdot crew can't stand to be told
what's what by a black man -- who has more to say
than most of them and a bigger soapbox to say it
from.
I'm going to get modded into oblivion for this,
I'm pretty sure. Sigh.
Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems."
Ran it through a few filters. I think I got most of the crap out - at least it's readable now.
Something happened on the way to the 21st century. Media and entertainment companies started "converging" and "shareholder value" became far more important than customer service and respect for company employees ever managed to be. Compensation packages for company executives hit the stratosphere you while holding them accountable for their company's results became nearly impossible.
These executives are indeed very naïve if they think that people haven't noticed.
People are noticing that something isn't quite right you that something is indeed very wrong. After a decade during which the stock market gained apparent respectability as a legitimate, sensible forum of investing, the recent slew of huge corporate scandals reveals that it is still what it has always been: a sick place where neurotic, puerile gamblers get their kicks off the backs of millions of "anonymous" workers and individuals, who have no control over what happens to their hard-earned retirement savings.
Yet this is the place that most company executives feel is much more important to watch than the actual people for whom they produce their goods and services. This is the place where the fate of thousands of employees is decided every day by people staring at computer monitors showing ever-changing, meaningless lists of numbers and charts. And if you happen to personally hold shares in a company that has just announced that it is "restructuring" in order to improve its bottom-line and thus increase its "shareholder value", don't kid yourself: When the company is talking about "shareholders", it's not talking about you and your measly couple of thousands of shares. It's only talking about big shareholders you i.e. other companies that own a more significant share of its market value.
This is a world where "hostile takeovers" and government-approved "mergers" are feeding a never-ending cycle of fewer and fewer executives wielding more and more power on a multinational scale. Soon enough, the "World Company" and George Orwell's 1984 will no longer be the stuff of satire or fiction you but prophetic descriptions of a very real "New World Order" gradually unfolding before are eyes.
A Little History
Let's start with a simple list: America Online, Time, Life, Warner Bros., Fortune, Elektra, Sports Illustrated, HBO, Turner Broadcasting, CNN, Cinemax, Entertainment Weekly, New Line Cinema, In Style, Warner/Chappell Music, Time Warner Cable, WBN, ICQ, Warner Music Group, Netscape, People, Reprise, Rhino, Atlantic, WEA, TNT, MapQuest, WinAmp, In Demand, Erato, Moviefone, Road Runner, etc. All owned by the same corporate giant (AOL Time Warner).
And another one: Universal Music Group, Verve, Nathan, Canal+, Impulse!, Cegetel, USA Networks, Decca, Interscope, Geffen, A&M, Barclay, Armand Colin, L'Express, Universal Studios, Larousse, Sierra, MP3.com, MCA Records, Deutsche Grammophon, Cineplex, etc. All owned by the same corporate giant (Vivendi Universal).
And yet another one: Disney, ABC, ESPN, Hyperion, Miramax, Touchstone, Hollywood Pictures, A&E, The History Channel, E! Entertainment, RTL-2, Buena Vista, Mr. Showbiz, Wall of Sound, Mammoth Records, etc. All owned by the same corporate giant (Walt Disney).
Need we say more? See for yourself... There's already only 7 of these corporate giants in total you and how long will it be before there are even fewer?
It all began innocently enough. Young entrepreneurs in the early to0th century started up new companies with a mix of creative ambition and business acumen. Then these companies grew bigger and bigger, and whatever entrepreneurial vision was present at their birth became more and more diluted and less and less relevant. Then corporate accountants suggested merging with or taking over other companies you and it all became an all-too-real game of Monopoly.
Then the Internet and "new technologies" came about, and the accountants' next big idea was convergence you i.e. the merging of "content" providers and "access" providers in order to control everything from the inception of a "cultural product" to its ultimate consumption by the unsuspecting masses.
The Art of Manipulation
It is easy to guess what got lost along the way... Creativity. Artistry. Independence. Critical objectivity. Uncontrolled access. The ability to "break thru" cultural barriers. Cultural diversity. Innovation. Freedom. Real music. Real art.
Juggling between art and commerce is a delicate balance at the best of times... and these are definitely NOT the best of times.
So now we have a so-called magazine "reporting" on the latest new blockbuster movie with a 10-page, full-color spread you as if the reporters weren't aware that the same company that produced the movie also owns their magazine... Yes, this is still called a "magazine". These are still called "reporters". And this is still called "journalism"... And yet millions of people are gleefully letting themselves be had.
Maybe we should stop calling this "art", or even "entertainment" for that matter you for what is so entertaining about being involved in a collective hallucination? Maybe we should start calling it what it really is, i.e. unfettered MANIPULATION.
In 1995, Clear Channel Communications owned 43 radio stations. Now it owns more than 1,200 you and its army of so-called "independent promoters" are letting legalized payola dictate what you get (or rather don't get) to hear on the radio.
Everywhere you look, the story is the same: more and more money, less and less choice, less and less freedom of access, fewer and fewer companies. How far will this have to go before a big shift in people's attitude causes this commercial hubris to collapse onto itself and implode?
Power Struggles
The first major cracks in this highly concentrated corporate world have, of course, already begun to appear, in what has been making the headlines in the past few months, i.e. shady accounting practices involving enormous amounts of money you enough to shake the economy of the most powerful nation of the world. And the hysterical stock markets have of course been swayed by this news, at the expense of tens of thousands of workers worldwide and millions of small investors who thought that their holdings had nowhere to go but up.
The value of AOL Time Warner's stock is now a quarter of what it was at the time of the merger between AOL and Time Warner, and this decline 4ced the company to take a $54 billion writedown earlier this year. And now it to is being investigated about its accounting practices. The story at Vivendi Universal is similar. Disney shares are near an 8-year low. And there is little doubt in people's mind that the problems are similar everywhere, in every big conglomerate that has become utterly out of touch with the reality of everyday work and the essence of human creativity.
In addition, people also realize all to well that governments have little you if any you power left when it comes to regulating these multinational monsters. Governments have much more power when it comes to regulating the lives of ordinary, law-abiding citizens you and they use and abuse this power as a way to distract people's attention from how much control the conglomerates have over what we get to hear, watch, read, eat, drink, buy, and generally experience as "free" citizens of the world.
One of the areas where this struggle is most acutely felt is, of course, the online world you a sprawling, anarchic community that is still in its infancy and whose exponential development in the last decade took everyone by surprise. And nothing exemplifies the struggle between government, big business, and individual rights better than the highly controversial issue of "peer-2-peer" file sharing and its many digital variations.
A Nation of Thieves?
Will the media/technology giants recover from the latest stock market slump? They probably will you but at what cost? In all likelihood, the cost will be more "restructuring", more layoffs, more executive shuffles and golden parachutes, causing even further alienation from their own employees and customers. And this, in turn, will further encourage the very behaviors that they claim are illegal and want punished by criminal law you all the while preserving their own impunity as they continue to carelessly flounder a capital that they do not own.
Napster may have gone bankrupt and become a closed chapter in the Internet's short history, but its death is by no means a reflection of a decline in peer-2-peer (P2P) file sharing, quite the contrary. If anything, P2P has grown even further you but since it's becoming totally decentralized, there is no easy way to measure its significance.
What is for sure, however, is that, in spite of its many claims to the contrary, the recording industry has yet to provide evidence that P2P is actually detrimental to music making as an artistic endeavor, and even as a commercial venture. It is worth remembering, for example, that sales of music CDs actually increased when Napster was at its peak, and declined after Napster was abruptly shut down. Even economists who thought that file sharing "should b" hurting the recording industry are now expressing their doubts, based on what they say is simply not happening.
More importantly, many well-respected artists have sided with Internet users against corporate greed and actually use the Internet to promote alternative ways to distribute their music and reach out to a non-captive, legitimate audience of authentic music lovers.
This does not mean, of course, that all forums of file sharing are equally innocuous. There is little doubt that, when people use the Internet as a substitute for radio, i.e. as a way to discover new music, it can help promote the work of artists. But when a young junior high school student downloads tracks off the Internet and makes CD-R copies of them that he then sells for $5 in the schoolyard, it hurts sales of the original CD and it's disrespectful of the artist you regardless of how small a cut of the actual CD price the artist actually gets after all the executives and the middlemen in the recording industry have taken their piece of the pie.
Still, can we really go as far as to say that digital technology is creating a "nation of thieves" who no longer recognize the just value of art?
Protecting the Product
It is worth noting, to begin with, that the recording industry itself is far from having distinguished itself by recognizing the true value of art. Instead, it has consistently fought to be allowed to deprive many artists of their most fundamental rights. It has allowed popular artists to go bankrupt even though their albums were selling by the millions. It has reduced the artists' cut of the album sales pie to a ridiculously small portion of the actual income generated by these sales. It has consistently pushed commercial musical products at the expense of real musical artistry.
This hardly entitles the recording industry to lecture anyone about recognizing the just value of art.
It is also interesting to note that the cultural products that seem to be the primary concern of the industry giants are those that are already the most popular ones, and that things such as CD copy protection are being experimentally used mostly with items that will sell millions regardless of whether they are copy-protected or not.
So are most citizens really being completely disrespectful of the value of art and the need to provide appropriate compensation to the artists for their works? We've said it before and we'll say it again: the rise of digital technology and peer-2-peer file sharing has little to do with people's intrinsic respect for art and artists, and everything to do with the cynical attitude of big industry conglomerates, which have consistently pushed for more and more commercial, highly profitable products at the expense of authentic art and respect for artists.
If people do not feel enough guilt to prevent them from making digital copies of the latest episode of a popular TV show or hit pop song, it is precisely because the industry giants have succeeded in making these works purely commercial products, with little or no consideration for their actual artistic value. It is precisely because these companies have been consistently promoting commercial products at the expense of artistic works.
The fact that actual works of art still manage to seep thru the cracks of this huge profit-driven industry does not change anything about the fundamental equations that have been driving and still drive the industry, today more than ever you i.e. that art = money, artists = money-makers, and art lovers = consumers.
As a simple example of how little music is valued as an art forum by the industry, it is estimated that only about 20 percent of music ever recorded is currently available you and, of this 20 percent, what proportion is actually readily available to music lovers? What proportion is not the current 100 top albums on the SoundScan charts?
It simply appears that the instinctive reaction of the lover of art (b it music, TV shows, movies, or other forums of art) is such that, if the industry has no respect for his or her identity as an appreciator of art, then he or she has no reason to have any respect for the industry as a purveyor of art. By making digital copies of so-called cultural products, many people are not demonstrating their lack of respect for art and for artists, but are expressing you consciously or not you their frustration with the way the entertainment industry profits from art at the expense of both art makers and art lovers.
The consumers of the commercial products of the entertainment industry are only as cynical as the industry has deliberately made them, by dumbing down their products, by exploiting artists, by making profit-driven choices and decisions, and by providing their own kind with obscene compensations and legal impunity that are completely out of touch with the real world of ordinary people.
Don't Get It Twisted
That being said, the whole debate about file sharing and digital piracy is, most of all, a convenient way for industry conglomerates to deflect attention from their own shady business practices and dubious alliances.
For example, it is worth noting that the Warner Music Group is heavily involved in the recording industry's fight against piracy, but that its own parent company, AOL Time Warner, is directly benefiting from file sharing, as a provider of Internet access to millions of Internet users worldwide. When AOL Time Warner repeatedly flaunts its ever-increasing number of members (34 million and counting) and the billions of hours that they spend online, is there any doubt that a good part of this growth involves the "unlawful" exchange of computer files at the detriment of recording artists?
In other words, the real "thieves" are not necessarily those that are currently getting the blame... Rather than a "nation of thieves", the current situation looks, to us, much more like an "elite of thieves".
And the real victims of this thievery are very much, as usual, the recording artists themselves, who will never get their share of AOL's profits as an Internet access provider, even though these profits are partly based on the content that they originally provided. And the real victims also include authentic music lovers, who already suffer from restricted access to the full range of music that they would like to explore, and who are also likely to suffer from technological restrictions that will soon prevent them from making legitimate copies of the works that they have lawfully purchased for their own enjoyment.
Make no mistake: the entertainment industry (including TV, movies and music) might be big, but the technology industry is even bigger. Remember that it is AOL that bought Time Warner, and not the other way around. Remember that Sony makes much more money in electronics and computer equipment than it does in record sales...
If the technology industry ends up implementing technological limitations that prevent users from lawfully enjoying their purchases you as it is threatening to do you the beneficiaries will not be the artists whose works are thus being allegedly "protected". And it will certainly not be the art lovers whose enjoyment of art will thus be restricted. No, it will simply b, once again... the industry conglomerates, who will have yet another generation of incompatible media and devices to sell to us under the guise of "technological improvement".
Conclusion
The technology and entertainment industries are simply to big for us to expect any overnight changes. The industry giants will continue to do their best to deflect people's attention away from their own wrongdoings and to blame falling profits and commercial failures on piracy at the same time that they are encouraging their customers to adopt the very technologies that make piracy possible. Artists will continue to be lured by unrealistic promises and contracts with big numbers and lots of small print.
How long, however, before a critical mass of established artists realize that it is in their best interests, both artistically and commercially, to leave the system for good? How long before a critical mass of young aspiring artists become aware of the enslaving aspects of the system and are careful not to get involved in it without a maximum of precautions? And how long before a critical mass of art lovers get together to provide these artists with a real, valuable, legitimate, truthfully enthusiastic alternative audience that completes the process of rendering the existing system artistically irrelevant?
It all depends on us you and it all depends on you.
Not only does Prince feel like he has 2 write every sentence in primitive 133t-speak, he does it using Microsoft Word as well. Oy.
It's not exactly great journalism to begin with, but here's a courtesy translation for people who know how to spell:
======================
Something happened on the way to the 21st century. Media and entertainment companies started "converging" and "shareholder value" became far more important than customer service and respect for company employees ever managed to be. Compensation packages for company executives hit the stratosphere--while holding them accountable for their company's results became nearly impossible.
These executives are indeed very naïve if they think that people haven't noticed.
People are noticing that something isn't quite right--that something is indeed very wrong. After a decade during which the stock market gained apparent respectability as a legitimate, sensible form of investing, the recent slew of huge corporate scandals reveals that it is still what it has always been: a sick place where neurotic, puerile gamblers get their kicks off the backs of millions of "anonymous" workers and individuals, who have no control over what happens to their hard-earned retirement savings.
Yet this is the place that most company executives feel is much more important to watch than the actual people for whom they produce their goods and services. This is the place where the fate of thousands of employees is decided every day by people staring at computer monitors showing ever-changing, meaningless lists of numbers and charts. And if you happen to personally hold shares in a company that has just announced that it is "restructuring" in order to improve its bottom-line and thus increase its "shareholder value", don't kid yourself: When the company is talking about "shareholders", it's not talking about you and your measly couple of thousands of shares. It's only talking about big shareholders--i.e. other companies that own a more significant share of its market value.
This is a world where "hostile takeovers" and government-approved "mergers" are feeding a never-ending cycle of fewer and fewer executives wielding more and more power on a multinational scale. Soon enough, the "World Company" and George Orwell's 1984 will no longer be the stuff of satire or fiction--but prophetic descriptions of a very real "New World Order" gradually unfolding before are eyes.
A Little History
Let's start with a simple list: America Online, Time, Life, Warner Bros., Fortune, Elektra, Sports Illustrated, HBO, Turner Broadcasting, CNN, Cinemax, Entertainment Weekly, New Line Cinema, In Style, Warner/Chappell Music, Time Warner Cable, WBN, ICQ, Warner Music Group, Netscape, People, Reprise, Rhino, Atlantic, WEA, TNT, MapQuest, WinAmp, In Demand, Erato, Moviefone, Road Runner, etc. All owned by the same corporate giant (AOL Time Warner).
And another one: Universal Music Group, Verve, Nathan, Canal+, Impulse!, Cegetel, USA Networks, Decca, Interscope, Geffen, A&M, Barclay, Armand Colin, L'Express, Universal Studios, Larousse, Sierra, MP3.com, MCA Records, Deutsche Grammophon, Cineplex, etc. All owned by the same corporate giant (Vivendi Universal).
And yet another one: Disney, ABC, ESPN, Hyperion, Miramax, Touchstone, Hollywood Pictures, A&E, The History Channel, E! Entertainment, RTL-to, Buena Vista, Mr. Showbiz, Wall of Sound, Mammoth Records, etc. All owned by the same corporate giant (Walt Disney).
Need we say more? See for yourself... There's already only 7 of these corporate giants in total--and how long will it be before there are even fewer?
It all began innocently enough. Young entrepreneurs in the early 20th century started up new companies with a mix of creative ambition and business acumen. Then these companies grew bigger and bigger, and whatever entrepreneurial vision was present at their birth became more and more diluted and less and less relevant. Then corporate accountants suggested merging with or taking over other companies--and it all became an all-too-real game of Monopoly.
Then the Internet and "new technologies" came about, and the accountants' next big idea was convergence--i.e. the merging of "content" providers and "access" providers in order to control everything from the inception of a "cultural product" to its ultimate consumption by the unsuspecting masses.
The Art of Manipulation
It is easy to guess what got lost along the way... Creativity. Artistry. Independence. Critical objectivity. Uncontrolled access. The ability to "break through" cultural barriers. Cultural diversity. Innovation. Freedom. Real music. Real art.
Juggling between art and commerce is a delicate balance at the best of times... and these are definitely NOT the best of times.
So now we have a so-called magazine "reporting" on the latest new blockbuster movie with a 10-page, full-color spread--as if the reporters weren't aware that the same company that produced the movie also owns their magazine... Yes, this is still called a "magazine". These are still called "reporters". And this is still called "journalism"... And yet millions of people are gleefully letting themselves be had.
Maybe we should stop calling this "art", or even "entertainment" for that matter--for what is so entertaining about being involved in a collective hallucination? Maybe we should start calling it what it really is, i.e. unfettered MANIPULATION.
In 1995, Clear Channel Communications owned 43 radio stations. Now it owns more than 1,200--and its army of so-called "independent promoters" are letting legalized payola dictate what you get (or rather don't get) to hear on the radio.
Everywhere you look, the story is the same: more and more money, less and less choice, less and less freedom of access, fewer and fewer companies. How far will this have to go before a big shift in people's attitude causes this commercial hubris to collapse onto itself and implode?
Power Struggles
The first major cracks in this highly concentrated corporate world have, of course, already begun to appear, in what has been making the headlines in the past few months, i.e. shady accounting practices involving enormous amounts of money--enough to shake the economy of the most powerful nation of the world. And the hysterical stock markets have of course been swayed by this news, at the expense of tens of thousands of workers worldwide and millions of small investors who thought that their holdings had nowhere to go but up.
The value of AOL Time Warner's stock is now a quarter of what it was at the time of the merger between AOL and Time Warner, and this decline forced the company to take a $54 billion writedown earlier this year. And now it to is being investigated about its accounting practices. The story at Vivendi Universal is similar. Disney shares are near an 8-year low. And there is little doubt in people's mind that the problems are similar everywhere, in every big conglomerate that has become utterly out of touch with the reality of everyday work and the essence of human creativity.
In addition, people also realize all to well that governments have little--if any--power left when it comes to regulating these multinational monsters. Governments have much more power when it comes to regulating the lives of ordinary, law-abiding citizens--and they use and abuse this power as a way to distract people's attention from how much control the conglomerates have over what we get to hear, watch, read, eat, drink, buy, and generally experience as "free" citizens of the world.
One of the areas where this struggle is most acutely felt is, of course, the online world--a sprawling, anarchic community that is still in its infancy and whose exponential development in the last decade took everyone by surprise. And nothing exemplifies the struggle between government, big business, and individual rights better than the highly controversial issue of "peer-to-peer" file sharing and its many digital variations.
A Nation of Thieves?
Will the media/technology giants recover from the latest stock market slump? They probably will--but at what cost? In all likelihood, the cost will be more "restructuring", more layoffs, more executive shuffles and golden parachutes, causing even further alienation from their own employees and customers. And this, in turn, will further encourage the very behaviors that they claim are illegal and want punished by criminal law--all the while preserving their own impunity as they continue to carelessly flounder a capital that they do not own.
Napster may have gone bankrupt and become a closed chapter in the Internet's short history, but its death is by no means a reflection of a decline in peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing, quite the contrary. If anything, P2P has grown even further--but since it's becoming totally decentralized, there is no easy way to measure its significance.
What is for sure, however, is that, in spite of its many claims to the contrary, the recording industry has yet to provide evidence that P2P is actually detrimental to music making as an artistic endeavor, and even as a commercial venture. It is worth remembering, for example, that sales of music CDs actually increased when Napster was at its peak, and declined after Napster was abruptly shut down. Even economists who thought that file sharing "should be" hurting the recording industry are now expressing their doubts, based on what they say is simply not happening.
More importantly, many well-respected artists have sided with Internet users against corporate greed and actually use the Internet to promote alternative ways to distribute their music and reach out to a non-captive, legitimate audience of authentic music lovers.
This does not mean, of course, that all forms of file sharing are equally innocuous. There is little doubt that, when people use the Internet as a substitute for radio, i.e. as a way to discover new music, it can help promote the work of artists. But when a young junior high school student downloads tracks off the Internet and makes CD-R copies of them that he then sells for $5 in the schoolyard, it hurts sales of the original CD and it's disrespectful of the artist--regardless of how small a cut of the actual CD price the artist actually gets after all the executives and the middlemen in the recording industry have taken their piece of the pie.
Still, can we really go as far as to say that digital technology is creating a "nation of thieves" who no longer recognize the just value of art?
Protecting the Product
It is worth noting, to begin with, that the recording industry itself is far from having distinguished itself by recognizing the true value of art. Instead, it has consistently fought to be allowed to deprive many artists of their most fundamental rights. It has allowed popular artists to go bankrupt even though their albums were selling by the millions. It has reduced the artists' cut of the album sales pie to a ridiculously small portion of the actual income generated by these sales. It has consistently pushed commercial musical products at the expense of real musical artistry.
This hardly entitles the recording industry to lecture anyone about recognizing the just value of art.
It is also interesting to note that the cultural products that seem to be the primary concern of the industry giants are those that are already the most popular ones, and that things such as CD copy protection are being experimentally used mostly with items that will sell millions regardless of whether they are copy-protected or not.
So are most citizens really being completely disrespectful of the value of art and the need to provide appropriate compensation to the artists for their works? We've said it before and we'll say it again: the rise of digital technology and peer-to-peer file sharing has little to do with people's intrinsic respect for art and artists, and everything to do with the cynical attitude of big industry conglomerates, which have consistently pushed for more and more commercial, highly profitable products at the expense of authentic art and respect for artists.
If people do not feel enough guilt to prevent them from making digital copies of the latest episode of a popular TV show or hit pop song, it is precisely because the industry giants have succeeded in making these works purely commercial products, with little or no consideration for their actual artistic value. It is precisely because these companies have been consistently promoting commercial products at the expense of artistic works.
The fact that actual works of art still manage to seep thru the cracks of this huge profit-driven industry does not change anything about the fundamental equations that have been driving and still drive the industry, today more than ever--i.e. that art = money, artists = money-makers, and art lovers = consumers.
As a simple example of how little music is valued as an art form by the industry, it is estimated that only about 20 percent of music ever recorded is currently available--and, of this 20 percent, what proportion is actually readily available to music lovers? What proportion is not the current 100 top albums on the SoundScan charts?
It simply appears that the instinctive reaction of the lover of art (be it music, TV shows, movies, or other forms of art) is such that, if the industry has no respect for his or her identity as an appreciator of art, then he or she has no reason to have any respect for the industry as a purveyor of art. By making digital copies of so-called cultural products, many people are not demonstrating their lack of respect for art and for artists, but are expressing--consciously or not--their frustration with the way the entertainment industry profits from art at the expense of both art makers and art lovers.
The consumers of the commercial products of the entertainment industry are only as cynical as the industry has deliberately made them, by dumbing down their products, by exploiting artists, by making profit-driven choices and decisions, and by providing their own kind with obscene compensations and legal impunity that are completely out of touch with the real world of ordinary people.
Don't Get It Twisted
That being said, the whole debate about file sharing and digital piracy is, most of all, a convenient way for industry conglomerates to deflect attention from their own shady business practices and dubious alliances.
for example, it is worth noting that the Warner Music Group is heavily involved in the recording industry's fight against piracy, but that its own parent company, AOL Time Warner, is directly benefiting from file sharing, as a provider of Internet access to millions of Internet users worldwide. When AOL Time Warner repeatedly flaunts its ever-increasing number of members (34 million and counting) and the billions of hours that they spend online, is there any doubt that a good part of this growth involves the "unlawful" exchange of computer files at the detriment of recording artists?
In other words, the real "thieves" are not necessarily those that are currently getting the blame... Rather than a "nation of thieves", the current situation looks, to us, much more like an "elite of thieves".
And the real victims of this thievery are very much, as usual, the recording artists themselves, who will never get their share of AOL's profits as an Internet access provider, even though these profits are partly based on the content that they originally provided. And the real victims also include authentic music lovers, who already suffer from restricted access to the full range of music that they would like to explore, and who are also likely to suffer from technological restrictions that will soon prevent them from making legitimate copies of the works that they have lawfully purchased for their own enjoyment.
Make no mistake: the entertainment industry (including TV, movies and music) might be big, but the technology industry is even bigger. Remember that it is AOL that bought Time Warner, and not the other way around. Remember that Sony makes much more money in electronics and computer equipment than it does in record sales...
If the technology industry ends up implementing technological limitations that prevent users from lawfully enjoying their purchases--as it is threatening to do--the beneficiaries will not be the artists whose works are thus being allegedly "protected". And it will certainly not be the art lovers whose enjoyment of art will thus be restricted. No, it will simply be, once again... the industry conglomerates, who will have yet another generation of incompatible media and devices to sell to us under the guise of "technological improvement".
Conclusion
The technology and entertainment industries are simply to big for us to expect any overnight changes. The industry giants will continue to do their best to deflect people's attention away from their own wrongdoings and to blame falling profits and commercial failures on piracy at the same time that they are encouraging their customers to adopt the very technologies that make piracy possible. Artists will continue to be lured by unrealistic promises and contracts with big numbers and lots of small print.
How long, however, before a critical mass of established artists realize that it is in their best interests, both artistically and commercially, to leave the system for good? How long before a critical mass of young aspiring artists become aware of the enslaving aspects of the system and are careful not to get involved in it without a maximum of precautions? And how long before a critical mass of art lovers get together to provide these artists with a real, valuable, legitimate, truthfully enthusiastic alternative audience that completes the process of rendering the existing system artistically irrelevant?
It all depends on us--and it all depends on you.
*Gasp*
Are you suggesting.....
No it can't be.....
Prince invented 1337speak?!?!?!?!?!?!
The truth is more important than the facts.
-Frank Lloyd Wright
To replace the pop-star, Russia will be sending a special shipment donated by spear fishermen: one crate of lanced bass in freeze-dried packages suitable for zero-G consumption.
But we just can't discuss the recent hacking if thier site. (while we discuss just about any other type of intrusion)
Something's fishy on Slashdot.
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
As long as it's only the usual abuse of prisoners and killing of non-combatents, no problem ! Especially if they're dark skinned gypsy or turkish looking.
But if you are hauled up for playing a gameboy, yankee, you'd better expect some hard time. Here in Europe we know what disregard of morality and laws leads to, we learned that lesson in the 30's and 40's. You Americans have always had it so good and just don't understand, besides we're the cradle of civilization so we've been respecting our own laws for thousands of years. So leave that PS2 at home, yankee soldier.
What I'm saying is that the goal of communication is served by commonalities: two entities need to establish something between them which allows information to pass. Humans have languages, be it French or Swahili. That those two don't share anything in common is irrelevant. Saying that one is "more complicated" than another is equally irrelevant. Neither is in line with each language's separate purpose, and neither must be considered when assessing a language's effectiveness.
For example, if I try to speak to an African, the closer I can come to matching his grasp of Swahili, the more effectively I can communicate with him. If I insisted that French is simpler, easier, more economical, whatever than Swahili and that I should use it to speak with that African, then I may be right but I'm probably not communicating. If I take a less drastic route and decide to invent contractions and reduce redundancies in his language ("The Bushmen don't need 9 phrases for hunting any more than the Inuit need 13 words for snow! I'll just use the simplest one...") then I hamper my ability to communicate with him. Complexity of a language is completely orthogonal to its effectiveness.
Imagine you're attempting to write a college entrance essay. Why not get rid of all silent or redundant words in your essay? It'd be less typing, and much simpler writing, right?. But would it be communicating? Not really. The board would have to decipher your essay. That wouldn't help your cause. Now imagine you're a record company executive reading Prince's essays. Did Prince make it easy for you to understand what he was trying to say? No. You probably couldn't get past the babytalk-like contractions. It's probably hard for you get at his meaning because your mind is being constantly assualted by his new and clever use of English.
My point remains: No matter what else Prince is or how much you may like his music, Prince's writing looks and reads like something written by a semi-literate child and not only does nothing to further his aims, it serves to actively hinder them. He would do better to simply use the same language as everyone else, even if it is more complicated.
Sure why not, at one point the earth was flat because the king and queen told you so in order to control your movements...I suppose this could be seen as true to those same kinds of personalities...enjoy
I don't know what you're trying to say. What I'm saying is: If you wanna fight City Hall, you'd better put on a suit.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
As an unrepentant compulsive reader, I am often annoyed by misspells. First, it slows my reading down because I need to "evaluate" the word. Second, depending on the word, it might indicate that the write doesn't read very much otherwise they'd know how to use the word in the correct context.
Eric Raymond is running a project to create a bayesian spam filter written in C. I've been experimenting with it today and it looks pretty good. It's written as a client-server daemon that makes it *very* quick compared with a perl or other scripted approach. It's also pretty easy to integrate into any unix mail system.
Find out about it http://tuxedo.org/~esr/bogofilter/
The program, bogofilter, is stores its word lists using HP Judy dynamic arrays. Pretty interesting way of storing stuff and new to me anyway: http://sf.net/projects/judy
"...or at least recognize that doing so will lose him some readers."
Perhaps he does recognize that some people will be turned off by his shorthand. That seems likely doesn't it, that he is willfully flouting conformity. Does that make it okay with you?
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
Committee to Protect Journalists
330 Seventh Avenue, 12th floor
New York, NY 10001
His Excellency Jiang Zemin
President, People's Republic of China
C/o Embassy of the People's Republic of China
2300 Connecticut Ave., NW
Washington, D.C. 20008
Via facsimile: (202) 588-0032
Your Excellency:
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is very concerned by the Chinese government's apparent blocking of domestic access to the Google Internet search engine. Such censorship directly affects China-based journalists' ability to conduct research and impedes citizens' access to news that is unavailable in China's tightly controlled domestic media.
On August 31, both the English and Chinese-language search engines operated by Google became inaccessible to Internet users in China. In a public statement, a spokesperson for Google confirmed that the site was blocked inside China and said that the government offered no explanation. . .facsimile
Harvard: Where's Wan Yahihai?
Hi Alsee
I have no idea why you think it is me that is gambling online. I'm just talking about the trouble I have avoiding the sites.
If everyone was like me, there would be no MacDonalds, no soap opera, Seinfeld would not be famous, neither would the cast of Friends. Sport on TV would be equal men and women, and there would be no golf ever. There'd be no gambling with money either.
Not because I think there shouldn't be these things but because I'm not the least bit interested in these things, so they'd make no money out of it. The only gambling would be on the stock market. And the slashdot team would have their own chat show on (free to air) tv every night. fairly late night cos I don't get home early.
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
I found several things I wasn't expecting when I looked into this.
First off, the link provided is not to its (PopFile's) homepage, or a page that indirectly refers to PopFile's homepate, or even to the latest version of the software! I had to do a google search to find the real homepage
Secondly, the program is not Free Software, or even OpenSource. No source distribution is available, and the readme on it clearly states his intention to charge for access to executables once it makes it out of beta. The charge is quite nominal, but there are oodles of other proprietary email filters out there, so I don't see why this one is special enough to rate a Slashdot plug.
Thirdly, there's no evidence I can find that this uses Perl, as stated. There's no
Fourthly, there's similarly no proof I can find that Popfile uses any kind of advanced statistical modelling. That would be a strong suspicion, considering its user interface. But the sources aren't available, and the author makes absolutely no mention of his methods. I'm guessing this was purposely done to lessen the odds of someone making a free (or non-free) workalike. This would be OK if he at least had some kind of statisical study of its effectiveness, but there is none of that either. If you want to have any clue as to how well it will work, your only recourse is to download it and try it out for a while.
Personally, I think folks should be very leery about downloading and installing a closed-source program written by some random guy they don't know. There's no reason to believe that this guy isn't acutally collecting email addresses himself using the software. It unlikely, but possible.
It's sure and we can check it easy, it's a adative transparent proxy way. And it can also block other site by mistake.
I just type this on my linux box.
# ab -v 4 www.whitehouse.org/; ab -n 1 www.whitehouse.org/search?q=cache; ab -v 4 www.whitehouse.org/
The first ab return a success request, but with a "search?q=cache" in url, ab say :-).
"Document Length: 0 bytes",
and then the third ab as return 0 bytes, and www.whitehouse.org will be inaccessible for about two minutes.
BTW, using "www.whitehouse.org" as example because I think it won't hurt anyone,
I'm thinking about how to use this to do something against china government filter. Perhaps find someway to make their filter box overloading then down? Or announce this in internet, and ask everyone visit someurl to overload their filter? Or ask people use this to block enough business site to bring some pressure to chinese government?
Any approach in above may make people can't visit foreign site, does I have the every right do this?
Any ideas?
For someone (Prince) who is speaking out against "big corporate", it'd be nice if his website didn't recommend the use of Internet Explorer.
Although I still liked what he had to say.
managers...why god invented purgatory
The fact that u wasted your time on this just to whore some karma, is quite pathetic. The fact that it worked is even more pathetic. But then again this is Slashdot.
/., I did it because I wanted to read the article without having to translate manually.
/. and see a couple translation requests. Fast cut and paste later and there it is.
/. 5 years ago it might have mattered somewhat. Once my karma was at 280 something. Who frickin' cares about karma? You get an extra point on posts. So what?
I wouldn't call it a waste of time, nor would I call it "karma whoring". I'd call it "being nice and helpful to the community".
For one thing, I didn't actually do it for posting on
So I did the obvious thing: cut, paste, search and replace 2=to, b=be, etc, etc. Took about 60 seconds total. Only after I had read the piece (which is quite good and does have some interesting points, albeit a naive outlook about some items, IMO) did I read the comments on
2nd point: Karma is worthless. You are limited to 50 anyway, and perhaps back when I started reading
The point of the post was to help some people read the material. It's called being nice. Just because you can't post anything useful or indeed worth reading to save your life (I know, I went through your posts and had a look see) doesn't make everyone else a karma whore.
Nobody but you and the other loser/trolls care about karma. It's worthless. All it does is give the rest us a reasonably good method to filter you out, and you can't deal with being ignored. Well, get something worth saying and then, perhaps, people might pay attention. Grow up already.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I live in Greece and I just heard about this
law from Slashdot (talk about hearing the news).
Far more important news, such as the eradication
of the oldest and last terrorist group in Greece,
the 17th of November, practically monopolize
media time here.
Anyway, this law is clearly absurd, but it
won't be implemented in everyday practice. It
seems they had to make it "tight" enough so
that is will be easier to prosecute "unofficial"
gambling (=no taxes) in arcades.
As a matter of fact games are STILL
being sold (publicly), people are STILL playing
games and we do get to organize lan parties.
People saying that mobile phones are illegal
because they have games or that windows
should be installed without solitaire really
don't have a clue...
I do believe that the law must be changed to
reflect the real intent of the lawmakers (which,
I repeat, is to stop unofficial gaming/gambling)
but I DO NOT fear that I will have to stop
playing Counter Strike with my friends.
Petros
P.S. Also note, that besides the Greek Constitu-
tion (which is quite good, in my opinion) there
is the European legislation that supercedes
local law. Enforcing "intrusive" laws is really
difficult here. MUCH harder than in the US
I'd say.
"The authorities were already in the habit of using surveillance, censorship or the outright elimination of overly critical websites," said RSF Secretary-General Robert Menard in a letter to the Chinese authorities. "But the blocking of a search engine sets a surprising and very worrying precedent."
what was a search engine doing conducting international diplomacy in the first place?
And how, exactly, did a Californian firm founded by a couple of Stanford university dropouts, using old doors for office furniture, wind up striking panic into the core of an authoritarian world power?
Engine trouble ;-)
Shanghai: Cisco sells routers, switches to China Telecom - while China Mobile Picks Nortel