I'd love it if you could set things up without fear of reprisals but in catching members if the first (smoke and mirrors) class, we're going to sometimes prod the members of the second (only smoke, no flames please) class in the back needlessly while members of the third ('terre brulee' scorched earth) class are going to resort to using smoke signals to communicate.
The internet as we know it is dying. Soon it'll be secure end-to-end communications, because machines need it.
You as a human being are left to shivver naked in the cold, wet fog of data.
which basically states that they can just call you in the morning and tell you not to bother coming in, ever.
Likewise, you don't have to bother coming in, just call them and tell them you're history.
That doesn't engender "warm and fuzzies." That engenders paranioa. On both sides but much more on the employee's side.
If you're performing an essential function, they could be screwed.
If you're depending on your paycheck, you could be screwed.
Since the latter scenario is more likely to be the case, they're more likely to be the screwers and you're more likely to be the screwey. (Since the abolition of slavery, that's the real hold they have over the "working man.")
If you can afford to pull a "Johnny Paycheck" on your employer, you can be the screwer and they can be the screwey. (Since they'd never pay you well enough for that, it takes an accident and/or some luck to be in that position.)
"Right to Work" is the legal other term but it's not much better, unless you're a farm owner's kid and need to take some time off to help on the farm.
Then your employer pretty much has to take you back in some capacity. But you should expect to be paid less if you do come back.
private industry doesn't (Sarbanes-Oxley not widthstanding,) so you're essentially getting the shaft from people who WANT you to stay poor and ignorant.
The **AAs don't WANT you having any access to ANY information.
The fight against public libraries is just the opening salvo in the long war against you.
The music industry should have clued you in...
The movie industry should have cleared up any doubts...
Whatever YOU create THEY want to own.
If people weren't so creative, they'd have us locked up as tightly as the Taliban had Afghanistan locked up. The sense of creativity is anathema to them.
Poscasting is just a blip on their radar screen.
They will eventually start monitoring the web to catch every download and charge the consumer for the privilege of having anything new with which to fill their ears and eyes.
And since they charge for every time we hear or see anything, new or not, good or not, you're not escaping it without doing yourself severe harm and sensory deprivation.
The only way to win against them is to copyright the statute books and sue them for infringement whenever they try to use the law against you.
Then they can keep their materials nice and safe and away from the prying eyes of potential customers.
Search is NOT costing THEM a friggin's dime, if fact or in sales.
If they sit on their books, they'll just get their lunch eaten from them by somebody else'; somebody who put his material in searchable form so that people can find it, then buy it.
Nobody'll ever know about THEIR damn books and nobody'll buy 'em either.
Depending on the 'powers that be' is what got us into this [inaubible] ClearChannel and Infinity mess in the first place.
I seriously doubt that any politician will be ever able to resist the allure of money being shoveled his way for the conglomrates control of the airwaves, (for as long as those air waves have any value.) That's because the ClearChannels and Infinity's of the world are in control of the supply side of the equation.
But by being able to directly support the producers of content we find over the internet, through aggregators and/or 'discovered' by reviewers, we find ourselves in a much better position on the demand side of media.
IF we can find a way to support content providers directly, we can listen to/watch what WE want. No more moaning that they canceled a show we used to watch with some innane but more profitable piece of drek.
I predict the rise of an internet based 'social network' for pitching ideas, concepts and promos directly to parties interested in the production and/or consumption of media content.
Podcasting let us get it when WE want it. The supply side paradigm is under a death watch.
Now we just have to 'get enough people' to 'throw enough money' at any media production effort to get it realized.
Economics 101: If a big blockbuster movie costs $75,000,000 to actually produce, at $4.99 a pop, it takes 15.2 million views to recoup the costs.
On the big screen, on a time limited run, (because they have many turkeys to run per screen per year,) the economics dictate that they'd never make a dime (hence movies cost multiple of $4.95 per view.)
On the internet, there is NO such imperative. A movie can take however long it takes to make the 15.2 million views. In addition, they're time shifted and media shifted. No more more problems with the viewer or the venue. In addition, the audience is immediately 'world wide' (assuming some linguisting/cultural commonality.)
A movie CAN'T lose money, just as long as people feel its worth $4.95 worth bothering about.
What started with the internet as a broadcast(x)/narrowcast(x)/podcast(!) medium just needs to expand to demanding and commissioning specific content from content providers.
Now apply that to other media content. Now apply that to ALL media content.
The ability to time shift both on the receiving end (when our ears hear it) and the transmission end (when a show, however long it needs to be, that's how long it's going to be, gets uploaded,) is the greatest thing.
In wresting control of the media from the supply-side, we, the demand-side, free ourselves from the tyranny of having to 'be there' at the appointed time with our attention focused on whatever 'never to be repeated' special event they feel is going to make them the most money.
Our wants don't enter into the equation. Its down to basic economics of fighting over a very limited resource, the time of day.
The internet, Googling for or otherwise discovering content we'd want to spend our time on, podcatching that content, being able to pay as much attention as we need to is half the equation.
The internet, podcasting the content we feel could find an audience is the other half of the equation.
What these two things have in common is the internet (and the common protocols.) Its not the platforms, not the actual production and/or playback hard/soft-ware. Its the internet.
The malaise that is currently afflicting media is the same that affected the rest of the world during the twentyeth century. The supply side model of any economic activity is being supplanted by the demand side.
The survivors will be those people who are agile enough and smart enough to discover and maintain revenue streams between the demand side and the supply side of any economic activity by realizing and exploiting the discontinuity between them and using the internet as the glue that binds them.
Apple is in that position with the iTMS. Its up to them to realize it, capitalize on it and not get knocked off the top of the heap.
I'm sorry if the word nuclear in anything scares some people but this cyclotron is for generating microscopic amounts of nucleotides for use in radiology.
He isn't some towel-head deforming the unborn in the name of some thing unspeakable or likely to blow up the neighborhood as the equipment is more likely to screw with people's TV signals than to leave a smokin' crater.
Next they'll riot and walk 'round with pitchforks in front of the dentist's because he's got an X-Ray machine. What?
Any help with backups, with data conservation, with access reliability, with machine portability.
Any help requiring private individuals and businesses to use fewer resources is good.
The individual network nodes may be less reliable but the network itself is not.
Where you don't have reliable wiring, wireless can take over. This is especially true in places in the develloping world where the last mile might take years to be built over.
They never showed up to my condo and the never fixed the cabling in there. There were NO PHONE LINEs in the condo. (They were all ripped out.) They just threw a switch somewhere and figured that if they never got a call to complain, they were okay.
End result, I never got a phone installed.
Good thing I gave out my cell phone number to all my friends and business asociates because there WAS NEVER A LAND LINE!
And they've been bugging my ass for three years about the fucking bill.
My response is: "Yeah. Then call me!"
Verizon is a lazy bunch of schmucks. What they know about service I could engrave on the head of a pin with a ball-peen hammer and a cold chisel.
When they got into producing content, they slipped us a root kit on a CD.
Time and media shifting is becoming an issue because its becoming possible.
What the **AAs don't want is to give us ownership of the 1,440 minutes a day.
They fuck over the content originators, those artists who make the content, they make their money by screwing them with impossible contracts (its like an offer that the artist dare not refuse,) production costs and distribution costs which the artist has to pay for. They are the last 'Ugly Capitalists' who control the means of production.
Then they fuck us over by selling us the idea of Brittany Spears and claiming to still own the music out of Brittany Spears' mouth.
I've said screw 'em before and I just was a voice in the wilderness. Now I'm producing my own content. All of it. And with the internet and cheap production and post production tools, they can KMFA.
With Google trying to organize everything, it should be unnecessary to run an ad, adding your voice to the babble out there, but an ad or a review moves you to the front of the consciousness, and its the only way to get something really new/novel/innovative out there.
Nobody's going to come looking for something they don't know about or at least aren't curious about.
For example: I heard about a new product that I was tangentially interested in from/on the New York Times web site, I went to the company's web site, was intrigued about the price/performance ratio of the particular configuration, read the specs, like what I read, found a online retailer and ordered the thing.
The 'net makes all kinds of synergies possible and can stimulate 'the prepared mind' to take the chance.
How much would you pay 'per episode' when its something you're really interested in?
Stop thinking 'I got to be at home for eight.' (You wouldn't have to anyway with a Tivo.)
Stop thinking 'What? My show got canceled?'
Stop thinking 'What happened to this scene? I remember it as being much longer. Too many commercials.'
And producers, if you need 1:07 instead of 1:00, wouldn't it be nice to TAKE 1:07 instead of having to be merciless and draconian.
Likewise, if your format is a 10 minute piece, make a ten minute piece. (Or shorter: The 30-Second Bunnies Theatre Library ~... in which a troupe of bunnies parodies a collection of movies by re-enacting them in 30 seconds, more or less. You won't see that on Channel 2.)
Ever notice that the videos on "Beavis and Butt Head" are getting more and more muted?
That's because the music hasn't changed and, while its suppopsed to be a parody of the crap listen to, its becoming nostalgia over the crap we used to listen to.
Right now, they make up a slate of channels and keep track of the numbers of packages sold.
The consumer doesn't get involved in the apportioning of revenue between the content providers and the cable companies except as a sales figure.
That's VERY cheap to track and, like any statistical measure, can be manipulated by the cable companies to support any aim or claim.
If they have to mediate between 'Joe Sixpack' and 'ESPN 2' that gets them into details they DON'T want to get into.
Right now all the revenue figures are based on the warm and fuzzies of the Nielson ratings which are themselves cheap to track and, like any statistical measure, can be manipulated by the cable companies to support any aim or claim.
And they only need to track some statistical sample of WHAT'S AVAILABLE.
If 'Joe Sixpack' doesn't want to watch 'Pooftahs at the Royal Ballet' but is definitely behind 'Trailer Trash Olympics' (despite not being able to spell it) right now, he's getting PBS regardless.
Imagine a world where 'Joe Sixpack' gets to negotiate DIRECTLY with the producers of a show and PAY for exactly what he wants to watch: "Naked Hippie Snuff", shot on location at a local 'tornado magnet,' uh trailer park.
That's what the cable companies are scared shitless of. Having to actually mediate between the consumer and the producer.
They become just a wire, plugged end to end, and wire's cheap because wire can't charge under the guise of 'adding value.' (Or make all kinds of sweet heart deals with people who want to 'sell the eyeballs' to people who want to 'buy the eyeballs'.)
Guess what the internet IS? Its just a wire.
It delivers its content, whatever its size, from anywhere, whenever its requested, as best it can, to anywhere, and said content can be stored locally for consumption whenever the user has the time for it.
Time shifting, geography shifting, direct linking, direct producer paying media service. Its the pimp's and the screamer's WORST NIGHTMARE.
No more "'News at 11' in a minute, but first a word from our sponsors!" And you HAVE to sit there and watch it.
It totally breaks up the broadscasting paradigm and the revenue streams that are funded on it.
Think of the good that could be done by people NOT being forced to report all their income and attempting to lie about it.
We could take care of people as and when they need it, instead of being ripped off by scammers who look for and find every flaw in a system where you have applications to fill out, and 'qualification' hoops to jump through, like you have to be indigent to get any help so any 'bad break' HAS to be catastrophically bad. (Anecdotal evidence: I know a woman who had an illness and to sell her CEMETARY PLOTS and come back when the money had ben spent because you can't own any PROPERTY and get 'state' medical care.)
But it demands truly altruistic people be in charge, and truly altruistic people don't exactly run for office.
We keep getting lawyers, ex-lawyers and people who should be behind bars.
I'm actually a balding ol' fart but I loathe the very thought of ever fuckin' mellowing out.
I'm angrier now than I ever was but its a cold and calculating anger. Its the steely edge of the knife.
I have outgrown the fugues and tirades of youth, when I'd wax elequent with rage and make the most grandeloquent speeches any man could ever regret, if he could regret anything, but I don't.
John Tesh can swallow and kiss my lil' pink ass after I take a dump right in his fuckin' gob.
Me mellow?
Like A-fuckin'-lexis Sayles...
I'm driven and driven to drink by "mellow people." I'm a man with a mission, touched with a little madness, or is it genius that pushes, prods and make me reach beyond myself?
I HATE having become a cripple. Fuck.
I used to be a dancer.
I used to be a musician.
I used to be the guy a mother warned her daughter about.
I used to be the guy a daughter didn't tell her mother about.
Its another brick in Microsoft's tombstone.
on
Just Say No to Microsoft
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
It starts with a bunch of machines that people don't want to replace because it co$ts and managers don't get bonuses from spending money.
The eventual demise of Microsoft will come from the same source that saw the rise of the 'compatible' PC. It was cheaper than the alternative.
It doesn't matter how well your system is running, Microsoft is living proof that quality is not that important, but how little you had to shell out for something 'good enough.'
Cost of replacement and the slowing of the replacement cycle is going to be the death of Microsoft and give rise to cheap Linux boxes.
Books about OpenOffice (or NeoOfficeJ for older Macs) are telling people that its okay NOT to have to shell out the bucks for Microsoft (or even Apple).
I suspect that Vista will be an utter failure because people have a vested interest, read lots of bucks, in their existing machines.
When 'Joe Consumer' is faced with hanging on to his machine under Linux with OpenOffice or spendin '"beaucoup" bucks' he'll wave Microsoft 'Bye Bye' before he tosses all that green on all new hardware.
Would YOU like to have to cough up money to buy a new 64bit processor, gigs of RAM, a new mobo and a new video card, just to run an incrementally 'better' Windows experience.
Fuck that... My wallet and I voted for Linux years ago, though I my wife still owns an aging Win2K Windows box and I still own a couple of OS X 10.4.3 Macs. My last machine is an ADM64 Athlon running slackware.
People are going to vote just as they always have, with their wallets.
Not just Joe Consumer, but the corporation bosses who are stuck to buy 5K, 10K, 15K, or 20K boxes at a shot. We're still running Win2K and would still be running WinNT if we could.
Books about HOW TO DO IT for less are EXACTLY what's needed. They're not written for you. They're written for 'Joe Consumer' and to get the idea to the corporation bosses.
Just brace yourselves for all those AOLers and other newbies getting on/. asking for help with Samba.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Light causes fags.
Does the Christian right know about this?
Neat freaks... I suppose that I'm not allowed to eat my tunafish sandwich.
I just heard back from the head hunter. No go...
Phew... Have you ever walked arounb there?
Given the state of the authorities...
I'd love it if you could set things up without fear of reprisals but in catching members if the first (smoke and mirrors) class, we're going to sometimes prod the members of the second (only smoke, no flames please) class in the back needlessly while members of the third ('terre brulee' scorched earth) class are going to resort to using smoke signals to communicate.
The internet as we know it is dying. Soon it'll be secure end-to-end communications, because machines need it.
You as a human being are left to shivver naked in the cold, wet fog of data.
Guess who is trying to get a job there? :-)
Keeping my fingers crossed...
which basically states that they can just call you in the morning and tell you not to bother coming in, ever.
Likewise, you don't have to bother coming in, just call them and tell them you're history.
That doesn't engender "warm and fuzzies." That engenders paranioa. On both sides but much more on the employee's side.
If you're performing an essential function, they could be screwed.
If you're depending on your paycheck, you could be screwed.
Since the latter scenario is more likely to be the case, they're more likely to be the screwers and you're more likely to be the screwey. (Since the abolition of slavery, that's the real hold they have over the "working man.")
If you can afford to pull a "Johnny Paycheck" on your employer, you can be the screwer and they can be the screwey. (Since they'd never pay you well enough for that, it takes an accident and/or some luck to be in that position.)
"Right to Work" is the legal other term but it's not much better, unless you're a farm owner's kid and need to take some time off to help on the farm.
Then your employer pretty much has to take you back in some capacity. But you should expect to be paid less if you do come back.
Sucks don't it?
Welcome to Capitalism.
private industry doesn't (Sarbanes-Oxley not widthstanding,) so you're essentially getting the shaft from people who WANT you to stay poor and ignorant.
The **AAs don't WANT you having any access to ANY information.
The fight against public libraries is just the opening salvo in the long war against you.
The music industry should have clued you in...
The movie industry should have cleared up any doubts...
Whatever YOU create THEY want to own.
If people weren't so creative, they'd have us locked up as tightly as the Taliban had Afghanistan locked up. The sense of creativity is anathema to them.
Poscasting is just a blip on their radar screen.
They will eventually start monitoring the web to catch every download and charge the consumer for the privilege of having anything new with which to fill their ears and eyes.
And since they charge for every time we hear or see anything, new or not, good or not, you're not escaping it without doing yourself severe harm and sensory deprivation.
The only way to win against them is to copyright the statute books and sue them for infringement whenever they try to use the law against you.
Its just a root level notation anyway.
Then they can keep their materials nice and safe and away from the prying eyes
of potential customers.
Search is NOT costing THEM a friggin's dime, if fact or in sales.
If they sit on their books, they'll just get their lunch eaten from them by somebody else'; somebody who put his material in searchable form so that people can find it, then buy it.
Nobody'll ever know about THEIR damn books and nobody'll buy 'em either.
the content producers.
Depending on the 'powers that be' is what got us into this [inaubible] ClearChannel and Infinity mess in the first place.
I seriously doubt that any politician will be ever able to resist the allure of money being shoveled his way for the conglomrates control of the airwaves, (for as long as those air waves have any value.) That's because the ClearChannels and Infinity's of the world are in control of the supply side of the equation.
But by being able to directly support the producers of content we find over the internet, through aggregators and/or 'discovered' by reviewers, we find ourselves in a much better position on the demand side of media.
IF we can find a way to support content providers directly, we can listen to/watch what WE want. No more moaning that they canceled a show we used to watch with some innane but more profitable piece of drek.
I predict the rise of an internet based 'social network' for pitching ideas, concepts and promos directly to parties interested in the production and/or consumption of media content.
Podcasting let us get it when WE want it. The supply side paradigm is under a death watch.
Now we just have to 'get enough people' to 'throw enough money' at any media production effort to get it realized.
Economics 101: If a big blockbuster movie costs $75,000,000 to actually produce, at $4.99 a pop, it takes 15.2 million views to recoup the costs.
On the big screen, on a time limited run, (because they have many turkeys to run per screen per year,) the economics dictate that they'd never make a dime (hence movies cost multiple of $4.95 per view.)
On the internet, there is NO such imperative. A movie can take however long it takes to make the 15.2 million views. In addition, they're time shifted and media shifted. No more more problems with the viewer or the venue. In addition, the audience is immediately 'world wide' (assuming some linguisting/cultural commonality.)
A movie CAN'T lose money, just as long as people feel its worth $4.95 worth bothering about.
What started with the internet as a broadcast(x)/narrowcast(x)/podcast(!) medium just needs to expand to demanding and commissioning specific content from content providers.
Now apply that to other media content. Now apply that to ALL media content.
The ability to time shift both on the receiving end (when our ears hear it) and the transmission end (when a show, however long it needs to be, that's how long it's going to be, gets uploaded,) is the greatest thing.
In wresting control of the media from the supply-side, we, the demand-side, free ourselves from the tyranny of having to 'be there' at the appointed time with our attention focused on whatever 'never to be repeated' special event they feel is going to make them the most money.
Our wants don't enter into the equation. Its down to basic economics of fighting over a very limited resource, the time of day.
The internet, Googling for or otherwise discovering content we'd want to spend our time on, podcatching that content, being able to pay as much attention as we need to is half the equation.
The internet, podcasting the content we feel could find an audience is the other half of the equation.
What these two things have in common is the internet (and the common protocols.) Its not the platforms, not the actual production and/or playback hard/soft-ware. Its the internet.
The malaise that is currently afflicting media is the same that affected the rest of the world during the twentyeth century. The supply side model of any economic activity is being supplanted by the demand side.
The survivors will be those people who are agile enough and smart enough to discover and maintain revenue streams between the demand side and the supply side of any economic activity by realizing and exploiting the discontinuity between them and using the internet as the glue that binds them.
Apple is in that position with the iTMS. Its up to them to realize it, capitalize on it and not get knocked off the top of the heap.
I'm sorry if the word nuclear in anything scares some people but this cyclotron is for generating microscopic amounts of nucleotides for use in radiology.
He isn't some towel-head deforming the unborn in the name of some thing unspeakable or likely to blow up the neighborhood as the equipment is more likely to screw with people's TV signals than to leave a smokin' crater.
Next they'll riot and walk 'round with pitchforks in front of the dentist's because he's got an X-Ray machine. What?
Any help with backups, with data conservation, with access reliability, with machine portability.
Any help requiring private individuals and businesses to use fewer resources is good.
The individual network nodes may be less reliable but the network itself is not.
Where you don't have reliable wiring, wireless can take over. This is especially true in places in the develloping world where the last mile might take years to be built over.
How did the makers of spyware get the information about the OS functionality in teh first place so that they could subvert it?
Unless they were getting their info from Microsoft DIRECTLY! In which case Microsoft's at the root of the problem.
ALL spyware violates the DMCA and all the spyware writers are liable to arrest.
If ANYTHING is found on your machine, its a violation of the DMCA.
Every time you run some antivirus program and it detects spyware, the recipients of the information should go to jail, not pass Go and collect $200.
much of any other department.
I had Ver(min)izon handling my phone in my condo.
They never showed up to my condo and the never fixed the cabling in there. There were NO PHONE LINEs in the condo. (They were all ripped out.) They just threw a switch somewhere and figured that if they never got a call to complain, they were okay.
End result, I never got a phone installed.
Good thing I gave out my cell phone number to all my friends and business asociates because there WAS NEVER A LAND LINE!
And they've been bugging my ass for three years about the fucking bill.
My response is: "Yeah. Then call me!"
Verizon is a lazy bunch of schmucks. What they know about service I could engrave on the head of a pin with a ball-peen hammer and a cold chisel.
When they got into producing content, they slipped us a root kit on a CD.
Time and media shifting is becoming an issue because its becoming possible.
What the **AAs don't want is to give us ownership of the 1,440 minutes a day.
They fuck over the content originators, those artists who make the content, they make their money by screwing them with impossible contracts (its like an offer that the artist dare not refuse,) production costs and distribution costs which the artist has to pay for. They are the last 'Ugly Capitalists' who control the means of production.
Then they fuck us over by selling us the idea of Brittany Spears and claiming to still own the music out of Brittany Spears' mouth.
I've said screw 'em before and I just was a voice in the wilderness. Now I'm producing my own content. All of it. And with the internet and cheap production and post production tools, they can KMFA.
PodSafe forever forward.
you can be assured of NOT winning.
When you DO have a ticket, you have a chance.
With Google trying to organize everything, it should be unnecessary to run an ad, adding your voice to the babble out there, but an ad or a review moves you to the front of the consciousness, and its the only way to get something really new/novel/innovative out there.
Nobody's going to come looking for something they don't know about or at least aren't curious about.
For example: I heard about a new product that I was tangentially interested in from/on the New York Times web site, I went to the company's web site, was intrigued about the price/performance ratio of the particular configuration, read the specs, like what I read, found a online retailer and ordered the thing.
The 'net makes all kinds of synergies possible and can stimulate 'the prepared mind' to take the chance.
How much would you pay 'per episode' when its something you're really interested in?
... in which a troupe of bunnies parodies a collection of movies by re-enacting them in 30 seconds, more or less. You won't see that on Channel 2.)
Stop thinking 'I got to be at home for eight.' (You wouldn't have to anyway with a Tivo.)
Stop thinking 'What? My show got canceled?'
Stop thinking 'What happened to this scene? I remember it as being much longer. Too many commercials.'
And producers, if you need 1:07 instead of 1:00, wouldn't it be nice to TAKE 1:07 instead of having to be merciless and draconian.
Likewise, if your format is a 10 minute piece, make a ten minute piece. (Or shorter: The 30-Second Bunnies Theatre Library ~
Ever notice that the videos on "Beavis and Butt Head" are getting more and more muted?
That's because the music hasn't changed and, while its suppopsed to be a parody of the crap listen to, its becoming nostalgia over the crap we used to listen to.
What's the difference between QVC and MTV?
There's isn't any anymore.
Right now, they make up a slate of channels and keep track of the numbers of packages sold.
The consumer doesn't get involved in the apportioning of revenue between the content providers and the cable companies except as a sales figure.
That's VERY cheap to track and, like any statistical measure, can be manipulated by the cable companies to support any aim or claim.
If they have to mediate between 'Joe Sixpack' and 'ESPN 2' that gets them into details they DON'T want to get into.
Right now all the revenue figures are based on the warm and fuzzies of the Nielson ratings which are themselves cheap to track and, like any statistical measure, can be manipulated by the cable companies to support any aim or claim.
And they only need to track some statistical sample of WHAT'S AVAILABLE.
If 'Joe Sixpack' doesn't want to watch 'Pooftahs at the Royal Ballet' but is definitely behind 'Trailer Trash Olympics' (despite not being able to spell it) right now, he's getting PBS regardless.
Imagine a world where 'Joe Sixpack' gets to negotiate DIRECTLY with the producers of a show and PAY for exactly what he wants to watch: "Naked Hippie Snuff", shot on location at a local 'tornado magnet,' uh trailer park.
That's what the cable companies are scared shitless of. Having to actually mediate between the consumer and the producer.
They become just a wire, plugged end to end, and wire's cheap because wire can't charge under the guise of 'adding value.' (Or make all kinds of sweet heart deals with people who want to 'sell the eyeballs' to people who want to 'buy the eyeballs'.)
Guess what the internet IS? Its just a wire.
It delivers its content, whatever its size, from anywhere, whenever its requested, as best it can, to anywhere, and said content can be stored locally for consumption whenever the user has the time for it.
Time shifting, geography shifting, direct linking, direct producer paying media service. Its the pimp's and the screamer's WORST NIGHTMARE.
No more "'News at 11' in a minute, but first a word from our sponsors!" And you HAVE to sit there and watch it.
It totally breaks up the broadscasting paradigm and the revenue streams that are funded on it.
is that it not, in and of itself, all bad.
Think of the good that could be done by people NOT being forced to report all their income and attempting to lie about it.
We could take care of people as and when they need it, instead of being ripped off by scammers who look for and find every flaw in a system where you have applications to fill out, and 'qualification' hoops to jump through, like you have to be indigent to get any help so any 'bad break' HAS to be catastrophically bad. (Anecdotal evidence: I know a woman who had an illness and to sell her CEMETARY PLOTS and come back when the money had ben spent because you can't own any PROPERTY and get 'state' medical care.)
But it demands truly altruistic people be in charge, and truly altruistic people don't exactly run for office.
We keep getting lawyers, ex-lawyers and people who should be behind bars.
I'm actually a balding ol' fart but I loathe the very thought of ever fuckin' mellowing out.
I'm angrier now than I ever was but its a cold and calculating anger. Its the steely edge of the knife.
I have outgrown the fugues and tirades of youth, when I'd wax elequent with rage and make the most grandeloquent speeches any man could ever regret, if he could regret anything, but I don't.
John Tesh can swallow and kiss my lil' pink ass after I take a dump right in his fuckin' gob.
Me mellow?
Like A-fuckin'-lexis Sayles...
I'm driven and driven to drink by "mellow people." I'm a man with a mission, touched with a little madness, or is it genius that pushes, prods and make me reach beyond myself?
I HATE having become a cripple. Fuck.
I used to be a dancer.
I used to be a musician.
I used to be the guy a mother warned her daughter about.
I used to be the guy a daughter didn't tell her mother about.
And I HATE fuckin' growing old.
So I'M NOT FUCKIN' DOING IT.
(A little catharsis is good every now and then.)
on http://www.langtolang.com/
Dieb : burglar
Dieb : pilferer
Dieb : theft
Dieb : thief
Dieb : thieve
Dieb : filcher
I think its hilarious.
Now to get a rifle, a bucket of tar, some feathers and lets ride them out of the country on a rocket ship. 'Chutes are NOT required.
With a crew like this, anybody's going to look good in comparison.
Unless of course the opposition can get more money into a slush fund.
Proposition XX for the establishment of voters' rights and electoral rules would get defeated as if by magic.
Proposition YY for the levying of taxes and duties (with kick-backs to Diebold of course) would get passed as if by magic.
Taxation with out representation is what founded the good ol' US of A.
Well, not any more...
This sucks... They're letting these guys play 'hide the salami' up their asses.
I would BAR these guys from running ANY KIND of a business; never mind one with such implications as election tallies.
Vous n'accordez pas vos verbes.
It starts with a bunch of machines that people don't want to replace because it co$ts and managers don't get bonuses from spending money.
/. asking for help with Samba. :-)
The eventual demise of Microsoft will come from the same source that saw the rise of the 'compatible' PC. It was cheaper than the alternative.
It doesn't matter how well your system is running, Microsoft is living proof that quality is not that important, but how little you had to shell out for something 'good enough.'
Cost of replacement and the slowing of the replacement cycle is going to be the death of Microsoft and give rise to cheap Linux boxes.
Books about OpenOffice (or NeoOfficeJ for older Macs) are telling people that its okay NOT to have to shell out the bucks for Microsoft (or even Apple).
I suspect that Vista will be an utter failure because people have a vested interest, read lots of bucks, in their existing machines.
When 'Joe Consumer' is faced with hanging on to his machine under Linux with OpenOffice or spendin '"beaucoup" bucks' he'll wave Microsoft 'Bye Bye' before he tosses all that green on all new hardware.
Would YOU like to have to cough up money to buy a new 64bit processor, gigs of RAM, a new mobo and a new video card, just to run an incrementally 'better' Windows experience.
Fuck that... My wallet and I voted for Linux years ago, though I my wife still owns an aging Win2K Windows box and I still own a couple of OS X 10.4.3 Macs. My last machine is an ADM64 Athlon running slackware.
People are going to vote just as they always have, with their wallets.
Not just Joe Consumer, but the corporation bosses who are stuck to buy 5K, 10K, 15K, or 20K boxes at a shot. We're still running Win2K and would still be running WinNT if we could.
Books about HOW TO DO IT for less are EXACTLY what's needed. They're not written for you. They're written for 'Joe Consumer' and to get the idea to the corporation bosses.
Just brace yourselves for all those AOLers and other newbies getting on