I do believe that they're talking about people who initially publish files. They're talking about cutting out the drug cartels instead of going for the street dealers. That being said, my understanding was that the initial uploaders are not gaining much economic benefit (where the hell do they get this ad revenue) for there work. I always figured it was more of a notoriety* thing to be someone who releases content.
The "economic" benefit doesn't have to be financial. The notoriety you speak of is the motivating benefit in the 'filesharing economy'. The authors of TFA either realize this and were referring to it, or they actually think there has to be a direct financial incentive motivating people to upload files.. If they think the latter they didn't research their subject well enough and their conclusions are questionable.
In any case they are at least correct in stating the obvious: people will stop doing something they aren't motivated to do. Not exactly an earth-shattering revelation.
There's tons of stories that just need about 10 good actors telling humanities stories, and some basic location backgrounding shots, then all kinds of filler can be CGI'ed in. "No one" has 2 mil lying around, but a surprising number of small groups can swing $50,000 spent really intelligently.
The question nobody has been able to answer adequately of yet is who will have time to watch all these 'tons of stories', let alone sift through all of them to find the ones worth watching. There's already more material being produced by the 'traditional' sources than can be easily experienced by anyone with other things to do. Nevermind re-experiencing the things you liked, or experiencing the things your friends liked and want to share with you. We need less stuff to passively absorb, not more.
We need better filters than the traditional entertainment conglomerates, not better ways to spam humanity with endless timewasting art.
But multiply that impulse 100 fold and you have a populace that is either (in diminishing numbers) experiencing something or watching the experiences of others.
Live it. Take a few pics to remind you of the essentials. That's the only real answer.
... particularly those that predate ubiquitous image capturing (I can't in good conscience call it photography), I just don't take many personal photos. A few each time to document the event, but not enough to warrant a question about how to store all that stuff.
Instead, I prefer to *live* the moments, seeing them personally through my own eyes, rather than experience them through the camera viewfinder and then later via images. My epiphany came in the hospital when I was faced with the choice of documenting the birth of my daughter with a video camera plastered to my face, or putting the fucking thing down and living the experience myself. You can probably guess from my choice of words which option I chose. So I'm left with my own imperfect memory of the event rather than a memory as seen through the viewfinder and replayable later.
Your precious personal photos and videos are like the dreaded vacation movies/slideshows back when people did that kind of thing. Odds are you will never look at your archive of photos very much - if you did, you wouldn't be experiencing new things, you'd just be reviewing your old experiences over and over again.
So stop worrying about your "precious" photos and just go out and experience some new things. Pay attention while you're doing so, and you can tell stories later about the wonderfullness of it all.
IMHO, this is much better than compulsive photo-documentation.
But I don't expect many to agree. Shiny gadgets have captured our souls, and I'm afraid they may be lost forever.
Are any TV solutions relevant now that Netflix is streaming? Granted, they don't stream everything, but that library seems to be growing.
Many new TVs have Netflix interfaces built right in. What's the point of these other solutions?
Well, they potentially make money for the competitor, rather than Netflix, which is a powerful motivator for producing solutions that aren't Netflix.
Aside from the very huge flaw that these solutions are typically hardware based rather than installable in commodity hardware, the other point is that there is competition, which I view as extremely healthy. I don't want my choices limited to only Netflix - I want to be able to choose from a healthy selection of other streaming providers. That forces Netflix to become better, and it increases the odds that one of the competitors comes up with a service that's better than Netflix, or at least better for me. The more the merrier, IMHO.
I was actually enjoying your comment until encountering this bit of prejudicial age-ist nonsense. In my experience, lack of imagination, fear of new things (including technology), and the reluctance/inability to change old habits (or deal with change in general) don't correlate very well with age. Today's youth could very well be in the same boat 30 years from now when their own inflexibility keeps them stuck while the world moves on. But there will be plenty that keep up just fine, regardless of age.
You are right to a degree in that some poor 'reality' programs such as the kind you mention are just as pointless as LOST. I consider many reality shows, particularly those that are contest oriented to be superior to LOST because they actually reach a satisfying conclusion, and the build up to said conclusion is actually relevant and makes sense.
No, I ran out of time before the 30 minutes of unskippable trailers finished playing.:-)
Correct , it may not be a great leap to 'assume'.. But as I asked.. Where is the comment from anyone @ netflix about it being ad free ??
Perhaps it is just the netflix point of view , and ad free can be safely assumed ( I hope ).
I don't think they need to feel obligated to comment about it unless it represents a change in current policy, regardless of the history of an unaffiliated company. Unless they are stupid, ads won't appear because to be honest, that is a big part of the appeal of Netflix streaming. Whenever they do start forcing ads on people, it will be a big f'ing deal and they will lose a lot of subscribers. I'm not sure they are ready to take that step and I'm pretty sure they are smart enough to know it would have a huge impact.
As a Netflix subscriber, I will state that ALL their streaming content is ad-free. It's not a great leap to conclude that new content will also be. That's where people are getting this information.
Most of the Linux-based appliances that can stream Netflix do so because they contain hardware based DRM support (Western Digital Live Plus contains a Sigma 8654 chip, for example.) Most desktop hardware running Linux has no such support, hence no Netflix. Most Linux users wouldn't tolerate software-based DRM either, so again no Netflix. An unpleasant reality, for sure, but wrong-headed or not, the content owners require it. Not that Netflix is exactly being arm-twisted into requiring DRM, since they don't support DRM-free streaming even when the content owners request it: http://boingboing.net/2010/04/25/nina-paley-passes-ne.html
Personally I can live with this for now, because at least I can buy reasonably priced hardware (probably in part because they contain Linux rather than a more expensive proprietary OS) that does what I (and more importantly my family) want - stream Netflix to my TV. I don't really watch video on my computers much, so I don't miss the lack of streaming content from the web. For those that don't mind, there's always the option of running a Windows instance in a VM which streams Netflix just fine, so I hear.
It's quite possible that these games are 'semi-relevant' again precisely because of emulator projects like MAME, since many of these exist on modern platforms (Android, for example) allowing people to continue to enjoy (but more importantly be aware of) the ROMS. Had the roms been perfectly quashed and not available to anyone, they would have been truly forgotten by anyone who didn't directly experience the games 'back in the day'. And everyone knows how relevant kids find grandpa's stories about the old days.
Quasi-legitimate (legally speaking) though emulators and ROMS may be, they served the purpose of keeping these games alive by allowing people, including newer generations, to directly experience them and grow to love them. Without this interest, IP owners would have nothing to sell that people wanted, because they wouldn't even know to care. Everything is connected, nothing stands truly apart.
Maybe you should first avail yourself of the facts and second let the actual parties involved work this out before knee-jerking your way into being depressed about PG based on a Slashdot summary. Quite possibly it was an honest mistake on the part of PG who can't in any way be confused with a greedy money grubbing corporation. Besides, one doesn't need to stick their fingers into anything to become mired in complex legal issues - these days simply existing and doing something other the breathing practically guarantees it. Take a deep breath, exercise patience and wait it out.
You may be on to something. We make our own luck, and maybe it's his curiosity that provides opportunities that work out well for him. As long as he's careful to avoid the fate of the curious cat, his approach might have some merit.
Nationally critical? Because *once* in all of history somebody managed to commandeer some planes and fly them into buildings? IMHO, that had a lot more to do with the ability of the hijackers to get to the cockpit and controls than inadequate screening of passengers. Screen the pilots extensively, *isolate* them from the cabin during the flight so only they have access to the controls, problem solved. No need for all the humiliating and intrusive screening just to travel. There's still the risk of threatening the passengers to coerce the pilot to do something against his will, I suppose, or just blowing up the plane, but I'd be willing to sign a waiver similar to those at 'extreme' amusement park rides just to avoid this bullshit. The real risk would still be less than that incurred everytime I climb into an automobile, or walk into an open field during a thunderstorm.
I'd like to hear about some serious deployments of Parrot in production before I'd even consider it a candidate for a viable alternative to the JVM. Maybe it's further along than I realize, but since you state that it still needs to be 'finished', it's not a viable contender in the context of this discussion.
You already have that in Mono. Mono is fully open-source/free/libre, there is no obligation to use the.NET libraries - you can ignore them entirely, and Mono can do full AOT (ahead of time) compilation to native code already. I'm not sure what else you want exactly that doesn't already exist.
This can't be fixed by passing laws, or complaining, or invoking 'rights' or anything like that. Technology has progressed to the point where this WILL happen, regardless of laws, social norms or other futile measures to limit the 'invasion of privacy'. If the venue isn't watching you via an officially sanctioned surveillance system, the person sitting next to you might be, using cleverly concealed personal tech. As much as I hate to admit it, privacy in public places is gone. So...
I think it's time to start thinking about effective countermeasures. Thwarting the surveillance tech entirely is unlikely, so maybe just making it very difficult to personally identify individuals might be a start. I have no idea what would work, but it seems like some simple approaches would be possible. A bunch of tiny (practically invisible) reflective strips in a baseball cap to reflect scattered light back into the camera lens to obscure the wearer? A barely visible veil that can be suspended from the bill of the cap that allows the user to see out, but makes it difficult to see in? Electronic camo gear of some sort?
I think we're entering an era where personal privacy can only be ensured by taking personal measures to thwart or interfere with surveillance tech.
Forget DRM. How about PRM (Personal Rights Management)? I'd pay for that...
Same here. The writers lost my respect and interest with their handling of the latter portion of BSG and in particular the finale. As a result I never cared to watch Caprica and actively ignored it. If any sizable portion of the viewership felt the same way, that would account quite well for the lack of viewership.
Nah, as a use case the desktop isn't dead, not by a long shot. The new technologies haven't supplanted the desktop experience, they've supplemented it and expanded the usefulness of computing devices in contexts outside of the traditional workspace. What may be dying is the big bulky box that sits under the desk and has up to now been providing the 'desktop experience', but that's not the same as the activities associated with a workspace in an office. There is still plenty of reason to sit down at a personal workspace (ie. desk) and do work. My smartphone is nice, but it's severely limited as far as the kind of work that can be done with it. Too tiny keyboard, too tiny screen, not enough battery life etc. I appreciate that it can feed me information when I'm on the go, but I can't use it for most computing work. A desktop environment (a real desk/workspace) is better suited for certain tasks. I suspect that over time, small portable devices like phones and pads will be dockable so they can integrate into a variety of environments, whether a home entertainment system, a personal workspace or public forum (ie presentations). In the personal workspace context, being able to interface with a proper keyboard, monitor, printer, scanner etc. will be important. Suddenly, the ability to provide a proper desktop experience will be relevant again. It may not quite look like it used to, but the desktop is far from dead.
Slashdot Mirror
The same old tired promises we've been hearing since 2007. Where's the beef?
Not at Taco Bell, apparently.
I do believe that they're talking about people who initially publish files. They're talking about cutting out the drug cartels instead of going for the street dealers. That being said, my understanding was that the initial uploaders are not gaining much economic benefit (where the hell do they get this ad revenue) for there work. I always figured it was more of a notoriety* thing to be someone who releases content.
The "economic" benefit doesn't have to be financial. The notoriety you speak of is the motivating benefit in the 'filesharing economy'. The authors of TFA either realize this and were referring to it, or they actually think there has to be a direct financial incentive motivating people to upload files.. If they think the latter they didn't research their subject well enough and their conclusions are questionable.
In any case they are at least correct in stating the obvious: people will stop doing something they aren't motivated to do. Not exactly an earth-shattering revelation.
* fixed that for you
Agreed. Too much whitespace, otherwise it's fine. Tweak the whitespace a bit, or make it user-adjustable and I'd consider the redesign a success.
There's tons of stories that just need about 10 good actors telling humanities stories, and some basic location backgrounding shots, then all kinds of filler can be CGI'ed in. "No one" has 2 mil lying around, but a surprising number of small groups can swing $50,000 spent really intelligently.
The question nobody has been able to answer adequately of yet is who will have time to watch all these 'tons of stories', let alone sift through all of them to find the ones worth watching. There's already more material being produced by the 'traditional' sources than can be easily experienced by anyone with other things to do. Nevermind re-experiencing the things you liked, or experiencing the things your friends liked and want to share with you. We need less stuff to passively absorb, not more.
We need better filters than the traditional entertainment conglomerates, not better ways to spam humanity with endless timewasting art.
Not just you. I'm getting to the point that being called a "consumer" is an insult.
Absolutely.
But multiply that impulse 100 fold and you have a populace that is either (in diminishing numbers) experiencing something or watching the experiences of others.
Live it. Take a few pics to remind you of the essentials. That's the only real answer.
... particularly those that predate ubiquitous image capturing (I can't in good conscience call it photography), I just don't take many personal photos. A few each time to document the event, but not enough to warrant a question about how to store all that stuff.
Instead, I prefer to *live* the moments, seeing them personally through my own eyes, rather than experience them through the camera viewfinder and then later via images. My epiphany came in the hospital when I was faced with the choice of documenting the birth of my daughter with a video camera plastered to my face, or putting the fucking thing down and living the experience myself. You can probably guess from my choice of words which option I chose. So I'm left with my own imperfect memory of the event rather than a memory as seen through the viewfinder and replayable later.
Your precious personal photos and videos are like the dreaded vacation movies/slideshows back when people did that kind of thing. Odds are you will never look at your archive of photos very much - if you did, you wouldn't be experiencing new things, you'd just be reviewing your old experiences over and over again.
So stop worrying about your "precious" photos and just go out and experience some new things. Pay attention while you're doing so, and you can tell stories later about the wonderfullness of it all.
IMHO, this is much better than compulsive photo-documentation.
But I don't expect many to agree. Shiny gadgets have captured our souls, and I'm afraid they may be lost forever.
I was confused for a minute. Then I realized you really meant the *Debian* repository system which was adopted by Ubuntu. Learn your history, sonny.
Are any TV solutions relevant now that Netflix is streaming? Granted, they don't stream everything, but that library seems to be growing.
Many new TVs have Netflix interfaces built right in. What's the point of these other solutions?
Well, they potentially make money for the competitor, rather than Netflix, which is a powerful motivator for producing solutions that aren't Netflix.
Aside from the very huge flaw that these solutions are typically hardware based rather than installable in commodity hardware, the other point is that there is competition, which I view as extremely healthy. I don't want my choices limited to only Netflix - I want to be able to choose from a healthy selection of other streaming providers. That forces Netflix to become better, and it increases the odds that one of the competitors comes up with a service that's better than Netflix, or at least better for me. The more the merrier, IMHO.
Even more so when the over 50 crowd dies.
I was actually enjoying your comment until encountering this bit of prejudicial age-ist nonsense. In my experience, lack of imagination, fear of new things (including technology), and the reluctance/inability to change old habits (or deal with change in general) don't correlate very well with age. Today's youth could very well be in the same boat 30 years from now when their own inflexibility keeps them stuck while the world moves on. But there will be plenty that keep up just fine, regardless of age.
You are right to a degree in that some poor 'reality' programs such as the kind you mention are just as pointless as LOST. I consider many reality shows, particularly those that are contest oriented to be superior to LOST because they actually reach a satisfying conclusion, and the build up to said conclusion is actually relevant and makes sense.
Have you watched any Disney dvds lately ??
No, I ran out of time before the 30 minutes of unskippable trailers finished playing. :-)
Correct , it may not be a great leap to 'assume' .. But as I asked .. Where is the comment from anyone @ netflix about it being ad free ??
Perhaps it is just the netflix point of view , and ad free can be safely assumed ( I hope ).
I don't think they need to feel obligated to comment about it unless it represents a change in current policy, regardless of the history of an unaffiliated company. Unless they are stupid, ads won't appear because to be honest, that is a big part of the appeal of Netflix streaming. Whenever they do start forcing ads on people, it will be a big f'ing deal and they will lose a lot of subscribers. I'm not sure they are ready to take that step and I'm pretty sure they are smart enough to know it would have a huge impact.
As a Netflix subscriber, I will state that ALL their streaming content is ad-free. It's not a great leap to conclude that new content will also be. That's where people are getting this information.
Most of the Linux-based appliances that can stream Netflix do so because they contain hardware based DRM support (Western Digital Live Plus contains a Sigma 8654 chip, for example.) Most desktop hardware running Linux has no such support, hence no Netflix. Most Linux users wouldn't tolerate software-based DRM either, so again no Netflix. An unpleasant reality, for sure, but wrong-headed or not, the content owners require it. Not that Netflix is exactly being arm-twisted into requiring DRM, since they don't support DRM-free streaming even when the content owners request it: http://boingboing.net/2010/04/25/nina-paley-passes-ne.html
Personally I can live with this for now, because at least I can buy reasonably priced hardware (probably in part because they contain Linux rather than a more expensive proprietary OS) that does what I (and more importantly my family) want - stream Netflix to my TV. I don't really watch video on my computers much, so I don't miss the lack of streaming content from the web. For those that don't mind, there's always the option of running a Windows instance in a VM which streams Netflix just fine, so I hear.
It's quite possible that these games are 'semi-relevant' again precisely because of emulator projects like MAME, since many of these exist on modern platforms (Android, for example) allowing people to continue to enjoy (but more importantly be aware of) the ROMS. Had the roms been perfectly quashed and not available to anyone, they would have been truly forgotten by anyone who didn't directly experience the games 'back in the day'. And everyone knows how relevant kids find grandpa's stories about the old days.
Quasi-legitimate (legally speaking) though emulators and ROMS may be, they served the purpose of keeping these games alive by allowing people, including newer generations, to directly experience them and grow to love them. Without this interest, IP owners would have nothing to sell that people wanted, because they wouldn't even know to care. Everything is connected, nothing stands truly apart.
Maybe you should first avail yourself of the facts and second let the actual parties involved work this out before knee-jerking your way into being depressed about PG based on a Slashdot summary. Quite possibly it was an honest mistake on the part of PG who can't in any way be confused with a greedy money grubbing corporation. Besides, one doesn't need to stick their fingers into anything to become mired in complex legal issues - these days simply existing and doing something other the breathing practically guarantees it. Take a deep breath, exercise patience and wait it out.
You may be on to something. We make our own luck, and maybe it's his curiosity that provides opportunities that work out well for him. As long as he's careful to avoid the fate of the curious cat, his approach might have some merit.
First post!!!
I guess not many people care about COICA - I refreshed the browser a bunch of times before posting this.
Nationally critical? Because *once* in all of history somebody managed to commandeer some planes and fly them into buildings? IMHO, that had a lot more to do with the ability of the hijackers to get to the cockpit and controls than inadequate screening of passengers. Screen the pilots extensively, *isolate* them from the cabin during the flight so only they have access to the controls, problem solved. No need for all the humiliating and intrusive screening just to travel. There's still the risk of threatening the passengers to coerce the pilot to do something against his will, I suppose, or just blowing up the plane, but I'd be willing to sign a waiver similar to those at 'extreme' amusement park rides just to avoid this bullshit. The real risk would still be less than that incurred everytime I climb into an automobile, or walk into an open field during a thunderstorm.
I'd like to hear about some serious deployments of Parrot in production before I'd even consider it a candidate for a viable alternative to the JVM. Maybe it's further along than I realize, but since you state that it still needs to be 'finished', it's not a viable contender in the context of this discussion.
You already have that in Mono. Mono is fully open-source/free/libre, there is no obligation to use the .NET libraries - you can ignore them entirely, and Mono can do full AOT (ahead of time) compilation to native code already. I'm not sure what else you want exactly that doesn't already exist.
This can't be fixed by passing laws, or complaining, or invoking 'rights' or anything like that. Technology has progressed to the point where this WILL happen, regardless of laws, social norms or other futile measures to limit the 'invasion of privacy'. If the venue isn't watching you via an officially sanctioned surveillance system, the person sitting next to you might be, using cleverly concealed personal tech. As much as I hate to admit it, privacy in public places is gone. So ...
I think it's time to start thinking about effective countermeasures. Thwarting the surveillance tech entirely is unlikely, so maybe just making it very difficult to personally identify individuals might be a start. I have no idea what would work, but it seems like some simple approaches would be possible. A bunch of tiny (practically invisible) reflective strips in a baseball cap to reflect scattered light back into the camera lens to obscure the wearer? A barely visible veil that can be suspended from the bill of the cap that allows the user to see out, but makes it difficult to see in? Electronic camo gear of some sort?
I think we're entering an era where personal privacy can only be ensured by taking personal measures to thwart or interfere with surveillance tech.
Forget DRM. How about PRM (Personal Rights Management)? I'd pay for that ...
Same here. The writers lost my respect and interest with their handling of the latter portion of BSG and in particular the finale. As a result I never cared to watch Caprica and actively ignored it. If any sizable portion of the viewership felt the same way, that would account quite well for the lack of viewership.
Nice post. But what is the alternative? Where can I shop that directly counteracts the WalMart behemoth? Is there even such a place?
Nah, as a use case the desktop isn't dead, not by a long shot. The new technologies haven't supplanted the desktop experience, they've supplemented it and expanded the usefulness of computing devices in contexts outside of the traditional workspace. What may be dying is the big bulky box that sits under the desk and has up to now been providing the 'desktop experience', but that's not the same as the activities associated with a workspace in an office. There is still plenty of reason to sit down at a personal workspace (ie. desk) and do work. My smartphone is nice, but it's severely limited as far as the kind of work that can be done with it. Too tiny keyboard, too tiny screen, not enough battery life etc. I appreciate that it can feed me information when I'm on the go, but I can't use it for most computing work. A desktop environment (a real desk/workspace) is better suited for certain tasks. I suspect that over time, small portable devices like phones and pads will be dockable so they can integrate into a variety of environments, whether a home entertainment system, a personal workspace or public forum (ie presentations). In the personal workspace context, being able to interface with a proper keyboard, monitor, printer, scanner etc. will be important. Suddenly, the ability to provide a proper desktop experience will be relevant again. It may not quite look like it used to, but the desktop is far from dead.