They don't hold enough data?!
Does iTunes sell lossless iTunes trax?
I'm reasonably sure that there is more data in the vs. of a song on an average commercial CD than there is in the average Fairplay-AAC iTunes sells. You don't get much better, digitally, than CD quality, and so you don't get problems with recompression.
Does the spare harddrive fall under iTunes's 5-computer limit, or is it free?
It's priceless to Apple Inc. The Beatles and Apple Corp. will never be a threat again. The iTunes Store will stay open--though its European branches aren't exactly out of the woods yet.
"Well, I don't like to buy CDs because after I rip them to my Mac I have really no use for them anymore."
CDs make excellent backups. Buy a CD of the music, and you (probably) have a full-quality backup for the music in your computer, complete with meta-data. You won't have to burn a backup CD, and you don't have to worry about the transfer limits.
You are aware that distributing music is one of the key functions of a record label, so long as record labels exist?
Apple Inc. was able to get away with distributing music under the Apple name only because the medium it is using is not physical...
Okay. The Beatles catalog is in Northernsongs, which is de facto owned by Sony unless Michael Jackson starts getting some financial sense. (The financial advice he took from Paul appears to be the last sound financial advice he ever took.) Apple Corp. does own something valuable, though--the Beatles recordings.
To put it another way: if you wanted to record a cover of a Beatles song, or play one in public, you would need to contact Sony, Northernsongs division. If you wanted to use an actual Beatles recording--that is, one actually made by the Beatles--then you would need to contact Apple Corp.
Well, Sir Paul got himself into this. This time, I believe he chose it freely.
He isn't as affected by this as the others. They have their solo work on the Apple label as well as the joint Beatles work; his solo work is on another label, MPL--his own.
I think Paul did help push this settlement through. Paul has actually used Apple Inc. products in his work. And I did notice Steve Jobs on Paul's last tour DVD. [sardonic grin]
When Apple Corp. interests (anything Beatles) and MPL interests (anything Paul) intersect--watch out!
No, this is related to the settlement. John Lennon's solo work is on Apple Records. If Apple Inc. got to advertise openly on the Lennon bus, then the battle was over then...
Awww--I like their "Headlines" feature.
They do try writing. The monologues are one of the best sources of horrific comedy anywhere--even Jay knows it. This does not stop us from watching--though I do it only on nights when I think "Headlines" will air.
You are proposing making music & movies shareware.
There used to be a lot of software shareware, back before Windows. Why don't I see software shareware anymore?
Thanks. Now I know at what price Sony would sell PS3s in America if they didn't sell them at a loss.
Sony sells consoles for a loss in America because they intend to make up the difference by selling content (that is, games & Blurays). In markets where they won't sell much content, they can't sell their machines at a loss and make any profit at all. Therefore, an honest price for a PS3 would be $1800, and they ought to charge that much everywhere.
Yeah--but the attempts to fix this problem is definitely making things tough for the writers of the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. They're using a lot more flyers, menus, and police blotter entries than they used to...
The fine article says that the ACLU is already protesting this move to shift from fully electronic machines to optical scanners. Apparently, they think that all paper voting discriminates against the handicapped. (Most notably the blind, though others who can't read English for whatever reason are also affected.) One Floridian official also claims that getting rid of the touchscreen machines would be illegal.
So yes, it appears that someone really did jump from punch cards to all paper voting.
Current law demands that the handicapped be allowed to vote. Making sure their votes are counted accurately is apparently a much lower priority to the ACLU.
Understood. The concern is that you might get strongly encouraged to vote at your work computer with your boss watching you over your shoulder.
And if you try to vote and find out that a computer virus already did it for you--ouch!
Probably the fella who wanted to make an massive advertising campaign emphasizing the "toilet humor" aspect of Flushed Away. I don't know why--maybe it's just me--but even in an industry where gratuitous toilet humor is common, those ads made that film seem esp. disgusting. That there were shapeless characters in the ads didn't help...
Disclaimer: no, I did not see the film. I am actually afraid to see that film.
The user who submitted the content with the Gawker-related ads did choose to have ads played before those clips. Not for revenue-sharing, necc.--the fella did work for Gawker...
Yes, Youtube's revenue model is based on advertising. But that does not mean that all advertisers on Youtube pay it.
The ads for Gawker.com and its related sites are in uploaded clips. If Gawker paid Youtube for the ads around the borrowed content, Youtube could then take the borrowed content down, ads and all.
If I understand the fine article correctly, what Gawker is doing is almost metaphysical.
A user posting someone else's content on Youtube is normal, even though that makes it "grey" content (that is, the legality is uncertain). A corp. putting its own content on its own site and sandwiching it in ads is also normal.
But this is a corp. (acting through one of its members) posting grey content on someone else's site--namely Youtube, a site known to host grey content--and wrapping that grey content in ads for its own sites.
It's like the 1337 Sony PS3 blog, only competent.
"If the 2nd Amendment is out of date, why hasn't it been repealed?"
The 2nd Amendment has many supporters. Many of these supporters are armed. If an attempt to openly repeal the 2nd Amendment got past the NRA, then civil war, or at least an uprising, would break out sometime between when the "no-weapons" amendment was passed and when the government got around to collecting the weapons.
A savvy government knows that it can't repeal the 2nd. That's why it chose to neuter it quietly: it declared that the only militias covered in the 2nd Amendment are ones that can be treated just like national military units; it refused to force the 2nd Amendment to the states thru the 14th when almost every other right in the Bill of Rights has been forced that way; and it refused to hear 2nd Amendment cases because the choice would be to either strengthen the 2nd (with risk to government power) or risk the wrath of armed 2nd Amendment supporters. Cases that the Supreme Court refuses to hear get less coverage than cases the Court actually hears...
Gitmo was a military base before it was a prison camp. Is it on American soil (because it's a military base), or not?
If Gitmo is not on American soil, then why didn't Castro take it over years ago? Cuba is no ally of America.
"The only way I could tell that my work had any meaningful impact on others, is if THEY decide to talk about it amongst themselves. This hasn't been the case. so not being a complete moran I decided to just stop and focus my energies elsewhere. Nobody owes me gratitude or fame or whatever, so it's not like I demand anything from peeps."
You are demanding something from others: public recognition. If that isn't true, why did you stop writing OSS?
You know that your contributions made a meaningful impact: other, larger, more famous projects incorporated your work, and it's making its impacts through them. If your work had no value, nobody else would use it.
The public is fickle. Most musicians that are hot and chatted about now will be half-forgotten in five years. Only musicians who create solid work will be remembered as musicians in the long run.
I'll bet similar rules apply to open source.
Understood. But that's not a flaw of e-books. That's a flaw of airplanes and/or airlines.
If airlines were less afraid of/vunerable to electronics, this wouldn't be a problem. If airplanes actually consistently took off and landed near the times they are scheduled to take off or land, and didn't rountinely spend half an hour parked on the tarmac or circling the airport, this would not be a problem.
I know, that's cold comfort, no help to you. After all, you can't read at all when you're driving. But I'm angry at the airlines anyway; that's just one more reason.
I don't think vinyl & record players are going anywhere.
There was a time when I thought vinyl would disappear, around when analog audiocassettes were popular. But later (after I'd given up vinyl) the audiophiles got into vinyl because they could hear, or thought they could hear, the gaps in CD recordings.
As long as there are people who prefer their music on analog media, there will be vinyl records and record players. Audiophiles are willing to pay extra for record players, which makes up for there being fewer of them.
Now, 8-track really is dead. I can understand why--that format was flawed. The problem is that all the analog media involving magnetic tapes are disappearing or gone. We'll pay a huge price for that, and not just in DRM.
Slashdot Mirror
They don't hold enough data?!
Does iTunes sell lossless iTunes trax?
I'm reasonably sure that there is more data in the vs. of a song on an average commercial CD than there is in the average Fairplay-AAC iTunes sells. You don't get much better, digitally, than CD quality, and so you don't get problems with recompression.
Does the spare harddrive fall under iTunes's 5-computer limit, or is it free?
It's priceless to Apple Inc. The Beatles and Apple Corp. will never be a threat again. The iTunes Store will stay open--though its European branches aren't exactly out of the woods yet.
"Well, I don't like to buy CDs because after I rip them to my Mac I have really no use for them anymore."
CDs make excellent backups. Buy a CD of the music, and you (probably) have a full-quality backup for the music in your computer, complete with meta-data. You won't have to burn a backup CD, and you don't have to worry about the transfer limits.
"Give Peace a Chance" and "Imagine" are not by the Beatles--but they are Apple Records productions. Apple Records does John Lennon's solo work, too.
You are aware that distributing music is one of the key functions of a record label, so long as record labels exist?
Apple Inc. was able to get away with distributing music under the Apple name only because the medium it is using is not physical...
Okay. The Beatles catalog is in Northernsongs, which is de facto owned by Sony unless Michael Jackson starts getting some financial sense. (The financial advice he took from Paul appears to be the last sound financial advice he ever took.) Apple Corp. does own something valuable, though--the Beatles recordings.
To put it another way: if you wanted to record a cover of a Beatles song, or play one in public, you would need to contact Sony, Northernsongs division. If you wanted to use an actual Beatles recording--that is, one actually made by the Beatles--then you would need to contact Apple Corp.
Well, Sir Paul got himself into this. This time, I believe he chose it freely.
He isn't as affected by this as the others. They have their solo work on the Apple label as well as the joint Beatles work; his solo work is on another label, MPL--his own.
I think Paul did help push this settlement through. Paul has actually used Apple Inc. products in his work. And I did notice Steve Jobs on Paul's last tour DVD. [sardonic grin]
When Apple Corp. interests (anything Beatles) and MPL interests (anything Paul) intersect--watch out!
No, this is related to the settlement. John Lennon's solo work is on Apple Records. If Apple Inc. got to advertise openly on the Lennon bus, then the battle was over then...
Has anyone been able to resist the Pirate Bay? Does anyone have a choice?
Awww--I like their "Headlines" feature.
They do try writing. The monologues are one of the best sources of horrific comedy anywhere--even Jay knows it. This does not stop us from watching--though I do it only on nights when I think "Headlines" will air.
You are proposing making music & movies shareware.
There used to be a lot of software shareware, back before Windows. Why don't I see software shareware anymore?
Thanks. Now I know at what price Sony would sell PS3s in America if they didn't sell them at a loss.
Sony sells consoles for a loss in America because they intend to make up the difference by selling content (that is, games & Blurays). In markets where they won't sell much content, they can't sell their machines at a loss and make any profit at all. Therefore, an honest price for a PS3 would be $1800, and they ought to charge that much everywhere.
Yeah--but the attempts to fix this problem is definitely making things tough for the writers of the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. They're using a lot more flyers, menus, and police blotter entries than they used to...
That is why we put curtains on the voting booths. Not foolproof, but every little bit helps.
The fine article says that the ACLU is already protesting this move to shift from fully electronic machines to optical scanners. Apparently, they think that all paper voting discriminates against the handicapped. (Most notably the blind, though others who can't read English for whatever reason are also affected.) One Floridian official also claims that getting rid of the touchscreen machines would be illegal.
So yes, it appears that someone really did jump from punch cards to all paper voting.
Current law demands that the handicapped be allowed to vote. Making sure their votes are counted accurately is apparently a much lower priority to the ACLU.
Understood. The concern is that you might get strongly encouraged to vote at your work computer with your boss watching you over your shoulder.
And if you try to vote and find out that a computer virus already did it for you--ouch!
Probably the fella who wanted to make an massive advertising campaign emphasizing the "toilet humor" aspect of Flushed Away. I don't know why--maybe it's just me--but even in an industry where gratuitous toilet humor is common, those ads made that film seem esp. disgusting. That there were shapeless characters in the ads didn't help...
Disclaimer: no, I did not see the film. I am actually afraid to see that film.
The user who submitted the content with the Gawker-related ads did choose to have ads played before those clips. Not for revenue-sharing, necc.--the fella did work for Gawker...
Yes, Youtube's revenue model is based on advertising. But that does not mean that all advertisers on Youtube pay it.
The ads for Gawker.com and its related sites are in uploaded clips. If Gawker paid Youtube for the ads around the borrowed content, Youtube could then take the borrowed content down, ads and all.
If I understand the fine article correctly, what Gawker is doing is almost metaphysical.
A user posting someone else's content on Youtube is normal, even though that makes it "grey" content (that is, the legality is uncertain). A corp. putting its own content on its own site and sandwiching it in ads is also normal.
But this is a corp. (acting through one of its members) posting grey content on someone else's site--namely Youtube, a site known to host grey content--and wrapping that grey content in ads for its own sites.
It's like the 1337 Sony PS3 blog, only competent.
"If the 2nd Amendment is out of date, why hasn't it been repealed?"
The 2nd Amendment has many supporters. Many of these supporters are armed. If an attempt to openly repeal the 2nd Amendment got past the NRA, then civil war, or at least an uprising, would break out sometime between when the "no-weapons" amendment was passed and when the government got around to collecting the weapons.
A savvy government knows that it can't repeal the 2nd. That's why it chose to neuter it quietly: it declared that the only militias covered in the 2nd Amendment are ones that can be treated just like national military units; it refused to force the 2nd Amendment to the states thru the 14th when almost every other right in the Bill of Rights has been forced that way; and it refused to hear 2nd Amendment cases because the choice would be to either strengthen the 2nd (with risk to government power) or risk the wrath of armed 2nd Amendment supporters. Cases that the Supreme Court refuses to hear get less coverage than cases the Court actually hears...
Gitmo was a military base before it was a prison camp. Is it on American soil (because it's a military base), or not?
If Gitmo is not on American soil, then why didn't Castro take it over years ago? Cuba is no ally of America.
"The only way I could tell that my work had any meaningful impact on others, is if THEY decide to talk about it amongst themselves. This hasn't been the case. so not being a complete moran I decided to just stop and focus my energies elsewhere. Nobody owes me gratitude or fame or whatever, so it's not like I demand anything from peeps."
You are demanding something from others: public recognition. If that isn't true, why did you stop writing OSS?
You know that your contributions made a meaningful impact: other, larger, more famous projects incorporated your work, and it's making its impacts through them. If your work had no value, nobody else would use it.
The public is fickle. Most musicians that are hot and chatted about now will be half-forgotten in five years. Only musicians who create solid work will be remembered as musicians in the long run.
I'll bet similar rules apply to open source.
Understood. But that's not a flaw of e-books. That's a flaw of airplanes and/or airlines.
If airlines were less afraid of/vunerable to electronics, this wouldn't be a problem. If airplanes actually consistently took off and landed near the times they are scheduled to take off or land, and didn't rountinely spend half an hour parked on the tarmac or circling the airport, this would not be a problem.
I know, that's cold comfort, no help to you. After all, you can't read at all when you're driving. But I'm angry at the airlines anyway; that's just one more reason.
I don't think vinyl & record players are going anywhere.
There was a time when I thought vinyl would disappear, around when analog audiocassettes were popular. But later (after I'd given up vinyl) the audiophiles got into vinyl because they could hear, or thought they could hear, the gaps in CD recordings.
As long as there are people who prefer their music on analog media, there will be vinyl records and record players. Audiophiles are willing to pay extra for record players, which makes up for there being fewer of them.
Now, 8-track really is dead. I can understand why--that format was flawed. The problem is that all the analog media involving magnetic tapes are disappearing or gone. We'll pay a huge price for that, and not just in DRM.