Better smart than stupid as well. You didn't even read my post. I never said anything about MY tastes. I'm not an audiophile. Actually I have moderate hearing loss in one ear. That being said, even I can usually tell if something is encoded in less than 192 kpbs if it is delicate enough. I'm not a huge fan of Radiohead either. I and the other two wanted to support what Radiohead was doing and what we thought they stood for. I was willing to shell out $100 or so and wear their t-shirt to help promote destroying the cartels that are destroying so many artists. By releasing a sub-par product for the download, which was the rallying point over the whole thing, they showed that they weren't actually making a stand for enlightened self interest like I thought they were. They were just making a stand for self interest. Also, they said the "THE ALBUM" was free for download. They lied by omission as far as I am concerned when they did not clarify that. Without any other information, most people will assume that "THE ALBUM" means you get something IDENTICAL to what you would get if you bought the CD, minus the plastic disc part. And while I may not be able to tell the difference, I presume many people can, and I don't think they're assholes because they can hear the finer points that I cannot.
I was going to buy their box set to support them until I found that they album download was only 160 kbps. I thought that was a cheesy move so I gave it a pass and I know two other people who did as well for the same reason. So that's three boxed sets they didn't sell that I know of. Hard to extraplate from that of course, but I think if they had not dorked around with a low bitrate download, they would have done even better. Still, I'm glad that it looks like they've proved this business model and I think many more artists will follow suit.
If we're talking performance, it's not always the amount of code, but the nature of the code. A couple of lines of code in the wrong place can reduce effeciency by magnitudes of order. I bet the DRM code is not large in terms of lines of code, but I bet it's placed in critical locations all over the place. Even the overhead of making function calls can dramatically impact high performance loops.
Well, on that point we disagree. Who out of the current crop of candidates who even has a snowball's chance in hell even sounds sane? They're all trying to up the ante on the war on abstract concepts and in increasing the police state.
I said nothing about the current crop of candidates or this go-around. You read that into my post when it was never there. I said there is still time to change things by voting. I did't say there was much chance this time around. However the internet is beginning to bear fruit when it comes to smart-mob activity and a new type of smart grass-roots efforts. Ron Paul for example is no joke. He has ammassed a large sum of money. In terms of revenue generation he beats McCain, and in terms of liquid capital he even beats Gulianni. Thanks to the massive internet driven new-age grass-roots efforts around him, he has hardly had to spend any money at all for his advertising. I can't go anywhere without seeing home made signs for him. So he'll have millions to spend on the first primaries. I'm not saying he will win, but he won't be a no-show either. He may be a sign of what is to come. If the internet begins to reinvigorate part of the voting base that has been silent up till now and they rally in nearly spontaneous but organized fashion around a candidate, then we could actually see the rise of viable alternative or 3rd party candidates.
I singled them out because your statement that the Dems are just as bad or worse is complete lunacy. The Democrats are disorganized, incompetent idiots.
The first part doesn't even make sense. You couldn't have singled Republicans out based on my statements because the first time I responded to anything you said was AFTER you had singled out Republicans! You are obviously not paying much attention to what is being said by whom and instead are lost in your emotions.
The second part is just plain ignorant. The Republicans have no real analog to the massive network known as the Shadow Democratic Party. Democrats are outraising Republicans 3 to 1. Democrats control the house. Yeah, real disorganized and incompetent.
IMO the Republicans are now mostly Fascists with deep and organized ties to corporations. Democrats are now mostly Socialists with deep and organized ties to neo-Socialists and international Communism. Go ahead and write the Democrats off as disorganized fools if that make sleep better.
I'm not the original poster, and I don't agree with his post either. It's not yet time to use force (I think there is still time to change things by voting), and the poster singles out Republicans when the Democrats are just as bad or even worse. Both sides are working to seize total power. However there is one fatal flaw in your argument. Under the philosophy of Natural Law there is one reason you can use force against another, and that is to protect your rights or the rights of others. It doesn't matter if those people are politicians, religious leaders, or whatever. Ballmer, RMS, and so forth are not violating anybody's rights. Politicians on both side right now are. Your analogy of killing politicians and killing people you don't like is baseless. One has a moral foundation, the other is just murder. Your argument would be akin to saying you cannot kill someone trying to rape you or your wife because that would be like killing your neighbor because you don't like him.
Slashdot dropped the ball on reporting the big bruhaha over Radiohead last week. Fans were pretty miffed because the album was only provided at 160 kbps. Furthermore, Radiohead didn't tell anybody this until after many had already paid and downloaded it. As one person was quoted as saying, "Radiohead has such delicate music that requires detail and depth of sound.... I for one CAN tell the difference between 160 and 192," responded one commenter. "[With] 160 you can't hear the finer details that make Radiohead so great. I have lost a bit of respect for Radiohead for this. I would never make people pay for 160. They may as well just stream stuff off MySpace."
Given that the download was at a low bitrate, especially for a purchased product, it was guaranteed to be pirated. They really only saw the download as a promotion for the CD, not as a new business model approach. Radiohead never intended to allow people to download a full 320 kbps (CD quality) version of their album. They really weren't quite as forward thinking as they were given credit for.
Fact is that the SC34 body gained 11 Participating members, and gained 29 total members since last year's count of only 9 Participating members. Those were mostly MS shills. Read more about it here if you wish.
It's good to be skeptical, but I think you bordered on cynicism. IBM is no knight in shining armor, but they have not been pulling these types of stunts. Fact is IBM has been around a long time as you point out, and they have probably learned that, when it comes to standards, it's better to play nice. If everyone sees a standards body as being useless or owned by one group then it will cease to have nearly as much influence. It's not like these ISO guys have guns and are going to force people to obey their recommendations. So while politics are bound to play a part, for the ISO recommendations to carry weight with industry there has to be perceived value and fairness from the members of industry who will decide if they will follow those recommendations. IBM and others who use the ISO standards as a way of finding mutual benefit have a vested interested in protecting the reputation of the ISO processes and bodies. Microsoft doesn't care so they crashed the party and did great harm to these same bodies.
Not if IBM and the others want a standards body it won't. IBM or others could have done what MS did, but they didn't. If they try to keep it packed then the ISO standards body will die anyway and IBM and the others who actually want a standards body that the rest of the industry will accept will lose out. Worst case scenario if IBM et al didn't play ball is that the standards body ceases to function or be accepted. Not much different than their current state of affairs. If the computer industry wants to allow ISO to die then they can all go back to pushing their own propreitary systems. I'm betting they don't think that is in their own best interests. If they do think that Apple, the king of cool but proprietary, will win.
I have no idea why you are rated as Funny and not Insightful for your comment. It's the unvarnished truth. Since their bylaws didn't account for hostile action, they're screwed.
There is a problem with organizations. They seek to perpetuate themselves long after their purpose has been met. In AOL's case they made a metric a**-ton of money in the early days of the internet. Now, instead of distributing all that money and selling off divisions when the business model no longer was very viable and sending everybody home rich, they blew it all on trying to buy a new lease on life with Time-Warner.
This idea that once an organization or business has been created that it should try to exist for the rest of eternity is stupid. Folding before you have uselessly expended all of your capital when you no longer have a viable business model and you are not structured in a manner that allows you to change business models (very hard to do), is not only smart, but it is a fudiciary duty. Throwing all that money away on a long-shot gamble to simply continue existing is silly.
Not as small as you think. I didn't watch it when it first aired live. I watched it over a decade later. But since I didn't talk to or know anyone who was a fan of the show, it didn't matter. The show might as well have been newly run when I saw it.
It wasn't all that long ago when even the VCR wasn't a common appliance, let alone the internet. People lived in an information vacuum as little as 20 years ago compared to today. Many fans of the original show are old enough to have come from a time when if you missed a show, you missed it.
It's not the science fiction genre that is bankrupt. It's Hollywood and the American veiwing public. They'd rather make remakes and the public would rather watch remakes. Read this discussion and you'll find plenty of posts about how it looks like this movies going to be better than expected, how it looks like it might actually be decent, etc.
IMO these people are like (mentally/spiritually) old men. They'd rather remember an old highpoint in their life than go to the effort and possible pain that comes from experiencing new high points. This movie will allow them to remember anew the joy and fun they had when they first found the show. They can cast this into a forward looking frame, hiding from the fact that they're doing nothing more than watching the same thing over and over again.
I think you've made a good argument for why, even if well done, it will be impossible for the movie to revitalize the franchise. Even if you didn't believe the characters were going to die in the main show, you couldn't be positive. That little bit of doubt is enough for you to have enough willing suspension of disbelief to get a vicarious thrill when they are in danger. Also even if they weren't going to die, they could still suffer other hardships and changes. Fall in love, make a realization about themselves, a dark secret could be exposed, and so forth. In other words you also had the dramatic element of what life changing events and realizations could arise for a character.
In other words, there was an element of suspence at various levels that were in play because the show was new and carving it's won path. All of that will be missing from this movie. Not only will characters not die, but they can't even have something happen or be revealed that dramatically changes the nature of the character. We know, with perfect hindsight, who these people are.
The only way this movie can mean anything is if they set it up so that it turns into a new timeline with everything wide open again. If they don't do that then it's just another prequel.
Good post. You're getting into some of the more interesting aspects of the whole problem.
Their own population can only be customers if their population has expendable wealth. You could have a googleplex of destitute dirt farmers and not sell one iPod. The only economic system that has ever produced a large wealthy middle class is capitalism. So long as China continues to allow capitalism to be the dominant mode of production and so long as they are competitive they can use their population as customers. If this changes then it collapses.
The reason the world's capital is flowing into China instead of the USA is because the USA has become a weak place to invest your money. High tax burdens, complex tax and business codes and laws, a broken tort system, and an ever-growing socialist mentality and welfare state. Big money that knows no country goes to where it can grow the fastest. China, for all of it's problems, is a better place to grow your money.
And that, IMO, is the real reason China's economy is growing. Not because they stole our technology. It was pretty free for the taking anyway. You don't see other 3rd world nations being able to run with our technology to modernize themselves. It's because China changed it's mode of production to capitalism, and for all of it's problems is in many ways more capitalist than the USA is.
What I'm saying is that the USA finally has competition in the global market place. It's not that they stole our tech. You'll never be able to prevent that anyway. If you have a free society then the information will flow. If you do not then innovation will never happen. Catch-22. So forget regulating information. It'll never work. The only solution is to out-compete them. You can only do that allowing capital to grow faster in your economy than theirs. We are losing our status as economic super-power more due to our own decisions than China.
The problem for China is that if they become effective at imposing these draconion rules, then using the internet in any fashion will become such a risk that no one will do it. They will cripple their economic growth. The Sarbanes-Oxley can be used as a model for what happens when a country makes doing business to expensive and risky that no one wants to invest in it. In this case the USA has seen a massive shift of capital investment out of the country. The same thing will happen to China if they keep this up. The internet is becoming a critical tool of business. China cannot keep crippling it and making it worth your life to use the internet and continue to develop into a big player in the global economy.
China is heading toward becoming a living example of a Reductio ad Absurdum. The internet is now the critical infrastructure over which information flows. To use Marxist terms, it is becoming critical to defining the Mode of Production for a society. It is becoming powerful for social relations, organization and management, and education among other elements. Their own philosophy tells them why thier own actions will cripple thier development.
China will have to choose between having the internet and being a world power using the tools of the 21st century, or becoming isolated from the rest of the world on all levels. The internet is becoming the primary infrastructure for a new future. The idea of becoming or staying economicaly and politically viable without it is naive and foolish. It would be like trying to become a economic and military power in the 20th century without an industrial base to build anything.
I really love the mesh network concept. That should be in the big three operating systems already. Hopefully this will spur the adaptation of this concept to the big operating systems. I can see huge uses for it, from collaborative projects to gaming and of course education.
Lao Tzu - "Give A Man A Fish, Feed Him For A Day. Teach A Man To Fish, Feed Him For A Lifetime".
As to your claims that malaria research (DDT anyone) and giving away food (cycles of dependancy, destroy ability to local farmers to sell food, acts as subsidies for dictators) is nevery bad, that is simply naive. There is a reason so much of the third world resembles inner city ghettos. Constant welfare destroys economies and enslaves people.
I'm with Lao Tsu on this one. Giving people only consumables and denying them knowledge and tools to better themselves is foolish. Giving the laptops away might lead to good. Giving away food except for short term disaster relief is gauranteed to promote evil.
Given Microsoft's proven track record on ethics, reliability and security, I daresay you would be hard pressed to find a better candidate to providing life-critical services such as this one. I will rest easy knowing that my medical files as secure, that they will always be available to my doctors when needed, and that all that information upon which my very life my depend will be properly stored without mistake.
No, I'll have to give this point to you. The theories have not yet really been tested yet. I thought there was more evidence on it, but it's still more intuition than science. On the other hand I know what works for me, and not all styles of trying to learn work the same.
Anyway, I don't think there is much controversy in saying that using multiple styles to learn isn't helpful. If you read it, say it, and then write it down then those seperate types of actions will help cement the knowledge. Reading the material and hearing the same material paraphrased differently has to improve the learning process.
I'm sorry, but I really don't see how anyone is going to learn something from a non-interactive lecture on the internet that they couldn't learn from a book in a library....The value of a university isn't the lectures, it's the resources available to someone when they don't understand something they're studying.
First, there is a growing body of evidence that suggests different people learn better with different approaches. Not all people learn well from reading the written word. Hearing it or seeing it will provide a great benefit for speed, retention, and comprehension for many people. Just because you do well with books does not mean everyone does.
Second, a book is no more interactive than the lecture series will be. The lecture series + book is a much better combination.
Third, with the internet you will soon have blogs or interactive discussion boards around these lectures. It's just the way the internet tend to be. So it will become interactive to a lessor or greater extent. Even if you miss most of the interactive action, if the discussions are retained it is likely the bulk of your questions that arose will be answered, making it far superior to reading a book in isolation. At minimum you'll get the added benefit of a FAQ, and if you're lucky you'll have an active forum and possibly even the ability to communicate with an authority.
Fourth, this is just the start. Soon these educational videos will include dynamic information. You can't show a heart pumping in a book. You can't show a sterling engine in operation in a book. It's static. With video you can show, well, video. These lectures won't stay just being a video of some professor. Eventually someone will start putting out educational video that is much richer in content and leverages what you can do with video. There are tons of things you can do with video that you can't do with a printed page.
Fifth, thanks to the feedback loops of the internet and network effects, the best videos will be found, rated highly, and rise to the top. So the best sources of information will soon be easy to find.
The current crop of videos aren't all that important. It's what they probably portend for the future that is important. Fully dynamic, multiple approach (written, visual, auditory), interactive, free, at will education.
Slashdot Mirror
Better smart than stupid as well. You didn't even read my post. I never said anything about MY tastes. I'm not an audiophile. Actually I have moderate hearing loss in one ear. That being said, even I can usually tell if something is encoded in less than 192 kpbs if it is delicate enough. I'm not a huge fan of Radiohead either. I and the other two wanted to support what Radiohead was doing and what we thought they stood for. I was willing to shell out $100 or so and wear their t-shirt to help promote destroying the cartels that are destroying so many artists. By releasing a sub-par product for the download, which was the rallying point over the whole thing, they showed that they weren't actually making a stand for enlightened self interest like I thought they were. They were just making a stand for self interest. Also, they said the "THE ALBUM" was free for download. They lied by omission as far as I am concerned when they did not clarify that. Without any other information, most people will assume that "THE ALBUM" means you get something IDENTICAL to what you would get if you bought the CD, minus the plastic disc part. And while I may not be able to tell the difference, I presume many people can, and I don't think they're assholes because they can hear the finer points that I cannot.
I was going to buy their box set to support them until I found that they album download was only 160 kbps. I thought that was a cheesy move so I gave it a pass and I know two other people who did as well for the same reason. So that's three boxed sets they didn't sell that I know of. Hard to extraplate from that of course, but I think if they had not dorked around with a low bitrate download, they would have done even better. Still, I'm glad that it looks like they've proved this business model and I think many more artists will follow suit.
If we're talking performance, it's not always the amount of code, but the nature of the code. A couple of lines of code in the wrong place can reduce effeciency by magnitudes of order. I bet the DRM code is not large in terms of lines of code, but I bet it's placed in critical locations all over the place. Even the overhead of making function calls can dramatically impact high performance loops.
I said nothing about the current crop of candidates or this go-around. You read that into my post when it was never there. I said there is still time to change things by voting. I did't say there was much chance this time around. However the internet is beginning to bear fruit when it comes to smart-mob activity and a new type of smart grass-roots efforts. Ron Paul for example is no joke. He has ammassed a large sum of money. In terms of revenue generation he beats McCain, and in terms of liquid capital he even beats Gulianni. Thanks to the massive internet driven new-age grass-roots efforts around him, he has hardly had to spend any money at all for his advertising. I can't go anywhere without seeing home made signs for him. So he'll have millions to spend on the first primaries. I'm not saying he will win, but he won't be a no-show either. He may be a sign of what is to come. If the internet begins to reinvigorate part of the voting base that has been silent up till now and they rally in nearly spontaneous but organized fashion around a candidate, then we could actually see the rise of viable alternative or 3rd party candidates.
I singled them out because your statement that the Dems are just as bad or worse is complete lunacy. The Democrats are disorganized, incompetent idiots.
The first part doesn't even make sense. You couldn't have singled Republicans out based on my statements because the first time I responded to anything you said was AFTER you had singled out Republicans! You are obviously not paying much attention to what is being said by whom and instead are lost in your emotions.
The second part is just plain ignorant. The Republicans have no real analog to the massive network known as the Shadow Democratic Party. Democrats are outraising Republicans 3 to 1. Democrats control the house. Yeah, real disorganized and incompetent.
IMO the Republicans are now mostly Fascists with deep and organized ties to corporations. Democrats are now mostly Socialists with deep and organized ties to neo-Socialists and international Communism. Go ahead and write the Democrats off as disorganized fools if that make sleep better.
Given that the download was at a low bitrate, especially for a purchased product, it was guaranteed to be pirated. They really only saw the download as a promotion for the CD, not as a new business model approach. Radiohead never intended to allow people to download a full 320 kbps (CD quality) version of their album. They really weren't quite as forward thinking as they were given credit for.
It's good to be skeptical, but I think you bordered on cynicism. IBM is no knight in shining armor, but they have not been pulling these types of stunts. Fact is IBM has been around a long time as you point out, and they have probably learned that, when it comes to standards, it's better to play nice. If everyone sees a standards body as being useless or owned by one group then it will cease to have nearly as much influence. It's not like these ISO guys have guns and are going to force people to obey their recommendations. So while politics are bound to play a part, for the ISO recommendations to carry weight with industry there has to be perceived value and fairness from the members of industry who will decide if they will follow those recommendations. IBM and others who use the ISO standards as a way of finding mutual benefit have a vested interested in protecting the reputation of the ISO processes and bodies. Microsoft doesn't care so they crashed the party and did great harm to these same bodies.
Not if IBM and the others want a standards body it won't. IBM or others could have done what MS did, but they didn't. If they try to keep it packed then the ISO standards body will die anyway and IBM and the others who actually want a standards body that the rest of the industry will accept will lose out. Worst case scenario if IBM et al didn't play ball is that the standards body ceases to function or be accepted. Not much different than their current state of affairs. If the computer industry wants to allow ISO to die then they can all go back to pushing their own propreitary systems. I'm betting they don't think that is in their own best interests. If they do think that Apple, the king of cool but proprietary, will win.
I have no idea why you are rated as Funny and not Insightful for your comment. It's the unvarnished truth. Since their bylaws didn't account for hostile action, they're screwed.
1. Have IBM and other friendlies back a lot of shills for Prefeffed membership just like Microsoft did.
2. Once you have enough friendlies to make a quorum again, kick the shills out & return their money and fix the bylaws.
3. Back out the friendlies as well, and return the money back to them as well.
4. Problem solved. Continue one with a once again functional standards body.
This idea that once an organization or business has been created that it should try to exist for the rest of eternity is stupid. Folding before you have uselessly expended all of your capital when you no longer have a viable business model and you are not structured in a manner that allows you to change business models (very hard to do), is not only smart, but it is a fudiciary duty. Throwing all that money away on a long-shot gamble to simply continue existing is silly.
Not true. Ninjas belong to clans and have to do what they're told. Pirates on the other hand are free!
It wasn't all that long ago when even the VCR wasn't a common appliance, let alone the internet. People lived in an information vacuum as little as 20 years ago compared to today. Many fans of the original show are old enough to have come from a time when if you missed a show, you missed it.
IMO these people are like (mentally/spiritually) old men. They'd rather remember an old highpoint in their life than go to the effort and possible pain that comes from experiencing new high points. This movie will allow them to remember anew the joy and fun they had when they first found the show. They can cast this into a forward looking frame, hiding from the fact that they're doing nothing more than watching the same thing over and over again.
In other words, there was an element of suspence at various levels that were in play because the show was new and carving it's won path. All of that will be missing from this movie. Not only will characters not die, but they can't even have something happen or be revealed that dramatically changes the nature of the character. We know, with perfect hindsight, who these people are.
The only way this movie can mean anything is if they set it up so that it turns into a new timeline with everything wide open again. If they don't do that then it's just another prequel.
Kate Walsh comes to mind. MySpace to iTunes to super-star with no record label behind her.
Their own population can only be customers if their population has expendable wealth. You could have a googleplex of destitute dirt farmers and not sell one iPod. The only economic system that has ever produced a large wealthy middle class is capitalism. So long as China continues to allow capitalism to be the dominant mode of production and so long as they are competitive they can use their population as customers. If this changes then it collapses.
The reason the world's capital is flowing into China instead of the USA is because the USA has become a weak place to invest your money. High tax burdens, complex tax and business codes and laws, a broken tort system, and an ever-growing socialist mentality and welfare state. Big money that knows no country goes to where it can grow the fastest. China, for all of it's problems, is a better place to grow your money.
And that, IMO, is the real reason China's economy is growing. Not because they stole our technology. It was pretty free for the taking anyway. You don't see other 3rd world nations being able to run with our technology to modernize themselves. It's because China changed it's mode of production to capitalism, and for all of it's problems is in many ways more capitalist than the USA is.
What I'm saying is that the USA finally has competition in the global market place. It's not that they stole our tech. You'll never be able to prevent that anyway. If you have a free society then the information will flow. If you do not then innovation will never happen. Catch-22. So forget regulating information. It'll never work. The only solution is to out-compete them. You can only do that allowing capital to grow faster in your economy than theirs. We are losing our status as economic super-power more due to our own decisions than China.
The problem for China is that if they become effective at imposing these draconion rules, then using the internet in any fashion will become such a risk that no one will do it. They will cripple their economic growth. The Sarbanes-Oxley can be used as a model for what happens when a country makes doing business to expensive and risky that no one wants to invest in it. In this case the USA has seen a massive shift of capital investment out of the country. The same thing will happen to China if they keep this up. The internet is becoming a critical tool of business. China cannot keep crippling it and making it worth your life to use the internet and continue to develop into a big player in the global economy.
China will have to choose between having the internet and being a world power using the tools of the 21st century, or becoming isolated from the rest of the world on all levels. The internet is becoming the primary infrastructure for a new future. The idea of becoming or staying economicaly and politically viable without it is naive and foolish. It would be like trying to become a economic and military power in the 20th century without an industrial base to build anything.
I really love the mesh network concept. That should be in the big three operating systems already. Hopefully this will spur the adaptation of this concept to the big operating systems. I can see huge uses for it, from collaborative projects to gaming and of course education.
As to your claims that malaria research (DDT anyone) and giving away food (cycles of dependancy, destroy ability to local farmers to sell food, acts as subsidies for dictators) is nevery bad, that is simply naive. There is a reason so much of the third world resembles inner city ghettos. Constant welfare destroys economies and enslaves people.
I'm with Lao Tsu on this one. Giving people only consumables and denying them knowledge and tools to better themselves is foolish. Giving the laptops away might lead to good. Giving away food except for short term disaster relief is gauranteed to promote evil.
Given Microsoft's proven track record on ethics, reliability and security, I daresay you would be hard pressed to find a better candidate to providing life-critical services such as this one. I will rest easy knowing that my medical files as secure, that they will always be available to my doctors when needed, and that all that information upon which my very life my depend will be properly stored without mistake.
Anyway, I don't think there is much controversy in saying that using multiple styles to learn isn't helpful. If you read it, say it, and then write it down then those seperate types of actions will help cement the knowledge. Reading the material and hearing the same material paraphrased differently has to improve the learning process.
First, there is a growing body of evidence that suggests different people learn better with different approaches. Not all people learn well from reading the written word. Hearing it or seeing it will provide a great benefit for speed, retention, and comprehension for many people. Just because you do well with books does not mean everyone does.
Second, a book is no more interactive than the lecture series will be. The lecture series + book is a much better combination.
Third, with the internet you will soon have blogs or interactive discussion boards around these lectures. It's just the way the internet tend to be. So it will become interactive to a lessor or greater extent. Even if you miss most of the interactive action, if the discussions are retained it is likely the bulk of your questions that arose will be answered, making it far superior to reading a book in isolation. At minimum you'll get the added benefit of a FAQ, and if you're lucky you'll have an active forum and possibly even the ability to communicate with an authority.
Fourth, this is just the start. Soon these educational videos will include dynamic information. You can't show a heart pumping in a book. You can't show a sterling engine in operation in a book. It's static. With video you can show, well, video. These lectures won't stay just being a video of some professor. Eventually someone will start putting out educational video that is much richer in content and leverages what you can do with video. There are tons of things you can do with video that you can't do with a printed page.
Fifth, thanks to the feedback loops of the internet and network effects, the best videos will be found, rated highly, and rise to the top. So the best sources of information will soon be easy to find.
The current crop of videos aren't all that important. It's what they probably portend for the future that is important. Fully dynamic, multiple approach (written, visual, auditory), interactive, free, at will education.