First of all, they're not charging $0.25 a song. They're charging a flat monthly fee that divides out to that number only if you download exactly that number of songs every month. If you download fewer, you're screwed, and if next month you want to download a lot of songs, you can't. That's a crappy way to do business. If they ran an Apple-style $0.25/song $2.50/album kind of deal, I'd sign up and use it as avidly as I use the Apple Music Store. But this is a ripoff.
And these business decisions have NOTHING to do with musicians making money from their work. Record companies have, for decades, ensured that musicians make little or no money from their work and are continuing to do so. I'm a blues/jazz/original country musician and listener. The musicians I download from eMusic (or rather used to download) are mostly dead. And when they were alive, the criminal record companies robbed them blind. Barring a few who've successfully sued the thugs that ran those companies, their estates STILL don't make any money from their music.
I'm sorry, but I can find no moral argument whatsoever in favor of wannabe mobsters with no musical talent who lived or are living in luxury while the musicians that made them their fortunes die in poverty.
It only seems that way because everyone is white. Please. This business looks like a 1950s lunch counter in Alabama. White progrmmers collect their stock options, Black and Hispanic workers employed by sham non-union companies serve the coffee and clean up the trash.
Isn't it a fundamental precept of cryptography that any algorithm dependent on hiding the details of its operation is not secure? That a strong algorithm is strong only if it cannot be broken no matter how much you know about how it works? Why would the same not apply to search algorithms?
I think it's obvious that the digital revolution has had less impact on our lives than things like running water, electricity, or medical advances.
Medicine has certainly had a bigger impact on my life, in that I still have one. I had appendicitis when I was nine. If I'd lived in one of those charming historical periods we love to read novels about, I probably would have died then.
Furthermore, why do technology tycoons donate computers and software (often their own products) to schools rather than trying to genuinely help them? Or instead of donating money to organizations trying to vaccinate children, feed people, or providing disaster relief?
I really don't think my ability to order from amazon.com or check my email on a wireless Pilot is anywhere near as significant, interesting, or historical as inventing a vaccine for polio or bringing clean running water to a community. The comparison is, in fact, ludicrous.
"A new federal law limits our ability to accept registrations at this time from children under 13 years of age. We are contacting you because your registration information indicates that you are under 18 years old. Please be advised that on April 20, 2000, we will terminate all existing acconts that are registered as under 18, in order to comply with the new laws."
I presume this is because I usually fill those registration forms by bouncing on Tab and Down-Arrow, picking the first thing on each drop down.
Too late? Does it matter? It's a dollar short, or rather, about a megabuck short. Netscape 4 did indeed suck, both as a browser for the user and as a programming environment. Layers, feh! The new release adds to those charming features a relentless commercialized approach pumping AOL and Netscape that's reminiscient of Microsoft at its worst.
The plug-and-plug approach is going to irritate users, while developers will probably continue having to endure the awful object model, layers (feh!) and so on.
Meanwhile, Microsoft's latest release, IE 5 for the Mac, is elegant, works very well, and has some new features that are actually useful (the Scrapbook, for instance).
It doesn't look good. It's also disappointing that this is going to be a first look at an open source product for so many people.
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And these business decisions have NOTHING to do with musicians making money from their work. Record companies have, for decades, ensured that musicians make little or no money from their work and are continuing to do so. I'm a blues/jazz/original country musician and listener. The musicians I download from eMusic (or rather used to download) are mostly dead. And when they were alive, the criminal record companies robbed them blind. Barring a few who've successfully sued the thugs that ran those companies, their estates STILL don't make any money from their music.
I'm sorry, but I can find no moral argument whatsoever in favor of wannabe mobsters with no musical talent who lived or are living in luxury while the musicians that made them their fortunes die in poverty.
It only seems that way because everyone is white. Please. This business looks like a 1950s lunch counter in Alabama. White progrmmers collect their stock options, Black and Hispanic workers employed by sham non-union companies serve the coffee and clean up the trash.
Isn't it a fundamental precept of cryptography that any algorithm dependent on hiding the details of its operation is not secure? That a strong algorithm is strong only if it cannot be broken no matter how much you know about how it works? Why would the same not apply to search algorithms?
Medicine has certainly had a bigger impact on my life, in that I still have one. I had appendicitis when I was nine. If I'd lived in one of those charming historical periods we love to read novels about, I probably would have died then.
Furthermore, why do technology tycoons donate computers and software (often their own products) to schools rather than trying to genuinely help them? Or instead of donating money to organizations trying to vaccinate children, feed people, or providing disaster relief?
I really don't think my ability to order from amazon.com or check my email on a wireless Pilot is anywhere near as significant, interesting, or historical as inventing a vaccine for polio or bringing clean running water to a community. The comparison is, in fact, ludicrous.
The plug-and-plug approach is going to irritate users, while developers will probably continue having to endure the awful object model, layers (feh!) and so on.
Meanwhile, Microsoft's latest release, IE 5 for the Mac, is elegant, works very well, and has some new features that are actually useful (the Scrapbook, for instance).
It doesn't look good. It's also disappointing that this is going to be a first look at an open source product for so many people.