What an intriguing idea. The article really whet my curiosity. Then to find, as is all too common for scientific journals, that I can't read the damned paper itself without "buying" it. How anti-climatic.
Does anyone have further insight into their ideas?
"the very real question of whether the military should be manipulating domestic media.""
You can't be serious. Of course the military should have a media relations group: media relations is all about language and manipulation of the facts. That is normal and reasonable.
Bribing the media, however, is the "real question". This is a question of ethics, and has less to do with the military than it has to do with freedom of the press. When government is bribing the press, free press is put on notice.
Analogies to Fox news cheapen the weight of this discussion. While Fox is a mouth piece for US government, it is not paid to do this, and that is a significant distinction. They operate within the market, and make alot of money as a propaganda outlet. If the market had been fundamentally altered such that only propagandists could be successful, again you'd have a fair comparison.
The breakdown in cost is quite misleading: what is the cash flow? Are the labels getting 80% of that money, and then portioning it out to their "marketing", their "overhead", etc, etc? I mean, all these breakdowns are just BS that the labels use to justify their bloat.
The biggest thing that I see? The artist makes 10% out of the total sales price of the album, and I assume that is a "generous" deal for the artist. You know, this isn't unusual. Think of the cocaine farmers in Columbia. Think of the factory workers in China. I mean, this kind of stuff *does* happen.
The comical part about this is that artists, who are a wealthy, well connected, and thus should be a powerful group, haven't staged a coup against the labels. Sports players, for example, get FAR better deals than artists. Looks like technology will save their asses, but they should have saved themselves long ago.
I suppose things must be framed as epic battles in order to make them dramatic and interesting. Otherwise, we would just be reading an article about Nvidia not having a clue. I mean, that is obvious, isn't it? Graphics hardware is absolutely out of control. The Wii is proof positive of the start of a change in the industry, meanwhile Nvidia is stuck in the past cycle.
Yes, ridiculously overpowered graphics cards are absurd. This has been true for years: just look at game reviews. With all the settings at maximum, the top tier cards run 60+ fps. That is way more than anyone can ever appreciate, and yet review sites have been living in a make-believe land, along with the card makers, that 10 points more somehow matters.
None of this means PC gaming is dead, by any stretch of the imagination. This is a dead horse, and to try to turn the mistakes Nvidia is making into some kind of broad statement about PC gaming takes quite a leap of logic and sense. You know, consoles have graphics cards too...
What you are reflecting is interesting: the erosion of social programs by the people who benefited the most from them. In the US, we don't really have social programs in any meaningful way that would make sense to the Social Democracies of Europe, so our young people aren't seeing the same thing. In fact, the closest we get to that is the push to close down public education itself -- so you could say we are on a very different place on the curve of the erosion of social cohesion.:)
In the US, I think you have to go back around 100 years before you can seriously start talking about a generation that has had a hard time in life. The boomers, Gen X, and millenials all have had roughly similar experiences in the US. I imagine boomers in Europe, however, generally had extremely difficult circumstances: whether a firebombed London or a pillaged France, it isn't exactly conducive to an upbringing of opportunities. Our millenials, on the whole, are considered spoiled simply because they are pretty far removed, from a historical perspective, of knowing hardship.
It is good you have a chip on your shoulder, and all that, but part of your attitude is misguided. This notion about how you shouldn't give a shit about where you work needs a change. In other words, you need to start your own business, live off the grid, or find a job where you *do* give a shit. Any other solution, and you just end up being a loser. And this nonsense about your student debt: please, no it is time for you to keep up. My wife and I have twice that much debt, and that is from graduating *12* years ago. Yes, that means 12 years of payments, and we have a long, long way to go.
Wouldn't it be strange if a community held a vote to stop voting all together?
You say let the community decide on censorship or not -- but censorship clearly restricts the freedoms of some. It is equivelent to allowing the community the right to gag those who think against the standard.
Censorship for Freedom is doublespeak. Voting against the right *for all* to vote is not democracy.
Slashdot Mirror
What an intriguing idea. The article really whet my curiosity. Then to find, as is all too common for scientific journals, that I can't read the damned paper itself without "buying" it. How anti-climatic.
Does anyone have further insight into their ideas?
"the very real question of whether the military should be manipulating domestic media.""
You can't be serious. Of course the military should have a media relations group: media relations is all about language and manipulation of the facts. That is normal and reasonable.
Bribing the media, however, is the "real question". This is a question of ethics, and has less to do with the military than it has to do with freedom of the press. When government is bribing the press, free press is put on notice.
Analogies to Fox news cheapen the weight of this discussion. While Fox is a mouth piece for US government, it is not paid to do this, and that is a significant distinction. They operate within the market, and make alot of money as a propaganda outlet. If the market had been fundamentally altered such that only propagandists could be successful, again you'd have a fair comparison.
The breakdown in cost is quite misleading: what is the cash flow? Are the labels getting 80% of that money, and then portioning it out to their "marketing", their "overhead", etc, etc? I mean, all these breakdowns are just BS that the labels use to justify their bloat.
The biggest thing that I see? The artist makes 10% out of the total sales price of the album, and I assume that is a "generous" deal for the artist. You know, this isn't unusual. Think of the cocaine farmers in Columbia. Think of the factory workers in China. I mean, this kind of stuff *does* happen.
The comical part about this is that artists, who are a wealthy, well connected, and thus should be a powerful group, haven't staged a coup against the labels. Sports players, for example, get FAR better deals than artists. Looks like technology will save their asses, but they should have saved themselves long ago.
I suppose things must be framed as epic battles in order to make them dramatic and interesting. Otherwise, we would just be reading an article about Nvidia not having a clue. I mean, that is obvious, isn't it? Graphics hardware is absolutely out of control. The Wii is proof positive of the start of a change in the industry, meanwhile Nvidia is stuck in the past cycle.
Yes, ridiculously overpowered graphics cards are absurd. This has been true for years: just look at game reviews. With all the settings at maximum, the top tier cards run 60+ fps. That is way more than anyone can ever appreciate, and yet review sites have been living in a make-believe land, along with the card makers, that 10 points more somehow matters.
None of this means PC gaming is dead, by any stretch of the imagination. This is a dead horse, and to try to turn the mistakes Nvidia is making into some kind of broad statement about PC gaming takes quite a leap of logic and sense. You know, consoles have graphics cards too...
What you are reflecting is interesting: the erosion of social programs by the people who benefited the most from them. In the US, we don't really have social programs in any meaningful way that would make sense to the Social Democracies of Europe, so our young people aren't seeing the same thing. In fact, the closest we get to that is the push to close down public education itself -- so you could say we are on a very different place on the curve of the erosion of social cohesion.
In the US, I think you have to go back around 100 years before you can seriously start talking about a generation that has had a hard time in life. The boomers, Gen X, and millenials all have had roughly similar experiences in the US. I imagine boomers in Europe, however, generally had extremely difficult circumstances: whether a firebombed London or a pillaged France, it isn't exactly conducive to an upbringing of opportunities. Our millenials, on the whole, are considered spoiled simply because they are pretty far removed, from a historical perspective, of knowing hardship.
It is good you have a chip on your shoulder, and all that, but part of your attitude is misguided. This notion about how you shouldn't give a shit about where you work needs a change. In other words, you need to start your own business, live off the grid, or find a job where you *do* give a shit. Any other solution, and you just end up being a loser. And this nonsense about your student debt: please, no it is time for you to keep up. My wife and I have twice that much debt, and that is from graduating *12* years ago. Yes, that means 12 years of payments, and we have a long, long way to go.
Wouldn't it be strange if a community held a vote to stop voting all together?
You say let the community decide on censorship or not -- but censorship clearly restricts the freedoms of some. It is equivelent to allowing the community the right to gag those who think against the standard.
Censorship for Freedom is doublespeak. Voting against the right *for all* to vote is not democracy.
Regards,
Brian Basgen