This I have noticed. Often I have to get a number of encodes to find one done right. From the artists point of view this probably is a good thing.
This really is just a sideline though. The whole point of this really is about how hard the music is to get. Copy protection will just turn into an incentive for people to consider other options.
If what is out there is easy and flexible, then most of the people are going to pay most of the time. Longer term this is what the Majors really should be looking at. More loyal customers. Why give them a reason to consider otherwise?
I guess that is why I say it is lame at best. There are no good endings down this path...
Well someone probably is willing and that is really all it takes. Also you could use your machine while doing the initial audio capture.
Really the only time cost is interactive time either during capture setup, and then again during encode. If you do the whole album or a preset number of tracks, neither time is significant.
If not then there would be some additional time splitting tracks and such.
Some drives will digitally capture with error correction at the lower speeds. I have an HP and when ripping at 1 or 2X it handles errors. (This was on scratched media so I am hoping it is the same.... (maybe not)
Good post. The do it on paper rule was the same one I was subject to. Makes a lot of sense today.
Another way to look at it: You are at your job interview and someone wants to know your opinion of some figures and graphs. As they slide across the desk you either....
1.) Panic because you did not bring your calculator because it just screamed "geek!" with your nice new suit. So you bullsh*t and hope it works. (You can always have your machine at your desk so who cares right?)
2. Calmly look things over, do some quick mental math to understand the limits of what you are looking at and make some conclusions. You say something that actually matters and that leads to an interesting conversation and your new job.
Kids *need* to develop important skills through 8th grade. Computers need to be a part, but not early on. (games are enough!) Time spent reading writing and thinking is time spent honing ones mind. Time well spent.
My own childhood was spent in a small town in the country. Lots of time playing in the woods, reading, exploring, camping, sports etc... School was similar. Nothing high tech, but the learning happened anyway. Today, plenty of things are easy without using a computer, and I like it that way.
Not sure yet if this is bad or good. Right now I am leaning on the bad side, but I can see some positives.
If they make the cheap (and they better be cheap) limited use discs avaliable in a timely manner compared to the full copies, it would be a nice way to preview media intended for long term ownership. I don't mind paying $20 for a DVD containing worthy content, if I can know its worth.
Problem with this is I fear a price hike on the non limited media as an incentive to keep people buying the limited ones. Long term this is the better outcome for them.
Entertainment media is not the whole story though.
What about other media? Software and data in general worries me more. Imagine your limted use OS installation media! !?! Or your class materials distributed for one time installation with per machine node locked license key!
So in general, my concern is that people will have less ability to purchase large quantities of data for long term use. Or that some types of data are only published for short term use. Right now they have little choice. Either actually put it on long term media or don't offer it. This tech changes that.
Very true. I'll bet that the actual number of people that actually do anything is similar to the ones marketing people throw around. 1 - 2 percent response or something similar.
Yes, I did send mine. I like the policy of filtering out redundant and irrelevant comments. What is left over should provide some valuable insight as to what exactly people think about this whole thing.
One thing for sure, this whole thing is never dull, just when you think you can see the outcome good or bad, it takes a turn in an unexpected direction. Overall I have good feelings about this. Maybe our system sort of works, just slowly...
Re:If you think popups are bad...
on
Think And Click
·
· Score: 1
You are probably right, but still I can think of a lit of lame hacks that might work on different people. Mostly it was just a funny thought.
(Ended up long, so moved it to my journal, I would be interested in the discussion.)
This may be a bit redundant, but I thought I would describe the online service that I want and would be very willing to pay for a long time.
Access to complete music catalogs. Each year there is a lot of good music made and we only get to hear a small part of it. Sure you can go through and order imports and obscure artists, but all in all the depth of music avaliable for easy purchase is sharply limited when considering what it could be.
Priority downloads. This helps compete with the peer to peer systems while at the same time rewarding those who pay for the service and broadband internet.
Quality encodes. For the dialup users be sure to offer the 128Kbps, but at least use VBR and a good encoder. For the priority subscribers, offer higher bitrates. I believe that most people can hear the difference. It may be true that a lot of them don't care, but offering the higher bit rates is a win-win because they could get more money per month for them. Given a chance to sell something for very little effort that is almost pure profit, it is foolish not to make the offer.
Unencumberd file formats. Nobody is going to keep paying for their music that they had to invest time and money in downloading. Besides that, how many people actually sit down at the computer to listen to their music? Not very many compared to the ones that use portables, or their car.
CD compilation options. Maybe paying for broadband is too much or unavaliable. Don't want to miss out on those potential customers. Make an option where they can choose what they want and get it mailed to them on CD. Price it so that the average user gets a CD a month at about half the cost of broadband. This way everyone has a chance at being attracted to the service. Someone sending e-mail and surfing might just skip broadband if they can get that content via CD on request. This could also include software like the computer mags are doing, or other media. The idea here being really simple. Offer people a reasonable way to get what they want and a high percentage of them will pay for it.
User profile agents. If they use the data for what it is intended to do, this feature would have high value for most people. Imagine after a few months filling out your most wanted collection you get some suggestions and they actually hit the mark! More reason to continue using the service. Share your new music with your friends and tell them where you got it.
Referral bonus. Goes with the above. Encourage and exploit the coolness of P to P. The more the merrier. Maybe get a month free or something when you are mentioned as the referring agent. Tie this in with retail marketing campaigns and you will get an appreciable audience. Open up your new CD-RW and in the software package included are 10 free tunes / one month trial deals that encourage people to take a look.
My tunes site where I can review and self-pimp music I think is interesting, or horrible whatever. This is where the suggestions and interaction with the agents happen. (Don't email with special offers unless I want them.)
Retail CD tie-ins. Buying CDs should be cheaper for priority members. Those really wanting to enjoy the music on the go are probably wanting to create CDs and share with friends so, save us time! Make getting that CD easy and less
expensive then delaing with a retailer who may or may not have the thing. Since there is one less distribution mouth to feed, pass the cost on and reap the benefits of happy listeners.
Local media tie-ins. Have to share the bandwidth somewhat. Provide a means where local content providers or ISPs or maybe fan clubs can host priority content. The vast catalog will be centralized so anyone can get to it, but allowing communities to form enhances the word of mouth effect in any local area. Small artists might find themselves popular in a few cities so why not go on tour and know there are fans waiting to pay?
Tip the artist. Allow for a simple way to say thanks to an artist that might deserve it.
Reward program to encourage more purchases. Once you get people paying for the service, and actually buying CDs full of content on a regular basis, give them another reason or two to stay on for a while. Early releases from their favorite artists, downloadable high quality cover art or posters that sort of thing. Just mailing free posters to the younger crowd would be catchy enough for a lot of them. Early notification and avaliability of concert seating would be another nice reward for actually using the service.
Once the thing is rolling, you suddenly have a whole lot of things that you don't have right now with the traditional radio and promotional channels.
Done right, this sort of thing will allow various communities to evolve. It will be possible to market and promote more artists with a higher degree of success. Addressing different segments of the population will be possible and probably worth doing.
All of this assumes that the current RIAA group and its power over the industry remains unchanged. (Personally I want reform in this area.) But if I were them, and wanted to keep my position, the things I mentioned above would be the things I would be hard at work doing.
Re:If you think popups are bad...
on
Think And Click
·
· Score: 1
Dude, you do not even want to go there. Since you are just an AC, I can let that slide, but if you want any real discussion about the merits good or bad or IRIX, why don't you try getting out your slash account, logging in and backing some of that trash up.
If you think popups are bad...
on
Think And Click
·
· Score: 4, Funny
Just wait until someone discovers that by displaying a shocking image, they can trigger the click.
Some poor schmuck triggers the wrong thing, gets trapped in the pr0n maze and ends up in the hospital with 'schizoid forced feedback syndrome'.
After the various lawsuits work their way through the system...
Someone else will come out with 'web blinders' for the safe calm web experience. No one should surf without them, or Peace of mind is a precious thing, preserving it with Web Blinders is the easiest most effective investment toward your future sanity you can make today.
As a matter of fact I do. Own three of them. Great little machines. Use them for programming, software testing and support, internet communication, mp3 playing, cd burning, and analog media capture both video and audio.
Got them for a song. They have proven their worth to me over and over again.. Like I mentioned earlier in the parent post. Something designed to perform a given task *right* retains its working value long after other machines are forgotten. These little guys will basically keep doing what I want them to until the hardware actually breaks.
The thing I like most about the Indy is the form factor. There is so much in such a small space. The only thing missing from the package is a slightly faster CPU. The best you can get is R5K 180... (Good, but not great.)
Have been looking the O2 over lately.... Hmm back to work!
They have lowered the bar for entry for many people who could use an Octane, but don't need the higher end options avaliable. This machine combined with their O300 scalable server line and the new VizServer products will open a lot of new doors for SGI. They are working very hard at improving price / performance and it shows in this product as well as their O300 line of machines currently shipping.
For those doing the MHZ thing while bitching about the price, forget it. This is a visual workstation. For those doing modeling, imaging, MCAD, and other graphical tasks, Fuel is hard to beat. There are things that even older IRIX machines do easily that give todays PC the fits. I use them all the time and they are worth what you pay for stability, long life, and capability.
Think of it this way also: You will now be able to get re-maunfactured Octane machines, with very good GFX systems for a lot cheaper in the next coming months. Given the very long life of these machines, that can only be a good thing.
These attributes are what holistic design gives you. Sure the price is higher, but you do get exactly what you pay for... For an example, look at Apple. Say what you want, but they are doing very well while copying what SGI has always done for years. Slowly the 'market' (read: masses) are beginning to figure out that this approach has long term value.
Basically you almost never throw an SGI machine away. When used for one of the specialized tasks they are built for, they continue to be useful long after they should be.
A little off topic, but look at Apple machines and realize that they will be good for making DVDs a long time from now. 5 years from now an older G4 with the DVD drive will still have nice value because it gets the DVD tasks done right. This is how SGI machines have almost always been.
So pay more now, but if the purchase actually reflects the strengths of the machine, you pay a hell of a lot less later.
There is more coming this year I'll bet, it should be an interesting one for SGI!
Not opposed to pay per play
on
Pay to Play
·
· Score: 1
Client should be cheap though. I can't see paying $50, then paying by the month, then possibly not liking the game.
This does not worry me nuch though. There will always be alternatives. Online gamers include people willing to invest in the tech to get the gaming experience.
Games that let people host their own servers will always be popular if only for LAN parties.
Wonder if there is any kind of push from the big ISPs to limit their customers real need for servers....
One point in the article was right on. Managing your media time is hard at times. Particularly bad times. Escape is easy. This problem is not totally the viewers fault though. A lot of it has to do with how television is structured today.
Recently I got rid of the Dish Network system in my home. For about 2 months, the family went basically nuts. More fights, and more sleep. After a while, things changed. The kids began to use the computer more for reading, chatting, and of course, games.
After about a year or so of this, I have noted some real changes. The family in general does more things together, homework is actually getting done, and the kids enjoy sports more and they actually read! (both online and books) We all still like our television, but now everyone has focused on the thing or two that they really want to watch, rather than watching everything all the time. The perception about television has changed for the better.
As a kid, I did not have cable. Just broadcast television. Watched everything of interest, but also was outdoors a lot, and in front of the computer a lot. A lot like the family is now. Later on when cable became avaliable, I noticed the demands on my time. There was so much to relate to! My viewing went way up, but my enjoyment did not in general. Sure there are good things on cable, but a whole lot of time is spent either choosing, or waiting not actually watching with real interest.
So there is something to the large number of channels that changes TV for people. You go from the perception that there may be something good on tonght, to a feeling that you are always missing something good. I now know the truth in this. 150 channels means 148 channels full of crap at any one time. Not really any different from broadcast television in the practical sense, but the perception is very different, and that perception changes habits. Hey! it's the syndication tax!
So to wind this up and go a shade off topic, I miss premium television, but am annoyed by the fact that it is not offered without all the crap. Kind of like a PC without windows. Hard to find.
Most people here really don't like the idea of pay per view, but in the context of television, it would be a very good thing provided that one would be able to actually choose what they want to view. Producers would have to compete on the merits of what they produce without the filler programming filling in the dead time. I would easily pay the same dollars for some choice as to what comes in and what does not.
The media companies know this so, pay per view will be added to the endless wave of junket media being pimped right now as the "best in quality home entertainment" or some other equally mind numbing crap, when it could be a vehicle to make TV enjoyable and manageable again.
Tv is addictive by its very nature. Problem is that the producers exploit this feature rather than actually produce quality programming.
So for now, I will remain a jaded television consumer looking the TiVo over closely while finding other interesting things to do.
I should have known better. Every time someone says: "There are X kinds of...." There is always going to be someone else who says: "But there really are x of...."
It should be by the household. If I have 5 computers, and 5 potential users in my own home, then I should pay for my home to be connected at the rates quoted.
Now if I take my connection, and use wireless to spray the block and let the neighbors share, thats a problem.
It works this way with most everything else, why not Internet?
Slashdot Mirror
Cringley is wrong.
Apple is about holistic system design. Sure you pay a little more initially, but you pay a lot less later because of the quality of the design.
For new users Apple is a great choice. Nowhere near the number of potential issues waiting to hose things up.
Apple has identified a clear niche and is making money at it, why would they give that up?
This I have noticed. Often I have to get a number of encodes to find one done right. From the artists point of view this probably is a good thing.
This really is just a sideline though. The whole point of this really is about how hard the music is to get. Copy protection will just turn into an incentive for people to consider other options.
If what is out there is easy and flexible, then most of the people are going to pay most of the time. Longer term this is what the Majors really should be looking at. More loyal customers. Why give them a reason to consider otherwise?
I guess that is why I say it is lame at best. There are no good endings down this path...
Well someone probably is willing and that is really all it takes. Also you could use your machine while doing the initial audio capture.
Really the only time cost is interactive time either during capture setup, and then again during encode. If you do the whole album or a preset number of tracks, neither time is significant.
If not then there would be some additional time splitting tracks and such.
Some drives will digitally capture with error correction at the lower speeds. I have an HP and when ripping at 1 or 2X it handles errors. (This was on scratched media so I am hoping it is the same.... (maybe not)
Totally, if someone actually has to do a little work, then the encode is probably going to matter to them.
Never thought of that part of it!
Good post. The do it on paper rule was the same one I was subject to. Makes a lot of sense today.
Another way to look at it: You are at your job interview and someone wants to know your opinion of some figures and graphs. As they slide across the desk you either....
1.) Panic because you did not bring your calculator because it just screamed "geek!" with your nice new suit. So you bullsh*t and hope it works. (You can always have your machine at your desk so who cares right?)
2. Calmly look things over, do some quick mental math to understand the limits of what you are looking at and make some conclusions. You say something that actually matters and that leads to an interesting conversation and your new job.
No brainer.
Again and again. Good quality analog in mix with nice encode software result: Almost perfect compressed file out. No big deal.
So it takes a little more work. How long will it take for someone to automate this process like the digital ripping one before?
Move on..
Kids *need* to develop important skills through 8th grade. Computers need to be a part, but not early on. (games are enough!) Time spent reading writing and thinking is time spent honing ones mind. Time well spent.
My own childhood was spent in a small town in the country. Lots of time playing in the woods, reading, exploring, camping, sports etc... School was similar. Nothing high tech, but the learning happened anyway. Today, plenty of things are easy without using a computer, and I like it that way.
I don't like the environmental concerns either, but since broadband delivery methods are going to need to develop more it makes some sense.
Heck, for $10 a month, send me the top few releases and I will watch them as I have time. Saves some gas and hassle with the rental store.
Not sure yet if this is bad or good. Right now I am leaning on the bad side, but I can see some positives.
If they make the cheap (and they better be cheap) limited use discs avaliable in a timely manner compared to the full copies, it would be a nice way to preview media intended for long term ownership. I don't mind paying $20 for a DVD containing worthy content, if I can know its worth.
Problem with this is I fear a price hike on the non limited media as an incentive to keep people buying the limited ones. Long term this is the better outcome for them.
Entertainment media is not the whole story though.
What about other media? Software and data in general worries me more. Imagine your limted use OS installation media! !?! Or your class materials distributed for one time installation with per machine node locked license key!
So in general, my concern is that people will have less ability to purchase large quantities of data for long term use. Or that some types of data are only published for short term use. Right now they have little choice. Either actually put it on long term media or don't offer it. This tech changes that.
What is it? Did they just say the product was bad, or were there things stated that go deeper?
The willingness to persue this action really makes me wonder what they actually have to hide.
Very true. I'll bet that the actual number of people that actually do anything is similar to the ones marketing people throw around. 1 - 2 percent response or something similar.
Only 15000? I know the potential for more is clearly there.
It only took and hour to compose and submit mine. That is not a lot of time.
Anyone have any good ideas for incentives to encourage this sort of thing short of experiencing the consequenses?
Yes, I did send mine. I like the policy of filtering out redundant and irrelevant comments. What is left over should provide some valuable insight as to what exactly people think about this whole thing.
One thing for sure, this whole thing is never dull, just when you think you can see the outcome good or bad, it takes a turn in an unexpected direction. Overall I have good feelings about this. Maybe our system sort of works, just slowly...
You are probably right, but still I can think of a lit of lame hacks that might work on different people. Mostly it was just a funny thought.
(Ended up long, so moved it to my journal, I would be interested in the discussion.)
This may be a bit redundant, but I thought I would describe the online service that I want and would be very willing to pay for a long time.
Access to complete music catalogs. Each year there is a lot of good music made and we only get to hear a small part of it. Sure you can go through and order imports and obscure artists, but all in all the depth of music avaliable for easy purchase is sharply limited when considering what it could be.
Priority downloads. This helps compete with the peer to peer systems while at the same time rewarding those who pay for the service and broadband internet.
Quality encodes. For the dialup users be sure to offer the 128Kbps, but at least use VBR and a good encoder. For the priority subscribers, offer higher bitrates. I believe that most people can hear the difference. It may be true that a lot of them don't care, but offering the higher bit rates is a win-win because they could get more money per month for them. Given a chance to sell something for very little effort that is almost pure profit, it is foolish not to make the offer.
Unencumberd file formats. Nobody is going to keep paying for their music that they had to invest time and money in downloading. Besides that, how many people actually sit down at the computer to listen to their music? Not very many compared to the ones that use portables, or their car.
CD compilation options. Maybe paying for broadband is too much or unavaliable. Don't want to miss out on those potential customers. Make an option where they can choose what they want and get it mailed to them on CD. Price it so that the average user gets a CD a month at about half the cost of broadband. This way everyone has a chance at being attracted to the service. Someone sending e-mail and surfing might just skip broadband if they can get that content via CD on request. This could also include software like the computer mags are doing, or other media. The idea here being really simple. Offer people a reasonable way to get what they want and a high percentage of them will pay for it.
User profile agents. If they use the data for what it is intended to do, this feature would have high value for most people. Imagine after a few months filling out your most wanted collection you get some suggestions and they actually hit the mark! More reason to continue using the service. Share your new music with your friends and tell them where you got it.
Referral bonus. Goes with the above. Encourage and exploit the coolness of P to P. The more the merrier. Maybe get a month free or something when you are mentioned as the referring agent. Tie this in with retail marketing campaigns and you will get an appreciable audience. Open up your new CD-RW and in the software package included are 10 free tunes / one month trial deals that encourage people to take a look.
My tunes site where I can review and self-pimp music I think is interesting, or horrible whatever. This is where the suggestions and interaction with the agents happen. (Don't email with special offers unless I want them.)
Retail CD tie-ins. Buying CDs should be cheaper for priority members. Those really wanting to enjoy the music on the go are probably wanting to create CDs and share with friends so, save us time! Make getting that CD easy and less
expensive then delaing with a retailer who may or may not have the thing. Since there is one less distribution mouth to feed, pass the cost on and reap the benefits of happy listeners.
Local media tie-ins. Have to share the bandwidth somewhat. Provide a means where local content providers or ISPs or maybe fan clubs can host priority content. The vast catalog will be centralized so anyone can get to it, but allowing communities to form enhances the word of mouth effect in any local area. Small artists might find themselves popular in a few cities so why not go on tour and know there are fans waiting to pay?
Tip the artist. Allow for a simple way to say thanks to an artist that might deserve it.
Reward program to encourage more purchases. Once you get people paying for the service, and actually buying CDs full of content on a regular basis, give them another reason or two to stay on for a while. Early releases from their favorite artists, downloadable high quality cover art or posters that sort of thing. Just mailing free posters to the younger crowd would be catchy enough for a lot of them. Early notification and avaliability of concert seating would be another nice reward for actually using the service.
Once the thing is rolling, you suddenly have a whole lot of things that you don't have right now with the traditional radio and promotional channels.
Done right, this sort of thing will allow various communities to evolve. It will be possible to market and promote more artists with a higher degree of success. Addressing different segments of the population will be possible and probably worth doing.
All of this assumes that the current RIAA group and its power over the industry remains unchanged. (Personally I want reform in this area.) But if I were them, and wanted to keep my position, the things I mentioned above would be the things I would be hard at work doing.
Dude, you do not even want to go there. Since you are just an AC, I can let that slide, but if you want any real discussion about the merits good or bad or IRIX, why don't you try getting out your slash account, logging in and backing some of that trash up.
Just wait until someone discovers that by displaying a shocking image, they can trigger the click.
Some poor schmuck triggers the wrong thing, gets trapped in the pr0n maze and ends up in the hospital with 'schizoid forced feedback syndrome'.
After the various lawsuits work their way through the system...
Someone else will come out with 'web blinders' for the safe calm web experience. No one should surf without them, or Peace of mind is a precious thing, preserving it with Web Blinders is the easiest most effective investment toward your future sanity you can make today.
You are dead on, the Viz products are going to change how high-end visualization gets done. Too bad it did not make the front page...
As a matter of fact I do. Own three of them. Great little machines. Use them for programming, software testing and support, internet communication, mp3 playing, cd burning, and analog media capture both video and audio.
Got them for a song. They have proven their worth to me over and over again.. Like I mentioned earlier in the parent post. Something designed to perform a given task *right* retains its working value long after other machines are forgotten. These little guys will basically keep doing what I want them to until the hardware actually breaks.
The thing I like most about the Indy is the form factor. There is so much in such a small space. The only thing missing from the package is a slightly faster CPU. The best you can get is R5K 180... (Good, but not great.)
Have been looking the O2 over lately.... Hmm back to work!
They have lowered the bar for entry for many people who could use an Octane, but don't need the higher end options avaliable. This machine combined with their O300 scalable server line and the new VizServer products will open a lot of new doors for SGI. They are working very hard at improving price / performance and it shows in this product as well as their O300 line of machines currently shipping.
For those doing the MHZ thing while bitching about the price, forget it. This is a visual workstation. For those doing modeling, imaging, MCAD, and other graphical tasks, Fuel is hard to beat. There are things that even older IRIX machines do easily that give todays PC the fits. I use them all the time and they are worth what you pay for stability, long life, and capability.
Think of it this way also: You will now be able to get re-maunfactured Octane machines, with very good GFX systems for a lot cheaper in the next coming months. Given the very long life of these machines, that can only be a good thing.
These attributes are what holistic design gives you. Sure the price is higher, but you do get exactly what you pay for... For an example, look at Apple. Say what you want, but they are doing very well while copying what SGI has always done for years. Slowly the 'market' (read: masses) are beginning to figure out that this approach has long term value.
Basically you almost never throw an SGI machine away. When used for one of the specialized tasks they are built for, they continue to be useful long after they should be.
A little off topic, but look at Apple machines and realize that they will be good for making DVDs a long time from now. 5 years from now an older G4 with the DVD drive will still have nice value because it gets the DVD tasks done right. This is how SGI machines have almost always been.
So pay more now, but if the purchase actually reflects the strengths of the machine, you pay a hell of a lot less later.
There is more coming this year I'll bet, it should be an interesting one for SGI!
Wonder if I can cheat and make a little cash?
Seriously, how many are going to think the same?
Client should be cheap though. I can't see paying $50, then paying by the month, then possibly not liking the game.
This does not worry me nuch though. There will always be alternatives. Online gamers include people willing to invest in the tech to get the gaming experience.
Games that let people host their own servers will always be popular if only for LAN parties.
Wonder if there is any kind of push from the big ISPs to limit their customers real need for servers....
One point in the article was right on. Managing your media time is hard at times. Particularly bad times. Escape is easy. This problem is not totally the viewers fault though. A lot of it has to do with how television is structured today.
Recently I got rid of the Dish Network system in my home. For about 2 months, the family went basically nuts. More fights, and more sleep. After a while, things changed. The kids began to use the computer more for reading, chatting, and of course, games.
After about a year or so of this, I have noted some real changes. The family in general does more things together, homework is actually getting done, and the kids enjoy sports more and they actually read! (both online and books) We all still like our television, but now everyone has focused on the thing or two that they really want to watch, rather than watching everything all the time. The perception about television has changed for the better.
As a kid, I did not have cable. Just broadcast television. Watched everything of interest, but also was outdoors a lot, and in front of the computer a lot. A lot like the family is now. Later on when cable became avaliable, I noticed the demands on my time. There was so much to relate to! My viewing went way up, but my enjoyment did not in general. Sure there are good things on cable, but a whole lot of time is spent either choosing, or waiting not actually watching with real interest.
So there is something to the large number of channels that changes TV for people. You go from the perception that there may be something good on tonght, to a feeling that you are always missing something good. I now know the truth in this. 150 channels means 148 channels full of crap at any one time. Not really any different from broadcast television in the practical sense, but the perception is very different, and that perception changes habits. Hey! it's the syndication tax!
So to wind this up and go a shade off topic, I miss premium television, but am annoyed by the fact that it is not offered without all the crap. Kind of like a PC without windows. Hard to find.
Most people here really don't like the idea of pay per view, but in the context of television, it would be a very good thing provided that one would be able to actually choose what they want to view. Producers would have to compete on the merits of what they produce without the filler programming filling in the dead time. I would easily pay the same dollars for some choice as to what comes in and what does not.
The media companies know this so, pay per view will be added to the endless wave of junket media being pimped right now as the "best in quality home entertainment" or some other equally mind numbing crap, when it could be a vehicle to make TV enjoyable and manageable again.
Tv is addictive by its very nature. Problem is that the producers exploit this feature rather than actually produce quality programming.
So for now, I will remain a jaded television consumer looking the TiVo over closely while finding other interesting things to do.
Noooo! User hell, let me outta here!
...." There is always going to be someone else who says: "But there really are x of ...."
I should have known better. Every time someone says: "There are X kinds of
Sheesh.
It should be by the household. If I have 5 computers, and 5 potential users in my own home, then I should pay for my home to be connected at the rates quoted.
Now if I take my connection, and use wireless to spray the block and let the neighbors share, thats a problem.
It works this way with most everything else, why not Internet?