Let's see: a bunch of manufacturers are getting together over a technology that largely eliminates fair use. That means consumers get less for their money when they buy CDs. That's the equivalent to raising prices. When a bunch of manufacturers get together and agree to raise prices, that's an antitrust violation. So....
Given the Bush Administration's frosty relations with Hollywood, this might even work.
Zeppelins have always made sense economically, and esthetically. But the fact that one is carrying passengers for the first time since FDR's first term shows the power of bad publicity. More people would have died in an airplane crash, but the powerful footage of a burning airship, together with the overwrought commentary of the on-the-scene journalist, has poisoned their rep for years.
This is a side of universal campus computing that doesn't get enough attention. Everyone is excited about building the networks, but the support obligations that the network creates are another question.
Probably the best you can do is to have a really good FAQ available, and then do what everyone else does: rely on the students who know what's going on to share their expertise with the ones who don't. Could the tech revolution exist at all without free customer-to-customer peer tech support?
Sue these people into bankruptcy. If they have to guarantee the accuracy of their service, they'll go broke, because it isn't that good and probably can't be.
Incidentally, Florida is a very plaintiff-friendly jurisdiction. BUWAHAHAHA!
It's called price discrimination. You segment the market to charge what the market will bear, but in different sectors.
In tech areas, you charge early-adopter types a premium. That helps you pay back R&D faster. Then, as technology ages a bit, you go for high quantity and lower margins, while rolling out the still newer and fancier stuff to grab the rich guys all over again.
Does it work? Hell, yeah. I'm writing this on a contemptibly cheap machine that would have been a supercomputer a decade ago.
I do wish I drove a Merc, though -- so long as you mean a Mercedes and not a Mercury, which is unfortunately close to what I do drive.
This is what happens when you have a capitalist government.
A capitalist government? We've never seen one of those, that's for sure.
This is what happens when you have a (more-or-less) capitalist economic system. Poor people get a lot for a bargain. Rich people pay a premium to feel special. The premium that the rich people pay help companies charge less for the lower-line products that poor people buy.
Everybody's happy. Rich people aren't forced to contribute (except by their egos) and no political bureaucracy dissipates the money being redistributed because it makes economic sense for companies to act this way.
Hurray for capitalism! Thanks for pointing this out!
Here are the facts:
1. They fix prices.
2. They screw their artists.
3. (Almost certainly) they cheat on taxes. (With their byzantine accounting system, it's hard to imagaine they wouldn't).
4. They're thugs, who are now very unpopular with young voters who Bush wants to win over, and with older voters who already like Bush.
5. They're Democrats who give Bush grief whenever they can.
Why on earth wouldn't the Justice Department go after them?
It continues to be unclear to me just exactly how smartness = world domination. Experience would seem to indicate that very high intelligence is in fact associated with a decreasing likelihood of achieving substantial political power.
Abuse is all very fine, but I'd appreciate seeing a mechanism here, not handwaving.
Oh, NOOO! When machines become supersmart, they'll run the world, because right now the smartest people are the ones who're running the world, and supersmart machines will be even -- oh, wait, never mind.
In the words of Jurgen, cleverness is not on top, and never has been.
I have post-its with fake passwords scattered all over my office. I figure anyone who tries to hack my machine will waste a lot of time trying them, and will be so absolutely sure that one of them must work that in the end he will be too emotionally exhausted from frustration to try a more intelligent approach.
There's an excellent book called "The Seven Minute Rotator Cuff Solution." After a rotator cuff tear, I got only fair results from physical therapy. The exercises in that book helped a lot, and by following their recommendations I've also avoided further problems.
The Lord of the Rings is the most influential novel of the 20th century -- Germaine Greer even admits it. And best of all, she's royally pissed about it.
On a more serious note, the author says that Tolkien is premodern in his sensibility and values. But so, really, are geeks, who tend to value rationality, loyalty to one's friends, and the notion that there's actually a difference between good and evil that can't be argued away by flip, pseudo-profound philosophizing.
Which is probably why Greer, et al., hate LOTR so much.
Payola in radio is legal, if it's disclosed. The illegality is in doing it without disclosure. The real story here is the likely consequences for the industry.
RIAA has already quietly settled some price-fixing and racketeering suits, I hear. Regardless, they are now vulnerable to all sorts of lawsuits from independent record companies, listeners, etc.
In addition, the Bush Administration may seek payback by beginning fraud and racketeering investigations. After all, the entertainment industry leans heavily Democratic, and its leaders are always calling for more regulation of (other) businesses.
"Microsoft Senior Vice President Craig Mundie set off a compelling debate recently when he
discussed Microsoft's Shared Source Philosophy, which blends the sharing of source code with
the preservation of intellectual property rights."
It works this way: You share YOUR source code. We preserve OUR intellectual property rights.
It keeps saying fiber is thinner than steel. Do they mean that it has a higher tensile strength than steel, allowing less cross-section to carry the same load? Is this true?
Any day now, some plaintiffs' lawyer will find someone who says "I went to see the movie because of the review, and the movie was awful." Instant class action suit!
I won't feel that sorry for Sony, either, given that they belong to MPAA, which has been litigious enough.
Using email, phone records, etc., they create "friendship trees," which are very useful in many ways. Not only for the obvious, but for patterns that don't seem to make sense in context.
Daniel 2000 is right. Experiments are not the same as showpiece demonstrations. It's the fear of bad publicity for "failures" that has slowed aerospace progress to a crawl. Back in the 50s, when it was OK to fail, we made huge progress.
MPAA will lose. DMCA will be found unconstitutional, not on First Amendment grounds, but because it goes beyond Congress's patent and copyright powers.
Funny how when things like Intellectual Property stand in the way of individual creativity, big companies talk about the majesty of the law. But when things like, well, Real Property stand in the way of big companies, they become mere technicalities.
Doing squats has been the best thing for me -- I don't use a lot of weight, just 100-150 lbs. But it forces you to hold the right posture. Abdominal exercises (crunches, leg raises) help, too, and so do stretches. But you have to do it regularly, several times a week. For short term relief, ibuprofen is great, but beware: it can give you ulcers, and usually there is NO warning before they appear. You're taking it, feeling fine, and then, all of a sudden, one day it feels like somebody is trying to dig their way out of your stomach with a dull screwdriver.
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Let's see: a bunch of manufacturers are getting together over a technology that largely eliminates fair use. That means consumers get less for their money when they buy CDs. That's the equivalent to raising prices. When a bunch of manufacturers get together and agree to raise prices, that's an antitrust violation. So.... Given the Bush Administration's frosty relations with Hollywood, this might even work.
Zeppelins have always made sense economically, and esthetically. But the fact that one is carrying passengers for the first time since FDR's first term shows the power of bad publicity. More people would have died in an airplane crash, but the powerful footage of a burning airship, together with the overwrought commentary of the on-the-scene journalist, has poisoned their rep for years.
This is a side of universal campus computing that doesn't get enough attention. Everyone is excited about building the networks, but the support obligations that the network creates are another question. Probably the best you can do is to have a really good FAQ available, and then do what everyone else does: rely on the students who know what's going on to share their expertise with the ones who don't. Could the tech revolution exist at all without free customer-to-customer peer tech support?
oh, yeah. Absolutely! How come they all quit(well, except for Scott Adams, so far) and Cathy, Garfield, and Mary Worth just keep rolling along?
My fantasy is to have Dilbert, Calvin & Hobbes, & Bloom County all running at once.
Sue these people into bankruptcy. If they have to guarantee the accuracy of their service, they'll go broke, because it isn't that good and probably can't be. Incidentally, Florida is a very plaintiff-friendly jurisdiction. BUWAHAHAHA!
It's called price discrimination. You segment the market to charge what the market will bear, but in different sectors. In tech areas, you charge early-adopter types a premium. That helps you pay back R&D faster. Then, as technology ages a bit, you go for high quantity and lower margins, while rolling out the still newer and fancier stuff to grab the rich guys all over again. Does it work? Hell, yeah. I'm writing this on a contemptibly cheap machine that would have been a supercomputer a decade ago. I do wish I drove a Merc, though -- so long as you mean a Mercedes and not a Mercury, which is unfortunately close to what I do drive.
This is what happens when you have a capitalist government. A capitalist government? We've never seen one of those, that's for sure. This is what happens when you have a (more-or-less) capitalist economic system. Poor people get a lot for a bargain. Rich people pay a premium to feel special. The premium that the rich people pay help companies charge less for the lower-line products that poor people buy. Everybody's happy. Rich people aren't forced to contribute (except by their egos) and no political bureaucracy dissipates the money being redistributed because it makes economic sense for companies to act this way. Hurray for capitalism! Thanks for pointing this out!
Here are the facts: 1. They fix prices. 2. They screw their artists. 3. (Almost certainly) they cheat on taxes. (With their byzantine accounting system, it's hard to imagaine they wouldn't). 4. They're thugs, who are now very unpopular with young voters who Bush wants to win over, and with older voters who already like Bush. 5. They're Democrats who give Bush grief whenever they can. Why on earth wouldn't the Justice Department go after them?
It continues to be unclear to me just exactly how smartness = world domination. Experience would seem to indicate that very high intelligence is in fact associated with a decreasing likelihood of achieving substantial political power. Abuse is all very fine, but I'd appreciate seeing a mechanism here, not handwaving.
Oh, NOOO! When machines become supersmart, they'll run the world, because right now the smartest people are the ones who're running the world, and supersmart machines will be even -- oh, wait, never mind. In the words of Jurgen, cleverness is not on top, and never has been.
You get what you pay for.
I have post-its with fake passwords scattered all over my office. I figure anyone who tries to hack my machine will waste a lot of time trying them, and will be so absolutely sure that one of them must work that in the end he will be too emotionally exhausted from frustration to try a more intelligent approach.
There's an excellent book called "The Seven Minute Rotator Cuff Solution." After a rotator cuff tear, I got only fair results from physical therapy. The exercises in that book helped a lot, and by following their recommendations I've also avoided further problems.
In fact, he should hit all the big media companies with AT. They're Democrats anyway, so he should enjoy it! Oh, and it's the right thing to do, too.
The Lord of the Rings is the most influential novel of the 20th century -- Germaine Greer even admits it. And best of all, she's royally pissed about it. On a more serious note, the author says that Tolkien is premodern in his sensibility and values. But so, really, are geeks, who tend to value rationality, loyalty to one's friends, and the notion that there's actually a difference between good and evil that can't be argued away by flip, pseudo-profound philosophizing. Which is probably why Greer, et al., hate LOTR so much.
Payola in radio is legal, if it's disclosed. The illegality is in doing it without disclosure. The real story here is the likely consequences for the industry. RIAA has already quietly settled some price-fixing and racketeering suits, I hear. Regardless, they are now vulnerable to all sorts of lawsuits from independent record companies, listeners, etc. In addition, the Bush Administration may seek payback by beginning fraud and racketeering investigations. After all, the entertainment industry leans heavily Democratic, and its leaders are always calling for more regulation of (other) businesses.
"Microsoft Senior Vice President Craig Mundie set off a compelling debate recently when he discussed Microsoft's Shared Source Philosophy, which blends the sharing of source code with the preservation of intellectual property rights." It works this way: You share YOUR source code. We preserve OUR intellectual property rights.
It keeps saying fiber is thinner than steel. Do they mean that it has a higher tensile strength than steel, allowing less cross-section to carry the same load? Is this true?
Any day now, some plaintiffs' lawyer will find someone who says "I went to see the movie because of the review, and the movie was awful." Instant class action suit! I won't feel that sorry for Sony, either, given that they belong to MPAA, which has been litigious enough.
Using email, phone records, etc., they create "friendship trees," which are very useful in many ways. Not only for the obvious, but for patterns that don't seem to make sense in context.
Daniel 2000 is right. Experiments are not the same as showpiece demonstrations. It's the fear of bad publicity for "failures" that has slowed aerospace progress to a crawl. Back in the 50s, when it was OK to fail, we made huge progress.
MPAA will lose. DMCA will be found unconstitutional, not on First Amendment grounds, but because it goes beyond Congress's patent and copyright powers.
Funny how when things like Intellectual Property stand in the way of individual creativity, big companies talk about the majesty of the law. But when things like, well, Real Property stand in the way of big companies, they become mere technicalities.
Doing squats has been the best thing for me -- I don't use a lot of weight, just 100-150 lbs. But it forces you to hold the right posture. Abdominal exercises (crunches, leg raises) help, too, and so do stretches. But you have to do it regularly, several times a week. For short term relief, ibuprofen is great, but beware: it can give you ulcers, and usually there is NO warning before they appear. You're taking it, feeling fine, and then, all of a sudden, one day it feels like somebody is trying to dig their way out of your stomach with a dull screwdriver.