A "smaller, less known band" is usually also harder to find at the p2p's.
I have to disagree somewhat. Given 15 minutes and 2 P2P nets to choose from, I can find almost anything anyone could want unless it hasn't been released yet. Maybe 6-12 months ago you might have had some difficulties.
But for the artists that I like, I would rather pirate their CD and send them the $20 directly.
Nice idea, but somehow everyone stops on the first half.
Again, 6-12 months ago maybe. I have personally in the last 3 months, purchased a 2CD album of an artist I like (Junkie XL), in which was the URL to go to the RadioJXL site, and purchase 2 more CD's worth of music for the same album for $4.95US through PayPal. Darn right I'm going to pay the artist directly.
It's the COST of things that is the bottom line. I have no doubts that (at least where I live, Western Canada) plenty of people would buy the albums if only they were less than $15-20CDN for SINGLE CD albums. Like half the price.
I buy CD's from bands live. The CDs are rarely over $10CDN, because the band themselves are directly selling them. I wouldn't be too surprised to find out they get at least half of that money as profits.
Of course, Canadian artists (unless you're known as Nickelback, Shania Twain, Celine Dion or The Barenaked Ladies) have to market like a small-town US band... or sell out to the RIAA and move in to your lovely new home in Malibu complete with live-in ho-ma's.
Hey, Eugene, This is Henry McClean And I've finished my beautiful flying machine And I'm ringing to say That I'm leaving and maybe You'd like to fly with me And hide with me, baby
Isn't it strange How little we change Isn't it sad we're insane Playing the games that we know and in tears The games we've been playing for thousands and thousands and....
Pointing to the cosmic glider "Pull this plastic glider higher Light the fuse and stand right back" He cried "This is my last good-bye."
Point me at the sky and tell it fly Point me at the sky and tell it fly Point me at the sky and tell it fly
And if you survive till two thousand and five I hope you're exceedingly thin For if you are stout you will have to breathe out While the people around you breathe in
People pressing on might say It's something that I hate to say I'm slipping down to eat the ground A little refuge on my brain
Point me at the sky and tell it fly Point me at the sky and tell it fly Point me at the sky and tell it fly
And all we've got to say to you is good-bye It's time to go, better run and get your bags, it's good-bye Nobody cry, it's good-bye Crash, crash, crash, crash, good-bye...
I'm certainly not going to be one of those folks who says an immediate 'yes' or 'no' to the question of technology turning us into things that we all know we're perfectly capable of without technology, but here is a different spin from some of the comments I've been reading:
(Keep in mind this is based on personal experiences)
- Many people do not own a landline phone unless they have ADSL.
- Many people do not use email anymore due to spam.
- Many people do not use IMs as they are far too many in number, and again have the spam issue.
This means they are often unavailable to a real-time communications, potentially emergency communications.
Some people take it to extremes, avoiding people by not using the methods they know their friends or family use, or by leaving everything to voicemail/email/IMs and simply ignoring messages. It's amazingly easy to ignore people when you have caller ID on your phones too.
Of those who do stay connected (often via every means possible), here are some behaviors I've noticed:
- Many people are getting obsessive about checking email, how much they're getting, and how they can get more without subscribing to mailing lists.
- Talking on the cellphone during obviously inappropriate and/or plain dangerous activities.
- Leaving their status as 'online' on all IMs to maybe increase the chance somebody wants to talk.
- Gotta have a landline, cellphone, PDA, MP3-man, [insert nifty new devices here].
I think more than anything, the current state of technology and communication is forcing the shy folks into hiding, and giving an amazing opportunity for all the people (worthy or not) of all that extra exposure to expose whatever it is they want to.
You're going to get morons. You're going to get brilliant individuals. And their profession really doesn't matter any more than it used to, the pace of life and the introduction of technology is simply accelerating people's reactions too.
What should we (the United States in particular and humanity in general) be doing?
Being one of those "humans" living on "earth", I have come up with a thought: If and when aliens ever come here to visit us, do you think that they will be of a singular nation on their homeworld, fighting to be the first nation-state to make first contact? Probably not.
Space travel is something that puts humans off-world. It is something that takes a human out of America, a human out of Russia, Canada, India, where-ever else is represented. There's no political borders in space (yet)...
Why do we treat our space programs like there are? An "Earth Space Agency" which is funded as a non-profit foundation would seem like a good place to start, with private and intergovernmental support.
Sure, you may end up with something akin to the slow production schedule of the ISS or something as fragmented and varied as X-Prize, but when it comes down to it, we're all going to have to work together to escape this place.;)
"NEW YORK (9/5/00) _ Umpires will get raises of 10.2 percent to 14.9 percent this year under their new five-year contract, boosting the minimum salary this season to $104,704 and the maximum to $324,545. In 2004, the contract's final season, the minimum will be $108,716, up 14.4 percent from the $95,000 minimum in 1999, the final year of the old contract."
(from: http://www.umpire.org/frames/fmlb.html)
Well, I'm in full support of robots replacing them.
I think people should look a little closer at the $6-20 million a year the players are making before they start taking jobs away from the umpires. The umpires do a fantastic job 99% of the time, I agree with those that say the machines should simply be used to keep the umpires in line, to keep a clearly defined (and competitive, instead of limited) strike zone, and potentially to select the most accurate umpires for playoff games.
It's like complaining the foley artists make $150k a year while their actor counterparts make $5-20 million a picture themselves.
But that's those two (of many) industries for you, the talent is too overpriced for the support structure.
Kids these days are spoiled. Back in the good 'ol days when we all had 14.4 modems and we had to walk fifty miles in snow and ice just to pick it up. If we wanted to talk on the phone, tough luck!
14.4 modems! Why back in my day we had 1200 baud modems, and it was a shame too, because telephones hadn't even been invented yet. Just the thought of the whole family huddling around the 8086 for warmth during the depression days... brings a tear to me old eye...
"But as Rubin and his colleagues point out, there's a real danger in this ploy, one that few people have likely thought about. 'A scenario could be imagined where an attacker would do this to delay the arrival of an important letter, to wreak havoc on the postal system for political reasons, or even worse, to serve as a diversion for a terrorist act, such as the mailing of a contaminated letter."
You know, aparently *nobody* thinks up terrorist acts until the newsmedia lets them know everything they need to know to pull one off.
It seems finally the beast of burden has reared its ugly head on MS's 'damned' policies. Finally we can put a self- in front of it.
That said, anything that overall gives customers less free choice is something we should all have concern over. Maybe MS might realise this someday...;)
NY has had metrocard for years, it's successful, disposeable...
Not to mention Starbucks, my local University's (UVic) Student Union Building, and my local mass transit system. While the transit system's card isn't so much a 'debit-style' card as it is a bus pass (you swipe it on a reader, and that's all), none of the above mentioned cards carry any personal information, and the two former cards are cards that you can put a balance on at the point of purchase.
The token is dead. Cash is dying. off topic, the dollar is dying, in particular...:)
The token is alive and kicking in arcades. No longer do they fit the machines for large sums, tokens just cost more.
But cash does seem to be dying. Funny corollary to that of course seems to be the less I carry cash with me the more I need it for the stores I'm frequenting.
Note: This is straight off the top of my head, this is opinion, but it's more of a pondering to me.
It seems that far too much importance is given to WHO is making a software, WHO is on-board (or in-bed perhaps), WHO is going to buy, WHO is shipping, WHO invested in WHO...
It seems corporate software is more about making market splashes than to provide a stable and sensible platform for future development of those projects. Money In, Money Out. Garbage In, Garbage Out.
If the companies involved aren't about making a better software industry (and to avoid argument, let's say "better" equals "more thought out, more stable for the future of software and the industry than a company"), then the products they create won't make a better industry, no matter WHO uses them.
Software has always been about HOW people use it. Not everything made was made for the largest audience, and not everything that is made for a niche audience hits its audience.
Corel was a graphics software development company (remember CorelDraw?). It was far more about real-world transferrable graphics, signs, tshirts, etc.
Why would anyone have expected it to get into Linux eventually, and even less would expect MS would ever buy into a company pushing Linux.
I'm not surprised Corel doesn't do Linux even more. I'm even less surprised that MS bailed out of Corel.
Feel free to lament the things which bind you (hey, I don't like MS either...), but some of you really need to figure out what - if anything - you stand for. I would expect this crowd to at least be capable of supporting an individual's right to overcome adversity they face.
I agree that this article has provoked a lot of spouting off before thinking, but if anything, Slashdot and every other public forum-style service, as well the users of these services, owe it to themselves and the spirit of open debate, to express the view that they may have on the issue.
While many would argue there should only be central, debate or point-counterpoint system in place for forums, Slashdot already uses several mechanisms for "weeding out" posts that you don't want to see, the only remaining issue exists is that moderators moderate, whether liberal or conservative.
The computer industry seems (to me) to breed 3 liberal thinkers for every conservative (and perhaps just as much, political leanings dictate careers or job functions). Slashdot is bound to have more liberals, as is almost any computer related forum.
I agree with your point that this man created a workable self-censoring system, and that it is the users' own decision to run it. In defence of the rampant criticism though, as I find of my own posts here on Slashdot, that they don't always "say" what I meant them to, sometimes even after previewing it. The same may be true for a good percentage of posts. After all, most users are trying to get their opinions in before the thread gets pushed down the list and forgotten.
One must have a truly impressive grasp of the English language to manipulate it successfully in such a dry, emotionless atmosphere such as an online, yet live, forum. Language can both inflame and diffuse any situation, language can hurt and heal.
Let's face it, anybody posting to an online forum has to be "literate", but they needn't be so literate as to be a diplomat or a poet. I never read Slashdot or any other open forum without the largest grain of salt imaginable.
Perhaps they want Google to buy them. It's not a horrible idea - they come up with a good idea, they implement it, they even have a Google-ish name, so Google buys it off of them.
I don't necessarily agree with this - it seems to me that Google has more to lose than to gain if they were to buy it. If people are finding and implementing their own RSS from the site, they're at least, in part, damaging the usefulness of news.google.com. Just my two cents.
That is such crap. If I wanted all the information about me to be freely available I'd write a tell-all book on myself. I don't need people being able to (for a fee, of which I see nothing and some corporate fucks do mega-business) find out about the last 10 places I lived, my current phone number and address, and all public records of aquisition and spousal arrangements.
I am downright furious that such information could be available to anybody, and no doubt several (more likely hundreds) of companies have access to this information for less $ than the web-using public do, through these services.
I don't care how free information wants to be, it depends on the information and it depends on whether the OWNER of the information (ie: information about ME is MINE - I could care less if people wanted to find out what I batted in little league or what schools I went to, but when it comes to personals like phone numbers and addresses, I get PISSED OFF) has given explicit permission for that private information to be used.
I entirely agree that public domain information should be just that, and that most information has the ability to be and should be public domain, with lack of detriment to the person or place or thing that information is about. There is a reason why it's called PERSONAL INFORMATION. It is personal, and should not be revealed to the PUBLIC. Would you like it if beside your name when you posted a/. comment were all your vital statistics, your phone number, where you lived, and the same information on any relatives? Perhaps the IP and all system information on the computer you used to post it, including a complete port scan for system software?
I think not.
I can only hope these services do not include unlisted numbers, or that they remove listings by people who request it. People have to realize that some information - even when transcripted to data form - should not be retrievable except by authorized persons.
... given how most humans generally flock to any new technologies like flies to a fresh pile of p00, one can only imagine the world in the year 2100 and beyond.
With all our lovely "Magneto-Plaz LE" personal transportation units flying through the now-charted solar system, and perhaps beyond, the interplanetary traffic jams, and a new form of commuter anger known as "Solar Flare".
That's when all of the sudden, The Powers That Be(tm) announce that all the magnetics from the units are producing a new type of pollution that is quickly destroying the natural magnetospheres of the planets and moons, and that earth is on a direct collision course for Mars.
Today will be the day they look back on as the catalyst for the destruction of the world, but hey, who doesn't want to fly a spacecraft?
I don't know anything much about such things, but doesn't it seem relatively realistic that something like this could happen? Can large amounts of foreign (manmade) magnets disrupt planetary magnetics?
Slashdot Mirror
A "smaller, less known band" is usually also harder to find at the p2p's.
I have to disagree somewhat. Given 15 minutes and 2 P2P nets to choose from, I can find almost anything anyone could want unless it hasn't been released yet. Maybe 6-12 months ago you might have had some difficulties.
But for the artists that I like, I would rather pirate their CD and send them the $20 directly.
Nice idea, but somehow everyone stops on the first half.
Again, 6-12 months ago maybe. I have personally in the last 3 months, purchased a 2CD album of an artist I like (Junkie XL), in which was the URL to go to the RadioJXL site, and purchase 2 more CD's worth of music for the same album for $4.95US through PayPal. Darn right I'm going to pay the artist directly.
It's the COST of things that is the bottom line. I have no doubts that (at least where I live, Western Canada) plenty of people would buy the albums if only they were less than $15-20CDN for SINGLE CD albums. Like half the price.
I buy CD's from bands live. The CDs are rarely over $10CDN, because the band themselves are directly selling them. I wouldn't be too surprised to find out they get at least half of that money as profits.
Of course, Canadian artists (unless you're known as Nickelback, Shania Twain, Celine Dion or The Barenaked Ladies) have to market like a small-town US band... or sell out to the RIAA and move in to your lovely new home in Malibu complete with live-in ho-ma's.
Have you ever listened to the "Fixed" CD? Most of it sounds like constantly skipping CD's to begin with!
Geeks on homegrown drugs making homegrown lava lamps...
;)
Hmm... and only a couple of week on the tail of this article...
Mostly, I think it shows the lack of diligence in people's reading of important facts, and a complete and utter lack of READING THE FREAKIN' ARTICLE ;)
Hey, Eugene,
....
This is Henry McClean
And I've finished my beautiful flying machine
And I'm ringing to say
That I'm leaving and maybe
You'd like to fly with me
And hide with me, baby
Isn't it strange
How little we change
Isn't it sad we're insane
Playing the games that we know and in tears
The games we've been playing for thousands and thousands and
Pointing to the cosmic glider
"Pull this plastic glider higher
Light the fuse and stand right back"
He cried "This is my last good-bye."
Point me at the sky and tell it fly
Point me at the sky and tell it fly
Point me at the sky and tell it fly
And if you survive till two thousand and five
I hope you're exceedingly thin
For if you are stout you will have to breathe out
While the people around you breathe in
People pressing on might say
It's something that I hate to say
I'm slipping down to eat the ground
A little refuge on my brain
Point me at the sky and tell it fly
Point me at the sky and tell it fly
Point me at the sky and tell it fly
And all we've got to say to you is good-bye
It's time to go, better run and get your bags, it's good-bye
Nobody cry, it's good-bye
Crash, crash, crash, crash, good-bye...
I'm certainly not going to be one of those folks who says an immediate 'yes' or 'no' to the question of technology turning us into things that we all know we're perfectly capable of without technology, but here is a different spin from some of the comments I've been reading:
(Keep in mind this is based on personal experiences)
- Many people do not own a landline phone unless they have ADSL.
- Many people do not use email anymore due to spam.
- Many people do not use IMs as they are far too many in number, and again have the spam issue.
This means they are often unavailable to a real-time communications, potentially emergency communications.
Some people take it to extremes, avoiding people by not using the methods they know their friends or family use, or by leaving everything to voicemail/email/IMs and simply ignoring messages. It's amazingly easy to ignore people when you have caller ID on your phones too.
Of those who do stay connected (often via every means possible), here are some behaviors I've noticed:
- Many people are getting obsessive about checking email, how much they're getting, and how they can get more without subscribing to mailing lists.
- Talking on the cellphone during obviously inappropriate and/or plain dangerous activities.
- Leaving their status as 'online' on all IMs to maybe increase the chance somebody wants to talk.
- Gotta have a landline, cellphone, PDA, MP3-man, [insert nifty new devices here].
I think more than anything, the current state of technology and communication is forcing the shy folks into hiding, and giving an amazing opportunity for all the people (worthy or not) of all that extra exposure to expose whatever it is they want to.
You're going to get morons. You're going to get brilliant individuals. And their profession really doesn't matter any more than it used to, the pace of life and the introduction of technology is simply accelerating people's reactions too.
OK, NASA still looks screwed up.
;)
[...]
What should we (the United States in particular and humanity in general) be doing?
Being one of those "humans" living on "earth", I have come up with a thought: If and when aliens ever come here to visit us, do you think that they will be of a singular nation on their homeworld, fighting to be the first nation-state to make first contact? Probably not.
Space travel is something that puts humans off-world. It is something that takes a human out of America, a human out of Russia, Canada, India, where-ever else is represented. There's no political borders in space (yet)...
Why do we treat our space programs like there are? An "Earth Space Agency" which is funded as a non-profit foundation would seem like a good place to start, with private and intergovernmental support.
Sure, you may end up with something akin to the slow production schedule of the ISS or something as fragmented and varied as X-Prize, but when it comes down to it, we're all going to have to work together to escape this place.
"NEW YORK (9/5/00) _ Umpires will get raises of 10.2 percent to 14.9 percent this year under their new five-year contract, boosting the minimum salary this season to $104,704 and the maximum to $324,545. In 2004, the contract's final season, the minimum will be $108,716, up 14.4 percent from the $95,000 minimum in 1999, the final year of the old contract."
(from: http://www.umpire.org/frames/fmlb.html)
Well, I'm in full support of robots replacing them.
I think people should look a little closer at the $6-20 million a year the players are making before they start taking jobs away from the umpires. The umpires do a fantastic job 99% of the time, I agree with those that say the machines should simply be used to keep the umpires in line, to keep a clearly defined (and competitive, instead of limited) strike zone, and potentially to select the most accurate umpires for playoff games.
It's like complaining the foley artists make $150k a year while their actor counterparts make $5-20 million a picture themselves.
But that's those two (of many) industries for you, the talent is too overpriced for the support structure.
Kids these days are spoiled. Back in the good 'ol days when we all had 14.4 modems and we had to walk fifty miles in snow and ice just to pick it up. If we wanted to talk on the phone, tough luck!
14.4 modems! Why back in my day we had 1200 baud modems, and it was a shame too, because telephones hadn't even been invented yet. Just the thought of the whole family huddling around the 8086 for warmth during the depression days... brings a tear to me old eye...
"But as Rubin and his colleagues point out, there's a real danger in this ploy, one that few people have likely thought about. 'A scenario could be imagined where an attacker would do this to delay the arrival of an important letter, to wreak havoc on the postal system for political reasons, or even worse, to serve as a diversion for a terrorist act, such as the mailing of a contaminated letter."
You know, aparently *nobody* thinks up terrorist acts until the newsmedia lets them know everything they need to know to pull one off.
It seems finally the beast of burden has reared its ugly head on MS's 'damned' policies. Finally we can put a self- in front of it.
;)
That said, anything that overall gives customers less free choice is something we should all have concern over. Maybe MS might realise this someday...
NY has had metrocard for years, it's successful, disposeable...
:)
Not to mention Starbucks, my local University's (UVic) Student Union Building, and my local mass transit system. While the transit system's card isn't so much a 'debit-style' card as it is a bus pass (you swipe it on a reader, and that's all), none of the above mentioned cards carry any personal information, and the two former cards are cards that you can put a balance on at the point of purchase.
The token is dead. Cash is dying. off topic, the dollar is dying, in particular...
The token is alive and kicking in arcades. No longer do they fit the machines for large sums, tokens just cost more.
But cash does seem to be dying. Funny corollary to that of course seems to be the less I carry cash with me the more I need it for the stores I'm frequenting.
Note: This is straight off the top of my head, this is opinion, but it's more of a pondering to me.
It seems that far too much importance is given to WHO is making a software, WHO is on-board (or in-bed perhaps), WHO is going to buy, WHO is shipping, WHO invested in WHO...
It seems corporate software is more about making market splashes than to provide a stable and sensible platform for future development of those projects. Money In, Money Out. Garbage In, Garbage Out.
If the companies involved aren't about making a better software industry (and to avoid argument, let's say "better" equals "more thought out, more stable for the future of software and the industry than a company"), then the products they create won't make a better industry, no matter WHO uses them.
Software has always been about HOW people use it. Not everything made was made for the largest audience, and not everything that is made for a niche audience hits its audience.
Corel was a graphics software development company (remember CorelDraw?). It was far more about real-world transferrable graphics, signs, tshirts, etc.
Why would anyone have expected it to get into Linux eventually, and even less would expect MS would ever buy into a company pushing Linux.
I'm not surprised Corel doesn't do Linux even more. I'm even less surprised that MS bailed out of Corel.
Feel free to lament the things which bind you (hey, I don't like MS either...), but some of you really need to figure out what - if anything - you stand for. I would expect this crowd to at least be capable of supporting an individual's right to overcome adversity they face.
I agree that this article has provoked a lot of spouting off before thinking, but if anything, Slashdot and every other public forum-style service, as well the users of these services, owe it to themselves and the spirit of open debate, to express the view that they may have on the issue.
While many would argue there should only be central, debate or point-counterpoint system in place for forums, Slashdot already uses several mechanisms for "weeding out" posts that you don't want to see, the only remaining issue exists is that moderators moderate, whether liberal or conservative.
The computer industry seems (to me) to breed 3 liberal thinkers for every conservative (and perhaps just as much, political leanings dictate careers or job functions). Slashdot is bound to have more liberals, as is almost any computer related forum.
I agree with your point that this man created a workable self-censoring system, and that it is the users' own decision to run it. In defence of the rampant criticism though, as I find of my own posts here on Slashdot, that they don't always "say" what I meant them to, sometimes even after previewing it. The same may be true for a good percentage of posts. After all, most users are trying to get their opinions in before the thread gets pushed down the list and forgotten.
One must have a truly impressive grasp of the English language to manipulate it successfully in such a dry, emotionless atmosphere such as an online, yet live, forum. Language can both inflame and diffuse any situation, language can hurt and heal.
Let's face it, anybody posting to an online forum has to be "literate", but they needn't be so literate as to be a diplomat or a poet. I never read Slashdot or any other open forum without the largest grain of salt imaginable.
As far as I know, that's the first time I've ever said that. Maybe you have me mixed up for EVERY slashdotter ;)
Perhaps they want Google to buy them. It's not a horrible idea - they come up with a good idea, they implement it, they even have a Google-ish name, so Google buys it off of them.
I don't necessarily agree with this - it seems to me that Google has more to lose than to gain if they were to buy it. If people are finding and implementing their own RSS from the site, they're at least, in part, damaging the usefulness of news.google.com. Just my two cents.
// Begin Rant
/. comment were all your vital statistics, your phone number, where you lived, and the same information on any relatives? Perhaps the IP and all system information on the computer you used to post it, including a complete port scan for system software?
// End Rant
That is such crap. If I wanted all the information about me to be freely available I'd write a tell-all book on myself. I don't need people being able to (for a fee, of which I see nothing and some corporate fucks do mega-business) find out about the last 10 places I lived, my current phone number and address, and all public records of aquisition and spousal arrangements.
I am downright furious that such information could be available to anybody, and no doubt several (more likely hundreds) of companies have access to this information for less $ than the web-using public do, through these services.
I don't care how free information wants to be, it depends on the information and it depends on whether the OWNER of the information (ie: information about ME is MINE - I could care less if people wanted to find out what I batted in little league or what schools I went to, but when it comes to personals like phone numbers and addresses, I get PISSED OFF) has given explicit permission for that private information to be used.
I entirely agree that public domain information should be just that, and that most information has the ability to be and should be public domain, with lack of detriment to the person or place or thing that information is about. There is a reason why it's called PERSONAL INFORMATION. It is personal, and should not be revealed to the PUBLIC. Would you like it if beside your name when you posted a
I think not.
I can only hope these services do not include unlisted numbers, or that they remove listings by people who request it. People have to realize that some information - even when transcripted to data form - should not be retrievable except by authorized persons.
... given how most humans generally flock to any new technologies like flies to a fresh pile of p00, one can only imagine the world in the year 2100 and beyond.
With all our lovely "Magneto-Plaz LE" personal transportation units flying through the now-charted solar system, and perhaps beyond, the interplanetary traffic jams, and a new form of commuter anger known as "Solar Flare".
That's when all of the sudden, The Powers That Be(tm) announce that all the magnetics from the units are producing a new type of pollution that is quickly destroying the natural magnetospheres of the planets and moons, and that earth is on a direct collision course for Mars.
Today will be the day they look back on as the catalyst for the destruction of the world, but hey, who doesn't want to fly a spacecraft?
I don't know anything much about such things, but doesn't it seem relatively realistic that something like this could happen? Can large amounts of foreign (manmade) magnets disrupt planetary magnetics?