>And thus Hollywood is protected against independent filmmakers able to make good movies on the cheap >entering their market.
Here's the real clincher, and if I were giving the MPAA types high credit for brains, this is what I'd peg as the real reason for the legislation. Instead, they produce so much CRAP that they don't deserve the credit for thinking this cleverly. So I suspect they're asking for what they really want, for the reason they really gave.
The real issue, according to the US Constitution: To promote invention and the arts, artists and inventors are granted limited exclusive rights to their works. Most of us think that the purpose of this is twofold. First, to get them funding so they can keep inventing or artisting. Second, the patent/copyright was supposed to expire, so future inventors/artists can build on that work. So the real issue in the entire current copyright brouhaha should be how do we insure that artists are properly compensated so they can keep creating.
At the base of all of this, electronic communications, as embodied by the Internet, has turned the concept of publication on its ear. It has reduced the incremental cost of copying information to zero. Yet we still have publication industries in place, trying desperately to preserve their existence. So in an Orwellian turn, these publication industries, especially ??AA, are spending an incredible amount of time *preventing* publication. In truth, the "replication" portion of the publication industry is pretty well obsolete, leaving the "studio," "editorial," "promotional," and other such functions. Well, even the "studio" function is diminshed as electronics makes many of those capabilities much more affordable. One could argue about the fine line between "promotional" and "payola", and one could also argue, given the quality of today's media about how well they're doing with "editorial."
But this is ALL about protecting a business model. Last I knew, there was no protection in the Constitution for business models. It just needs to be exposed as this.
The old alarm date was July 1, 2005. Luckily the courts came to our rescue, and struck down the FCC's ability to impose the broadcast flag. Then there was the August scare, and I believe there was another legislative scare in there, somewhere. Now there's this one.
I do plan to write to my Representative and Senators, but at the moment, I know Leahy is squarely in the media camp, "to help the artists." (He does write back, and that's part of his pro-DRM argument.) So I know my next letter to him has to include at least "Courtney Love Does the Math" as well as the Slashdot story on RIAA shorting artists on royalties.
But I fear it's just a matter of time, if not this bill, they're going to keep trying. So I know my new alarm date to buy an HDTV card is 1+ year in the future. I have no HDTV gear, and our area only has 4 or 5 channels available, so it's worthless to me, except to future-proof my capabilities.
So I'll keep track of PCHDTV and Air2PC enhancements, and begin checking out the Fusion stuff more.
They give such good custoemr treatment. Accodring to their confirmation letter, their entire staff sings as they march MY cd to shipping, on a gold pillow. What service!
On google, "plachoritence", "entroniant", and "bleavisome" each yields only one response, the grandparent post. On the other hand, "imbiggened" and "cromulent" give at least a page, each.
On a slightly more meaningful side, our son used to pop up with some new word, and say, "That's my word for xxxx," apparently expecting us and the rest of the world to learn his invented language. While we tried to encourage creativity and independent thought, we had to discourage that one. He also likes Calvin and Hobbes, so a quote is in order, here: "With any luck, language can become a complete impediment to communication."
As a kid and young adult, I didn't get a very good impression of Ike.
As the years have gone by, learning has gradually supplanted impression, and my respect for Ike has done nothing but grow. (except for his mistress in Europe)
For IMHO the 2 most stunning instances, his warning which you quote about the military-industrial complex, and his quote written above the entrance to one of the Death Camps.
Imagine your meal telling you, "Please select me for your dining pleasure, I've been very careful with my diet, and my hindquarters are quite tender and flavorful."
Oh wait, that's been done. Not quite correct, since in RAtEoU to food was bred to deliver that opinion, as opposed to having it tacked on by the marketing department of Sirius Cybernetics. But then again, I got onto this thread by searching for "chopsticks" to see if that one had already been posted.
Nifty.sig reference to metasyntactic, I'd never heard of the term, before. I guess everyone's going to have some favorites missing on the list, like Fred and Ethel. (I'd hold them as distinct from Fred and Barney, and not complain about just Ethel being missing, because in that context one should complain about Wilma and Betty.) As for Qux, Quux, Quuux,... , clearly a Lisp origination.
I don't think MurkyWater recognized my grandparent-post as satire.
Just keep in mind that EVERY TIME someone goes to a place like Lyrics World to find the words to a song, that's revenue deprived of some poor, starving songwriter. That's because EVERY TIME someone wanted those words to a song, if places like Lyrics World hadn't existed, they would have hopped right into the car and driven to their local music (not Record/Tape/CD) store to buy a copy of the sheet music. There's NO SUCH THING as casually wondering what the words to a song are - there's only thieving and conniving to deprive starving songwriters of the ability to feed their poor children.
Clearly this move is going to enhance my enjoyment of music, and make me want to buy more.
Therefore it can't possibly be any good. We need Yet Another OSS Project to enumerate each feature in Lotus Notes to make sure mainstream OSS remains free of them. Come to think of it, Notes has address typeahead, and so does Mozilla. We'd better go purge that one, QUICKLY!
One of the difficulties of displacing Windows is that, "That's how computers work," and people don't realize that it doesn't have to be that way. Now for a few counter-examples:
We got a notice today that the license for a certain (very common) utility expires at the end of the year, so the normal software update "push" process is going to remove that software, and we will need to use an alternate. They tell us that the alternative is already in place, and may have named it, but we'll have to change habits, etc. This utility is the type of thing that's considered basic plumbing in *any* Unix or Linux.
A few years back, the corporate network was practically dead during the August virus storm - the Windows virus storm. Meanwhile those of us on Unix could barely do our jobs because the network was crawling.
You know this would never fly, and the reason is simple.
Look how much violence gets on US tv, and what happens? A little muttering about violence, and then more violence. But just watch Janet Jackson's nipple show on TV, and watch the fan REALLY turn dripping brown.
If we were to drop the love bomb on a rioting crowd, it just might work effectively. Then there might be that REAL crisis, public nudity and some of them might even *gasp* have sexual intercourse.
Remember, this is the same society that is considering witholding a vaccine for papiloma virus (a major cause of cervical cancer) because they're concerned that it might encourage promiscuity.
I read "A for Andromeda" but it was a long time ago, so I've forgotten. as for others, including yours:
1-The Traveler in "Macroscope" by Piers Anthony 2-Snow Crash in "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson 3-Syl, et al in "Species", et al, by whoever 4-For that matter, "Contact" by Carl Sagan 5-Or how about the oldie, "This Island Earth" (the interociter)
It's all "action at a distance" by shipping information. The first 2 act by merely viewing the information, the latter 3 get you to build something using the information as instructions. In (1), (2), and (5) the information was an explicit intelligence test.
There seem to be several common themes, skimming through the responses:
* The new "targeted" sets stifle open-ended creativity.
* Legos are getting to be too expensive.
* "Back to basics" is good.
* (wearing our best "Linus van Pelt at the Christmas tree lot" voice) Creativity just isn't where modern culture is at any more, and that's where classic Legos and Mindstorms really excelled.
But tumble these all together, and a simple question emerges:
How much is Lego paying for IP rights to put out sets based on Harry Potter, Star Wars, Spider Man, etc? How much of their current cost structure is tied up in molding plastic bricks, and how much in IP rights and royalties? Would Lego do better to drop it's IP-burdened toy lines, and go back to their roots? Might it be that the revenue would drop, but profitability rise?
There's another issue here, and that's generations. We buy Legos for our kids, because we played with them when we were kids, and feel they were good toys. What will our kids buy for our grandchildren?
I'd like to believe you. But I just have this feeling that saying, "ADAPT OR DIE!" to a multi-billionaire is not a personally productive operation. In the long run, that billionaire will have to ADAPT OR DIE, but in the short and medium run, he's going to cause a pile of angst and disruption while he preserves his own comfort zone. Who knows, in the long run, that billionaire may well help take the United States into third-world status. That's really the net effect of things like the "Induce Act," because it's the US turning its back on technology in favor of a misguided attempt to preserve the entertainment industry's business model. Add to that the Religious Right's war on science, and you have the US going the way of the Moslem empire a millenium or so ago.
Date of reading has some significance, especially if it's long after date of publication. Some books fade faster than the paper rots. Others don't. If you're talking about significant books, I would think that staying power would be a plus.
P.S. Sorry about the missing "o". I'm usually more of a grammar/spelling nazi, though my pet peeve is "loose" vs "lose".
You're getting to accurate/subtle/literal. I meant that I first read Verne in 1965, and that date was clearly after 1932. Another way of saying that fine literature is fine literature, regardless of when it was written.
Space Opera, silly writing, but there's a certain innocent joy to it.
Re:The Colour of Magic is a weird choice...
on
Top 20 Geek Novels
·
· Score: 1
Not Diskworld, but one that picks up both Pratchett and Gaiman, "Good Omens." I guess Gaiman is already on the list with Americal Gods, but Good Omens would kill 2 birds with one stone. Though I guess it is more for people who understood the 70's.
I read Jules Verne, and it was clearly after 1932.
Summer of 2nd grade, I went to the bookmobile with my older neighbor. I was on a submarine kick at the time, and picking out submarine books appropriate to a 2nd grader. She was several years older, and chastised me for getting, "those 2-page kids' books." In response, I checked out "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." It took me several renewals to read, and I really didn't understand it all, but I stuck to it to the end. I was a bit disappointed, because after all of the comic-book intimations of the Nautilus being nuclear-powered, ISTR it turned out to be really good batteries, pardon me, accumulators.
Perhaps it was THE turning point for me, though on can easily arguably if it hadn't been 20,000 Leagues, there would have been another science fiction book. I've read, and re-read much since then, but I've never gone back to 20,000 Leagues. One of these days I really should.
On a similar note, when she was in 5th or 6th grade, my daughter read, "The Hot Zone." I had to help her through a rough patch, telling her, "This is as gross as it gets, it won't get any worse." She's now in high school, gets great grades, and is tentatively headed toward a career in medical research.
You're right, but it should be illegal to submarine the industry like this. I'm getting up the gumption for yet another IP letter to my Senator. Since I really ought to put some constructive thoughts in, this should be one. Requiring active copyright renewal will be another.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks. It'll find its way the Senator Leahy, one of these days.
>And thus Hollywood is protected against independent filmmakers able to make good movies on the cheap
>entering their market.
Here's the real clincher, and if I were giving the MPAA types high credit for brains, this is what I'd peg as the real reason for the legislation. Instead, they produce so much CRAP that they don't deserve the credit for thinking this cleverly. So I suspect they're asking for what they really want, for the reason they really gave.
The real issue, according to the US Constitution:
To promote invention and the arts, artists and inventors are granted limited exclusive rights to their works. Most of us think that the purpose of this is twofold. First, to get them funding so they can keep inventing or artisting. Second, the patent/copyright was supposed to expire, so future inventors/artists can build on that work. So the real issue in the entire current copyright brouhaha should be how do we insure that artists are properly compensated so they can keep creating.
At the base of all of this, electronic communications, as embodied by the Internet, has turned the concept of publication on its ear. It has reduced the incremental cost of copying information to zero. Yet we still have publication industries in place, trying desperately to preserve their existence. So in an Orwellian turn, these publication industries, especially ??AA, are spending an incredible amount of time *preventing* publication. In truth, the "replication" portion of the publication industry is pretty well obsolete, leaving the "studio," "editorial," "promotional," and other such functions. Well, even the "studio" function is diminshed as electronics makes many of those capabilities much more affordable. One could argue about the fine line between "promotional" and "payola", and one could also argue, given the quality of today's media about how well they're doing with "editorial."
But this is ALL about protecting a business model. Last I knew, there was no protection in the Constitution for business models. It just needs to be exposed as this.
The old alarm date was July 1, 2005. Luckily the courts came to our rescue, and struck down the FCC's ability to impose the broadcast flag. Then there was the August scare, and I believe there was another legislative scare in there, somewhere. Now there's this one.
I do plan to write to my Representative and Senators, but at the moment, I know Leahy is squarely in the media camp, "to help the artists." (He does write back, and that's part of his pro-DRM argument.) So I know my next letter to him has to include at least "Courtney Love Does the Math" as well as the Slashdot story on RIAA shorting artists on royalties.
But I fear it's just a matter of time, if not this bill, they're going to keep trying. So I know my new alarm date to buy an HDTV card is 1+ year in the future. I have no HDTV gear, and our area only has 4 or 5 channels available, so it's worthless to me, except to future-proof my capabilities.
So I'll keep track of PCHDTV and Air2PC enhancements, and begin checking out the Fusion stuff more.
Ir CDBaby, where we order, sometimes.
They give such good custoemr treatment. Accodring to their confirmation letter, their entire staff sings as they march MY cd to shipping, on a gold pillow. What service!
Bzzzzzt.
On google, "plachoritence", "entroniant", and "bleavisome" each yields only one response, the grandparent post. On the other hand, "imbiggened" and "cromulent" give at least a page, each.
On a slightly more meaningful side, our son used to pop up with some new word, and say, "That's my word for xxxx," apparently expecting us and the rest of the world to learn his invented language. While we tried to encourage creativity and independent thought, we had to discourage that one. He also likes Calvin and Hobbes, so a quote is in order, here: "With any luck, language can become a complete impediment to communication."
Fun assertion, sounds TRUTHY to me.
As a kid and young adult, I didn't get a very good impression of Ike.
As the years have gone by, learning has gradually supplanted impression, and my respect for Ike has done nothing but grow. (except for his mistress in Europe)
For IMHO the 2 most stunning instances, his warning which you quote about the military-industrial complex, and his quote written above the entrance to one of the Death Camps.
Imagine your meal telling you, "Please select me for your dining pleasure, I've been very careful with my diet, and my hindquarters are quite tender and flavorful."
Oh wait, that's been done. Not quite correct, since in RAtEoU to food was bred to deliver that opinion, as opposed to having it tacked on by the marketing department of Sirius Cybernetics.
But then again, I got onto this thread by searching for "chopsticks" to see if that one had already been posted.
All together, now...
Springtime for Hitler, in Germany...
Wish I had mod points for the parent post.
Nifty .sig reference to metasyntactic, I'd never heard of the term, before. I guess everyone's going to have some favorites missing on the list, like Fred and Ethel. (I'd hold them as distinct from Fred and Barney, and not complain about just Ethel being missing, because in that context one should complain about Wilma and Betty.) As for Qux, Quux, Quuux, ... , clearly a Lisp origination.
I don't think MurkyWater recognized my grandparent-post as satire.
Just keep in mind that EVERY TIME someone goes to a place like Lyrics World to find the words to a song, that's revenue deprived of some poor, starving songwriter. That's because EVERY TIME someone wanted those words to a song, if places like Lyrics World hadn't existed, they would have hopped right into the car and driven to their local music (not Record/Tape/CD) store to buy a copy of the sheet music. There's NO SUCH THING as casually wondering what the words to a song are - there's only thieving and conniving to deprive starving songwriters of the ability to feed their poor children.
Clearly this move is going to enhance my enjoyment of music, and make me want to buy more.
Therefore it can't possibly be any good. We need Yet Another OSS Project to enumerate each feature in Lotus Notes to make sure mainstream OSS remains free of them. Come to think of it, Notes has address typeahead, and so does Mozilla. We'd better go purge that one, QUICKLY!
One of the difficulties of displacing Windows is that, "That's how computers work," and people don't realize that it doesn't have to be that way. Now for a few counter-examples:
We got a notice today that the license for a certain (very common) utility expires at the end of the year, so the normal software update "push" process is going to remove that software, and we will need to use an alternate. They tell us that the alternative is already in place, and may have named it, but we'll have to change habits, etc. This utility is the type of thing that's considered basic plumbing in *any* Unix or Linux.
A few years back, the corporate network was practically dead during the August virus storm - the Windows virus storm. Meanwhile those of us on Unix could barely do our jobs because the network was crawling.
I'll stop there.
You know this would never fly, and the reason is simple.
Look how much violence gets on US tv, and what happens? A little muttering about violence, and then more violence. But just watch Janet Jackson's nipple show on TV, and watch the fan REALLY turn dripping brown.
If we were to drop the love bomb on a rioting crowd, it just might work effectively. Then there might be that REAL crisis, public nudity and some of them might even *gasp* have sexual intercourse.
Remember, this is the same society that is considering witholding a vaccine for papiloma virus (a major cause of cervical cancer) because they're concerned that it might encourage promiscuity.
I read "A for Andromeda" but it was a long time ago, so I've forgotten.
as for others, including yours:
1-The Traveler in "Macroscope" by Piers Anthony
2-Snow Crash in "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson
3-Syl, et al in "Species", et al, by whoever
4-For that matter, "Contact" by Carl Sagan
5-Or how about the oldie, "This Island Earth" (the interociter)
It's all "action at a distance" by shipping information. The first 2 act by merely viewing the information, the latter 3 get you to build something using the information as instructions. In (1), (2), and (5) the information was an explicit intelligence test.
There seem to be several common themes, skimming through the responses:
* The new "targeted" sets stifle open-ended creativity.
* Legos are getting to be too expensive.
* "Back to basics" is good.
* (wearing our best "Linus van Pelt at the Christmas tree lot" voice) Creativity just isn't where modern culture is at any more, and that's where classic Legos and Mindstorms really excelled.
But tumble these all together, and a simple question emerges:
How much is Lego paying for IP rights to put out sets based on Harry Potter, Star Wars, Spider Man, etc?
How much of their current cost structure is tied up in molding plastic bricks, and how much in IP rights and royalties?
Would Lego do better to drop it's IP-burdened toy lines, and go back to their roots?
Might it be that the revenue would drop, but profitability rise?
There's another issue here, and that's generations. We buy Legos for our kids, because we played with them when we were kids, and feel they were good toys. What will our kids buy for our grandchildren?
I'd like to believe you. But I just have this feeling that saying, "ADAPT OR DIE!" to a multi-billionaire is not a personally productive operation. In the long run, that billionaire will have to ADAPT OR DIE, but in the short and medium run, he's going to cause a pile of angst and disruption while he preserves his own comfort zone. Who knows, in the long run, that billionaire may well help take the United States into third-world status. That's really the net effect of things like the "Induce Act," because it's the US turning its back on technology in favor of a misguided attempt to preserve the entertainment industry's business model. Add to that the Religious Right's war on science, and you have the US going the way of the Moslem empire a millenium or so ago.
Date of reading has some significance, especially if it's long after date of publication. Some books fade faster than the paper rots. Others don't. If you're talking about significant books, I would think that staying power would be a plus.
P.S. Sorry about the missing "o". I'm usually more of a grammar/spelling nazi, though my pet peeve is "loose" vs "lose".
You're getting to accurate/subtle/literal. I meant that I first read Verne in 1965, and that date was clearly after 1932. Another way of saying that fine literature is fine literature, regardless of when it was written.
Skylark. Seaton and Crane. Blackie DuQuesne.
Space Opera, silly writing, but there's a certain innocent joy to it.
Not Diskworld, but one that picks up both Pratchett and Gaiman, "Good Omens." I guess Gaiman is already on the list with Americal Gods, but Good Omens would kill 2 birds with one stone. Though I guess it is more for people who understood the 70's.
I read it around 76 or 77, when it was something you did to impair your Finals. Kind of like swimming with a backpack of bricks. Clearly a geek thing.
I read Jules Verne, and it was clearly after 1932.
Summer of 2nd grade, I went to the bookmobile with my older neighbor. I was on a submarine kick at the time, and picking out submarine books appropriate to a 2nd grader. She was several years older, and chastised me for getting, "those 2-page kids' books." In response, I checked out "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." It took me several renewals to read, and I really didn't understand it all, but I stuck to it to the end. I was a bit disappointed, because after all of the comic-book intimations of the Nautilus being nuclear-powered, ISTR it turned out to be really good batteries, pardon me, accumulators.
Perhaps it was THE turning point for me, though on can easily arguably if it hadn't been 20,000 Leagues, there would have been another science fiction book. I've read, and re-read much since then, but I've never gone back to 20,000 Leagues. One of these days I really should.
On a similar note, when she was in 5th or 6th grade, my daughter read, "The Hot Zone." I had to help her through a rough patch, telling her, "This is as gross as it gets, it won't get any worse." She's now in high school, gets great grades, and is tentatively headed toward a career in medical research.
You're right, but it should be illegal to submarine the industry like this. I'm getting up the gumption for yet another IP letter to my Senator. Since I really ought to put some constructive thoughts in, this should be one. Requiring active copyright renewal will be another.