It's funny, the other day I had the exact oppostie experience. Someone in a car stopped me to ask directions to a place just a few blocks away. I gave them said directions and then had to stop and retract:
"Wait, those are walking directions. You've gotten yourself into a maze of one way streets. In a car I don't how you get there from here."
After a few seconds of thought I was able to send them in a big, mile long circle to get back to a spot I could have jogged to in about 30 seconds.
Reminds me of the time I was standing on Boylston Street in Boston and could see Mass Ave from where I was, but it took me over 20 minutes to drive there.
I'm not saying this is true of every US city - certainly people seem to walk in New York, for example
Been down to "The City" recently as it happens. I was telling a friend about my trip, starting at The Daily Show studio on W 52nd, down to CBs in the East Village, back to The Daily Show studio, down to Baggot Inn in the West Village, back to The Daily Show. About 15 miles in all. She started talking about the trials and tribulations of the NYC subway system.
"No, no," I said. "I walk."
"Ooooooh!" she replied. "You act like a native." (And technically I am)
Anyway, I'd posit that America's health problems are related to this, but not directly. In America you will find people who drive to the mall, take the elevator to the second floor gym; and then spend half an hour on a Stairmaster thingy.
This is really fucking bizarre behavior.
Americans, on the whole, even the obese Ding Dong eaters, are neurotically obsessed with health. This leads to behavior such as that noted above, and others such as the psychological reduction of food to some sort of medicine. "Take your six almonds a day to fight cancer."
But the one thing they absolutely will not do is simply live in a natural, healthy manner, and the combo of this with a health obsession makes them sick. It kills a lot of them.
What they will do is create/form alliances with distribution centers such as Napster and iTunes, but they cannot form an alliance with the channels of distribution, because said channel is now called "The Internet."
They cannot monopolize the Internet. I can write a song, record it and offer it for distribution to the world market all in under half an hour without moving more than a few feet from where I sit right now, because I have personal ownership and control of all the means. I am a completely equal player with the RIAA.
This does not merely upset their business model, it makes them irrelevant unless they can offer me a better deal than that which I can create for myself; and the very alliances they have created demonstrate this fact.
I was talking to a young man in a coffehouse in upstate NY a few nights ago. In the past year he has sold 20,000 CDs through Lulu, most of them in Japan. Of what possible relevance is the RIAA to this young man who was able to produce and distribute his work right from his mom's basement?
Bumped into an old friend just yesterday. She said goodbye to me. She was on her way to join her husband in Nashville who has just been picked up for distribution by a non RIAA indie label. Picked up for distribution. The CD being distributed, through the tradtional brick and mortar channels, already existed, having already been produced and marketed by my friend. He owes the label nothing and had to assign them no rights other the right to copy and distribute. Of what possible relevance is the RIAA to this person?
This is the reason for all the bizarre new laws being pushed. They have nothing at all to do with piracy, as stated by the OP. They are an attempt to maintain a monopoly on the distribution channel by law.
Because without those laws the RIAA and its ilk are irrelevant on the ground already, no matter what sort of "alliances with the channels of distribution" they might make. They are nothing but maintainers of the old catalog for which they have already acquired rights. Hence the various "Disney" laws expanding their rights to monoploize said catalog.
their job is promoting bands, mastering recordings, and vending them. How exactly does selling their stuff online through Napster demonstrate their irrelevance?
Because anyone can do that over the internet.
The labels used to own the recording studios and were the sole effective means to gain access to the marketing and distribution channels and could leverage this into coercing away artist's rights.
Now you can build your own recording studio for less than what making a demo in somebody else's used to cost (and if you've got a computer you can do wonders with only a few hundred dollars), put up a website, get a MySpace page and put your stuff out there for the world. There are also now a number of online "labels" that will help you do this if you feel you want that sort of thing.
And all without signing away your first born and copyrights.
Do you think that teeny boppers aren't going to buy Brittney through this channel?
Sure they will, but Britney doesn't need the labels anymore either. To maintain relevance they're going to have to provide some sort of real advantage over rolling your own, because their monopoly is not merely their business model, but their relevance.
A home run is when you are at bat, and you score a run.
Which you do by running the bases without getting touched by the ball. It's the only way to score a run.
Ruth did this despite being drunk and overweight, because he could hit with enough power to make up for his being drunk and overweight, he could thus run at leisure, and often enough to make up for his many strikeouts.
He was known for knocking balls out of the park, or at least out of the outfield - he was a power hitter.
And I know of no way to predict that Blockbuster won't knock one out the park sometime in the next few years, unlike Ruth they ain't dead yet, or that lean and fit Netflix won't fuck up and strike out.
I wouldn't invest in either one, as they both have some serious problems to face and may simply not be here in five years time.
Not hard to beat the ball anywhere when you have scored a home run
A home run is defined as having beaten the ball to home plate. It doesn't matter what the ball is doing, you have to run the bases and touch home plate without being touched by the ball.
If you want to change metaphors, though, that's fine...
Any number of metaphors are possible. They are illustrative, not identity. If conditions change (drunk and overweight) I shall chose an appropriate illustration.
Ok, look, if were to bet who was going to be ahead at the end of the year (the actual parameters set by the article) I would certainly go with Netflix. If, however, you asked me to bet who was going to come out ahead in five years I would refuse. It is far from certain.
I am not Nexflix customer, so I am not a Netflix fanboy. However, neither am I a Blockbuster customer or fanboy.
A challange was issued in the form of a question. I simply supplied an answer to that question. Blockbuster has certain advantages that Netflix does not have. If they blow them that is no nevermind to me. I have no stake in the result, nor do I even care about the result.
Then they blindly assume that it will never work in linux.
And this assumption is likely correct.
Well, you are different, you want different things. Don't try to give them something they don't want.
On the whole I do not, which was my point actually, although I cannot offer any guaruntee that what they want is actually desirable, or even possible.
not all people are rational
My mother, for instance, wants little pieces of PVC pipe to infuse her drinking water with magical powers. Not only is this not going to work, but it is impossible to explain to her why it won't work because she desires what she wants more than she desires what is possible.
I'm afraid I do not deal with this problem by becoming her PVC pipe pusher.
That's the only way you would be certain that it arrived and that no one changed the message.
Because this end is not the desired goal. This end is knowledge of the delivery status, not guaranteed delivery. The two are rather different.
What he is really asking for is the right to assume delivery, a priori, without evidence of such, but life is, like it or not, uncertain. He might slip and break his neck on his way to hand delivering his message. The people who do best in this world are those who develop viable strategies for coping with things going wrong.
If this life is causing you to drink Sittin' 'round what's the use what to think Well I've got some consolation Give it to you if I might I don't worry 'bout a thing, becuase. . .
As a business user I need something that has guaranteed, secure delivery. I don't care how it is done, but that's what I need.
Because you don't know how it's done you will not understand the explanation of why that is not possible in this universe.
Perhaps what we need are business users who understand that the universe contains no guarantees and how to deal with that simple fact. Might I suggest the use of return reciepts? That's how they do it with snailmail too. It at least gives you some knowledge of the delivery status.
I've said it before: Linux's popularity depends on what it wants to be.
Linux wants to be all things to all men who use it. It is anything and all things that people make of it, because it is free and open.
That is the point of software freedom.
To say it needs to be this or that instead of something else is not only to miss the point, but to put it in shackles. Bondage is Freedom, Brother. As it is, however, we can have both Slack at the console and Linspire with it's Windows GUI clone.
There is no such thing as a user, anymore than there is really a family with 2.4 children. Linux does not "want" anything. It's just software. The person sitting at the keyboard wants something. Different people, want different things.
The rub, of course, is that only those capable of doing software development develop software, but in the same light only carpenters can make chairs. That doesn't meant that all chairs should be the same because not everyone is a carpenter.
If you are not a carpenter and desire a chair with certain feature, simply hire someone to make it for you.
Perhaps the problem is not the develpers, per se, but that the "users" have not fully comprehended that, unlike Windows, you can hire Linux "carpenters" to make it pretty much as you wish it to be, because they have come to think of software as something fixed and immutable by the commercial firms.
BlockBuster is avout as behind the times as mullets and flannel.
I like flannel. It is not behind the times. It is a timeless classic.
Do you have any idea how much trouble I'm having right now trying to find a replacement for my trench coat? I'm told "nobody" wears them anymore. It's all single breasted baggies in the stores now. I might have to have Burberry make me a custom, or switch to Aussie dusters.
Excuuuuuuuuuuuuse me for being "behind the times."
Either I am quite lucky, or, more likely, most people getting throttled are burning discs and returning them unwatched
And most people getting burned by Blockbuster are people who simply don't get their tapes back on time.
Most people don't watch 30 movies a month.
I don't every month. In fact I go months at a time without even turning on the set, but when I watch about all I watch are movies, so I can go far more than 30 in a month. Don't burn non of 'em. Ok, I've got VHS copies of Fearless Vampire Killers, Remo Williams and Tank on VHS taped off of cable. So sue me.
By the way, I don't use either Netflix or Blockbuster, so I have no personal stake in the issue. I just answered a question is all.
The article states that Netflix is signing up customers at a quicker rate than BB is.
In an endurance race being slow off the line is often a decent predictor of the winner. Rent Hidalgo.
People who do not play high-performance games might not want to pay $100-$600 for a graphics card.
Well, what we're discussing here is a "high end" S3 at $100 in direct competition with ATI/Nvidia gear and only sold to geeks through Newegg, ain't we?
Unless you're one of those people who thinks $99 isn't $100. Maybe back in the day when $100 would buy you a $99 video card and a Coke to install it by.
Slashdot Mirror
The chicken came first.
KFG
Q.E.D.
KFG
like advertising speech could somehow be "improper".
Jesus, I'd like to just see some proper advertising speech again before I die.
Old school proper advertising speech:
"Our car has more hp than either Ford or Chevy. It's better. Buy it."
Modern school improper advertising speech:
"Look at my dog's ass. Ugly, ain't it?"
Old school proper advertising speech:
"I'm hot. Buy this car and I'm yours, big boy."
Modern school improper advertising speech:
"I hate that car."
What's with that "silly little fairy" ad? 'Cause any car she doesn't like I ain't buyin', 'cause I want that hot, little bitch ridin' with me.
There's something very funny going on in the world of "marketing" these days.
KFG
It's funny, the other day I had the exact oppostie experience. Someone in a car stopped me to ask directions to a place just a few blocks away. I gave them said directions and then had to stop and retract:
"Wait, those are walking directions. You've gotten yourself into a maze of one way streets. In a car I don't how you get there from here."
After a few seconds of thought I was able to send them in a big, mile long circle to get back to a spot I could have jogged to in about 30 seconds.
Reminds me of the time I was standing on Boylston Street in Boston and could see Mass Ave from where I was, but it took me over 20 minutes to drive there.
I'm not saying this is true of every US city - certainly people seem to walk in New York, for example
Been down to "The City" recently as it happens. I was telling a friend about my trip, starting at The Daily Show studio on W 52nd, down to CBs in the East Village, back to The Daily Show studio, down to Baggot Inn in the West Village, back to The Daily Show. About 15 miles in all. She started talking about the trials and tribulations of the NYC subway system.
"No, no," I said. "I walk."
"Ooooooh!" she replied. "You act like a native." (And technically I am)
Anyway, I'd posit that America's health problems are related to this, but not directly. In America you will find people who drive to the mall, take the elevator to the second floor gym; and then spend half an hour on a Stairmaster thingy.
This is really fucking bizarre behavior.
Americans, on the whole, even the obese Ding Dong eaters, are neurotically obsessed with health. This leads to behavior such as that noted above, and others such as the psychological reduction of food to some sort of medicine. "Take your six almonds a day to fight cancer."
But the one thing they absolutely will not do is simply live in a natural, healthy manner, and the combo of this with a health obsession makes them sick. It kills a lot of them.
Call it the Howard Huges Syndrome.
KFG
What they will do is create/form alliances with distribution centers such as Napster and iTunes, but they cannot form an alliance with the channels of distribution, because said channel is now called "The Internet."
They cannot monopolize the Internet. I can write a song, record it and offer it for distribution to the world market all in under half an hour without moving more than a few feet from where I sit right now, because I have personal ownership and control of all the means. I am a completely equal player with the RIAA.
This does not merely upset their business model, it makes them irrelevant unless they can offer me a better deal than that which I can create for myself; and the very alliances they have created demonstrate this fact.
I was talking to a young man in a coffehouse in upstate NY a few nights ago. In the past year he has sold 20,000 CDs through Lulu, most of them in Japan. Of what possible relevance is the RIAA to this young man who was able to produce and distribute his work right from his mom's basement?
Bumped into an old friend just yesterday. She said goodbye to me. She was on her way to join her husband in Nashville who has just been picked up for distribution by a non RIAA indie label. Picked up for distribution. The CD being distributed, through the tradtional brick and mortar channels, already existed, having already been produced and marketed by my friend. He owes the label nothing and had to assign them no rights other the right to copy and distribute. Of what possible relevance is the RIAA to this person?
This is the reason for all the bizarre new laws being pushed. They have nothing at all to do with piracy, as stated by the OP. They are an attempt to maintain a monopoly on the distribution channel by law.
Because without those laws the RIAA and its ilk are irrelevant on the ground already, no matter what sort of "alliances with the channels of distribution" they might make. They are nothing but maintainers of the old catalog for which they have already acquired rights. Hence the various "Disney" laws expanding their rights to monoploize said catalog.
KFG
their job is promoting bands, mastering recordings, and vending them. How exactly does selling their stuff online through Napster demonstrate their irrelevance?
Because anyone can do that over the internet.
The labels used to own the recording studios and were the sole effective means to gain access to the marketing and distribution channels and could leverage this into coercing away artist's rights.
Now you can build your own recording studio for less than what making a demo in somebody else's used to cost (and if you've got a computer you can do wonders with only a few hundred dollars), put up a website, get a MySpace page and put your stuff out there for the world. There are also now a number of online "labels" that will help you do this if you feel you want that sort of thing.
And all without signing away your first born and copyrights.
Do you think that teeny boppers aren't going to buy Brittney through this channel?
Sure they will, but Britney doesn't need the labels anymore either. To maintain relevance they're going to have to provide some sort of real advantage over rolling your own, because their monopoly is not merely their business model, but their relevance.
KFG
If everyone stops buying/watching/listening to anything **AA controlled. . .
it proves we're all just a bunch of pirates.
KFG
All the time sitting in your real. . .
van, looking for a hotspot down by the river.
KFG
A home run is when you are at bat, and you score a run.
Which you do by running the bases without getting touched by the ball. It's the only way to score a run.
Ruth did this despite being drunk and overweight, because he could hit with enough power to make up for his being drunk and overweight, he could thus run at leisure, and often enough to make up for his many strikeouts.
He was known for knocking balls out of the park, or at least out of the outfield - he was a power hitter.
And I know of no way to predict that Blockbuster won't knock one out the park sometime in the next few years, unlike Ruth they ain't dead yet, or that lean and fit Netflix won't fuck up and strike out.
I wouldn't invest in either one, as they both have some serious problems to face and may simply not be here in five years time.
KFG
Not hard to beat the ball anywhere when you have scored a home run
A home run is defined as having beaten the ball to home plate. It doesn't matter what the ball is doing, you have to run the bases and touch home plate without being touched by the ball.
If you want to change metaphors, though, that's fine...
Any number of metaphors are possible. They are illustrative, not identity. If conditions change (drunk and overweight) I shall chose an appropriate illustration.
Ok, look, if were to bet who was going to be ahead at the end of the year (the actual parameters set by the article) I would certainly go with Netflix. If, however, you asked me to bet who was going to come out ahead in five years I would refuse. It is far from certain.
I am not Nexflix customer, so I am not a Netflix fanboy. However, neither am I a Blockbuster customer or fanboy.
A challange was issued in the form of a question. I simply supplied an answer to that question. Blockbuster has certain advantages that Netflix does not have. If they blow them that is no nevermind to me. I have no stake in the result, nor do I even care about the result.
I get my DVDs from the local public library.
KFG
Then they blindly assume that it will never work in linux.
And this assumption is likely correct.
Well, you are different, you want different things. Don't try to give them something they don't want.
On the whole I do not, which was my point actually, although I cannot offer any guaruntee that what they want is actually desirable, or even possible.
not all people are rational
My mother, for instance, wants little pieces of PVC pipe to infuse her drinking water with magical powers. Not only is this not going to work, but it is impossible to explain to her why it won't work because she desires what she wants more than she desires what is possible.
I'm afraid I do not deal with this problem by becoming her PVC pipe pusher.
KFG
Print out the email, and deliver it in person.
That is not a solution to the problem stated.
That's the only way you would be certain that it arrived and that no one changed the message.
Because this end is not the desired goal. This end is knowledge of the delivery status, not guaranteed delivery. The two are rather different.
What he is really asking for is the right to assume delivery, a priori, without evidence of such, but life is, like it or not, uncertain. He might slip and break his neck on his way to hand delivering his message. The people who do best in this world are those who develop viable strategies for coping with things going wrong.
If this life is causing you to drink
Sittin' 'round what's the use what to think
Well I've got some consolation
Give it to you if I might
I don't worry 'bout a thing, becuase. . .
Nothin's goin' to turn out right
- Mose Allison
KFG
As a business user I need something that has guaranteed, secure delivery. I don't care how it is done, but that's what I need.
Because you don't know how it's done you will not understand the explanation of why that is not possible in this universe.
Perhaps what we need are business users who understand that the universe contains no guarantees and how to deal with that simple fact. Might I suggest the use of return reciepts? That's how they do it with snailmail too. It at least gives you some knowledge of the delivery status.
KFG
I've said it before: Linux's popularity depends on what it wants to be.
Linux wants to be all things to all men who use it. It is anything and all things that people make of it, because it is free and open.
That is the point of software freedom.
To say it needs to be this or that instead of something else is not only to miss the point, but to put it in shackles. Bondage is Freedom, Brother. As it is, however, we can have both Slack at the console and Linspire with it's Windows GUI clone.
There is no such thing as a user, anymore than there is really a family with 2.4 children. Linux does not "want" anything. It's just software. The person sitting at the keyboard wants something. Different people, want different things.
The rub, of course, is that only those capable of doing software development develop software, but in the same light only carpenters can make chairs. That doesn't meant that all chairs should be the same because not everyone is a carpenter.
If you are not a carpenter and desire a chair with certain feature, simply hire someone to make it for you.
Perhaps the problem is not the develpers, per se, but that the "users" have not fully comprehended that, unlike Windows, you can hire Linux "carpenters" to make it pretty much as you wish it to be, because they have come to think of software as something fixed and immutable by the commercial firms.
KFG
Won a lot of races, did he?
Yep, beat the ball to home plate.
KFG
Perhaps every car should also have a sensor to detect speeding and automatically cut the gas?
Cool idea, Dude!
KFG
the equivilant of one athelete coming to the race 40 pounds overweight and after an all-night bender
Worked for Babe Ruth. Of course he was the strike out king, but he made up for it in volume.
KFG
Marshall rocks as a computer/technical geek and is funny. :) He even uses Linux, KDE, XMMS, and xmame. . .
Call me back when we get a bash script and cdplay. Until then he's just poser.
KFG
If things were in colour back then, nobody would have went to the movies to see black & white movies, it's only common sense...
Weeeeeeeeeee're off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz!
KFG
BlockBuster is avout as behind the times as mullets and flannel.
I like flannel. It is not behind the times. It is a timeless classic.
Do you have any idea how much trouble I'm having right now trying to find a replacement for my trench coat? I'm told "nobody" wears them anymore. It's all single breasted baggies in the stores now. I might have to have Burberry make me a custom, or switch to Aussie dusters.
Excuuuuuuuuuuuuse me for being "behind the times."
KFG
So I guess instead of tarballs, we could have furballs.
And have the network cough them up for you. Sorry about the carpet.
KFG
Either I am quite lucky, or, more likely, most people getting throttled are burning discs and returning them unwatched
And most people getting burned by Blockbuster are people who simply don't get their tapes back on time.
Most people don't watch 30 movies a month.
I don't every month. In fact I go months at a time without even turning on the set, but when I watch about all I watch are movies, so I can go far more than 30 in a month. Don't burn non of 'em. Ok, I've got VHS copies of Fearless Vampire Killers, Remo Williams and Tank on VHS taped off of cable. So sue me.
By the way, I don't use either Netflix or Blockbuster, so I have no personal stake in the issue. I just answered a question is all.
The article states that Netflix is signing up customers at a quicker rate than BB is.
In an endurance race being slow off the line is often a decent predictor of the winner. Rent Hidalgo.
KFG
People who do not play high-performance games might not want to pay $100-$600 for a graphics card.
Well, what we're discussing here is a "high end" S3 at $100 in direct competition with ATI/Nvidia gear and only sold to geeks through Newegg, ain't we?
Unless you're one of those people who thinks $99 isn't $100. Maybe back in the day when $100 would buy you a $99 video card and a Coke to install it by.
KFG
Blockbuster has a really low public image. They are known for over-aggressive late fee policies. . .
And Netflix has the throttling people who seek to get maximum value from their subscription thing going.
Their brand recognition doesn't help them much (obviously, or they'd be ahead of Netflix).
Being late to the starting line does not imply finishing last.
KFG
Such as getting screwed by their late fee policies? That's what I think of Block Buster...
I wouldn't know about that. I simply return them on time. It's a simple plan, but it works.
KFG