I know it's been said a million times- but an audiophile like me who already buys tons of CDs and goes to tons of concerts is helped greatly by this- it introduces me to more music, which I then buy. I also go to concerts I would never have known to look for.
People who aren't audiophiles don't buy CDs anyway. Let them have their collection of 50 random songs- they'll have it anyway from people like me in the long run. Napster just makes it slightly more likely that they'll buy something after sampling some of the high weirdness I have available.
That's what advertising is for, yes? Awakening a need in someone that wasn't there before?
The service is not reliable enough to spend money on. About 60% of the downloads I attempt are either corrupted, incomplete to start with, or are terminated before I can complete them.
These are acceptable statistics for a free thing (especially for a peer-to-peer thing) but not for anything I pay money for.
If the RIAA started a service that had every single damn thing ever recorded on associated labels available for download at whatever bitrate I want, always complete, and at hyper speed, I'd pay for that- simply because it gives me something for my money.
Napster is something I participate as a karma-sharing sort of thing- I get some songs, and I make my gigantic library available so others can get some.
Those of us with more... esoteric... taste in music will always have it easier in this regard, since the more esoteric bands will be trying harder to reach us.
Big Record companies don't work and can't work by selling 20,000 of Der Blutharsch, 20,000 of Immortal, 20,000 of Rosa Crux. They need to sell 2,000,000 of Metallica, 2,000,000 of Britney Spears, 2,000,000 of Boyzone. The internet is segregating their target audience. Metallica fans turn into Darkthrone fans, or Cannibal Corpse fans, or Entombed fans. They need to kill this medium which is letting people like *you* discover specialised music which is personal to *you*. And which is letting the musicians amongst *you* find your target audience. They have to stop this, because it's in their way.
people call me a computer pack rat, and I suppose that's more or less true- I've got piles of old stuff that was state of the art years ago down in my evil lab, and a lot of it (most notably, the monitors!) is still in service.
I'm afraid of what will happen if my house catches on fire. It will probably kill everyone in a block radius.
Since recycling is a negative-sum operation at this point (all involved end up with less than they started with) it's not feasible for the small organizations who take the machines to perform the eventual disposal operation.
As time goes on, we're building computers out of little more than cheap, toxic crap- what can we do?
Hoo boy. Here you can't even recycle cans for pickup- fuck if I'll be able to recycle monitors... we have this huge problem in the warehouse where my business is located with spare monitors. Most of them work (which I immediately take to my evil lab and use for evil projects) but what do I do with those that don't? I leave them, because I can't do anything with a 20 inch non working monochrome workstation monitor.
Recycle it? Ha! Even if I could find a place, I;m sure they'd charge our building more than we could pay to get rid of the damn things.
The environmental impact of so many discarded computer systems has been a problem that we need to deal with forever... but like all social problems in a nominally capitalist society, we won't deal with it until rich people start dying from it...
to the point that those who consider themselves threatened would want to drop the M.D. Device on where it lives, even though the people there already have a solution for the problem.
Simply because they sent me a digital camera I bought there (my first purchase from them, too...) about a month late, and the memory card after that.
By way of compensation I got a $10 toy gift certificate (which would barely cover shipping on anything substantial...) The reason I was given this is because they were pushing their new toy department for the holiday season. I'd rather get nothing at all.
I certainly *don't* miss having to click every pixel in a room trying to pick up a pair of tweezers so I can get the nosehairs out of a brass elephant, which I will use to hotwire a go-cart, which will be used to push a giant three-headed Big Boy statue out from in front of the cheese shop.
The people who got this were the ones that wrote games less dependent on an inventory system. The inventory system leads to the most contrived, awful puzzles, simply due to its nature of forcing you to be a packrat.
This increased resolution is cool and all- but the capacity of flash memory vs. its price hasn't kept pace with the increasing size of images, and the power requirements drain our currenly weak battery technology.
We need better batteries and larger memory storage to match these new cameras' power before they will be generally accepted.
That happens, you know.
Especially when those rights only affect peripherally their entertainment.
The concept of a vanguard can't be explained and comprehended by someone who doesn't care:(
What's at issue here is the definition of employment. If you provide a service that has monetary value to a non-profit organization or charity, that is true voluntarism. However, the concept of voluntarism is not applicable when the organization you're doing it for is profiting from your labor.
Volunteering to assist on your favorite free MUD is one thing, as no one's really making any money there. But volunteering for Ultima Online is another, since EA saves massive amounts of money on support costs because you're there- and they definitely pocket all the money.
I suspect that in the future online game companies will create a separate corporate entity which all volunteers join when accepted, and that company will have a contractual relationship with the game company to provide support in return for free accounts or whatever, just to dodge labor law.
...just because you're paranoid, that doesn't mean they aren't out to get you!
I think it's healthy, actually, that any mention of a device like this hurls up great visceral chunks of dislike from all and sundry. I don't generally like the amount of pure FUD that flies off of Slashdot these days, but it is heartening to see at least a few people willing to say that they'd fight something like this (Saying and doing are two different things- but it's a good start.)
Implanted trackers are a disturbing concept, no matter how they're presented.
...what assurances they give about its "proper use"... There is no "proper use" for such an obscenity.
What's scary is that this sort of thing has always had the scent of the unavoidable about it, because it seems like the perfect thing for those with too much fear and too little sense and humanity.
What are the effects of hitting yourself with a directed EMP, I wonder... assuming you haven't had a pacemaker installed, it shouldn't be a problem, yes?
But what if everyone did vote? Then you'd have people thinking, "well, I've done what I can with my vote, and it obviously didn't work. Time to go break stuff," and I think there would be lots of civil unrest - protests, riots and the whole nine yards... Things are relatively peaceful when only a fraction of the populace tries to get their way, but what about when everyone tries to enforce their opinion?
Sounds like, well, now.
You support greater disenfranchisement of the populace for greater imaginary security, then?
Slashdot Mirror
For obvious reasons, of course.
Hee.
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
Hong Kong, anyone?
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
I know it's been said a million times- but an audiophile like me who already buys tons of CDs and goes to tons of concerts is helped greatly by this- it introduces me to more music, which I then buy. I also go to concerts I would never have known to look for.
People who aren't audiophiles don't buy CDs anyway. Let them have their collection of 50 random songs- they'll have it anyway from people like me in the long run. Napster just makes it slightly more likely that they'll buy something after sampling some of the high weirdness I have available.
That's what advertising is for, yes? Awakening a need in someone that wasn't there before?
The RIAA should be paying *me*.
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
Why:
:)
The service is not reliable enough to spend money on. About 60% of the downloads I attempt are either corrupted, incomplete to start with, or are terminated before I can complete them.
These are acceptable statistics for a free thing (especially for a peer-to-peer thing) but not for anything I pay money for.
If the RIAA started a service that had every single damn thing ever recorded on associated labels available for download at whatever bitrate I want, always complete, and at hyper speed, I'd pay for that- simply because it gives me something for my money.
Napster is something I participate as a karma-sharing sort of thing- I get some songs, and I make my gigantic library available so others can get some.
Everyone is my friend
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
VNV Nation, Funker Vogt, and Full Blown Kirk do this, among others...
The best bet is to go to any artist or group's homepage, most of them have samples of some sort available.
I think it's telling that many artists have embraced this sort of sampling, while the labels still balk and hold back...
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
Those of us with more... esoteric... taste in music will always have it easier in this regard, since the more esoteric bands will be trying harder to reach us.
As noted on burzum.com:
Big Record companies don't work and can't work by selling 20,000 of Der Blutharsch, 20,000 of Immortal, 20,000 of Rosa Crux. They need to sell 2,000,000 of Metallica, 2,000,000 of Britney Spears, 2,000,000 of Boyzone. The internet is segregating their target audience. Metallica fans turn into Darkthrone fans, or Cannibal Corpse fans, or Entombed fans. They need to kill this medium which is letting people like *you* discover specialised music which is personal to *you*. And which is letting the musicians amongst *you* find your target audience. They have to stop this, because it's in their way.
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
All I ever see on AIM is ads for AOL itself. AIM itself could be considered one big AOL ad.
So why have the ads at all?
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
...when I explained the whole fiasco to my family...
"How many times are they going to try to get us to pay for the same thing? I won't get one of those."
Something tells me that most people share this belief.
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
people call me a computer pack rat, and I suppose that's more or less true- I've got piles of old stuff that was state of the art years ago down in my evil lab, and a lot of it (most notably, the monitors!) is still in service.
I'm afraid of what will happen if my house catches on fire. It will probably kill everyone in a block radius.
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
Since recycling is a negative-sum operation at this point (all involved end up with less than they started with) it's not feasible for the small organizations who take the machines to perform the eventual disposal operation.
As time goes on, we're building computers out of little more than cheap, toxic crap- what can we do?
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
Hoo boy. Here you can't even recycle cans for pickup- fuck if I'll be able to recycle monitors... we have this huge problem in the warehouse where my business is located with spare monitors. Most of them work (which I immediately take to my evil lab and use for evil projects) but what do I do with those that don't? I leave them, because I can't do anything with a 20 inch non working monochrome workstation monitor.
Recycle it? Ha! Even if I could find a place, I;m sure they'd charge our building more than we could pay to get rid of the damn things.
The environmental impact of so many discarded computer systems has been a problem that we need to deal with forever... but like all social problems in a nominally capitalist society, we won't deal with it until rich people start dying from it...
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
You know, that game has made many PC using friends of mine wish they had a spare Mac to play it on...
now let's see a massively multiplayer version... ooh.
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
to the point that those who consider themselves threatened would want to drop the M.D. Device on where it lives, even though the people there already have a solution for the problem.
parallels are a bitch.
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
Simply because they sent me a digital camera I bought there (my first purchase from them, too...) about a month late, and the memory card after that.
By way of compensation I got a $10 toy gift certificate (which would barely cover shipping on anything substantial...) The reason I was given this is because they were pushing their new toy department for the holiday season. I'd rather get nothing at all.
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
I certainly *don't* miss having to click every pixel in a room trying to pick up a pair of tweezers so I can get the nosehairs out of a brass elephant, which I will use to hotwire a go-cart, which will be used to push a giant three-headed Big Boy statue out from in front of the cheese shop.
The people who got this were the ones that wrote games less dependent on an inventory system. The inventory system leads to the most contrived, awful puzzles, simply due to its nature of forcing you to be a packrat.
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
This increased resolution is cool and all- but the capacity of flash memory vs. its price hasn't kept pace with the increasing size of images, and the power requirements drain our currenly weak battery technology. We need better batteries and larger memory storage to match these new cameras' power before they will be generally accepted.
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
...is ass-backwards.
Concerts are considered merely advertising, to the end of selling more recordings, rather than the other way around.
And look, I found a coincidence. Who's promoting this line of thinking?
I don't even need to say it anymore.
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
but how is that action?
Who are you impressing?
You're just proving to the lawhorde that there are more cockroaches to stomp, and it's time to grind the boot down a little harder.
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
...is that the higher the learning curve is, the more difficult it is to convince someone they need something in the first place.
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
...all my random ramblings in like Jon Katz does. Can I? I'll be at least half as silly.
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
That happens, you know. Especially when those rights only affect peripherally their entertainment. The concept of a vanguard can't be explained and comprehended by someone who doesn't care :(
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
What's at issue here is the definition of employment. If you provide a service that has monetary value to a non-profit organization or charity, that is true voluntarism. However, the concept of voluntarism is not applicable when the organization you're doing it for is profiting from your labor. Volunteering to assist on your favorite free MUD is one thing, as no one's really making any money there. But volunteering for Ultima Online is another, since EA saves massive amounts of money on support costs because you're there- and they definitely pocket all the money. I suspect that in the future online game companies will create a separate corporate entity which all volunteers join when accepted, and that company will have a contractual relationship with the game company to provide support in return for free accounts or whatever, just to dodge labor law.
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
...just because you're paranoid, that doesn't mean they aren't out to get you!
I think it's healthy, actually, that any mention of a device like this hurls up great visceral chunks of dislike from all and sundry. I don't generally like the amount of pure FUD that flies off of Slashdot these days, but it is heartening to see at least a few people willing to say that they'd fight something like this (Saying and doing are two different things- but it's a good start.)
Implanted trackers are a disturbing concept, no matter how they're presented.
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
...what assurances they give about its "proper use"... There is no "proper use" for such an obscenity.
What's scary is that this sort of thing has always had the scent of the unavoidable about it, because it seems like the perfect thing for those with too much fear and too little sense and humanity.
What are the effects of hitting yourself with a directed EMP, I wonder... assuming you haven't had a pacemaker installed, it shouldn't be a problem, yes?
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
But what if everyone did vote? Then you'd have people thinking, "well, I've done what I can with my vote, and it obviously didn't work. Time to go break stuff," and I think there would be lots of civil unrest - protests, riots and the whole nine yards... Things are relatively peaceful when only a fraction of the populace tries to get their way, but what about when everyone tries to enforce their opinion?
Sounds like, well, now.
You support greater disenfranchisement of the populace for greater imaginary security, then?
Super scary indeed.
--Perianwyr Stormcrow