Ok its well established that the authors of the page that started this thread are quite paranoid. But there are reasons to be worried about Google. For one they are too good. And Search engines are highly centralized access points to essential information online. In other words they are the weak link in the decentralized internet.
Information is useless unless you can find it. And if someone (government, corporation, conspiracy, etc) is going to control the internet, then Google is the place the start. Maybe not now, but what happens when they are publicly traded? Or in 10 years when their ideals have melted? We rely extensively on Google and a handful of other search engines to make the internet work, how long will they stay reliable?
More Here
That all sounds like a mess to me. We accept the both way charges in the US because the phone companies give us nice easily managable packages, that if used correctly make our bills nice easy and predicable.
It really breaks down to what you pay each month. $80 dollars gets me enough minutes for me not to worry about making or recieving calls. Never have gone over on me my minutes in 4 years (knock on wood). No extra charges at all, plus all my email (Treo 300 is the phone/pda of choice) and a fair amount of 3G web browsing. I don't have a landline, so I always know extactly what my bill will be every month, no worries.
Last I was in england, $80 was about 50 pounds, how much phone usage does that get you? The real measure is the bottom line costs.
Ok, this gadget looks beautiful, I want one, I want one, but no wait... Where the f is the wireless? I've never quite got the usefulness of palms that don't connect to the rest of the world. With that keyboard and screen I can do a lot of work, too bad I have to get to an office to actually get it anywhere. There isn't even any bluetooth for it yet. Only option is to carry around a phone and connection cable (or maybe you need two...) So close but so far from the ideal liberating gadget... Going to stick with my old Kyocera 6035 till the Sprint Treo comes out with the 3G launch...
after reading this thread I got motivated to go out and buy an ad or two of my own. Figured a personal project of mine, <a href="http://www.windistheenemy.com> wind is the enemy</a>, could use a bit more hits. Signed up, nice and easy, and the ad was up in minutes, nice. Nice for a half hour that is, promptly got this email at that point:<br><I><br>Thank you for advertising with AdWords Select. <br> <br>Unfortunately, we are currently unable to run the following Campaign on Google.<br> <br>Campaign #1<br> <br>At this time, Google policy does not permit the advertisement that advocate against any organization,state or person on our website. We reserve the right to exercise editorial discretion when it comes to the advertising we accept on our site, as noted in our advertising terms and conditions. <br> <br>Google believes strongly in freedom of expression and therefore offers broad access to content across the web without censoring search results. Please note that the decisions we make concerning advertising in no way affect the search results we deliver. We will continue to show search results that advocate against any organization.</I><br> <br>I can smell a bit of post scientology tension, but perhaps thats my imagination. I wouldn't call it censorship, but its a small step...<br> <br>Interesting thing to me is that my site is entirely images, no machine readable text at all beyond some stripped down html. That means there is a pretty good chance some random google person actually took the time to look at my site. Course they could have just reacted to "enemy" in the url title, but you'd think they would catch that before the ad ran...
first off as many have said, iPod killer my ass, its not even innovative, there have been 20GB players on the market for over a year now. Big issue #1 though is whether this thing has SMDI or not, if I can't seemlessly move my MP3s around its worthless. No mention of how big it is, nor how much it weighs. From the looks of it its vastly inferior to the Archos line of players, and the iPod is even smaller or lighter.
As for this whole firewire vs usb, the issue is not the speed, its the fact that you can use firewire to power up the player. That's what makes me want an iPod over my Archos. However 20GB is way better then 5GB, as it stands I can only fit 20% of my cd collection on a 20GB drive, I want the whole collection on my player. Back to the powering up though, take anything but the iPod on the road and you either are spending a fortune on batteries or you are carrying some bulky ass charger with you. Not to mention the fact that the iPod has a better battery then just about anything out there...
Just last week I tried to escape the awful grasp of Verizon as my local phone company and ordered ATT local service. Went through the whole process only to find out two days later that I couldn't switch to ATT if I wanted to keep my Verizon DSL. Couldn't even transfer over the line w/o the DSL. WTF? Now I'm stuck with a local phone company I hate that just doubled my bill. They don't even have a nice logo for christs sake, at least Bell Atlantic had a nice logo and I got Darth Vader every time I called 411, you'd think they'd be smart enough to keep james Earl Jones as a spokesman but no... NYNEX logo was even better and New York Telephones better still so I'm sensing a trend here.
Remember reading that a big problem with displays with this sort of pixels per inch was rendering old programs that used pixels as their main measurement. Everything is rendered too small to read. Obviously there are workarounds, but it seems like OSX for the mac will have a big advantage. Don't know all the specs, but I believe its graphics engine, Quartz, is vector based, with built in scalibility at no loss of image quality.
Funny that they missed the steve jobs connection entirely. Why does an iMac have no fan? Cause Steve is obsessed with quiet computers. The old Mac+ from back in the day was also fan free, only problem was it got so hot that you need to buy an external fan to put on top anyway. Well it only would over heat if you covered the vents on the top, but how many flat surfaces have you seen left on uncovered on a desk? I for one lost my scanner under a pile of mags a couple months ago. I wonder if the iMac was designed extactly to prevent people from stacking crap on top of it?
In any case, I for one am predicting a transmeta powered Mac notebook emerging soon, for this very reason. At the rate the powerpc chips are advancing the transmeta's should be able to run faster anyhow. Through in the fact that G4 run so hot they reportably melt powerbook cases and you get the picture. Hope the rumored metal free, epoxy based cases emerge as well.
Well given that AOL owns ICQ slaughtering everyone but ICQ, pretty much means slaughtering everyone doesn't it? Always wondered why they never intergrated the two though. Most likely because intergrating ICQ into AIM basically means opening up AIM to the world.
Re:Question: What about remixes?
on
Napster Wars
·
· Score: 1
Hmmmmm.... Given that the maximum amount of time you can legally sample a song without paying the artist/copyright holder is 0 this doesn't seem to work so well. This is a huge misconception of sampling. Every sample you here on a record is either cleared and paid for, or altered so much that no one but the artist doing the sampling can tell where the sample originated. Even those samples are technically illegal, its just that no one has enough info to sue.
Christ whats happened to Slashdot? This is a long "review" of a book that doesn't describe a single arguement made in the book. Yeah its great you love the book, BUT TELL ME SOMETHING ABOUT IT. What is the problem with logos? You give no indication whatsoever, execept for a reference to exactly what you say the book goes beyond - Nike sweatshops. Slashdot next time you post a review can you check to make sure it includes some content?
seems to me most people I've seen posting about the record industry have a very limited understanding of what services it provides.
The record companies do a lot more then just produce CDs to sell. It is only one aspect of their business. Of course at the moment it is how they generate most of their revenue stream, which is precisely their problem.
The record companies provide a number of services to both their customers and their artists. These include filtering, marketing, financing and yes, manufacturing and distributing CDs. Here's a real simple version of how it works.
First the labels have A&R departments whose main function is to sort through all the crap artists and find the few gems. Check out MP3.com to see exactly why this is an extremely valuble service. Yes, much of what the labels sign is not to everyones taste but it still is useful and yes they miss some brilliant artists, but they reduce the amount of music that I sort through to find what I like drastically.
Once a band is signed to a label the label, the label will advance the band money to record an album. This basically is loan to an artist from the label, based upon the revenue from future album sales. The terms of these contracts are useful dreadful, the labels try and get the artist to sign over their souls and their first born. Artists with poor management often end up signing nightmarish contracts, this is the source of a lot of artists intense dislike for labels. As an aside let me note that most labels do not manage the artists, instead each artist pays their own management team (or more likely the manager, convices the artist that they should let the manger hand all the cash).
Despite the often unfair terms this is an increadible service for artists. Would you loan some musician friend of yours $200,000 to record an album? And if you did what sort of terms would you want. The music business is a hits based business, and the labels lose money on the majority of artists they finance. Like venture capitalists they look for the one massive sucess story that will offset the money they lose on numerous misses. That CD you love, by an obscure artist that went nowhere? The record labels lost money so that you could buy that CD.
The final major service the labels provide is marketing. This one is a mixed blessing for all. I'm quite happy that Warner Brothers dropped tons of cash to make me pay attention to Prince, but I'd rather not hear Britiney Spears every time I turned on the radio (which is very rarely happens). Where would the Beatles be w/o Capitol records marketing efforts? Poor and unknown, most likely. The main problem that bands have with the labels marketing departments is that they often ignore bands they feel have little hope. If a band records a dud of an album, or the A&R man that signed them is fired. Marketing will let a band disapear with out even a visit to the local mall to sign autographs. In effect the marketing department works as a second filter, and unfortunetly usually has even worse taste then A&R.
The point of all this? Basically MP3's napster, etc, only effect one part of the music industry's business. The reason it is so freaked out, is that it effects the part of the business that record labels have tied all their profits too. Personally I see MP3's (or some advanced format) eliminating CD's entirely within 10-15 years. Will the record labels disappear with CD's I doubt it, they will adapt soon enough. A label or too may fail, but the industry in general, no way.
Any one of the major labels could reorganize themselves fully into a new business model in a year or less. The marketing departments could easily become full on marketing companies, same with their PR people. Alter the contracts a bit and A&R men become musical venture capitalists.
We are at the begining of a major paradigm shift for the music industry. MP3's will win in the end, but odds are so will the record labels.
Ok maybe I'm a bit naive but how is this for a solution -
The record companies (or cdnowm, amazon, tower, etc.) set up a site where anyone can download any MP3 for a small price ($1? 50 cents?).
Thats it, nothing more really. Most people don't what to do anything illegal and will pay a small fee for an MP3. Napster, Gnutella, or some varient will still exist, its inevitable, but the record companies will still be making bank.
I'd be willing to spend that much just for the ease of use of knowing that I can go one place and know that what I want is there, hosted on a fast server, properly labeled, and won't cut off mid song. Napster's got none of this and most likely never will. Its design ensures there is no standardization of quality. Throw in the fact I get a legal copy and boom the record companies make even more profits then they do now.
Of course the record labels need to come to terms with the fact that people can easily make perfect copies. God knows how long it will take for them to realize that people already can do this by ripping a CD.
But nah this is way to simple of a solution. Guess Im stuck with the illegal version of hearing new music now. Probably spend 1-2 grand a year on cds, but I'm still a villian in the eyes of the record companies.
Was wondering if its possible to change registrars and noticed that Domain Monger is willing to do it for you. Looks like you should do it well in advance of the domain expiring, it appears as if the previous registrar may be able to reject the transfer if the account is being reserved for renewal.
Its indicated that not all domains are transferable, hmmmm, no details.
For those who what a bit more detail. the best thing about iCab is the check box in the preferences which allows you to block all cookies that are not being served by the main document. This means your Slashdot, NYT, adn myyahoo cookies are accepted w/o problems but all cookies served with banner ads are rejected. One check box and the whole issue disappears. You can also block individual server's cookies, or even block all cookies except those from select servers. Its got great ad filtering as well. Just about the only ads I see are those served off the same page as the main page. The newest version has full plug in support as well, and preliminary javascript capabilities. Renders faster then either NN or IE and has great download abilities too. Main flaws are incomplete javascript and an inability to handle secure ecommerce transactions. I use it for about 95% of my browsing.
Seems to me that the need for "defensive patents" is major part of the problem here. Here is a little idea that might be able to solve part of the problem. Set up a non profit dedicated to holding patents and not enforcing them. This would all any company that holds a patent for defensive purposes to get rid of them, while removing the threat of the company actually using the patent. Thus guaranteeing companies won't change their minds, and transform defensive patents into weapons of corperate war. As an added bonus, the corps could probably claim massive tax deductions for giving their patents to a non profit.
Slashdot Mirror
Information is useless unless you can find it. And if someone (government, corporation, conspiracy, etc) is going to control the internet, then Google is the place the start. Maybe not now, but what happens when they are publicly traded? Or in 10 years when their ideals have melted? We rely extensively on Google and a handful of other search engines to make the internet work, how long will they stay reliable? More Here
That all sounds like a mess to me. We accept the both way charges in the US because the phone companies give us nice easily managable packages, that if used correctly make our bills nice easy and predicable.
It really breaks down to what you pay each month. $80 dollars gets me enough minutes for me not to worry about making or recieving calls. Never have gone over on me my minutes in 4 years (knock on wood). No extra charges at all, plus all my email (Treo 300 is the phone/pda of choice) and a fair amount of 3G web browsing. I don't have a landline, so I always know extactly what my bill will be every month, no worries.
Last I was in england, $80 was about 50 pounds, how much phone usage does that get you? The real measure is the bottom line costs.
Ok, this gadget looks beautiful, I want one, I want one, but no wait... Where the f is the wireless? I've never quite got the usefulness of palms that don't connect to the rest of the world. With that keyboard and screen I can do a lot of work, too bad I have to get to an office to actually get it anywhere. There isn't even any bluetooth for it yet. Only option is to carry around a phone and connection cable (or maybe you need two...) So close but so far from the ideal liberating gadget... Going to stick with my old Kyocera 6035 till the Sprint Treo comes out with the 3G launch...
after reading this thread I got motivated to go out and buy an ad or two of my own. Figured a personal project of mine, <a href="http://www.windistheenemy.com> wind is the enemy</a>, could use a bit more hits. Signed up, nice and easy, and the ad was up in minutes, nice. Nice for a half hour that is, promptly got this email at that point:<br><I><br>Thank you for advertising with AdWords Select. <br> <br>Unfortunately, we are currently unable to run the following Campaign on Google.<br> <br>Campaign #1<br> <br>At this time, Google policy does not permit the advertisement that advocate against any organization,state or person on our website. We reserve the right to exercise editorial discretion when it comes to the advertising we accept on our site, as noted in our advertising terms and conditions. <br> <br>Google believes strongly in freedom of expression and therefore offers broad access to content across the web without censoring search results. Please note that the decisions we make concerning advertising in no way affect the search results we deliver. We will continue to show search results that advocate against any organization.</I><br> <br>I can smell a bit of post scientology tension, but perhaps thats my imagination. I wouldn't call it censorship, but its a small step...<br> <br>Interesting thing to me is that my site is entirely images, no machine readable text at all beyond some stripped down html. That means there is a pretty good chance some random google person actually took the time to look at my site. Course they could have just reacted to "enemy" in the url title, but you'd think they would catch that before the ad ran...
first off as many have said, iPod killer my ass, its not even innovative, there have been 20GB players on the market for over a year now. Big issue #1 though is whether this thing has SMDI or not, if I can't seemlessly move my MP3s around its worthless. No mention of how big it is, nor how much it weighs. From the looks of it its vastly inferior to the Archos line of players, and the iPod is even smaller or lighter.
As for this whole firewire vs usb, the issue is not the speed, its the fact that you can use firewire to power up the player. That's what makes me want an iPod over my Archos. However 20GB is way better then 5GB, as it stands I can only fit 20% of my cd collection on a 20GB drive, I want the whole collection on my player. Back to the powering up though, take anything but the iPod on the road and you either are spending a fortune on batteries or you are carrying some bulky ass charger with you. Not to mention the fact that the iPod has a better battery then just about anything out there...
hmm this went up only minutes ago and it already won't load for me. has slashdot slashdotted slashdot?
Just last week I tried to escape the awful grasp of Verizon as my local phone company and ordered ATT local service. Went through the whole process only to find out two days later that I couldn't switch to ATT if I wanted to keep my Verizon DSL. Couldn't even transfer over the line w/o the DSL. WTF? Now I'm stuck with a local phone company I hate that just doubled my bill. They don't even have a nice logo for christs sake, at least Bell Atlantic had a nice logo and I got Darth Vader every time I called 411, you'd think they'd be smart enough to keep james Earl Jones as a spokesman but no... NYNEX logo was even better and New York Telephones better still so I'm sensing a trend here.
iCab does one better and letter you automatically block all cookies not sent by the server hosting the page you are visiting. Mac only though.
Remember reading that a big problem with displays with this sort of pixels per inch was rendering old programs that used pixels as their main measurement. Everything is rendered too small to read. Obviously there are workarounds, but it seems like OSX for the mac will have a big advantage. Don't know all the specs, but I believe its graphics engine, Quartz, is vector based, with built in scalibility at no loss of image quality.
In any case, I for one am predicting a transmeta powered Mac notebook emerging soon, for this very reason. At the rate the powerpc chips are advancing the transmeta's should be able to run faster anyhow. Through in the fact that G4 run so hot they reportably melt powerbook cases and you get the picture. Hope the rumored metal free, epoxy based cases emerge as well.
Well given that AOL owns ICQ slaughtering everyone but ICQ, pretty much means slaughtering everyone doesn't it? Always wondered why they never intergrated the two though. Most likely because intergrating ICQ into AIM basically means opening up AIM to the world.
Hmmmmm.... Given that the maximum amount of time you can legally sample a song without paying the artist/copyright holder is 0 this doesn't seem to work so well. This is a huge misconception of sampling. Every sample you here on a record is either cleared and paid for, or altered so much that no one but the artist doing the sampling can tell where the sample originated. Even those samples are technically illegal, its just that no one has enough info to sue.
Christ whats happened to Slashdot? This is a long "review" of a book that doesn't describe a single arguement made in the book. Yeah its great you love the book, BUT TELL ME SOMETHING ABOUT IT. What is the problem with logos? You give no indication whatsoever, execept for a reference to exactly what you say the book goes beyond - Nike sweatshops. Slashdot next time you post a review can you check to make sure it includes some content?
seems to me most people I've seen posting about the record industry have a very limited understanding of what services it provides.
The record companies do a lot more then just produce CDs to sell. It is only one aspect of their business. Of course at the moment it is how they generate most of their revenue stream, which is precisely their problem.
The record companies provide a number of services to both their customers and their artists. These include filtering, marketing, financing and yes, manufacturing and distributing CDs. Here's a real simple version of how it works.
First the labels have A&R departments whose main function is to sort through all the crap artists and find the few gems. Check out MP3.com to see exactly why this is an extremely valuble service. Yes, much of what the labels sign is not to everyones taste but it still is useful and yes they miss some brilliant artists, but they reduce the amount of music that I sort through to find what I like drastically.
Once a band is signed to a label the label, the label will advance the band money to record an album. This basically is loan to an artist from the label, based upon the revenue from future album sales. The terms of these contracts are useful dreadful, the labels try and get the artist to sign over their souls and their first born. Artists with poor management often end up signing nightmarish contracts, this is the source of a lot of artists intense dislike for labels. As an aside let me note that most labels do not manage the artists, instead each artist pays their own management team (or more likely the manager, convices the artist that they should let the manger hand all the cash).
Despite the often unfair terms this is an increadible service for artists. Would you loan some musician friend of yours $200,000 to record an album? And if you did what sort of terms would you want. The music business is a hits based business, and the labels lose money on the majority of artists they finance. Like venture capitalists they look for the one massive sucess story that will offset the money they lose on numerous misses. That CD you love, by an obscure artist that went nowhere? The record labels lost money so that you could buy that CD.
The final major service the labels provide is marketing. This one is a mixed blessing for all. I'm quite happy that Warner Brothers dropped tons of cash to make me pay attention to Prince, but I'd rather not hear Britiney Spears every time I turned on the radio (which is very rarely happens). Where would the Beatles be w/o Capitol records marketing efforts? Poor and unknown, most likely. The main problem that bands have with the labels marketing departments is that they often ignore bands they feel have little hope. If a band records a dud of an album, or the A&R man that signed them is fired. Marketing will let a band disapear with out even a visit to the local mall to sign autographs. In effect the marketing department works as a second filter, and unfortunetly usually has even worse taste then A&R.
The point of all this? Basically MP3's napster, etc, only effect one part of the music industry's business. The reason it is so freaked out, is that it effects the part of the business that record labels have tied all their profits too. Personally I see MP3's (or some advanced format) eliminating CD's entirely within 10-15 years. Will the record labels disappear with CD's I doubt it, they will adapt soon enough. A label or too may fail, but the industry in general, no way.
Any one of the major labels could reorganize themselves fully into a new business model in a year or less. The marketing departments could easily become full on marketing companies, same with their PR people. Alter the contracts a bit and A&R men become musical venture capitalists.
We are at the begining of a major paradigm shift for the music industry. MP3's will win in the end, but odds are so will the record labels.
Ok maybe I'm a bit naive but how is this for a solution -
The record companies (or cdnowm, amazon, tower, etc.) set up a site where anyone can download any MP3 for a small price ($1? 50 cents?).
Thats it, nothing more really. Most people don't what to do anything illegal and will pay a small fee for an MP3. Napster, Gnutella, or some varient will still exist, its inevitable, but the record companies will still be making bank.
I'd be willing to spend that much just for the ease of use of knowing that I can go one place and know that what I want is there, hosted on a fast server, properly labeled, and won't cut off mid song. Napster's got none of this and most likely never will. Its design ensures there is no standardization of quality. Throw in the fact I get a legal copy and boom the record companies make even more profits then they do now.
Of course the record labels need to come to terms with the fact that people can easily make perfect copies. God knows how long it will take for them to realize that people already can do this by ripping a CD.
But nah this is way to simple of a solution. Guess Im stuck with the illegal version of hearing new music now. Probably spend 1-2 grand a year on cds, but I'm still a villian in the eyes of the record companies.
Was wondering if its possible to change registrars and noticed that Domain Monger is willing to do it for you. Looks like you should do it well in advance of the domain expiring, it appears as if the previous registrar may be able to reject the transfer if the account is being reserved for renewal.
Its indicated that not all domains are transferable, hmmmm, no details.
For those who what a bit more detail. the best thing about iCab is the check box in the preferences which allows you to block all cookies that are not being served by the main document. This means your Slashdot, NYT, adn myyahoo cookies are accepted w/o problems but all cookies served with banner ads are rejected. One check box and the whole issue disappears. You can also block individual server's cookies, or even block all cookies except those from select servers. Its got great ad filtering as well. Just about the only ads I see are those served off the same page as the main page. The newest version has full plug in support as well, and preliminary javascript capabilities. Renders faster then either NN or IE and has great download abilities too. Main flaws are incomplete javascript and an inability to handle secure ecommerce transactions. I use it for about 95% of my browsing.
Seems to me that the need for "defensive patents" is major part of the problem here. Here is a little idea that might be able to solve part of the problem. Set up a non profit dedicated to holding patents and not enforcing them. This would all any company that holds a patent for defensive purposes to get rid of them, while removing the threat of the company actually using the patent. Thus guaranteeing companies won't change their minds, and transform defensive patents into weapons of corperate war. As an added bonus, the corps could probably claim massive tax deductions for giving their patents to a non profit.