Surprised this hasn't popped up before... Maybe the delay of Half-life 2 is because of ATI? Maybe they cut a deal so that if you want to be the first to own HL2, you have to buy an ATI card?
What would we have to talk about without conspiracy theories?
This problem of technical inaccuracy is not just something that bugs geeks watching sci-fi. I have a friend who is a big sports fan, and he cannot watch sports movies, like Any Given Sunday, because he says the depiction of the sports is so godawful and over-glamourized it completely spoils the film for him. Now I'm not a football fan, so I rather enjoyed AGS... but I have not been able to enjoy any of the latest Bond movies because of their bad science (how does a free-falling man catch up with an accelerating airplane?)
The original poster was not wrong... in the case of perfect competition... you seem to be confusing revenues with profits or something. In your example, yes companies will be able to supply 1,000 widgets at a price of $10.00, which is their revenue from the sale of a widget... but their costs to produce a widget would also be $10.00...
Do a little research into marginal cost curves,,, very fun stuff;-)
Hmmm... let's see Rick McCallum, producer of Star Wars I and Star Wars II wondering why people aren't going to see his movies more than once... hmm, what could be the reason, what could be the reason?
Could it be you produced movies that were shite, Rick? oh no,no,no must be DVDs and the internet, that's it!!
Now wouldn't that be nice.... if they returned to their roots, released DOOM III as shareware, with at least one third of the game available for download...
One thing that I noticed throughout his responses is that he is learning as he's going... he even seemed to be thinking/rethinking his position on some of the questions.
For example; he contradicted himself on whether it is a quantity/quality issue. When discussing bootlegs, he started to go down that path, and then seemed to discard that arguement ("well it's not so much, not so much"). Though he did come back to it at the end, you can see that a seed of doubt has been planted there.
Now, I'm not an expert on the music industry, but I'm wondering, as Lars seems to be as well, why he is getting the backing of his record company on this. As I understand it, bands make the bulk of their money from concerts not CDs, It is the label that picks up the bulk of the cash. Lars describes the labels as a bank, where the money that they make from a big selling band is partially used to offset the losses from a band who doesn't sell, which is more of an insurance company paradigm rather than a bank.
Now this raises a few questions... as a consumer of band x's music, do I really want to be spending extra for a CD to support band Y, whom I (and everyone else) think sucks? The record label would counter saying that (like an insurance company) I would have never found Band X unless that label took a chance on them, like the chance they took with band y (insurance).... the question then, which many have raised, is whether we need the label to help us find the good bands? Let's look at what the internet is doing for other products... when I want to buy a new vid card, pre-internet I would go in to a computer store, see that I had 2 choices, and probably end up buying the card that was being used in one of the 'name-brand" machines... ie letting the labelled computer guide me to what they think is a good vid card... post-internet, I go onto a hardware web-site (or 2, or 3) that I have found I like (we all have our favorites) and rely on their tests to indicate which card to buy. Why not the same transition for music?
After Lars says "no not so much" in regards to it being a quality/quantity issue, he says it is a control thing, he wants to control the distribution... but he doesn't control it now, the label does (partially, let's not get into the whole issue of 2nd hand CDs, though that is of relevance here too)... and maybe Lars started to see that arguement doesn't hold either, as he then returned to the quantity/quality for the last question.
I think the lack of support from his record label has shaken him up significantly, as he says in the start of the interview, as he is defending their right to exist... which he doesn't have to be doing... as an "established band" he/they no longer need the support of a record label... now it could be they are altruistic individuals who like the thought that money being raked in from the sale of their CDs is being used to fund "start-up" bands... but, I don't think that is entirely the case (maybe partially).
If Lars continues his thinking that "What it ultimately comes down to... is 'Who controls it'?" I think he may start seeing the model where the band could have ultimate control if they ditched the label, and suplied their music themselves over the internet... You want control of what is being distributed Metallica? Then open your own harddrive to Napster access and drop your songs down there, then no one else would need to be doing it. Imagine if they did that... it wouldn't take very long for them to hear from their record company then!! Or, if you don't want Napster distributing, put your songs up, in whatever format, on your own site... if you build it they will come (sorry, if I didn't say it, you would still be thinking it)... but, whatever, although on topic, I am off point...
He is, as he says, been aware of the questions about the need for the current distribution channel, and the ability of the internet to serve as a new distribution channel...
the question then, and I think I should call it THE QUESTION, as this is the issue every recording artist is grappling with, is do they want revenue from each individual who wants a copy of their songs, or are they content with the revenue they get from concerts? He says they support bootlegs, but to what extent... I think he seems to be genuine in this support, because I think he really did rethink the 'it's the quality/quantity' issue, even though he came back to it at the end, the seed of doubt has been planted.
Well, I could go on for hours on my personal views of where the music industry is going, the pros and CONS of having the labels (do we really need the Britney Spears of the world, ie. music that is pure marketing no content?)... see I'm finding it hard to restain myself now... but that would be off-topic... the topic being what is Lars saying/thinking.
Now lets not confuse things... this is NOT data collected by Stats Can... their mandate to collect information is ruled by and guided by strict regulations on how they can use and release the data they collect... the problem with this HR database is that HR has no restrictions on it, as it was never part of their mandate to gather and collect such information... all this was in the article. Obviously, this points at a larger problem in government (notice I do not single out Canadian govt. here), since, if HR could gather up all this information, presumably by asking for, and recieving databases held by other ministries/departments, other govt agents (again note no Cdn. specification) could/has probably compiled a like database... now I think the commission may have fallen short on its recommended course of action to take (now I'm relying on the story as to what the commission recommended as I have not read the report) in that they are looking to place restrictions on the use shelf life etc of "the database" not data collected by govt in general...
Hello my name is eh? and I'm an english Canadian who likes poutine... it started many years ago when I lived in Quebec, I ordered by mistake, thinking I was getting a putain (look it up http://www.notam.uio.no/~hcholm/altlang/ht/French. html),... now I can't get enough... this is my story, it's a true story, jusk ask Human Resources it's all there in my file... I just hope that someone somewhere hears this tale and learns from it... sniff, sniff, I need some time here, I'm sorry
the solution is to keep cookies disabled.... oh gee I forgot, according to slashdot cookies are good, beneficial things, and cannot be used for malicious purposes;)
I was thinking about that "encrypting your typing" thing... could one create a program that captures the input from the keyboard before their program, scramble/encrypt the text, then decrypt it "after" their program? Or how about a program that, inserts x number of "keystrokes" in between every keystroke, while simultaneously capturing those same keystrokes into some buffer, so they aren't seen by whatever program you are interfacing with at the time... Or are they monitoring your keystrokes with hardware? Now, of course, if it is a software monitor, you could do what I did when I arrived at my nice new system and found they had NT4 installed, and I had no way of putting my own browser on... wipe the hard drive and do a clean install of a new OS:)
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I knew someone would beat me to that... I just expected it to be a lot earlier in the comments stack! C'mon people, it's a classic!
Surprised this hasn't popped up before... Maybe the delay of Half-life 2 is because of ATI? Maybe they cut a deal so that if you want to be the first to own HL2, you have to buy an ATI card?
What would we have to talk about without conspiracy theories?
This problem of technical inaccuracy is not just something that bugs geeks watching sci-fi. I have a friend who is a big sports fan, and he cannot watch sports movies, like Any Given Sunday, because he says the depiction of the sports is so godawful and over-glamourized it completely spoils the film for him. Now I'm not a football fan, so I rather enjoyed AGS... but I have not been able to enjoy any of the latest Bond movies because of their bad science (how does a free-falling man catch up with an accelerating airplane?)
Now there's a piece of hardware I'd like to see resurected for the gamecube! :-)
The original poster was not wrong... in the case of perfect competition... you seem to be confusing revenues with profits or something. In your example, yes companies will be able to supply 1,000 widgets at a price of $10.00, which is their revenue from the sale of a widget... but their costs to produce a widget would also be $10.00...
;-)
Do a little research into marginal cost curves,,, very fun stuff
Hmmm... let's see Rick McCallum, producer of Star Wars I and Star Wars II wondering why people aren't going to see his movies more than once... hmm, what could be the reason, what could be the reason?
Could it be you produced movies that were shite, Rick? oh no,no,no must be DVDs and the internet, that's it!!
Now wouldn't that be nice.... if they returned to their roots, released DOOM III as shareware, with at least one third of the game available for download...
*sigh*
Those were the days.
One thing that I noticed throughout his responses is that he is learning as he's going... he even seemed to be thinking/rethinking his position on some of the questions.
For example; he contradicted himself on whether it is a quantity/quality issue. When discussing bootlegs, he started to go down that path, and then seemed to discard that arguement ("well it's not so much, not so much"). Though he did come back to it at the end, you can see that a seed of doubt has been planted there.
Now, I'm not an expert on the music industry, but I'm wondering, as Lars seems to be as well, why he is getting the backing of his record company on this. As I understand it, bands make the bulk of their money from concerts not CDs, It is the label that picks up the bulk of the cash. Lars describes the labels as a bank, where the money that they make from a big selling band is partially used to offset the losses from a band who doesn't sell, which is more of an insurance company paradigm rather than a bank.
Now this raises a few questions... as a consumer of band x's music, do I really want to be spending extra for a CD to support band Y, whom I (and everyone else) think sucks? The record label would counter saying that (like an insurance company) I would have never found Band X unless that label took a chance on them, like the chance they took with band y (insurance).... the question then, which many have raised, is whether we need the label to help us find the good bands? Let's look at what the internet is doing for other products... when I want to buy a new vid card, pre-internet I would go in to a computer store, see that I had 2 choices, and probably end up buying the card that was being used in one of the 'name-brand" machines... ie letting the labelled computer guide me to what they think is a good vid card... post-internet, I go onto a hardware web-site (or 2, or 3) that I have found I like (we all have our favorites) and rely on their tests to indicate which card to buy. Why not the same transition for music?
After Lars says "no not so much" in regards to it being a quality/quantity issue, he says it is a control thing, he wants to control the distribution... but he doesn't control it now, the label does (partially, let's not get into the whole issue of 2nd hand CDs, though that is of relevance here too)... and maybe Lars started to see that arguement doesn't hold either, as he then returned to the quantity/quality for the last question.
I think the lack of support from his record label has shaken him up significantly, as he says in the start of the interview, as he is defending their right to exist... which he doesn't have to be doing... as an "established band" he/they no longer need the support of a record label... now it could be they are altruistic individuals who like the thought that money being raked in from the sale of their CDs is being used to fund "start-up" bands... but, I don't think that is entirely the case (maybe partially).
If Lars continues his thinking that "What it ultimately comes down to... is 'Who controls it'?" I think he may start seeing the model where the band could have ultimate control if they ditched the label, and suplied their music themselves over the internet... You want control of what is being distributed Metallica? Then open your own harddrive to Napster access and drop your songs down there, then no one else would need to be doing it. Imagine if they did that... it wouldn't take very long for them to hear from their record company then!! Or, if you don't want Napster distributing, put your songs up, in whatever format, on your own site... if you build it they will come (sorry, if I didn't say it, you would still be thinking it)... but, whatever, although on topic, I am off point...
He is, as he says, been aware of the questions about the need for the current distribution channel, and the ability of the internet to serve as a new distribution channel...
the question then, and I think I should call it THE QUESTION, as this is the issue every recording artist is grappling with, is do they want revenue from each individual who wants a copy of their songs, or are they content with the revenue they get from concerts? He says they support bootlegs, but to what extent... I think he seems to be genuine in this support, because I think he really did rethink the 'it's the quality/quantity' issue, even though he came back to it at the end, the seed of doubt has been planted.
Well, I could go on for hours on my personal views of where the music industry is going, the pros and CONS of having the labels (do we really need the Britney Spears of the world, ie. music that is pure marketing no content?)... see I'm finding it hard to restain myself now... but that would be off-topic... the topic being what is Lars saying/thinking.
Cheers all!
Sounds like a blatant copy of 'Brazil'... without all the Terry Gilliam good stuff
Now lets not confuse things... this is NOT data collected by Stats Can... their mandate to collect information is ruled by and guided by strict regulations on how they can use and release the data they collect... the problem with this HR database is that HR has no restrictions on it, as it was never part of their mandate to gather and collect such information... all this was in the article. Obviously, this points at a larger problem in government (notice I do not single out Canadian govt. here), since, if HR could gather up all this information, presumably by asking for, and recieving databases held by other ministries/departments, other govt agents (again note no Cdn. specification) could/has probably compiled a like database... now I think the commission may have fallen short on its recommended course of action to take (now I'm relying on the story as to what the commission recommended as I have not read the report) in that they are looking to place restrictions on the use shelf life etc of "the database" not data collected by govt in general...
Hello my name is eh? and I'm an english Canadian who likes poutine... it started many years ago when I lived in Quebec, I ordered by mistake, thinking I was getting a putain (look it up http://www.notam.uio.no/~hcholm/altlang/ht/French. html),... now I can't get enough... this is my story, it's a true story, jusk ask Human Resources it's all there in my file... I just hope that someone somewhere hears this tale and learns from it... sniff, sniff, I need some time here, I'm sorry
the solution is to keep cookies disabled.... oh gee I forgot, according to slashdot cookies are good, beneficial things, and cannot be used for malicious purposes ;)
I was thinking about that "encrypting your typing" thing... could one create a program that captures the input from the keyboard before their program, scramble/encrypt the text, then decrypt it "after" their program? Or how about a program that, inserts x number of "keystrokes" in between every keystroke, while simultaneously capturing those same keystrokes into some buffer, so they aren't seen by whatever program you are interfacing with at the time... Or are they monitoring your keystrokes with hardware? Now, of course, if it is a software monitor, you could do what I did when I arrived at my nice new system and found they had NT4 installed, and I had no way of putting my own browser on... wipe the hard drive and do a clean install of a new OS :)