I was a producer at a public radio station in the Midwest. This means that every staff meeting was filled with middle-market talk show hosts whose one marketable feature is that they love to talk and talk. Those are some awful meetings. One goes on and on, then the next one feels they haven't been listened to then the next. Man, it's painful.
Fifteen years ago there were three major producers of Porn and very few distribution companies and they made all the money. Then came video, the 'net, open distribution, and now there are hundreds of Porn companies, most of which make decent money, but no single company makes more than 15% of the whole market. The big three are still rich, but nowhere near as rich or dominant. And there is better porn (also worse porn, sicker porn, more boring porn, every kind of porn).
This is exactly what will/should happen with music. Just imagine: hundreds of different record companies, all with more or less equal access to the market. You'd have lots of new music--some great, some lousy, some that only you and a hundred others would love. And as much as I love Springsteen, it would be fine with me if he only made $5 million a year and several thousand other bands each made $100,000 a year.
The problem for the big five record companies (soon to be only three, through mergers) is that they're on such a scale that they simply wouldn't work on a smaller scale. The big 3 porn cos were small enough and nimble enough to adjust down. The big five are terrified. I spoke with a high-ranking executive at one of the big 5 and he said it's about 50/50 they'll be in business in five years. He said he's kind of looking forward to early retirement. But who cares? Get rid of them. In ten years or fifty, there will still be money to be made in music and there will be companies making it. It would be great if there are many small companies instead of a handful of big ones.
The problem is manned space-flight of any kind
on
NASA's Own X Prize?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
A few years ago, the big thing at Nasa was micro-satellites and micro-explorers. Send up several dozen cheap, small explorers that were mostlly made from stuff already on the private market. NASA could send up dozens, knowing half or more would be destroyed or wouldn't work, but the end result would be a lot more exploration for a lot less money. With any kind of manned spaceflight--tourism or not--the multiple redundancies and zero (?) accepted risk, the costs grow astronomically and the actual science down drops. But former NASA administrator Dan Goldin--back during the mid-90s budget crisis at NASA--decided the only way to get Congress and US taxpayers excited was through manned travel--the Right Stuff stuff. The press doesn't get as excited about 40 football-sized explorers out there, most of which don't work. This is a shame. Forget the rich tourists, forget lunar colonies. Let's go back to small, cheap, expendable which also means a lot of good science.
You can send books a few ways. It's best just to email me at adavidson@marketplace.org and I'll send you the address. Please let me know what books you'd like to send.
I wrote the article in LinuxJournal on the Iraqi LUG. I thought I could clarify a few things.
First of all, of course Iraq needs a good and independent government, security, better water supply, a working economy, better healthcare, etc. And of course those have higher priority than software. But it also needs so many other things. I live in Iraq and have for most of the time since the war, I speak to Iraqis every day who are quite eloquent about their needs. One of the needs that many Iraqis have is to catch up on the decades of progress that has occurred in the rest of the world.
There are many, many Iraqis who are well-educated, ambitious, middle-class (by Iraqi standards), whose NUMBER ONE desire is to develop their education and understanding of the world's progress. They are outraged at the suggestion that nobody should help them until there is a free government, clean water, reliable power, etc. They want to catch up and quick.
Linux is just one of the things that these people are asking for. Electrical engineers want books and information about progress in their field. So do doctors, lawyers, scientists, etc. I'm working with a group of Iraqi artists (www.iraqartists.org) whose number one need right now is to know what has happened in the art world in the past few decades. I know of similar efforts among engineers, academics, physicians, attorneys, etc.
I don't know how I can, personally, bring Iraqis democracy, sanitation, power. But I do know that, without much effort, I can give them Linux distributions and a few bucks and a few books. I know that I can, personally, put them in touch with artists.
If you saw the look of unimaginable joy on the faces of the Linux geeks in Baghdad when I told them that I'd try to get some folks outside of Iraq to help them, I don't think you'd argue that we should put this project aside until every other problem is solved.
If you are in a position to transform Iraq into a democracy, or bring it power, or security, than by all means, do those things. But most of us can't do any of that. But we can send some URLs of useful information, or just an encouraging email, we can ship books and magazines about Linux, we can ship some CDs, and we can send them money. It will make life better for some Iraqis and has the potential of helping to ensure that Iraq's new government will be more open-source friendly. And, I believe strongly, open source knowledge and open source friendly laws will make Iraq a more successful country.
Also: to those who think every penny (dinar) spent in Iraq is controlled by the US and M$, you are mistaken. Of course, the US has very publicly shown that it intends most of the big contracts to go to US companies. But those are US construction companies, for the most part, who will build bridges, roads, schools, telecom centers, hospitals, etc. They are not software companies. Most of the actual work will be done by Iraqi subcontractors, who are free to use whatever OS they choose. Also, billions more will be spent by Iraqi government ministries who are not so directly controlled that they can't choose whatever OS they prefer.
And the Iraqi laws are being written by Americans AND Iraqis. The Americans writing them are career civil servants, many of whom are privately critical of Bush and are not beholden to M$ or any other proprietary solution.
There are certainly many profound problems with the way the US is running Iraq and I report on these all the time on Marketplace (www.marketplace.org), but it is not the complete and total corporatist sell-out that many imagine.
To sum up: if there are ways you can help Iraq that meet their most immediate needs, then do so. If you are someone who can offer Linux support--by offering yourself to be on-call for tech questions, suggesting useful URLs, sending books, CDs, and money, then that would be wonderful.
If you've already decided that the whole thing is a done deal and Bush and corporate America have complete c
Slashdot Mirror
I was a producer at a public radio station in the Midwest. This means that every staff meeting was filled with middle-market talk show hosts whose one marketable feature is that they love to talk and talk. Those are some awful meetings. One goes on and on, then the next one feels they haven't been listened to then the next. Man, it's painful.
Fifteen years ago there were three major producers of Porn and very few distribution companies and they made all the money. Then came video, the 'net, open distribution, and now there are hundreds of Porn companies, most of which make decent money, but no single company makes more than 15% of the whole market. The big three are still rich, but nowhere near as rich or dominant. And there is better porn (also worse porn, sicker porn, more boring porn, every kind of porn).
This is exactly what will/should happen with music. Just imagine: hundreds of different record companies, all with more or less equal access to the market. You'd have lots of new music--some great, some lousy, some that only you and a hundred others would love. And as much as I love Springsteen, it would be fine with me if he only made $5 million a year and several thousand other bands each made $100,000 a year.
The problem for the big five record companies (soon to be only three, through mergers) is that they're on such a scale that they simply wouldn't work on a smaller scale. The big 3 porn cos were small enough and nimble enough to adjust down. The big five are terrified. I spoke with a high-ranking executive at one of the big 5 and he said it's about 50/50 they'll be in business in five years. He said he's kind of looking forward to early retirement. But who cares? Get rid of them. In ten years or fifty, there will still be money to be made in music and there will be companies making it. It would be great if there are many small companies instead of a handful of big ones.
A few years ago, the big thing at Nasa was micro-satellites and micro-explorers. Send up several dozen cheap, small explorers that were mostlly made from stuff already on the private market. NASA could send up dozens, knowing half or more would be destroyed or wouldn't work, but the end result would be a lot more exploration for a lot less money. With any kind of manned spaceflight--tourism or not--the multiple redundancies and zero (?) accepted risk, the costs grow astronomically and the actual science down drops. But former NASA administrator Dan Goldin--back during the mid-90s budget crisis at NASA--decided the only way to get Congress and US taxpayers excited was through manned travel--the Right Stuff stuff. The press doesn't get as excited about 40 football-sized explorers out there, most of which don't work. This is a shame. Forget the rich tourists, forget lunar colonies. Let's go back to small, cheap, expendable which also means a lot of good science.
You can send books a few ways. It's best just to email me at adavidson@marketplace.org and I'll send you the address. Please let me know what books you'd like to send.
I wrote the article in LinuxJournal on the Iraqi LUG. I thought I could clarify a few things.
First of all, of course Iraq needs a good and independent government, security, better water supply, a working economy, better healthcare, etc. And of course those have higher priority than software. But it also needs so many other things. I live in Iraq and have for most of the time since the war, I speak to Iraqis every day who are quite eloquent about their needs. One of the needs that many Iraqis have is to catch up on the decades of progress that has occurred in the rest of the world.
There are many, many Iraqis who are well-educated, ambitious, middle-class (by Iraqi standards), whose NUMBER ONE desire is to develop their education and understanding of the world's progress. They are outraged at the suggestion that nobody should help them until there is a free government, clean water, reliable power, etc. They want to catch up and quick.
Linux is just one of the things that these people are asking for. Electrical engineers want books and information about progress in their field. So do doctors, lawyers, scientists, etc. I'm working with a group of Iraqi artists (www.iraqartists.org) whose number one need right now is to know what has happened in the art world in the past few decades. I know of similar efforts among engineers, academics, physicians, attorneys, etc.
I don't know how I can, personally, bring Iraqis democracy, sanitation, power. But I do know that, without much effort, I can give them Linux distributions and a few bucks and a few books. I know that I can, personally, put them in touch with artists.
If you saw the look of unimaginable joy on the faces of the Linux geeks in Baghdad when I told them that I'd try to get some folks outside of Iraq to help them, I don't think you'd argue that we should put this project aside until every other problem is solved.
If you are in a position to transform Iraq into a democracy, or bring it power, or security, than by all means, do those things. But most of us can't do any of that. But we can send some URLs of useful information, or just an encouraging email, we can ship books and magazines about Linux, we can ship some CDs, and we can send them money. It will make life better for some Iraqis and has the potential of helping to ensure that Iraq's new government will be more open-source friendly. And, I believe strongly, open source knowledge and open source friendly laws will make Iraq a more successful country.
Also: to those who think every penny (dinar) spent in Iraq is controlled by the US and M$, you are mistaken. Of course, the US has very publicly shown that it intends most of the big contracts to go to US companies. But those are US construction companies, for the most part, who will build bridges, roads, schools, telecom centers, hospitals, etc. They are not software companies. Most of the actual work will be done by Iraqi subcontractors, who are free to use whatever OS they choose. Also, billions more will be spent by Iraqi government ministries who are not so directly controlled that they can't choose whatever OS they prefer.
And the Iraqi laws are being written by Americans AND Iraqis. The Americans writing them are career civil servants, many of whom are privately critical of Bush and are not beholden to M$ or any other proprietary solution.
There are certainly many profound problems with the way the US is running Iraq and I report on these all the time on Marketplace (www.marketplace.org), but it is not the complete and total corporatist sell-out that many imagine.
To sum up: if there are ways you can help Iraq that meet their most immediate needs, then do so. If you are someone who can offer Linux support--by offering yourself to be on-call for tech questions, suggesting useful URLs, sending books, CDs, and money, then that would be wonderful.
If you've already decided that the whole thing is a done deal and Bush and corporate America have complete c