So, according to the RIAA, they are losing sales due to music pirating.
Whats going to happen when all the music pirates are broke because the RIAA took all their money in court and can't afford to buy a CD anyways?
What will the RIAA blame it on then? Oh wait. By that time they won't care, as they have figured out a way to have income without having to go through the process of manufacturing a band.
There is a very simple line of logic industry leaders seem to forget. People will often spend more money on things they enjoy then something they don't.
The sad fact is, the quality of main stream music has continued to fall, and yet the industry seems to continue to put greater and greater restrictions into what can enter into the market.
The quality of movies seems to fluctuate, but at the very least, one can say that every year we get quite a few movies that are highly entertaining. This is despite the fact that the market already has quite a few restrictions as to what can enter.
Simple solution? Stop making music that is'nt entertaining, start charging prices that are out of sync with the quality of the product.
Has the MP3 broadcast function, ultra long time digital sound recording
Not to enforce any negative cultural stereotypes, but for some reason this gave me the image of the Vietnamese prostitute (yes I know, wrong country) standing on a street corner from 'Full Metal Jacket' holding a PDA.
'Hey G.I., you like PDA?'
'You like PDA? You like MP3'
(holds out PDA)
'Play mp3, ultra long time. You record ultra looong time. Yeah baby... digital. It play digital all night long, ultra looooong time'.
he said. "Some of these corporations, we are told, have their own little networks--that is very clearly illegal."
I was told somewhere that some companys have their own big networks too. It's amazing how companies set up networks that allow users to share data and increase their productivity. Since there is a potential for them to share mp3 files accross those networks, they must be illegal.
At what point did having a computer at your home or office with a networked connection suddenly make you suspect of illegal activites.
My company already pays the RIAA in various capacitys untold 'royalties' (or whatever they are called) every time we buy CD-Rs for that oh so potentially illegal copying of important business related files for backup purposes. (The fact that we don't use work machines for mp3s has nothing to do with it.. we are suspect).
Now, aparently, if somebody on our work network happens to download and distribute mp3s, we'll get charged again.
Who gave these jokers that kind of power? And what can we do to take it away from them.
I can't say that I like that idea. It shows the end result of the really skewered thinking the advertising industry has, and how it's made people respond.
In every other medium, advertising really has no instant feedback on it's effectivness, so it relies on three things: a good message, a targeted audience to provide it exposure, and a good number of people who will see it.
But somewhere along the line advertisers were taught that on the internet, because there was a potential for immediate feedback (click throughs), the effectivness of the ads can only be judged on that feedback.
But this really is'nt the case. I may see dozens of ads for 'thinkgeek.com' in passing, and one day, decide to type in the URL. (Which I have).
But in that model, the advertiser still belives it's ads were ineffective, and the website does'nt get paid.
On the other side of the coin are the users. I cringe every time I see a hapless webmaster say 'Click on my ads! Support our site'. Why? I don't go to McDonalds just because they advertise on a show I like.
I may like a website, but I'm not going to click on an ad that gives the site money when I have no intention of buying anything or even looking at the site that's been clicked through.
But somehow that's entered into the strange and twisted morality of todays net user: That it's OK to act in a fradulent manner in order to give a guy who runs a website you like a few extra cents.
And it turns into a two way street. The more and more people click through onto ads just to 'support' a website without a real interest in being a consumer, the less and less any serious advertisers will consider the Internet to be a viable medium for advertising.
Salon was a good Internet magazine. The real shame is, an effective business modle was not (and still has'nt) been developed between online magazines, readers, and advertisments.
Why is it paper magazine can be succesful with a solid subscriber base without ads that try to jump out and scream for your attention, and online publications can't.
I blame the ad industry, which is still way too young for the Internet. When they discover that success can be better measured in page views instead of click throughs, they will have grown up and decent content will be supported (Imagine if companies who advertised in triditional magazines only judged their ads based on how many people stoped reading and immediatly jumped up and drove to their store).
So, give it another 5 years until the ad industry grows up. I just hope something like Salon will start up at that point.
Like all things, it goes in cycles. The harder you push when the pendilum is going your way, the harder it will swing back in 20 years when things are'nt on your side.
Give the Christians their pledge. Otherwise, don't be surprised in 20 years when they get so fed up you suddenly can't find a job if your an athiest.
Clear Channel programmers deny they would ever tamper with what goes out over the airwaves in order to make a buck.
That strikes me as odd. I always thought the purpose of setting up play lists was to provide a mix of music the audience would like so you could make a buck.
But aparently, play lists don't mean much in the grand scheme of things, when you have a near monopoly in a market that does'nt easily allow new entrys.
Then they remove their mod, and come into the dealership complaining about "doesn't run right" - hoping to be taken for an innocent fool.
With all that technology you put into those things, don't you think you can find something that logs the changes? I don't see how that would be so hard.
"yeah, this part is burned out. According to your system logs, a mod chip was placed into the car on 7/14, and was replaced with the orgininal yesterday. I can't cover this"
It really shows bad taste when you use the Internet as a scapegoat to cover up the fact that an artist simply is'nt connecting with his/her audience like the used to.
It's almost as bad as a company blaming poor sales on 9/11.
As a side note, Moby should know that I discovered him, and purchased several of his albums because of the Internet before play received the national attention it eventually would garner.
Software includes Mail, Word Processor, Web Browser/ File Manager, Address Book, Calculator, CD Player, MP3 Player, Microsoft? PowerPoint? Viewer, Microsoft? Word? Viewer, Microsoft? Excel? Viewer, Image Viewer
I love the generic names for the software. Do you use Word or Word Perfect? No, I use 'Word Processor'.
And the question marks after Microsoft... is that because they don't know and are asking the customer, or because it's not immediatly known if it's a microsoft product the purchasing guys put in these things.
It does'nt provide a link or instructions on how to write to encourage my local theatre to play it.
As a fan, if they showed it anywhere near here, I'd go see it.
Unless I missed something (which I'll admit is possible.. the site is slow due to/.), why would somebody make a website for a movie that I have no chance of seeing?
I'm not a hard core gamer... I mostly use my computer for work. I recently upgraded to a 1900+ AMD. I picked up a pretty heafty fan for it (the guy at Fry's said it was the best. I've learned never to trust the guy at Fry's, so I did some research and discovered it was the best they carried.
Compared to my old Duron 600, this thing is a beast. The noise is terrible, and for the first time I find myself shutting my computer off at night just so I can sleep.
Can't someone just design a case that allows air to go through, cool the CPU, and still be quiet? We have all these enginers giving us bigger and bitter processers, yet nobody is giving any real thought to noise control.
Oh gee. A case designer makes it quiet out the back. No! I want a total quiet noise solution. I'm a consumer! I'll pay for it!
Up until mid '99, I was a die hard anti-MS Netscape/Opera user. Finally I tried out IE.
The thing that got me was, it works. It worked well. Netscape has been behind the curve since it's 4.x release.
About every 6 months I'll try the latest netscape/opera, and recently mozilla. While they may be faster (on paper), IE still seems to work just fine for me.
While I still dislike MS the company, I do like IE the software package. After running MSIE on XP for four months, the browser has never crashed on me, and continues to earn my loyalty.
For a competetor to get me to switch, they can't be 'just as good', they have to be signifigantly better.
Amoung other things, I work in construction and help architects and contractators design networks in new facilities. I am not an electrictian, but it's always been a cardinal no-no to run CAT-5 (or just about anything) in the same conduit as high power lines. This has been done in a few cases, and the interference from the power cables (regardless of sheilding) results in a noticable packet loss.
The article is a little vauge as to what kind of cables they want to lay, and what sort of pre-existing conduit they are using (there is multi-channel conduit which should work fine). It almost alludes to simply trenching along the same right-of-ways as existing conduit and laying new pipe.
But on the surface, the implication is that they will be pulling cable sitting alongside high power lines, which will probably give them some unhappy customers.
Not to fan any flames, and by no means take this to read as an endorsement, but would'nt it be grand if all those kids out there with tons of time and resources just decided to use there 'mad hacking' skills to take out some of these spammers?
In a perfect world laws would be written, and enforced. But right now, they are not. As a general rule, I'm not a proponent of taking the law into your own hands, but I'd sure like to see some smack down on whoever hits the 'send' button on this crap I get in my e-mail box.
You think thats bad... we have an office manager who just loves to put our corporate logo, in color, on every document we put out. We have several economical laser printers, but she is tied to our one color inkjet printer, going through both color and black and white ink like mad.
This despite the fact that it's far cheaper, faster, and looks much better to get paper with our logo (in color) from the print shop down the street and run it through the lasers.
I've tried a few times to explain these economics to her, but have since learned it's a futile persuit.
Being as it's early and I'm quickly skimming posts, I first read that as "bashing their new controls on XP or CE" and had this image in my head or robots being so fed up with their host computers... well, you get the idea.
Just remember to put your gown over the hook, place your towel over the drain, place your satchel over the panel and put your junk mail on top of the satchel...
Otherwise, you'll never get anywhere with these bots.
For those who inforce the law. It seems as though so much time and energy has been spent as of late in the courts to protect big business (read RIAA) from the actions of people (read us).
It's about time the courts were used, en masse, to protect people (us) from the fradulant actions of business (monsterhut and others).
In a free market, business is supposed to be at the mercy of the consumer. We keep the government around to pass and enforce laws when that does'nt happen. It really does make me feel good to see the NY AG doing it's job.
In 1997, Titantic grossed over $600 million. The second place movie was Men in Black, Which did less then half that.
Both were highly hyped, big budget films. Titantic was a simple love story with a little adventure thrown in, while Men in Black was mostly eye candy with special effects and quite a few tie ins (including a cartoon series).
Yet, 5 years later, which one would you rather see? The easy answer would be neither, but I for one remember Men in Black far more fondly then Titantic.
Of course, you could say that Titantic hit a nerve amoung young woman that had'nt been touched by major movie studios in a long time, whic accounted for it's good showing at the box office. . . and you'd be right. You can say a lot of things, but to suggest that because it made so much money it represented a dynamic shift in the Western world's understanding of mythology is just silly.
Before I start reading stories here. With rare exception, Katz is out of touch and out of tune with the people he seems to think he's in touch with. The same thing has been said thousands of times before, and will be said thousands of times again.
Slashdot is a great place to discover cultural tidbits. Slashdot says Cowboy Bebop is neat, I watch it, it is neat. Katz says Star Wars II is bloated and not worth it, but it is'nt.
Slashdot Mirror
Is There Such a Thing as "Too User Friendly"?
Yes, it's called a Mac.
(Mods, if you don't reconize this as an attempt at humor, I really have to pray for you).
So, according to the RIAA, they are losing sales due to music pirating.
Whats going to happen when all the music pirates are broke because the RIAA took all their money in court and can't afford to buy a CD anyways?
What will the RIAA blame it on then? Oh wait. By that time they won't care, as they have figured out a way to have income without having to go through the process of manufacturing a band.
*sigh*
There is a very simple line of logic industry leaders seem to forget. People will often spend more money on things they enjoy then something they don't.
The sad fact is, the quality of main stream music has continued to fall, and yet the industry seems to continue to put greater and greater restrictions into what can enter into the market.
The quality of movies seems to fluctuate, but at the very least, one can say that every year we get quite a few movies that are highly entertaining. This is despite the fact that the market already has quite a few restrictions as to what can enter.
Simple solution? Stop making music that is'nt entertaining, start charging prices that are out of sync with the quality of the product.
Has the MP3 broadcast function, ultra long time digital sound recording
Not to enforce any negative cultural stereotypes, but for some reason this gave me the image of the Vietnamese prostitute (yes I know, wrong country) standing on a street corner from 'Full Metal Jacket' holding a PDA.
'Hey G.I., you like PDA?'
'You like PDA? You like MP3'
(holds out PDA)
'Play mp3, ultra long time. You record ultra looong time. Yeah baby... digital. It play digital all night long, ultra looooong time'.
But could'nt ford just as easily (and cheaply) put a little script in their page that checked for the refering web page?
When it showed as 'fuckgeneralmoters.com' as the referer, simply redirect to a disclaimer?
It seems that would be far more logical, save far more in legal fees, and would avoid any confusion.
Again, I could be wrong.
Taken only slightly out of context:
he said. "Some of these corporations, we are told, have their own little networks--that is very clearly illegal."
I was told somewhere that some companys have their own big networks too. It's amazing how companies set up networks that allow users to share data and increase their productivity. Since there is a potential for them to share mp3 files accross those networks, they must be illegal.
At what point did having a computer at your home or office with a networked connection suddenly make you suspect of illegal activites.
My company already pays the RIAA in various capacitys untold 'royalties' (or whatever they are called) every time we buy CD-Rs for that oh so potentially illegal copying of important business related files for backup purposes. (The fact that we don't use work machines for mp3s has nothing to do with it.. we are suspect).
Now, aparently, if somebody on our work network happens to download and distribute mp3s, we'll get charged again.
Who gave these jokers that kind of power? And what can we do to take it away from them.
I can't say that I like that idea. It shows the end result of the really skewered thinking the advertising industry has, and how it's made people respond.
In every other medium, advertising really has no instant feedback on it's effectivness, so it relies on three things: a good message, a targeted audience to provide it exposure, and a good number of people who will see it.
But somewhere along the line advertisers were taught that on the internet, because there was a potential for immediate feedback (click throughs), the effectivness of the ads can only be judged on that feedback.
But this really is'nt the case. I may see dozens of ads for 'thinkgeek.com' in passing, and one day, decide to type in the URL. (Which I have).
But in that model, the advertiser still belives it's ads were ineffective, and the website does'nt get paid.
On the other side of the coin are the users. I cringe every time I see a hapless webmaster say 'Click on my ads! Support our site'. Why? I don't go to McDonalds just because they advertise on a show I like.
I may like a website, but I'm not going to click on an ad that gives the site money when I have no intention of buying anything or even looking at the site that's been clicked through.
But somehow that's entered into the strange and twisted morality of todays net user: That it's OK to act in a fradulent manner in order to give a guy who runs a website you like a few extra cents.
And it turns into a two way street. The more and more people click through onto ads just to 'support' a website without a real interest in being a consumer, the less and less any serious advertisers will consider the Internet to be a viable medium for advertising.
Salon was a good Internet magazine. The real shame is, an effective business modle was not (and still has'nt) been developed between online magazines, readers, and advertisments.
Why is it paper magazine can be succesful with a solid subscriber base without ads that try to jump out and scream for your attention, and online publications can't.
I blame the ad industry, which is still way too young for the Internet. When they discover that success can be better measured in page views instead of click throughs, they will have grown up and decent content will be supported (Imagine if companies who advertised in triditional magazines only judged their ads based on how many people stoped reading and immediatly jumped up and drove to their store).
So, give it another 5 years until the ad industry grows up. I just hope something like Salon will start up at that point.
---
Like all things, it goes in cycles. The harder you push when the pendilum is going your way, the harder it will swing back in 20 years when things are'nt on your side.
Give the Christians their pledge. Otherwise, don't be surprised in 20 years when they get so fed up you suddenly can't find a job if your an athiest.
From the Salon article:
Clear Channel programmers deny they would ever tamper with what goes out over the airwaves in order to make a buck.
That strikes me as odd. I always thought the purpose of setting up play lists was to provide a mix of music the audience would like so you could make a buck.
But aparently, play lists don't mean much in the grand scheme of things, when you have a near monopoly in a market that does'nt easily allow new entrys.
Then they remove their mod, and come into the dealership complaining about "doesn't run right" - hoping to be taken for an innocent fool.
With all that technology you put into those things, don't you think you can find something that logs the changes? I don't see how that would be so hard.
"yeah, this part is burned out. According to your system logs, a mod chip was placed into the car on 7/14, and was replaced with the orgininal yesterday. I can't cover this"
It really shows bad taste when you use the Internet as a scapegoat to cover up the fact that an artist simply is'nt connecting with his/her audience like the used to.
It's almost as bad as a company blaming poor sales on 9/11.
As a side note, Moby should know that I discovered him, and purchased several of his albums because of the Internet before play received the national attention it eventually would garner.
Shame on you, Moby.
From the list:
Software includes Mail, Word Processor, Web Browser/ File Manager, Address Book, Calculator, CD Player, MP3 Player, Microsoft? PowerPoint? Viewer, Microsoft? Word? Viewer, Microsoft? Excel? Viewer, Image Viewer
I love the generic names for the software. Do you use Word or Word Perfect? No, I use 'Word Processor'.
And the question marks after Microsoft... is that because they don't know and are asking the customer, or because it's not immediatly known if it's a microsoft product the purchasing guys put in these things.
It does'nt say where the movie will play or when.
/.), why would somebody make a website for a movie that I have no chance of seeing?
It does'nt provide a link or instructions on how to write to encourage my local theatre to play it.
As a fan, if they showed it anywhere near here, I'd go see it.
Unless I missed something (which I'll admit is possible.. the site is slow due to
I'm not a hard core gamer... I mostly use my computer for work. I recently upgraded to a 1900+ AMD. I picked up a pretty heafty fan for it (the guy at Fry's said it was the best. I've learned never to trust the guy at Fry's, so I did some research and discovered it was the best they carried.
Compared to my old Duron 600, this thing is a beast. The noise is terrible, and for the first time I find myself shutting my computer off at night just so I can sleep.
Can't someone just design a case that allows air to go through, cool the CPU, and still be quiet? We have all these enginers giving us bigger and bitter processers, yet nobody is giving any real thought to noise control.
Oh gee. A case designer makes it quiet out the back. No! I want a total quiet noise solution. I'm a consumer! I'll pay for it!
--
This could bring the entire Internet community to a halt!
Next thing you know, they'll discover people using IE for archie searches will allow users to hack your windows box too.
---
You're not alone.
Up until mid '99, I was a die hard anti-MS Netscape/Opera user. Finally I tried out IE.
The thing that got me was, it works. It worked well. Netscape has been behind the curve since it's 4.x release.
About every 6 months I'll try the latest netscape/opera, and recently mozilla. While they may be faster (on paper), IE still seems to work just fine for me.
While I still dislike MS the company, I do like IE the software package. After running MSIE on XP for four months, the browser has never crashed on me, and continues to earn my loyalty.
For a competetor to get me to switch, they can't be 'just as good', they have to be signifigantly better.
Amoung other things, I work in construction and help architects and contractators design networks in new facilities. I am not an electrictian, but it's always been a cardinal no-no to run CAT-5 (or just about anything) in the same conduit as high power lines. This has been done in a few cases, and the interference from the power cables (regardless of sheilding) results in a noticable packet loss.
The article is a little vauge as to what kind of cables they want to lay, and what sort of pre-existing conduit they are using (there is multi-channel conduit which should work fine). It almost alludes to simply trenching along the same right-of-ways as existing conduit and laying new pipe.
But on the surface, the implication is that they will be pulling cable sitting alongside high power lines, which will probably give them some unhappy customers.
Not to fan any flames, and by no means take this to read as an endorsement, but would'nt it be grand if all those kids out there with tons of time and resources just decided to use there 'mad hacking' skills to take out some of these spammers?
In a perfect world laws would be written, and enforced. But right now, they are not. As a general rule, I'm not a proponent of taking the law into your own hands, but I'd sure like to see some smack down on whoever hits the 'send' button on this crap I get in my e-mail box.
You think thats bad... we have an office manager who just loves to put our corporate logo, in color, on every document we put out. We have several economical laser printers, but she is tied to our one color inkjet printer, going through both color and black and white ink like mad.
This despite the fact that it's far cheaper, faster, and looks much better to get paper with our logo (in color) from the print shop down the street and run it through the lasers.
I've tried a few times to explain these economics to her, but have since learned it's a futile persuit.
--
seem to be basing their new controls on XP or CE
Being as it's early and I'm quickly skimming posts, I first read that as "bashing their new controls on XP or CE" and had this image in my head or robots being so fed up with their host computers... well, you get the idea.
-
but event driven is good enough for me
Just remember to put your gown over the hook, place your towel over the drain, place your satchel over the panel and put your junk mail on top of the satchel...
Otherwise, you'll never get anywhere with these bots.
=
For those who inforce the law. It seems as though so much time and energy has been spent as of late in the courts to protect big business (read RIAA) from the actions of people (read us).
It's about time the courts were used, en masse, to protect people (us) from the fradulant actions of business (monsterhut and others).
In a free market, business is supposed to be at the mercy of the consumer. We keep the government around to pass and enforce laws when that does'nt happen. It really does make me feel good to see the NY AG doing it's job.
---
...Or, why Katz is wrong.
In 1997, Titantic grossed over $600 million. The second place movie was Men in Black, Which did less then half that.
Both were highly hyped, big budget films. Titantic was a simple love story with a little adventure thrown in, while Men in Black was mostly eye candy with special effects and quite a few tie ins (including a cartoon series).
Yet, 5 years later, which one would you rather see? The easy answer would be neither, but I for one remember Men in Black far more fondly then Titantic.
Of course, you could say that Titantic hit a nerve amoung young woman that had'nt been touched by major movie studios in a long time, whic accounted for it's good showing at the box office. . . and you'd be right. You can say a lot of things, but to suggest that because it made so much money it represented a dynamic shift in the Western world's understanding of mythology is just silly.
---
Before I start reading stories here. With rare exception, Katz is out of touch and out of tune with the people he seems to think he's in touch with. The same thing has been said thousands of times before, and will be said thousands of times again.
Slashdot is a great place to discover cultural tidbits. Slashdot says Cowboy Bebop is neat, I watch it, it is neat. Katz says Star Wars II is bloated and not worth it, but it is'nt.
*sigh*
=