So, presuming that you worked 1 to 5 nights a week, you made a decent living. Good to know somebody does.
I think you're right that Napster has no impact, but I'm not entirely sure. If music wants to be free, why am I paying a cover charge? Certainly the kids who refuse to pay $15 (btw, how come everybody say $20? Do they all live in NYC, or do they just not look around for a better price?) for a CD they can keep aren't all that likely to cough up $30 (or whatever it is these days) for an arena show they'll lose in an alcoholic haze by morning.
Most of all, though, doesn't it just piss you off? If you choose to work strictly live, that's a perfectly reasonable choice, but if somebody else chooses to record I'd have to see a pretty compelling reason to stop him. Are people downloading music because they need it to feed their kids? Are they doing it for the starving masses of Wherever? Or are they doing it through sheer self-indulgence? They're certainly not incorporating it into the bigger and better music of tomorrow.
It's true that, say, Mick Jagger doesn't really much need my pittance at this point, but it's equally true that I don't need his music at all -- not even a little. I listen to it because I like it. It's strictly a pleasure. Why should my pleasure be at his expense?
Re:Excuse me,excuse me may i have your attention
on
Metallica Vs. Harvard
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· Score: 1
Sorry, I get sarcastic on Mondays.
Don't know. Your name (I'm really NAL) is what people call you, so if I can persuade enough people to call me "Tut", then my name becomes "Tut". I need to be consistent -- I can't answer to "Tut" at work and "George" on the street, and there are complications if I'm wanted under another name, but the concept is pretty straightforward. AFAIK, if I choose to call myself "Senator", and I can persuade others to do so, then "Senator" becomes my name.
Being named "Senator" will not allow me to pass legislation, or even double-park, because it's just a word. Anybody can be "Dr" -- universities pass those out like party favours at commencement -- but it's not like you can practice medicine.
Avoid fraud, and you can call yourself what you like.
Oooh! Bet they're scared, huh? If they don't shape up, you'll...cut class, or maybe start a food fight!
Re:Excuse me,excuse me may i have your attention
on
Metallica Vs. Harvard
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· Score: 2
I don't know how to break this to you, but Commander Cody wasn't really a commander, Captain Beefheart's not a captain, and Screamin' Lord Sutch wasn't a peer.
On the other hand, Dr. Seuss was a board-certified surgeon and Cat Stevens really is a cat.
Hmmm... well, I can see your point there, but it strikes me as a distinction without a difference. If you got a phone number at a party and then lost the matchbook, it's frankly not terribly useful to know that in fact she still has a phone number -- you just can't call her because your knowledge of the number was tightly bound to that matchbook. Bottom line is that Plato wrote things we will never read.
It's not as if the ease of digital duplication and distribution guarantees that it will happen. How many times have you heard, "Well, I usually do a backup, but..."?
In fact, there is a case to be made that the churning of technology may cost us information, as older formats become less and less practical to read. If somebody walked up to you right now with an 8" H-DOS disk containing the draft of his unpublished novel, would you be able to read it? There are services that could, if the disk were in readable condition (also not guaranteed), but how often would the cost be prohibitive and the novel simply lost? I can read books printed a thousand years ago, but I may not be able to read floppies from a thousand weeks ago.
It's not as if we have a mechanism in place to distribute and transfer more than a fraction of the information out there, and a skewed fraction at that. A lot of people have mirrored DeCSS, but how many have offered to mirror, say, the Census data? Probably more significant (I mean, our kids will find DeCSS the equivalent of a skate key), but much more burdensome and not nearly as sexy.
Just imagine the public backlash if one suggested to move a few-km sized rock, capable of a 100 hydrogen bomb explosion, and able to wipe out most of life on Earth
Sort of ironic, since public backlash didn't stop us from building 100 hydrogen bombs, or even 1000.
INAP, but it seems to me that the upper/outer part of a skyhook is, in fact, in orbit, and that therefore any object which rides up the elevator arrives at the top moving at orbital speed.
All of which is to say that whatever figures are given for riding the big upilator would include the energy to gain orbital velocity. That energy isn't free, but it's paid for in the initial toll. Once at the top, you need delta-V to increase that speed (to achieve a higher orbit, for instance), but you do have a good start.
using the techniques we learnt in forcing other countries to deal with the menace of drugs
Yeah, because that's worked so well! Should we send troops, as we did in Panama, or merely pump more munitions into the world, as we're doing in Columbia?
I can see us now, invading Finland to capture the notorious Linus Torvalds, code maker for the cartel.
The state of Maryland (yay for my home!) used to have a Censor Board that screened (in both sense) all movies shown here (it was shut down as a boondoggle some twenty years ago). The common presumption was that the Board was made up of slavering porn freaks and popcorn addicts who were happy to sit through anything and everything just for the odd flash of breast or something.
Of course, we also had The Block and Blaze Starr and all that, making the whole moral-Maryland thing a bit foolish, but that never stopped a state-funded group before.
Good as far as it goes, but they don't get your further interests -- if you scan beer UPC's, then they know you're interested in beer, something they'd never be able to derive from your RS purchases.
It might be useful (in a marketing sense) to know that 89% of the people who bought DVD players in the past year also bought Tampons, condoms, and dog food (or whatever).
What CueCat needs, of course, is either to release or to allow someone else to release non-Windows versions of the s/w that do the same stuff. This way they're simply shooting off their own toes, one by one ("Macintosh users? No, sorry, we don't know anything about them. Linux? BSD? BeOS? Sorry -- black holes of ignorance in our consumer database")
The sad thing is that these people only look at one side of the numbers. They know they've got potential access to a bazillion Windows users, but they don't consider the admittedly-smaller-but-still-way-too-numerous-to-f it-in-my-living-room group that they're throwing away through sheer laziness.
Maybe somebody should write to the CEO of CueCat and point this out -- "Your lawyers are sending away customers that your people are apparently too incompetent to serve!"
I mean really, what's the point of opening your doors if your own staff are going to block them with their sleeping bodies?
Since the issue under discussion was whether or not radio and television were killing the recording and film industries, free for you isn't the point (unless you're in the recording industry).
In the same vein, the fact that your diapers are free for you doesn't imperil Procter and Gamble because your parents pay for them.
You should have asked him whether two generations of free movies on television killed the theatre, or four generations of free music on the radio killed the music industry.
Since we haven't had either, it's hard to say. TV and radio stations both pay royalties, providing another revenue stream which may compensate for any losses.
Just because you don't pay for it doesn't make it free.
So that's the current set of conditions. Some of us will perpetuate ourselves more than others, and they will influence the gene pool. Nothing in Darwin changes.
It's like football -- it doesn't matter whether you would have won last Sunday, or next Sunday, or whether you should have won but your best guy got hurt, it's whether you win today. Period. Worse, really -- there are no rules and therefore no cheating, just the score.
BTW, I would say that our, "giving everyone the right to have children" had had a tiny, tiny effect. Reproductive therapy is an expensive process that probably adds, at the most, a few thousand births anually.
Our giving ourselves the right NOT to have children, OTOH, will probably be very significant.
(Incidentally, typos are typos and I generally ignore them, but given the context I had to laugh when I read, "pollute them gene pool" -- you have to admit it's sort of serendipitous.)
Unless you know of one that I don't? Which is utterly possible, just tell me which it is.
Shield laws in some states, so that a journalist can avoid being held in contempt for not revealing her sources.
By and large, though, you're right -- they pays their money and takes their chances just like the rest of us.
The press does, however, seem to feel more special than regular folks. If I somehow (God help me) became "news"and a bunch of my fellow citizens turned up on my front lawn and shouted at me, they'd get arrested for trespassing and disorderly conduct and walking on the grass and whatever. If a bunch of reporters do that, they're "working for our right to know", and would be deeply offended if I suggested otherwise, much less if I took a swing at one of them.
Mind you, Sam Donaldson could probably kick my ass.
What if our killing off the Tasmanian tiger *WAS* a natural product of Darwinism
As opposed to what? We're a force on this planet like any other, and the Tas Tiger was unable to adapt to our presence. It's not fair, of course, but evolution has never been a matter of fair.
I think a lot of peole are misled by the idea that Darwinian evolution produces "better" species, and that therefore there should be a fair test of "better". In practice, the species better set for that particular time and place survives, with absolutely no indication that future circumstances will be at all related.
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I think you're right that Napster has no impact, but I'm not entirely sure. If music wants to be free, why am I paying a cover charge? Certainly the kids who refuse to pay $15 (btw, how come everybody say $20? Do they all live in NYC, or do they just not look around for a better price?) for a CD they can keep aren't all that likely to cough up $30 (or whatever it is these days) for an arena show they'll lose in an alcoholic haze by morning.
Most of all, though, doesn't it just piss you off? If you choose to work strictly live, that's a perfectly reasonable choice, but if somebody else chooses to record I'd have to see a pretty compelling reason to stop him. Are people downloading music because they need it to feed their kids? Are they doing it for the starving masses of Wherever? Or are they doing it through sheer self-indulgence? They're certainly not incorporating it into the bigger and better music of tomorrow.
It's true that, say, Mick Jagger doesn't really much need my pittance at this point, but it's equally true that I don't need his music at all -- not even a little. I listen to it because I like it. It's strictly a pleasure. Why should my pleasure be at his expense?
Don't know. Your name (I'm really NAL) is what people call you, so if I can persuade enough people to call me "Tut", then my name becomes "Tut". I need to be consistent -- I can't answer to "Tut" at work and "George" on the street, and there are complications if I'm wanted under another name, but the concept is pretty straightforward. AFAIK, if I choose to call myself "Senator", and I can persuade others to do so, then "Senator" becomes my name.
Being named "Senator" will not allow me to pass legislation, or even double-park, because it's just a word. Anybody can be "Dr" -- universities pass those out like party favours at commencement -- but it's not like you can practice medicine.
Avoid fraud, and you can call yourself what you like.
Oooh! Bet they're scared, huh? If they don't shape up, you'll...cut class, or maybe start a food fight!
On the other hand, Dr. Seuss was a board-certified surgeon and Cat Stevens really is a cat.
It's not as if the ease of digital duplication and distribution guarantees that it will happen. How many times have you heard, "Well, I usually do a backup, but..."?
In fact, there is a case to be made that the churning of technology may cost us information, as older formats become less and less practical to read. If somebody walked up to you right now with an 8" H-DOS disk containing the draft of his unpublished novel, would you be able to read it? There are services that could, if the disk were in readable condition (also not guaranteed), but how often would the cost be prohibitive and the novel simply lost? I can read books printed a thousand years ago, but I may not be able to read floppies from a thousand weeks ago.
It's not as if we have a mechanism in place to distribute and transfer more than a fraction of the information out there, and a skewed fraction at that. A lot of people have mirrored DeCSS, but how many have offered to mirror, say, the Census data? Probably more significant (I mean, our kids will find DeCSS the equivalent of a skate key), but much more burdensome and not nearly as sexy.
Do you mean to suggest that valuable information cannot be lost or destroyed? Should we start with the library at Alexandria and go on from there?
By God, I never thought of it this way! I don't need Napster or CDs -- I'll just memorize all the bits, and nobody can stop me!
You could stop right there and be closer to the truth. Just how much do you figure your local bar pays the band, anyway?
No, if anything is inevitable about information it is that it will be lost.
Sort of ironic, since public backlash didn't stop us from building 100 hydrogen bombs, or even 1000.
All of which is to say that whatever figures are given for riding the big upilator would include the energy to gain orbital velocity. That energy isn't free, but it's paid for in the initial toll. Once at the top, you need delta-V to increase that speed (to achieve a higher orbit, for instance), but you do have a good start.
Am I making sense to anybody besides myself?
Yeah, because that's worked so well! Should we send troops, as we did in Panama, or merely pump more munitions into the world, as we're doing in Columbia?
I can see us now, invading Finland to capture the notorious Linus Torvalds, code maker for the cartel.
(Sorry, just can't resist a straight line. Apple makes a fine product, really. Please don't hurt me.)
Of course, we also had The Block and Blaze Starr and all that, making the whole moral-Maryland thing a bit foolish, but that never stopped a state-funded group before.
It might be useful (in a marketing sense) to know that 89% of the people who bought DVD players in the past year also bought Tampons, condoms, and dog food (or whatever).
What CueCat needs, of course, is either to release or to allow someone else to release non-Windows versions of the s/w that do the same stuff. This way they're simply shooting off their own toes, one by one ("Macintosh users? No, sorry, we don't know anything about them. Linux? BSD? BeOS? Sorry -- black holes of ignorance in our consumer database")
The sad thing is that these people only look at one side of the numbers. They know they've got potential access to a bazillion Windows users, but they don't consider the admittedly-smaller-but-still-way-too-numerous-to-f it-in-my-living-room group that they're throwing away through sheer laziness.
Maybe somebody should write to the CEO of CueCat and point this out -- "Your lawyers are sending away customers that your people are apparently too incompetent to serve!"
I mean really, what's the point of opening your doors if your own staff are going to block them with their sleeping bodies?
Don't get me wrong, I like the company, but there's a reason we talk about I86.
Leaders lead. Others follow.
One of the reasons I don't use HTML mail readers...
Leaving aside the concept of a "private company", I think you'll find it difficult absolutely to distinguish between the two.
In the same vein, the fact that your diapers are free for you doesn't imperil Procter and Gamble because your parents pay for them.
After all, if I were dealing with an automotive patent, I'd want some mechanics and/or engineers working on the problem alongside the attorneys.
(Sniff!) They're only lawyers, you know, not supermen! For God's sake, we need to help them!
Since we haven't had either, it's hard to say. TV and radio stations both pay royalties, providing another revenue stream which may compensate for any losses.
Just because you don't pay for it doesn't make it free.
It's like football -- it doesn't matter whether you would have won last Sunday, or next Sunday, or whether you should have won but your best guy got hurt, it's whether you win today. Period. Worse, really -- there are no rules and therefore no cheating, just the score.
BTW, I would say that our, "giving everyone the right to have children" had had a tiny, tiny effect. Reproductive therapy is an expensive process that probably adds, at the most, a few thousand births anually.
Our giving ourselves the right NOT to have children, OTOH, will probably be very significant.
(Incidentally, typos are typos and I generally ignore them, but given the context I had to laugh when I read, "pollute them gene pool" -- you have to admit it's sort of serendipitous.)
Shield laws in some states, so that a journalist can avoid being held in contempt for not revealing her sources.
By and large, though, you're right -- they pays their money and takes their chances just like the rest of us.
The press does, however, seem to feel more special than regular folks. If I somehow (God help me) became "news"and a bunch of my fellow citizens turned up on my front lawn and shouted at me, they'd get arrested for trespassing and disorderly conduct and walking on the grass and whatever. If a bunch of reporters do that, they're "working for our right to know", and would be deeply offended if I suggested otherwise, much less if I took a swing at one of them.
Mind you, Sam Donaldson could probably kick my ass.
It being a radiotelescope, I'm not sure that night per se is really much of an issue.
As opposed to what? We're a force on this planet like any other, and the Tas Tiger was unable to adapt to our presence. It's not fair, of course, but evolution has never been a matter of fair.
I think a lot of peole are misled by the idea that Darwinian evolution produces "better" species, and that therefore there should be a fair test of "better". In practice, the species better set for that particular time and place survives, with absolutely no indication that future circumstances will be at all related.
"Good, bad...I'm the guy with the gun"