Screw that. I want quantum to bring back the BigFoot in a modern incarnation. 5400RPM, multi-platter, never-fill-it-up goodness. I want multi-TB drives that will fit in the 3.5" spots in my standard case to store video. If I'm streaming 3 sets of HD video at 26Mbps each, thats still way under what current drives can pump, and is trivial on any modern attachment bus. Low speed is more likely to result in a quieter, cooler drive too.
We've been stuck in the 250-320GB range too long...I'm ready to see some really big drives out there. Mmmmm, two 2TB drives in a HDTivo. Makes my nipples hard just thinking about it.
"Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title."
Though I'll admit it does not connect the dots explicitly, this paragraph would suggest that the prohibition on circumvention is not necessarily enforcible if it prevents or dimisihes the fair-use rights to the work.
I'm not aware of case law testing this particular theory.
Hey, I remember this article...1986 or 87, as I was in highschool. I never heard about it again, and the article was in the April issue of the mag, so I never knew whether it was an April Fool's joke or not.
...is this model going to fail before people stop trying to do it again?
Unlimited downloads of a limited catalog has failed in many incarnations. This WILL be a limited catalog. If studios get their noses out of joint, or decided they want a higher payment and don't get it, it will reduce in size.
One advantage to "illegal" P2P netowrks is, as others have mentioned, the current hot items. The other is more obscure works which are either too old to be "economical" to digitize or are from small labels which arean't part of the payment consortium. What makes P2P cool is the theory that you can find anything (though my experience is that you can't). This is explicitly limited by the contracts they can forge for $5/mo with the providers.
Oh, and just to be contrarian to my own view, If I could get in on this deal with unlimited video I could drop my cable subscription right now. Practically everything I watch is via PVR, so I don't need realtime television.
Sure, you can trade stuff with friends, or rent and record, but that's been going on forever. The "danger" in the content biz is that a perfect copy gets ditributed over the net to many times more people than could get the content first hand.
Mark appears to be pushing really high resolutions and features. If he can get the distribution costs low enough, it will be "worth it" for people to pay the money. DVDs are popular purchases, even though the DL burners are out (and I just bought one for $80 from Newegg). Even now, on my 768k connection, it's not worth getting a rip of the internet. Crappy quality, tied up internet connection, wasted time finding and checking the download. Then I have to burn the damned thing to disc (if I dont' want to watch it on the monitor). No thanks.
'cause caterpillars are cute and worms are slimy and icky. It's all about marketing. And tricking people into surfing into the color-hell we call the IT section of slashdot.
This is, by the way, the same guy who asked the readers over at AVSforum what they think would be the best way to distribute super-high quality video to the market. Not only did he ask, but monitored the thread and replied to a good many contributers about their thoughts.
He may not be able to string together the hoard of programs requried to take a.ts file and make a working wmv9 file, but he does have a clue.
More importantly, what Mark has missed is the mere mortals can rarely afford the specialized solutions to effectively deal with the HD stream. While he can easily plop down a few grand for the latest CE hardware, there is still no effective way to take YPbPr inputs and come up with a digital.ts or.mpeg or.wmv file for under $200. Put that on top of the whole ATSC format mess and throw in the lack of re-modulators (to take a signal and put it on "baseband" for easy transfer) and faulty-bit protection and you've got quite a mess.
Because we're not scared enough...yet. As things ratchet up in the loss of freedoms, we will feel "safer." Each "event" will scare us to agreeing to the next level.
For small losses of freedom, a simple raising of the terror alert level to red (or violet, or puce, or whatever the top is) will suffice. But to start chipping people, it'll probably require another attack (and that attack will come). It may also take the form of "convienience" - if you get chipped, you can walk right onto the plane. Then it will be come an "inconvienience" - if you're one fo the few not chipped its, "please step aside for a body cavity search."
Actually, it makes things less secure, because the training courses will emphasize that these "unbreakable" cards will give nearly perfect results. A good forgery will be even less likely to be questioned.
Most of the cr@p instituted falls under the "keeping honest people honest" area of security.
No, no, no...you've missed the point, or forgot you were reading slashdot. This has two (possibly 3) main hooks to/.
1) iPod story (enough by itself) 2) Overpriced university charging so much they can throw in an expesive electronic gadget in the welcome bag 3) Benevolent Apple "donating" expensive toys to rich kids 4) Profit!^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H oops, got carried away -my bad
Anyway, it fits all the criteria and more for a "good" sumbission. The fact that the blog is so mind-numbingly annoying that you don't know whether to gouge your eyes out or puncture both ear drums first is really just icing on the cake.
Only at the PhD level, and to other PhD's in specialized (primariy scientific) fields does your advisor matter. And, of course, grades only matter in academia, where reality is so far from the work that one has to "make up" criteria to make a selection.
No, in the real world a degree falls into three categories: "High Profile" "High worth" and "Other". "High Profile" means your CEO tell you you should ask them in for an interview, and you know they probably won't get along with the staff or be able to hack a 50hour work week. "High worth" is they guy you will probably want to hire. It's a second tier school, likely a state univ., where they let everyone in but only the really tenacious ones finish with the good degrees. "Other" means you can check the box stating that the candidate meets the minimum requirements, and if other things look promising, he get's a shot at an interview.
Most jobs aren't so rarified that you know the movers and shakers by name AND care if your employess studied under them.
That is, if the media is defined to be NBC. There are three other neworks who either lost the contract or chose not to compete. I think they'd be laughing their @sses off.
That would be nice, but you'll only do it after you kill all the corporate lawyers, lobbiests, and everyone who gets a paycheck (or bonus, or stock options) _before_ the artist's check gets cut. Its not a technical matter, but a human one.
Yes, but if you price your software at a low value then the cost to retrain everyone looks even worse. Which proposal will your PHB prefer to take to the CEO:
Scenerio One: PHB "I'd like to buy a new database with five licenses for $699. It will help our productivity incrase and reduce crashes" CEO "What about retraining?" PHB "For all six users, $5,000, including downtime"
Scenereo Two: PHB "I'd like to buy a new database with five lecenses for $18,500. It will help our productivity incrase and reduce crashes" CEO "What about retraining?" PHB "For all six users, $5,000, including downtime"
Given the two options, most CEOs (who know even less about IT than PHBs) will question the investment of $5,000 in training for a $700 product. For $700, how good can it be? But $18,500 for the licenses seems about in line with $5000 in training. Its all psychology.
Oddly enough, there's a program I want which has a pricing scheme that just doens't sit well with me. It's $1200 for the first license, and five licenses are $1995. As a small shop, I see that as an $800 "litte guy" surcharge, so I've not bought it. I have a (free) vendor sponsored copy that's old and I'd like to upgrade, but not for that kind of money. It's a nice program, but not that nice.
This is aggravated by the number of applications your need to run.
If I can make 60k a year, and I throw away half on G&A and overhead, I've got $30k left. Sure, $600 for PS looks like a bargain, but it's probably not the only package you use.
As an engineer, here's a "complete" suite of programs I'm likely to use: AutoCAD ($4000), AutoCAD extensions ($1000 total), a FEM program ($8000), a wood design program ($1200), a steel design program ($5000), a foundations/general design program ($1000), and a general purpose math solver ($1200). That's $21,400, before I've purchased an OS, productivity software, image manipulation, accounting, email, web browsing, computer management, anti-virus, backup, etc.
With bargains like $600 for every little side application (like photoshop), I'll be eating fried ALPO sandwiches for dinner, just to keep the lights on.
(Yes, some of those programs are available for "free", but not all are, and if I'm going to bill a full $60k this year, I can't spend much time doing much online research to save $50 on an application.)
Software, unlike widgets, isn't quite the same. If I make widgets, it will cost me $X for engineering and development, $Y for support, and $Z for each widget coming off the assembly line.
For most products, $X+$Y is $Z on a per-piece basis, so I've got a good baseline for my pricing. If I add 10 or 20% to the widget production costs for R&D&S, then drop 30% for my profit, and double that to get the MSRP, it's fairly straight forward.
For service industries, people are the cost, and its not too hard to determine how much to charge. If you charge by the hour (as many service contracts do), you take your hourly rate, factor it by your G&A and Overhead, add your 30% profit, and bill the client.
For software, your R&D and support outweigh your production costs by an order of magnitude or more. Do you price it at $10 and hope everyone buys a copy, or worry that you'll only sell a few copies to well-heeled clients and mark it up to $10,000? MS has elimiated the support problem by not providing any free support. Of course, that reduces the incentive to get it right the first time, too.
Google is a business primarily with an advertising revenue stream (unstable: if content goes south, the revenue dries up) instead of a product base, where you can always sell your widgets, though not necessarily for your preferred profit level. They have very little book value - all those TB of server space are going to be pretty cheap when liquidated, and non of the "brian power" can be sold on the open market.
I should expect a P/E ratio in the mid teens to mis twenties, tops. I haven't looked...was Google's previous three years revenue in the $2B range? If so, then the stock price looks ok.
Typcially, the BAC level limit is 0.02% (vs 0.08%-.12% for normal licenses in most states). That's pretty stringent. Have a beer? someone else drives. Actually, it's a good idea.
(I had a commercial license a while back for transporting fireworks, that's what the laws were back in the late 90s...don't know how they've changed since then)
Slashdot Mirror
Screw that. I want quantum to bring back the BigFoot in a modern incarnation. 5400RPM, multi-platter, never-fill-it-up goodness. I want multi-TB drives that will fit in the 3.5" spots in my standard case to store video. If I'm streaming 3 sets of HD video at 26Mbps each, thats still way under what current drives can pump, and is trivial on any modern attachment bus. Low speed is more likely to result in a quieter, cooler drive too.
We've been stuck in the 250-320GB range too long...I'm ready to see some really big drives out there. Mmmmm, two 2TB drives in a HDTivo. Makes my nipples hard just thinking about it.
Actually, it specifically mentions fair use:
from the DMCA:
"Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title."
Though I'll admit it does not connect the dots explicitly, this paragraph would suggest that the prohibition on circumvention is not necessarily enforcible if it prevents or dimisihes the fair-use rights to the work.
I'm not aware of case law testing this particular theory.
Any 5 year old will tell you it's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission.
I'm gueesing the easiest way is to just use the backup function in WinXP Home Edition.
Oh, that's right, backups aren't necessary for home installations, that's why Microsoft left it out!
Hey, I remember this article...1986 or 87, as I was in highschool. I never heard about it again, and the article was in the April issue of the mag, so I never knew whether it was an April Fool's joke or not.
I guess it wasn't...but sort-of was, too.
No, it's not.
1) Modifications you make yourself are NOT illegal under the DMCA.
2) Distributing those modifications (parts or instructions) IS illegal.
3) Making your modifications does not relieve you of the burden of copyright law.
How did you get modded +5 informative?
Now if we can just get them to replace the NumLock key with a Tab I'll be happy.
...is this model going to fail before people stop trying to do it again?
Unlimited downloads of a limited catalog has failed in many incarnations. This WILL be a limited catalog. If studios get their noses out of joint, or decided they want a higher payment and don't get it, it will reduce in size.
One advantage to "illegal" P2P netowrks is, as others have mentioned, the current hot items. The other is more obscure works which are either too old to be "economical" to digitize or are from small labels which arean't part of the payment consortium. What makes P2P cool is the theory that you can find anything (though my experience is that you can't). This is explicitly limited by the contracts they can forge for $5/mo with the providers.
Oh, and just to be contrarian to my own view, If I could get in on this deal with unlimited video I could drop my cable subscription right now. Practically everything I watch is via PVR, so I don't need realtime television.
Sure, you can trade stuff with friends, or rent and record, but that's been going on forever. The "danger" in the content biz is that a perfect copy gets ditributed over the net to many times more people than could get the content first hand.
Mark appears to be pushing really high resolutions and features. If he can get the distribution costs low enough, it will be "worth it" for people to pay the money. DVDs are popular purchases, even though the DL burners are out (and I just bought one for $80 from Newegg). Even now, on my 768k connection, it's not worth getting a rip of the internet. Crappy quality, tied up internet connection, wasted time finding and checking the download. Then I have to burn the damned thing to disc (if I dont' want to watch it on the monitor). No thanks.
'cause caterpillars are cute and worms are slimy and icky. It's all about marketing. And tricking people into surfing into the color-hell we call the IT section of slashdot.
This is, by the way, the same guy who asked the readers over at AVSforum what they think would be the best way to distribute super-high quality video to the market. Not only did he ask, but monitored the thread and replied to a good many contributers about their thoughts.
.ts file and make a working wmv9 file, but he does have a clue.
.ts or .mpeg or .wmv file for under $200. Put that on top of the whole ATSC format mess and throw in the lack of re-modulators (to take a signal and put it on "baseband" for easy transfer) and faulty-bit protection and you've got quite a mess.
He may not be able to string together the hoard of programs requried to take a
More importantly, what Mark has missed is the mere mortals can rarely afford the specialized solutions to effectively deal with the HD stream. While he can easily plop down a few grand for the latest CE hardware, there is still no effective way to take YPbPr inputs and come up with a digital
I've always been in agreement that we should make Alaska into two states, which would drop Texas to number 3 on the list.
Because we're not scared enough...yet. As things ratchet up in the loss of freedoms, we will feel "safer." Each "event" will scare us to agreeing to the next level.
For small losses of freedom, a simple raising of the terror alert level to red (or violet, or puce, or whatever the top is) will suffice. But to start chipping people, it'll probably require another attack (and that attack will come). It may also take the form of "convienience" - if you get chipped, you can walk right onto the plane. Then it will be come an "inconvienience" - if you're one fo the few not chipped its, "please step aside for a body cavity search."
The oceans fill up one raindrop at a time.
Actually, it makes things less secure, because the training courses will emphasize that these "unbreakable" cards will give nearly perfect results. A good forgery will be even less likely to be questioned.
Most of the cr@p instituted falls under the "keeping honest people honest" area of security.
No, no, no...you've missed the point, or forgot you were reading slashdot. This has two (possibly 3) main hooks to /.
1) iPod story (enough by itself)
2) Overpriced university charging so much they can throw in an expesive electronic gadget in the welcome bag
3) Benevolent Apple "donating" expensive toys to rich kids
4) Profit!^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H oops, got carried away -my bad
Anyway, it fits all the criteria and more for a "good" sumbission. The fact that the blog is so mind-numbingly annoying that you don't know whether to gouge your eyes out or puncture both ear drums first is really just icing on the cake.
Only at the PhD level, and to other PhD's in specialized (primariy scientific) fields does your advisor matter. And, of course, grades only matter in academia, where reality is so far from the work that one has to "make up" criteria to make a selection.
No, in the real world a degree falls into three categories: "High Profile" "High worth" and "Other". "High Profile" means your CEO tell you you should ask them in for an interview, and you know they probably won't get along with the staff or be able to hack a 50hour work week. "High worth" is they guy you will probably want to hire. It's a second tier school, likely a state univ., where they let everyone in but only the really tenacious ones finish with the good degrees. "Other" means you can check the box stating that the candidate meets the minimum requirements, and if other things look promising, he get's a shot at an interview.
Most jobs aren't so rarified that you know the movers and shakers by name AND care if your employess studied under them.
That is, if the media is defined to be NBC. There are three other neworks who either lost the contract or chose not to compete. I think they'd be laughing their @sses off.
That would be nice, but you'll only do it after you kill all the corporate lawyers, lobbiests, and everyone who gets a paycheck (or bonus, or stock options) _before_ the artist's check gets cut. Its not a technical matter, but a human one.
Yes, but if you price your software at a low value then the cost to retrain everyone looks even worse. Which proposal will your PHB prefer to take to the CEO:
Scenerio One:
PHB "I'd like to buy a new database with five licenses for $699. It will help our productivity incrase and reduce crashes"
CEO "What about retraining?"
PHB "For all six users, $5,000, including downtime"
Scenereo Two:
PHB "I'd like to buy a new database with five lecenses for $18,500. It will help our productivity incrase and reduce crashes"
CEO "What about retraining?"
PHB "For all six users, $5,000, including downtime"
Given the two options, most CEOs (who know even less about IT than PHBs) will question the investment of $5,000 in training for a $700 product. For $700, how good can it be? But $18,500 for the licenses seems about in line with $5000 in training. Its all psychology.
Oddly enough, there's a program I want which has a pricing scheme that just doens't sit well with me. It's $1200 for the first license, and five licenses are $1995. As a small shop, I see that as an $800 "litte guy" surcharge, so I've not bought it. I have a (free) vendor sponsored copy that's old and I'd like to upgrade, but not for that kind of money. It's a nice program, but not that nice.
This is aggravated by the number of applications your need to run.
If I can make 60k a year, and I throw away half on G&A and overhead, I've got $30k left. Sure, $600 for PS looks like a bargain, but it's probably not the only package you use.
As an engineer, here's a "complete" suite of programs I'm likely to use: AutoCAD ($4000), AutoCAD extensions ($1000 total), a FEM program ($8000), a wood design program ($1200), a steel design program ($5000), a foundations/general design program ($1000), and a general purpose math solver ($1200). That's $21,400, before I've purchased an OS, productivity software, image manipulation, accounting, email, web browsing, computer management, anti-virus, backup, etc.
With bargains like $600 for every little side application (like photoshop), I'll be eating fried ALPO sandwiches for dinner, just to keep the lights on.
(Yes, some of those programs are available for "free", but not all are, and if I'm going to bill a full $60k this year, I can't spend much time doing much online research to save $50 on an application.)
Software, unlike widgets, isn't quite the same. If I make widgets, it will cost me $X for engineering and development, $Y for support, and $Z for each widget coming off the assembly line.
For most products, $X+$Y is $Z on a per-piece basis, so I've got a good baseline for my pricing. If I add 10 or 20% to the widget production costs for R&D&S, then drop 30% for my profit, and double that to get the MSRP, it's fairly straight forward.
For service industries, people are the cost, and its not too hard to determine how much to charge. If you charge by the hour (as many service contracts do), you take your hourly rate, factor it by your G&A and Overhead, add your 30% profit, and bill the client.
For software, your R&D and support outweigh your production costs by an order of magnitude or more. Do you price it at $10 and hope everyone buys a copy, or worry that you'll only sell a few copies to well-heeled clients and mark it up to $10,000? MS has elimiated the support problem by not providing any free support. Of course, that reduces the incentive to get it right the first time, too.
Google is a business primarily with an advertising revenue stream (unstable: if content goes south, the revenue dries up) instead of a product base, where you can always sell your widgets, though not necessarily for your preferred profit level. They have very little book value - all those TB of server space are going to be pretty cheap when liquidated, and non of the "brian power" can be sold on the open market.
I should expect a P/E ratio in the mid teens to mis twenties, tops. I haven't looked...was Google's previous three years revenue in the $2B range? If so, then the stock price looks ok.
Delayed? Most were "expedited" to their "final" destinations.
Yeah, I'm just thrilled about this TSA stuff.
And Wal-Mart Shoppers. (You know where plastic comes from, right?)
Typcially, the BAC level limit is 0.02% (vs 0.08%-.12% for normal licenses in most states). That's pretty stringent. Have a beer? someone else drives. Actually, it's a good idea.
(I had a commercial license a while back for transporting fireworks, that's what the laws were back in the late 90s...don't know how they've changed since then)