As for real life payola, it has to be the main explanation why so much crappy music gets on the air.
Also consider that the average city has about 12 or so frequencies of nothing and all of them are playing the same crap. That equals a lot of payola from record companies.
Any American city will have....
3-5 top 40 pop stations
2 country stations
1-2 R&B stations
1 "Alternative" station, usually called "X" something or other that is strictly commercial and not accociated with a college in any sort of way (Other than brand-alizing parties)
1 classic rock station
1 (50s & 60s) oldies station
a random collection of news, classical, religious, etc.stations.
And ALL of them have the same playlist and are without any sort of local flavour. I bet you'd have a hard time finding a commercial DJ who is actually from the city he/she broadcasts to. And the play list is not generated in that city either. So much for local talent and character. Rock on, Generica.;(
Sorry for the rant, but I remember when radio didn't suck so bad.
"Equipped with Longhorn, your PC will keep track of how you work, whom you talk to, what sites you look at, how you make documents and whom you share them with, which data on the network are yours--making all those things easier."
And that's supposed to be a good thing?!
sed 's/your PC/The Powers That Be/'
This is certainly going to be a hit with script kiddies too. I'm for innovation and all that, but fer-Bob's-sake, MS, figure out how to make it secure and stable before you go unleashing another piece of binary dog crap upon the public. I'll bet $LARGE_SUM that Longhorn is gonna have more holes than a gopher farm and will be prone to more nastier attacks than before.
You slap one of these into their hands and the first thing they'll do is install a game into it and start playing.
Then you put wireless communication into the scheme and you'll have kids playing games against each other and some l337 h@><0rZ doing scans all day instead of listening to the teacher.
This could go to a Very Bad Place. I can see it now.
Teacher: Young man, would you like to share that instant messages with the rest of the class?
Why would a "Public" station that depends on listner support attempt to build a barrier between itself and its supporters?
#include <MHO.h>
I think the 'P' in NPR might now mean "public" as in "public toilet" and "public housing". For something that's "public", it sure has it's own agenda..
Jacer writes:it's obvious that a person who buys the cd isn't a pirate, they're just burning bridges with the people left who are willing to buy cds, and that's no small number, piracy does cost them a fair amount of money, but a bunch of pissed off customers will cost them even more!
Quite true. Why would a company treat a paying customer like a thief? Besides, the second that they come up with a new protection scheme, it'll be broke by someone, then back to the drawing board (where your music buying money is spent) with more useless protection schemes that will most likey make playing music more of a hassle than it's worth. ad infinitum
I dunno, maybe it'll get to the point where the RIAA will find some way to make possesion of mp3s illegal with a jail term and fines. Film at 11.
OTOH, this might be a good thing for the smaller indy labels that just want their artists music heard.
Maybe, if you can find a way to boost this up a little.;-)
That, and you can help me in spreading the rumour that exposure to very low frequencies at high amplitude for prolonged periods of time causes impotentcy. If this rumour is properly spread to urban legend proportions, I'm sure the problem will cease. No song will be worth blasting if the fear of erectile disfunction is properly spread.
If people will believe that green M&Ms can turn people into homosexuals, they will certainly take this as gospel.:-)
I guess if you're in a pissy mood and notice that someone is bouncing off of your mobile, you can shut it off in the middle of their conversation pretty much the same way people would shut off their Napster program whist you were downloading an mp3.
When I hear someone from the FCC talk about regulation for broadband radio, for some reason I think that means he intends on making broadband radio as stale and generic as commercial FM radio, probably have it all owned by 3 companies, make broadcast licensing too expensive, and keep it all flooded in paperwork. Thus taking away any sort of local community flavour (and local ownership) in broadcasting so all transmissions governed by the FCC can reflect the views, music, and adverts of "Generican Culture".
ObKindaSaysItAll: the "Personal Freedoms and Licensing" link is b0rken.
Of course, I've got an agenda and have known people who've had their radio equipment pilfered by the FCC[0], so I'm not a real fan of theirs. Funny how a non-elected part of the US gov't has so much power.
[0] A pirate station. Sure, it wasn't legal, but it was pretty low power and didn't step on anyone's freq or say "fsck" on the air.
And you thought the $ales drones at Comp-USA were bad enough, I just can't imagine what tech support is going to be like from Wally-World especially when they're notorious for fscking over workers^W^W^W paying piss-poor wages. And you know that the hardware is going to be crap due to Wal-mart's notorious "lowest bidder, period" reputation.
<conspiracy_theory>
My paranoid self is thinking this might even be some sort of weird conspiracy crafted by Microsoft and Wal-Mart to completely discredit Linux by offering it to the unwashed masses who need a spellcheck to log in and installing it on the dodgiest hardware known to the planet and then blame all the problems on Linux instead of crap hardware and ignorance of computing. A few things to consider.
C'mon, a loaded up AMD 850 for US$300?
Lindows, AFAIK, doesn't offer the source code, and could very well be clandestinely operated by Microsoft (which could explain Lindows ability to run Win programs)
This lawsuit could very well be propaganda to fool the public in thinking these 2 forces are opposed to each other.
The default Lindows install could come with ftp, telnet, http, etc. all open, unsecured, and ready to r007, thus further damaging Linux's repuation.
Just wait till $consumer deals with file permissions... "What? Whaddaya mean I don't have permission to open that file!?! I own this computer and it's my property, dammit! No one tells me what to do with my property!!!" </conspiracy_theory>
Okay, I'll stop before I start feeling the urge to make an aluminum foil helmet
I sparced that as "Results of Another Web Punishing Experiment"
Up too late last night.:)
Re:UnitedLinux "Free for non-commercial uses"
on
United Linux is Here
·
· Score: 2
What on earth does this mean? How are they restricting the commercial use? Will one 'commercial' copy be sufficient for multiple installs, or will UnitedLinux bring in a per-seat or per-station licence free for commercial use?
I suppose that might mean Read The Licensing Agreement Very Carefully before clicking yes.
Run ads in parallel with the shows. Like those tickers on CNN or MSNBC, just shrink the show picture down a little bit, and run thin ads along the bottom of the screen. Heck, they already do this during the credits of most shows.
I figure that if advertisers start doing that, people will either adjust their screen or tape a piece of cardboard over the offensive ad space.
If The Powers That Be at the Pentagon had a sense of humour...
~~swirly effect~~
MSFT Rep: Open source software isn't safe to use, threatens the concept of intellectual property, is antithetical to the government's stated policy that moneymaking applications should develop from government-funded research, and possibly violates our EULA. We demand that the Pentagon only use proprietary software.
John Stenbit: Sure. We'll change everything to Solaris and Oracle. Happy?
AC writes: Parents, watch your kids (and talk to them), and don't expect the government or someone else to do your job.
..that sums it up pretty well. It's pretty annoying that due to irresponsibility, we once again get the government involved into yet another aspect of our lives.
#include <humble_opinion.h>
One thing that does amaze me is that a lot of parents will buy their child a computer and let them get on the 'net without having the vaguest notion of how they are used and what they can do. Pretty much the same way that a parent shouldn't give their kid a horse if both parent and child don't know how it's properly handled and fed.
btempleton: For a typical hour of TV with 15 minutes of advertising, I would much rather pay them the 30 cents than give them my time to watch 30 commercials
With product placement and product re-placement (where a budweiser beer is digitally replaced with a miller beer in a movie), I'd say there's more than 15 minutes per hour of adverts in TV and movies.
I guess you could explain it the same way that John Travolta explained the basics of marijuana laws in Amsterdam, NL to Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction.
(Jules and Vincent driving in a car)
Jules: Okay now. Tell me about the GNU GPL.
Vincent: What do you want to know?
Jules: Well, it's about free software, right?
Vincent: It's free, but it has some standards. I mean you can't just write a GNU GPL program and restrict it's usage. You're supposed to provide the source code.
Jules: That's the GNU GPL?
Vincent: Yeah, it breaks down like this: It's legal to copy it, it's legal to have access to the source code and, if you're a programmer that wants to add to it, you can as long as your additions to the code go under the GNU GPL. It's legal to keep the program free, which doesn't really matter 'cause-get a load of this- if a company wants to add to your program and not offer the source code, it's illegal. Taking GNU GPL'd programs and not offering the source code is a right that companies don't have.
Jules:That did it, man. I'm f***ing GPL-ing my program. That's all there is to it.
but maybe i could try to get their numbers onto some fax-marketing lists so the evil fax spam bastards would bombard the evil sign spam bastards! most 1-800 numbers are routed to lines that also have a regular number as well so if i could just figure those out somehow....
Now there's an interesting thought. I dunno if fax-spammers spam 800 numbers though.
If a business has a 1-800 number, it costs them money each time you call right? it's like long distance in reverse right
There's lot of the 800 numbers that pay a monthly "flat-fee" now, but YMMV.
i'd be willing to get an extra phone line (different number) and have my computer call and listen to the message all day. i could have it call them over and over again.
I wouldn't suggest war-dialing. Guaranteed to get you trouble. A Long Time Ago, this was done and was well logged by Southern Bell.
Slashdot Mirror
Also consider that the average city has about 12 or so frequencies of nothing and all of them are playing the same crap. That equals a lot of payola from record companies.
Any American city will have....
3-5 top 40 pop stations
2 country stations
1-2 R&B stations
1 "Alternative" station, usually called "X" something or other that is strictly commercial and not accociated with a college in any sort of way (Other than brand-alizing parties)
1 classic rock station
1 (50s & 60s) oldies station
a random collection of news, classical, religious, etc.stations.
;(
And ALL of them have the same playlist and are without any sort of local flavour. I bet you'd have a hard time finding a commercial DJ who is actually from the city he/she broadcasts to. And the play list is not generated in that city either. So much for local talent and character. Rock on, Generica.
Sorry for the rant, but I remember when radio didn't suck so bad.
"Equipped with Longhorn, your PC will keep track of how you work, whom you talk to, what sites you look at, how you make documents and whom you share them with, which data on the network are yours--making all those things easier."
And that's supposed to be a good thing?!
sed 's/your PC/The Powers That Be/'
This is certainly going to be a hit with script kiddies too. I'm for innovation and all that, but fer-Bob's-sake, MS, figure out how to make it secure and stable before you go unleashing another piece of binary dog crap upon the public. I'll bet $LARGE_SUM that Longhorn is gonna have more holes than a gopher farm and will be prone to more nastier attacks than before.
You slap one of these into their hands and the first thing they'll do is install a game into it and start playing.
Then you put wireless communication into the scheme and you'll have kids playing games against each other and some l337 h@><0rZ doing scans all day instead of listening to the teacher.
This could go to a Very Bad Place. I can see it now.
Teacher: Young man, would you like to share that instant messages with the rest of the class?
Why would a "Public" station that depends on listner support attempt to build a barrier between itself and its supporters?
#include <MHO.h>
I think the 'P' in NPR might now mean "public" as in "public toilet" and "public housing". For something that's "public", it sure has it's own agenda..
With the power of
anything I want from NPR's
website.
</sarcasm>
:P
DaneelGiskard writes: Even if they will do so anyways once they find out that Lindows does not run their favourite Windows program...
A strange twist of fate might be if the hardware on the Wal-Mart computers do not have drivers for WinXX, only Lindows.
Jacer writes:it's obvious that a person who buys the cd isn't a pirate, they're just burning bridges with the people left who are willing to buy cds, and that's no small number, piracy does cost them a fair amount of money, but a bunch of pissed off customers will cost them even more!
Quite true. Why would a company treat a paying customer like a thief? Besides, the second that they come up with a new protection scheme, it'll be broke by someone, then back to the drawing board (where your music buying money is spent) with more useless protection schemes that will most likey make playing music more of a hassle than it's worth. ad infinitum
I dunno, maybe it'll get to the point where the RIAA will find some way to make possesion of mp3s illegal with a jail term and fines. Film at 11.
OTOH, this might be a good thing for the smaller indy labels that just want their artists music heard.
Maybe, if you can find a way to boost ;-)
:-)
this up a little.
That, and you can help me in spreading the rumour that exposure to very low frequencies at high amplitude for prolonged periods of time causes impotentcy. If this rumour is properly spread to urban legend proportions, I'm sure the problem will cease. No song will be worth blasting if the fear of erectile disfunction is properly spread.
If people will believe that green M&Ms can turn people into homosexuals, they will certainly take this as gospel.
I guess if you're in a pissy mood and notice that someone is bouncing off of your mobile, you can shut it off in the middle of their conversation pretty much the same way people would shut off their Napster program whist you were downloading an mp3.
:)
#include
When I hear someone from the FCC talk about regulation for broadband radio, for some reason I think that means he intends on making broadband radio as stale and generic as commercial FM radio, probably have it all owned by 3 companies, make broadcast licensing too expensive, and keep it all flooded in paperwork. Thus taking away any sort of local community flavour (and local ownership) in broadcasting so all transmissions governed by the FCC can reflect the views, music, and adverts of "Generican Culture".
ObKindaSaysItAll: the "Personal Freedoms and Licensing" link is b0rken.
Of course, I've got an agenda and have known people who've had their radio equipment pilfered by the FCC[0], so I'm not a real fan of theirs. Funny how a non-elected part of the US gov't has so much power.
[0] A pirate station. Sure, it wasn't legal, but it was pretty low power and didn't step on anyone's freq or say "fsck" on the air.
And it will run on any platform too. :)
<conspiracy_theory>
My paranoid self is thinking this might even be some sort of weird conspiracy crafted by Microsoft and Wal-Mart to completely discredit Linux by offering it to the unwashed masses who need a spellcheck to log in and installing it on the dodgiest hardware known to the planet and then blame all the problems on Linux instead of crap hardware and ignorance of computing. A few things to consider.
C'mon, a loaded up
AMD 850 for US$300?
Lindows, AFAIK, doesn't offer the source code, and could very well be clandestinely operated by Microsoft (which could explain Lindows ability to run Win programs)
This
lawsuit could very well be propaganda to fool the public in thinking these 2 forces are opposed to each other.
The default Lindows install could come with ftp, telnet, http, etc. all open, unsecured, and ready to r007, thus further damaging Linux's repuation.
Just wait till $consumer deals with file permissions... "What? Whaddaya mean I don't have permission to open that file!?! I own this computer and it's my property, dammit! No one tells me what to do with my property!!!"
</conspiracy_theory>
Okay, I'll stop before I start feeling the urge to make an aluminum foil helmet
s/sparced/parced
I sparced that as "Results of Another Web Punishing Experiment"
:)
Up too late last night.
What on earth does this mean? How are they restricting the commercial use? Will one 'commercial' copy be sufficient for multiple installs, or will UnitedLinux bring in a per-seat or per-station licence free for commercial use?
I suppose that might mean Read The Licensing Agreement Very Carefully before clicking yes.
According to this, we've had this technology for the past 3 years.
:)
Cory Doctorow writes: your cellphone would refuse to transmit your voice if you wandered too close to the copyrighted music coming from your stereo.
:)
That would put a pleasant end to all those wankers who use their mobile phone in movie theatres.
Run ads in parallel with the shows. Like those tickers on CNN or MSNBC, just shrink the show picture down a little bit, and run thin ads along the bottom of the screen. Heck, they already do this during the credits of most shows.
I figure that if advertisers start doing that, people will either adjust their screen or tape a piece of cardboard over the offensive ad space.
If The Powers That Be at the Pentagon had a sense of humour...
~~swirly effect~~
MSFT Rep: Open source software isn't safe to use, threatens the concept of intellectual property, is antithetical to the government's stated policy that moneymaking applications should develop from government-funded research, and possibly violates our EULA. We demand that the Pentagon only use proprietary software.
John Stenbit: Sure. We'll change everything to Solaris and Oracle. Happy?
MSFT Rep: (sob)
I rarely bother with AC posts, but...
AC writes: Parents, watch your kids (and talk to them), and don't expect the government or someone else to do your job.
..that sums it up pretty well. It's pretty annoying that due to irresponsibility, we once again get the government involved into yet another aspect of our lives.
#include <humble_opinion.h>
One thing that does amaze me is that a lot of parents will buy their child a computer and let them get on the 'net without having the vaguest notion of how they are used and what they can do. Pretty much the same way that a parent shouldn't give their kid a horse if both parent and child don't know how it's properly handled and fed.
btempleton: For a typical hour of TV with 15 minutes of advertising, I would much rather pay them the 30 cents than give them my time to watch 30 commercials
With product placement and product re-placement (where a budweiser beer is digitally replaced with a miller beer in a movie), I'd say there's more than 15 minutes per hour of adverts in TV and movies.
I guess you could explain it the same way that John Travolta explained the basics of marijuana laws in Amsterdam, NL to Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction.
(Jules and Vincent driving in a car)
Jules: Okay now. Tell me about the GNU GPL.
Vincent: What do you want to know?
Jules: Well, it's about free software, right?
Vincent: It's free, but it has some standards. I mean you can't just write a GNU GPL program and restrict it's usage. You're supposed to provide the source code.
Jules: That's the GNU GPL?
Vincent: Yeah, it breaks down like this: It's legal to copy it, it's legal to have access to the source code and, if you're a programmer that wants to add to it, you can as long as your additions to the code go under the GNU GPL. It's legal to keep the program free, which doesn't really matter 'cause-get a load of this- if a company wants to add to your program and not offer the source code, it's illegal. Taking GNU GPL'd programs and not offering the source code is a right that companies don't have.
Jules:That did it, man. I'm f***ing GPL-ing my program. That's all there is to it.
No Backups.
:)
but maybe i could try to get their numbers onto some fax-marketing lists so the evil fax spam bastards would bombard the evil sign spam bastards! most 1-800 numbers are routed to lines that also have a regular number as well so if i could just figure those out somehow....
Now there's an interesting thought. I dunno if fax-spammers spam 800 numbers though.
If a business has a 1-800 number, it costs them money each time you call right? it's like long distance in reverse right
There's lot of the 800 numbers that pay a monthly "flat-fee" now, but YMMV.
i'd be willing to get an extra phone line (different number) and have my computer call and listen to the message all day. i could have it call them over and over again.
I wouldn't suggest war-dialing. Guaranteed to get you trouble. A Long Time Ago, this was done and was well logged by Southern Bell.