He would have to work to regain credibility with people checking the facts against what he said.
1. People are allowed to make mistakes, even in journalism
2. He admitted his mistakes
3. He admitted the "other side" got it right
4. He was coming from an impartial side of things, initially, and he sided with SCO. To be honest, their argument had a lot of people wondering, and there was a LOT of discussion about it online.
5. What about the smearing of his name? Suggesting he was a paid shill? I think he has a little leeway in the attitude department because of that.
6. The comment "the nerds got it right" is condescending? Look around you son, who you keeping company with?:)
Ubuntu isn't successful because it's an operating system for advanced users only (like Gentoo). It's successful due to being user friendly to people who are Windows users who are curious about Linux.
I completely disagree. I don't think Ubuntu is successful because of Windows users. At all. It is successful because it fills a need that Linux users have been waiting for - a distro that is easy to maintain. Unless you are maintaining multiple machines, you shouldn't be doing many installs. (even if you are, you shouldn't be doing many 'installs') I don't really care if the install takes 15 minutes or 2 hours. I only install once. I have never really understood why so many reviews focus on the installation! Yes, it is important, I have done some really tough installs in my day. It is a critical step, but the MORE important thing is how you maintain the system. That is where Ubuntu really stands out. It is why I switched to it. I was on Mandrake (before it changed names) and before that SuSE and various RedHat distros. This was dependency hell. Even though SuSE and Mandrake said you could update your system, you could not. I ran into ALL kinds of issues, my packages were getting outdated and I couldn't easily update them. So I have now been on Kubuntu for over 2 years, and even did an Upgrade with minimal hassle (damn NVIDIA). Dependency hell is pretty much a thing of the past for me.
Ubuntu lets me USE Linux, and I can tinker where I want to - not where I have to. I still feel like the tinker-factor is still a little high for the average user (esp Windows users) but the strides that Ubuntu has made over other distros is immense.
Sometimes it's better just to go for compatibility and stop trying to emulate the other guy.... What I'm a little disappointed in is that there isn't more emphasis on doing things better than Word.
Well, for one thing, Word is not a bad piece of software. Things could be improved, but you can't make something radically different if you are going after Word users. So it needs to be similar enough that people will want to use it, and innovative enough that it will make people like it better. That is a pretty tall order considering how ingrained Office has become. You have a large diverse user-base, from businesses to the average home user. So do you make it have features like built-in versioning/change controls/security/advanced features that businesses would like, or go for "get the basic simple stuff done well" that the home user would like?
I am not saying it is impossible, but I think it is really difficult. Linux has taken off for the reasons you state - it is different from Windows. But to be honest, there aren't a lot of converts from Windows to Linux. And I think that is OK, to be honest. I think there is room for Windows/Mac/Linux/other in the OS world. I also think there is room for another Word Processor/Spreadsheet/Presentation/etc. in the market. "taking on" Word/Excel/Powerpoint/etc is the trap that people fall into, and I think it is why MS has maintained its hold on that space. It's tough - you can't really go into it with that mindset, or you are just an imitator. But you can't ignore it, because the situation does exist, and MS will do whatever it can to crush any challenger.
There is always room for improvement, but what we need is more people trained to use OOo. There is room for improvement, always, but if people were trained on OOo, you would see much wider adoption.
But that can't just happen overnight. I have used Word/Excel/Powerpoint longer. At home, I have OO.o installed, and that is what I use. But for some reason, my resume (in Word) is mis-formatted in Writer. It takes up an additional page. I have messed with it and messed with it, and I can't get it to look quite right. I use Excel daily for work, and to be honest haven't really tried Calc. I don't do that many spreadsheets at home. Same goes for Impress.
I turned a friend onto OO.o a couple of years ago. He used it for about a year, then went back to Office. He said he gave it a shot, but just couldn't get comfortable with it. To me, that is an HONEST assessment. I don't buy the blanket argument that OO.o is "just as good". MS Office is the leader, they have to be knocked off... it has to be proven, most likely repeatedly, that OO.o is just as good if not better. Hopefully with someone like IBM behind it, it can get a foothold in the business world. You can reach a lot of people that way.
Artists don't need record companies, they need fans.
True... But the RIAA controls a lot of how bands get fans. I'm not talking just some, I mean to really "make it". I understand that it can happen, but unless it happens, and repeatedly, the RIAA will maintain control. The point of your post has two sides to it - this album debuted at #11 even though Warner didn't promote it. That shows two things: a) someone can succeed without the help of the label b) good music can and does get buried because it isn't what is 'in'. Personally, I like all kinds of music, from the popular crap that a lot of people would chide me for (Lavigne, Clarkson) to the ones that only really have a small following and are the polar opposite of that (COC, Clutch). Depends on my mood I guess. Kelly Clarkson is a good example. I'd like to hear her do something a little less commercial and overly processed, but you can tell she has talent. Her music is what it is. Would she have been discovered without the corporate machine? Probably not. There are probably lots of bands/singers like that, who would have never made it without the current system. But who knows, maybe there are just as many that haven't made it BECAUSE of the current system.
I think that bands need labels - but I want to see the RIAA go away. They are not needed anymore. They contribute nothing to the process that is helpful, and really only serve to control things and skim money from artists.
Does this really matter? After all, it isn't his music anymore, he signed those rights away. He can't give permission to steal it. Wonder if he meant actually stealing the CDs from the stores, or downloading it. Those are 2 different things as we all know.
Unfortunately, we are in the scenario where an artist that people will listen to (read: popular) got that way because of the RIAA and the industry they are in... they have likely signed a long-term contract. Once they are out of that contract, the general population won't really care about them (read: Pearl Jam, Prince) and they will kind of fade away. Personally, I like all of these acts I have named, but they aren't in the main spotlight anymore. This is a system that the RIAA has created, and unless someone can a) gain huge popularity without them and b) stay out of their clutches, it won't seem possible to break out of their system.
The difference here is that this is a statement by Microsoft, whereas Gore never said he invented the internet. http://sethf.com/gore/ But I understand you were *trying* to be funny.
For all those who haven't tried Mandriva in a while, quite a lot has changed. It'd be great if you could try Mandriva again before posting comments. For instance, managing remote repositories is far easier than it used to be: you can configure a full set of official repositories from within the Mandriva package management tools. Instructions are at http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Basic_tasks/Insta lling_and_removing_software#Making_more_applicatio ns_available .
Well, I haven't tried it in a while.. and to be honest, I probably won't. No ill feelings, just that the timing wasn't right.
I was a RedHat user from 6.2 to 7.3. I stayed on that release a long time... too long. My system was flaky, I couldn't get some apps to run, I was in dependency hell. So it was a fresh install. I tried out SuSE, it was just OK. I ended up with Mandrake. Loved it. But after a couple of years, it got stale. I ended up in dependency purgatory. The package management of Mandrake just didn't deliver. Some things just didn't work quite right - usb devices like my camera weren't automatically recognized and mounted. I don't mind tinkering in the least (remember, I said I used to run RehHat 6.2) but the tinkering was getting in the way of getting things done.
So I went on a quest for a different distro, and found one that so far has been excellent. Kubuntu has been good to me for the most part. There's been some glitches here and there, but it is the best distro I have used. I am all for trying other distros for fun, but it would be hard for me to switch to be honest. Right now, it is easier for me to maintain my stable, up-to-date system than it is to switch to a new one.
I grew up Catholic, yet I woke up and don't believe in any religion. Haven't for 20 years. But at least I can see some redeeming qualities in various religions and their tales. I don't find anything redeeming about Scientology.
that creativity is not a group project. It is about the individual.
So it is being a selfish douchebag who only looks out for themselves? That certainly explains why the US software industry is where it is today.
In my entire 15 year career in the software industry, I have never once had to work alone. It's about teamwork, and until the wannabe-elitists understand that, then our industry will continue to flounder. Until those who consider themselves "creative geniuses" realize that there is more to it than just them, we will all struggle.
I've worked with several Libertarians... they all thought everyone should conform to their ideals and rules, and their "high" standards. They preach liberty, but put down anyone who doesn't believe what they believe. Libertarianism is a theoretical pipe-dream that isn't based in reality.
I was a RedHat user for about 5 years. Then switched to Mandrake. I was only on it a couple, and I got REALLY tired of not being able to run certain packages, or upgrade to others. Their package management just failed for me. I was looking for another disto, and settled on Kubuntu. I have since kept up to date, and even upgraded full release versions with minimal issues (yes, I have an Nvidia card). I loved Mandrake while I was on it, but they lost me for the simple reason that I couldn't maintain my system easily.
Honestly, with the slowest Comcast cable modem, I still can download incredibly high-quality music in about the time it'll take me to drive a store. (This includes lossless FLACs and 20-bit 5.1 DTS CDs.) You still haven't convinced me that I need to drive to a store.
Well, when I thought of the idea, not everyone had fast download speeds. They could certainly roll out an online service in much the same way, but the complexities of payments, bandwidth, servers, etc. comes into play. Certainly I see that downloading is a viable business model, but we're talking about the record companies here... I figured we'd start S L O W.:) I think it would have been a great thing to introduce 6 or 7 years ago, and then by now they could have done the online store.
I saw it as something that could be put into place, in some form or other, in malls/electronics stores (CircuitCity, etc)/and the antiquated record stores. But, they missed the bandwagon on that possibility too. In order for them to "unlock the vault" on their massive catalog of music, they would need to get something out of the deal. Otherwise, they are just going to sit on it until it rots.
...but the reality is mainstream music is mostly Ushers and Rihannas and Avril Lavignes.
Eh, say what you will - but I like Avril Lavigne sometimes. Some days it's that, others it's Queen, or Motorhead, or Clutch, or old Red Hot Chili Peppers, or old NIN, or Jane's Addiction, or any other various groups that might be considered "mainstream". Metallica is probably considered mainstream now, but their early stuff (pre-Black) still kicks ass. Not everyone fits that business model. Some groups aren't together anymore or aren't even alive. My point is that the "support them at a bar" is a piss-poor business model. Artists should also be able to make and sell their works without having to tour.
Go see them at the bar, buy them a drink if you like what they are playing. Buy a CD at a release party. Give copies to your friends, who if they like them will also then go to their shows and buy their promotional CDs.
Assuming of course that those artists you like are playing near you (unlikely) at a bar (more unlikely) and have CD release parties (huh?). Stop trying to fit every artist into your business model!!!!
Trying to pretend religion is the cause of humankind's problems and that people would all get along merrily if it were not for religion is just as absurd. It's as absurd as those who decry the "intolerance" of the religious while themselves being intolerant of the religious.
So basically, you are saying it is wrong to be intolerant of intolerance? Is that a bad thing?
Here's the thing - I live in AZ, and there are lots of Mormons around here. I worked with some Mormons, and they were fine. They never preached to me AT ALL, I only found out they were Mormons after working with them for a while. I think their religion is ridiculous, but I would never try to convince them of that. They can do whatever they want.
However, if Mormons knock on my door and try to convince me that I need to be Mormon, I will kindly tell them "no thanks" - and in private be pissed at them. The same goes for Christians or any other group that leaves pamphlets on my door, or car, or whatever. Leave me alone, I leave you alone. If religious nuts (and yes, I consider them nuts) will harass people and even physically harm people at abortion clinics, then they are infringing on others rights. Here's the difference - if abortions are legal, then it doesn't infringe on a Christian's beliefs. But if they get abortion outlawed, then it infringes on other's rights. Christians are therefore trying to push their beliefs on other people. That is unacceptable. The same goes for Muslims, Jews, etc. You can believe what you believe - just don't force your beliefs on me. Religious people seem to not only be intolerant of the non-religious, but of other religions too. It is amazing the amount of ignorance and intolerance that exists in all religions. It seems to me that the only people who don't have built-in intolerance is the non-religious.
Why would I drive to a store when I can download at home??? At this point, you're just setting up a welfare scheme for record stores.
Well, I originally thought of this back in 2001 or so... back when the music industry could have embraced digital music but chose another path. I think it is a win-win business idea for everyone. We get high-quality music for a reasonable price (and no DRM) and the music industry gets to leverage their massive back-catalog of music and keep customers.
Why would you drive to a store when you could download it? Bandwidth, quality, and selection. You would get guaranteed quality, and you could get a lot more music in a trip to the store than you could downloading in the same amount of time. Not to mention selection! The amount of music that they could offer would be absolutely mind-boggling. Of course, this would potentially release all of this music onto P2P networks, but again - if they price it right, then it would be worth it to just go buy it. They could price playlists so that people wouldn't care if they bought the same song multiple times. If I could get 50 songs for $5, why would I care if I already had some of them somewhere on some device? Packaging and pricing. Think "Time Life Collections" except stuff you would actually want, and for a cheap price. Tons and tons of potential for new and good ideas! Hey, how about with every 10 old songs you buy, you get 1 new song (but at a lower bitrate). They could even throw on new songs that they choose as promotions! Tie in with products to give away coupon codes for free songs. Don't you think that 10 free old songs would get someone in the store, and thereby generate more sales? I am just pulling these off the top of my head - surely some genius with an MBA could come up with even better ideas.
I don't download movies, I buy them. They have priced movies well enough that I continue to buy them instead of downloading them, and I don't even care about special features or "collectors editions". The music industry has priced itself out of the market, and they get a huge FAIL on non embracing digital music. They've had almost 10 years to get on the frickin bandwagon for crying out loud. In their own reports, from day ONE, they have shown that there is a huge market for digital music, yet they are still fighting it. What a huge missed opportunity on their part. But, the key point is that they are desperately trying to maintain control over a market that they can't control in the ways they have in the past.
Wow. Good thing people don't trade external hard drives, with thousands of songs on them.
If someone ships a hard drive full of music to someone else, would that be a federal crime? What would the value of that music be?
So let's say I borrow someone's external hard drive, and copy all the MP3s on it to my hard drive. In just a matter of hours, have I just cost the RIAA millions of dollars?
To be fair, I do think that illegally downloading music does hurt the music industry. But obviously, there is a market there for downloading or iTunes would have failed by now. When Napster burst onto the scene, the music industry should have seen the untapped GOLD mine that is music downloading. Instead, they fought it. They refused to embrace it. Did they think it would just go away? The ability to download and take music with you everywhere has only strengthened the fact that people WANT to listen to music. They still don't get it.
Years ago, I looked into a concept, and someone had it patented already. But here is what the music industry should do:
1. Digitize their massive stockpile of music.
2. Partner with music stores so they carry that music digitally.
3. Price it right.
It would be easy to come up with a tiered pricing model.
A: anything 2 years old or newer: 0.99 per track, or a flat rate per album ($8?)
B: anything 2 to 10 years old: 0.25 per track, or $3 per album
C: anything older than 10 years: 0.10 per track or $1 per album
Think about this... why would people spend hours downloading questionable quality music when they could go into a store and walk away with a CD, DVD, or portable device FULL of music for a decent price? Then, people are in the store - you can sell them DVDs, Tshirts, CDs, etc. You could have a massive digital catalog to choose from. Keep it in the stores, but maybe make the track lists available online so they could submit an order and go in and pick it up. Charge a nominal burning fee for media. You could have "top 100" lists from all genres, people could upload their playlists for others to purchase..... there are LOTS of possiblities.
Sadly, I am sure this will never see the light of day because it requires the "owners" of the music to open their eyes.
LT: Well, ignoring the actual development stuff (make, compiler, editor etc), it ends up being mostly just xterms and "alpine" (the newer version of the venerable old "pine" email reader. Strictly text-based, thank you very much).
This is the first I have heard of alpine, I'll definitely have to check that out. I still use pine as my email client, and will have to check this out. I do have thunderbird installed, just in case I run into something that is cumbersome in pine, such as attaching multiple files to an email or viewing one with multiple image attachments.
The thing is, you can't buy a new computer anymore that has XP installed.
Dell Small Business. Bought a laptop for my wife 4 months ago, and got XP on it instead of Vista. They usually support one release back because businesses can't afford to be beta testers for MS.
Once I started blocking ads, my CPU wasn't being hogged by all the crap on some pages. I run on a fairly ancient system by today's standards (Duron 1.3) and on pages with a lot of ads, it would hit my CPU pretty hard.
Read this article from Esquire, it is absolutely fantastic. Greetings From Idiot America It is one of the best things I have read in a long time, and really hits the nail on the head about WHY things like this are damaging to us as a society.
Here's just a snippet, you really should read the entire thing:
It is, of course, television that has allowed Idiot America to run riot within the modern politics and all forms of public discourse. It is not that there is less information on television than there once was. (That there is less news is another question entirely.) In fact, there is so much information that fact is now defined as something that so many people believe that television notices it, and truth is measured by how fervently they believe it.
"You don't need to be credible on television," explains Keith Olbermann, the erudite host of his own show on MSNBC. "You don't need to be authoritative. You don't need to be informed. You don't need to be honest. All these things that we used to associate with what we do are no longer factors.
....
Idiot America is a bad place for crazy notions. Its indolent tolerance of them causes the classic American crank to drift slowly and dangerously into the mainstream, wherein the crank loses all of his charm and the country loses another piece of its mind. The best thing about American crackpots used to be that they would stand proudly aloof from a country that, by their peculiar lights, had gone mad. Not today. Today, they all have book deals, TV shows, and cases pending in federal court.
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1. People are allowed to make mistakes, even in journalism
2. He admitted his mistakes
3. He admitted the "other side" got it right
4. He was coming from an impartial side of things, initially, and he sided with SCO. To be honest, their argument had a lot of people wondering, and there was a LOT of discussion about it online.
5. What about the smearing of his name? Suggesting he was a paid shill? I think he has a little leeway in the attitude department because of that.
6. The comment "the nerds got it right" is condescending? Look around you son, who you keeping company with?
I'll give you 1000 to 1 that SCO doesn't.
I completely disagree. I don't think Ubuntu is successful because of Windows users. At all. It is successful because it fills a need that Linux users have been waiting for - a distro that is easy to maintain. Unless you are maintaining multiple machines, you shouldn't be doing many installs. (even if you are, you shouldn't be doing many 'installs') I don't really care if the install takes 15 minutes or 2 hours. I only install once. I have never really understood why so many reviews focus on the installation! Yes, it is important, I have done some really tough installs in my day. It is a critical step, but the MORE important thing is how you maintain the system. That is where Ubuntu really stands out. It is why I switched to it. I was on Mandrake (before it changed names) and before that SuSE and various RedHat distros. This was dependency hell. Even though SuSE and Mandrake said you could update your system, you could not. I ran into ALL kinds of issues, my packages were getting outdated and I couldn't easily update them. So I have now been on Kubuntu for over 2 years, and even did an Upgrade with minimal hassle (damn NVIDIA). Dependency hell is pretty much a thing of the past for me.
Ubuntu lets me USE Linux, and I can tinker where I want to - not where I have to. I still feel like the tinker-factor is still a little high for the average user (esp Windows users) but the strides that Ubuntu has made over other distros is immense.
If you have Linux on your laptop, they won't be able to figure out how to get on the net anyway, especially via wireless. :)
Well, for one thing, Word is not a bad piece of software. Things could be improved, but you can't make something radically different if you are going after Word users. So it needs to be similar enough that people will want to use it, and innovative enough that it will make people like it better. That is a pretty tall order considering how ingrained Office has become. You have a large diverse user-base, from businesses to the average home user. So do you make it have features like built-in versioning/change controls/security/advanced features that businesses would like, or go for "get the basic simple stuff done well" that the home user would like?
I am not saying it is impossible, but I think it is really difficult. Linux has taken off for the reasons you state - it is different from Windows. But to be honest, there aren't a lot of converts from Windows to Linux. And I think that is OK, to be honest. I think there is room for Windows/Mac/Linux/other in the OS world. I also think there is room for another Word Processor/Spreadsheet/Presentation/etc. in the market. "taking on" Word/Excel/Powerpoint/etc is the trap that people fall into, and I think it is why MS has maintained its hold on that space. It's tough - you can't really go into it with that mindset, or you are just an imitator. But you can't ignore it, because the situation does exist, and MS will do whatever it can to crush any challenger.
Not to mention that Ubuntu wasn't really any kind of force at that time.
But that can't just happen overnight. I have used Word/Excel/Powerpoint longer. At home, I have OO.o installed, and that is what I use. But for some reason, my resume (in Word) is mis-formatted in Writer. It takes up an additional page. I have messed with it and messed with it, and I can't get it to look quite right. I use Excel daily for work, and to be honest haven't really tried Calc. I don't do that many spreadsheets at home. Same goes for Impress.
I turned a friend onto OO.o a couple of years ago. He used it for about a year, then went back to Office. He said he gave it a shot, but just couldn't get comfortable with it. To me, that is an HONEST assessment. I don't buy the blanket argument that OO.o is "just as good". MS Office is the leader, they have to be knocked off... it has to be proven, most likely repeatedly, that OO.o is just as good if not better. Hopefully with someone like IBM behind it, it can get a foothold in the business world. You can reach a lot of people that way.
Not a single Beowulf Cluster joke yet. Damn whipper snappers.
True... But the RIAA controls a lot of how bands get fans. I'm not talking just some, I mean to really "make it". I understand that it can happen, but unless it happens, and repeatedly, the RIAA will maintain control. The point of your post has two sides to it - this album debuted at #11 even though Warner didn't promote it. That shows two things: a) someone can succeed without the help of the label b) good music can and does get buried because it isn't what is 'in'. Personally, I like all kinds of music, from the popular crap that a lot of people would chide me for (Lavigne, Clarkson) to the ones that only really have a small following and are the polar opposite of that (COC, Clutch). Depends on my mood I guess. Kelly Clarkson is a good example. I'd like to hear her do something a little less commercial and overly processed, but you can tell she has talent. Her music is what it is. Would she have been discovered without the corporate machine? Probably not. There are probably lots of bands/singers like that, who would have never made it without the current system. But who knows, maybe there are just as many that haven't made it BECAUSE of the current system.
I think that bands need labels - but I want to see the RIAA go away. They are not needed anymore. They contribute nothing to the process that is helpful, and really only serve to control things and skim money from artists.
Unfortunately, we are in the scenario where an artist that people will listen to (read: popular) got that way because of the RIAA and the industry they are in... they have likely signed a long-term contract. Once they are out of that contract, the general population won't really care about them (read: Pearl Jam, Prince) and they will kind of fade away. Personally, I like all of these acts I have named, but they aren't in the main spotlight anymore. This is a system that the RIAA has created, and unless someone can a) gain huge popularity without them and b) stay out of their clutches, it won't seem possible to break out of their system.
The difference here is that this is a statement by Microsoft, whereas Gore never said he invented the internet. http://sethf.com/gore/
But I understand you were *trying* to be funny.
Well, I haven't tried it in a while.. and to be honest, I probably won't. No ill feelings, just that the timing wasn't right.
I was a RedHat user from 6.2 to 7.3. I stayed on that release a long time... too long. My system was flaky, I couldn't get some apps to run, I was in dependency hell. So it was a fresh install. I tried out SuSE, it was just OK. I ended up with Mandrake. Loved it. But after a couple of years, it got stale. I ended up in dependency purgatory. The package management of Mandrake just didn't deliver. Some things just didn't work quite right - usb devices like my camera weren't automatically recognized and mounted. I don't mind tinkering in the least (remember, I said I used to run RehHat 6.2) but the tinkering was getting in the way of getting things done.
So I went on a quest for a different distro, and found one that so far has been excellent. Kubuntu has been good to me for the most part. There's been some glitches here and there, but it is the best distro I have used. I am all for trying other distros for fun, but it would be hard for me to switch to be honest. Right now, it is easier for me to maintain my stable, up-to-date system than it is to switch to a new one.
I grew up Catholic, yet I woke up and don't believe in any religion. Haven't for 20 years. But at least I can see some redeeming qualities in various religions and their tales. I don't find anything redeeming about Scientology.
So it is being a selfish douchebag who only looks out for themselves? That certainly explains why the US software industry is where it is today.
In my entire 15 year career in the software industry, I have never once had to work alone. It's about teamwork, and until the wannabe-elitists understand that, then our industry will continue to flounder. Until those who consider themselves "creative geniuses" realize that there is more to it than just them, we will all struggle.
I've worked with several Libertarians... they all thought everyone should conform to their ideals and rules, and their "high" standards. They preach liberty, but put down anyone who doesn't believe what they believe. Libertarianism is a theoretical pipe-dream that isn't based in reality.
I was a RedHat user for about 5 years. Then switched to Mandrake. I was only on it a couple, and I got REALLY tired of not being able to run certain packages, or upgrade to others. Their package management just failed for me. I was looking for another disto, and settled on Kubuntu. I have since kept up to date, and even upgraded full release versions with minimal issues (yes, I have an Nvidia card). I loved Mandrake while I was on it, but they lost me for the simple reason that I couldn't maintain my system easily.
Well, when I thought of the idea, not everyone had fast download speeds. They could certainly roll out an online service in much the same way, but the complexities of payments, bandwidth, servers, etc. comes into play. Certainly I see that downloading is a viable business model, but we're talking about the record companies here... I figured we'd start S L O W.
I saw it as something that could be put into place, in some form or other, in malls/electronics stores (CircuitCity, etc)/and the antiquated record stores. But, they missed the bandwagon on that possibility too. In order for them to "unlock the vault" on their massive catalog of music, they would need to get something out of the deal. Otherwise, they are just going to sit on it until it rots.
Eh, say what you will - but I like Avril Lavigne sometimes. Some days it's that, others it's Queen, or Motorhead, or Clutch, or old Red Hot Chili Peppers, or old NIN, or Jane's Addiction, or any other various groups that might be considered "mainstream". Metallica is probably considered mainstream now, but their early stuff (pre-Black) still kicks ass. Not everyone fits that business model. Some groups aren't together anymore or aren't even alive. My point is that the "support them at a bar" is a piss-poor business model. Artists should also be able to make and sell their works without having to tour.
Assuming of course that those artists you like are playing near you (unlikely) at a bar (more unlikely) and have CD release parties (huh?). Stop trying to fit every artist into your business model!!!!
So basically, you are saying it is wrong to be intolerant of intolerance? Is that a bad thing?
Here's the thing - I live in AZ, and there are lots of Mormons around here. I worked with some Mormons, and they were fine. They never preached to me AT ALL, I only found out they were Mormons after working with them for a while. I think their religion is ridiculous, but I would never try to convince them of that. They can do whatever they want.
However, if Mormons knock on my door and try to convince me that I need to be Mormon, I will kindly tell them "no thanks" - and in private be pissed at them. The same goes for Christians or any other group that leaves pamphlets on my door, or car, or whatever. Leave me alone, I leave you alone. If religious nuts (and yes, I consider them nuts) will harass people and even physically harm people at abortion clinics, then they are infringing on others rights. Here's the difference - if abortions are legal, then it doesn't infringe on a Christian's beliefs. But if they get abortion outlawed, then it infringes on other's rights. Christians are therefore trying to push their beliefs on other people. That is unacceptable. The same goes for Muslims, Jews, etc. You can believe what you believe - just don't force your beliefs on me. Religious people seem to not only be intolerant of the non-religious, but of other religions too. It is amazing the amount of ignorance and intolerance that exists in all religions. It seems to me that the only people who don't have built-in intolerance is the non-religious.
Well, I originally thought of this back in 2001 or so... back when the music industry could have embraced digital music but chose another path. I think it is a win-win business idea for everyone. We get high-quality music for a reasonable price (and no DRM) and the music industry gets to leverage their massive back-catalog of music and keep customers.
Why would you drive to a store when you could download it? Bandwidth, quality, and selection. You would get guaranteed quality, and you could get a lot more music in a trip to the store than you could downloading in the same amount of time. Not to mention selection! The amount of music that they could offer would be absolutely mind-boggling. Of course, this would potentially release all of this music onto P2P networks, but again - if they price it right, then it would be worth it to just go buy it. They could price playlists so that people wouldn't care if they bought the same song multiple times. If I could get 50 songs for $5, why would I care if I already had some of them somewhere on some device? Packaging and pricing. Think "Time Life Collections" except stuff you would actually want, and for a cheap price. Tons and tons of potential for new and good ideas! Hey, how about with every 10 old songs you buy, you get 1 new song (but at a lower bitrate). They could even throw on new songs that they choose as promotions! Tie in with products to give away coupon codes for free songs. Don't you think that 10 free old songs would get someone in the store, and thereby generate more sales? I am just pulling these off the top of my head - surely some genius with an MBA could come up with even better ideas.
I don't download movies, I buy them. They have priced movies well enough that I continue to buy them instead of downloading them, and I don't even care about special features or "collectors editions". The music industry has priced itself out of the market, and they get a huge FAIL on non embracing digital music. They've had almost 10 years to get on the frickin bandwagon for crying out loud. In their own reports, from day ONE, they have shown that there is a huge market for digital music, yet they are still fighting it. What a huge missed opportunity on their part. But, the key point is that they are desperately trying to maintain control over a market that they can't control in the ways they have in the past.
If someone ships a hard drive full of music to someone else, would that be a federal crime? What would the value of that music be?
So let's say I borrow someone's external hard drive, and copy all the MP3s on it to my hard drive. In just a matter of hours, have I just cost the RIAA millions of dollars?
To be fair, I do think that illegally downloading music does hurt the music industry. But obviously, there is a market there for downloading or iTunes would have failed by now. When Napster burst onto the scene, the music industry should have seen the untapped GOLD mine that is music downloading. Instead, they fought it. They refused to embrace it. Did they think it would just go away? The ability to download and take music with you everywhere has only strengthened the fact that people WANT to listen to music. They still don't get it.
Years ago, I looked into a concept, and someone had it patented already. But here is what the music industry should do:
1. Digitize their massive stockpile of music.
2. Partner with music stores so they carry that music digitally.
3. Price it right.
It would be easy to come up with a tiered pricing model.
A: anything 2 years old or newer: 0.99 per track, or a flat rate per album ($8?)
B: anything 2 to 10 years old: 0.25 per track, or $3 per album
C: anything older than 10 years: 0.10 per track or $1 per album
Think about this... why would people spend hours downloading questionable quality music when they could go into a store and walk away with a CD, DVD, or portable device FULL of music for a decent price? Then, people are in the store - you can sell them DVDs, Tshirts, CDs, etc. You could have a massive digital catalog to choose from. Keep it in the stores, but maybe make the track lists available online so they could submit an order and go in and pick it up. Charge a nominal burning fee for media. You could have "top 100" lists from all genres, people could upload their playlists for others to purchase..... there are LOTS of possiblities.
Sadly, I am sure this will never see the light of day because it requires the "owners" of the music to open their eyes.
This is the first I have heard of alpine, I'll definitely have to check that out. I still use pine as my email client, and will have to check this out. I do have thunderbird installed, just in case I run into something that is cumbersome in pine, such as attaching multiple files to an email or viewing one with multiple image attachments.
Does anyone else here use alpine?
Dell Small Business. Bought a laptop for my wife 4 months ago, and got XP on it instead of Vista. They usually support one release back because businesses can't afford to be beta testers for MS.
Once I started blocking ads, my CPU wasn't being hogged by all the crap on some pages. I run on a fairly ancient system by today's standards (Duron 1.3) and on pages with a lot of ads, it would hit my CPU pretty hard.
Here's just a snippet, you really should read the entire thing:
It is, of course, television that has allowed Idiot America to run riot within the modern politics and all forms of public discourse. It is not that there is less information on television than there once was. (That there is less news is another question entirely.) In fact, there is so much information that fact is now defined as something that so many people believe that television notices it, and truth is measured by how fervently they believe it.
"You don't need to be credible on television," explains Keith Olbermann, the erudite host of his own show on MSNBC. "You don't need to be authoritative. You don't need to be informed. You don't need to be honest. All these things that we used to associate with what we do are no longer factors.
Idiot America is a bad place for crazy notions. Its indolent tolerance of them causes the classic American crank to drift slowly and dangerously into the mainstream, wherein the crank loses all of his charm and the country loses another piece of its mind. The best thing about American crackpots used to be that they would stand proudly aloof from a country that, by their peculiar lights, had gone mad. Not today. Today, they all have book deals, TV shows, and cases pending in federal court.