I had to upgrade my TV after my 27" TV that got me through college died in the middle of a game of Super Mario Sunshine 6-8 months back. I ended up with a 34" 16:9 HDTV ready Sony that supports 1080i. DVDs and games look amazing on the screen. However, the picture from our cable provider (Comcast) is horrible. There is HEAVY artifacting visible that the old 27" just blurred together. (An interesting aside: it seems as though the commericals are less compressed than the actual shows. There's a visible picture quality difference between shows and commericals.)
Then I added a TiVo back in February. I think it does some pretty wonky compression things. I'm a little disappointed that nobody told me that there's a quality difference between the original broadcast and replay. But, by the same token, I'm not amassing a library of any shows and I've already been forced to put up with Comcast's bad compression.
For me, the loss in picture quality is worth the added functionality the TiVo gave me. Are there things I'd change about TiVo? You bet. But am I losing sleep over it? Not in the slightest. Although I do have to say that Myth TV looks very promising.
I'll field this one. Originally, I had a "the DC rox" post lined up but it seemed too obvious. Anybody who's familiar with videogames as a genre knows that the DC had some brilliant titles.
I was watching some pre-awards show for the G-phoria Awards (game awards given out by G4TV) last week. The show was basically 4 industry people plus a moderator sitting down roundtable style and kicking around all the different games that were up for different awards. One of the guys, maybe it was Seamus Blackley, said that the future of gaming is a continuation of the blending of genres.
Which is probably the most intelligent thing you're going to read in this thread.
Games, due to their nature, can't be simply lumped together as innovative or derivative. Parts of all games will be derivative. There are a set of standards that all games must follow - from the way the packaging looks, to the price point, to how the save option works - it's all according to a predefined specification. This gives gamers a sense of familiarity with the environment across all games on the same system. The A button will always be forward and the B button will always be backwards when navigating menus on the Xbox. It's a spec.
Beyond that, games have developed into the genres that we're commenting/lamenting about here. The problem with these genres is that they're pretty specific. A FPS has a certain number of qualities about it that you know you can expect in your game. The extent to which a new title is considered innovative or derivative is partially a judgement on whether the game used the genre to its advantage or became limited by it.
Oftentimes, games that are lauded for their innovation tend to innovate in one of two areas: technical ability or gameplay mechanic.
Splinter Cell was innovative in its technical abilities. It showed lighting techniques and fabric movement in ways that we've never seen before on a home console. Some would argue that the graphical innovation was so huge as to change the fundamental gameplay mechanic. This isn't true. Splinter Cell is part of the stealth genre of action games. And even at that - it's pretty lame. The trial and error nature of the game reduced it to a series of puzzles to solve. Couple that with a so-so storyline, and in my eyes, you have a very over-hyped game.
Grand Theft Auto III (or Vice City) is a game that blends the genre lines. It's an action game, a racing game, a shooter, a stunt game, etc. But the graphics were still ordinary. Nobody would claim that GTA innovates graphically. However, most everybody agrees that this is a genre busting game that's fun to play.
Then lastly, games are defined by our expectations. The Matrix Reloaded videogame has some cool moments and there's no doubt that it's fun to play scenes from the movie. But other than that, it's your run of the mill Max Payne, Dead to Rights knock off. Sure, they've sold a million of them in the past week - but how many of those people bought the game for the added movie footage and how many bought it for the cool gameplay? And before people start talking about the quality of the graphics, please realize that the wheels on the cars were octagons. Talk to me when they get to be circles.
When it comes to sports games, we don't want gaming innovation. We want something entirely different. We want to make it realistic. We want better graphics and a more true to like AI opponent. We don't want to change the rules of the sport we're playing. But that doesn't stop us, the gaming press, or the developers themselves from claiming startling feats of innovation with each new Madden game.
So innovation is all what you make of it.
Is Planetside innovative for being a FPS MMORG? Is The Matrix Reloaded innovative for meshing with the movie and including 60 minutes of additional movie footage? The answer is probably yes. But the extent to which being innovative makes a good game experience differs greatly.
It's an odd comparison to make, a game vs. the technology that runs games but it's probably more accurate than your post lets on.
Regarless of the technical specs, it's still all about the games. If the games deliver, and it's not unreasonably priced, I'd bet that Sony will have an easy time selling them whether it's got two rubberbands and a paperclip or the latest and greatest portable electronics available inside.
First of all, I really like what you said. It might be too brief for some (looking at the comments) to consider accurate, but I don't see the problems those people have.
I'm interested to know how religion plays into all of this. Most of what I know about Christianity comes from being immersed in it as a child/teenager. Now that I'm coming into my own and I'm trying to reconcile my own thoughts about adulthood with who my parents are - I've noticed in my Mom a trait that I believe most Conservative Christians share: they have the mentality of sheep.
The Christian church teaches complete servitude to God, who you'll remember is 'the shepherd'. Everything Christians do is done to bring about God's will. In our current War with Iraq, I've seen this worldview put forth as the right view time and time again.
We are told that now is not the time to be critical of our government administration. We are told to trust our leaders - because they must know something that we don't. Many Christians I know don't have a yes/no opinion about the justification for pre-emptive war in Iraq. Instead, I hear "Let God's will be done."
This Christian desire is based on a religious model based on a monarchy. God is the Lord and he has a throne. In a larger sense, doesn't this mean that a monotheistic religion mixed with political power gives rise to a monarchy? Or more accurately a theocratic monarchy?
We've seen this with our current administration. They want to lead without question. They want to assert their authority without justification. They want to be the moral authority.
According to USA Today, Bush feels like God put him in power. Could 2+2=4?
From a historical standpoint, it would seem that the obscene wealth controlled by the Catholic Church (and their ability to somehow exempt priests from sex abuse prison terms) would support my hypothesis.
1. To interpret inaccurately.
2. To explain inaccurately.
In this case, my usage would be correct. We both understand the malice that Labels have against its consumers, but that doesn't mean that they are correct in that thinking. If the goal is to find out why CD sales are down, then any excuse that doesn't accurately explain the drop in CD sales would be a misinterpretation of the statistics. In my opinion, as stated in my original post, the RIAA is, in fact, misinterpreting its own statistics.
There is a convincing piece by Damien Cave on Salon.com titled "File Sharing: Innocent Until Proven Guilty" which argues that there is no proven correlation between downloaded music and the decline in CD sales. He continues to argue in "File Sharing: Guilty As Charged?" that a good deal of the 'sky is falling' rhetoric created by the record companies and the RIAA is based on supposition and self-interest. In addition, the article "RIAA's Statistics Don't Add Up To Piracy" analyzes the RIAA's own statistics and argues that they do not support the RIAA's conclusion that downloaded music is the cause for the decline in CD sales. In this detailed analysis, George Ziemann argues that the record industry released 11,900 fewer titles in 2000 than it released in 1999, a 25% decrease, yet the total number of units shipped decreased only 10.3% and the dollar value of these units fell by only 4.1%. It seems that the RIAA is misinterpreting its own statistics.
Also, the record companies just settled a price fixing suit in which they admitted they were overcharging consumers. This point seems to be overlooked by the RIAA in its attempt to place all blame for the woes of the music business at the feet of mp3's. Is it possible that the decrease in CD sales is related to the conspiracy by the major record labels to inflate prices?
Labels spoof files on p2p networks. Duh. Short of suing the entire world, that's currently their best weapon against piracy. Sure it doesn't stop it, but it does make it more of a pain in the ass.
At the same time, I wrote an influential paper for the NY chapter of NARAS disputing all of the RIAA's claims (much of the support used in the paper came from articles posted on/.). Long story short, this paper went to the voting delegates at the national NARAS meeting. They voted NOT to support the RIAA's stance on mp3s and NOT to support the RIAA's current marketing scheme where Britney Spears says downloading = stealing.
A part of that paper said this:
Record labels are confused and contradictory. They use mp3s in private while they deride it in public. If they're promoting a new band, they'll post the band's songs on p2p networks (often in a covert manner) with the hopes that they'll be traded and talked about in chat rooms. If it's an established act with a history of sales, they'll "spoof" the p2p networks with fake files. It's just another way of using mp3s, albeit in a subversive and anti-customer way, which is par for the course.
And the really messed up thing about it is that the tech company encouraging us to rip and burn items shares the same parent company as the recording artist the RIAA is supposedly trying to protect.
AOL/Time Warner owns Warner Bros. records. AOL makes a lot of money selling their service by which music is downloaded, in many cases the very music that WB says is being stolen.
Sony is the largest manufacturer of writeable CD drives. They also make MP3 players. They also own part of the patent on the CD, of which there were a half a billion sold last year - that's blank CDs. The point is, the advantage of being a multinational organization is to deal with these very things. Sony may lose money on music, but they are using it to make money elsewhere. Same with AOL/TW. Nevertheless, their profit desire is unbounded so they hire the RIAA to give politicians money and support legislation like the "Peer to Peer Piracy Protection Act", which gives record companies the right to invade your hard drive, limits fair use, among other bad things, including being a threat to academic freedom. Bottom line: They are trying to legislate profitability.
I'm going to say this, but you're not going to like it.
What I find interesting is that there are literally thousands of free bands out there that are more than worthy of listening too. Free as in they have not sold their souls (not to mention music rights) away to the devils of the music industry.
Simply put, no there's not. You want proof? Spend a day and go through mp3.com. Go through mylocalbands.com or GigAmerica.net and listen to a few thousand bands. Hell, listen to 20. Now tell me how good most of those bands are. The short answer is "not very". I can see that you're looking for a populist way to hear lots of good music, giving the unknown band exposure, and yourself the opportunity to check out unknown bands, but sooner or later, you're going to get tired of wading through an unranked mass of music and you'll want some guidence. After all, you don't want to listen to thousands of bands, you want to listen to the good bands from that entire music pool. Oh, and just to be clear, none of these bands would qualify as 'music pioneers'. All the music that's being put out has been put out for a long time. Beethoven was a pioneer, sorry, but these local bands don't qualify.
But how does one get to listen to these pioneers of music? The solution could be sites like mp3.com (until the mp3 royalties are forced).
I'm not a big fan of mp3.com anymore after they turned aggressively towards being profitible, but remember the old school mp3.com? That's what you want, but it seems that it's impossible to get that because it can't be profitable.
But what people want is a locals only site that streams, guess what, the music from free local bands only. Not just for your community but local bands from all over the US (and the world).
Apparently not, since other sites that offer (or offered) this service have not fared well.
We need a site that collects these bands and we need a streamer that plays them. No CARP royalty problems since these bands are unsigned and own the music themselves. Make it so that the artists can hopefully sell their own CD's or single songs from the same site. Anyway, mix and bake at multiple bit rates and you have a solution to the copy protected CD (I haven't bought one yet from an Indie Band).
No, we don't need that. First, we need to prove that there's a desire for a whole bunch of people to use a service that promotes unknown (and largely not very good) acts that are very musically diverse. We can't even make a good case that people want diverse music, because if they did, the Billboard Top 200 would look drastically different than it does now. Once we find that crowd, we need to figure out a way to make money from providing this service to them. Nobody's going to pony up the cash or resources to do something like this unless it's profitable. Sorry, but welcome back to reality.
The big guys go down because they can't compete with free, better than great music on the web with a low cost distribution.
You're assuming a few things here. First, you're saying that the big guys can't compete with free. This is true, but they're ALREADY competing with free. That's why they're doing dumb things like copy protection. Business is down, but it's not over. Although if they continue to go after their customer base, this could change. Next, you're assuming that the music that's NOT out there is better than the music that's already signed to major record labels. Here, I think that you just have a lack of experience with the catalogs of major record labels. Just what kind of good music are you looking for? Pop music might not be your flavor, so what is? Jazz? Blues? Techno? Heavy Metal? I guarantee you that you can go to a record store and come out with an armload of quality music. Just because your favorite artist isn't number one on the chart doesn't mean that they aren't available for purchase. So this assumption rings hollow with me.
So, where is this utopia? Oh! And dump the necessary registration required to listen (are you listening mp3.com?)."
Simply put, it doesn't exist. Why? Because you're in the minority. It's fine for you to wish that this existed, but unless a few million other people feel the same way - you can forget it. It's unrealistic, and not grounded in real world economics or even real world band quality. Sure, there are diamonds in the rough, but are we all willing to go through a lot of rough to get to the few diamonds?
When I say that, I mean a DVD-A title that didn't start from previously recorded material. It was a Bobby Short DVD-A titled "Piano". And here's what I learned while working on that project.
First - you don't have to worry about either SACD or DVD-A. Until most consumers are into their 3rd generation of DVD player, chances are, they won't buy a unit that plays DVD-As. The only reason they WOULD buy one is because they bought a universal player, which plays CDs, DVD-V and DVD-A formats (along with mp3s more than likely).
Next - consumers really don't want better sound. I had this argument a lot with various people involved in the project. Most people are content to listen to 128kbps mp3s... so the demand for a 5.1 or a 10.2 96k/24 bit surround sound mix is pretty friggin' low. People don't listen to music like they watch movies - meaning they don't sit in the sweet spot of the room for the course of the song/album - so DVD-A is largely wasted. It's true that DVD-As sound phenomenal... but really... are there enough people that care to made the switch inevitable?
Here's the biggest reason: royalties. One thing we found while making our DVD-A is that everytime we used a song on the DVD-A... the publisher wanted money. This means they want $0.08 when we used the song as a music track, $0.08 when we used it in the background of some video footage, $0.08 when we included the sheet music and $0.08 when Bobby played a portion of the song as a demonstration on the video portion of the disc. So now, a song that should have cost $0.08 has now cost $0.32. How many times can this be done before it becomes cost prohibitive?
The legal issues with regard to liscensing have yet to work themselves through to the point to where any reasonable producer would want to navigate them. (Our solution was to only use stuff multiple times that was in the public domain.)
There's more... but I'll stop there. Everybody who thinks this is a RIAA ploy can put the keyboards down. It's not. I've often wondered why Record Companies haven't already switched to DVD-V... where there is CSS which is already backed up by the DMCA (for better or worse). It would cover their ass better for pirated material AND make the music have better fidelity in the process. Plus, they could get over dumbass enhanced CDs and put the material on a disc that could be viewed on a TV, or at least with really good clarity on a computer monitor. But RC's don't think that way. Truthfully, the mere thought that somebody is download their songs *right now* has kept them in a state of suspended animation ever since Napster became a household word. To think that copy protection is even a secondary consideration behind the move to DVD-A (I can't speak for SACD) would be to give the companies behind the push too much credit.
Okay, not for nothing, but the people that have been moderating the parent as 'Off topic' obviously haven't played Command & Conquer. So allow me to explain.
In the game, the primary resource is known as Tiberium. It's basically a type of fauna that extracts minerals from the soil. You collect the Tiberium and refine it for cash.
So the fact that the story reminds me of Tiberium is not an off topic post. If anything it's a +1 Funny. Because they don't have a +1 Coincidental, or +1 Ironic.
I'm on the phone as I type this trying to upgrade our Comcast service to Comcast Pro. I swear we just had this conversation.
Me: Hi. I'm currently a Comcast Broadband Subscriber and I'd like to upgrade my service to Comcast Pro.
Comcast: What?
Me: The premium bandwith service, Comcast Pro.
Comcast: I have no idea what you're talking about.
Me: I saw it on your web site. Would you like the URL?
Comcast: Comcast Pro? I've never heard of this before.
Me: Well let me tell you about it...
Comcast: Hold while I transfer you to another department.
I dunno, I just found it funny that the number they give you to call to get the service is answered by somebody who has no clue that there is, in fact, a service.
Interesting... but I don't know...
on
Bad MEN Of Wireless
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Just yesterday, Virgin (as in airlines/music stores/etc.) brought their line of mobile phones to the US market. Being questioned on Fox News last night, Richard Branson said that the US looks like a good market because only 45% of people have cell phones (where in England it's 85% and in some other European countries, as high as 90%). He claims that in doing research with the 18-25 market, he found that the average non-mobile phone user doesn't feel there's a good brand name they can latch onto (in spite of MEN apparently). They've co-branded their phone with MTV and have gotten it into over 12,000 retail locations - as of yesterday. In addition, they're adding some kind of musical function to their phones - but he didn't elaborate in the interview.
So, I dunno - it all sounds like capitalism to me. Maybe it's a screwy Major Corporation vs. Major Corporation capitalism with no place for the small business person, but it's capitalism just the same.
From my point of view, the issue for me is not the technology. All technology sucks at some point, and hopefully, as time passes and the technology is refined, the systems get better. So this discussion about biometrics is really a discussion about the early phase of consumer biometrics. Fine.
My personal issue with biometrics is privacy. Yeah, yeah... I know it sounds like I'm new to the party by bringing up this issue, but just think about it for a second.
If I use my debit card to make a purchase, maybe it's me, maybe it's not. When I was younger, I used to get cash from an ATM with my Dad's card all the time. I knew his pin number, no big deal. It didn't require a company being aware that he had a son, and I was it, and I'm authorized to use his identification in order to get the cash. I just did it.
At the very least, with biometrics some company needs to have my and his info on file for me to do the exact same thing.
Well fuck those guys.
I'm not against capitalism, but it's safe to say that I think customer service is bullshit and companies only do as much as it takes to make you part with your hard earned cash. They trade our personal information like baseball cards in an attempt to squeeze a few extra pennies out of your decision to pay with a frequent buyer card and nothing would please them more if they could build a composite of your lifestyle.
So maybe you like to buy jewelry or maybe you like to visit the Nevada brothels. Either way, ad agencies shouldn't be able to purchase that information. Information that is easily traced back to you and your goddamned finger.
Government obviously doesn't care about how marketers use your information, so it seems to me that the only solution is to guard the privacy we still have as if it were the answer to who shot JFK.
Let's take this one step further. With the Big Business Interests in power (George W. and Co.) the individual citizen is clearly second to corporate interests. With guys like Ashcroft in office who don't consider it a good day unless they can strip you of a freedom or two, how long can it be before the databases built upon the base of biometrics be used against individuals?
When will police start to rely (with warrants of course) on this information while trying to solve a crime?
Please don't say it can't happen.
Just look at that kid that blew up those mailboxes in Nebraska a few weeks ago. They got him because he paid for gas with a debit card near where the pipe bombs were found. In this instance, you're thinking 'hot damn, I'm glad they got that idiot'. So justice was served. But will every case be as cut and dried?
Marketers can infer who you are based on what you buy (gay, straight, rich, poor, clean, messy, like to cook, eat out a lot, likes porno, donates to charitable organizations, etc.). You know this, so when you're buying stuff you don't want traced back to you, you pay with cash. What happens when all of your information is kept in one big fat database? How difficult could it be to associate based on buying history that (for example) your music purchases abruptly stopped six months ago, but since then you've bought two big assed hard drives. The logs associated with your DSL account show that you've been quite the bandwidth hog recently.
I don't even have to draw the conclusion for you. Somebody call the motherfucking RIAA and MPAA. And the bitch of it is, the Corporate Hack won't need a warrant to get this information, they'll just need to have their biometric information tied to some corporate checking account so they can buy that information with their own finger. Ironic isn't it?
Hey, at least you'll have something to think about while sitting in that jail cell for having all those unauthorized mp3s and pirated 1st run flicks on that server of yours.
It just gets stranger from there. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that humanity is one place where I don't mind a little security through obscurity.
And that, in a nutshell, is my problem with biometrics.
Looks like AOL-Time Warner needs to get their story straight. I mean, first PVR users are theives, and now the same conglomerate wants to add functionality to their PVR?
It doesn't make sense to me unless they're just dying to insert pop-up ads over actual TV shows.
That's legalise. Trust me. It's not just lawyers being funny. One time my father was signing an agreement with a record label (he's a producer) and as a joke he asked to have the rights to Mars (since they ask for the Universe). Characteristically enough he didn't get it.
I believe lawyers try to make things as broad as possible. Not only does this practically assure them work in the future (the bigger the fort, the more guards there need to be) but they really are looking out for their clients interests.
Don't get giddy about space exploration and not see that on Mars, or any other planet, intellectual property and commercialization are going to eventually be as big an influence on daily life as it already is here on Earth now.
Admittedly, using that language in a site's TOS is probably overkill, but better to be safe than sorry right?
"Now it is QUITE CLEAR that New Line would easily defeat MGM under Parody Laws, but because MGM could tie up the marketing on the film in the meanwhile... They are going to go ahead and do a new title anyways. Taking the path of least resistance."
Death by colon cancer is probably the final destination for anybody who lives too long. You can't pack all that shit in there and not have some cellular mutation eventually.
Plus, didn't Ed Norton's character in Fight Club say "on a long enough time line, everybody's survival rate drops to zero"?
Want addresses to complain to Universal and its subsidiaries? I've got addresses.
A&M Records
Ron Fair - President
Elisa Yastic - Assistant to the President
2220 Colorado Ave.
5th Floor
Santa Monica, CA
Decca Music Group
Coasta Pilavachi - President
Eleni Papanikolaou - Assistant to the President
347-353 Chiswick High Rd.
London W4 4HS England
Deutsch Gramaphone
Martin T:son Engstroem - Vice President of A&R
Dorthea Manusch - Assistant to VP of A&R
Alte Rabenstr 2
20148 Hamburg Germany
Geffen
Jordan Schur - President
Ali Levy and Zane Smythe - Assistants to the President
2220 Colorado Ave.
4th Floor
Santa Monica, CA 90404-3506
Interscope
Jimmy Iovine - CEO
Lori Lane, Ginger Ramsey & Jason McGuire - Assistants to the CEO
2220 Colorado Ave.
5th Floor
Santa Monica, CA 90404-3506
Island Def Jam Music
Jim Caparro - CEO
Anne Cleary - Assistant to the CEO
825 8th Ave.
19th Floor
New York, NY 10019-7472
MCA Nashville
Tony Brown - President
Rene White - Assistant to the President
60 Music Square East
Nashville, TN 37203-4325
MCA Records
Jay Boberg - President
Fran Salafia & Terry Sharpe - Assistants to the President
2220 Colorado Ave.
Santa Monica, CA 90404-3506
Mercury Records
Howard Berman - Managing Director
Patsy McKay - Assistant to the MD
136-144 New Kings Rd.
London SW6 4LE England
Motown Records
Kedar Massenburg - CEO/President
K.K. - Assistant to the CEO/President
1755 Broadway Ave.
7th Floor
New York, NY 10019-3743
Polydor
Lucian Grainge - Deputy Chairman
Caroline Fogazza - Assistant to the DC
Black Lion House 72-80 Black Lion Lane
London W6 9BE England
Universal Records
Mel Lewinter - CEO
Julie Beardon - Assistant to the CEO
1755 Broadway Ave.
7th Floor
New York, NY 10019-3743
Verve Music Group
Tommy Lipuma - CEO
Ruth Rosenberg - Assistant to the CEO
1755 Broadway Ave.
3rd Floor
New York, NY 10019-3743
RIAA
1330 Connecticut Avenue N.W., Suite 300
Washington, D.C. 20036
Just as a point of fact, they're not saying Metal Gear Solid 2 is the #1 toy to avoid. Rather the MGS2 action figures are the toys to avoid. This is because the toys are for ages 5+, while the game is rated Mature and the toys come with weapons.
It is the nature of life to strive to become as robust as possible. (see the example of rabbits in Australia that has been continually referenced as a part of this discussion for an example of that) This applies to insects the same as it applies to Sumatran Tigers. Things that humanity considers vile and indecent happens everyday in nature. Did you know that Lions will routinely search out and kill lion cubs that are not their own? They do this to protect their own bloodline. Humanity as repugnant as it in general views this activity, has still engaged in it. Of course, we just call it war.
The main difference between us and lions is that we're prolific enough for our conflicts to take place over large areas, not just an African plain, and we've developed weapons that are far more effective than a lion's claw and tooth.
However, I suspect that you are really calling humanity a cancer due to our seeming disregard for the ecosystem. We take advantage of our ecosystems; we don't merely co-exist with it. But such is the nature of being the 800 lb. gorilla. Our decision is whether to be a benevolent caretaker and to manage our resources in a way where every species benefits, or to be ruthless about it and horde resources for ourselves. In either case, you can rest assured that humanity's collective decision to this dilemma will be resolved by what benefits us the most at the time. It won't be because there are only 20 cats left in the world somewhere. The only reason we would save those tigers is so we can lock them up in a zoo so people can pay money to look at it.
Personally, I think we should be more responsible about how we treat our natural environment and resources - but only because we will be royally screwed if we don't.
My only problem with your argument about saving tigers versus saving all of America is this: you only want to save the cute animals. But you don't seem to have the first bit of sympathy for cancer cells. No... viruses, mold, mildew, maggots, fungus, weeds, e coli, bacteria, the crabs... none of those would make your list of the top 20 things to save. But then again, you wouldn't want any of those as pets.
I can sympathize with your conservationist leanings, but when your examples lean towards the cute, I have to wonder just how sincere you are.
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I had to upgrade my TV after my 27" TV that got me through college died in the middle of a game of Super Mario Sunshine 6-8 months back. I ended up with a 34" 16:9 HDTV ready Sony that supports 1080i. DVDs and games look amazing on the screen. However, the picture from our cable provider (Comcast) is horrible. There is HEAVY artifacting visible that the old 27" just blurred together. (An interesting aside: it seems as though the commericals are less compressed than the actual shows. There's a visible picture quality difference between shows and commericals.)
Then I added a TiVo back in February. I think it does some pretty wonky compression things. I'm a little disappointed that nobody told me that there's a quality difference between the original broadcast and replay. But, by the same token, I'm not amassing a library of any shows and I've already been forced to put up with Comcast's bad compression.
For me, the loss in picture quality is worth the added functionality the TiVo gave me. Are there things I'd change about TiVo? You bet. But am I losing sleep over it? Not in the slightest. Although I do have to say that Myth TV looks very promising.
Since when does Troll = informed opinion?
I'll field this one. Originally, I had a "the DC rox" post lined up but it seemed too obvious. Anybody who's familiar with videogames as a genre knows that the DC had some brilliant titles.
I was watching some pre-awards show for the G-phoria Awards (game awards given out by G4TV) last week. The show was basically 4 industry people plus a moderator sitting down roundtable style and kicking around all the different games that were up for different awards. One of the guys, maybe it was Seamus Blackley, said that the future of gaming is a continuation of the blending of genres.
Which is probably the most intelligent thing you're going to read in this thread.
Games, due to their nature, can't be simply lumped together as innovative or derivative. Parts of all games will be derivative. There are a set of standards that all games must follow - from the way the packaging looks, to the price point, to how the save option works - it's all according to a predefined specification. This gives gamers a sense of familiarity with the environment across all games on the same system. The A button will always be forward and the B button will always be backwards when navigating menus on the Xbox. It's a spec.
Beyond that, games have developed into the genres that we're commenting/lamenting about here. The problem with these genres is that they're pretty specific. A FPS has a certain number of qualities about it that you know you can expect in your game. The extent to which a new title is considered innovative or derivative is partially a judgement on whether the game used the genre to its advantage or became limited by it.
Oftentimes, games that are lauded for their innovation tend to innovate in one of two areas: technical ability or gameplay mechanic.
Splinter Cell was innovative in its technical abilities. It showed lighting techniques and fabric movement in ways that we've never seen before on a home console. Some would argue that the graphical innovation was so huge as to change the fundamental gameplay mechanic. This isn't true. Splinter Cell is part of the stealth genre of action games. And even at that - it's pretty lame. The trial and error nature of the game reduced it to a series of puzzles to solve. Couple that with a so-so storyline, and in my eyes, you have a very over-hyped game.
Grand Theft Auto III (or Vice City) is a game that blends the genre lines. It's an action game, a racing game, a shooter, a stunt game, etc. But the graphics were still ordinary. Nobody would claim that GTA innovates graphically. However, most everybody agrees that this is a genre busting game that's fun to play.
Then lastly, games are defined by our expectations. The Matrix Reloaded videogame has some cool moments and there's no doubt that it's fun to play scenes from the movie. But other than that, it's your run of the mill Max Payne, Dead to Rights knock off. Sure, they've sold a million of them in the past week - but how many of those people bought the game for the added movie footage and how many bought it for the cool gameplay? And before people start talking about the quality of the graphics, please realize that the wheels on the cars were octagons. Talk to me when they get to be circles.
When it comes to sports games, we don't want gaming innovation. We want something entirely different. We want to make it realistic. We want better graphics and a more true to like AI opponent. We don't want to change the rules of the sport we're playing. But that doesn't stop us, the gaming press, or the developers themselves from claiming startling feats of innovation with each new Madden game.
So innovation is all what you make of it.
Is Planetside innovative for being a FPS MMORG? Is The Matrix Reloaded innovative for meshing with the movie and including 60 minutes of additional movie footage? The answer is probably yes. But the extent to which being innovative makes a good game experience differs greatly.
It's an odd comparison to make, a game vs. the technology that runs games but it's probably more accurate than your post lets on.
Regarless of the technical specs, it's still all about the games. If the games deliver, and it's not unreasonably priced, I'd bet that Sony will have an easy time selling them whether it's got two rubberbands and a paperclip or the latest and greatest portable electronics available inside.
First of all, I really like what you said. It might be too brief for some (looking at the comments) to consider accurate, but I don't see the problems those people have.
I'm interested to know how religion plays into all of this. Most of what I know about Christianity comes from being immersed in it as a child/teenager. Now that I'm coming into my own and I'm trying to reconcile my own thoughts about adulthood with who my parents are - I've noticed in my Mom a trait that I believe most Conservative Christians share: they have the mentality of sheep.
The Christian church teaches complete servitude to God, who you'll remember is 'the shepherd'. Everything Christians do is done to bring about God's will. In our current War with Iraq, I've seen this worldview put forth as the right view time and time again.
We are told that now is not the time to be critical of our government administration. We are told to trust our leaders - because they must know something that we don't. Many Christians I know don't have a yes/no opinion about the justification for pre-emptive war in Iraq. Instead, I hear "Let God's will be done."
This Christian desire is based on a religious model based on a monarchy. God is the Lord and he has a throne. In a larger sense, doesn't this mean that a monotheistic religion mixed with political power gives rise to a monarchy? Or more accurately a theocratic monarchy?
We've seen this with our current administration. They want to lead without question. They want to assert their authority without justification. They want to be the moral authority.
According to USA Today, Bush feels like God put him in power. Could 2+2=4?
From a historical standpoint, it would seem that the obscene wealth controlled by the Catholic Church (and their ability to somehow exempt priests from sex abuse prison terms) would support my hypothesis.
I understand what you're saying, and I'm inclined to agree with your statement, however, my use of the word 'misinterpreting' is still correct.
The word misinterpreting means:
1. To interpret inaccurately.
2. To explain inaccurately.
In this case, my usage would be correct. We both understand the malice that Labels have against its consumers, but that doesn't mean that they are correct in that thinking. If the goal is to find out why CD sales are down, then any excuse that doesn't accurately explain the drop in CD sales would be a misinterpretation of the statistics. In my opinion, as stated in my original post, the RIAA is, in fact, misinterpreting its own statistics.
There is a convincing piece by Damien Cave on Salon.com titled "File Sharing: Innocent Until Proven Guilty" which argues that there is no proven correlation between downloaded music and the decline in CD sales. He continues to argue in "File Sharing: Guilty As Charged?" that a good deal of the 'sky is falling' rhetoric created by the record companies and the RIAA is based on supposition and self-interest. In addition, the article "RIAA's Statistics Don't Add Up To Piracy" analyzes the RIAA's own statistics and argues that they do not support the RIAA's conclusion that downloaded music is the cause for the decline in CD sales. In this detailed analysis, George Ziemann argues that the record industry released 11,900 fewer titles in 2000 than it released in 1999, a 25% decrease, yet the total number of units shipped decreased only 10.3% and the dollar value of these units fell by only 4.1%. It seems that the RIAA is misinterpreting its own statistics.
Also, the record companies just settled a price fixing suit in which they admitted they were overcharging consumers. This point seems to be overlooked by the RIAA in its attempt to place all blame for the woes of the music business at the feet of mp3's. Is it possible that the decrease in CD sales is related to the conspiracy by the major record labels to inflate prices?
Labels spoof files on p2p networks. Duh. Short of suing the entire world, that's currently their best weapon against piracy. Sure it doesn't stop it, but it does make it more of a pain in the ass.
/.). Long story short, this paper went to the voting delegates at the national NARAS meeting. They voted NOT to support the RIAA's stance on mp3s and NOT to support the RIAA's current marketing scheme where Britney Spears says downloading = stealing.
At the same time, I wrote an influential paper for the NY chapter of NARAS disputing all of the RIAA's claims (much of the support used in the paper came from articles posted on
A part of that paper said this:
Record labels are confused and contradictory. They use mp3s in private while they deride it in public. If they're promoting a new band, they'll post the band's songs on p2p networks (often in a covert manner) with the hopes that they'll be traded and talked about in chat rooms. If it's an established act with a history of sales, they'll "spoof" the p2p networks with fake files. It's just another way of using mp3s, albeit in a subversive and anti-customer way, which is par for the course.
And the really messed up thing about it is that the tech company encouraging us to rip and burn items shares the same parent company as the recording artist the RIAA is supposedly trying to protect.
AOL/Time Warner owns Warner Bros. records. AOL makes a lot of money selling their service by which music is downloaded, in many cases the very music that WB says is being stolen.
Sony is the largest manufacturer of writeable CD drives. They also make MP3 players. They also own part of the patent on the CD, of which there were a half a billion sold last year - that's blank CDs. The point is, the advantage of being a multinational organization is to deal with these very things. Sony may lose money on music, but they are using it to make money elsewhere. Same with AOL/TW. Nevertheless, their profit desire is unbounded so they hire the RIAA to give politicians money and support legislation like the "Peer to Peer Piracy Protection Act", which gives record companies the right to invade your hard drive, limits fair use, among other bad things, including being a threat to academic freedom. Bottom line: They are trying to legislate profitability.
I'm going to say this, but you're not going to like it.
What I find interesting is that there are literally thousands of free bands out there that are more than worthy of listening too. Free as in they have not sold their souls (not to mention music rights) away to the devils of the music industry.
Simply put, no there's not. You want proof? Spend a day and go through mp3.com. Go through mylocalbands.com or GigAmerica.net and listen to a few thousand bands. Hell, listen to 20. Now tell me how good most of those bands are. The short answer is "not very". I can see that you're looking for a populist way to hear lots of good music, giving the unknown band exposure, and yourself the opportunity to check out unknown bands, but sooner or later, you're going to get tired of wading through an unranked mass of music and you'll want some guidence. After all, you don't want to listen to thousands of bands, you want to listen to the good bands from that entire music pool. Oh, and just to be clear, none of these bands would qualify as 'music pioneers'. All the music that's being put out has been put out for a long time. Beethoven was a pioneer, sorry, but these local bands don't qualify.
But how does one get to listen to these pioneers of music? The solution could be sites like mp3.com (until the mp3 royalties are forced).
I'm not a big fan of mp3.com anymore after they turned aggressively towards being profitible, but remember the old school mp3.com? That's what you want, but it seems that it's impossible to get that because it can't be profitable.
But what people want is a locals only site that streams, guess what, the music from free local bands only. Not just for your community but local bands from all over the US (and the world).
Apparently not, since other sites that offer (or offered) this service have not fared well.
We need a site that collects these bands and we need a streamer that plays them. No CARP royalty problems since these bands are unsigned and own the music themselves. Make it so that the artists can hopefully sell their own CD's or single songs from the same site. Anyway, mix and bake at multiple bit rates and you have a solution to the copy protected CD (I haven't bought one yet from an Indie Band).
No, we don't need that. First, we need to prove that there's a desire for a whole bunch of people to use a service that promotes unknown (and largely not very good) acts that are very musically diverse. We can't even make a good case that people want diverse music, because if they did, the Billboard Top 200 would look drastically different than it does now. Once we find that crowd, we need to figure out a way to make money from providing this service to them. Nobody's going to pony up the cash or resources to do something like this unless it's profitable. Sorry, but welcome back to reality.
The big guys go down because they can't compete with free, better than great music on the web with a low cost distribution.
You're assuming a few things here. First, you're saying that the big guys can't compete with free. This is true, but they're ALREADY competing with free. That's why they're doing dumb things like copy protection. Business is down, but it's not over. Although if they continue to go after their customer base, this could change. Next, you're assuming that the music that's NOT out there is better than the music that's already signed to major record labels. Here, I think that you just have a lack of experience with the catalogs of major record labels. Just what kind of good music are you looking for? Pop music might not be your flavor, so what is? Jazz? Blues? Techno? Heavy Metal? I guarantee you that you can go to a record store and come out with an armload of quality music. Just because your favorite artist isn't number one on the chart doesn't mean that they aren't available for purchase. So this assumption rings hollow with me.
So, where is this utopia? Oh! And dump the necessary registration required to listen (are you listening mp3.com?)."
Simply put, it doesn't exist. Why? Because you're in the minority. It's fine for you to wish that this existed, but unless a few million other people feel the same way - you can forget it. It's unrealistic, and not grounded in real world economics or even real world band quality. Sure, there are diamonds in the rough, but are we all willing to go through a lot of rough to get to the few diamonds?
When I say that, I mean a DVD-A title that didn't start from previously recorded material. It was a Bobby Short DVD-A titled "Piano". And here's what I learned while working on that project.
First - you don't have to worry about either SACD or DVD-A. Until most consumers are into their 3rd generation of DVD player, chances are, they won't buy a unit that plays DVD-As. The only reason they WOULD buy one is because they bought a universal player, which plays CDs, DVD-V and DVD-A formats (along with mp3s more than likely).
Next - consumers really don't want better sound. I had this argument a lot with various people involved in the project. Most people are content to listen to 128kbps mp3s... so the demand for a 5.1 or a 10.2 96k/24 bit surround sound mix is pretty friggin' low. People don't listen to music like they watch movies - meaning they don't sit in the sweet spot of the room for the course of the song/album - so DVD-A is largely wasted. It's true that DVD-As sound phenomenal... but really... are there enough people that care to made the switch inevitable?
Here's the biggest reason: royalties. One thing we found while making our DVD-A is that everytime we used a song on the DVD-A... the publisher wanted money. This means they want $0.08 when we used the song as a music track, $0.08 when we used it in the background of some video footage, $0.08 when we included the sheet music and $0.08 when Bobby played a portion of the song as a demonstration on the video portion of the disc. So now, a song that should have cost $0.08 has now cost $0.32. How many times can this be done before it becomes cost prohibitive?
The legal issues with regard to liscensing have yet to work themselves through to the point to where any reasonable producer would want to navigate them. (Our solution was to only use stuff multiple times that was in the public domain.)
There's more... but I'll stop there. Everybody who thinks this is a RIAA ploy can put the keyboards down. It's not. I've often wondered why Record Companies haven't already switched to DVD-V... where there is CSS which is already backed up by the DMCA (for better or worse). It would cover their ass better for pirated material AND make the music have better fidelity in the process. Plus, they could get over dumbass enhanced CDs and put the material on a disc that could be viewed on a TV, or at least with really good clarity on a computer monitor. But RC's don't think that way. Truthfully, the mere thought that somebody is download their songs *right now* has kept them in a state of suspended animation ever since Napster became a household word. To think that copy protection is even a secondary consideration behind the move to DVD-A (I can't speak for SACD) would be to give the companies behind the push too much credit.
Okay, not for nothing, but the people that have been moderating the parent as 'Off topic' obviously haven't played Command & Conquer. So allow me to explain.
In the game, the primary resource is known as Tiberium. It's basically a type of fauna that extracts minerals from the soil. You collect the Tiberium and refine it for cash.
So the fact that the story reminds me of Tiberium is not an off topic post. If anything it's a +1 Funny. Because they don't have a +1 Coincidental, or +1 Ironic.
It's called Command & Conquer.
From his site, he recommends the Spice House
I'm on the phone as I type this trying to upgrade our Comcast service to Comcast Pro. I swear we just had this conversation.
Me: Hi. I'm currently a Comcast Broadband Subscriber and I'd like to upgrade my service to Comcast Pro.
Comcast: What?
Me: The premium bandwith service, Comcast Pro.
Comcast: I have no idea what you're talking about.
Me: I saw it on your web site. Would you like the URL?
Comcast: Comcast Pro? I've never heard of this before.
Me: Well let me tell you about it...
Comcast: Hold while I transfer you to another department.
I dunno, I just found it funny that the number they give you to call to get the service is answered by somebody who has no clue that there is, in fact, a service.
Just yesterday, Virgin (as in airlines/music stores/etc.) brought their line of mobile phones to the US market. Being questioned on Fox News last night, Richard Branson said that the US looks like a good market because only 45% of people have cell phones (where in England it's 85% and in some other European countries, as high as 90%). He claims that in doing research with the 18-25 market, he found that the average non-mobile phone user doesn't feel there's a good brand name they can latch onto (in spite of MEN apparently). They've co-branded their phone with MTV and have gotten it into over 12,000 retail locations - as of yesterday. In addition, they're adding some kind of musical function to their phones - but he didn't elaborate in the interview.
So, I dunno - it all sounds like capitalism to me. Maybe it's a screwy Major Corporation vs. Major Corporation capitalism with no place for the small business person, but it's capitalism just the same.
From my point of view, the issue for me is not the technology. All technology sucks at some point, and hopefully, as time passes and the technology is refined, the systems get better. So this discussion about biometrics is really a discussion about the early phase of consumer biometrics. Fine.
My personal issue with biometrics is privacy. Yeah, yeah... I know it sounds like I'm new to the party by bringing up this issue, but just think about it for a second.
If I use my debit card to make a purchase, maybe it's me, maybe it's not. When I was younger, I used to get cash from an ATM with my Dad's card all the time. I knew his pin number, no big deal. It didn't require a company being aware that he had a son, and I was it, and I'm authorized to use his identification in order to get the cash. I just did it.
At the very least, with biometrics some company needs to have my and his info on file for me to do the exact same thing.
Well fuck those guys.
I'm not against capitalism, but it's safe to say that I think customer service is bullshit and companies only do as much as it takes to make you part with your hard earned cash. They trade our personal information like baseball cards in an attempt to squeeze a few extra pennies out of your decision to pay with a frequent buyer card and nothing would please them more if they could build a composite of your lifestyle.
So maybe you like to buy jewelry or maybe you like to visit the Nevada brothels. Either way, ad agencies shouldn't be able to purchase that information. Information that is easily traced back to you and your goddamned finger.
Government obviously doesn't care about how marketers use your information, so it seems to me that the only solution is to guard the privacy we still have as if it were the answer to who shot JFK.
Let's take this one step further. With the Big Business Interests in power (George W. and Co.) the individual citizen is clearly second to corporate interests. With guys like Ashcroft in office who don't consider it a good day unless they can strip you of a freedom or two, how long can it be before the databases built upon the base of biometrics be used against individuals?
When will police start to rely (with warrants of course) on this information while trying to solve a crime?
Please don't say it can't happen.
Just look at that kid that blew up those mailboxes in Nebraska a few weeks ago. They got him because he paid for gas with a debit card near where the pipe bombs were found. In this instance, you're thinking 'hot damn, I'm glad they got that idiot'. So justice was served. But will every case be as cut and dried?
Marketers can infer who you are based on what you buy (gay, straight, rich, poor, clean, messy, like to cook, eat out a lot, likes porno, donates to charitable organizations, etc.). You know this, so when you're buying stuff you don't want traced back to you, you pay with cash. What happens when all of your information is kept in one big fat database? How difficult could it be to associate based on buying history that (for example) your music purchases abruptly stopped six months ago, but since then you've bought two big assed hard drives. The logs associated with your DSL account show that you've been quite the bandwidth hog recently.
I don't even have to draw the conclusion for you. Somebody call the motherfucking RIAA and MPAA. And the bitch of it is, the Corporate Hack won't need a warrant to get this information, they'll just need to have their biometric information tied to some corporate checking account so they can buy that information with their own finger. Ironic isn't it?
Hey, at least you'll have something to think about while sitting in that jail cell for having all those unauthorized mp3s and pirated 1st run flicks on that server of yours.
It just gets stranger from there. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that humanity is one place where I don't mind a little security through obscurity.
And that, in a nutshell, is my problem with biometrics.
Looks like AOL-Time Warner needs to get their story straight. I mean, first PVR users are theives, and now the same conglomerate wants to add functionality to their PVR?
It doesn't make sense to me unless they're just dying to insert pop-up ads over actual TV shows.
That's legalise. Trust me. It's not just lawyers being funny. One time my father was signing an agreement with a record label (he's a producer) and as a joke he asked to have the rights to Mars (since they ask for the Universe). Characteristically enough he didn't get it.
I believe lawyers try to make things as broad as possible. Not only does this practically assure them work in the future (the bigger the fort, the more guards there need to be) but they really are looking out for their clients interests.
Don't get giddy about space exploration and not see that on Mars, or any other planet, intellectual property and commercialization are going to eventually be as big an influence on daily life as it already is here on Earth now.
Admittedly, using that language in a site's TOS is probably overkill, but better to be safe than sorry right?
I have decided that I want Kraft Macaroni & Cheese to be even cheesier...
According to Harry Knowles at AICN:
"Now it is QUITE CLEAR that New Line would easily defeat MGM under Parody Laws, but because MGM could tie up the marketing on the film in the meanwhile... They are going to go ahead and do a new title anyways. Taking the path of least resistance."
Sounds right to me.
Death by colon cancer is probably the final destination for anybody who lives too long. You can't pack all that shit in there and not have some cellular mutation eventually.
Plus, didn't Ed Norton's character in Fight Club say "on a long enough time line, everybody's survival rate drops to zero"?
I am Jack's mutating colon.
Want addresses to complain to Universal and its subsidiaries? I've got addresses.
A&M Records
Ron Fair - President
Elisa Yastic - Assistant to the President
2220 Colorado Ave.
5th Floor
Santa Monica, CA
Decca Music Group
Coasta Pilavachi - President
Eleni Papanikolaou - Assistant to the President
347-353 Chiswick High Rd.
London W4 4HS England
Deutsch Gramaphone
Martin T:son Engstroem - Vice President of A&R
Dorthea Manusch - Assistant to VP of A&R
Alte Rabenstr 2
20148 Hamburg Germany
Geffen
Jordan Schur - President
Ali Levy and Zane Smythe - Assistants to the President
2220 Colorado Ave.
4th Floor
Santa Monica, CA 90404-3506
Interscope
Jimmy Iovine - CEO
Lori Lane, Ginger Ramsey & Jason McGuire - Assistants to the CEO
2220 Colorado Ave.
5th Floor
Santa Monica, CA 90404-3506
Island Def Jam Music
Jim Caparro - CEO
Anne Cleary - Assistant to the CEO
825 8th Ave.
19th Floor
New York, NY 10019-7472
MCA Nashville
Tony Brown - President
Rene White - Assistant to the President
60 Music Square East
Nashville, TN 37203-4325
MCA Records
Jay Boberg - President
Fran Salafia & Terry Sharpe - Assistants to the President
2220 Colorado Ave.
Santa Monica, CA 90404-3506
Mercury Records
Howard Berman - Managing Director
Patsy McKay - Assistant to the MD
136-144 New Kings Rd.
London SW6 4LE England
Motown Records
Kedar Massenburg - CEO/President
K.K. - Assistant to the CEO/President
1755 Broadway Ave.
7th Floor
New York, NY 10019-3743
Polydor
Lucian Grainge - Deputy Chairman
Caroline Fogazza - Assistant to the DC
Black Lion House 72-80 Black Lion Lane
London W6 9BE England
Universal Records
Mel Lewinter - CEO
Julie Beardon - Assistant to the CEO
1755 Broadway Ave.
7th Floor
New York, NY 10019-3743
Verve Music Group
Tommy Lipuma - CEO
Ruth Rosenberg - Assistant to the CEO
1755 Broadway Ave.
3rd Floor
New York, NY 10019-3743
RIAA
1330 Connecticut Avenue N.W., Suite 300
Washington, D.C. 20036
Just as a point of fact, they're not saying Metal Gear Solid 2 is the #1 toy to avoid. Rather the MGS2 action figures are the toys to avoid. This is because the toys are for ages 5+, while the game is rated Mature and the toys come with weapons.
It is the nature of life to strive to become as robust as possible. (see the example of rabbits in Australia that has been continually referenced as a part of this discussion for an example of that) This applies to insects the same as it applies to Sumatran Tigers. Things that humanity considers vile and indecent happens everyday in nature. Did you know that Lions will routinely search out and kill lion cubs that are not their own? They do this to protect their own bloodline. Humanity as repugnant as it in general views this activity, has still engaged in it. Of course, we just call it war.
The main difference between us and lions is that we're prolific enough for our conflicts to take place over large areas, not just an African plain, and we've developed weapons that are far more effective than a lion's claw and tooth.
However, I suspect that you are really calling humanity a cancer due to our seeming disregard for the ecosystem. We take advantage of our ecosystems; we don't merely co-exist with it. But such is the nature of being the 800 lb. gorilla. Our decision is whether to be a benevolent caretaker and to manage our resources in a way where every species benefits, or to be ruthless about it and horde resources for ourselves. In either case, you can rest assured that humanity's collective decision to this dilemma will be resolved by what benefits us the most at the time. It won't be because there are only 20 cats left in the world somewhere. The only reason we would save those tigers is so we can lock them up in a zoo so people can pay money to look at it.
Personally, I think we should be more responsible about how we treat our natural environment and resources - but only because we will be royally screwed if we don't.
My only problem with your argument about saving tigers versus saving all of America is this: you only want to save the cute animals. But you don't seem to have the first bit of sympathy for cancer cells. No... viruses, mold, mildew, maggots, fungus, weeds, e coli, bacteria, the crabs... none of those would make your list of the top 20 things to save. But then again, you wouldn't want any of those as pets.
I can sympathize with your conservationist leanings, but when your examples lean towards the cute, I have to wonder just how sincere you are.