since online music distribution became a reality, we slashdotters have been saying that the labels are dinosaurs and need to come up with a new business model. that using hinky laws to try and fix a technological "problem" is wrong, and they should come up with something new. well, here it is. we just may have what we wished for. OTOH, as long as wannabe pop stars are as common as stray dogs and cats, they will get paid what dogs and cats cost at the pound -- free if you give 'em their shots.
production costs aren't the major issue in getting music out there. the real money pit is "advertising", loosely defined to include getting your music on radio stations by hook or crook. check out this somewhat old but very interesting article by steve albini to follow the money.
i'm happy with having a few people listen to my music every day over the web, but i imagine a lot of musicians want more than that. when we solve the distribution and advertising cost problems, musicians will no longer need the labels. until then, you can't even give your music away, because no one will take it unless you convince them it's cool, and it's OK for their social lives to listen to you. the way people choose music seems to have little to do with music.
wow. i made slashdot. anyway, i just wanted to point out that the tool linked to in the question DOES work for mozilla. it works for any browser that uses a plugin that can be deleted or renamed.
when i was living in japan a few years ago, suntory (pepsi's japan distributor) tries to up pepsi's market share with a "trip to space" contest. i was all excited until i found out the "winner" would still have to shell out some dough, and it was a suborbital flight, during most of which one would be presumably stuck to the chair. info about the contest seems pretty hard to find on the web.
I'm sure a lot of readers are concerned for their mp3 collections, but the real concern has been for us developers and tinkerers. I've been working on a mulitmedia player/editor that can produce a self-executable slideshow with a tiny mp3 player in it. Were there a charge for distributing a decoder, not only would I have to pay to distribute the editor, but the self-executing slidehows would be illegal to distribute for free for the users as well. I'm sure other labor-of-love-type innovation and development would have been stymied as well.
I hate Flash ads as much as the next nerd. Thing is, I have to work with Flash-based sites, especially for testing, so turning it off/on would be pretty cool. THEN i came to the realization that if i rename the plugin to a backup name, the browser couldn't find it any more. I wrote 10 lines of CLI java to rename the file back and forth, then slapped a gui on top of it. Now it supports multiple browsers and attempts to autodetect the plugins on your machine.
There's a coupla things:
The autodetect feature asks you to name each plugin (this is a little tough if you don't know which plugin goes with which browser!). In general, IE ises the.ocx file and everything else (Mozilla, opera, NN) seem to use the one in the Netscape folder (Mozilla will if it's already there).
If you're using IE, you can't turn flash OFF if the browser is on (it runs as a service or something), but you can do the opposite: keep it turned off and only turn it on if you have to (or want to?).
you can grab it at cnet or from my homepage. Any feedback is appreciated.
Re:Shoud we care about desktop linux?
on
Is Linux Dead?
·
· Score: 1
Lack of virus-writing interest is not what's saving Linux.
You're right it's not what's saving Linux. A powerful, user-controlled environment is what Linux has got, and it doesn't need saving. Lack of virii is just another feature I can appreciate.
Shoud we care about desktop linux?
on
Is Linux Dead?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Does it really matter to you if Linux on the desktop never takes off? I prefer being in the 1% users for a couple of reasons:
1) Linux doesn't get viruses BECAUSE no one is writing viruses for linux. I know it's a tautology, but were Linux to take off, I think we'd see an interest from the script-kiddie development centers of the world. Linux doesn't have the critical mass to support a worldwide virus. No Outlook - no virus.
2) The worst element of the Web is interested in reaching the largest group possible. A lot of the rules simply don't apply to Linux users as long as they stay in the 1%. It's the same reason I secretly hope Mozilla never gets into popular use. As long as it stays a 1% browser, I can block images from ad servers and most of the web is ad-free for me. If everyone had Mozilla, more site would host ads locally or use Flash instead of images, and I'd be out of luck.
As long as there's a community of development and support, I'll be happy using Linux as a 1%-er.
Project Management is an entry-level position in a lot of shops, and PMs aren't expected to come into it with the prowess of a programmer. What they are expected to do is be the point of communication between the programmers and the business side of development. Given that:
1)It's not going to be a lot of fun moving from frustrated programmer to PM if you're interested in technical work. are you ready to be the point of communication for a development team, answering phones, writing timelines, etc ? It is a full-time job, and you won't get to do the "cool" stuff any more.
2)Likewise, PMs exist because programmers don't have time to answer phones and emails all day. A lot of us programmers don't have the skills or desire to be effective communicators anyway.
3)I suggest trying to make the system work for you. If PM is an entry-level job at your shop, it could be that you know more about industry practices than the PM does (QA testing, version control, builds, what makes a good SOW). If something's missing from your process, explain it in depth and put it in terms that will make sense outside of the IT department. Usually, this means money and time.If you say, "that's impossible" too many times, you may end up looking like the boy who cried wolf.
Don't count on flying from Dallas to Tokyo on this thing any time soon. Who could stand the acceleration involved better a human or a missile payload? Simply, if the test works, it's almost ready to go as a cruise missile, but years away from arrying any passengers.
when i was at georgia tech, most prof's had a "anything you can carry" rule about technology you could use during a test. jokes about light-weight grad students notwithstanding, by my second year there (1992) this was already becoming an arms race. those early 90s hp machines began crossing the line between calculator and computer. some even had the capability to send and receive data over an infrared connection. it wasn't in the spec, but you could do this from several feet away and even bounce it off a wall. by 1995, a lot of profs made you use good ol' pen and paper, or at least removed and replaced the batteries from your machine before a test, deleting the memory.
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additionally, the worse you are, the more likely you are to overestimate your skills. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect
go to building manager.
say: 'i'll give you this pen if you tell me how tall the building is.'
since online music distribution became a reality, we slashdotters have been saying that the labels are dinosaurs and need to come up with a new business model. that using hinky laws to try and fix a technological "problem" is wrong, and they should come up with something new. well, here it is. we just may have what we wished for. OTOH, as long as wannabe pop stars are as common as stray dogs and cats, they will get paid what dogs and cats cost at the pound -- free if you give 'em their shots.
production costs aren't the major issue in getting music out there. the real money pit is "advertising", loosely defined to include getting your music on radio stations by hook or crook. check out this somewhat old but very interesting article by steve albini to follow the money.
i'm happy with having a few people listen to my music every day over the web, but i imagine a lot of musicians want more than that. when we solve the distribution and advertising cost problems, musicians will no longer need the labels. until then, you can't even give your music away, because no one will take it unless you convince them it's cool, and it's OK for their social lives to listen to you. the way people choose music seems to have little to do with music.
wow. i made slashdot. anyway, i just wanted to point out that the tool linked to in the question DOES work for mozilla. it works for any browser that uses a plugin that can be deleted or renamed.
when i was living in japan a few years ago, suntory (pepsi's japan distributor) tries to up pepsi's market share with a "trip to space" contest. i was all excited until i found out the "winner" would still have to shell out some dough, and it was a suborbital flight, during most of which one would be presumably stuck to the chair. info about the contest seems pretty hard to find on the web.
I'm sure a lot of readers are concerned for their mp3 collections, but the real concern has been for us developers and tinkerers. I've been working on a mulitmedia player/editor that can produce a self-executable slideshow with a tiny mp3 player in it. Were there a charge for distributing a decoder, not only would I have to pay to distribute the editor, but the self-executing slidehows would be illegal to distribute for free for the users as well. I'm sure other labor-of-love-type innovation and development would have been stymied as well.
There's a coupla things:
The autodetect feature asks you to name each plugin (this is a little tough if you don't know which plugin goes with which browser!). In general, IE ises the .ocx file and everything else (Mozilla, opera, NN) seem to use the one in the Netscape folder (Mozilla will if it's already there).
If you're using IE, you can't turn flash OFF if the browser is on (it runs as a service or something), but you can do the opposite: keep it turned off and only turn it on if you have to (or want to?).
you can grab it at cnet or from my homepage. Any feedback is appreciated.
You're right it's not what's saving Linux. A powerful, user-controlled environment is what Linux has got, and it doesn't need saving. Lack of virii is just another feature I can appreciate.
1) Linux doesn't get viruses BECAUSE no one is writing viruses for linux. I know it's a tautology, but were Linux to take off, I think we'd see an interest from the script-kiddie development centers of the world. Linux doesn't have the critical mass to support a worldwide virus. No Outlook - no virus.
2) The worst element of the Web is interested in reaching the largest group possible. A lot of the rules simply don't apply to Linux users as long as they stay in the 1%. It's the same reason I secretly hope Mozilla never gets into popular use. As long as it stays a 1% browser, I can block images from ad servers and most of the web is ad-free for me. If everyone had Mozilla, more site would host ads locally or use Flash instead of images, and I'd be out of luck.
As long as there's a community of development and support, I'll be happy using Linux as a 1%-er.
1)It's not going to be a lot of fun moving from frustrated programmer to PM if you're interested in technical work. are you ready to be the point of communication for a development team, answering phones, writing timelines, etc ? It is a full-time job, and you won't get to do the "cool" stuff any more.
2)Likewise, PMs exist because programmers don't have time to answer phones and emails all day. A lot of us programmers don't have the skills or desire to be effective communicators anyway.
3)I suggest trying to make the system work for you. If PM is an entry-level job at your shop, it could be that you know more about industry practices than the PM does (QA testing, version control, builds, what makes a good SOW). If something's missing from your process, explain it in depth and put it in terms that will make sense outside of the IT department. Usually, this means money and time.If you say, "that's impossible" too many times, you may end up looking like the boy who cried wolf.
Don't count on flying from Dallas to Tokyo on this thing any time soon. Who could stand the acceleration involved better a human or a missile payload? Simply, if the test works, it's almost ready to go as a cruise missile, but years away from arrying any passengers.
when i was at georgia tech, most prof's had a "anything you can carry" rule about technology you could use during a test. jokes about light-weight grad students notwithstanding, by my second year there (1992) this was already becoming an arms race. those early 90s hp machines began crossing the line between calculator and computer. some even had the capability to send and receive data over an infrared connection. it wasn't in the spec, but you could do this from several feet away and even bounce it off a wall. by 1995, a lot of profs made you use good ol' pen and paper, or at least removed and replaced the batteries from your machine before a test, deleting the memory.