Whether or not they are useful isn't strictly relevant to the charge of union-busting, Robert. The fact is that workers have the constitutional right to organize, and union-busting is what happens when an organization strenuously attempts to prevent them from exercising that right. Amazon's tactics, from the obvious but legal (distribution of literature and internal web-material arguing against unionization) to the legal but intrusive (holding half a dozen mandatory-attendance meetings on why union=bad) to the potentially illegal (the fact that when Amazon downsized 1300 employees about a third of them just happened to come out of a highly union-proactive division of the company).
These are called facts, Robert, where you demonstrate the basis of an opinion by supporting it with relevant information. This is opposed to what you were doing, where a pre-fab opinion is regurgitated without any support, or what I like to call shooting your mouth off. Shut the hell up if all you have to say is "I disagree."
Please, let's not forget to blame the consumers. The veritable religion of shareholder value may be fucked (and yes, it is fucked: it's a corporate philosophy where neither the producers nor consumers of a product are regarded as critical components in the decisionmaking process) but it works because they set themselves up as the path of least resistance because they know so many people will basically let any shit slide because they are lazy and ignorant and self-obsessed, and there are enough jack-off radio commentators and corrupt politicians out there ready to tell these assholes that acting like a selfish dick is exercising ones "American Freedoms." If I had a dollar for every time I explained to one of my "liberal" buddies how I wouldn't shop at Amazon any more because of their union-busting tactics and patent inanities and lackluster treatment of my privacy, and they said oh yeah yeah I shouldn't either but..."
But but but, but I'm used to schlepping over there and getting it NOW, and I don't really give a damn about the consequences of what I support.
The internet boom was about GREED, plain and simple. What excited people were the lottery-like dizzying ascents of companies like Amazon that happened to be in the right place at the right time. Everyone I knew who was in it was not interested in sticking around to make a great company: they were interested in making a big pile of money cashing in options. Like any lottery there can only be mostly losers in the end. It was certainly never about a better (or even significantly different) way of doing business or about a kinder, gentler anything.
So why not skip the book about what Bezos did to the internet and take a close look at what you all are doing to yourselves. OR alternately, slap an ecology sticker on your SUV, put on your f*ck microsoft t-shirt, and drive down to Starbucks for a Latte.
The group is stating that the practice of "independent promotion" is really a new form of payola
In other news, the American Medical Association is warning that cigarettes may kill you, and NASA has released a press release stating that the sun is "very, very hot."
I mean, isn't it totally common knowledge that independent promotion is payola vaguely disguised? I can only assume ClearChannel is making noises to push a little bit harder, squeeze a little bit more, and this is the RIAA pushing back. 'Cause this has been going on forever.
The first book I ever read (I subsequently got a BA in chemistry including some quantum work in physical chemistry, so I have a tiny insight into the subject - note that's not false but real humility, the topic is vast and my knowledge is tiny) was "In Search of Schrödinger's Cat" by John Gribbin. It's from '84 but I thought it was a very good layman's reference, a nice balance between the pragmatic science of QP and where it comes from and some of the more out there theoretical interpretations of what it might mean.
I haven't read it but I hear another good introduction is "Taking the Quantum Leap" by Fred Allen Wolf.
A note - it doesn't just seem mind blowing, it is. Particle activity at the quantum scale is just not like the "normal" activity we intuitively grasp in matter at our own scale. Attempts to understand it in terms of a normal understanding of matter will fail. It's better to look at it all as an alternate reality (which it is in a sense) with its own unique rules and behaviors. Remember, even Einstein couldn't deal with the weirdness. Have fun.
Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. I'm sorry, excuse me, but bullshit.
you get an unprotected download to do with as you please
Whoa, not so fast there, Tex. You get an unprotected download, sure... but don't think for a minute that you can do with this as you please. You better believe this song is still protected by the full force of the copyright and that it is still illegal to distribute it over the internet.
But what's most offensive to me is the cost. At a buck for a song this is hardly a better deal than a CD - for a lossier format! That's a terrible deal and too much trouble for no physical product and no packaging.
I'm mystified by these abortive forays into electronic content. Pay three bucks for a book that stops working after fifteen days! Pay a buck for an ephemeral, lower fidelity electronic impression of a song! Pay ten to twenty-five bucks a month for "Internet Radio Minus" - download limits, and when you quit the service you lose the ability to play everything. There are still plenty of unfettered CDs, used and new, for sale out there at ten times the bargain and usefulness. And I'm not even interested in file trading - I've never uploaded or downloaded an illicit MP3. I'm just concerned with the value and versatility of my own collection.
Earth to the publishing and recording industries (and those who would seek to replace them): when the deal doesn't SUCK I'll "show support for the concept."
hmm, yeah, okay, point taken, although I think there is a distinction between wrapping media with other examples of one's own product as opposed to just randomly inserting plugs for totally unrelated merchandise in the middle of a media experience. But yeah, not much is pure...
Wow! I did not know that... Thanks for a great corporate-hassling strategy. A useful reply on slashdot... hoo, I'm feeling a little dizzy, better sit down...
is it possible for there to be any kind of media without advertising?
Sure, it's called books. Been a long damn time since one regularly saw sheefs of ads bound into the middle of a paperback (tho there was a time...)
What I'm saying is, if you're willing to pay the full price of production and delivery, hell yes. The question is, are you? If you are, write or email your favorite media producer and say: I hate these ads, I'm sickened by this sponsorship, I would gladly pay an extra fifty cents on the issue to have information instead of advertisements on the back of my maps. Of course, being as how you're surrounded by sheep it'll probably all be for naught. But if you care about it you should at least make your opinion known somewhere besides slashdot.
The idea that you can flip on the idiot box and there will be content without advertising or paying up front is of course simply impossible. Somebody has to pay. Okay, the real question then is how much? Well, according to an everage figure I got from a Jupiter Communications chart that appeared in the Morgan Stanley Internet Advertising Report, the Average CPM (Cost Per Thousand)for a 30 second TV add is $12.00 or in other words, roughly 1.2 cents for thirty seconds. An hour of teevee has about 20 minutes of commercials, so if you wanted to pay it off yourself, it would cost a little under 50 cents if my math is right to watch a 40 minute show (the average length of an hourlong commercial tevee program)... That's a little deceptive since the CPM figure multiple people watching a show on a single tube, technically for the numbers to work you would have to pay for each person watching.
Still. Consider: the average American watches roughly 1250 hours of teveee a year, so... the question is, would you pay 600 bucks a year, 50 additional bucks a month to watch all your teevee commercial free? I watch maybe 10 hours of teevee a week max and I'd gladly pay two to three hundred a year to get it commercial free and 2/3 the length (the amount of content is the amount of content, if I can get it out of the way in 40 instead of 60 minutes I say hell yes, after all who's got too much time?
You notice advertisers are not so quick to make us understand what these costs actually are, they want us to assume that the costs are prohibitive when they really are fairly standard (very comparable to a movie rental, tevee costs advertisers about a buck and a half per viewer for two uninterrupted hours). Hell, people might start thinking about whether it was worth the bother to watch if they really had to pay to play.
why, we'll let the happiest corporation on earth care for it - the Disney corporation. And as far as paying for it goes, well, hey - advertising hasn't failed the internet as a revenue model yet!
Unfortunately this is an issue where the people who are exercising any real authority are unlikely to be parsing the finer shades of semantics or logic. The radio cabal has a significant investment in the notion of "interference..." after all, its how they gutted the low-power FM movement with its troubling potential to make radio something communities could do for themselves rather than solely something Clearchannel manufactures on a computerized assembly line sometimes in a completely different state. I doubt anyone will be debating the notion of obselesence versus falsity, but I wouldn't be surprised to see our old friend "junk science" (defined as any scientific assertion that does not support the proponents political platform) show up as we try to bust up anopther (maybe) artificial scarcity. Next week lets take on the diamond cartels. Well, I'm sure the FCC will help out 'cause federal beaurocracies are always eager to make themselves "obsolete." Good point though.
"There is a cool video there of the stuff going off."
Yeah, If your idea of "cool" is a little lump of shit material smoking and glowing very slightly with a barely audible pop and then sluggishly, minimally smouldering and expanding like a defective snake firework...
ANother serious issue is whether China has anything to gain by fucking with us. Without us China has no food security. It's just like espionage and nuke bombs. The nature of the military is to prepare these scenarios. You can be sure we've got cyberattack scenarios in the works for every major government we consider a possible (if distant) threat.
On the other hand I think you're dreaming if you really believe China has no serious designs on invading Taiwan. It's far from a certain thing but they certainly think about it.
"The company says in its complaint it did not know that many of the e-mail addresses were harvested unscrupulously, and so was unaware it was effectively spamming Internet users."
wowo I can't wait to see the BS storm of lies and hypocrisy as the spammer sue-a-thon gets cooking. No of course they never knew all those people didn't opt in. Whoever would have guessed that direct marketers could be so unscrupulous?
I agree firmly with you. They are trying to force equipment mfr.s to install some required DRM tools on all digital equipment - but though they might want and try it will be much much harder to, say, make Ogg illegal. Unlike, say, DeCSS, the argument that there aren't legitimate free expression uses of Ogg just ain't gonna fly. As an artist my argument is simple: I can and will prove my ownership of what I transmit, regardless of format. That is the sum and entirety of my responsibility. I've said it once, I'll say it again: if they start trying to make Ogg illegal, BUY GUNS. They might as well make contraband out of paper and pencils.
I should say, yes, yes, write your congress types and such - I've written on everything from telecommunications to the DMCA to the SSCA, as well as the UMGs and such.
I absolutely disagree that enforced protection is a necessary or even likely outcome. It would be a clear, unambiguous violation of the freedom of expression as guarenteed by the first ammendment. They can control how I deal with someone else's copy protected speech but not how I express myself.
Oh, they may try... I wouldn't be surprised to see someone trying to make Ogg illegal soon. If they succeed, which I consider highly unlikely, then its time to start stockpiling ammo because they'll come to cut out your fucking tongue next. The biggest, most important defense against this kind of egregious violation of the freedom of speech is for there to be a robust body of artists and consumers using these tools for legitmate purposes.
Here's a better solution: Every time one of your faves goes to this copy protection shit send them a letter that says fuck your value-diminished, encumbered content and find a new fave that doesn't truck with it. The Megamonoliths can screw up their content all they want but they can't force anyone to follow suit. Stop capitulating to their propaganda that only their opinion matters; the idea that they can sew up all the media content is based on the flat out fallacy that they can own and control all copyrighted works. THEY DON'T OWN MUSIC. Just certain copyrights.
The more they screw it up for themselves the better its going to be for the independent. The value premium of an unencumbered CD is about to skyrocket; the media moguls are exposing themselves to legal liability (fallout is already occurring); they face an endless, costly game of "keeping up with the Hacksies" as they try to make DRM stick, an uphill, customer-enraging battle to force people to switch away from the solid, stable, cost-effective technology of CDs (33 1/3 records appeared in the mid-twenties and did not outpace LPs until the late 80s, that's 60+ years, 4X as long as CDs have been the standard) at a time when the small-scale production of CDs has never been more accessible. The idea that people will stop buying CDs is ludicrous. There are so many more car CD players, boom boxes, stereos, portables, and CD-playing disk devices like DVD players and game consoles than there are computers with CD roms and disk burners. And any new desk technology is going to face a very tough slog if it can't play a standard CD.
What's not to love? If Cheerios started dumping chunks of shit into every box, wouldn't any small cereal manufacturer rejoice? Repeat after me: THEY DON'T OWN MUSIC. THEY DON'T OWN MUSIC. THEY DON'T OWN MUSIC.
Sorry, you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. The Swiss have a huge economy considering their population and geographical size, a huge banking industry and a huge science/tech industry (ever heard of the Nobel Prize?).
Of course the USA is very big and very rich and will win a comparison contest, but you can't ignore name technological corporations like Ciba, Roche, Sandoz and Wellcor. When you have a small country, a small population, and few natural resources, you don't succeed by trying to be the biggest. You succeed by being the best in a relatively niche market.
"Assane said it helped to have Chiang, then a master's student at UNLV, involved in the survey because he was familiar with student lingo and culture."
Outtasight, daddy-o. Me'n the droogs are gonna rumble the 'frames, try to shake down some code. Can you dig it?
"...Ballmer said companies like Sun Microsystems, whose relationship with Microsoft is notoriously prickly, would dedicate themselves to frustrating Microsoft engineers.
"Sun Microsystems (can) go buy 10,000 copies, and they can have people just sit there and generate work requests to us every minute of every day," Ballmer said. "Somebody could say, 'Look, I want to make Microsoft's life miserable; so I'll tell you what, I'll pay you $10 million a year to torture Microsoft.'"
I just want to say that I'm totally available to take that job.
This takes me back to every Microsoft blandishment that other software companies were just being paranoid about their tactics. The spectacle of the richest corporation in the world whining about how Sun Microsystems is out to get them is both funny and sad. O Brave New World...
I tracked down the article in Chemical & Engineering News I was thinking of and it was older than I remembered, mainly focused on DVDs, and the issues were not so clean cut... Still it seems at least a couple years ago it was thought to be an issue (that is the optical properties of polycarbonate) in shorter wavellenght layered data on optical disks. I wonder how it's been or being resolved. Incidentally I don't see that "made in accordance with DVD standards" necessarily means the same thing as "made from the same stuff as DVDs." But honestly I don't really know. The article is copied below
BUSINESS
December 20, 1999
Volume 77, Number 51
CENEAR 77 51 pp. 14-15
ISSN 0009-2347
New DVDs Provide Opportunities For Polymers
Alexander Tullo
Polycarbonate has faced challenges from materials such as cycloolefin copolymers and acrylic resin in optical media applications over the years, but it has remained the substrate of choice for the compact disc (CD) and digital versatile disc (DVD) products on the market. Its success in this market stems from polycarbonate's ability to provide suitable properties at an economical cost to disc makers.
But consumer electronics companies like Sony, Philips , and Panasonic are developing formats based on multiple information layers and shorter wavelength lasers that will enable record companies, movie studios, and software makers to cram as much information on the discs as possible. If polycarbonate isn't the best material for these formats, then it may not fend off its rivals much longer.
John O'Sullivan, program leader for GE Plastic's optical media development center in Pittsfield, Mass., examines a disc. Producers of competing materials are renewing their interest in optical media. In particular, they are positioning themselves for applications in which polycarbonate might have trouble. One such application is high-density DVD, sometimes referred to as blue-laser DVD.
In high-density DVD, the wavelengths of the lasers that read the discs are shorter than the red lasers that scan the DVDs available today. The shorter wavelengths allow DVD players to focus light on a smaller area. As a result, the pits on the DVD--the features that code digital information on the disc--can be made smaller and packed more closely, thereby increasing storage capacity.
Consumer electronics companies are looking at many technologies, and many systems are at various stages of development. Nichia Chemical of Tokushima, Japan, brought an indium gallium nitride-based 405-nm violet-laser diode to the market this year. These diodes will mainly be used for next-generation DVDs and could increase the capacity of these discs by a factor of three compared with red lasers, according to Shuji Nakamura, a researcher at Nichia who is often described as the guru of solid-state lasers. He predicts that DVDs incorporating shorter wavelength lasers will be available soon. "Already, several companies have demonstrated next-generation DVDs, using our violet-laser diodes, at several shows and conferences," Nakamura adds.
Some question the utility of polycarbonate discs for these applications. Polycarbonate may replicate the smaller features necessary for these discs, but only after trading off other physical and optical properties that have been advantageous in current applications. These include toughness and low birefringence--the property of having two different indexes of refraction.
Polymer suppliers are already planning for the eventuality that polycarbonate may have trouble winning these new applications and are positioning alternative materials. Dow Plastic's solution to the problem is polycyclohexylethylene (PCHE), a hydrogenated polystyrene.
"We recognized a few years ago that as the formats go to higher and higher density and requirements become more stringent toward the polymer's optical properties, we needed to develop a resin for future formats," says Henri-Luc Martin, director of antipiracy/PCHE for Dow Plastics, which also makes polycarbonate. "You really can't make polycarbonate better than the molecule that you have today," he says. "There is a point where you can't trade anything off anymore."
According to Martin, Dow has demonstrated that PCHE can be replicated at 15 gigabytes per layer, which makes for a storage capacity of 30 gigabytes for a two-layer disc. And Dow claims that this was done with nearly no birefringence. In addition, Dow says the resin is very transparent to wavelengths as short as 300 nm. "As the technology drives beyond 400 nm to short wavelengths, this is where PCHE really enables the laser technology of future formats," he says.
Martin also says PCHE is a key component of Dow's plan to fight commercial piracy of software and video CDs and DVDs, specifically pit-to-pit replication, in which an illicitly acquired stamper is used to counterfeit CDs and DVDs. Dow has proposed regulating the supply of resin to manufacturers, which would have to account for the resin consumed with a prescribed number of finished discs. An independent legal body would operate the system, Martin says, not Dow, so disc makers wouldn't have to share proprietary information with a supplier.
Dow isn't commercial yet with PCHE, but it has plans to bring a 9,000-metric-ton-per-year reactor onstream in Schkopau, Germany, by the end of 2001. Dow also says it has made provisions to license the technology to other resin suppliers to ensure competition.
Other companies with different materials are also angling for the emerging DVD markets. A few years ago, Ticona, the engineering polymers business of Celanese, evaluated its Topas ethylene-norbornene copolymer for CD applications. Although its excellent optical properties and low water uptake made for better discs, Topas had no success in the marketplace because of its higher prices and the slower cycle times during replication, according to Michel Bitritto, global project leader for optical applications in Ticona's Topas group. "The value of a different material was very limited then," she says.
Now, Ticona is reconsidering Topas for optical media in applications where information is stored on multiple layers on each side of a DVD and especially in formats that will be read by short-wavelength lasers. "It is only with great difficulty that people can make polycarbonate work in these applications," Bitritto notes. But Ticona has learned its lesson and doesn't intend to compete directly with polycarbonate. "If polycarbonate does work, it doesn't make sense for Topas to go into those markets," she says.
Ticona is bringing 30,000 metric tons per year of Topas capacity onstream in Oberhausen, Germany, next year, the company's first large-scale production facility for the copolymer. However, not all of this capacity is for optical media substrates. Topas' primary applications include toner binder resin, lenses, pharmaceutical packaging, medical devices, and capacitor films.
Producers of acrylic resins are also renewing their interest in optical media applications. But to make any inroads, they have to shake the image that acrylic--also known as polymethylmethacrylate, or PMMA--is brittle and sensitive to high temperatures and humidity.
Acrylic resin producers tried to enter the CD market years ago, but even though the material offered beneficial optical properties, warpage problems prevented producers from making significant gains, Peter Colburn says. Colburn is technical manager for molding and extrusion compounds for Rockaway, N.J.-based Cyro Industries. "With DVD, the warpage issue is eliminated because the discs are bonded together from two parts, so you have opposing forces there," he explains.
Cyro and Elf Atochem both make products designed for optical media applications. Cryo makes Acrylite DQ501 molding compound, and Elf produces Plexiglas VOD-100. The companies claim that acrylic has advantages over polycarbonate in current DVD formats; they cite improved viscosity, lower cost, superior scratch resistance, and better optical properties. "Those are all givens that we know are inherent with PMMA," says Don Hone, market development manager for the Atoglas division of Elf Atochem North America.
Acrylic resin is already used in the manufacture of DVD 18, a double-sided format with two information layers on each side. But the discs are not actually made of acrylic. According to Colburn, in the process used to make these discs, a metal coating is applied on an acrylic disc that has the surface definition the makers need for the final product. After it takes on this definition, the metal coating is peeled off and applied onto a DVD 18.
Acrylic resin makers say there is an opportunity for use of acrylic as a substrate for short-wavelength DVD discs. "An advantage would be the ability to replicate the smaller features," Hone comments. He notes that acrylic's low birefringence properties are also an advantage.
But polycarbonate will not step aside easily. According to Austin Peppin, president of Chesterfield, Mo.-based consultants Peppin & Associates , the market for polycarbonate used in optical media applications is about 500 million lb per year globally, and it is expanding at double-digit rates. It will continue to be used for growing volumes of CDs and DVDs. Even if the next-generation formats are released in a couple of years, it will take time for disc players to become affordable enough for most people to purchase large quantities of next-generation discs. "We are confident that wherever the physical properties of standard polycarbonate are sufficient, no other polymer in the foreseeable future will have a realistic chance for substituting significant volumes of polycarbonate," says Ramesh Pisipati, optical memory industry manager for Bayer Corp. , a major polycarbonate producer.
GE Plastics, another major polycarbonate producer, is also examining possible future DVD formats. "We have materials that work in those applications, whether they're polycarbonate or not polycarbonate-based," says Blair Souder, global marketing manager for GE Plastics' media programs group.
But Souder also notes that, unless the market dictates otherwise, poly-carbonate has a lot of life left. "Polycarbonate is the benchmark," he says. "And everything else compares itself to polycarbonate with respect to all the requirements. So if current polycarbonate off the shelf has a weakness, media manufacturers will raise their concern and ask for materials that address those particular issues."
Regarding differences bewteen red and blue lasers... Another issue I haven't seen discussed much (except in bland materials-science articles that only physical science geeks like me and real chemists read) is that the blue laser disks will have to be made with a higher quality and therefore more expensive polymer. As I understand it the blue lasers can operate on a finer scale but are consequently more vulnerable to optical flaws in the medium. AN article I read actually made the presentation that the economies of scale driving higher quality polymers (I believe they're polycarbonates) was actually a bottleneck for moving this technology forward.
Actually I think a transition is inevitable but will be slower than they think. Maybe get started in something like a video game console, where people are used to new, non-compatible machines coming out every few years. And unlike audio CDs (or even DVDs, frankly, unless you own a teevee that cost thousands rather than hundreds of dollars, which some of us think is a pretty stupid thing to own), video games can really use that extra capacity as Moore's law pushes the data-craving boundaries of video game processors.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for providing a fine demonstration of my point that people like you are dumb assholes.
These are called facts, Robert, where you demonstrate the basis of an opinion by supporting it with relevant information. This is opposed to what you were doing, where a pre-fab opinion is regurgitated without any support, or what I like to call shooting your mouth off. Shut the hell up if all you have to say is "I disagree."
But but but, but I'm used to schlepping over there and getting it NOW, and I don't really give a damn about the consequences of what I support.
The internet boom was about GREED, plain and simple. What excited people were the lottery-like dizzying ascents of companies like Amazon that happened to be in the right place at the right time. Everyone I knew who was in it was not interested in sticking around to make a great company: they were interested in making a big pile of money cashing in options. Like any lottery there can only be mostly losers in the end. It was certainly never about a better (or even significantly different) way of doing business or about a kinder, gentler anything.
So why not skip the book about what Bezos did to the internet and take a close look at what you all are doing to yourselves. OR alternately, slap an ecology sticker on your SUV, put on your f*ck microsoft t-shirt, and drive down to Starbucks for a Latte.
In other news, the American Medical Association is warning that cigarettes may kill you, and NASA has released a press release stating that the sun is "very, very hot."
I mean, isn't it totally common knowledge that independent promotion is payola vaguely disguised? I can only assume ClearChannel is making noises to push a little bit harder, squeeze a little bit more, and this is the RIAA pushing back. 'Cause this has been going on forever.
I haven't read it but I hear another good introduction is "Taking the Quantum Leap" by Fred Allen Wolf.
A note - it doesn't just seem mind blowing, it is. Particle activity at the quantum scale is just not like the "normal" activity we intuitively grasp in matter at our own scale. Attempts to understand it in terms of a normal understanding of matter will fail. It's better to look at it all as an alternate reality (which it is in a sense) with its own unique rules and behaviors. Remember, even Einstein couldn't deal with the weirdness. Have fun.
You know, like in star wars - "I'd rather kiss a Wonky"?
you get an unprotected download to do with as you please
Whoa, not so fast there, Tex. You get an unprotected download, sure... but don't think for a minute that you can do with this as you please. You better believe this song is still protected by the full force of the copyright and that it is still illegal to distribute it over the internet.
But what's most offensive to me is the cost. At a buck for a song this is hardly a better deal than a CD - for a lossier format! That's a terrible deal and too much trouble for no physical product and no packaging.
I'm mystified by these abortive forays into electronic content. Pay three bucks for a book that stops working after fifteen days! Pay a buck for an ephemeral, lower fidelity electronic impression of a song! Pay ten to twenty-five bucks a month for "Internet Radio Minus" - download limits, and when you quit the service you lose the ability to play everything. There are still plenty of unfettered CDs, used and new, for sale out there at ten times the bargain and usefulness. And I'm not even interested in file trading - I've never uploaded or downloaded an illicit MP3. I'm just concerned with the value and versatility of my own collection.
Earth to the publishing and recording industries (and those who would seek to replace them): when the deal doesn't SUCK I'll "show support for the concept."
Awright, awright, uncle! ALL media is filthy whoredome. I admit it. There is not a just book on the earth that does right and never sins, no not one!
hmm, yeah, okay, point taken, although I think there is a distinction between wrapping media with other examples of one's own product as opposed to just randomly inserting plugs for totally unrelated merchandise in the middle of a media experience. But yeah, not much is pure...
-'jath
Sure, it's called books. Been a long damn time since one regularly saw sheefs of ads bound into the middle of a paperback (tho there was a time...)
What I'm saying is, if you're willing to pay the full price of production and delivery, hell yes. The question is, are you? If you are, write or email your favorite media producer and say: I hate these ads, I'm sickened by this sponsorship, I would gladly pay an extra fifty cents on the issue to have information instead of advertisements on the back of my maps. Of course, being as how you're surrounded by sheep it'll probably all be for naught. But if you care about it you should at least make your opinion known somewhere besides slashdot.
The idea that you can flip on the idiot box and there will be content without advertising or paying up front is of course simply impossible. Somebody has to pay. Okay, the real question then is how much? Well, according to an everage figure I got from a Jupiter Communications chart that appeared in the Morgan Stanley Internet Advertising Report, the Average CPM (Cost Per Thousand)for a 30 second TV add is $12.00 or in other words, roughly 1.2 cents for thirty seconds. An hour of teevee has about 20 minutes of commercials, so if you wanted to pay it off yourself, it would cost a little under 50 cents if my math is right to watch a 40 minute show (the average length of an hourlong commercial tevee program)... That's a little deceptive since the CPM figure multiple people watching a show on a single tube, technically for the numbers to work you would have to pay for each person watching.
Still. Consider: the average American watches roughly 1250 hours of teveee a year, so... the question is, would you pay 600 bucks a year, 50 additional bucks a month to watch all your teevee commercial free? I watch maybe 10 hours of teevee a week max and I'd gladly pay two to three hundred a year to get it commercial free and 2/3 the length (the amount of content is the amount of content, if I can get it out of the way in 40 instead of 60 minutes I say hell yes, after all who's got too much time?
You notice advertisers are not so quick to make us understand what these costs actually are, they want us to assume that the costs are prohibitive when they really are fairly standard (very comparable to a movie rental, tevee costs advertisers about a buck and a half per viewer for two uninterrupted hours). Hell, people might start thinking about whether it was worth the bother to watch if they really had to pay to play.
I think I'd prefer a modified Quake that presented the virtual reality of shooting students on a college campus...
why, we'll let the happiest corporation on earth care for it - the Disney corporation. And as far as paying for it goes, well, hey - advertising hasn't failed the internet as a revenue model yet!
Unfortunately this is an issue where the people who are exercising any real authority are unlikely to be parsing the finer shades of semantics or logic. The radio cabal has a significant investment in the notion of "interference..." after all, its how they gutted the low-power FM movement with its troubling potential to make radio something communities could do for themselves rather than solely something Clearchannel manufactures on a computerized assembly line sometimes in a completely different state. I doubt anyone will be debating the notion of obselesence versus falsity, but I wouldn't be surprised to see our old friend "junk science" (defined as any scientific assertion that does not support the proponents political platform) show up as we try to bust up anopther (maybe) artificial scarcity. Next week lets take on the diamond cartels. Well, I'm sure the FCC will help out 'cause federal beaurocracies are always eager to make themselves "obsolete." Good point though.
"There is a cool video there of the stuff going off."
Yeah, If your idea of "cool" is a little lump of shit material smoking and glowing very slightly with a barely audible pop and then sluggishly, minimally smouldering and expanding like a defective snake firework...
ANother serious issue is whether China has anything to gain by fucking with us. Without us China has no food security. It's just like espionage and nuke bombs. The nature of the military is to prepare these scenarios. You can be sure we've got cyberattack scenarios in the works for every major government we consider a possible (if distant) threat.
On the other hand I think you're dreaming if you really believe China has no serious designs on invading Taiwan. It's far from a certain thing but they certainly think about it.
wowo I can't wait to see the BS storm of lies and hypocrisy as the spammer sue-a-thon gets cooking. No of course they never knew all those people didn't opt in. Whoever would have guessed that direct marketers could be so unscrupulous?
I agree firmly with you. They are trying to force equipment mfr.s to install some required DRM tools on all digital equipment - but though they might want and try it will be much much harder to, say, make Ogg illegal. Unlike, say, DeCSS, the argument that there aren't legitimate free expression uses of Ogg just ain't gonna fly. As an artist my argument is simple: I can and will prove my ownership of what I transmit, regardless of format. That is the sum and entirety of my responsibility. I've said it once, I'll say it again: if they start trying to make Ogg illegal, BUY GUNS. They might as well make contraband out of paper and pencils.
I absolutely disagree that enforced protection is a necessary or even likely outcome. It would be a clear, unambiguous violation of the freedom of expression as guarenteed by the first ammendment. They can control how I deal with someone else's copy protected speech but not how I express myself.
Oh, they may try... I wouldn't be surprised to see someone trying to make Ogg illegal soon. If they succeed, which I consider highly unlikely, then its time to start stockpiling ammo because they'll come to cut out your fucking tongue next. The biggest, most important defense against this kind of egregious violation of the freedom of speech is for there to be a robust body of artists and consumers using these tools for legitmate purposes.
The more they screw it up for themselves the better its going to be for the independent. The value premium of an unencumbered CD is about to skyrocket; the media moguls are exposing themselves to legal liability (fallout is already occurring); they face an endless, costly game of "keeping up with the Hacksies" as they try to make DRM stick, an uphill, customer-enraging battle to force people to switch away from the solid, stable, cost-effective technology of CDs (33 1/3 records appeared in the mid-twenties and did not outpace LPs until the late 80s, that's 60+ years, 4X as long as CDs have been the standard) at a time when the small-scale production of CDs has never been more accessible. The idea that people will stop buying CDs is ludicrous. There are so many more car CD players, boom boxes, stereos, portables, and CD-playing disk devices like DVD players and game consoles than there are computers with CD roms and disk burners. And any new desk technology is going to face a very tough slog if it can't play a standard CD.
What's not to love? If Cheerios started dumping chunks of shit into every box, wouldn't any small cereal manufacturer rejoice? Repeat after me: THEY DON'T OWN MUSIC. THEY DON'T OWN MUSIC. THEY DON'T OWN MUSIC.
Of course the USA is very big and very rich and will win a comparison contest, but you can't ignore name technological corporations like Ciba, Roche, Sandoz and Wellcor. When you have a small country, a small population, and few natural resources, you don't succeed by trying to be the biggest. You succeed by being the best in a relatively niche market.
Outtasight, daddy-o. Me'n the droogs are gonna rumble the 'frames, try to shake down some code. Can you dig it?
"Sun Microsystems (can) go buy 10,000 copies, and they can have people just sit there and generate work requests to us every minute of every day," Ballmer said. "Somebody could say, 'Look, I want to make Microsoft's life miserable; so I'll tell you what, I'll pay you $10 million a year to torture Microsoft.'"
I just want to say that I'm totally available to take that job.
This takes me back to every Microsoft blandishment that other software companies were just being paranoid about their tactics. The spectacle of the richest corporation in the world whining about how Sun Microsystems is out to get them is both funny and sad. O Brave New World...
BUSINESS
December 20, 1999
Volume 77, Number 51
CENEAR 77 51 pp. 14-15
ISSN 0009-2347
New DVDs Provide Opportunities For Polymers
Alexander Tullo
Polycarbonate has faced challenges from materials such as cycloolefin copolymers and acrylic resin in optical media applications over the years, but it has remained the substrate of choice for the compact disc (CD) and digital versatile disc (DVD) products on the market. Its success in this market stems from polycarbonate's ability to provide suitable properties at an economical cost to disc makers.
But consumer electronics companies like Sony, Philips , and Panasonic are developing formats based on multiple information layers and shorter wavelength lasers that will enable record companies, movie studios, and software makers to cram as much information on the discs as possible. If polycarbonate isn't the best material for these formats, then it may not fend off its rivals much longer.
John O'Sullivan, program leader for GE Plastic's optical media development center in Pittsfield, Mass., examines a disc.
Producers of competing materials are renewing their interest in optical media. In particular, they are positioning themselves for applications in which polycarbonate might have trouble. One such application is high-density DVD, sometimes referred to as blue-laser DVD.
In high-density DVD, the wavelengths of the lasers that read the discs are shorter than the red lasers that scan the DVDs available today. The shorter wavelengths allow DVD players to focus light on a smaller area. As a result, the pits on the DVD--the features that code digital information on the disc--can be made smaller and packed more closely, thereby increasing storage capacity.
Consumer electronics companies are looking at many technologies, and many systems are at various stages of development. Nichia Chemical of Tokushima, Japan, brought an indium gallium nitride-based 405-nm violet-laser diode to the market this year. These diodes will mainly be used for next-generation DVDs and could increase the capacity of these discs by a factor of three compared with red lasers, according to Shuji Nakamura, a researcher at Nichia who is often described as the guru of solid-state lasers. He predicts that DVDs incorporating shorter wavelength lasers will be available soon. "Already, several companies have demonstrated next-generation DVDs, using our violet-laser diodes, at several shows and conferences," Nakamura adds.
Some question the utility of polycarbonate discs for these applications. Polycarbonate may replicate the smaller features necessary for these discs, but only after trading off other physical and optical properties that have been advantageous in current applications. These include toughness and low birefringence--the property of having two different indexes of refraction.
Polymer suppliers are already planning for the eventuality that polycarbonate may have trouble winning these new applications and are positioning alternative materials. Dow Plastic's solution to the problem is polycyclohexylethylene (PCHE), a hydrogenated polystyrene.
"We recognized a few years ago that as the formats go to higher and higher density and requirements become more stringent toward the polymer's optical properties, we needed to develop a resin for future formats," says Henri-Luc Martin, director of antipiracy/PCHE for Dow Plastics, which also makes polycarbonate. "You really can't make polycarbonate better than the molecule that you have today," he says. "There is a point where you can't trade anything off anymore."
According to Martin, Dow has demonstrated that PCHE can be replicated at 15 gigabytes per layer, which makes for a storage capacity of 30 gigabytes for a two-layer disc. And Dow claims that this was done with nearly no birefringence. In addition, Dow says the resin is very transparent to wavelengths as short as 300 nm. "As the technology drives beyond 400 nm to short wavelengths, this is where PCHE really enables the laser technology of future formats," he says.
Martin also says PCHE is a key component of Dow's plan to fight commercial piracy of software and video CDs and DVDs, specifically pit-to-pit replication, in which an illicitly acquired stamper is used to counterfeit CDs and DVDs. Dow has proposed regulating the supply of resin to manufacturers, which would have to account for the resin consumed with a prescribed number of finished discs. An independent legal body would operate the system, Martin says, not Dow, so disc makers wouldn't have to share proprietary information with a supplier.
Dow isn't commercial yet with PCHE, but it has plans to bring a 9,000-metric-ton-per-year reactor onstream in Schkopau, Germany, by the end of 2001. Dow also says it has made provisions to license the technology to other resin suppliers to ensure competition.
Other companies with different materials are also angling for the emerging DVD markets. A few years ago, Ticona, the engineering polymers business of Celanese, evaluated its Topas ethylene-norbornene copolymer for CD applications. Although its excellent optical properties and low water uptake made for better discs, Topas had no success in the marketplace because of its higher prices and the slower cycle times during replication, according to Michel Bitritto, global project leader for optical applications in Ticona's Topas group. "The value of a different material was very limited then," she says.
Now, Ticona is reconsidering Topas for optical media in applications where information is stored on multiple layers on each side of a DVD and especially in formats that will be read by short-wavelength lasers. "It is only with great difficulty that people can make polycarbonate work in these applications," Bitritto notes. But Ticona has learned its lesson and doesn't intend to compete directly with polycarbonate. "If polycarbonate does work, it doesn't make sense for Topas to go into those markets," she says.
Ticona is bringing 30,000 metric tons per year of Topas capacity onstream in Oberhausen, Germany, next year, the company's first large-scale production facility for the copolymer. However, not all of this capacity is for optical media substrates. Topas' primary applications include toner binder resin, lenses, pharmaceutical packaging, medical devices, and capacitor films.
Producers of acrylic resins are also renewing their interest in optical media applications. But to make any inroads, they have to shake the image that acrylic--also known as polymethylmethacrylate, or PMMA--is brittle and sensitive to high temperatures and humidity.
Acrylic resin producers tried to enter the CD market years ago, but even though the material offered beneficial optical properties, warpage problems prevented producers from making significant gains, Peter Colburn says. Colburn is technical manager for molding and extrusion compounds for Rockaway, N.J.-based Cyro Industries. "With DVD, the warpage issue is eliminated because the discs are bonded together from two parts, so you have opposing forces there," he explains.
Cyro and Elf Atochem both make products designed for optical media applications. Cryo makes Acrylite DQ501 molding compound, and Elf produces Plexiglas VOD-100. The companies claim that acrylic has advantages over polycarbonate in current DVD formats; they cite improved viscosity, lower cost, superior scratch resistance, and better optical properties. "Those are all givens that we know are inherent with PMMA," says Don Hone, market development manager for the Atoglas division of Elf Atochem North America.
Acrylic resin is already used in the manufacture of DVD 18, a double-sided format with two information layers on each side. But the discs are not actually made of acrylic. According to Colburn, in the process used to make these discs, a metal coating is applied on an acrylic disc that has the surface definition the makers need for the final product. After it takes on this definition, the metal coating is peeled off and applied onto a DVD 18.
Acrylic resin makers say there is an opportunity for use of acrylic as a substrate for short-wavelength DVD discs. "An advantage would be the ability to replicate the smaller features," Hone comments. He notes that acrylic's low birefringence properties are also an advantage.
But polycarbonate will not step aside easily. According to Austin Peppin, president of Chesterfield, Mo.-based consultants Peppin & Associates , the market for polycarbonate used in optical media applications is about 500 million lb per year globally, and it is expanding at double-digit rates. It will continue to be used for growing volumes of CDs and DVDs. Even if the next-generation formats are released in a couple of years, it will take time for disc players to become affordable enough for most people to purchase large quantities of next-generation discs. "We are confident that wherever the physical properties of standard polycarbonate are sufficient, no other polymer in the foreseeable future will have a realistic chance for substituting significant volumes of polycarbonate," says Ramesh Pisipati, optical memory industry manager for Bayer Corp. , a major polycarbonate producer.
GE Plastics, another major polycarbonate producer, is also examining possible future DVD formats. "We have materials that work in those applications, whether they're polycarbonate or not polycarbonate-based," says Blair Souder, global marketing manager for GE Plastics' media programs group.
But Souder also notes that, unless the market dictates otherwise, poly-carbonate has a lot of life left. "Polycarbonate is the benchmark," he says. "And everything else compares itself to polycarbonate with respect to all the requirements. So if current polycarbonate off the shelf has a weakness, media manufacturers will raise their concern and ask for materials that address those particular issues."
Actually I think a transition is inevitable but will be slower than they think. Maybe get started in something like a video game console, where people are used to new, non-compatible machines coming out every few years. And unlike audio CDs (or even DVDs, frankly, unless you own a teevee that cost thousands rather than hundreds of dollars, which some of us think is a pretty stupid thing to own), video games can really use that extra capacity as Moore's law pushes the data-craving boundaries of video game processors.