Listen. It was a stupid fucking question. It got very serious answers explaining why it was a stupid fucking question. Peer to peer networks are untrustworthy, they're unreliable, they're difficult to access. If you live in the sticks, and one of your neighbours turns off his PC, you might lose connectivity to the whole planet. You have no legal recourse to ask him to turn it on, and he has no responsibility to route you in the first place. It's entirely possible that wide swaths of the network will ignore requests from others to increase their own bandwidth. Hackers will build custom micronets to trap all incoming data and transform all requests to porn. And forget about relying on this as your sole cell phone or your sole mode of communication. What do you do when your daughter's car breaks down and the software used in that part of the country is unidirectional, leach only peer to peer closed networks with no responsibility, no accountability, and no interest in routing her call to triple A?
Peer to peer networks are crap, man. They'll always be unreliable because enough people are DICKS that the whole network is untrustworthy. It's good enough to get porn and free Slayer CDs, but have you ever tried using a p2p network for EVERYTHING? Try Freenet for a few days...it's the most secure, trustworthy and "honest" network I've seen, and it's utterly worthless compared to good ole' IP. Where the routing is pretty much fool proof and has a ping time under 10 microseconds. I'll gladly pay $35 for THAT.
So your argument is that capitalism is bad because it doesn't do things until they're necessary?
When we feel the IP crunch, then we'll see the expense paid for a massive IPv6 rollout. It is not automatic, it is not easy, it is not mandatory, no matter what your networking 304 professor told you. Check out Dan Bernstein's rant on the subject sometime.
As for broadband in your area...if you think there's demand, fucking do it yourself. Go to your neighbors, get "preorders" and start community DSL. Or better still, get a loan and start your own hometown ISP. You should be able to get all sorts of tax write offs, and maybe get the state on your side to grease the way around the many, many regulators and contractors you'll have to shine. Out west (Colorado) lots of entrepeneurs have done this with mild success. Many of them have been since bought out at hefty payoffs by national telcos, who were thrilled to not have to build the infrastructure themselves.
Anybody who sees an unmet demand in a Capitalist society should jump on it. That's all it took to get Gates, Jobs, Walden and Case where they are today. That, and dorky haircuts.
And of course, the upkeep costs on lines that are already there (of which there are plenty...a lot of buried fiber is still cold because it isn't necessary to light it up to be cost effective). You know, costs like all of us geeks' salaries, or power, or maintaining and upgrading switches. These are REPEATING monthly costs. Therefore, the cost should be a repeating monthly cost. That's the only way it makes sense to keep doing it.
Subsidizing this with taxes to reduce the cost (like we did with the Post Office) isn't a terrible idea. Wouldn't we like our data to have the uptime of the Post Office...you know, which is always available (except on sundays, holidays, or after 5:30)? I mean, there's no need for privatized alternatives (UPS, FedEx, Airborne, DHL), right?
The best thing that can happen to communication is a global standard protocol for switching and delivery on all systems. And it's already there: IP. Now we're just waiting for the Baby Bells and Time Warners to a) combine everything and b) really get cheaper. And I think Time Warner is almost to A...they're testing IP phones that are damn good. As soon as we get a few players in combined communications, we'll get to B (check the rapid price drops going on in cellular right now).
Capitalism may not always work right the first time...but with this much demand, yes, it will work eventually.
I wonder if this is one of those cancer-in-rats things. Feed a rat some insane dosage of something and surprise surprise, that rat gets cancer. Then somebody finally does a study with normal exposure (e.g. typing MAYBE 10k-20k characters per diem) and finds that it doesn't hurt you.
But what about those of use who use keyboards a LOT -- and use cramped, uncomfortable keyboards like those on laptops and palmtops a LOT. I mean, I am typing pretty much nonstop for about 16 hours a day. I have huge hands (with a size 12 ring finger) -- and sometimes, they just hurt. The 500k+ impacts per day on this click tactile keyboard can't be doing me any good. Am I the cancer rat? Can I safely ignore this stupid warning label engraved in my otherwise stylish black dell keyboard? Or can I expect the ligaments in my index finger to just tear one day, like a linebacker's ACL? Can you come back from such an injury? CAN I DROP MY LLOYDS' POLICY?!?
I teach a Java programming class for non-careers at our local library. We get some older people, but mostly it's 10-15 year old boys who want to make games. Java's great for this, because though it is slow, it's been constructed so that you can have somebody drawing squares on a JFrame in about ten minutes. If you don't worry about interfaces, threading, events, or any of that object oriented crap that you don't need as a student, you can learn the meat of Java fairly quickly. The tools are free. And there's plenty of good online references.
The best way to program, of course, is to copy and alter other people's examples, so I have about ten programming by example books I loft with me, as well as a number of programs I ported from old textbooks like "101 Basic Computer Games" and the MicroAdventure novels. I run things like the computer club I was in in middle school, tapping on those apple IIes...everybody does what they want, i help where I can, and if I think it'd be beneficial for others to hear the example I have a quick lecture.
Do I think the OS needs to have a built in language? Hell no, there's no need now that everybody and his grandmother is networked. You can download something like Java or Perl in about a picosecond -- ten picoseconds if you're on dialup. And the process of going out to the website, sorting through all the information and eventually getting to download the SDK is beneficial. It burns off some of the technofear people have about programming their computers...lets them know that there's a whole industry out there mucking about in command windows and terminals and none of THEM has ever formatted a hard drive accidentally.
That's what people really need...with enough courage and enough time, anybody can make great software.
Exactly the point. If us lowly mac users everybody shits on can generate this much talk (and this much real profit for record labels), just think what'll happen when iTunes for PC hits the market.
I'd also love to see iTunes on setup top boxes. God, the thought of a big white multimedia box with a few hundred gigs of space and a high def display, digital output and a friendly engraved apple gets me all excited about my sound system again.
Uh, yeah. What you're talking about is almost definitiely the decision of the label, and NOT of Apple. Apple requires all songs to be the same price -- and yet, to labels, a hyper popular song like "American Pie" is worth more than $.99. So they probably exercised their ability to make this track an "album exclusive." Other tricks labels pull on iTunes include only releasing the clean version of an album, or eliminating one or more "skit" tracks of a long (17+ track) album, making it impossible to buy the whole thing (at 1/2 of the per price cost). The 7 minute thing is to help cover Apple's bandwidth costs...after all, it's not fair to be able to download an entire 60 minute live set (with no track breaks) for $.99.
Indies will get this right too.
See, what Apple is doing here is appeasing both labels and consumers. Customers can do whatever they want with a track as long as it's on their computers, their cd blanks, their iPods. Labels can decide how they want their tracks purchasable. Apple takes care of things both groups seem to be ignorant of: the delicate balance of copy protection, ease of operation and fair use (not capitalized on purpose).
Au contraire. The fact that 20% of people are willing to pay for JUST THE MUSIC with no art or anything is proof that there is a market for the "filler tracks." That there's still a chance to make cash with a well rounded album, even if your major sales are from a few "pop tracks."
And of course, a lot of the 55% of songs sold one at a time were sold to folks like me, who just wanted a quick $5 fix to test the service. I'm now interested in buying a TON of full albums (including the Screaming Tree's "Sweet Oblivion," an album I own on tape, record and CD -- but the CD's so scratched I can't get a good rip of it).
1) No, communism has not worked and might not ever. But the problem here is not that communism doesn't work -- it's that communism is being blamed for social evils. If the system that creates the evil isn't communism (due to corruption / scapegoating), then how can you blame the theory for the problems? The Nazis got power by claiming socialism, then delivered a despotism. India claimed socialism, and delivered socialism. End result was completely different...is communism to blame for both? And is a system that creates indemic poverty something worth going to war over? The answer to both is no.
2) Easy. We assist impoverished nations by providing them with appropriate technology. Instead of dropping food, we help them build aqueducts and desalination plants. This approach has worked on the micro, village-by-village level for years from the Peace Corps and others. It's never been tried on the macro level. I'm sure it's less costly then bombing the place to shit and THEN rebuilding it in our image. Talk about culture shock -- how do you go from Burqas to Cell Phones in a single bound?
3) The parent snubs the claim that "liberals" make: that America is a target for terrorism as a result of our foreign policy (which it is, though that doesn't make it justified or anything. having diamonds makes a jewelry store the target for robbery.). By using the word "fault" he's putting liberals on the defensive, accusing them of deflecting blame to the victim. This is anti-liberalism.
4) The parent doesn't specify barbarous nations, he says "nations of the world," with the implied subject being any nation that might require need. EG impoverished nations. Or are you suggesting that Germany or China are looking for handouts?
5) If the question is "Aid us, or we'll die," and you answer "Sorry, you have a government we don't like, I guess you'll have to die," that's not helping anybody. Obviously the impoverished people can't overthrow the military junta that has all the guns we gave them to defeat the previous junta back in the 1980s. Obviously that same junta isn't going to step down when they can just let people die and blame it on us. That's the "civilize or die..." when our snobbish policies are the indirect cause for loss of life.
6) The parent poster was claiming that Saddam was a despot who murdered innocent people and who was tolerated by him for his money. I'm claiming that a certain US president did the exact same thing for the exact same "cynical" reason. Saddam murdered to keep power. We murdered for better security of our power source. So why are we right, and he wrong? Is it because one kind of civillian death is "accidental" and the other's purposeful? And if your course of action is unnecessarily toward a certain end, is it still "accidental?" When a drunk driver kills a pedestrian, was that accidental? Until Bush stood on his soap box, I hated the Taliban. I hated them for destroying priceless buddhist statues and for demonizing innocent women. But I would have never asked anyone to drop random bombs in the sand to route them out. It doesn't help anybody -- as the current state of Afghani affairs indicates.
7) God, isn't it the worse? I fucking hate it when politicians pull at my heart strings. As a writer and student of poetry, there's nothing I hate more than the dillution of symbols...and it's getting to the point where a suffereing child is nothing more than a bargaining chip on either side. And that's just horrible.
8) Listen. Being on top doesn't make us best. Being the biggest doesn't make us best. Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Mongolia, Turkey, Britain (and how many resources did THEY have, smartass), France, Germany, Japan, Russia...all of them were on top, and lost it all because they didn't know how to BE on top. It's not by being the planet's bullying brother. It's by being inclusive -- by playing United States of the World. By giving other nations the same respect we give backwards lands like Kentucky. Or do you think we'll be able to get away with picking on much smaller nations with limited resources forever with no adverse reactions from the countries that might be able to do something about it?
"We tried to help the Somalis, but some of them were thugs. You know, like some Americans are thugs back home, but the Police kind of take care of them most of the time. Anyway, because some of them are thugs, we had no choice but to bomb them into the stone age. You know, starting with factories and public buildings and private industries. I don't know why they're now pirates. Probably unrelated to our destruction of their means of producing consumable goods, and more related to those Somalis being thugs."
God I love America. Especially you jingoist homebody hawks -- "America must be the best 'cos I ain't never been nowhere else."
Communism is bad: Check (diluted to "socialism is evil" and applied to non-socialist nations)
People are capable of helping themselves, so we shouldn't offer any assistance to them: Check (Love this defense, it's such "rape is the woman's fault" bullshit)
Liberals are bad people: Check
Association of poverty with barbarism: Check
"White Man's Burden" (civilize or die): Check
Accusation of impoverished nations being murderous: Check (Civillians killed by American troops post 9/11: Afghanistan, >3068. Irag, >5428)
BONUS! Off hand mention of the deaths of children to pull on our heartstrings: Check (hey if you care about kids so much, why not give them health insurance?)
General "We're right because we're big" rhetoric Check and double check.
What I saw was basically a take off of the program guide, with purchasable VOD on high channels. You could pick one program per channel, stop/pause/start/rewind, and got it checked out for a certain period of time.
If my memory serves correctly, and it always has before, it's exactly what MS talks about here, MINUS the "Managable sets" part of the patent. Which is poorly worded, anyway -- i mean, if you browse by category, you're not "selecting criteria," right? It's certainly not your "own customizable list". So basically, as long as you force people to use your method of organization a la the apple store, this patent doesn't apply to you.
I *KNOW* TimeWarner has prior art on this. As in, WAY before October 1998. My dad, a Veep of Engineering at ATC cum TWC cum AOL, was demo'd VOD systems when I was in high school (1996). I know, because he was telling me how cool things were going to be, how DVD was going to revolutionize media, how digital cable was coming and addressable boxes were night, etc.
I seem to recall an online "public domain" film site in 1997 as well.
How MS got the patent worries me. They had NOTHING to do with the world of entertainment services until 98 or so...really, until Windows Media Player hit version 5 or so. They thought about offering the same thing that the addressable in my dad's media room had since the summer of 97...and had to market last year.
Unless, of course, the very nature of the GPL -- specifically, the limiting of liability, the promise of no support and no guarantees, the granting of ownership and responsibility to the users -- invalidates the possibiliy of pursuit. In which case, neither Nullsoft nor AOL has nothing to worry about...and the GPL will be propelled forward as the key to putting out grey market software.
Album pricing in retail outlets is absolute bullshit. When albums first come out, they're absurdly cheap, say $11-$13. New albums guaranteed to be popular are even cheaper, $8-$10. Once an album goes "out of style," they slowly raise the price as a sort of "archive fee." Indepedent artists and limited appeal artists -- I'm thinking of Stereolab and Elvis Costello -- are usually pulled up close to $20. It makes it more profitable on the off chance somebody actually buys the thing. Occasionally a popular older album is re-released as a "saver," then it's sold at $11 because it is a guaranteed draw. If it has anything new on it, it's a collecter's item and is up to $17=$20 again.
It's bullshit, because it assigns no value to the media or the music. It's all manipulation of the market economy...with price driving demand, perceived demand driving price, and supply completely ignored. I bought the latest Queens of the Stone Age CD at Borders the day it came out (at 9 am, ha) for $14. A week later when their radio track tore up the charts, the same edition (with neato free dvd) is selling for $9. Today, with their second single doing alright, but not great, it's selling for $16, no DVD. This is bullshit...you pay more for less, just because the band slipped a bit?
Maybe they should slip out one of the Mark Lanegan tracks on single and shoot that badboy back down to $12...
Not really. Think about mp3 downloads...for every two or three people content to download just the radio song, there seems to be one guy willing to pull down the whole album. A lot of music fans realize that albums have a different overall texture and sound than single songs -- and that there may be plenty of gems on the album that never make the radio (either because they're not cleared by A&R for promotion, or because they're not "clean").
If one out of every three downloaders grabs the whole album at $11, while the other 2 just get the single track, you're making $14. If you only make the single, you make $3. Albums are still the driving force...and those music lovers who get the whole pie are going to direct their friends to the great tracks they may have missed.
I currently use both emusic and Apple's store. I like them both. Emusic's great appeal is that, once you've paid your $20, you can just download anything. So with a fast broadband connection, there's no reason NOT to get anything that sounds even remotely interesting. Furthermore, they have a lot of music that's pretty much impossible to get anywhere...I'm thinking of Edan's full length album, a gem of Boston underground hip-hop which I ordered at two local record shops, neither of which ever got it in.
Of course, I've got pretty much every song I want on emusic at this point, so the pricetag is starting to weigh pretty heavy on me. Being able to download those tracks from Apple at comparable to higher quality, for $.99 or maybe a little less by album, is a viable and exciting alternative. Plus you get the cool album art, and just maybe they'll have the correct track names for Jiker's "An Eh for an Eh, a Toque for a Toque."
There was a time docking stations were useful, but in today's world of wireless ethernet, firewire hard drives and what have you, all you EVER need is a 12" PowerBook.
Lucky for you they can be had under $1500 (with your student discount of course).
One of the clever things Apple did was only allow a discount for "complete" albums. So if an album is more than 15 tracks, sometimes they'll leave out an intro or the radio song. Gross profit $5 greater.
Not necessarily. "Parternerships" were a problem in the past, but Apple has the clout to get labels to play ball without them. Apple is a HUGE name in the recording industry, everybody's got a mac; how many hip hop tracks reference Apple or pro tools? Apparently, they have labels waiting in the wings to get apple-fied and on the service.
And why not? Transworld Music competes with Virgin and Tower, sometimes in the same mall, and they all have copies of the latest Fitty Cent treacle. No reason online delivery shouldn't get the same treatment.
Well, there are a couple reasons to use this service.
1) KaZaa, MX, &tc are full of hassles, including:
fake songs
misnamed/misattributed songs
cooked mp3s
incomplete mp3s
low bitrate / re-encoded mp3s
radio edits
people who don't want to share
people who misreport their connection speed
leeches pulling down your bandwidth
RIAA clowns trying to squeeze your tits.
These are a pain in the ass that didn't used to exist to such a high degree in file "sharing" and they've spoiled the experience for a lot of people. Hunting for some of the really good obscure shit I like to listen to has become such a hassle that I far prefer Apple's music service.
2) The whole idea behind P2p was it was supposed to turn you on to new artists and broaden your horizons. In my experience, it's the web (forums, internet radio, weblogs, etc) that do a better job of that...so it makes sense that music downloading should be tied to it. Which message would you prefer: You gotta check out this MC kris track, it's called booba fet or something, look for it on kazaa. or You gotta check out this mc Kris track, click here.
A pay-for-play music service allows that kind of ease of linking with music that is cheap, easy to find, always available, ships for free, has no clicks of pops, bears full id3 tags and album art, whatever. It's finally a new way to use music, and not just an extension of a CD culture.
And yeah, it's cool that the artists I like will get some cash, too. But then again, most of them have been on emusic for years...
Maybe. But if I pay to get into a club, that doesn't mean I can steal drinks and it doesn't mean I can wreck the bathroom. I paid to go to college and couldn't disrupt classes. And it could be argued by a really clever lawyer that this sort of hacking deprives other people of their rights and property.
Anyway, I'm sure it violates some draconian EULA. Way back when I beta'd for Everquest; the EULA/NDA was 5 pages long and prevented us from manipulating bugs for "profit" or talking about them to other players outside of the game. I can't imagine the release license is much kinder
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Listen. It was a stupid fucking question. It got very serious answers explaining why it was a stupid fucking question. Peer to peer networks are untrustworthy, they're unreliable, they're difficult to access. If you live in the sticks, and one of your neighbours turns off his PC, you might lose connectivity to the whole planet. You have no legal recourse to ask him to turn it on, and he has no responsibility to route you in the first place. It's entirely possible that wide swaths of the network will ignore requests from others to increase their own bandwidth. Hackers will build custom micronets to trap all incoming data and transform all requests to porn. And forget about relying on this as your sole cell phone or your sole mode of communication. What do you do when your daughter's car breaks down and the software used in that part of the country is unidirectional, leach only peer to peer closed networks with no responsibility, no accountability, and no interest in routing her call to triple A?
Peer to peer networks are crap, man. They'll always be unreliable because enough people are DICKS that the whole network is untrustworthy. It's good enough to get porn and free Slayer CDs, but have you ever tried using a p2p network for EVERYTHING? Try Freenet for a few days...it's the most secure, trustworthy and "honest" network I've seen, and it's utterly worthless compared to good ole' IP. Where the routing is pretty much fool proof and has a ping time under 10 microseconds. I'll gladly pay $35 for THAT.
So your argument is that capitalism is bad because it doesn't do things until they're necessary?
When we feel the IP crunch, then we'll see the expense paid for a massive IPv6 rollout. It is not automatic, it is not easy, it is not mandatory, no matter what your networking 304 professor told you. Check out Dan Bernstein's rant on the subject sometime.
As for broadband in your area...if you think there's demand, fucking do it yourself. Go to your neighbors, get "preorders" and start community DSL. Or better still, get a loan and start your own hometown ISP. You should be able to get all sorts of tax write offs, and maybe get the state on your side to grease the way around the many, many regulators and contractors you'll have to shine. Out west (Colorado) lots of entrepeneurs have done this with mild success. Many of them have been since bought out at hefty payoffs by national telcos, who were thrilled to not have to build the infrastructure themselves.
Anybody who sees an unmet demand in a Capitalist society should jump on it. That's all it took to get Gates, Jobs, Walden and Case where they are today. That, and dorky haircuts.
And of course, the upkeep costs on lines that are already there (of which there are plenty...a lot of buried fiber is still cold because it isn't necessary to light it up to be cost effective). You know, costs like all of us geeks' salaries, or power, or maintaining and upgrading switches. These are REPEATING monthly costs. Therefore, the cost should be a repeating monthly cost. That's the only way it makes sense to keep doing it.
Subsidizing this with taxes to reduce the cost (like we did with the Post Office) isn't a terrible idea. Wouldn't we like our data to have the uptime of the Post Office...you know, which is always available (except on sundays, holidays, or after 5:30)? I mean, there's no need for privatized alternatives (UPS, FedEx, Airborne, DHL), right?
The best thing that can happen to communication is a global standard protocol for switching and delivery on all systems. And it's already there: IP. Now we're just waiting for the Baby Bells and Time Warners to a) combine everything and b) really get cheaper. And I think Time Warner is almost to A...they're testing IP phones that are damn good. As soon as we get a few players in combined communications, we'll get to B (check the rapid price drops going on in cellular right now).
Capitalism may not always work right the first time...but with this much demand, yes, it will work eventually.
I wonder if this is one of those cancer-in-rats things. Feed a rat some insane dosage of something and surprise surprise, that rat gets cancer. Then somebody finally does a study with normal exposure (e.g. typing MAYBE 10k-20k characters per diem) and finds that it doesn't hurt you.
But what about those of use who use keyboards a LOT -- and use cramped, uncomfortable keyboards like those on laptops and palmtops a LOT. I mean, I am typing pretty much nonstop for about 16 hours a day. I have huge hands (with a size 12 ring finger) -- and sometimes, they just hurt. The 500k+ impacts per day on this click tactile keyboard can't be doing me any good. Am I the cancer rat? Can I safely ignore this stupid warning label engraved in my otherwise stylish black dell keyboard? Or can I expect the ligaments in my index finger to just tear one day, like a linebacker's ACL? Can you come back from such an injury? CAN I DROP MY LLOYDS' POLICY?!?
I teach a Java programming class for non-careers at our local library. We get some older people, but mostly it's 10-15 year old boys who want to make games. Java's great for this, because though it is slow, it's been constructed so that you can have somebody drawing squares on a JFrame in about ten minutes. If you don't worry about interfaces, threading, events, or any of that object oriented crap that you don't need as a student, you can learn the meat of Java fairly quickly. The tools are free. And there's plenty of good online references.
The best way to program, of course, is to copy and alter other people's examples, so I have about ten programming by example books I loft with me, as well as a number of programs I ported from old textbooks like "101 Basic Computer Games" and the MicroAdventure novels. I run things like the computer club I was in in middle school, tapping on those apple IIes...everybody does what they want, i help where I can, and if I think it'd be beneficial for others to hear the example I have a quick lecture.
Do I think the OS needs to have a built in language? Hell no, there's no need now that everybody and his grandmother is networked. You can download something like Java or Perl in about a picosecond -- ten picoseconds if you're on dialup. And the process of going out to the website, sorting through all the information and eventually getting to download the SDK is beneficial. It burns off some of the technofear people have about programming their computers...lets them know that there's a whole industry out there mucking about in command windows and terminals and none of THEM has ever formatted a hard drive accidentally.
That's what people really need...with enough courage and enough time, anybody can make great software.
Exactly the point. If us lowly mac users everybody shits on can generate this much talk (and this much real profit for record labels), just think what'll happen when iTunes for PC hits the market.
I'd also love to see iTunes on setup top boxes. God, the thought of a big white multimedia box with a few hundred gigs of space and a high def display, digital output and a friendly engraved apple gets me all excited about my sound system again.
So what's your point? At least Apple users get laid by somebody. And that's more than most Linux users (and any BSD users) can hope for.
Uh, yeah. What you're talking about is almost definitiely the decision of the label, and NOT of Apple. Apple requires all songs to be the same price -- and yet, to labels, a hyper popular song like "American Pie" is worth more than $.99. So they probably exercised their ability to make this track an "album exclusive." Other tricks labels pull on iTunes include only releasing the clean version of an album, or eliminating one or more "skit" tracks of a long (17+ track) album, making it impossible to buy the whole thing (at 1/2 of the per price cost). The 7 minute thing is to help cover Apple's bandwidth costs...after all, it's not fair to be able to download an entire 60 minute live set (with no track breaks) for $.99.
Indies will get this right too.
See, what Apple is doing here is appeasing both labels and consumers. Customers can do whatever they want with a track as long as it's on their computers, their cd blanks, their iPods. Labels can decide how they want their tracks purchasable. Apple takes care of things both groups seem to be ignorant of: the delicate balance of copy protection, ease of operation and fair use (not capitalized on purpose).
Au contraire. The fact that 20% of people are willing to pay for JUST THE MUSIC with no art or anything is proof that there is a market for the "filler tracks." That there's still a chance to make cash with a well rounded album, even if your major sales are from a few "pop tracks."
And of course, a lot of the 55% of songs sold one at a time were sold to folks like me, who just wanted a quick $5 fix to test the service. I'm now interested in buying a TON of full albums (including the Screaming Tree's "Sweet Oblivion," an album I own on tape, record and CD -- but the CD's so scratched I can't get a good rip of it).
Rebuttal to your rebuttal.
1) No, communism has not worked and might not ever. But the problem here is not that communism doesn't work -- it's that communism is being blamed for social evils. If the system that creates the evil isn't communism (due to corruption / scapegoating), then how can you blame the theory for the problems? The Nazis got power by claiming socialism, then delivered a despotism. India claimed socialism, and delivered socialism. End result was completely different...is communism to blame for both? And is a system that creates indemic poverty something worth going to war over? The answer to both is no.
2) Easy. We assist impoverished nations by providing them with appropriate technology. Instead of dropping food, we help them build aqueducts and desalination plants. This approach has worked on the micro, village-by-village level for years from the Peace Corps and others. It's never been tried on the macro level. I'm sure it's less costly then bombing the place to shit and THEN rebuilding it in our image. Talk about culture shock -- how do you go from Burqas to Cell Phones in a single bound?
3) The parent snubs the claim that "liberals" make: that America is a target for terrorism as a result of our foreign policy (which it is, though that doesn't make it justified or anything. having diamonds makes a jewelry store the target for robbery.). By using the word "fault" he's putting liberals on the defensive, accusing them of deflecting blame to the victim. This is anti-liberalism.
4) The parent doesn't specify barbarous nations, he says "nations of the world," with the implied subject being any nation that might require need. EG impoverished nations. Or are you suggesting that Germany or China are looking for handouts?
5) If the question is "Aid us, or we'll die," and you answer "Sorry, you have a government we don't like, I guess you'll have to die," that's not helping anybody. Obviously the impoverished people can't overthrow the military junta that has all the guns we gave them to defeat the previous junta back in the 1980s. Obviously that same junta isn't going to step down when they can just let people die and blame it on us. That's the "civilize or die..." when our snobbish policies are the indirect cause for loss of life.
6) The parent poster was claiming that Saddam was a despot who murdered innocent people and who was tolerated by him for his money. I'm claiming that a certain US president did the exact same thing for the exact same "cynical" reason. Saddam murdered to keep power. We murdered for better security of our power source. So why are we right, and he wrong? Is it because one kind of civillian death is "accidental" and the other's purposeful? And if your course of action is unnecessarily toward a certain end, is it still "accidental?" When a drunk driver kills a pedestrian, was that accidental? Until Bush stood on his soap box, I hated the Taliban. I hated them for destroying priceless buddhist statues and for demonizing innocent women. But I would have never asked anyone to drop random bombs in the sand to route them out. It doesn't help anybody -- as the current state of Afghani affairs indicates.
7) God, isn't it the worse? I fucking hate it when politicians pull at my heart strings. As a writer and student of poetry, there's nothing I hate more than the dillution of symbols...and it's getting to the point where a suffereing child is nothing more than a bargaining chip on either side. And that's just horrible.
8) Listen. Being on top doesn't make us best. Being the biggest doesn't make us best. Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Mongolia, Turkey, Britain (and how many resources did THEY have, smartass), France, Germany, Japan, Russia...all of them were on top, and lost it all because they didn't know how to BE on top. It's not by being the planet's bullying brother. It's by being inclusive -- by playing United States of the World. By giving other nations the same respect we give backwards lands like Kentucky. Or do you think we'll be able to get away with picking on much smaller nations with limited resources forever with no adverse reactions from the countries that might be able to do something about it?
So you argument is:
"We tried to help the Somalis, but some of them were thugs. You know, like some Americans are thugs back home, but the Police kind of take care of them most of the time. Anyway, because some of them are thugs, we had no choice but to bomb them into the stone age. You know, starting with factories and public buildings and private industries. I don't know why they're now pirates. Probably unrelated to our destruction of their means of producing consumable goods, and more related to those Somalis being thugs."
God I love America. Especially you jingoist homebody hawks -- "America must be the best 'cos I ain't never been nowhere else."
Quick analysis of republican jingo in this post:
Communism is bad: Check (diluted to "socialism is evil" and applied to non-socialist nations)
People are capable of helping themselves, so we shouldn't offer any assistance to them: Check (Love this defense, it's such "rape is the woman's fault" bullshit)
Liberals are bad people: Check
Association of poverty with barbarism: Check
"White Man's Burden" (civilize or die): Check
Accusation of impoverished nations being murderous: Check (Civillians killed by American troops post 9/11: Afghanistan, >3068. Irag, >5428)
BONUS! Off hand mention of the deaths of children to pull on our heartstrings: Check (hey if you care about kids so much, why not give them health insurance?)
General "We're right because we're big" rhetoric Check and double check.
God you guys are assholes.
What I saw was basically a take off of the program guide, with purchasable VOD on high channels. You could pick one program per channel, stop/pause/start/rewind, and got it checked out for a certain period of time.
If my memory serves correctly, and it always has before, it's exactly what MS talks about here, MINUS the "Managable sets" part of the patent. Which is poorly worded, anyway -- i mean, if you browse by category, you're not "selecting criteria," right? It's certainly not your "own customizable list". So basically, as long as you force people to use your method of organization a la the apple store, this patent doesn't apply to you.
Right lawdogs?
I *KNOW* TimeWarner has prior art on this. As in, WAY before October 1998. My dad, a Veep of Engineering at ATC cum TWC cum AOL, was demo'd VOD systems when I was in high school (1996). I know, because he was telling me how cool things were going to be, how DVD was going to revolutionize media, how digital cable was coming and addressable boxes were night, etc.
I seem to recall an online "public domain" film site in 1997 as well.
How MS got the patent worries me. They had NOTHING to do with the world of entertainment services until 98 or so...really, until Windows Media Player hit version 5 or so. They thought about offering the same thing that the addressable in my dad's media room had since the summer of 97...and had to market last year.
Unless, of course, the very nature of the GPL -- specifically, the limiting of liability, the promise of no support and no guarantees, the granting of ownership and responsibility to the users -- invalidates the possibiliy of pursuit. In which case, neither Nullsoft nor AOL has nothing to worry about...and the GPL will be propelled forward as the key to putting out grey market software.
One can dream...
Well, yeah. Apple will get this eventually. But considering this initiative is only about a month and a half old, they're doing their best.
Give them time, and your Asian Mans and Coup de Tats of the world will be listed right alongside the latest Sugar Ray trifle.
Kind of gives you hope for the future, dunnit?
Album pricing in retail outlets is absolute bullshit. When albums first come out, they're absurdly cheap, say $11-$13. New albums guaranteed to be popular are even cheaper, $8-$10. Once an album goes "out of style," they slowly raise the price as a sort of "archive fee." Indepedent artists and limited appeal artists -- I'm thinking of Stereolab and Elvis Costello -- are usually pulled up close to $20. It makes it more profitable on the off chance somebody actually buys the thing. Occasionally a popular older album is re-released as a "saver," then it's sold at $11 because it is a guaranteed draw. If it has anything new on it, it's a collecter's item and is up to $17=$20 again.
It's bullshit, because it assigns no value to the media or the music. It's all manipulation of the market economy...with price driving demand, perceived demand driving price, and supply completely ignored. I bought the latest Queens of the Stone Age CD at Borders the day it came out (at 9 am, ha) for $14. A week later when their radio track tore up the charts, the same edition (with neato free dvd) is selling for $9. Today, with their second single doing alright, but not great, it's selling for $16, no DVD. This is bullshit...you pay more for less, just because the band slipped a bit?
Maybe they should slip out one of the Mark Lanegan tracks on single and shoot that badboy back down to $12...
Not really. Think about mp3 downloads...for every two or three people content to download just the radio song, there seems to be one guy willing to pull down the whole album. A lot of music fans realize that albums have a different overall texture and sound than single songs -- and that there may be plenty of gems on the album that never make the radio (either because they're not cleared by A&R for promotion, or because they're not "clean").
If one out of every three downloaders grabs the whole album at $11, while the other 2 just get the single track, you're making $14. If you only make the single, you make $3. Albums are still the driving force...and those music lovers who get the whole pie are going to direct their friends to the great tracks they may have missed.
I currently use both emusic and Apple's store. I like them both. Emusic's great appeal is that, once you've paid your $20, you can just download anything. So with a fast broadband connection, there's no reason NOT to get anything that sounds even remotely interesting. Furthermore, they have a lot of music that's pretty much impossible to get anywhere...I'm thinking of Edan's full length album, a gem of Boston underground hip-hop which I ordered at two local record shops, neither of which ever got it in.
Of course, I've got pretty much every song I want on emusic at this point, so the pricetag is starting to weigh pretty heavy on me. Being able to download those tracks from Apple at comparable to higher quality, for $.99 or maybe a little less by album, is a viable and exciting alternative. Plus you get the cool album art, and just maybe they'll have the correct track names for Jiker's "An Eh for an Eh, a Toque for a Toque."
Or somebody with a new cell phone. Or your boss from the "After 5" exchange. Or your asshole best friend who dials *71 before calling you.
Now, if there were a law to force telemarketers and other solicitors to brand their phone numbers as such, we'd have no problems.
I just tell whoever it is that they called my cell phone. They apologize and hang up quick. Suckers.
What is this, the dark ages?
There was a time docking stations were useful, but in today's world of wireless ethernet, firewire hard drives and what have you, all you EVER need is a 12" PowerBook.
Lucky for you they can be had under $1500 (with your student discount of course).
One of the clever things Apple did was only allow a discount for "complete" albums. So if an album is more than 15 tracks, sometimes they'll leave out an intro or the radio song. Gross profit $5 greater.
Diabolical!
Not necessarily. "Parternerships" were a problem in the past, but Apple has the clout to get labels to play ball without them. Apple is a HUGE name in the recording industry, everybody's got a mac; how many hip hop tracks reference Apple or pro tools? Apparently, they have labels waiting in the wings to get apple-fied and on the service.
And why not? Transworld Music competes with Virgin and Tower, sometimes in the same mall, and they all have copies of the latest Fitty Cent treacle. No reason online delivery shouldn't get the same treatment.
1) KaZaa, MX, &tc are full of hassles, including:
These are a pain in the ass that didn't used to exist to such a high degree in file "sharing" and they've spoiled the experience for a lot of people. Hunting for some of the really good obscure shit I like to listen to has become such a hassle that I far prefer Apple's music service.
2) The whole idea behind P2p was it was supposed to turn you on to new artists and broaden your horizons. In my experience, it's the web (forums, internet radio, weblogs, etc) that do a better job of that...so it makes sense that music downloading should be tied to it. Which message would you prefer:
You gotta check out this MC kris track, it's called booba fet or something, look for it on kazaa.
or
You gotta check out this mc Kris track, click here.
A pay-for-play music service allows that kind of ease of linking with music that is cheap, easy to find, always available, ships for free, has no clicks of pops, bears full id3 tags and album art, whatever. It's finally a new way to use music, and not just an extension of a CD culture.
And yeah, it's cool that the artists I like will get some cash, too. But then again, most of them have been on emusic for years...
Maybe. But if I pay to get into a club, that doesn't mean I can steal drinks and it doesn't mean I can wreck the bathroom. I paid to go to college and couldn't disrupt classes. And it could be argued by a really clever lawyer that this sort of hacking deprives other people of their rights and property.
Anyway, I'm sure it violates some draconian EULA. Way back when I beta'd for Everquest; the EULA/NDA was 5 pages long and prevented us from manipulating bugs for "profit" or talking about them to other players outside of the game. I can't imagine the release license is much kinder