Here's what the music industry needs to do to get my business (my apologies to Braveheart):
They should pay ME to use their service. They should then apologize and beg the forgiveness of every musician they've ever ripped off. They should then bend over backwards and kiss their own asses.
Man, that fucking tin container is COOL.:) I brillo-pad them down to just shiny aluminum and find alternative uses for them. I dunno what to do with the CD, though..
You know, I keep hearing that "oh, he's just a paid person, following orders, it's not his fault" argument all the time...
You know, all those Germans in WWII were "just following orders" at the point of a gun. In America, if you don't agree with the morality of the company you work for, you can quit and find another job.
I don't buy "It's just my job" bullshit, although I hate my job, too. If the company in question found it hard to find workers, then they'd have to increase wages or start modifying their behavior to attract employees, even of the lowest type...
I dunno, SP3 fucked my machine in a big way. Could not get wireless up (error message something about not enough resources.. on a dual PIII 750 w/512 megs RAM, and no hardware changes upon install). The good news was that SP3 was neatly add in add/remove software, which I used, and everything is now back to normal.
I've dropped 30+ pounds in the last 3 months. Having $60k in debt (student loans, car note, credit cards) and a shit-paying job (still in school) have caused me to go on the "I can't afford food" diet. My day goes like: Wake up, go to school, eat a sandwich, go to work. If I'm feeling particularly hungry, I eat another sandwich or take a nap.
Yes'sir, being poor has been the best "diet" ever.
Also figure into your analysis this: I can go to a variety of places, say Hollywood or Blockbuster and RENT the movie for a very reasonable price. How many places will let you do that with an audio CD?
Most places get pissed off if you OPEN the goddamn thing.
Yep. And as soon as your ass enlists and is willing to put it "on the line", I won't even give your opinion the time of day. It's SOOOO fucking easy to say "Let's send in the troops!" when you're sitting behind a goddamn keyboard. But when you're hauling a 50 pound rucksack, getting eaten alive by tropical bugs, fighting crotch-rot, wielding a rifle, getting your ass shot at because you're there to stop someone from making a living, it's a whole different ballgame.
Didn't mean to nitpick. It's just that there's a *system* wide problem that most people don't realize is there. This is also one of the reasons I buy direct from indie record labels whenever possible, because I figure if I'm going to pay $12-15 for a CD, I want the label/artist to get as much of it as possible.
I know my friends bands usually pay, say, $1.25 for a 7", with all the trimmings, and they sell that to the distributors for $2, but sell the same 7" at shows for $3 or $4, almost doubling their profit. Of course they prefer to sell at shows, but then again, distributors can sometimes move the product in numbers (more volume == more money) and they don't have to haul around as much merch on the road. There's a tradeoff involved.
I guess in conclusion, I tend to buy my stuff 1) at the show, if possible, first, 2) from the local indie record store (who does a lot of business direct with labels and bands) 3) from the actual indie label itself (2 and 3 are interchangeable for convenience), and then Amazon.com.:)
:: staring at a linux desktop, wondering what all the hubbub about MS monopolies is all about::
The MS "trial" was a farce. A bunch of politicians got greedy and want some of that 40bil they have stashed away. No one has ever twisted your arm to use MS products (your computer at work is not yours, friend, unless you're a contractor or whatever. Most people use what you give them to use. Talk to the head of IT for the *real* culprits. And because of OEM's insistence of "price cutting", they deal with MS only for the price cuts they get, etc).
I'm still completely unsure as to what MS was actually find guilty of. "for maintaining a monopoly and discouraging competition..." What? what does that mean? It means provide/convince your customers you have a better product? You have a better price point? Have a better marketing department? As long as those customers bought MS's product willingly, then where's the beef? There is none. It's a bunch of small companies (and MS was a small company, once upon a time) whining that they didn't win the battle for the desktop (and who even said that battle was even FINISHED yet? Again, I'm looking at a linux desktop...) The "evidence" against MS is rather.. stupid. MS is doing what *all* businesses do: compete. They're better at it than most. And then they're penalized for doing what the very NATURE of business requires them to do. What do you want MS to do, roll over and hand over all their assets to "smaller" companies who may or may not be a better "manager" of the technology? It really is like including a bottle of Pepsi with every 6 pack of Coca-Cola. The OEM's that lock themselves into agreements with MS to their own detriment know what they're getting into. They may claim MS bullied them into that position, but the fact is, they still signed the papers.
Folks, there is no "MS" monopoly and I hate to break it to you. The marketshare MS has built is rapidly going to disentigrate. Like the RIAA and MPAA, MS has decided that it's very customers are all criminals, and how long will people put up with that? How many more BSA audits will business be willing to suffer through, letting their work pile up while "auditors" snoop through their files, looking for "illegal software?" (Indeed, how much lost "productivity" occurs when the BSA comes to town?) How many calls to MS to get your computer to let you access *your* data will you put up with before you say "to hell with them?" (Just think if.NET succeeds in making all their software "subscription" based. Need WORD? Sure, here's the rental fee. BTW, we saved that as a proprietary binary format, you have to use WORD or our approved-for-subscribors licensed writer to read your data and the DMCA prohibits you from reverse-engineering the format... Do you think Fortune 500 companies will put up with that?) Indeed, someone needs to write an XP specific virus that magically "turns on the WPA" so that the user is locked out of his system and has to call tech support to get his system back up. MS is slowly destroying itself in an attempt to retain "growth". It's a desperate flail and the DOJ has nothing to do about it.
Scream and whine, MS has no monopoly. I don't use it, you don't have to, either (well, there are some tools (video/graphics) there that currently have no real good alternative on another OS.. but that's really not MS's fault, is it?). And for you "dual-booters", do you really *have* to play games?
If you don't like MS, don't buy MS. If you have to use it at work and you dont like it, work to become the CTO/CIO and get it out of there. If you own your own business, don't buy MS. Tell your vendors that if they want to do business with you, use RTF or plain old ASCII. Give a presentation to your Finacials guys about how switching to Linux or BSD or whatever will *save* the company money.
Really, folks, come on. I use Win2K, as well, and it's not really bad (I refuse to buy XP). I just happen to love UNIX and will sell it every chance I get (without being a snob about it). But I most certainly would not turn down a job offer from MS, because business exist to provide services to their customers, and there is more than one OS provider out there. How can you fault MS for trying to convince people they have the better solution?
And, finally, do you not realize that forcing MS to release the source code will *destroy* linux and other UNICES? The best thing for Open Source is the fact that MS keeps it's code proprietary. There is probably a 100 to 1 developer ratio from MS to *NIX. Do you not think those 100 developers would *love* to find and squash MS bugs to make it not just a popular OS, but a *GOOD* OS? Think of all the security bugs they can work out. I thought the idea was to get people to move away from MS? Would everything be "Hunky Dory" if MS switched to an opensource model for it's OS? What would you complain about? MS would still have it's marketing machine, and now you wouldn't have any real excuse to bash them. Look at their security focus. Friends, MS has 40 billion in the bank. If they want to make security 100%, I think they have the funds to completely revamp their security model and not even *blink*. All the virus hubbub over the past couple years has forced them to take security seriously. Soon, if they are indeed earnest about it, you'll forget about the "buffer-overflow" problems of today. And of other "silly exploits." It's like Japan during WWII. MS is the dragon being awoke.
Let MS continue on their path of destruction. We'll cope.
How about: go outside. Get offline. Find a new line of work. Whatever. There's more to life than broadband/dial-up. Go make your own money and open up your own ISP and charge whatever the hell you want. If the local providers are "in bed" together and pricefix, then you can bet your sweet ass there will lots of other consumers waiting to get out from the price yoke and come swarming your way.
Re:The industry makes me so mad because I want to
on
CDs Want To Be Free
·
· Score: 1
Hrm. We should coin a new term. The "Copyright Defense-Industrial Complex." Bear with me.
The RIAA is making a killing by setting the MSRP at $18.99 for CD's. Granted, they don't get all the money, but they make a huge pile.
Well, like MS, they accumulate huge piles of money. Also, like MS, politicians start eyeing that pile and start wondering why no one is "sharing" by contributing to their political parties campaign funds, so they start threatening "legal actions." So, the RIAA has to do *something* with that money to make it look like they make less.
First, they scream piracy. "Look at the billions we're losing!" hoping that no one notices the billions they're raking in.
Second, they invest in Copy Protection R&D, in the expectations that people will buy into their "piracy" conspiracy. This is real, cold, hard cash. Millions that they can then write-off somehow (I'm sure there are plenty of well-paid accountants that can justify it somehow legally), but that's millions that don't show up in the bottom line so they can say "Look what piracy has made us do! Spend money!". Etc.
So, to hide money, they spend money, scream alot, and hope no one really notices that they're actually spending $18.99, or 2-3 hours of their wages on some "artist" (I really dare anyone to really apply that word to N*SYNC, BSBoys, Britney Spears, etc) that they just have to have.
All kidding aside, though:
The fact is, the RIAA charges 18.99 because people for some stupid reason *pay* 18.99. I've never paid that for a single CD (although I did pay 22.99 for a Rolling Stones 2 CD set, on sale), but that doesn't stop millions of others. Personally, this has all been beat to death and I've been limiting myself to supporting smaller artists (that I really really like) on labels such as Sympathy for the Record Industry, Dischord, etc etc. While you probably won't find any of that "neu-metal-rap" crap that people like for some reason on any of these labels, you may find something *genuinely* good.
Actually, $16 of the $18 is NOT record company profit. You've generally got at least 2 middlemen in there, so you progressively go from , say, $5 manufacturer (record company), $7.50 to the middleman distributor, $10 for distributer #2, then $18. Those numbers are fictional, but the point is, more than one person is making the money here, but that still does not change the fact that the artist makes less than any of them.
Re:"In a related story...
on
KaZaA Collapses
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
The only ELJ I ever got was bundled in a plastic bag "promotion" with a Linux Journal. I liked it, alot, and have always been on the lookout for it on the newstand at Barnes & Nobles. I've never, ever seen it. I guess that that issue was a "test" run to see if there was a market. I certainly would have bought it regularly (like I do LJ and LM) had it been available. I know that's not ELJ's fault (I probably could've requested it), but I certainly never saw any advertising for the magazine, either.
Oh well.
On another note, is The Perl Journal back in publication?
Great! I appreciate the advice. I indeed have already had Discrete and am planning to take a few more math courses (Linear Algebra, Intro Probability/QUeueing). I'd already assumed more statistics.:) The rest looks rather fun.
With Phylogenetics, is that intra-populational roles in population dynamics or inter-populational roles between species (or neither)? I covered some of the latter in an ecological anthropology course (9 more for a BA in ANthro and Hist, just need to take.. spanish and literature...). SOunds like fun fun work, something I'd dig.
No, this is more akin to "thread hijacking" in the Forum world. RMS has every "right" to demand I call it GNU/Linux before he will speak to me, just as I have every "right" to demand for him to suck my cock before I speak to me. Doing so doesn't make it right, moral, or otherwise.
Communism is corrupt from the ground up. See Ayn Rand for clarification on this.
I have backed up my statements. You say I have a moral obligation? Prove it.
And maybe I should have used Jesus Christ instead of Communism. Jesus says you should share. I think Jesus should get fucked.
Slashdot Mirror
No, because the software worked as the programmer designed it. The communication process of the development was flawed, not the code.
Here's what the music industry needs to do to get my business (my apologies to Braveheart):
They should pay ME to use their service. They should then apologize and beg the forgiveness of every musician they've ever ripped off. They should then bend over backwards and kiss their own asses.
sorry.
Stop right there.
If you continue with that line of reasoning, someone's gonna demand that it be called SGML/XML.
Grr.
Man, that fucking tin container is COOL. :) I brillo-pad them down to just shiny aluminum and find alternative uses for them. I dunno what to do with the CD, though..
You know, I keep hearing that "oh, he's just a paid person, following orders, it's not his fault" argument all the time...
You know, all those Germans in WWII were "just following orders" at the point of a gun. In America, if you don't agree with the morality of the company you work for, you can quit and find another job.
I don't buy "It's just my job" bullshit, although I hate my job, too. If the company in question found it hard to find workers, then they'd have to increase wages or start modifying their behavior to attract employees, even of the lowest type...
dammit.. preview.. dammit.. they have the COOL keys. /. editor now.
Grrr.
Maybe I can be a
To get them now, in the US: dynamism
:P Personally, I want the Panasonic they've (dynamism) got, as it has the cook hira/katakana keys. :)
Japan has such the coolest shit.
Hrm, I had an acquaintence who, in 1993, offered to sell me a Russian RPG for $150. $20/reload.
I quit hanging around that crowd after that.
I dunno, SP3 fucked my machine in a big way. Could not get wireless up (error message something about not enough resources.. on a dual PIII 750 w/512 megs RAM, and no hardware changes upon install). The good news was that SP3 was neatly add in add/remove software, which I used, and everything is now back to normal.
Herbs grow rather readily in most environments. Try setting up a small herb garden in your backyard or in a planter box outside your kitchen window.
:)
Please don't grow the, uh, "other" herb that will get you thrown in jail, though.
/* Well, maybe you're more l33t than me, but when it asks me if I want to fix inode xxx my questions often are: */
You forgot one:
4. What the fuck is an inode?
well, if you must know:
I've dropped 30+ pounds in the last 3 months. Having $60k in debt (student loans, car note, credit cards) and a shit-paying job (still in school) have caused me to go on the "I can't afford food" diet. My day goes like: Wake up, go to school, eat a sandwich, go to work. If I'm feeling particularly hungry, I eat another sandwich or take a nap.
Yes'sir, being poor has been the best "diet" ever.
Also figure into your analysis this: I can go to a variety of places, say Hollywood or Blockbuster and RENT the movie for a very reasonable price. How many places will let you do that with an audio CD?
Most places get pissed off if you OPEN the goddamn thing.
Yep. And as soon as your ass enlists and is willing to put it "on the line", I won't even give your opinion the time of day. It's SOOOO fucking easy to say "Let's send in the troops!" when you're sitting behind a goddamn keyboard. But when you're hauling a 50 pound rucksack, getting eaten alive by tropical bugs, fighting crotch-rot, wielding a rifle, getting your ass shot at because you're there to stop someone from making a living, it's a whole different ballgame.
Didn't mean to nitpick. It's just that there's a *system* wide problem that most people don't realize is there. This is also one of the reasons I buy direct from indie record labels whenever possible, because I figure if I'm going to pay $12-15 for a CD, I want the label/artist to get as much of it as possible.
:)
I know my friends bands usually pay, say, $1.25 for a 7", with all the trimmings, and they sell that to the distributors for $2, but sell the same 7" at shows for $3 or $4, almost doubling their profit. Of course they prefer to sell at shows, but then again, distributors can sometimes move the product in numbers (more volume == more money) and they don't have to haul around as much merch on the road. There's a tradeoff involved.
I guess in conclusion, I tend to buy my stuff 1) at the show, if possible, first, 2) from the local indie record store (who does a lot of business direct with labels and bands) 3) from the actual indie label itself (2 and 3 are interchangeable for convenience), and then Amazon.com.
I don't even agree that MS has a "monopoly".
::
.NET succeeds in making all their software "subscription" based. Need WORD? Sure, here's the rental fee. BTW, we saved that as a proprietary binary format, you have to use WORD or our approved-for-subscribors licensed writer to read your data and the DMCA prohibits you from reverse-engineering the format... Do you think Fortune 500 companies will put up with that?) Indeed, someone needs to write an XP specific virus that magically "turns on the WPA" so that the user is locked out of his system and has to call tech support to get his system back up. MS is slowly destroying itself in an attempt to retain "growth". It's a desperate flail and the DOJ has nothing to do about it.
:: staring at a linux desktop, wondering what all the hubbub about MS monopolies is all about
The MS "trial" was a farce. A bunch of politicians got greedy and want some of that 40bil they have stashed away. No one has ever twisted your arm to use MS products (your computer at work is not yours, friend, unless you're a contractor or whatever. Most people use what you give them to use. Talk to the head of IT for the *real* culprits. And because of OEM's insistence of "price cutting", they deal with MS only for the price cuts they get, etc).
I'm still completely unsure as to what MS was actually find guilty of. "for maintaining a monopoly and discouraging competition..."
What?
what does that mean?
It means provide/convince your customers you have a better product? You have a better price point? Have a better marketing department? As long as those customers bought MS's product willingly, then where's the beef? There is none. It's a bunch of small companies (and MS was a small company, once upon a time) whining that they didn't win the battle for the desktop (and who even said that battle was even FINISHED yet? Again, I'm looking at a linux desktop...) The "evidence" against MS is rather.. stupid. MS is doing what *all* businesses do: compete. They're better at it than most. And then they're penalized for doing what the very NATURE of business requires them to do. What do you want MS to do, roll over and hand over all their assets to "smaller" companies who may or may not be a better "manager" of the technology? It really is like including a bottle of Pepsi with every 6 pack of Coca-Cola. The OEM's that lock themselves into agreements with MS to their own detriment know what they're getting into. They may claim MS bullied them into that position, but the fact is, they still signed the papers.
Folks, there is no "MS" monopoly and I hate to break it to you. The marketshare MS has built is rapidly going to disentigrate. Like the RIAA and MPAA, MS has decided that it's very customers are all criminals, and how long will people put up with that? How many more BSA audits will business be willing to suffer through, letting their work pile up while "auditors" snoop through their files, looking for "illegal software?" (Indeed, how much lost "productivity" occurs when the BSA comes to town?) How many calls to MS to get your computer to let you access *your* data will you put up with before you say "to hell with them?" (Just think if
Scream and whine, MS has no monopoly. I don't use it, you don't have to, either (well, there are some tools (video/graphics) there that currently have no real good alternative on another OS.. but that's really not MS's fault, is it?). And for you "dual-booters", do you really *have* to play games?
If you don't like MS, don't buy MS. If you have to use it at work and you dont like it, work to become the CTO/CIO and get it out of there. If you own your own business, don't buy MS. Tell your vendors that if they want to do business with you, use RTF or plain old ASCII. Give a presentation to your Finacials guys about how switching to Linux or BSD or whatever will *save* the company money.
Really, folks, come on. I use Win2K, as well, and it's not really bad (I refuse to buy XP). I just happen to love UNIX and will sell it every chance I get (without being a snob about it). But I most certainly would not turn down a job offer from MS, because business exist to provide services to their customers, and there is more than one OS provider out there. How can you fault MS for trying to convince people they have the better solution?
And, finally, do you not realize that forcing MS to release the source code will *destroy* linux and other UNICES? The best thing for Open Source is the fact that MS keeps it's code proprietary. There is probably a 100 to 1 developer ratio from MS to *NIX. Do you not think those 100 developers would *love* to find and squash MS bugs to make it not just a popular OS, but a *GOOD* OS? Think of all the security bugs they can work out. I thought the idea was to get people to move away from MS? Would everything be "Hunky Dory" if MS switched to an opensource model for it's OS? What would you complain about? MS would still have it's marketing machine, and now you wouldn't have any real excuse to bash them. Look at their security focus. Friends, MS has 40 billion in the bank. If they want to make security 100%, I think they have the funds to completely revamp their security model and not even *blink*. All the virus hubbub over the past couple years has forced them to take security seriously. Soon, if they are indeed earnest about it, you'll forget about the "buffer-overflow" problems of today. And of other "silly exploits." It's like Japan during WWII. MS is the dragon being awoke.
Let MS continue on their path of destruction. We'll cope.
Force?
How about:
go outside. Get offline. Find a new line of work. Whatever. There's more to life than broadband/dial-up. Go make your own money and open up your own ISP and charge whatever the hell you want. If the local providers are "in bed" together and pricefix, then you can bet your sweet ass there will lots of other consumers waiting to get out from the price yoke and come swarming your way.
Hrm. We should coin a new term. The "Copyright Defense-Industrial Complex." Bear with me.
The RIAA is making a killing by setting the MSRP at $18.99 for CD's. Granted, they don't get all the money, but they make a huge pile.
Well, like MS, they accumulate huge piles of money. Also, like MS, politicians start eyeing that pile and start wondering why no one is "sharing" by contributing to their political parties campaign funds, so they start threatening "legal actions." So, the RIAA has to do *something* with that money to make it look like they make less.
First, they scream piracy. "Look at the billions we're losing!" hoping that no one notices the billions they're raking in.
Second, they invest in Copy Protection R&D, in the expectations that people will buy into their "piracy" conspiracy. This is real, cold, hard cash. Millions that they can then write-off somehow (I'm sure there are plenty of well-paid accountants that can justify it somehow legally), but that's millions that don't show up in the bottom line so they can say "Look what piracy has made us do! Spend money!". Etc.
So, to hide money, they spend money, scream alot, and hope no one really notices that they're actually spending $18.99, or 2-3 hours of their wages on some "artist" (I really dare anyone to really apply that word to N*SYNC, BSBoys, Britney Spears, etc) that they just have to have.
All kidding aside, though:
The fact is, the RIAA charges 18.99 because people for some stupid reason *pay* 18.99. I've never paid that for a single CD (although I did pay 22.99 for a Rolling Stones 2 CD set, on sale), but that doesn't stop millions of others. Personally, this has all been beat to death and I've been limiting myself to supporting smaller artists (that I really really like) on labels such as Sympathy for the Record Industry, Dischord, etc etc. While you probably won't find any of that "neu-metal-rap" crap that people like for some reason on any of these labels, you may find something *genuinely* good.
Actually, $16 of the $18 is NOT record company profit. You've generally got at least 2 middlemen in there, so you progressively go from , say, $5 manufacturer (record company), $7.50 to the middleman distributor, $10 for distributer #2, then $18. Those numbers are fictional, but the point is, more than one person is making the money here, but that still does not change the fact that the artist makes less than any of them.
Um.. how about using FTP?
The only ELJ I ever got was bundled in a plastic bag "promotion" with a Linux Journal. I liked it, alot, and have always been on the lookout for it on the newstand at Barnes & Nobles. I've never, ever seen it. I guess that that issue was a "test" run to see if there was a market. I certainly would have bought it regularly (like I do LJ and LM) had it been available. I know that's not ELJ's fault (I probably could've requested it), but I certainly never saw any advertising for the magazine, either.
Oh well.
On another note, is The Perl Journal back in publication?
Great! I appreciate the advice. I indeed have already had Discrete and am planning to take a few more math courses (Linear Algebra, Intro Probability/QUeueing). I'd already assumed more statistics. :) The rest looks rather fun.
With Phylogenetics, is that intra-populational roles in population dynamics or inter-populational roles between species (or neither)? I covered some of the latter in an ecological anthropology course (9 more for a BA in ANthro and Hist, just need to take.. spanish and literature...). SOunds like fun fun work, something I'd dig.
No, this is more akin to "thread hijacking" in the Forum world. RMS has every "right" to demand I call it GNU/Linux before he will speak to me, just as I have every "right" to demand for him to suck my cock before I speak to me. Doing so doesn't make it right, moral, or otherwise.
Communism is corrupt from the ground up. See Ayn Rand for clarification on this.
I have backed up my statements. You say I have a moral obligation? Prove it.
And maybe I should have used Jesus Christ instead of Communism. Jesus says you should share. I think Jesus should get fucked.
Yeah, I did that purposefully. :)
Please point out where I ask why he should sue IBM? Or please point out where I ask why he should sue anyone?
RMS's morality is about as corrupt as Communism, another "sharing is caring" philosophy/political system. I don't have to share. Period.