Of course, if a company could guarantee (via a legally binding membership agreement) that they wouldn't spam you or sell/give your name/habits to other people/companies/governments, people would be more willing to use the service, making life easier for both company and consumer.
Because so many girls in china are aborted, killed at birth, or abandoned, there already is a huge discrepancy in gender there. Which is making things very difficult for men in China. They've taken to seeking wives out of the country quite often. I suppose women have no trouble finding a mate, but it may be that they are excessively coveted and pushed into politicized marriages as a result. I suppose the easiest way for the gov't to take care of the excess male population is to go to war, killing some and letting the rest steal/rape women.
Boo fucking hoo. They screwed themselves with their gender bias - the one child policy was just a catalyst. The Chinese government routinely screws over their people, but this time it's really the people's fault (won't stop 'em from blaming outsiders as usual though, I bet).
Heh. Perhaps there should be a finite limit on the number of laws on the books. You want to pass a new one, you got to revoke an old one.
Actually, that would only make things worse. Most federal bills are chock-full of riders (unlike some states i.e. Texas which explicitly require that bills not address multiple issues), so we'd just see the number of those increase. And theres a good chance good laws could be knocked off the books. A better solution would be mandatory sunset provisions for all laws except perhaps constitutionaly amendments, to encourage re-evaluation.
Re:Movies coming true at last!!!!
on
ULTra Robo-Taxi
·
· Score: 2
No, this is more like Logan's Run. Woo Hoo! Bring on the Tunnel of Love! Oh shit, wait, I've only got 4 years before carnaval then.
As somebody once said, I don't want to have a toolbox filled with tools for all my jobs, I want a hammer that does all my jobs. Specialized codecs are a pain because at best you have to think about which one to choose, and at worst you have to compare a bunch of them to pick the best one, which may or may not be available. People want one codec that does the job best at all levels.
Nothing in the Ktech codec profiles suggested that they couldn't be adapted to higher quality stuff, which after all is easier to do right than the low bitrate performers. Their still image compressor can handle lossless, too.
Ah, but most people don't own MP3 players, and what does it matter which format you use if you're only ripping your own CDs? Your early adopter syndrome is your own problem.
Besides, you can always re-encode your downloaded music into mp3.
BTW, the iPod was also designed to handle multiple formats. The next generation of firmware that comes out alongside Quicktime 6 whould handle the.aac format, for instance, which is better than mp3. No reason they couldn't do kts.
Nonsense. Bandwidth will always be a problem. No matter how much bandwidth you add, no matter how big you make your highways, no matter how much oil you drill, people will always use as much as you make, even if it means wasting it or creating enough traffic to degrade the whole thing. There is no substitute for efficiency. A better license can compensate for inferior technology to only a minor degree.
Episode 23, Hot Springs Tenrei, was never aired on Japanese TV in the first place. (Neither was that other one). It was a bonus episode on the video release. As such, the content was adhering to OVA standards rather than TV standards, which allowed it to get away with a lot more than it would have otherwise. Anime companies do this all the time to boost the video sales of TV shows, by giving the fans something new, and frequently smutty.
Ha! We hardly even HAVE a passenger train system. Our air travel system, OTOH, is saturated and a complete nightmare to use. Because America is so spread out, the only transportation that actually works here is the car, even with all it's problems. Well, we may yet get decent public transportation in the big cities, but it will be hard to get there.
Re:Why porn today sucks, and what to do about it
on
I STILL Want My HDTV
·
· Score: 2
I suppose I should have said "demand among women who have actually heard about it, which is pretty few here in the US." Yaoi (and Shonen Ai, which is related but not exactly the same) are both japanese terms for particular subgenres. Some of it is Hentai (roughly meaning sexually explicit or perverse) but apparently it is the romantic and erotic aspects which hold the most appeal. Doujinshi are fan-produced manga (comics). Generally any shoujo manga (manga for girls) that involves Bishounen (literally pretty boys) will have at least a little homosexual subtext. In any case, the market for this stuff, and the artists, are mostly women. Here in the US there's a small but vocal group of appreciators, who are again mostly women. The way I figure it, just as men get a kick out of heterosexually-oriented lesbianism in porn (which is largely made for men), women get a kick out of this heterosexually-oriented homosexuality in erotica (which is mostly made for women). Presumably these both exist for similar reasons.
Here's a good link: http://mooncalf.rydia.net/blogness/archives/000000 06.html Admittedly there's a lot more to this - Japanese sexual culture is kind of wacky.
Speaking personally, I've known a number of women who get a kick out of watching gay men having sex, or hanging with gay people. You know, fag hags, fruit flies, whatever. Admittedly I know a lot of freaky people, but there really seems to be a lot of them out there to me.
Well, maybe that means makeup artists will get better. Or people will become more accepting of physical flaws. Or cameras, lighting, and camerawork will get better so we don't need makeup most of the time. Or flawed real actors will be replaced by perfect digital ones sooner.
I fail to see how my tendency to spend as little money for the most product is any less moral than industries tendency to get as much profit for the least product. I'm simply treating them with as much respect as they treat me. And I find it hard to take copyright law seriously lately, which industry has been litigizing and lobbying into their favor, away from its original purpose of promoting the progress of science and the useful arts.
The entertainment industry does not owe me entertainment. (The world doesn't owe me anything, nor I it.) But neither are they owed control over their immaterial creations.
The locals pay $0 for most of their anime, since it's on TV. Incidentally, 15% of $0 is also $0. I would have no problem paying that.
Nor would I wouldn't mind spending slightly more for anime when it does cost (movies and OVAs), in the relevant context. That is, if I can see it in the theater or rent it. I hardly ever watch anything more than once, so there's never any point in me buying the videos.
Oh wait... you mean to say there ARE no anime movies in the theaters, except perhaps a few arthouse releases in big cities? That the only anime videos at my local rental locations are a couple of the best films, hentai, pokemon, and a handful of ancient titles? And that all the anime that is on TV is heavily edited and dubbed? Hmm. So, should I watch anime a week or two after it comes out with good fansubs and decent quality, or wait years for the same title to come out edited for my protection with crappy dubbing and dubtitles. What to do, what to do...
What people so often fail to appreciate is that "the market" is about more than just the price. Companies are free to let their actuaries pick prices for the maximum possible profits, and take as long as they want to do so, but the more people they leave out in the cold the more people are going to find ways to get it at prices they WILL pay. That's why black markets happen. And it the companies weren't so busy maximizing their profit equations, and instead charged at a fair price accessible to all, no one would bother to create the markets that undermine their carefully calculated strategies.
Re:The real problem, no smaller HDTV's offered
on
I STILL Want My HDTV
·
· Score: 2
Thank you for pointing that out. What the videophiles fail to appreciate is that many people either have little money or would prefer not to build their lives around a complex home theater. Or both, in my case. Frankly, the widescreen aspect is the most appealing part of HDTV to me.
Why porn today sucks, and what to do about it
on
I STILL Want My HDTV
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Porn today sucks. It's boring. Like any other vicarious form of entertainment, it requires suspension of disbelief for it to be enjoyed. But with the lousy acting, directing, stories - and pretty much everything else - there's plenty of disbelief. Hell, with all the fake tits, formulaic scenes, and uninspired moaning they can't even make the sex believable. To say nothing of the offensive levels of sexism (contrary to popular belief porn is not inherently sexist), or numerous other factors. All it is is people screwing on camera for money.
All the more reason for the real networks and producers to get involved. Porn IS the killer app. Demand for porn is nearly universal among men, and if they bothered to work on the stories they could make it appealing to women too. One need look no further than the demand for Yaoi Doujinshi among women to see that this is true. There's money to be made, and Hollywood has more than enough of it. They certainly pay the actors enough. At an Indecent Proposal sum of one million dollars per episode each, I don't see why every episode of Friends DOESN'T have a different permutation of the cast members gettin' it on, culminating with an orgy in the series finale.
Can you imagine how much better porn could be with real acting, a hefty production budget, and a schedule based on weeks rather than days? I can. It's time to stop burying softcore smut on the premium channels, and bring porn to prime time.
The situation is similar for anime here in the US. Rather than waiting years for a particular show or movie to show up (IF it shows up) in the US, independent groups of fans capture, subtitle, and distribute them for free.
They generally dub to high bitrate and high resolution DivX files, which are viewable on most any computer that has the processing power for it, but still not the same as doing it on TV. The quality of the subtitles has also become increasingly good - even professional - over the years. Of course these are watchable for anyone that speaks english, and there are other groups who work with other languages too. In fact the most difficult part is the trading and distribution of these files, which is pretty haphazard and often results in corrupted files since there is no error checking and correction, and the fact that you watch them on the computer rather than the TV (which is acceptable to many).
So the moral of the story is? TV, movie, and video producers - get your asses together and make your products available to anyone and everyone in the world at the same price simultaneously (within a week of each other), or quit your bitching. It ain't piracy if it ain't available in the first place. And if you don't want to put money into a translation, give people some way to add independent subs/dubs to it.
I stand corrected. I wouldn't have thought it possible they could pull off a live performance. Guess I should have checked. Wierd. Well, it sounds like they should still work on it some, particularly for encores - if you're gonna perform you gotta have flexibility. And perhaps maybe the spectacle should go beyond one screen (multiple screens?)
That's not entirely true - there is music that exists without musicians or bands per se, and can only be appreciated via recordings. Soundtracks and scores may never be played outside of the show, except in recording. Live performances cannot be repeated but they can be recorded. And there are even a few virtual bands/artists (Gorillaz comes to mind) that live in records and music videos, but no where else.
It's not that I don't think that we wouldn't be better off if musicians earned their money exclusively through performance, rather than recordings and radio. It's just that there are exceptions to that method. In addition to some music, many artistic works (Films, TV, print, etc.) can not be performed but only recorded. Figuring out a way for the artists to make a living while the art is freely reproducible in those cases is the more important problem.
Everyone here is right. The current resolution and color space of digital is insufficient - but it can be improved with new/better technology. Those digital projectors are expensive - but those prints are even more expensive.
What really matters is that distribution of digital films could be an IMMENSE improvement over the existing network. There would be no limits on where, or when, or how many screens a film could be shown. Everyone could show a hot film on opening night. Theaters could adjust the number of screens they're showing their films on at will. Staggered worldwide release of films due to limited prints would be a thing of the past (the sole reason for the evil DVD region coding). Older films could be re-shown at will, without worrying about coordination. Instead of renting a copy of a film at a set price, theaters could pay based on seats sold/available, eliminating discrimination between large and small venues - indeed, leading to a trend towards theaters with more, but smaller screens for increased flexibility, and greater intimacy when desired - including private, on-demand screenings. Who needs a home theater when you can have the real thing?
In short, going to the movies could be a lot more fun for the fans, and more efficient for the theaters and studios.
Hell yeah, we should go digital. And the studios should be paying for it. They stand to benefit in a big way.
While The Critic (along with many other shows) certainly suits Adult Swim, this is the first I've heard about them actually picking it up. They're already playing late nights on Comedy Central. Where'd you hear this?
Yea verily, there is a place for canceled animated satire. It is called Adult Swim, and it is on Cartoon Network on Sundays, and already it has become a home for Baby Blues, Home Movies, Mission Hill, and the Oblongs. Unfortunately...
1) Cartoon Network is part of Time-Warner, which isn't on good terms with Fox. (Same problem with Comedy Central though).
2) Cartoon Network and Adult Swim are not well known with the mainstream adult audience, although they should be.
3) Cartoon Network doesn't have the cash for expensive shows, hence their reliance on low budget original shows and syndicated cancelled ones. They could afford to pick up existing Futurama episodes, but probably not make new ones.
Even if FOTR misses out there are still two more movies on the way. I wonder how that will effect things? Considering that they were filmed together and were never really meant to be considered separately, it seems almost silly to award them individually. What if FOTR does get best picture (or if it doesn't)? How will that bias the attitudes towards The Two Towers and The Return of the King, when they come out? As it stands now I can predict that the same nominations and wins will be EXPECTED for these films when they come out due to the similarity. Otherwise it will just seem wierd.
Of course this is an exceptional situation - I can't think of any other film sagas that were so tightly integrated in production and story. If I were the academy, this is where I'd start considering some sort of special award for the saga as a whole in '04.
As much as we all malign advertising, it does on rare occasions enlighten us about things worth spending our time and money on, and even entertains in its own right. The problem is, most of the time it's trying to sell us on a slew of competing-but-otherwise-identical products, or just plain crap, and it's frequently irritating. The bigger problem is, people listen to the advertising and waste their time and money on a lot of unnecessary and crappy products, which is why they keep making them. The biggest problem is that our consumerist economy depends on us buying all this crap, to a certain large degree. How much of what you buy do you really use and really need? Not a whole lot really. It's wasteful, but it keeps the economy moving and people busy and employed, creating a rich society in which even the poorest can afford the essentials. The only way to reduce that waste is to create a more economically equal and stable society.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, if a company could guarantee (via a legally binding membership agreement) that they wouldn't spam you or sell/give your name/habits to other people/companies/governments, people would be more willing to use the service, making life easier for both company and consumer.
Spam isn't profitable if it costs you customers.
Because so many girls in china are aborted, killed at birth, or abandoned, there already is a huge discrepancy in gender there. Which is making things very difficult for men in China. They've taken to seeking wives out of the country quite often. I suppose women have no trouble finding a mate, but it may be that they are excessively coveted and pushed into politicized marriages as a result. I suppose the easiest way for the gov't to take care of the excess male population is to go to war, killing some and letting the rest steal/rape women.
Boo fucking hoo. They screwed themselves with their gender bias - the one child policy was just a catalyst. The Chinese government routinely screws over their people, but this time it's really the people's fault (won't stop 'em from blaming outsiders as usual though, I bet).
Heh. Perhaps there should be a finite limit on the number of laws on the books. You want to pass a new one, you got to revoke an old one.
Actually, that would only make things worse. Most federal bills are chock-full of riders (unlike some states i.e. Texas which explicitly require that bills not address multiple issues), so we'd just see the number of those increase. And theres a good chance good laws could be knocked off the books. A better solution would be mandatory sunset provisions for all laws except perhaps constitutionaly amendments, to encourage re-evaluation.
No, this is more like Logan's Run. Woo Hoo! Bring on the Tunnel of Love! Oh shit, wait, I've only got 4 years before carnaval then.
I didn't say it was a good option. I just said you could do it (if you're not too cheap/poor to get a replacement).
As somebody once said, I don't want to have a toolbox filled with tools for all my jobs, I want a hammer that does all my jobs. Specialized codecs are a pain because at best you have to think about which one to choose, and at worst you have to compare a bunch of them to pick the best one, which may or may not be available. People want one codec that does the job best at all levels.
Nothing in the Ktech codec profiles suggested that they couldn't be adapted to higher quality stuff, which after all is easier to do right than the low bitrate performers. Their still image compressor can handle lossless, too.
Ah, but most people don't own MP3 players, and what does it matter which format you use if you're only ripping your own CDs? Your early adopter syndrome is your own problem.
.aac format, for instance, which is better than mp3. No reason they couldn't do kts.
Besides, you can always re-encode your downloaded music into mp3.
BTW, the iPod was also designed to handle multiple formats. The next generation of firmware that comes out alongside Quicktime 6 whould handle the
Nonsense. Bandwidth will always be a problem. No matter how much bandwidth you add, no matter how big you make your highways, no matter how much oil you drill, people will always use as much as you make, even if it means wasting it or creating enough traffic to degrade the whole thing. There is no substitute for efficiency. A better license can compensate for inferior technology to only a minor degree.
For the 40,000,000,000th time -
Episode 23, Hot Springs Tenrei, was never aired on Japanese TV in the first place. (Neither was that other one). It was a bonus episode on the video release. As such, the content was adhering to OVA standards rather than TV standards, which allowed it to get away with a lot more than it would have otherwise. Anime companies do this all the time to boost the video sales of TV shows, by giving the fans something new, and frequently smutty.
Ha! We hardly even HAVE a passenger train system. Our air travel system, OTOH, is saturated and a complete nightmare to use. Because America is so spread out, the only transportation that actually works here is the car, even with all it's problems. Well, we may yet get decent public transportation in the big cities, but it will be hard to get there.
I suppose I should have said "demand among women who have actually heard about it, which is pretty few here in the US." Yaoi (and Shonen Ai, which is related but not exactly the same) are both japanese terms for particular subgenres. Some of it is Hentai (roughly meaning sexually explicit or perverse) but apparently it is the romantic and erotic aspects which hold the most appeal. Doujinshi are fan-produced manga (comics). Generally any shoujo manga (manga for girls) that involves Bishounen (literally pretty boys) will have at least a little homosexual subtext. In any case, the market for this stuff, and the artists, are mostly women. Here in the US there's a small but vocal group of appreciators, who are again mostly women. The way I figure it, just as men get a kick out of heterosexually-oriented lesbianism in porn (which is largely made for men), women get a kick out of this heterosexually-oriented homosexuality in erotica (which is mostly made for women). Presumably these both exist for similar reasons.
0 06.html Admittedly there's a lot more to this - Japanese sexual culture is kind of wacky.
Here's a good link: http://mooncalf.rydia.net/blogness/archives/00000
Speaking personally, I've known a number of women who get a kick out of watching gay men having sex, or hanging with gay people. You know, fag hags, fruit flies, whatever. Admittedly I know a lot of freaky people, but there really seems to be a lot of them out there to me.
Well, maybe that means makeup artists will get better. Or people will become more accepting of physical flaws. Or cameras, lighting, and camerawork will get better so we don't need makeup most of the time. Or flawed real actors will be replaced by perfect digital ones sooner.
I fail to see how my tendency to spend as little money for the most product is any less moral than industries tendency to get as much profit for the least product. I'm simply treating them with as much respect as they treat me. And I find it hard to take copyright law seriously lately, which industry has been litigizing and lobbying into their favor, away from its original purpose of promoting the progress of science and the useful arts.
The entertainment industry does not owe me entertainment. (The world doesn't owe me anything, nor I it.) But neither are they owed control over their immaterial creations.
The locals pay $0 for most of their anime, since it's on TV. Incidentally, 15% of $0 is also $0. I would have no problem paying that.
Nor would I wouldn't mind spending slightly more for anime when it does cost (movies and OVAs), in the relevant context. That is, if I can see it in the theater or rent it. I hardly ever watch anything more than once, so there's never any point in me buying the videos.
Oh wait... you mean to say there ARE no anime movies in the theaters, except perhaps a few arthouse releases in big cities? That the only anime videos at my local rental locations are a couple of the best films, hentai, pokemon, and a handful of ancient titles? And that all the anime that is on TV is heavily edited and dubbed? Hmm. So, should I watch anime a week or two after it comes out with good fansubs and decent quality, or wait years for the same title to come out edited for my protection with crappy dubbing and dubtitles. What to do, what to do...
What people so often fail to appreciate is that "the market" is about more than just the price. Companies are free to let their actuaries pick prices for the maximum possible profits, and take as long as they want to do so, but the more people they leave out in the cold the more people are going to find ways to get it at prices they WILL pay. That's why black markets happen. And it the companies weren't so busy maximizing their profit equations, and instead charged at a fair price accessible to all, no one would bother to create the markets that undermine their carefully calculated strategies.
Thank you for pointing that out. What the videophiles fail to appreciate is that many people either have little money or would prefer not to build their lives around a complex home theater. Or both, in my case. Frankly, the widescreen aspect is the most appealing part of HDTV to me.
Porn today sucks. It's boring. Like any other vicarious form of entertainment, it requires suspension of disbelief for it to be enjoyed. But with the lousy acting, directing, stories - and pretty much everything else - there's plenty of disbelief. Hell, with all the fake tits, formulaic scenes, and uninspired moaning they can't even make the sex believable. To say nothing of the offensive levels of sexism (contrary to popular belief porn is not inherently sexist), or numerous other factors. All it is is people screwing on camera for money.
All the more reason for the real networks and producers to get involved. Porn IS the killer app. Demand for porn is nearly universal among men, and if they bothered to work on the stories they could make it appealing to women too. One need look no further than the demand for Yaoi Doujinshi among women to see that this is true. There's money to be made, and Hollywood has more than enough of it. They certainly pay the actors enough. At an Indecent Proposal sum of one million dollars per episode each, I don't see why every episode of Friends DOESN'T have a different permutation of the cast members gettin' it on, culminating with an orgy in the series finale.
Can you imagine how much better porn could be with real acting, a hefty production budget, and a schedule based on weeks rather than days? I can. It's time to stop burying softcore smut on the premium channels, and bring porn to prime time.
The situation is similar for anime here in the US. Rather than waiting years for a particular show or movie to show up (IF it shows up) in the US, independent groups of fans capture, subtitle, and distribute them for free.
They generally dub to high bitrate and high resolution DivX files, which are viewable on most any computer that has the processing power for it, but still not the same as doing it on TV. The quality of the subtitles has also become increasingly good - even professional - over the years. Of course these are watchable for anyone that speaks english, and there are other groups who work with other languages too. In fact the most difficult part is the trading and distribution of these files, which is pretty haphazard and often results in corrupted files since there is no error checking and correction, and the fact that you watch them on the computer rather than the TV (which is acceptable to many).
So the moral of the story is? TV, movie, and video producers - get your asses together and make your products available to anyone and everyone in the world at the same price simultaneously (within a week of each other), or quit your bitching. It ain't piracy if it ain't available in the first place. And if you don't want to put money into a translation, give people some way to add independent subs/dubs to it.
I stand corrected. I wouldn't have thought it possible they could pull off a live performance. Guess I should have checked. Wierd. Well, it sounds like they should still work on it some, particularly for encores - if you're gonna perform you gotta have flexibility. And perhaps maybe the spectacle should go beyond one screen (multiple screens?)
That's not entirely true - there is music that exists without musicians or bands per se, and can only be appreciated via recordings. Soundtracks and scores may never be played outside of the show, except in recording. Live performances cannot be repeated but they can be recorded. And there are even a few virtual bands/artists (Gorillaz comes to mind) that live in records and music videos, but no where else.
It's not that I don't think that we wouldn't be better off if musicians earned their money exclusively through performance, rather than recordings and radio. It's just that there are exceptions to that method. In addition to some music, many artistic works (Films, TV, print, etc.) can not be performed but only recorded. Figuring out a way for the artists to make a living while the art is freely reproducible in those cases is the more important problem.
Everyone here is right. The current resolution and color space of digital is insufficient - but it can be improved with new/better technology. Those digital projectors are expensive - but those prints are even more expensive.
What really matters is that distribution of digital films could be an IMMENSE improvement over the existing network. There would be no limits on where, or when, or how many screens a film could be shown. Everyone could show a hot film on opening night. Theaters could adjust the number of screens they're showing their films on at will. Staggered worldwide release of films due to limited prints would be a thing of the past (the sole reason for the evil DVD region coding). Older films could be re-shown at will, without worrying about coordination. Instead of renting a copy of a film at a set price, theaters could pay based on seats sold/available, eliminating discrimination between large and small venues - indeed, leading to a trend towards theaters with more, but smaller screens for increased flexibility, and greater intimacy when desired - including private, on-demand screenings. Who needs a home theater when you can have the real thing?
In short, going to the movies could be a lot more fun for the fans, and more efficient for the theaters and studios.
Hell yeah, we should go digital. And the studios should be paying for it. They stand to benefit in a big way.
Lexx doesn't make any sense until you know that it's a Canadian-German coproduction. That pretty much says it all.
As for sci-fi on TV these days... thank god for Farscape and Enterprise. Otherwise, it's in a pretty sad state.
While The Critic (along with many other shows) certainly suits Adult Swim, this is the first I've heard about them actually picking it up. They're already playing late nights on Comedy Central. Where'd you hear this?
Yea verily, there is a place for canceled animated satire. It is called Adult Swim, and it is on Cartoon Network on Sundays, and already it has become a home for Baby Blues, Home Movies, Mission Hill, and the Oblongs. Unfortunately...
1) Cartoon Network is part of Time-Warner, which isn't on good terms with Fox. (Same problem with Comedy Central though).
2) Cartoon Network and Adult Swim are not well known with the mainstream adult audience, although they should be.
3) Cartoon Network doesn't have the cash for expensive shows, hence their reliance on low budget original shows and syndicated cancelled ones. They could afford to pick up existing Futurama episodes, but probably not make new ones.
Even if FOTR misses out there are still two more movies on the way. I wonder how that will effect things? Considering that they were filmed together and were never really meant to be considered separately, it seems almost silly to award them individually. What if FOTR does get best picture (or if it doesn't)? How will that bias the attitudes towards The Two Towers and The Return of the King, when they come out? As it stands now I can predict that the same nominations and wins will be EXPECTED for these films when they come out due to the similarity. Otherwise it will just seem wierd.
Of course this is an exceptional situation - I can't think of any other film sagas that were so tightly integrated in production and story. If I were the academy, this is where I'd start considering some sort of special award for the saga as a whole in '04.
As much as we all malign advertising, it does on rare occasions enlighten us about things worth spending our time and money on, and even entertains in its own right. The problem is, most of the time it's trying to sell us on a slew of competing-but-otherwise-identical products, or just plain crap, and it's frequently irritating. The bigger problem is, people listen to the advertising and waste their time and money on a lot of unnecessary and crappy products, which is why they keep making them. The biggest problem is that our consumerist economy depends on us buying all this crap, to a certain large degree. How much of what you buy do you really use and really need? Not a whole lot really. It's wasteful, but it keeps the economy moving and people busy and employed, creating a rich society in which even the poorest can afford the essentials. The only way to reduce that waste is to create a more economically equal and stable society.