First, all downloading music is not illegal... Meaning, I have bought allot of songs from iTunes and I certainly would not consider myself stealing music....:-)
Second, yes, individual song purchases are what are hurting the music industry right now... There is little doubt here on the investor side.. Eventhough their gross margins has plunged > 10% per year, the number of individual song downloads have grown > 500% last year. The accepted reason for the margin contraction, though, is that the increase of their new individual song model is just are not enough to sustain their further decline of physical albumn sales. This is why the music industry have turned on Apple. They want to change this and force consumers to purchase more expensive products to improve their declining gross margins. It is anyones guess if they will eventually pulll this off.. If I was to guess, though, they will not because the real money has now shifted to the device that plays the music rather than to the actually music that plays on the device.. Meaning, the actual music has become a side show...
Finally, lets talk about "unauthorized" downloads... There is little doubt that this provides a structural flaw for any product that are completely digital and easy to copy. This is not just my opinion, but rather is just plain common sense... You can make it illegal, and you can sue as many people as you like, but the market value of your product has been lowered because you will ultimately will have to compete with the easy of downloading your product. Meaning, the only way you can compete with the internet is to lower the cost of your product because it is providing competition... This is not speculation, but rather just common business principles... Keep in mind that the music industry is not alone here. Software companies, Movie Companies, Book Publishers, and others ultimately will be affected in one way or another.... Each are trying their own way to combat this change, but most know they ultimately will have to completely revamp their business model... There is also no mystery on how this will end... Each business industry is changing in their own way.
I doubt the record industry will ever go away.. There is a definite need for music as everyone you see is listening to music. If I was to guess, though, you will see further consolidation and contraction until it eventually goes back to the early days of a large number of artists making niche market music. In fact, many of the artists you see today are definitely moving down this path.. I also do not think that the record companies will go away because there definitely is a need for them as well. They are the business people for the artists, but there is little doubt that they will be considerably smaller and their margins will return to what most would considered reasonable... The beauty of capitalism is that it balances... Very nice indeed..
The old music business model is over RIAA... Yes, I know that for a while you made allot of money by forcing overpriced albums down the throats of the consumer who never wanted just albums, but it is over now... Technology and communication has destroyed you business of "we make our money by making it available to you" type distribution model... To fear to bad, as most software companies are realizing the same thing... The key thing to remember, though, RIAA, is that no matter how hard you sue, or the sheer number of people you sue, nothing will change this fact..
OK. There.. You now you know it... Now you can start the process of acceptance and healing..:-)
Its interesting you say that about Russia... Make "big money"? Russia is even smarter than that.... They are actually one of the few people who got their cake and ate it too by selling nuclear material to Iran and then "stiffing" them when it came to delivery... Quite funny actually...
With that said, I agree that because the former USSR had most of their nuclear weapons spread across the individual nations when they broke up, the big fear was that some would be stolen. In fact, some definitely did disappear, but considering the accounting standards of a collapsing nation , from what I have been told by people I respect, they have no clue what the actual amount lost was... The most troubling part is that no one seems to know what happened to this material, but there is no doubt people in the intelligence community are constantly looking for it... Meaning if you post a listing on the Internet saying you have nuclear material to sell, there is little doubt that the person that contacts you wanting to buy it works for the intelligence community... I have come to learn from different friends that not everyone is dumb in the federal government, and some actually do want to do what is best for our country...:-)
So yes, I agree that the Russian loss angle is pretty scary, but what can you do other than we are now?
You and I just disagree on how foreign policy should be done. From my perspective, what you want and what you are going to get in foreign policy are two completely different things. Meaning, just as with today's news with Russia selling long range aircraft and fueling tankers to Iran, I do not see this as hostile behavior, but rather just Russia posturing to demonstrate balance to the US... Meaning, from Russia's perspective, they feel they are trying to balance the US influence in the middle east.
As far the constant stream of Ahmadinejad comments, I will agree that they are troubling at face value and I would never agree with any of these discussions, but you have to understand how the internal politics of Iran to understand the comments. Meaning, he is trying to appeal to a very radical segment of his party to which he belongs, but personally I think his "actions" has clearly shown he is in no crazy man. This fact was re-inforced when Iran held a very tight grip on the Iranian Hezbolla group during the current Israeli-Lebenon incident preventing them from firing missiles at Isreal or US installations in Iraq. In fact, I am told by friends that the high ups in the Pentagon was very surprised by this. Even Ahmadinejad knows the consequences for such an act. Meaning, I strongly suggest that Iran is not planning to invade Israel anymore than the US is planning to invade North Korea. The real intent of all of the posturing is simply politics at play...
I find it interesting that you talk of my ignorance to Iran not creating wars, but you still did not specify any actual wars? Also, I hardly feel that capturing British soldiers and holding them similar to what China did to the US is a war. If it is, did China declare war on the US when they did it? Certainly not.. Their goal by doing it was to try to rally their people and embarrass Britian, both of which they did I might add. In short, dont expect Iran, Russia, etc. to always be nice to US or its allies goals... Still dont believe me?? Well, just think of it this way... How many Soviets died because of the US provided anti-aircraft missles during the Afganstistan/USSR war? I am told by history that the Soviets were loosing several hundred helicopters a month downed by our anti-aircraft missiles. By your standards, arent we supposed to feel bad about doing this? Certainly not...
As far as Irans support for groups in Iraq? There is little doubt that making the US fail in Iraq is a major goal from Iran, and this should have been taken into consideration before the invasion. We should have known this when we went in, and I suspect this was a big reason why Colin Powell tried to persuade President Bush for over 2 1/2 hours of discussion to not invade Iraq in saying ""I took Bush through the consequences of going into an Arab country and becoming the occupiers.". Also, Colin Powell is no politician as his retirement demonostrated, but rather was a miltary general trying to prevent what he felt was to become a disastrous foreign policy mistake..
Are you serious? Are you believing the propoganda of North Korea "mastering nuclear technology"? First, atomic weapons are political weapons and are not considered a serious military weapon. Why? Because no matter how crazy you are you realize that if you actually ever use this type of technology in a strike, then you will quickly be hit with a US arsenal with > 550 land based ICBMs (most which are in europe/asia), in addition to several hundreds of Minutemen ICBMs most likely positioned right off your coast. Also, nuclear technologies are very expensive to maintain, which is something India and Pakistan have learned.
So why do these countries want atomic weapons? Three reasons. First, to convey political power in your region, which is why Iran wants them. Second, to try to get communications lines established with the US. (North Korea) Third, to prevent any potential future invasion. (Iran, North Korea, India, and Pakistan).. Starting to see my point? None of these include using atomic weapons in a miltary stike..
Also, dont believe the argument of "they could give it to the terrorists and use a dirty bomb". This argument is ignorant as well, because everyone knows that all nuclear base material can always be tracked back to its manufacturing source simply by the way it is purified. If Iran was ever to give some of material to some group that would use it against the US or any of its NATO allies, there is little doubt that it would be the end of Iran as we know it... And Iran knows this. (Note: This is not an arbitrary decision either, but rather is specified in the NATO charter)
Finally, if you think Iran (ie Persians) are just a bunch of crazy people, then consider this... Name the last time Iran invaded any nation? Go ahead.. Ill wait... (And no the 8 year Iran/Iraq war was not started by Iran)
Well today is your lucky day!!... My special lawnmower, which I call Asta La Vista, and it has allot of "special" features which kind of stops someone from stealing it... Admittably these features makes it super slow moving, and most of the time prevent you from actually mowing the lawn. Also, it has an engine the size of your Diablo just to idle, but it definitely is a lawnmower and it definitely does sometime actually cut grass sometimes. Another great feature is that it has a really great paint job that sorta looks transparent, and it even has some of the latest and greatest paper mache cutting blades... And the best part is that if you actually do try to mow the lawn, it will send back to the manufacture all of your personal information... This is one heck of a deal you would not want to pass up on!! Buy now becausse supplies are limited!!
Why is this seen as a political issue? I mean, ignorance applies everywhere.... And "Neo Cons"?? Where the hell did this come from?? Instead of everyone just speculating and trying to fufill what you want to believe, why doesnt someone just file a FOIA on some of the Saturn V docs. In fact, I will do that today and see what turns up... At least then you have an official response...
And no, I am not going to believe this "terrorists could use Saturn V to deliver nuclear warheads" crap. That argument is just plain ignorant.....
Ultimately I think It means that Dlink will sell more stuff.... Sometimes companies get a few good quarters and start to think that they are untouchable to competition...
I admit that those are some cool looking graphs, but considering Microsoft's past experience with collecting XP, Zune, and Vista sales numbers, I dont know if I want to rely on them collecting any numbers that my business might just have to rely on.. That is just me, though...:-)
That is because people actually want to buy Apple products, but M$ products are forced down most peoples throats.... I am also certainly no brainless apple user, but I will be the first to say that my MacbookPro is substantially better than anything M$ currently has and was well worth the cost I spent on it... Also, combining OSX on intel with VMWare Fusion in unity mode, and you have one damn nice platform to work on.. I would highly recommend it to anyone...
Here is a better question... Why didnt then limit the Safari user account that it was running under... Please tell me that they were not running the browser on a root enabled account... Alla M$ Windows style.... (Excluding version 7 of course)
Either M$ is the dumbest company on earth, or this is a scam article. I would assume that if M$ was in fact monitoring users, which I think is quite possible, then all of the information would go back to Redmond and then distributed to the appropriate groups. At least this way they have plausible deniability....
Also, "Halliburton"? Give me a break.... First, what type of tool is going to return a text output so blunt... Not is not "HA-39214", but instead is just "Haliburton" the evil company.... Also, I am certainly not a fan of the company and its former involvement with the vice president which just smells bad to begin with, but what in the world would a military contracting company that fufills soft drinks, food, oil, and other supplies to military groups want to monitor computers... This is just unrealistic...
I agree exactly... The one thing they didnt even talk about was the patent cross licensing issue... This business tactic profits very large established players and basically blocks out any new competition.... This, in my opinion, is the worst part of the current patent system...
It would appear that the only real competition left in the software world is OSS. Its kind of hard to sue an OSS project...
Come on... We all know the routine here on M$ boxes... Reboot it a couple times until we realize it is shot... Stick in the repair cd so that it can finish the job of killing it... Then wax the whole thing and reinstall... Explain to the user that all their data is gone and when they get that "deer caught in headlights" look, tell them they should have backed up to their data... Hm... Missing anything here??
Certainly we should build space crafts that leave open the option for possible human "passengers", but, in my opinion, our focus should be on building capable and independent robots to do our dirty work for us. The current "boots on the ground" at Mars are great examples. In fact, we are in desperate need right now of moving to true computer intelligence instead of our current programmable logic.
A level of a 4 year old would actually be sufficient for most applications. Not only is this type of technology useful on world exploration, but it would revolutionize our world. One small example is that burglarly and building fires would become a thing of the past if we had a truely intelligent computer systems monitoring and managing buildings.
I would say that tobacco is bad not because of the substance itself, but rather what it becomes once it is burned... The odd thing about this article, though, is that they treat raising brain chemicals as a difficult task when in fact there are many ways of increasing seratonin and dopamine in the brain. ( SSRIs and DARIs come to mind). Yes I admit that both carry a host of side effects, but most of this is due to the offsetting of the chemicals they are targetting. This article looks more like a marketing and investment doc than anything else...
Dont be too quick on this because it depends on how you ingest it... This article is no surprise to some people...
My brother, who is a surgeon and regularly works 48 hour shifts, uses tobacco in "dipping" fashion... Also, he is no dumb cookie... In fact, many surgeons do to help them deal with the long hours required of them. The only other realistic option is Modafinil, but it does nothing to help them keep fine tuned motor skills required for surgery... For nicotine, he says that nothing beats it for anti-fatique, and credits it with helping him get thru medical school. Also, gum cancer, which is rare, is very easy to treat if ever detected. I suspect in his case, though, the only real risk is increased free radical damage caused by the host of "other" chemicals in the tobacco, but nothing like what you get when phyically burn it. In fact, because nicotine is such a powerful anti-oxidant, this might offset the other problems....
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First, all downloading music is not illegal... Meaning, I have bought allot of songs from iTunes and I certainly would not consider myself stealing music.... :-)
Second, yes, individual song purchases are what are hurting the music industry right now... There is little doubt here on the investor side.. Eventhough their gross margins has plunged > 10% per year, the number of individual song downloads have grown > 500% last year. The accepted reason for the margin contraction, though, is that the increase of their new individual song model is just are not enough to sustain their further decline of physical albumn sales. This is why the music industry have turned on Apple. They want to change this and force consumers to purchase more expensive products to improve their declining gross margins. It is anyones guess if they will eventually pulll this off.. If I was to guess, though, they will not because the real money has now shifted to the device that plays the music rather than to the actually music that plays on the device.. Meaning, the actual music has become a side show...
Finally, lets talk about "unauthorized" downloads... There is little doubt that this provides a structural flaw for any product that are completely digital and easy to copy. This is not just my opinion, but rather is just plain common sense... You can make it illegal, and you can sue as many people as you like, but the market value of your product has been lowered because you will ultimately will have to compete with the easy of downloading your product. Meaning, the only way you can compete with the internet is to lower the cost of your product because it is providing competition... This is not speculation, but rather just common business principles... Keep in mind that the music industry is not alone here. Software companies, Movie Companies, Book Publishers, and others ultimately will be affected in one way or another.... Each are trying their own way to combat this change, but most know they ultimately will have to completely revamp their business model... There is also no mystery on how this will end... Each business industry is changing in their own way.
I doubt the record industry will ever go away.. There is a definite need for music as everyone you see is listening to music. If I was to guess, though, you will see further consolidation and contraction until it eventually goes back to the early days of a large number of artists making niche market music. In fact, many of the artists you see today are definitely moving down this path.. I also do not think that the record companies will go away because there definitely is a need for them as well. They are the business people for the artists, but there is little doubt that they will be considerably smaller and their margins will return to what most would considered reasonable... The beauty of capitalism is that it balances... Very nice indeed..
The old music business model is over RIAA... Yes, I know that for a while you made allot of money by forcing overpriced albums down the throats of the consumer who never wanted just albums, but it is over now... Technology and communication has destroyed you business of "we make our money by making it available to you" type distribution model... To fear to bad, as most software companies are realizing the same thing... The key thing to remember, though, RIAA, is that no matter how hard you sue, or the sheer number of people you sue, nothing will change this fact..
:-)
OK. There.. You now you know it... Now you can start the process of acceptance and healing..
Thanks for the factual correction. I was not aware of what you put, but am very thankful for you spending the time to correct me. Thanks!! :-)
Its interesting you say that about Russia... Make "big money"? Russia is even smarter than that.... They are actually one of the few people who got their cake and ate it too by selling nuclear material to Iran and then "stiffing" them when it came to delivery... Quite funny actually...
With that said, I agree that because the former USSR had most of their nuclear weapons spread across the individual nations when they broke up, the big fear was that some would be stolen. In fact, some definitely did disappear, but considering the accounting standards of a collapsing nation , from what I have been told by people I respect, they have no clue what the actual amount lost was... The most troubling part is that no one seems to know what happened to this material, but there is no doubt people in the intelligence community are constantly looking for it... Meaning if you post a listing on the Internet saying you have nuclear material to sell, there is little doubt that the person that contacts you wanting to buy it works for the intelligence community... I have come to learn from different friends that not everyone is dumb in the federal government, and some actually do want to do what is best for our country...:-)
So yes, I agree that the Russian loss angle is pretty scary, but what can you do other than we are now?
That is just too funny.. I wish I had some moderation points.... :-)
You and I just disagree on how foreign policy should be done. From my perspective, what you want and what you are going to get in foreign policy are two completely different things. Meaning, just as with today's news with Russia selling long range aircraft and fueling tankers to Iran, I do not see this as hostile behavior, but rather just Russia posturing to demonstrate balance to the US... Meaning, from Russia's perspective, they feel they are trying to balance the US influence in the middle east.
As far the constant stream of Ahmadinejad comments, I will agree that they are troubling at face value and I would never agree with any of these discussions, but you have to understand how the internal politics of Iran to understand the comments. Meaning, he is trying to appeal to a very radical segment of his party to which he belongs, but personally I think his "actions" has clearly shown he is in no crazy man. This fact was re-inforced when Iran held a very tight grip on the Iranian Hezbolla group during the current Israeli-Lebenon incident preventing them from firing missiles at Isreal or US installations in Iraq. In fact, I am told by friends that the high ups in the Pentagon was very surprised by this. Even Ahmadinejad knows the consequences for such an act. Meaning, I strongly suggest that Iran is not planning to invade Israel anymore than the US is planning to invade North Korea. The real intent of all of the posturing is simply politics at play...
I find it interesting that you talk of my ignorance to Iran not creating wars, but you still did not specify any actual wars? Also, I hardly feel that capturing British soldiers and holding them similar to what China did to the US is a war. If it is, did China declare war on the US when they did it? Certainly not.. Their goal by doing it was to try to rally their people and embarrass Britian, both of which they did I might add. In short, dont expect Iran, Russia, etc. to always be nice to US or its allies goals... Still dont believe me?? Well, just think of it this way... How many Soviets died because of the US provided anti-aircraft missles during the Afganstistan/USSR war? I am told by history that the Soviets were loosing several hundred helicopters a month downed by our anti-aircraft missiles. By your standards, arent we supposed to feel bad about doing this? Certainly not...
As far as Irans support for groups in Iraq? There is little doubt that making the US fail in Iraq is a major goal from Iran, and this should have been taken into consideration before the invasion. We should have known this when we went in, and I suspect this was a big reason why Colin Powell tried to persuade President Bush for over 2 1/2 hours of discussion to not invade Iraq in saying ""I took Bush through the consequences of going into an Arab country and becoming the occupiers.". Also, Colin Powell is no politician as his retirement demonostrated, but rather was a miltary general trying to prevent what he felt was to become a disastrous foreign policy mistake..
Are you serious? Are you believing the propoganda of North Korea "mastering nuclear technology"? First, atomic weapons are political weapons and are not considered a serious military weapon. Why? Because no matter how crazy you are you realize that if you actually ever use this type of technology in a strike, then you will quickly be hit with a US arsenal with > 550 land based ICBMs (most which are in europe/asia), in addition to several hundreds of Minutemen ICBMs most likely positioned right off your coast. Also, nuclear technologies are very expensive to maintain, which is something India and Pakistan have learned.
So why do these countries want atomic weapons? Three reasons. First, to convey political power in your region, which is why Iran wants them. Second, to try to get communications lines established with the US. (North Korea) Third, to prevent any potential future invasion. (Iran, North Korea, India, and Pakistan).. Starting to see my point? None of these include using atomic weapons in a miltary stike..
Also, dont believe the argument of "they could give it to the terrorists and use a dirty bomb". This argument is ignorant as well, because everyone knows that all nuclear base material can always be tracked back to its manufacturing source simply by the way it is purified. If Iran was ever to give some of material to some group that would use it against the US or any of its NATO allies, there is little doubt that it would be the end of Iran as we know it... And Iran knows this. (Note: This is not an arbitrary decision either, but rather is specified in the NATO charter)
Finally, if you think Iran (ie Persians) are just a bunch of crazy people, then consider this... Name the last time Iran invaded any nation? Go ahead.. Ill wait... (And no the 8 year Iran/Iraq war was not started by Iran)
Well today is your lucky day!!... My special lawnmower, which I call Asta La Vista, and it has allot of "special" features which kind of stops someone from stealing it... Admittably these features makes it super slow moving, and most of the time prevent you from actually mowing the lawn. Also, it has an engine the size of your Diablo just to idle, but it definitely is a lawnmower and it definitely does sometime actually cut grass sometimes. Another great feature is that it has a really great paint job that sorta looks transparent, and it even has some of the latest and greatest paper mache cutting blades... And the best part is that if you actually do try to mow the lawn, it will send back to the manufacture all of your personal information... This is one heck of a deal you would not want to pass up on!! Buy now becausse supplies are limited!!
:-)
Let me know if you are interested!!
Why is this seen as a political issue? I mean, ignorance applies everywhere.... And "Neo Cons"?? Where the hell did this come from?? Instead of everyone just speculating and trying to fufill what you want to believe, why doesnt someone just file a FOIA on some of the Saturn V docs. In fact, I will do that today and see what turns up... At least then you have an official response...
And no, I am not going to believe this "terrorists could use Saturn V to deliver nuclear warheads" crap. That argument is just plain ignorant.....
Ultimately I think It means that Dlink will sell more stuff.... Sometimes companies get a few good quarters and start to think that they are untouchable to competition...
I admit that those are some cool looking graphs, but considering Microsoft's past experience with collecting XP, Zune, and Vista sales numbers, I dont know if I want to rely on them collecting any numbers that my business might just have to rely on.. That is just me, though... :-)
That is because people actually want to buy Apple products, but M$ products are forced down most peoples throats.... I am also certainly no brainless apple user, but I will be the first to say that my MacbookPro is substantially better than anything M$ currently has and was well worth the cost I spent on it... Also, combining OSX on intel with VMWare Fusion in unity mode, and you have one damn nice platform to work on.. I would highly recommend it to anyone...
Talk about a crappy news day...
Here is a better question... Why didnt then limit the Safari user account that it was running under... Please tell me that they were not running the browser on a root enabled account... Alla M$ Windows style.... (Excluding version 7 of course)
Either M$ is the dumbest company on earth, or this is a scam article. I would assume that if M$ was in fact monitoring users, which I think is quite possible, then all of the information would go back to Redmond and then distributed to the appropriate groups. At least this way they have plausible deniability....
Also, "Halliburton"? Give me a break.... First, what type of tool is going to return a text output so blunt... Not is not "HA-39214", but instead is just "Haliburton" the evil company.... Also, I am certainly not a fan of the company and its former involvement with the vice president which just smells bad to begin with, but what in the world would a military contracting company that fufills soft drinks, food, oil, and other supplies to military groups want to monitor computers... This is just unrealistic...
Competition is a wonderful thing!! I suspect three solutions probably will quickly end the vmware / XEN disagreements that went on for so long... :-)
So your telling me M$ has only 235 totally bogus patents? Oh, that cant be right... I mean M$ is much more "ambitious" than that... :-)
I agree exactly... The one thing they didnt even talk about was the patent cross licensing issue... This business tactic profits very large established players and basically blocks out any new competition.... This, in my opinion, is the worst part of the current patent system...
It would appear that the only real competition left in the software world is OSS. Its kind of hard to sue an OSS project...
Come on... We all know the routine here on M$ boxes... Reboot it a couple times until we realize it is shot... Stick in the repair cd so that it can finish the job of killing it... Then wax the whole thing and reinstall... Explain to the user that all their data is gone and when they get that "deer caught in headlights" look, tell them they should have backed up to their data... Hm... Missing anything here??
Just a typical day in windows land...
No, thats just you buddy with the thumb up your ass playing D&D while doing bong hits... :-)
Certainly we should build space crafts that leave open the option for possible human "passengers", but, in my opinion, our focus should be on building capable and independent robots to do our dirty work for us. The current "boots on the ground" at Mars are great examples. In fact, we are in desperate need right now of moving to true computer intelligence instead of our current programmable logic.
A level of a 4 year old would actually be sufficient for most applications. Not only is this type of technology useful on world exploration, but it would revolutionize our world. One small example is that burglarly and building fires would become a thing of the past if we had a truely intelligent computer systems monitoring and managing buildings.
I would say that tobacco is bad not because of the substance itself, but rather what it becomes once it is burned... The odd thing about this article, though, is that they treat raising brain chemicals as a difficult task when in fact there are many ways of increasing seratonin and dopamine in the brain. ( SSRIs and DARIs come to mind). Yes I admit that both carry a host of side effects, but most of this is due to the offsetting of the chemicals they are targetting. This article looks more like a marketing and investment doc than anything else...
Dont be too quick on this because it depends on how you ingest it... This article is no surprise to some people...
My brother, who is a surgeon and regularly works 48 hour shifts, uses tobacco in "dipping" fashion... Also, he is no dumb cookie... In fact, many surgeons do to help them deal with the long hours required of them. The only other realistic option is Modafinil, but it does nothing to help them keep fine tuned motor skills required for surgery... For nicotine, he says that nothing beats it for anti-fatique, and credits it with helping him get thru medical school. Also, gum cancer, which is rare, is very easy to treat if ever detected. I suspect in his case, though, the only real risk is increased free radical damage caused by the host of "other" chemicals in the tobacco, but nothing like what you get when phyically burn it. In fact, because nicotine is such a powerful anti-oxidant, this might offset the other problems....
Or maybe is shows how bad their "Media Defender" technology is... I mean how can you defend it if you are the one giving it away... :-)