This is simply Amazon using admittedly bugged software (the discount application) and patching your credit card later. Typical in the software industry these days. And if you try to block the patch, you might get hit with an APR % nerf.
You must've read his book. You found it in the fiction section of the bookstore. You might try various news sources if you're looking for something closer to fact.
Michael Crichton's a smart guy who wrote a work of fiction based on current science, politics, and the underlying fear of global warming. He's in the same category as Tom Clancy and John Grisham. He's doing it for the money, and I daresay he's doing it for more money than any global warming researcher as most research money is ear-marked for defense (I work at a University, so take my word on this).
If you start hyping his fiction as reality, you're just asking to get picked on.
First I wanted the RIZR Z3...but it wasn't available through US carriers, though you could order an unlocked phone for just under $300.
Then I heard the RIZR Z6 was coming out - Linux OS, shinier casing, Windows Media Player and associated DRM. Still no 3G.
Now the RIZR Z8, this bendable phone, is launching either with or in place of the Z6. It runs Symbian, has 3G data speeds, and some odd colors. It will probably cost $900 or $34 with a 2 year contract.
On a text-based mud, I can understand it. There's no real-time (using the term loosely) feedback as there is in an MMORPG.
And sure, a number system is easy to follow in any game. We use it every day to drive to work, check the time, see how much we spent, etc. But if you're in a fight? After taking a punch to the gut, do you find yourself saying, "Wow...that was a 10 pointer!" No...you say "Ow." and you might go woozy or you might get emotional or some part of your body might not work right. And you might recover very quickly, or that one punch might give your opponent the upper hand for awhile.
That's what I'd like to see. Dragging around virtual broken legs isn't very fun, but being in a fight, knowing that your character is hobbled for a few moments, can't run....I find that more interesting than "He hit you for 5 points of damage."
EQ had stun damage when you were hit particularly hard. You'd be trading blows, then WHACK! and your character's viewpoint slows and sort of reels to the right. It was still a hit point loss, but that sort of feedback is what I'm talking about.
And now that we have computers that can easily represent and display physical damage in terms of gameplay and character efficiency...we still use hit points.
At times I wish game designers would FORGET about hit points.
I believe he means it's technically meaningless while others are arguing that it's beaurocratically important. The specs for validation aren't so difficult to meet, but if you don't go through the process, no one wants to use your software.
Like us: if you don't have that MCSE on your resumé, we don't want you.
Introducing an AI that can read if you're stressed by facial expressions is just asking for space genocide:
"Dave. You seem a bit peaked. You should sit down." "You know Hal, I had my doubts about you in specs, but you're right. I am feeling a bit off. I think I will have a seat." "Not there, Dave. I believe you'd be more comfortable by the airlock door..."
I'd have to add Battle for Middle-Earth to that list. It was Real-Time Strategy like so many others, but it was fun. The individual physics of each troop member made the excitement factor rise over pretty much all the others. A troll wading into a group of soldiers and swatting them away; cavalry riding over a troop of orcs, not just flattening them, but bouncing off the horses; the wings of the Nazgul blowing troops aside; and the Balrog exploding from the earth, tossing anything nearby away.
It had true castle defense and sieging mixed with standard RTS fare: and it was all Lord of the Rings. Just a really well-made game that took RTS to another strategic level.
How will running wamp_install.exe give you the "custom install" you were going for on Linux?
That's sort of like a generic LAMP install. But to get certain modules to be their speediest on Linux, you need to compile them in with the other packages. In Windows, you just drop their DLLs in the right places at any time, edit a config file, and you have your speedy mods.
The whole config/make/make install and the options you can choose depending on what you're trying to do just takes a little while to get used to after working so long with Windows installers and binary only installations. It's certainly interesting and I felt like I accomplished something. Sort of like fixing a car myself as opposed to dropping it off at the mechanic. You learn a lot on the way.
Perhaps with Microsoft's adoption of XML in their office docs we might see more consistency between platforms. The calendaring and public folder issue is simply a matter of doing it as well or better than MS, then replace Exchange completely with Open Source software for your whole company. You don't need to have consistency in your calendaring between different companies, only in your own. And if you can run a free (as in up-front cash, not as in maintenance) open source Exchange-like product, then you're probably saving your company a ton of money.
I recently tried to do a custom LAMP install of the latest versions of Apache, PHP, modperl, and MySQL. After downloading about 20 source packages (custom install, remember), and following five different forum's instructions, I managed to get it all working except modperl. I'll need to recompile Apache when I feel like having another go at getting modperl to work. There's a lot of gotchas, a lot of "this version doesn't work with that version", some "you can't use the binary install of MySQL if you want it compiled into PHP", and if you want to run both the mysql and mysqli extensions for PHP, you need to hand edit your Makefile.
Or you could run windows, double-click on wamp_install.exe and then add your custom extensions after by dropping in.dlls and editing your httpd.conf a little.
You say that jokingly but there always seems to be room for what we want beside what is. Cheering or moaning is integral to the success of most things, in this case the MMORPG. Without the passion of the audience or participants, for better or worse, your product will fail. There's this ridiculously poorly programmed game called Horizons. Changed companies (at least in name to avoid legal issues) three times, billing canceled accounts all the while. People still play it because they want it to be better. It had potential in development, but because the programming was poor, it's a lost cause now. But it's still making money anyway.
I picked your post to remind everyone what Brad McQuaid (owner of the Vanguard project). I paraphrase:
The game isn't done yet, but if it's going to be released at all it needs to be now to generate revenue to continue development. We feel it has a lot of potential but we're out of funds. The game is playable and will only get better, as is the case with all MMORPGs, though we freely admit this is not to launch specs.
So sure they're concerned about their credit cards but it's their credit cards, not their bank accounts.
In Tennessee, a guy sees a sign in front of a house: "Talking Dog for Sale."
He rings the bell and the owner tells him the dog is in the backyard. The guy goes into the backyard and sees a black mutt just sitting there. "You talk?" he asks.
"Yep," the mutt replies.
"So, what's your story?"
The mutt looks up and says, "Well, I discovered this gift pretty young and I wanted to help the government, so I told the CIA about my gift, and in no time they had me jetting from country to country, sitting in rooms with spies and world leaders, because no one figured a dog would be eavesdropping. I was one of their most valuable spies eight years running."
"The jetting around really tired me out, and I knew I wasn't getting any younger and I wanted to settle down. So I signed up for a job at the airport to do some undercover security work, mostly wandering near suspicious characters and listening in. I uncovered some incredible dealings there and was awarded a batch of medals. Had a wife, a mess of puppies, and now I'm just retired."
The guy is amazed. He goes back in and asks the owner what he wants for the dog.
The owner says, "Ten dollars."
The guy says, "This dog is amazing. Why on earth are you selling him so cheap?"
The owner replies, "He's such a liar. He didn't do any of that stuff."
Re:The webmaster is dead. Long live the webmaster.
on
Who Killed the Webmaster?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
No mod points today but you're at 5 already. There are still webmasters doing college sites and sites with resources too low to hire more than one person. But for the major business sites, you're right...there's 10 jobs for any one website, so there is no "master" anymore...maybe just a Web Middle-Manager to keep the live team in-line with Accounting.
So we've got donors, a web host, programming it wouldn't be difficult, though I'd likely get shot for using PHP instead of Python...
But here's the tricky part: the finding of incoming patents with obvious prior art, and the time to fill out those forms, review them, and submit them. As a community project, this might be easier than it looks, if the articles can be peer reviewed, commented upon, etc.
So...
1) Paypal account to accept donations 2) System of displaying donation totals and expenditures for which patent 3) Submission of bad patent requests for review 4) Submission of prior art claims for those patents 5) Submission of final Patent form for review 6) Voting system on which Patents we submit against
- this last needs to come last because there's not point on voting against patents you haven't proven are false 7) A system where you can review your donation and which patent it went to block
I see a website which takes and publicly sums donations from people using Paypal, to collect money to combat bad patents. The sie could allow people to vote on which dodgy patents the money will go towards combatting.
I once developed a game that had 4-8 kingdoms each handled by 10 lords that were in charge of the armies that could go from hex to hex and discover what was there and use it to raise armies or hold land or even go on singular quests to gain powers which were rated from 1 to 10 in 7 different categories for each lord and when players' armies met they could use their different army races in varying strategies to combat the aggressor using dice and the controlling lord's powers which didn't need to be activated but would just work and the combats would go for two turns then the rest of the board could move so reinforcements might arrive and eventually the goal isn't to destroy your opponent but to claim the Evil Tower Hex where you have to battle the army there to save the land and proclaim yourself King.
I don't know. There will come a time sooner or later where, because of the ease of electronic distribution, the marketing by the RIAA will be different. Heck, marketing will be different. Instead of always getting discovered and signed by an RIAA affiliate, you could get discovered and signed by any agency that wants to front the money thinking you may become a superstar. $10,000 for a recording, distributed relatively "free" through the Internet, and then it's up to them to market you: get you larger venues, charity concerts, pumped through café speakers. Eventually you're earning money, your sponsor is earning money, and you can make videos and get celebrity airtime, and soon you're in your Ferrari in Beverly Hills.
At some point, an artist makes the choice to have their music managed by the RIAA, and those made into copyrighted, not-to-be-shared-without-being-properly-licensed recordings. I'm guessing that the advertising the RIAA does for artists they think can be successful is the driving force behind musicians still using them.
Musicians can get a loan and have a high-quality studio recording made of their music. With the internet, they can attempt to market it, and with the new music sites and the ubiquity of the internet, they might even get noticed. But noticed by who? Venues like to see you draw a crowd. How do you become a megastar without radio airplay, music videos, etc? I suppose you can get on the radio by popular opinion (enough calls to the radio stations by your fans), but getting airplay on MTV (do they still play videos?) is a bit more challenging without the RIAA paying for the time.
I guess it takes money to make money, and the RIAA makes that "easier" if not simply "possible" for the artist by saying, "Give us your act, and we'll make you famous." It just seems like the time is coming for artists to dodge the RIAA and publish themselves. Hell yes, it takes effort, but you're artists! You're supposed to starve.
The story goes on to say that many of the artists featured on the mixtapes would never have had the exposure and thus sales they had if DJ Drama had not featured them on a mix. Nowhere is a specific artist mentioned who claims to have been wronged by him. Additionally, the article states that mixtapes such as those made by DJ Drama are an accepted and integral part of rap music culture. His arrest is confusing on several levels.
It's not confusing if you consider that it's not the artists who are suing for distributing their music, it's the RIAA who is suing for distributing music mixed and compiled and marketed (sometimes) by them. I'm not sure how it would work if someone had an artist's permission to record their song live (like the Sting video, Fortress Around Your Heart) and then made mix tapes of those songs...does the RIAA own the song? Or just the recording of the song?
Each count brings a possible maximum sentence. Sum them up, and it could be over 100 years. It's called "sensationalism" and is quite prevalent in mainstream news. I'm guessing his sentence will be harsh as an example, but not more than a decade.
For corporate crooks, they need to start making the punishment fit the crime. If you steal 200 million dollars from your employees retirement before the company goes belly-up, and you get caught: you should be expected to repay that money, PLUS do jail time. Spammers obviously can't give back wasted time, so perhaps jail time is appropriate.
Fear-Mongering: Sure, everyone does a little bit of it. But eavesdropping without warrants or the terrorists will get us? Don't carry toothpaste on airline flights? A vote for Democrats (or anyone else but Republicans for that matter) is a vote for the terrorists? (And yes, that's a quote from George W. Bush from the mid-term campaign trail...he later qualified it by saying that "A lot of things get said on the trail...") You can look at it as people just trying to stay in power/keep their jobs, I suppose. And certainly spying on everyone is more likely to inhibit a terrorist threat. But this is America. Freedom, privacy -- shining beacon of hope, etc etc. Our leaders have shoved that reputation and flushed. We're still better than most other countries concerning personal freedoms and privacy, but we're not what we once were or could be. I think that's important, even if the "practical" side of the populace does not.
Mega-Corporations: Little company spreads out, becomes bigger through hard work and diligence and smart business practices. American dream. But then they turn around and move Walmart to small towns where any store that has the least bit of competition is soon undercut in terms of pricing and sent packing. In some places, the Super Walmarts can't be built anywhere but along a highway, so that's more cars on the road to get lower prices, driving business in downtown areas out as well. Take it to other countries where we can undercut local pricing, forcing farmers to work harder and charge less or take a hike. It changes their lifestyle, their culture. Read about it. It's important. Growing your business is great. Succeeding is great. But there are dodgy (a very friendly term) business practices (sweatshops, off-shore housing to evade taxes from any country, etc) that keep the powerful powerful and keep the average person down. Is this good? For some. But it's American culture, not everyone's. But with global expansion combined with about zero regulation, it'll soon be everyone's. And this also has good and bad points: some day, everyone will be using the dollar (or the yuan), I suppose and pay will be "equal" throughout the world. There'll be 3 weeks of vacation a year for everyone. Not too bad if that's your thing. It's the culture that pays. No more villages raising children because everyone has to work to keep up with the Joneses.
World Domination: Read about the New American Century. It's a good idea: keep America on top any way possible. It's a great idea for America, not so good when other countries start to compete and the only thing we can manage to do to keep on top is, you guessed it, attack them and claim their resources. Sure Sadaam was worth taking out. But if you ask the presidents of North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela, they'll say the same thing about Bush. I think those three are nutcases myself, but you can sort of see what they mean when they call Bush the "number one gangster". Basically, there are other ways to stay on top, and one of those is earning respect. People hate us, there's no denying that, and not just the crazy Islamic zealots. They hate everyone. Oh, people don't hate you, or me. But they hate Americanization, their own loss of identity, and they don't respect us because of our actions (war is bad, there's no getting around it). One might say that about any government, true or not, but we're number one in the news right now. We've fallen pretty far under the Bush administration. We need to start forward thinking: education, sustainable energy, health care. If we put as much money into hybrid technology as into the Iraq war, every car in the states could've been retrofit to make over 30 mpg.
Anyway, I'm not a deranged leftie (thanks for the open mind though) - I'm someone who actually cares about America's reputation in the world. Right now, we're playing the fat evil empire. That's why I'm saying we should just leave people alone OR treat them fairly.
Re:freaking me out
on
Who won?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Bush and his administration are fear-mongers, pushing their plans for, funnily enough, world domination and personal profit by making your average American think we need to do things their way to survive the terrorists.
To boot, the Iraq war civilian casualties lie somewhere between 150,000 and over half a million, depending on who you ask. That's a lot of innocent people killed for a cause the world wasn't behind.
Here's a hint: you want to save the world? Cut global economics. Stop screwing other countries over with your mega-corporations underselling the locals, forcing them to give up their lives and culture to be part of your conglomerate or die. Enterpreneurs are the heart of American economics: the ability to thrive and grow and the freedom to do it is why America is a superpower economically. But it's about time we start managing the floodgates of our enthusiasm and start working WITH other countries instead of just trampling them and using what's left to sell our goods.
Slashdot Mirror
Your posts are like the Edgar J. Hoover of Broadway theatre.
Arr? (Scooby-doo head tilt)
This is simply Amazon using admittedly bugged software (the discount application) and patching your credit card later. Typical in the software industry these days. And if you try to block the patch, you might get hit with an APR % nerf.
Surprised me too, but that's what the specs on the phone as well as the reviews tell everyone.
:-)
No surprise...there was a time when parts of the Microsoft web site ran on Linux too.
You must've read his book. You found it in the fiction section of the bookstore. You might try various news sources if you're looking for something closer to fact.
Michael Crichton's a smart guy who wrote a work of fiction based on current science, politics, and the underlying fear of global warming. He's in the same category as Tom Clancy and John Grisham. He's doing it for the money, and I daresay he's doing it for more money than any global warming researcher as most research money is ear-marked for defense (I work at a University, so take my word on this).
If you start hyping his fiction as reality, you're just asking to get picked on.
First I wanted the RIZR Z3...but it wasn't available through US carriers, though you could order an unlocked phone for just under $300.
Then I heard the RIZR Z6 was coming out - Linux OS, shinier casing, Windows Media Player and associated DRM. Still no 3G.
Now the RIZR Z8, this bendable phone, is launching either with or in place of the Z6. It runs Symbian, has 3G data speeds, and some odd colors. It will probably cost $900 or $34 with a 2 year contract.
On a text-based mud, I can understand it. There's no real-time (using the term loosely) feedback as there is in an MMORPG.
And sure, a number system is easy to follow in any game. We use it every day to drive to work, check the time, see how much we spent, etc. But if you're in a fight? After taking a punch to the gut, do you find yourself saying, "Wow...that was a 10 pointer!" No...you say "Ow." and you might go woozy or you might get emotional or some part of your body might not work right. And you might recover very quickly, or that one punch might give your opponent the upper hand for awhile.
That's what I'd like to see. Dragging around virtual broken legs isn't very fun, but being in a fight, knowing that your character is hobbled for a few moments, can't run....I find that more interesting than "He hit you for 5 points of damage."
EQ had stun damage when you were hit particularly hard. You'd be trading blows, then WHACK! and your character's viewpoint slows and sort of reels to the right. It was still a hit point loss, but that sort of feedback is what I'm talking about.
And now that we have computers that can easily represent and display physical damage in terms of gameplay and character efficiency...we still use hit points.
At times I wish game designers would FORGET about hit points.
I believe he means it's technically meaningless while others are arguing that it's beaurocratically important. The specs for validation aren't so difficult to meet, but if you don't go through the process, no one wants to use your software.
Like us: if you don't have that MCSE on your resumé, we don't want you.
Oh, wait. Yes we do...
Introducing an AI that can read if you're stressed by facial expressions is just asking for space genocide:
"Dave. You seem a bit peaked. You should sit down."
"You know Hal, I had my doubts about you in specs, but you're right. I am feeling a bit off. I think I will have a seat."
"Not there, Dave. I believe you'd be more comfortable by the airlock door..."
I'd have to add Battle for Middle-Earth to that list. It was Real-Time Strategy like so many others, but it was fun. The individual physics of each troop member made the excitement factor rise over pretty much all the others. A troll wading into a group of soldiers and swatting them away; cavalry riding over a troop of orcs, not just flattening them, but bouncing off the horses; the wings of the Nazgul blowing troops aside; and the Balrog exploding from the earth, tossing anything nearby away.
It had true castle defense and sieging mixed with standard RTS fare: and it was all Lord of the Rings. Just a really well-made game that took RTS to another strategic level.
How will running wamp_install.exe give you the "custom install" you were going for on Linux?
That's sort of like a generic LAMP install. But to get certain modules to be their speediest on Linux, you need to compile them in with the other packages. In Windows, you just drop their DLLs in the right places at any time, edit a config file, and you have your speedy mods.
The whole config/make/make install and the options you can choose depending on what you're trying to do just takes a little while to get used to after working so long with Windows installers and binary only installations. It's certainly interesting and I felt like I accomplished something. Sort of like fixing a car myself as opposed to dropping it off at the mechanic. You learn a lot on the way.
Perhaps with Microsoft's adoption of XML in their office docs we might see more consistency between platforms. The calendaring and public folder issue is simply a matter of doing it as well or better than MS, then replace Exchange completely with Open Source software for your whole company. You don't need to have consistency in your calendaring between different companies, only in your own. And if you can run a free (as in up-front cash, not as in maintenance) open source Exchange-like product, then you're probably saving your company a ton of money.
.dlls and editing your httpd.conf a little.
I recently tried to do a custom LAMP install of the latest versions of Apache, PHP, modperl, and MySQL. After downloading about 20 source packages (custom install, remember), and following five different forum's instructions, I managed to get it all working except modperl. I'll need to recompile Apache when I feel like having another go at getting modperl to work. There's a lot of gotchas, a lot of "this version doesn't work with that version", some "you can't use the binary install of MySQL if you want it compiled into PHP", and if you want to run both the mysql and mysqli extensions for PHP, you need to hand edit your Makefile.
Or you could run windows, double-click on wamp_install.exe and then add your custom extensions after by dropping in
You say that jokingly but there always seems to be room for what we want beside what is. Cheering or moaning is integral to the success of most things, in this case the MMORPG. Without the passion of the audience or participants, for better or worse, your product will fail. There's this ridiculously poorly programmed game called Horizons. Changed companies (at least in name to avoid legal issues) three times, billing canceled accounts all the while. People still play it because they want it to be better. It had potential in development, but because the programming was poor, it's a lost cause now. But it's still making money anyway.
Odd, these humans.
I picked your post to remind everyone what Brad McQuaid (owner of the Vanguard project). I paraphrase:
The game isn't done yet, but if it's going to be released at all it needs to be now to generate revenue to continue development. We feel it has a lot of potential but we're out of funds. The game is playable and will only get better, as is the case with all MMORPGs, though we freely admit this is not to launch specs.
So sure they're concerned about their credit cards but it's their credit cards, not their bank accounts.
In Tennessee, a guy sees a sign in front of a house: "Talking Dog for Sale."
He rings the bell and the owner tells him the dog is in the backyard. The guy goes into the backyard and sees a black mutt just sitting there.
"You talk?" he asks.
"Yep," the mutt replies.
"So, what's your story?"
The mutt looks up and says, "Well, I discovered this gift pretty young and I wanted to help the government, so I told the
CIA about my gift, and in no time they had me jetting from country to country, sitting in rooms with spies and world leaders, because no one figured a dog would be eavesdropping. I was one of their most valuable spies eight years running."
"The jetting around really tired me out, and I knew I wasn't getting any younger and I wanted to settle down. So I
signed up for a job at the airport to do some undercover security work, mostly wandering near suspicious characters and listening in. I uncovered some incredible dealings there and was awarded a batch of medals. Had a wife, a mess of puppies, and now I'm just retired."
The guy is amazed. He goes back in and asks the owner what he wants for the dog.
The owner says, "Ten dollars."
The guy says, "This dog is amazing. Why on earth are you selling him so cheap?"
The owner replies, "He's such a liar. He didn't do any of that stuff."
No mod points today but you're at 5 already. There are still webmasters doing college sites and sites with resources too low to hire more than one person. But for the major business sites, you're right...there's 10 jobs for any one website, so there is no "master" anymore...maybe just a Web Middle-Manager to keep the live team in-line with Accounting.
So we've got donors, a web host, programming it wouldn't be difficult, though I'd likely get shot for using PHP instead of Python...
But here's the tricky part: the finding of incoming patents with obvious prior art, and the time to fill out those forms, review them, and submit them. As a community project, this might be easier than it looks, if the articles can be peer reviewed, commented upon, etc.
So...
1) Paypal account to accept donations
2) System of displaying donation totals and expenditures for which patent
3) Submission of bad patent requests for review
4) Submission of prior art claims for those patents
5) Submission of final Patent form for review
6) Voting system on which Patents we submit against
- this last needs to come last because there's not point on voting against patents you haven't proven are false
7) A system where you can review your donation and which patent it went to block
NGTW!
I see a website which takes and publicly sums donations from people using Paypal, to collect money to combat bad patents. The sie could allow people to vote on which dodgy patents the money will go towards combatting.
I should so patent that idea.
I once developed a game that had 4-8 kingdoms each handled by 10 lords that were in charge of the armies that could go from hex to hex and discover what was there and use it to raise armies or hold land or even go on singular quests to gain powers which were rated from 1 to 10 in 7 different categories for each lord and when players' armies met they could use their different army races in varying strategies to combat the aggressor using dice and the controlling lord's powers which didn't need to be activated but would just work and the combats would go for two turns then the rest of the board could move so reinforcements might arrive and eventually the goal isn't to destroy your opponent but to claim the Evil Tower Hex where you have to battle the army there to save the land and proclaim yourself King.
It's sort of like checkers.
Congratulations, you've just killed a band
I don't know. There will come a time sooner or later where, because of the ease of electronic distribution, the marketing by the RIAA will be different. Heck, marketing will be different. Instead of always getting discovered and signed by an RIAA affiliate, you could get discovered and signed by any agency that wants to front the money thinking you may become a superstar. $10,000 for a recording, distributed relatively "free" through the Internet, and then it's up to them to market you: get you larger venues, charity concerts, pumped through café speakers. Eventually you're earning money, your sponsor is earning money, and you can make videos and get celebrity airtime, and soon you're in your Ferrari in Beverly Hills.
It'll be awhile...but that's the general idea.
At some point, an artist makes the choice to have their music managed by the RIAA, and those made into copyrighted, not-to-be-shared-without-being-properly-licensed recordings. I'm guessing that the advertising the RIAA does for artists they think can be successful is the driving force behind musicians still using them.
Musicians can get a loan and have a high-quality studio recording made of their music. With the internet, they can attempt to market it, and with the new music sites and the ubiquity of the internet, they might even get noticed. But noticed by who? Venues like to see you draw a crowd. How do you become a megastar without radio airplay, music videos, etc? I suppose you can get on the radio by popular opinion (enough calls to the radio stations by your fans), but getting airplay on MTV (do they still play videos?) is a bit more challenging without the RIAA paying for the time.
I guess it takes money to make money, and the RIAA makes that "easier" if not simply "possible" for the artist by saying, "Give us your act, and we'll make you famous." It just seems like the time is coming for artists to dodge the RIAA and publish themselves. Hell yes, it takes effort, but you're artists! You're supposed to starve.
The story goes on to say that many of the artists featured on the mixtapes would never have had the exposure and thus sales they had if DJ Drama had not featured them on a mix. Nowhere is a specific artist mentioned who claims to have been wronged by him. Additionally, the article states that mixtapes such as those made by DJ Drama are an accepted and integral part of rap music culture. His arrest is confusing on several levels.
It's not confusing if you consider that it's not the artists who are suing for distributing their music, it's the RIAA who is suing for distributing music mixed and compiled and marketed (sometimes) by them. I'm not sure how it would work if someone had an artist's permission to record their song live (like the Sting video, Fortress Around Your Heart) and then made mix tapes of those songs...does the RIAA own the song? Or just the recording of the song?
Each count brings a possible maximum sentence. Sum them up, and it could be over 100 years. It's called "sensationalism" and is quite prevalent in mainstream news. I'm guessing his sentence will be harsh as an example, but not more than a decade.
For corporate crooks, they need to start making the punishment fit the crime. If you steal 200 million dollars from your employees retirement before the company goes belly-up, and you get caught: you should be expected to repay that money, PLUS do jail time. Spammers obviously can't give back wasted time, so perhaps jail time is appropriate.
You can look at everything I said from two sides.
Fear-Mongering: Sure, everyone does a little bit of it. But eavesdropping without warrants or the terrorists will get us? Don't carry toothpaste on airline flights? A vote for Democrats (or anyone else but Republicans for that matter) is a vote for the terrorists? (And yes, that's a quote from George W. Bush from the mid-term campaign trail...he later qualified it by saying that "A lot of things get said on the trail...") You can look at it as people just trying to stay in power/keep their jobs, I suppose. And certainly spying on everyone is more likely to inhibit a terrorist threat. But this is America. Freedom, privacy -- shining beacon of hope, etc etc. Our leaders have shoved that reputation and flushed. We're still better than most other countries concerning personal freedoms and privacy, but we're not what we once were or could be. I think that's important, even if the "practical" side of the populace does not.
Mega-Corporations: Little company spreads out, becomes bigger through hard work and diligence and smart business practices. American dream. But then they turn around and move Walmart to small towns where any store that has the least bit of competition is soon undercut in terms of pricing and sent packing. In some places, the Super Walmarts can't be built anywhere but along a highway, so that's more cars on the road to get lower prices, driving business in downtown areas out as well. Take it to other countries where we can undercut local pricing, forcing farmers to work harder and charge less or take a hike. It changes their lifestyle, their culture. Read about it. It's important. Growing your business is great. Succeeding is great. But there are dodgy (a very friendly term) business practices (sweatshops, off-shore housing to evade taxes from any country, etc) that keep the powerful powerful and keep the average person down. Is this good? For some. But it's American culture, not everyone's. But with global expansion combined with about zero regulation, it'll soon be everyone's. And this also has good and bad points: some day, everyone will be using the dollar (or the yuan), I suppose and pay will be "equal" throughout the world. There'll be 3 weeks of vacation a year for everyone. Not too bad if that's your thing. It's the culture that pays. No more villages raising children because everyone has to work to keep up with the Joneses.
World Domination: Read about the New American Century. It's a good idea: keep America on top any way possible. It's a great idea for America, not so good when other countries start to compete and the only thing we can manage to do to keep on top is, you guessed it, attack them and claim their resources. Sure Sadaam was worth taking out. But if you ask the presidents of North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela, they'll say the same thing about Bush. I think those three are nutcases myself, but you can sort of see what they mean when they call Bush the "number one gangster". Basically, there are other ways to stay on top, and one of those is earning respect. People hate us, there's no denying that, and not just the crazy Islamic zealots. They hate everyone. Oh, people don't hate you, or me. But they hate Americanization, their own loss of identity, and they don't respect us because of our actions (war is bad, there's no getting around it). One might say that about any government, true or not, but we're number one in the news right now. We've fallen pretty far under the Bush administration. We need to start forward thinking: education, sustainable energy, health care. If we put as much money into hybrid technology as into the Iraq war, every car in the states could've been retrofit to make over 30 mpg.
Anyway, I'm not a deranged leftie (thanks for the open mind though) - I'm someone who actually cares about America's reputation in the world. Right now, we're playing the fat evil empire. That's why I'm saying we should just leave people alone OR treat them fairly.
Bush and his administration are fear-mongers, pushing their plans for, funnily enough, world domination and personal profit by making your average American think we need to do things their way to survive the terrorists.
To boot, the Iraq war civilian casualties lie somewhere between 150,000 and over half a million, depending on who you ask. That's a lot of innocent people killed for a cause the world wasn't behind.
Here's a hint: you want to save the world? Cut global economics. Stop screwing other countries over with your mega-corporations underselling the locals, forcing them to give up their lives and culture to be part of your conglomerate or die. Enterpreneurs are the heart of American economics: the ability to thrive and grow and the freedom to do it is why America is a superpower economically. But it's about time we start managing the floodgates of our enthusiasm and start working WITH other countries instead of just trampling them and using what's left to sell our goods.