I'm not talking about tech weenies like you and me. I'm talking about the slightly poorer folks who decided to indulge in that cool internet thing that's all the rage. When push comes to shove, I'd wager that when it's time to start trimming back (another kid on the way, dad's hours are cut back, or mom looses her job), people will cut the ISP before things like cell phones (1-year contract) and subscription TV (cable, satellite, etc).
Donate money to a campaign fund or an organization that supports your ideals. I'm sure the EFF will take non-US money.
Hell, even your local lobbying groups can have an affect, even if they're not affected by the foreign laws. For example, the nosey LDS (Mormon) church heavily lobbied in several states (I want to say Hawaii and Alaska) a few years ago to try to defeat state laws that would legitimize same-sex marriages. I forget what the outcome was, but ut illustrates my point.
Let's not forget that the economy is in the crapper. The $20-to-$30/month for a dialup subscription can feed a family for a few more days when things get tight.
Yeah, broadband is a nice upgrade. But I bet more people disconnected due to money than the need for speed.
As a mail admin, I've been contacted about this. I simply tar'ed up the tree and handed it to the user (so to speak -- I gave him a URL he could snarf it from his new location). He contacted his new mail admin and had him throw the files in place as-is.
Of course, not all postmasters are that helpful:) But it never hurts to ask.
Well, I don't know the exact GB count. However, they took 165 650MB CD-Rs to back up. That was using a home-brew "optimal" pack using entire albums (I didn't want to fish out 12 CDs to rebuild an entire album). I probably could have shaved off a half-dozen CD-Rs by packing them using individual songs.
Calculated, 650 MB per CD times 165 CDs is about 107 GB.
As soon as I can scrape the cash together, I'm gonna buy a large hard drive and keep them on-line for XMMS. Right now I have them compressed to 256MB MP3s with LAME.
I wish Jeff Gilchrist would add a unix/linux section to the Archive Comparison Test (ACT) page (http://compression.ca). He does have a corpus of sound files, so check it out to see how other compressors are doing (FLAC is not included, though).
FLAC isn't just free-as-in-beer. It's Free, complete with source and everything.
I've backed-up about 325 music CDs to CD-R using FLAC. It works as advertised. If you want lossless compression, use FLAC. It even has a XMMS plugin -- I use it all the time.
There are so many things that get taxed, it's silly. The "use tax" means pretty much everything that the government hasn't covered already by licensing and regulation.
If I buy a product from out of state over the web, I "owe" money to my state for it.
If I buy something at a garage sale, I'm supposed to report that.
If I barter a deal, I'm supposed to report it's value. That is, if I say to my plumber friend, "I'll upgrade your shop's point-of-sale system, will you fix a leaky faucet for me?" I'm supposed to report the value of his service ($40/hr, for the example of my local plumber). Note with irony, that you're not allowed to deduct that same professional time if you donate it. So if I put in 20 free hours (what I would normally bill at $50/hr) this year re-wiring a local school's computer labs for some charity, I can't deduct that $1000 the same way if I wrote a check for $1000 to that same school as a donation.
Next you'll be saying that because getting X-rays of your teeth at the dentist doesn't cause cancer, we can all be content to subject ourselves to constant low does of X-rays every day?
There's a huge difference between the rare large dose of something versus chronic exposure to that same thing.
I remember sitting through an entire Sunday afternoon of Discovery Channel paranormal-themed shows.
One show on alien abducitons illustrated a doctor's theory that magnetic fields caused people to "experience" abductions. They sat some woman in a contraption designed to control the magnetic field in her brain. It wasn't the quick "zapping" described in this article, but was (I think) a continuous state of field applied to the brain.
It was kinda freaky. Depending on how the doctor had things set, the woman experienced floating, a feeling of paranoia and being watched, and unfocused fear.
Seemed like a plausible explanation of the adbuction experience. However, I am not convinced that such magnetic fields randomly wind up in people's bedrooms.
It's interesting to note that downloading music you already own is most likely perfectly legal, whether the RIAA likes to admit it or not, simply because of they way they are trying to categorize the sale of music.
This is by no means certain. It was this very same issue where MP3.com got their ass handed to them on a silver platter. Mind you that the cowardly Michael Robertson didn't let the matter go to court to have the premise tested, but folded and took the money and ran.
I am very curious to see if it would hold up in court. I have my doubts, due to the lack of support for the end user by the courts in recent cases concerning copyright (Eldred vs Ashcroft, mainly).
The idea (which seems true to me) is that consumers do not want to have to choose between thousands of products most of which are bad but dozens of products most of which are good. Getting from thousands to dozens requires that 99% of the products be filtered.
Like we already don't end up filtering the crap that's already been filtered? Thanks, but I'd rather take my chances at sampling all of what's out there, rather than the top 5% of what the major media coglomerates decide is best to pump up on cable and radio airwaves.
I've sampled much stuff from mp3.com (before they sold out and started featuring Top-40 crap and screwing the indies that gave it a name to begin with), and have been more recently checking out stuff from cdbaby.com. I have to say that the indie stuff is no better/worse than what's out there in the mainstream. They both have a lot of crap, but there are some gems out there. Personally, I think I'm better off finding my own "hits" than the letting the radio do it.
I mean, really, half the hit songs become hits through sheer repitition of airplay -- subliminal, if you will. If a co-worker has a radio on all day, and I hear the same dozen songs eight times during my day, I'll very likely end up liking a song through familiarity. The other half of songs become hits via associations with TV shows, movies, and commercials. How many people truly thought Da-Da-Da was a cool song before the VW commecial?
I'd forgotten about this awesome game (a download into my VMWare session is going as I type this). Far more enjoyable than Tetris. And far better than Welltris. Anyone remember that piece of shit, Welltris? Man, did it suck ass. I can't belive I spent real money on that game.
Companies aren't and shouldn't be loyal to their employees when times are tough-- though good companies never let times get that tough on them.
It saddens me to think that people have been conditioned to think this way. Saddens and sickens me.
My first "Real" job out of college was with a small software firm. It had about 50 people, about 40 locally and the rest in remote offices scattered around the country.
The synergy of the employess struck me as awesome. The people were an eclectic mix of various techinical and educational backgrounds and personalities. Everything simply worked.
The driving force -- no, the soul -- of this company was the owner. He was the most genuinely good man I think I've ever known. Everyone thought the world of him. The big story was that in the earlier days of the company, he took out a 2nd mortgage several times to cover payroll until sales picked up!
When times were lean, we didn't mind not getting raises or top notch pay because the workplace was so great and we knew the owner would take care of us when times improved.
While some true deadwood and/or bad apples got cut occasionally, there were never any layoffs for the sake of keeping the company afloat.
Some business owners may say it's foolish for the captain to go down with his ship, but I respected that attitude. The guy already had enough money in the bank to float a long time if the business ever folded. So he knew he had "enough" money and actually cares for the well-being of his employees.
That said, I would have stayed with the company until the end -- all of us would have. It was a true two-way relationship.
Sadly, tbe company merged with another larger one (~250 employees). The new management sucked ass. The customers balked. We employees balked. But the former owner was pretty much powerless to resolve anything at that point. While he thought he was benefitting everyone (and we all did, too -- I myself was a poster boy for the merger), it appeared in retrospect that the larger company simply wanted our (very loyal) user base and didn't give a rat's ass for the assimilated employees or customers, as it pretty much shelved our software and most of the original employees from our company.
I aspire to one day, if I ever run a business, be as good a man as the one I once worked for. If every owner was like this, this country would be a better place for it.
The difference with licenses, medical records, etc. is that people are forced to provide such information. Put another way, the respective institutions either log this info against our will, or they extort us to provide it.
Invariable, some schmuck will say, "Well, driving is a privilege, not a right. If you don't like the DMV knowing (and possibly publishing) your current address, then don't drive." While I'm sure that millions of americans don't own a car and do fine, the vast size of this country pretty much demands that most people have some kind of motorized transport to earn the money for bare essentials.
I doubt these same schmucks would say, "Medical care isn't a necessity, either. If you don't want a clinic to keep detailed, intimate records of your health problems (and possibly sell/publish them), don't visit a doctor."
The "don't drive" argument doesn't work for me. I think that absolutely all information about individuals should default to be off-limits, whether it's the DMV, the after-hours health clinic, or the telephone company.
However, the instutions that take our money, either voluntarily (businesses) or at gunpoint (taxes, licenses, etc.) must be accountable, and I believe that such high visibility provides that accountability, to some degree.
In case you haven't kept up with the anti-hacking provisions in the Homeland Security Act (pummeled often here on Slashdot), the original poster's idea has merit. The laws are quite draconian -- like in China, as you say.
Of course, I'd prefer to see the laws be revoked, rather than validated and then entrenched, even on slime such as spammers.
Me and my fellow dorm residents pissed away a couple of months back in 1990 when I introduced them to the old DOS version of Scorched Earth. It toppled Lemmings as the most addictive game in the housing unit I was in (Terry Courts, Purdue -- anyone?).
To find a networked version brings tears to my eye.
As for markup, we rarely think about it as we happily pay for it. Next time you see a box of Wheaties, ask yourself how much the wheat cost. Probably less than a raw CD. Now look at that pretty and informative 4-color box it comes in. Which costs more? Then look around at the supermarket. How much does it cost to run? A lot. What does this have to do with the price of wheat? Nothing, but it has a heck of a lot to do with the price of Wheaties.
For perspective... a 50-lb bag of organic, hard, winter red wheat (Red Chief brand) will run you about $11 (more, of course, if you need it shipped to you). That's maybe 4 boxes of Wheaties?
My family has a hand-crank grain mill. So that 50-lb bag will give my family of four 4-to-6 months of bread, tortillas, pasta, cereal (nothing liked craked wheat and honey on a cold December morning!), cream of wheat, pancakes, etc (anything you make primarily with flour). Note, we haven't found a way to make flake cereals yet, so no Wheaties for us yet.
Think of the retail prices on all of those products (sold usually in roughly 1-to-2 lb portions). Now think how much cheaper the bulk, wholesale price of wheat goes for (anyone know the commodity price of a bushel of wheat these days?). Scary to think how much money is being made, all for the sake of a little convenience.
Of course the wheat thing doesn't apply to music production, but we consumers always pay an obscene mark-up.
I will gladly reward an artist who puts his/her heart and soul into his/her music, but why should I pay for an untalented tart around whom a musical concept is worked out by a bunch of producers, and all she has to do walk around in ultra-short skirts?
You want an admittedly contrived act? Well check out Tatu. It seems that the've taken the single-babe act and added a touch of lesbianism that makes Madonna's early acts seem pretty tame.
Yeah, they're pretty hot (IMO). But really... isn't this going a bit too far? I guess since under-aged girls can't do porn, then must really be pushing the envelope to sell tickets/albums here.
Personally, with as contrived as these acts are, I think Vivid Entertainment should just get into the music business. Can you imagine the turnout for Raquel Darrian's first tour? Instead of 20,000 screaming teenage girls, you'd have 20,000 panting middle-aged male porn fans. Talk about a scary crowd.
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I'm not talking about tech weenies like you and me. I'm talking about the slightly poorer folks who decided to indulge in that cool internet thing that's all the rage. When push comes to shove, I'd wager that when it's time to start trimming back (another kid on the way, dad's hours are cut back, or mom looses her job), people will cut the ISP before things like cell phones (1-year contract) and subscription TV (cable, satellite, etc).
Hell, even your local lobbying groups can have an affect, even if they're not affected by the foreign laws. For example, the nosey LDS (Mormon) church heavily lobbied in several states (I want to say Hawaii and Alaska) a few years ago to try to defeat state laws that would legitimize same-sex marriages. I forget what the outcome was, but ut illustrates my point.
Yeah, broadband is a nice upgrade. But I bet more people disconnected due to money than the need for speed.
Of course, not all postmasters are that helpful :) But it never hurts to ask.
I don't know what's worse. This stuff existing or my knowing where to find it. ;)
Calculated, 650 MB per CD times 165 CDs is about 107 GB.
As soon as I can scrape the cash together, I'm gonna buy a large hard drive and keep them on-line for XMMS. Right now I have them compressed to 256MB MP3s with LAME.
I wish Jeff Gilchrist would add a unix/linux section to the Archive Comparison Test (ACT) page (http://compression.ca). He does have a corpus of sound files, so check it out to see how other compressors are doing (FLAC is not included, though).
I've backed-up about 325 music CDs to CD-R using FLAC. It works as advertised. If you want lossless compression, use FLAC. It even has a XMMS plugin -- I use it all the time.
If I buy a product from out of state over the web, I "owe" money to my state for it.
If I buy something at a garage sale, I'm supposed to report that.
If I barter a deal, I'm supposed to report it's value. That is, if I say to my plumber friend, "I'll upgrade your shop's point-of-sale system, will you fix a leaky faucet for me?" I'm supposed to report the value of his service ($40/hr, for the example of my local plumber). Note with irony, that you're not allowed to deduct that same professional time if you donate it. So if I put in 20 free hours (what I would normally bill at $50/hr) this year re-wiring a local school's computer labs for some charity, I can't deduct that $1000 the same way if I wrote a check for $1000 to that same school as a donation.
Taxes are funny, annoying creatures.
There's a huge difference between the rare large dose of something versus chronic exposure to that same thing.
One show on alien abducitons illustrated a doctor's theory that magnetic fields caused people to "experience" abductions. They sat some woman in a contraption designed to control the magnetic field in her brain. It wasn't the quick "zapping" described in this article, but was (I think) a continuous state of field applied to the brain.
It was kinda freaky. Depending on how the doctor had things set, the woman experienced floating, a feeling of paranoia and being watched, and unfocused fear.
Seemed like a plausible explanation of the adbuction experience. However, I am not convinced that such magnetic fields randomly wind up in people's bedrooms.
"They're shitty!"
Ooops! wrong team. :) I was born in columbus, so I can dis on Ohio teams, too.
This is by no means certain. It was this very same issue where MP3.com got their ass handed to them on a silver platter. Mind you that the cowardly Michael Robertson didn't let the matter go to court to have the premise tested, but folded and took the money and ran.
I am very curious to see if it would hold up in court. I have my doubts, due to the lack of support for the end user by the courts in recent cases concerning copyright (Eldred vs Ashcroft, mainly).
...this guys funds this excursion by harrassing people for two dollars, right?
Like we already don't end up filtering the crap that's already been filtered? Thanks, but I'd rather take my chances at sampling all of what's out there, rather than the top 5% of what the major media coglomerates decide is best to pump up on cable and radio airwaves.
I've sampled much stuff from mp3.com (before they sold out and started featuring Top-40 crap and screwing the indies that gave it a name to begin with), and have been more recently checking out stuff from cdbaby.com. I have to say that the indie stuff is no better/worse than what's out there in the mainstream. They both have a lot of crap, but there are some gems out there. Personally, I think I'm better off finding my own "hits" than the letting the radio do it.
I mean, really, half the hit songs become hits through sheer repitition of airplay -- subliminal, if you will. If a co-worker has a radio on all day, and I hear the same dozen songs eight times during my day, I'll very likely end up liking a song through familiarity. The other half of songs become hits via associations with TV shows, movies, and commercials. How many people truly thought Da-Da-Da was a cool song before the VW commecial?
I'd forgotten about this awesome game (a download into my VMWare session is going as I type this). Far more enjoyable than Tetris. And far better than Welltris. Anyone remember that piece of shit, Welltris? Man, did it suck ass. I can't belive I spent real money on that game.
It saddens me to think that people have been conditioned to think this way. Saddens and sickens me.
My first "Real" job out of college was with a small software firm. It had about 50 people, about 40 locally and the rest in remote offices scattered around the country.
The synergy of the employess struck me as awesome. The people were an eclectic mix of various techinical and educational backgrounds and personalities. Everything simply worked.
The driving force -- no, the soul -- of this company was the owner. He was the most genuinely good man I think I've ever known. Everyone thought the world of him. The big story was that in the earlier days of the company, he took out a 2nd mortgage several times to cover payroll until sales picked up!
When times were lean, we didn't mind not getting raises or top notch pay because the workplace was so great and we knew the owner would take care of us when times improved.
While some true deadwood and/or bad apples got cut occasionally, there were never any layoffs for the sake of keeping the company afloat.
Some business owners may say it's foolish for the captain to go down with his ship, but I respected that attitude. The guy already had enough money in the bank to float a long time if the business ever folded. So he knew he had "enough" money and actually cares for the well-being of his employees.
That said, I would have stayed with the company until the end -- all of us would have. It was a true two-way relationship.
Sadly, tbe company merged with another larger one (~250 employees). The new management sucked ass. The customers balked. We employees balked. But the former owner was pretty much powerless to resolve anything at that point. While he thought he was benefitting everyone (and we all did, too -- I myself was a poster boy for the merger), it appeared in retrospect that the larger company simply wanted our (very loyal) user base and didn't give a rat's ass for the assimilated employees or customers, as it pretty much shelved our software and most of the original employees from our company.
I aspire to one day, if I ever run a business, be as good a man as the one I once worked for. If every owner was like this, this country would be a better place for it.
Invariable, some schmuck will say, "Well, driving is a privilege, not a right. If you don't like the DMV knowing (and possibly publishing) your current address, then don't drive." While I'm sure that millions of americans don't own a car and do fine, the vast size of this country pretty much demands that most people have some kind of motorized transport to earn the money for bare essentials.
I doubt these same schmucks would say, "Medical care isn't a necessity, either. If you don't want a clinic to keep detailed, intimate records of your health problems (and possibly sell/publish them), don't visit a doctor."
The "don't drive" argument doesn't work for me. I think that absolutely all information about individuals should default to be off-limits, whether it's the DMV, the after-hours health clinic, or the telephone company.
However, the instutions that take our money, either voluntarily (businesses) or at gunpoint (taxes, licenses, etc.) must be accountable, and I believe that such high visibility provides that accountability, to some degree.
Of course, I'd prefer to see the laws be revoked, rather than validated and then entrenched, even on slime such as spammers.
"So I'm expecting my first child."
(Applause and cheers from crowd.)
"It's not that big a deal -- all I did was fuck my wife."
To find a networked version brings tears to my eye.
Better check your Star Trek references. That was a reference to the subtle joke in that awful save-the-whales Trek movie.
For perspective... a 50-lb bag of organic, hard, winter red wheat (Red Chief brand) will run you about $11 (more, of course, if you need it shipped to you). That's maybe 4 boxes of Wheaties?
My family has a hand-crank grain mill. So that 50-lb bag will give my family of four 4-to-6 months of bread, tortillas, pasta, cereal (nothing liked craked wheat and honey on a cold December morning!), cream of wheat, pancakes, etc (anything you make primarily with flour). Note, we haven't found a way to make flake cereals yet, so no Wheaties for us yet.
Think of the retail prices on all of those products (sold usually in roughly 1-to-2 lb portions). Now think how much cheaper the bulk, wholesale price of wheat goes for (anyone know the commodity price of a bushel of wheat these days?). Scary to think how much money is being made, all for the sake of a little convenience.
Of course the wheat thing doesn't apply to music production, but we consumers always pay an obscene mark-up.
You want an admittedly contrived act? Well check out Tatu. It seems that the've taken the single-babe act and added a touch of lesbianism that makes Madonna's early acts seem pretty tame.
Yeah, they're pretty hot (IMO). But really... isn't this going a bit too far? I guess since under-aged girls can't do porn, then must really be pushing the envelope to sell tickets/albums here.
Personally, with as contrived as these acts are, I think Vivid Entertainment should just get into the music business. Can you imagine the turnout for Raquel Darrian's first tour? Instead of 20,000 screaming teenage girls, you'd have 20,000 panting middle-aged male porn fans. Talk about a scary crowd.
Dude, what happened to those 350 workstations/servers from 2001 to 2002? That seems pretty odd. Did your company sell off a division or something?