The construction company that built this tragedy is still in business, and has grown into the biggest one in Kansas City. So much for Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand".
I'm not surprised they cooperated with the BBC because the BBC's reputation is very, very high and they aren't likely to show it widely in the US.
I think the concern is this footage, could wind up on "Faces of Death" type compilations. The BBC also has a reputation for holding onto footage of any sort fairly tenatiously - you can't get a copy of a morning chat show out of them.
My friend cooporated with this one, but has not generally wanted to talk about it - we've never discussed it. His involvment may have had something to do with the BBC's success, I'm not sure.
I live near KC and I remember when the skywalks collapsed. As the story unfolded after the tragedy, it became readily apparent that everyone just assumed everyone else was doing what they thought they should be doing or that their shortcuts were fine with everyone else.:-( Communication and checking up on how things are actually progressing versus the plans can be a real matter of life or death.
I lived in KC at the time, and I recall that there were more screw-ups than this short summery mentioned. The metal fabricator also changed the design of the beams. As designed, they were to be made of two "U" shaped channels welded together with a seam on the left and right sides of the beam. They didn't have those bits in stock, so they used two shallower "U" shaped pieces and welded them together at the top and bottom of the beam...and then drilled the holes for the threaded rod right through the welds!
Everyone involved was criminally culpable...and (to my knowledge) went to prison.
Also, on a side note, the local KC TV news organizations try hard to prevent people from getting to their archives of what happened.
A good friend of mine was the first emergency physician on the scene at the Hyatt and performed the triage. He was recently interviewed by the BBC for a documentary about the Hyatt. They supplied footage to the BBC, but no...they don't have any reason to supply footage to random people.
I'm surprised that I haven't seen any mention of Thomas Gold's "Deep Hot Biosphere" theory. This would seem to support his idea that there is a second biosphere that produces hydrocarbons as a waste product.
So now we have the litany of the RIAA's predictive prowess. Most informative, thank you.
You're welcome.
This is all just from my personal perspective. I've been buying LPs, 45s, CDs, cassettes, VHS, Beta, LaserDiscs, DVDs and all other manner of pre-recorded media since the mid-1970s. I've got a room filled with pre-recorded media and a hard disk filled with MP3s. So I've been observing the RIAA's antics for years...the whole Napster thing was done before with the introduction of dual-well cassette decks.
Visit your local used record shop (the kind that sells LPs) and look at a copy of Bow Wow Wow's 1980 US release. Their first single "C30, C60, C90 Go!" a jingle for home taping. The album has "Home Taping is Killing Music!" printed on the back.
Music, as you know doubt have observed, survived.
My question is, what other similar assurances have we heard from the MPAA? We're all familiar with Valenti comparing the VCR to a serial killer, but what else is there?
I don't have much documentation on that, other than witnessing the movie studios fighting home video tooth and nail. We practically had to force the money into their pockets.
You would be instructve to see that the usual suspects are doing the same things for the MPAA that they did for the RIAA. I direct you to Frank Zappa's testimony before Congress. The hearing were supposed to be about offensive lyrics, but Frank pointed out that it was a smokescreen to slide through a tax on blank tapes...in much the same way that the Monica Lewinski nonsense was a cover for the DMCA.
The ladies' shame must be shared by the bosses at the major labels who, through the RIAA, chose to bargain away the rights of composers, performers, and retailers in order to pass H.R. 2911, The Blank Tape Tax: A private tax levied by an industry on consumers for the benefit of a select group within that industry.
Is this a consumer issue? You bet it is. PMRC spokesperson, Kandy Stroud, announced to millions of fascinated viewers on last Friday's ABC Nightline debate that Senator Gore, a man she described as "A friend of the music industry," is co-sponsor of something she referred to as "anti-piracy legislation". Is this the same tax bill with a nicer name?
The major record labels need to have H.R. 2911 whiz through a few committees before anybody smells a rat.
Record company executives always find something to blame a decline in sales on. And any increase in sales they attribute to their own brilliance. Back in the 1980s, they were blaming cassettes with the "Home Taping In Killing Music" nonsense, with it's pathetic "cassette & crossbones" stickers. In the 1990s, they were blaming used CD sales, and trotted out Garth Brooks to clame that the legal "right of first resale" was taking food from his children's mouths. And before that it was:
It's sneaking in via devices like the Tivo. Here's a solid, reliable utterly useful device with a great interface. Think of it as proof of concept that Linux can be used to make a computer for your Mom.
The US Government should change copyright policy to require electronic deposition. If every copyrighted work was available in data form via the Library Of Congress, OSINT would be a lot simplier and cheaper. Copyright interests would not like it much, but compared to the damage done to civil liberties so far in the aftermath of 9/11, it's a small sacrifice.
Re:Have you seen it in hi-def?
on
The Rise of CSI
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
geee, $2500 for a TV show spattered with 20% commercials. Think I'll pass.
You can watch it using a $399 (retail list) HDTV tuner card like the Telemann HiPix, AccessDTV or Hauppauge WinTV-HD and any VGA monitor. I'm using a used Unity Motion receiver. The main thing holding HD back is this belief that it is outragously expensive.
The thing is, I wouldn't be watching this show if it wasn't in HD. It's compelling, and I hadn't been watching any network programming in a couple of years.
to any hardware manufacturer at one point. That not one took him up on it is a fairly positive indication that MS was putting some major pressure on PC makers. It's been shown that the secret licence that MS forced PC makers to sign specifically prevented PC makers from offering any alternative. The only PC maker who did offer BeOS pre-installed (Toshiba?) was forced to hide it, rather than make it a menu choice.
Be has a very good case. Put it this way - there are folks who would be happier to invest in this suit, than in Be as a successful seller of operating systems.
In "Two Live Crew vs. Estate of Roy Orbison", the Supreme Court ruled that the parody didn't have to be funny to be protected. TWC's moronic cover of "Pretty Woman" wasn't funny, but that didn't have anything to do with the intent. Thankfully, we don't have courts trying to judge if something is funny or not - look at the wonderful job they've done with erotica.
I believe the key words are 'latent portion'. If their video signal doesn't use all of the bandwidth allocated to them, then any un-used portion could theoretically be 'reused' without contradicting an agreement to 'trade analog for digital frequencies'...
The problem is, the ratio of active to latent is determined by how heavily compressed the HD signal is. They want to offer more of their bandwidth for data services, they increase the compression of the HD signal. Does anyone think that "digital cable" actually delivered a better picture?
It's not even the direct bribes. TV stations are the crack dealers selling the crack to which all politicians are addicted - TV coverage. Every politician knows, no TV coverage, no chance of getting elected, no chance to get any bribes from anyone.
The vertical blanking interval has been used for data transmission for years. Install a TV tuner card in a Windows PC and you'll see exactly what is involved. The idea was "enhanced TV". I managed to access a few programs that used this, but for the most part, it's dead. DirecTV and Dish Network and a lot of cable system stripped off the VBI information - they claimed that it was not intentionally, but the truth is that they didn't want any datastreams as compatition to their data offerings.
Most channels get enough spectrum for ~16 HDTV channels...
Huh? Where did you get that idea? Every channel gets exactly enough spectrum for exactly one 1080i HD channel at 19.2 Mb/sec. Any data or additional channels cuts into that bit budget. They can run a 720P signal and a good quality 480P, or 6 really crappy 480P channels like PAX. ANY data transmission costs HDTV quality...and HDTV quality was the whole point in giving the spectrum to the broadcasters in the first place! Do not let these jerks get away with ripping off our public airways!
The folks complaining that the specific chip used in the Nintendo wasn't a graphics chip are missing the point. It didn't matter if the 4600i would have any application to comsumer graphics cards. What mattered is that it caused MIPS to build a much larger fab. And, most importantly, it should have shown the management at SGI that there was a massive consumer market that wanted SGI chips. They had a demand and an opportunity and ignored them both.
I used to demo software for an SGI dealer, and learned to loath the company. The special hard drive mounting bracket for an Indy would cost more than the drive. The knob box cost $1500. Nutty prices.
But the thing that sealed their doom was when they didn't take the opportunity offered by Nintendo purchasing a huge number of R4000 chips. They could have taken the volumes offered by this to start selling MIPS chips to PC video card makers. They could have owned the entire video card market, and not suffered the brain drain that found all their best people working for competitors. Instead, their fat-cat sales force ruled against that move. They liked selling expensive workstations and servers to big clients for big bucks.
If they had played this card correctly, Nvidia would have never happened. Who wouldn't have wanted a "Silicon Graphics" game card? Instead, they were stupid greedy and they'll die. And they'll deserve to die.
There are three HD cards out right now. The Hauppauge, the Access DTV and the Telemann. All three have recording ability. The Access DTV is probably the slickest, but the recordings are serialized to the individual board. The Hauppauge's software lags behind the other two. The Telemann is the one I'm going to pick up. It has good software, the recordings are trasferrable between boards, and the Users of AVS Forum have developed DV Transfer, a program to archive HD on Digital8 or DV tapes.
The price of all three is around $399. Cheap compared to any stand-alone HD tuner, and it functions as a recorder.
What it boils down to is a concession that these are not legitimate users, but people practicing a form of infringement you consider to be acceptable.
No, these are legimate users using a product they purchased in a way that you consider unacceptable. Microsoft and the SPA agree with you. But as no other form of copyrighted work comes with similar limitations, this opinion has to be tested in court. Hopefully, some rich lawyer will get annoyed at all this nonsense and challenge it.
"Legitimate users" do not use a single user license for several installs.
OK, the oldest canard in the "copyright is property" playbook is the "car canard". They claim that duplicating a copy of Windows "is like stealing a car".
But if it's real property, the auto dealer can't tell me how I can use that car. The dealer cannot dictate to me that various members of the same family have to pay more money to drive the same car. Or, to be more accurate, to ride in the same car at the same time.
The car dealer gets paid the same amount weather I'm the only person driving the car, if I rent it out to different people every day, or use it for carpooling.
All other "intellectual property" allows several users to consume it at the same time. I buy DVDs. I can show it to all the members of my family and as many friends as I like as long as I don't charge admission. I can use it on my player, can loan it to friends, play it on my laptop. It's just that the nature of the "PC" is that it is "personal". Only one member of a family can "consume" Windows XP at once. That is not fair.
there is no radio licence fee, it's paid for out of the television licence.
Ah, my mistake. It's a bit confusing though, that it's called the "television licence" if it covers both TV and radio. Shouldn't it be a "broadcasting licence" then?
You may think i'm being pedantic but it's worrying that americans think british people need a licence to own a radio.
No, but then it's hardly obvious that one would need a licence for one type of broadcasting and not the other. Americans, in general I believe, think that the whole idea of having to licence a TV set is pretty weird in the first place.
This is great! A broadcasting entity as large and well respected as Auntie Beeb boosting Ogg Vorbis is exactly the push it needs. This will also same the BBC a huge amount of money. Thomson is collecting a lot of money for Franuhoffer for every MP3 stream...money that they could use in a lot of other ways. (Maybe this will result in a reduction of the radio licence fee? Nah...) Hopefully all the other broadcasters will look at this for an example.
I'm sure the opportunity to thumb their noses at the French (Thomson) and the Germans (Fraunhoffer) had nothing to do with their decision either.
Slashdot Mirror
The construction company that built this tragedy is still in business, and has grown into the biggest one in Kansas City. So much for Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand".
I think the concern is this footage, could wind up on "Faces of Death" type compilations. The BBC also has a reputation for holding onto footage of any sort fairly tenatiously - you can't get a copy of a morning chat show out of them. My friend cooporated with this one, but has not generally wanted to talk about it - we've never discussed it. His involvment may have had something to do with the BBC's success, I'm not sure.
Teach me to actually re-read the thing when I preview it. What I meant to say was:
Everyone involved was criminally culpable...and (to my knowledge) *NOBODY* went to prison.
I lived in KC at the time, and I recall that there were more screw-ups than this short summery mentioned. The metal fabricator also changed the design of the beams. As designed, they were to be made of two "U" shaped channels welded together with a seam on the left and right sides of the beam. They didn't have those bits in stock, so they used two shallower "U" shaped pieces and welded them together at the top and bottom of the beam...and then drilled the holes for the threaded rod right through the welds!
Everyone involved was criminally culpable...and (to my knowledge) went to prison.
A good friend of mine was the first emergency physician on the scene at the Hyatt and performed the triage. He was recently interviewed by the BBC for a documentary about the Hyatt. They supplied footage to the BBC, but no...they don't have any reason to supply footage to random people.
Ted Waitt's brother Norm started Samson Music back in 1997. They signed a bunch of new artists, but then dropped them, changed their name to Gold Circle Records and signed a bunch of 80's leftovers.
I'm surprised that I haven't seen any mention of Thomas Gold's "Deep Hot Biosphere" theory. This would seem to support his idea that there is a second biosphere that produces hydrocarbons as a waste product.
You're welcome.
This is all just from my personal perspective. I've been buying LPs, 45s, CDs, cassettes, VHS, Beta, LaserDiscs, DVDs and all other manner of pre-recorded media since the mid-1970s. I've got a room filled with pre-recorded media and a hard disk filled with MP3s. So I've been observing the RIAA's antics for years...the whole Napster thing was done before with the introduction of dual-well cassette decks.
Visit your local used record shop (the kind that sells LPs) and look at a copy of Bow Wow Wow's 1980 US release. Their first single "C30, C60, C90 Go!" a jingle for home taping. The album has "Home Taping is Killing Music!" printed on the back.
Music, as you know doubt have observed, survived.
I don't have much documentation on that, other than witnessing the movie studios fighting home video tooth and nail. We practically had to force the money into their pockets.
You would be instructve to see that the usual suspects are doing the same things for the MPAA that they did for the RIAA. I direct you to Frank Zappa's testimony before Congress. The hearing were supposed to be about offensive lyrics, but Frank pointed out that it was a smokescreen to slide through a tax on blank tapes...in much the same way that the Monica Lewinski nonsense was a cover for the DMCA.
The ladies' shame must be shared by the bosses at the major labels who, through the RIAA, chose to bargain away the rights of composers, performers, and retailers in order to pass H.R. 2911, The Blank Tape Tax: A private tax levied by an industry on consumers for the benefit of a select group within that industry.
Is this a consumer issue? You bet it is. PMRC spokesperson, Kandy Stroud, announced to millions of fascinated viewers on last Friday's ABC Nightline debate that Senator Gore, a man she described as "A friend of the music industry," is co-sponsor of something she referred to as "anti-piracy legislation". Is this the same tax bill with a nicer name?
The major record labels need to have H.R. 2911 whiz through a few committees before anybody smells a rat.
Record company executives always find something to blame a decline in sales on. And any increase in sales they attribute to their own brilliance. Back in the 1980s, they were blaming cassettes with the "Home Taping In Killing Music" nonsense, with it's pathetic "cassette & crossbones" stickers. In the 1990s, they were blaming used CD sales, and trotted out Garth Brooks to clame that the legal "right of first resale" was taking food from his children's mouths. And before that it was:
It's sneaking in via devices like the Tivo. Here's a solid, reliable utterly useful device with a great interface. Think of it as proof of concept that Linux can be used to make a computer for your Mom.
The US Government should change copyright policy to require electronic deposition. If every copyrighted work was available in data form via the Library Of Congress, OSINT would be a lot simplier and cheaper. Copyright interests would not like it much, but compared to the damage done to civil liberties so far in the aftermath of 9/11, it's a small sacrifice.
You can watch it using a $399 (retail list) HDTV tuner card like the Telemann HiPix, AccessDTV or Hauppauge WinTV-HD and any VGA monitor. I'm using a used Unity Motion receiver. The main thing holding HD back is this belief that it is outragously expensive.
The thing is, I wouldn't be watching this show if it wasn't in HD. It's compelling, and I hadn't been watching any network programming in a couple of years.
Jean-Louis Gasse offered BeOS free
to any hardware manufacturer at one point. That not one took him up on it is a fairly positive indication that MS was putting some major pressure on PC makers. It's been shown that the secret licence that MS forced PC makers to sign specifically prevented PC makers from offering any alternative. The only PC maker who did offer BeOS pre-installed (Toshiba?) was forced to hide it, rather than make it a menu choice.Be has a very good case. Put it this way - there are folks who would be happier to invest in this suit, than in Be as a successful seller of operating systems.
Stuff the recorder down the front of your pants. The jocks who work security will not squeeze your package.
In "Two Live Crew vs. Estate of Roy Orbison", the Supreme Court ruled that the parody didn't have to be funny to be protected. TWC's moronic cover of "Pretty Woman" wasn't funny, but that didn't have anything to do with the intent. Thankfully, we don't have courts trying to judge if something is funny or not - look at the wonderful job they've done with erotica.
The problem is, the ratio of active to latent is determined by how heavily compressed the HD signal is. They want to offer more of their bandwidth for data services, they increase the compression of the HD signal. Does anyone think that "digital cable" actually delivered a better picture?
It's not even the direct bribes. TV stations are the crack dealers selling the crack to which all politicians are addicted - TV coverage. Every politician knows, no TV coverage, no chance of getting elected, no chance to get any bribes from anyone.
The vertical blanking interval has been used for data transmission for years. Install a TV tuner card in a Windows PC and you'll see exactly what is involved. The idea was "enhanced TV". I managed to access a few programs that used this, but for the most part, it's dead. DirecTV and Dish Network and a lot of cable system stripped off the VBI information - they claimed that it was not intentionally, but the truth is that they didn't want any datastreams as compatition to their data offerings.
Huh? Where did you get that idea? Every channel gets exactly enough spectrum for exactly one 1080i HD channel at 19.2 Mb/sec. Any data or additional channels cuts into that bit budget. They can run a 720P signal and a good quality 480P, or 6 really crappy 480P channels like PAX. ANY data transmission costs HDTV quality...and HDTV quality was the whole point in giving the spectrum to the broadcasters in the first place! Do not let these jerks get away with ripping off our public airways!
The folks complaining that the specific chip used in the Nintendo wasn't a graphics chip are missing the point. It didn't matter if the 4600i would have any application to comsumer graphics cards. What mattered is that it caused MIPS to build a much larger fab. And, most importantly, it should have shown the management at SGI that there was a massive consumer market that wanted SGI chips. They had a demand and an opportunity and ignored them both.
I used to demo software for an SGI dealer, and learned to loath the company. The special hard drive mounting bracket for an Indy would cost more than the drive. The knob box cost $1500. Nutty prices.
But the thing that sealed their doom was when they didn't take the opportunity offered by Nintendo purchasing a huge number of R4000 chips. They could have taken the volumes offered by this to start selling MIPS chips to PC video card makers. They could have owned the entire video card market, and not suffered the brain drain that found all their best people working for competitors. Instead, their fat-cat sales force ruled against that move. They liked selling expensive workstations and servers to big clients for big bucks.
If they had played this card correctly, Nvidia would have never happened. Who wouldn't have wanted a "Silicon Graphics" game card? Instead, they were stupid greedy and they'll die. And they'll deserve to die.
There are three HD cards out right now. The Hauppauge, the Access DTV and the Telemann. All three have recording ability. The Access DTV is probably the slickest, but the recordings are serialized to the individual board. The Hauppauge's software lags behind the other two. The Telemann is the one I'm going to pick up. It has good software, the recordings are trasferrable between boards, and the Users of AVS Forum have developed DV Transfer, a program to archive HD on Digital8 or DV tapes.
The price of all three is around $399. Cheap compared to any stand-alone HD tuner, and it functions as a recorder.
No, these are legimate users using a product they purchased in a way that you consider unacceptable. Microsoft and the SPA agree with you. But as no other form of copyrighted work comes with similar limitations, this opinion has to be tested in court. Hopefully, some rich lawyer will get annoyed at all this nonsense and challenge it.
OK, the oldest canard in the "copyright is property" playbook is the "car canard". They claim that duplicating a copy of Windows "is like stealing a car".
But if it's real property, the auto dealer can't tell me how I can use that car. The dealer cannot dictate to me that various members of the same family have to pay more money to drive the same car. Or, to be more accurate, to ride in the same car at the same time.
The car dealer gets paid the same amount weather I'm the only person driving the car, if I rent it out to different people every day, or use it for carpooling.
All other "intellectual property" allows several users to consume it at the same time. I buy DVDs. I can show it to all the members of my family and as many friends as I like as long as I don't charge admission. I can use it on my player, can loan it to friends, play it on my laptop. It's just that the nature of the "PC" is that it is "personal". Only one member of a family can "consume" Windows XP at once. That is not fair.
No, I'm American.
Ah, my mistake. It's a bit confusing though, that it's called the "television licence" if it covers both TV and radio. Shouldn't it be a "broadcasting licence" then?
No, but then it's hardly obvious that one would need a licence for one type of broadcasting and not the other. Americans, in general I believe, think that the whole idea of having to licence a TV set is pretty weird in the first place.
This is great! A broadcasting entity as large and well respected as Auntie Beeb boosting Ogg Vorbis is exactly the push it needs. This will also same the BBC a huge amount of money. Thomson is collecting a lot of money for Franuhoffer for every MP3 stream...money that they could use in a lot of other ways. (Maybe this will result in a reduction of the radio licence fee? Nah...) Hopefully all the other broadcasters will look at this for an example.
I'm sure the opportunity to thumb their noses at the French (Thomson) and the Germans (Fraunhoffer) had nothing to do with their decision either.