"BBC's best show, The Office, that came out like four years ago. I'll take corporate TV thanks."
Man, you don't know what you're missing. I'm an American, and I download so many BBC programs that I almost feel as if I should pay into the TV fund in Britain. Along with Doctor Who and several excellent Sci-Fi series, the BBC is also an endless source for fascinating documentaries: The Power of Nightmares, The Century of the Self, Tetris: From Russia With Love, Mortgaged to the Yanks, etc. Then there's excellent adaptions of classic novels and probably the best news programs in the English-speaking world.
Now compare that to crap like Will and Grace, Everyone Loves Raymond, and the typical garbage you find on network tv in America. I'll take the BBC any day.
I don't see how this would be enforceable. If Microsoft wanted to do a license audit at my company (which isn't very likely since I don't think we have a "genuine" copy of Windows in the whole place, and therefore we wouldn't raise a flag), the owner would just say no and tell them to fuck off. They can threaten legal action all they want, but having a discrepancy between product licenses (as the article uses as an example) isn't proof of a crime.
Not to mention the manpower involved in going after all of the small business customers who pirate. How many small businesses use pirated software? Half of them? More? What is Microsoft going to do, hire the army to take care of this? This seems more like a scare tactic than a legitimate thing. Just my two cents..
I've always been amazed that the media talks about HDTV like it's going to some major life-altering event. I can clearly remember hearing Bill Clinton say we "had" to go digital "for the sake of our children." It doesn't seem like a big deal to me. Better picture quality is kind of cool, but it doesn't seem like the boon to humanity that some people make it out to be.
Personally, I'll miss analog. I turn on the set once or twice a year (no cable, of course), and the snowy picture is part of the charm. Same with radio. I could listen to NPR online, but I listen to it on a clock radio instead. Hearing the signal fade in and out gives it some humanity.
Let this be a lesson to anyone who thinks Apple is somehow different, hipper, or cooler than the average multinational corporation. They think with their bottom line too.
I doubt this will work very well. Almost all pop songs use the same few major chords, the same structure, and the same tempo; and draw their lyrics from the same limited pool (meaningless love song, "life sucks," or "I'm a tough guy"). They're basically all the same, yet some songs are successful and others flop.
It's because you can't analyze an artistic work in the same way you analyze data. I hesitate to use the word "artistic" for bad music like this, but technically speaking, it isart, and the intangibles determine success more than anything else. In this case, the intangibles are the physical attractiveness of the peformers, how many radio spins the record company buys, whether MTV deigns to play the video, and a lot of dumb luck and promotion.
This software probably sounds like a wet dream come true to the record companies, but I don't think they'll be using it for long.
I'm willing to bet that most of this article comes directly from a PR firm, working for some computer company. It's a well-documented fact that lazy reporters, even those from respectable papers like the NY Times, have taken lifted their articles from press releases -- which is exactly what the PR firms and their clients want.
Whenever I see an article that encourages people to consume or replace products, I get suspicious. A few months ago, I read an article in the NY Times that said French Cheeses have become ultrahip. When I googled a few choice phrases in the article, I found almost identical articles in other newspapers.
The bottom line: PR and the media are a bunch of crap.
I have been thinking of DLing the OS X ISO and PearPC'ing it up on my Windows machine I've always heard that Pear PC runs so slowly that it's impractical for regular use. But correct me if I'm wrong -- I would love to try out OS X!
I once had a dog who regularly made passionate love to a pillow, so I know dogs aren't very selective.
But I wonder if dogs find certain physical traits in other dogs more sexually appealing, even if they're not conscious of it. Birds are attracted to bright colors in other birds, so why wouldn't something similar apply for dogs? For instance, does one dog see another dog and think "ooh, look at that shiny coat. I have to go sniff that poodle's butt."
Even now, you can use google as a search engine for torrents with the -filetype:.torrent switch.
I can't think of any difference between that and Lokitorrent. Both, as you said, simply make it easier to search for pointers to data. Both Lokitorrent and Google can make the argument that they can't control what they index.
But Google gets away with it, and will get away with the video search, because they're a big company, and big companies tend to get free passes on this sort of thing. It's easy for the RIAA to shut down a college student, but not so easy to shut down a big corporation.
Techie that I am, I still can't bring myself to read books on a computer screen. This sounds like a good idea, but there's something better about a paper book. The battery never needs to be charged, you don't have to squint to look at a tiny cell phone screen, and you don't need any expensive equipment to read it.
Physical media will never die off. Not ever. For those of us who spend a lot of time on the internet, it's easy to imagine that almost everyone has already made the switch to non-physical media. The reality's a lot different. According to this website, only 66.8% of Americans even have an internet connection at all. Aside from a handful of other first world countries, that number is even lower in other places. Since there will never be a time when everyone can afford a computer, there will always be a market for physical media.
One suggestion is that labels want to introduce variable pricing - so they can charge more for top selling tracks. You know what? I'm all for it... if it means they are willing to discount the less-popular stuff in exchange...and I can get all my favorite fucked-up indie stuff on the cheap.
I haven't been in a chain record store in a long, lone time, but as I recall, the hot new albums by MTV bands are actually cheaper than "my favorite fucked-up indie stuff." I don't know why exactly that is, but I would guess it has something to do with the law of supply and demand, i.e. the latest Britney or Limp Bizkit album is a sure seller, but "The Greatest Hits of Melt Banana" isn't. What's to say an online record store wouldn't do the same thing?
Bottom line, though: I say just steal the stuff. The artists get pennies on the album from i-tunes, etc., anyway.
I am in a programming class, and in this 30+ student class, there is exactly one girl.
I don't know if it's social conditioning or genetics that makes girls uninterested in IT. Whatever it is, I don't think we'll ever see an equal ratio of men and women.
As for the geeky thing, I think it only applies to men. Let's not kid ourselves -- despite the internet's ubiquity, the IT profession is still very geeky, but it doesn't seem to affect women's social standing in the same way. Women will always have a bunch of horny men chasing after them. Guys don't have that luxury.
Either your professor's wrong or you misheard him/her.
According to this definition on dictionary.com, monopoly is "Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service."
Why not just charge twenty bucks plus court costs? Because the point of these lawsuits is to scare the people they don't sue. For the movie industry, even $150,000 is just a drop in a bucket.
It is just a symptom of the disease (monopolism in EVERY market sector) I'm just as much of a hippie as the next guy, but I'm not sure that "monopolism" is the word you're looking for. A true monopoly has no competitors, which means it has no reason to advertise.
But Bush didn't even have 51% of America! He won 51% of the popular vote, but only about 50% of Americans voted. In other words, only 1 in 4 Americans liked him enough to reelect him.
On that topic, have you seen The Power of Nightmares? Great BBC documentary, which is available on many torrent sites. According to the documentary, the "terrorist threat" is mostly a hoax dreamed up by American neo-conservatives. Leo Strauss, who inspired the neo-con movement, said governments should give people something to fear if they want to bring them together.
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"BBC's best show, The Office, that came out like four years ago. I'll take corporate TV thanks."
Man, you don't know what you're missing. I'm an American, and I download so many BBC programs that I almost feel as if I should pay into the TV fund in Britain. Along with Doctor Who and several excellent Sci-Fi series, the BBC is also an endless source for fascinating documentaries: The Power of Nightmares, The Century of the Self, Tetris: From Russia With Love, Mortgaged to the Yanks, etc. Then there's excellent adaptions of classic novels and probably the best news programs in the English-speaking world.
Now compare that to crap like Will and Grace, Everyone Loves Raymond, and the typical garbage you find on network tv in America. I'll take the BBC any day.
I don't see how this would be enforceable. If Microsoft wanted to do a license audit at my company (which isn't very likely since I don't think we have a "genuine" copy of Windows in the whole place, and therefore we wouldn't raise a flag), the owner would just say no and tell them to fuck off. They can threaten legal action all they want, but having a discrepancy between product licenses (as the article uses as an example) isn't proof of a crime.
Not to mention the manpower involved in going after all of the small business customers who pirate. How many small businesses use pirated software? Half of them? More? What is Microsoft going to do, hire the army to take care of this? This seems more like a scare tactic than a legitimate thing. Just my two cents..
I've always been amazed that the media talks about HDTV like it's going to some major life-altering event. I can clearly remember hearing Bill Clinton say we "had" to go digital "for the sake of our children." It doesn't seem like a big deal to me. Better picture quality is kind of cool, but it doesn't seem like the boon to humanity that some people make it out to be.
Personally, I'll miss analog. I turn on the set once or twice a year (no cable, of course), and the snowy picture is part of the charm. Same with radio. I could listen to NPR online, but I listen to it on a clock radio instead. Hearing the signal fade in and out gives it some humanity.
Let this be a lesson to anyone who thinks Apple is somehow different, hipper, or cooler than the average multinational corporation. They think with their bottom line too.
I think Stephen Colbert said it best: "Fox News gives time to both sides: the President's side and the Vice-President's side."
Just to clarify, Einstein was an atheist. When he said God doesn't roll dice, he was speaking metaphorically.
I doubt this will work very well. Almost all pop songs use the same few major chords, the same structure, and the same tempo; and draw their lyrics from the same limited pool (meaningless love song, "life sucks," or "I'm a tough guy"). They're basically all the same, yet some songs are successful and others flop.
It's because you can't analyze an artistic work in the same way you analyze data. I hesitate to use the word "artistic" for bad music like this, but technically speaking, it isart, and the intangibles determine success more than anything else. In this case, the intangibles are the physical attractiveness of the peformers, how many radio spins the record company buys, whether MTV deigns to play the video, and a lot of dumb luck and promotion.
This software probably sounds like a wet dream come true to the record companies, but I don't think they'll be using it for long.
I'm willing to bet that most of this article comes directly from a PR firm, working for some computer company. It's a well-documented fact that lazy reporters, even those from respectable papers like the NY Times, have taken lifted their articles from press releases -- which is exactly what the PR firms and their clients want.
Whenever I see an article that encourages people to consume or replace products, I get suspicious. A few months ago, I read an article in the NY Times that said French Cheeses have become ultrahip. When I googled a few choice phrases in the article, I found almost identical articles in other newspapers.
The bottom line: PR and the media are a bunch of crap.
I have been thinking of DLing the OS X ISO and PearPC'ing it up on my Windows machine
I've always heard that Pear PC runs so slowly
that it's impractical for regular use. But correct me if I'm wrong -- I would love to try out OS X!
I once had a dog who regularly made passionate love to a pillow, so I know dogs aren't very selective.
But I wonder if dogs find certain physical traits in other dogs more sexually appealing, even if they're not conscious of it. Birds are attracted to bright colors in other birds, so why wouldn't something similar apply for dogs? For instance, does one dog see another dog and think "ooh, look at that shiny coat. I have to go sniff that poodle's butt."
Even now, you can use google as a search engine for torrents with the -filetype: .torrent switch.
I can't think of any difference between that and Lokitorrent. Both, as you said, simply make it easier to search for pointers to data. Both Lokitorrent and Google can make the argument that they can't control what they index.
But Google gets away with it, and will get away with the video search, because they're a big company, and big companies tend to get free passes on this sort of thing. It's easy for the RIAA to shut down a college student, but not so easy to shut down a big corporation.
Atheism is not a religion.
The word "atheism" itself tells you that.
"A" means "without," and "theism" means a belief in a higher power.
I don't get it. Sychronize your bookmarks with what? And why would you want to do it?
Techie that I am, I still can't bring myself to read books on a computer screen. This sounds like a good idea, but there's something better about a paper book. The battery never needs to be charged, you don't have to squint to look at a tiny cell phone screen, and you don't need any expensive equipment to read it.
Physical media will never die off. Not ever. For those of us who spend a lot of time on the internet, it's easy to imagine that almost everyone has already made the switch to non-physical media. The reality's a lot different. According to this website, only 66.8% of Americans even have an internet connection at all. Aside from a handful of other first world countries, that number is even lower in other places. Since there will never be a time when everyone can afford a computer, there will always be a market for physical media.
for marketing the inability to see what track is playing as a "feature." Life may be random, but I want control of my music.
One suggestion is that labels want to introduce variable pricing - so they can charge more for top selling tracks.
You know what? I'm all for it... if it means they are willing to discount the less-popular stuff in exchange...and I can get all my favorite fucked-up indie stuff on the cheap.
I haven't been in a chain record store in a long, lone time, but as I recall, the hot new albums by MTV bands are actually cheaper than "my favorite fucked-up indie stuff." I don't know why exactly that is, but I would guess it has something to do with the law of supply and demand, i.e. the latest Britney or Limp Bizkit album is a sure seller, but "The Greatest Hits of Melt Banana" isn't. What's to say an online record store wouldn't do the same thing?
Bottom line, though: I say just steal the stuff. The artists get pennies on the album from i-tunes, etc., anyway.
The article says the "something special" is a coupon for a free scoop of ice cream from Baskin-Robbins.
Yahoo. And I mean that in a sarcastic, literal sense.
But in Bill's defense, he did three years at Harvard, which is a much better education than you'd get by graduating from most other schools.
I am in a programming class, and in this 30+ student class, there is exactly one girl.
I don't know if it's social conditioning or genetics that makes girls uninterested in IT. Whatever it is, I don't think we'll ever see an equal ratio of men and women.
As for the geeky thing, I think it only applies to men. Let's not kid ourselves -- despite the internet's ubiquity, the IT profession is still very geeky, but it doesn't seem to affect women's social standing in the same way. Women will always have a bunch of horny men chasing after them. Guys don't have that luxury.
Either your professor's wrong or you misheard him/her.
According to this definition on dictionary.com, monopoly is "Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service."
Why not just charge twenty bucks plus court costs?
Because the point of these lawsuits is to scare the people they don't sue. For the movie industry, even $150,000 is just a drop in a bucket.
It is just a symptom of the disease (monopolism in EVERY market sector)
I'm just as much of a hippie as the next guy, but I'm not sure that "monopolism" is the word you're looking for. A true monopoly has no competitors, which means it has no reason to advertise.
But Bush didn't even have 51% of America! He won 51% of the popular vote, but only about 50% of Americans voted. In other words, only 1 in 4 Americans liked him enough to reelect him.
On that topic, have you seen The Power of Nightmares? Great BBC documentary, which is available on many torrent sites. According to the documentary, the "terrorist threat" is mostly a hoax dreamed up by American neo-conservatives. Leo Strauss, who inspired the neo-con movement, said governments should give people something to fear if they want to bring them together.