Asscroft: However, if you throw one or two armed and trained undercover sky marshals on every flight you'd actually do a lot more to counter real threats of safety,
That's what YOU think. Read this Op-Ed in today's NY Times.
I had a Linux box running as a gateway/firewall, and I would use it for general web-browsing and e-mail. However, the apps that I use for real work don't exist on Linux. Yes, I am willing to pay real cash money for tools.
Is there a real PCB-layout tool available for Linux? No, I've looked and can't find one, not even a commercial tool.
Yes, there is a commercial VHDL/Verilog simulator (ModelSim), but they only have the high-end version ($$$$) available for Linux; the "Personal Edition" is only available for Windows (and it's still $5K).
If you do 8051 stuff, the Keil compiler (Windows-only) beats the pants off of SDCC, which hasn't been upated since last September.
And, as others have pointed out, there are no good audio apps available for Linux -- nothing like SawStudio, SoundForge, Cubase, ProTools, etc. (OK, I know, I should be doing my audio stuff on a Mac.)
I haven't found an equivalent for Apple's ColorSync for Linux. (OK, I know, I should be doing all of my photo editing stuff on a Mac.)
The solution to the problem, of course, is to get the various software vendors to target Linux. It's getting there: Xilinx supports their latest (non-free, non-cheap) tools under Wine, with native support expected next year. But, in parallel with urging vendors to support Linux, work needs to get done, so Windows it is.
--
"The Devil has many faces. Yours just fits."
-- Swiz
Not quite. The label doesn't get paid back out of the proceeds, they get paid back out of the artist's share of the proceeds. Say the artist is getting a 5% royalty, was fronted $20,000 to make the album and each copy sells for $15. Assume a 25% retail mark-up, ie. the label gets $11.25 per copy. Break-even is just short of 1800 copies. But the artist won't start getting a royalty at the 1800-copy point. They won't start getting a royalty until 26,667 copies have been sold, at which point their 5% has paid off the $20K advance. In between those sales points, the label is making a profit but the artist doesn't see a penny from it. The only way the label loses money is if the album doesn't even sell the 1800 copies needed to break even.
Any signed musicians out there, feel free to plug in actual advances and royalty rates. Yes, I've omitted any promotional costs the label might incur, but those come out of the artist's royalties too as I understand it.
Some other points:
1) It's quite common for major-label releases to cost upwards of $250K to record. Why, in these days of technology enabling good- (not great-) sounding home recordings? Because the major labels want the records to "sound like hits." The bands don't get the choice. The labels will choose a top-shelf producer. The label may decide that the record needs a different person to MIX each song. Then, of course, the record has to be mastered by one of the big guys.
Oh, yeah, many producers and mixers (not Albini!) take "points," which mean that they get a certain percentage of the gross -- and that's paid BEFORE the artist gets a royalty.
2) All promotion is recoupable. Every little tchotchkie or promo item or in-store appearance or anything costs the band money.
3) Tour support is recoupable. If a band wants that tour bus and the hotels, they get it -- and it's deducted from their royalties. (Obviously, it behooves the band to continue touring in their old van, but if you're a baby band on tour supporting a major act that flies between gigs, trying to keep up is not possible without the bus.)
Did you know that bands signed to a major label are not able to participate in their label's health-care insurance plan? That's right!
I know many indie bands who've made the jump to the majors. I don't think any of them made any huge money. The ones who were most successful ("success" defined as "don't have to have a day job when we get back from tour") were the ones who did things the same way they did them when they were on the indie labels -- staying in the Motel 6 (or the "couch network"), driving the same old van, hiring only one roadie (a soundman; one of the band members was also tour manager), selling merch themselves (deals made w/out the involvement of the label to keep costs down), and general penny-pinching.
[Aside: Any of you bozos who think that bands make tons of money touring have clearly never been on tour.]
I think about the best thing a "buzz band" can do is to sign for as big an advance as possible, understanding full well that they'll never ever recoup. Essentially, it's a roll of the dice, knowing full well that the move may be a career ender.
Not quite. The label doesn't get paid back out of the proceeds, they get paid back out of the artist's share of the proceeds. Say the artist is getting a 5% royalty, was fronted $20,000 to make the album and each copy sells for $15. Assume a 25% retail mark-up, ie. the label gets $11.25 per copy. Break-even is just short of 1800 copies. But the artist won't start getting a royalty at the 1800-copy point. They won't start getting a royalty until 26,667 copies have been sold, at which point their 5% has paid off the $20K advance. In between those sales points, the label is making a profit but the artist doesn't see a penny from it. The only way the label loses money is if the album doesn't even sell the 1800 copies needed to break even.
Any signed musicians out there, feel free to plug in actual advances and royalty rates. Yes, I've omitted any promotional costs the label might incur, but those come out of the artist's royalties too as I understand it.
Some other points:
1) It's quite common for major-label releases to cost upwards of $250K to record. Why, in these days of technology enabling good- (not great-) sounding home recordings? Because the major labels want the records to "sound like hits." The bands don't get the choice. The labels will choose a top-shelf producer. The label may decide that the record needs a different person to MIX each song. Then, of course, the record has to be mastered by one of the big guys.
Oh, yeah, many producers and mixers (not Albini!) take "points," which mean that they get a certain percentage of the gross -- and that's paid BEFORE the artist gets a royalty.
2) All promotion is recoupable. Every little tchotchkie or promo item or in-store appearance or anything costs the band money.
3) Tour support is recoupable. If a band wants that tour bus and the hotels, they get it -- and it's deducted from their royalties. (Obviously, it behooves the band to continue touring in their old van, but if you're a baby band on tour supporting a major act that flies between gigs, trying to keep up is not possible without the bus.)
Guess what? I have. For the most part, it's unglamourous, boring, exhausting and above all, not very profitable. Most of the low-to-mid-level bands being screwed by both the record labels and MP3 kiddies give up day jobs to tour, and they're lucky as fsck if they break even, after paying typical expenses such as gas, food, lodging, van/bus costs, sound engineer, equipment rental, you name it.
If you're a moderately-successful regional touring band, yes, you can make some money -- but for how long? And what do you do when you're not touring?
I understand the need of, "I want to demo it before I buy it, so I am assured of not wasting my money if it doesn't meet my needs." This is certainly valid, and vendors of high-end software (i.e., certain expensive CAD packages that are vital to an engineering company's business, or at least an important part of business) will ALWAYS allow potential customers a 30-day trial of their products. These same companies also offer very reasonable education pricing.
Adobe, et. al. should allow demos, too. This sort of thing works very well for apps like CoolEdit.
Aside: how does one "demo" an OS?
Having said that, I fail to see how stealing software is any different from stealing a piece of hardware. You wouldn't steal a car, would you, if you were a poor college student and really needed one? You wouldn't steal a television, would you?
Software is just a manifestion of someone's hard work. The fact that the bill-of-materials is essentially zilch doesn't mean that it does not have value (after all, if it didn't have value, no one would bother stealing it...).
What I find amusing is that many/.ers consider themselves programmers. One would imagine that a programmer would WANT to ensure that his fellow programmer is compensated for his work!
Now, if you're an open-source/free-software programmer and you want to give away your work, fine -- you shouldn't expect everyone to feel the same way. Especially if they have a mortgage to pay.
Question: How come there is no good free/open-source CAD software? I'm thinking specifically PCB layout tools, electromagnetic and signal-integrity simulation tools, etc.
As a guitarist who's interested in guitar sounds (my Les Paul Special through a 1962 brownface Bandmaster rules), I couldn't care less about "ethernet in my guitar."
But -- this is interesting if you liked the concept of the Roland Guitar Synths (so ably used by Andy Summers of the Police, and Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew of King Crimson). Basically, the guitar is simply the "controller," much the way a MIDI keyboard is the controller. The point is NOT to make yr standard-issue Rock Guitar sounds, but rather, this (both Roland's and Gibson's) technology enables the guitarist to get access to all the same sounds that the average keyboard player takes for granted. This is especially useful if you are an excellent guitarist but can't play keyboards worth a fsck.
Admittedly, it's weird hearing a guitar make Hammond B-3 sounds...
Now, the BETTER question to ask is, how come Gibson can't ship a $2500 Les Paul that DOESN'T need a fret-dress?
Slashdot Mirror
Asscroft: However, if you throw one or two armed and trained undercover sky marshals on every flight you'd actually do a lot more to counter real threats of safety,
That's what YOU think. Read this Op-Ed in today's NY Times.
This book came out three or four years ago. Slashdot a bit behind the timeS?
The problem lies in their PKI implimentation...
Is there a real PCB-layout tool available for Linux? No, I've looked and can't find one, not even a commercial tool.
Yes, there is a commercial VHDL/Verilog simulator (ModelSim), but they only have the high-end version ($$$$) available for Linux; the "Personal Edition" is only available for Windows (and it's still $5K).
If you do 8051 stuff, the Keil compiler (Windows-only) beats the pants off of SDCC, which hasn't been upated since last September.
And, as others have pointed out, there are no good audio apps available for Linux -- nothing like SawStudio, SoundForge, Cubase, ProTools, etc. (OK, I know, I should be doing my audio stuff on a Mac.)
I haven't found an equivalent for Apple's ColorSync for Linux. (OK, I know, I should be doing all of my photo editing stuff on a Mac.)
The solution to the problem, of course, is to get the various software vendors to target Linux. It's getting there: Xilinx supports their latest (non-free, non-cheap) tools under Wine, with native support expected next year. But, in parallel with urging vendors to support Linux, work needs to get done, so Windows it is.
--
"The Devil has many faces. Yours just fits." -- Swiz
Any signed musicians out there, feel free to plug in actual advances and royalty rates. Yes, I've omitted any promotional costs the label might incur, but those come out of the artist's royalties too as I understand it.
Some other points:
1) It's quite common for major-label releases to cost upwards of $250K to record. Why, in these days of technology enabling good- (not great-) sounding home recordings? Because the major labels want the records to "sound like hits." The bands don't get the choice. The labels will choose a top-shelf producer. The label may decide that the record needs a different person to MIX each song. Then, of course, the record has to be mastered by one of the big guys.
Oh, yeah, many producers and mixers (not Albini!) take "points," which mean that they get a certain percentage of the gross -- and that's paid BEFORE the artist gets a royalty.
2) All promotion is recoupable. Every little tchotchkie or promo item or in-store appearance or anything costs the band money.
3) Tour support is recoupable. If a band wants that tour bus and the hotels, they get it -- and it's deducted from their royalties. (Obviously, it behooves the band to continue touring in their old van, but if you're a baby band on tour supporting a major act that flies between gigs, trying to keep up is not possible without the bus.)
Did you know that bands signed to a major label are not able to participate in their label's health-care insurance plan? That's right!
I know many indie bands who've made the jump to the majors. I don't think any of them made any huge money. The ones who were most successful ("success" defined as "don't have to have a day job when we get back from tour") were the ones who did things the same way they did them when they were on the indie labels -- staying in the Motel 6 (or the "couch network"), driving the same old van, hiring only one roadie (a soundman; one of the band members was also tour manager), selling merch themselves (deals made w/out the involvement of the label to keep costs down), and general penny-pinching.
[Aside: Any of you bozos who think that bands make tons of money touring have clearly never been on tour.]
I think about the best thing a "buzz band" can do is to sign for as big an advance as possible, understanding full well that they'll never ever recoup. Essentially, it's a roll of the dice, knowing full well that the move may be a career ender.
Not quite. The label doesn't get paid back out of the proceeds, they get paid back out of the artist's share of the proceeds. Say the artist is getting a 5% royalty, was fronted $20,000 to make the album and each copy sells for $15. Assume a 25% retail mark-up, ie. the label gets $11.25 per copy. Break-even is just short of 1800 copies. But the artist won't start getting a royalty at the 1800-copy point. They won't start getting a royalty until 26,667 copies have been sold, at which point their 5% has paid off the $20K advance. In between those sales points, the label is making a profit but the artist doesn't see a penny from it. The only way the label loses money is if the album doesn't even sell the 1800 copies needed to break even. Any signed musicians out there, feel free to plug in actual advances and royalty rates. Yes, I've omitted any promotional costs the label might incur, but those come out of the artist's royalties too as I understand it. Some other points: 1) It's quite common for major-label releases to cost upwards of $250K to record. Why, in these days of technology enabling good- (not great-) sounding home recordings? Because the major labels want the records to "sound like hits." The bands don't get the choice. The labels will choose a top-shelf producer. The label may decide that the record needs a different person to MIX each song. Then, of course, the record has to be mastered by one of the big guys. Oh, yeah, many producers and mixers (not Albini!) take "points," which mean that they get a certain percentage of the gross -- and that's paid BEFORE the artist gets a royalty. 2) All promotion is recoupable. Every little tchotchkie or promo item or in-store appearance or anything costs the band money. 3) Tour support is recoupable. If a band wants that tour bus and the hotels, they get it -- and it's deducted from their royalties. (Obviously, it behooves the band to continue touring in their old van, but if you're a baby band on tour supporting a major act that flies between gigs, trying to keep up is not possible without the bus.)
Clearly, none of you have ever been on tour.
Guess what? I have. For the most part, it's unglamourous, boring, exhausting and above all, not very profitable. Most of the low-to-mid-level bands being screwed by both the record labels and MP3 kiddies give up day jobs to tour, and they're lucky as fsck if they break even, after paying typical expenses such as gas, food, lodging, van/bus costs, sound engineer, equipment rental, you name it.
If you're a moderately-successful regional touring band, yes, you can make some money -- but for how long? And what do you do when you're not touring?
Adobe, et. al. should allow demos, too. This sort of thing works very well for apps like CoolEdit.
Aside: how does one "demo" an OS?
Having said that, I fail to see how stealing software is any different from stealing a piece of hardware. You wouldn't steal a car, would you, if you were a poor college student and really needed one? You wouldn't steal a television, would you?
Software is just a manifestion of someone's hard work. The fact that the bill-of-materials is essentially zilch doesn't mean that it does not have value (after all, if it didn't have value, no one would bother stealing it...).
What I find amusing is that many /.ers consider themselves programmers. One would imagine that a programmer would WANT to ensure that his fellow programmer is compensated for his work!
Now, if you're an open-source/free-software programmer and you want to give away your work, fine -- you shouldn't expect everyone to feel the same way. Especially if they have a mortgage to pay.
Question: How come there is no good free/open-source CAD software? I'm thinking specifically PCB layout tools, electromagnetic and signal-integrity simulation tools, etc.
The thing is, when reading that artical, I was reminded of Agent Vince Gill (i think thats the name...) in the movie Hackers.
Vince Gill is a country music star. Don't ask why I know that.
Maybe the RIAA could consult with KPMG about how to produce music that no one will try to pirate.
Oh, come on -- the Big 5 record companies already put out unlistenable music without anyone's help.As a guitarist who's interested in guitar sounds (my Les Paul Special through a 1962 brownface Bandmaster rules), I couldn't care less about "ethernet in my guitar."
But -- this is interesting if you liked the concept of the Roland Guitar Synths (so ably used by Andy Summers of the Police, and Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew of King Crimson). Basically, the guitar is simply the "controller," much the way a MIDI keyboard is the controller. The point is NOT to make yr standard-issue Rock Guitar sounds, but rather, this (both Roland's and Gibson's) technology enables the guitarist to get access to all the same sounds that the average keyboard player takes for granted. This is especially useful if you are an excellent guitarist but can't play keyboards worth a fsck.
Admittedly, it's weird hearing a guitar make Hammond B-3 sounds...
Now, the BETTER question to ask is, how come Gibson can't ship a $2500 Les Paul that DOESN'T need a fret-dress?
---ap