The release date is no coincidince, but you're looking at it wrongly: strong advance reviews of this phone were what conviced Palm to purchase the Handspring corporation. If the Treo's technology was found to be horrible, Palm would have little/no motivation to purchase the company.
I agree in concept. In reality, I can't think of any games that provide immersive worlds and are successful as games. RPG's are too shallow to count as immersive - much as I enjoyed FF7, the appeal of the game was levelling up and killing new baddies. And "Shenmue" might just prove the rule - it showed that immersive worlds make a poor subject matter for games, and that it's not going to be popular with gamers.
I think people underestimate the "gee whiz" factor that goes into games, that people play them specifically because new technology is kind of fun, rather than any of the game's inherent qualities. "Quake 3," or any Playstation game, are unlikely to be popular 5 years from now, except with the nostalgia crowd.
On the other hand, Bach concertos, or "Songs in the Key of Life," will still be available 100 years from now.
It's true, the metric system would be very convenient for me. For instance, just this last week I wanted to:
- Check if my ruler was accurate, by comparing it against a cube of water weighing 1 pound.
- Convert 7,500,000 inches into the equivalent number of miles.
- Hand calculate Newtonian psychics equations involving mass and acceleration.
Get with it, US! Why do you think American weight and measurement skills are lagging so far behind foreign nations?!
I'm seeing too many posts on Slashdot which are playing semantics games. If you start freely distributing free copies of something you don't have the rights to, in competition with the sellers who *have* paid to own the rights to the music, of course you're depriving these sellers of the rights to their product. Just because you're not threatening anybody with a knife, doesn't mean it's not true.
Similarly, if I start my own printing press to make copies of "The New York Times" evey morning, I wouldn't have to pay any journalists or photographers. Maybe I could sell it for a quarter, instead of a dollar! Few would consider this legit. Many of the people here a software programmers, you'd have to work for a commercial program and then see it be entirely bootlegged, wouldn't you?
Many of the arguments here are similarly self-serving, but make even less sense.
For instance, the argument that the RIAA rips off musicians, so they lose all complaining rights - nobody forces musicians to sign with the RIAA. They do this because despite the expenses, they realize the RIAA has resources to promote even relatively untalented musicians to riches and stardom. There's many record labels which will cut better deals and still have wide distribution. Heck, even Self-released music can get sold on Amazon, or get national record release...
Or, the "it's really expensive, so I have a right to copy it" argument. The way the econony works, you have a right to put forth your economic vote and just not have the music, and wait for it to come up on radio - there's plenty of good music that sells for less than $19, or musicians who allow the distribution of their mp3s...
I enjoy taking continuing education classes, and as such I took a UCLA - run online course.
As the subject line says: "never again!" I found it was extremely expensive for what you get (maybe $400, about the same as paying to take a UC class for a UC alumnai, and much more than the $45 night school at a JC will cost). Interaction between other students was haphazard, and it was difficult to arrange AIM sessions - which is only natural when you're dealing with professionals in different time zones. There's no possibility of lectures, and the class boiled down to "read the book, turn in homework, get back a grade and some brief comments."
I'm reading other posts that are saying "No learning - Ha! that's what *real* college is like! I kill me!" (+5 humorous) or "you take out what you put into it." I disagree with both these points. Being in a real college allows you to meet others interested in the subject, and allows an easy way to learn outside of reading the book - I really benefit from hearing lectures, from being able to ask offhand points of clarifications, from seeing how other students approach things, and just being in a classroom environment.
True, like any class, "you take out what you put into it." However, you also hope for a little something more. When I took an online course, I really felt I should have just saved the money and read the textbook on my own.
"Total freedom" and "personal responsibility" are a great aspiration and an even better mantra, but not practical. For instance, I can't choose to defend myself with a gun when I get on a plane. For instance, I can't burn a cross on the yard of my apartment building. I could go on all day.
And as I said, there's obvious, extreme examples, where movies, books, radio, have had an unquestionably undesirable effect, and 99.8% of the population would think it should, in certain contexts, be restricted. Hutu radio, Sayyid Qutb, "Birth of a Nation," Nazi paraphenilia in Europe.
These limits on 100% freedom are a fact of life, and make sense, and have the general support of the people. I think the real question is, do video games deserve to have similar limits? I dunnow, but I think it's a legitimate question. What if it stopped hundreds of murders a year? (I doubt it, but for argument) Regardless of the mental state of these murderers, it would be worth it.
Remember that videogames don't force you to do anything. Only someone who is deeply disturbed lacks the ability to differentiate between fantasy (like a computer or console game) and reality.
That's why the typical argument (I play video games, and I've never killed people) fails. Most people who are going to kill are deeply disturbed. The argument is whether the video games bring out latent homocidal tendencies. Culture can have negative effects on people's behavior.
An extreme example: people saw the movie "Birth of a Nation." The majority liked it for the spectacle and the new cinematic techniques. However, others siezed on the racist content, the KKK re-formed, and lynchings and increasingly racist laws happened. That's an extreme example just to prove the point that culture can directly have a negative effect.
Another example is music. A number of individuals were encouraged to try drugs by hippie culture, which was defined by music. A number of individuals consciously modeled themselves after gangsta stereotypes after hearing gangsta rap, and lived a lifestyle that just doesn't have a place in the Great Society. (Similarly, I've listened to "Sgt. Pepper's" and "Straight Outta Compton", but I've never shot a policeman on acid (me, not the cop))
On the opposite end, obviously a lot of culture really is harmless.
But I don't think it's unreasonable to question culture's ability to influence events - and if it's unhealthy, to restrict it.
To be a little pessimistic about it: Sony is posting huge losses. Their hardware business has been a big money loser, and the PS2 hasn't been as profitable as the PSX. Their profits are coming from American media companies they bought at the height of the bubble - and even their music company hasn't been doing great lately.
They're in a weird situation where they can't release the cool new devices for listening to music and video that other companies are, because they're percieved as encouraging piracy, and movies & videos is where Sony makes the money. Sony MP3 players suck because of the hostile DRM check-in/check-out system. Even minidisc.org peoples (a cult audience for sure) are ready to ditch MDs, frustrated by having to workaround the check-in system, and that you can't upload (when many MD users like bootlegging)
This (and more especially, the PSP) seem like an attempt to use the insanely positive perception of their Playstation to piggyback onto other formats - for instance, the PSP will be released at the same time as a media player, which plays music/video off the little discs.
By itself, the PSP shouldn't be a good format - you can't record to it, it doesn't have the information of a DVD-Audio or SACD, and by the time it comes out, smart media cards will be both smaller and hold more information. Sony's hoping people buy the PSP and its audio discs because they like that it's Sony, rather than quality of the product, and the dominant format will be a DRM one.
This new product seems like it will be one of many by the time it reaches America - except, it'll have tighter DRM, and Sony controls it. A hard drive and a DVD writer. A start-up company could release one of these next month.
Personally I don't think either scheme will work - it's more a desperate move by a company that's doing bad business, has promised in two years to do amazing business (a promise recieved skeptically by analysts), and has its hands tied by conflicting interests in its unprofitable hardware business, and its profitable software business.
I'm not a Sony expert or whatever, but I have friends who work for Sony Japan, I read minidisc.org, and one can't help but hear about them. The general positivity of this discussion is annoying. Sony is no better than the often-targetted MS, they just have better marketing.
Hmmm. You speak very smugly, especially in reply to what's obviously a joke.
It's easy (and often accurate, and hopefully funny) to joke about Slashdot over-analysis of movies like "The Matrix." That's because, although such movies may express the vagaries of a philosophy, obviously people are just looking to bullshit about a movie they really liked for the special effects and action sequences.
In the other case - where people really are interested in analyzing the movie, to get at the deeper meaning - you can't help but think that the time would be much better spent reading a religious or philosophical book. Many of them are freely available on the web, form the basis for their civilizations, but likely haven't been read by these "Matrix" analyzers. Similarly, one wouldn't watch "Tai Chi Master" to get a grasp on Taoism.
That's not to say all movies are stupid. Or that no movies are worthy of analysis. Just that repeated philosophical discussion of "The Matrix" is a joke-worthy subject.
Ugh. Can't people just admit they like it because it has lots of guns, and people in skin-tight leather? They're making it out like the DVD is popular for purposes of meditation.
Jean Baudrillard, interviewed (some time ago) by the NY Times. He claimed any relation to "Simulacra and Simulation" and "The Matrix" was "born mostly of misunderstanding." Similarly, Matrix 2 is about as dumbed down an argument on free-will as you'll get...
If you want an intelligent discussion of philosophy, read a book you lazy fucks.
I don't think it's quite that simple. Sure "Matrix 2" sucks, but was so heavily promoted that people (including me, and I don't even watch TV) flock to see it. But "Adventures of Pluto Nash" supposedly was a lot worse, and that movie was hardly promoted at all.
On the opposite side, "Spider Man" was pretty good, that got promoted like a mother.
As far as the business goes, it seems like word of mouth type movies sometimes get popular, but often-times don't. It took an Oscar for "Spirited Away" to get big.
Anyway, I wanted to see something truly intelligent, animation wouldn't be the first place I looked...
And we have a winner for the "Standard American Opinion of Animation" award.:)
Too many anime fans confuse "intelligent for a cartoon" with "intelligent." Sure, your average anime is more intelligent than your average American cartoon. However, I also enjoy reading, and real literature is far more subtle, intelligent, and sophisticated than *any* cartoon.
Jumped the shark? I've lived in Japan and I semi-frequently visit friends there. I don't know specifics, but there's a lot less anime on TV, and video games have clearly replaced anime for the Zeitgeist of Japanese youth. So, it seems unlikely that it will continue getting popular in America, when less and less quality work is being created in Japan.
Also worth mentioning: Japanese anime is aimed at young kids and, at the oldest, high schoolers. American fans are much older than Japanese fans. If you went to Japan and talked about the intelligence of anime, you'd get a lot of weird looks...
And this is why anime is coming in big. It isn't politically correct. Japanese people dont' give a crap about that stuff. They have more violence and sex and disgusting shit in their culture
Please. Aside from the excellent Disney-esque movies Hayao Miyazaki continues to release, anime has long since "jumped the shark." This is true in both Japan and America, and it's only not obvious in America because Cartoon Network can drag out ancient shows and make like they're new.
Honestly, I don't see Tenchi Muyo or Dragon Ball Z being any more intelligent than Spongebob or Texas Avery. Anyway, I wanted to see something truly intelligent, animation wouldn't be the first place I looked...
If they are allowed to proceed with this suit it means the end of business as it is practiced in the USA.
But, the investor took over the company, and assumed legal liability. Napster was privately held.
Regardless, the American economy is based on copyrights and patents, on paying East Asians 12 cents an hour, to press DVDs or manufacture iPods or making elite-label clothes, that end up selling for much more than most any East Asian could afford. The US *has* to vigorously protect the system - if copyright & patent violation becomes common practice, the American economy will get seriously screwed. After all, we don't have manufacturing anymore - we've become a knowledge & entertainment center.
It's much worse than Venture Capitalists being held liable for the actions of the corporations they end up owning. That's standard business practice anyway.
I'll leave the "is downloading illegal" argument alone, but part of the problem is that the music industry has failed to introduce any notable download service to compete with what consumers have come to expect as a way to obtain their music.
I don't think this is an insightful comment. Pay music download sites have been a huge flop. One could argue that it's because the music range wasn't as large as could be asked, but people still use Gnutella, and the music range on that is ridiculously small. It comes down to, there's no possible way to have a sucessful for-pay music download service, when users download the same music for free.
Music sites aren't crazy. And the history of media shows, the best thing that can happen to profits is people buying the White Album on a new format. If it was possible to make money selling MP3's, they would.
Hanzosan, sounds like Japanese! I lived there for a very little bit, and know a thing or two in contradiction.
Most Japanese people eat rice with every meal. They are *thin*. I don't think it's all genetic, because I know various Japanese who started eating fast food or went to America, and literally ballooned in weight. In fact when I was there, I had weight-loss problems, eating that crazy Japanese shit they eat.
Pointing out sumo wrestlers isn't fair, sumo wrestlers eat gigantic amounts of rice gruel & meat, right before sleeping!
Take in low GI slow digesting carbs and never eat any carbs without a greater ratio of fat and protien, meaning if you are going to eat a tablespoon of rice,you should be eating 4-5 peices of fried chicken with it. Never eat a bucket of rice with small peices of meat like stir fry.
It's a good theory, but I think there's empirical evidence problems. I live in a Chinatown, and nobody is fat - yet peoples (including me) are eating rice or noodles with almost every meal. Walk over to a KFC, and people are all fat and gross.
Hawai'i ("two scoops rice, one scoop Mac salad") has the healthiest population of any US state, Texas has the least. I have to believe Texans have a diet *much* closer to the Atkins diet than Hawai'i.
So while I know people who've lost weight by cutting down on carbohydrates, I think there's more complex issues at work, other than "eating much carbs makes you fat."
I used to live in Japan, have a number of Japanese friends, and so on. I'm not going to claim cultural expertise, but it's a pretty obvious fact that 95% of anime & manga flatly aims itself at the teenager or younger set. A more mature audience than Disney, for sure, but the constant posts that in Soviet Japan, anime is mainstream and created for adults is stretching the truth. American anime fans are, in general, older than Japanese anime fans.
Cowboy Bebop doesn't come off as particularly adult. The characters can be described with 2 or 3 adjectives, Faye is around mostly to show off her animated ass, and in general it's not as intelligent as an Hollywood action flick.
CD's don't sound as good as a DAT or LP, but people use them because they're more convenient. 192kbps sounds pretty good, and it's far more convenient - so why not?
Sure Linkin Park or Avril Lavignone can have a huge $50 million concert tour. But there is NO WAY those bands would have gotten so big without the studio system.
If people had an unlimited amount of time/energy they could listen to amazing amounts of music, read all the zines, and decide for themselves what was best, and then support those bands.
However for most people, they only get to know what's played on the radio, what's played on MTV, or what they heard in a movie. It's obvious that major record labels are best able to deal with these sources, and put their music on the playlist.
Any indie-music fan will tell you that of the top 10 CD's released in a given year, only one or two will be major label. However, these other 8 or 9 can only hope for a cult following, and even members of very popular indie bands (say, the Aislers Set) will have day jobs.
So going to a major label may be a Faustian deal. But if a band aims to become the next Beatles, there's no way around it.
willing to pay for broadband? More like "unable to get broadband". Even though Broadband prices are quite steep, it's usually not a deterrant. No, the fact that most people have no choice is the real problem.
No. Prices are a definite deterrent. Many people either don't download MP3s, or something that having broadband would really help at, or have fast Internet at work/school, and don't need it at home.
I'm a big enough nerd to post on Slashdot, and I'd rather save the $40/month that upgrading to broadband would cost me.
"Most people have no choice?" I just have to believe that a large percentage *do* have a choice. Maybe not if you live in Kansas, but almost anybody in a large city, or suburb thereof...
This is SOOOO ridiculous. Even more than the endless self-deluded "the IT Market is great! You guys just don't have any skills!" postings.
To wit: How many innovations can the market support? Didn't the dot-com market teach us that most innovations end up being unmarketable or stupid, and even with good innovations, the adaptation isn't immediate? And that even with good innovations that are adapted, another well-established company/industry will steal your thunder, or sue you of existense?
And how many consulting shops will the market support? How many innovation shops? VC's and other sources of money have learned to be suspicious of companies with vague promises of innovation. Do we support ourselves in the meantime? And what if it takes a number of people to design this innovative idea?
So you advice boils down to "Come up with a great invention that revolutionizes everything and makes you lots of money." A nice thought, but hardly +5 Insightful.
Re:What sort of nerd would buy this?
on
Google Hacks
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· Score: 1
So you're the kind of person who exclaims, "YOU BOUGHT ME A SHIT PRESENT, I'M NOT GOING TO BE YOUR FRIEND ANY MORE!!!" at birthdays? Wow, you must be really fun.
What can I say, you've got to draw a line somewhere - and a book called _Google Hacks_ is definitely on the other side of the line.
What sort of nerd would buy this?
on
Google Hacks
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· Score: 1, Flamebait
Is Google really that hard to use, that you need to read a book about using it?
Google gives fine results as it is. For, say, researchers, it doesn't take that long to learn to type '"Sex on the beach" -"alcoholic drink"' at the prompt. Who want to turn Google into a cool toy, besides an incredible dork? I'm talking, even compared to normal Slashdot activities.
If somebody bought this for me, I would return it for a real book, and make a mental note to find new friends.
When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about spce travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere
Are you suggesting that the best alternative to a Microsoft Passport type scheme would be colonizing other planets?
Slashdot Mirror
The release date is no coincidince, but you're looking at it wrongly: strong advance reviews of this phone were what conviced Palm to purchase the Handspring corporation. If the Treo's technology was found to be horrible, Palm would have little/no motivation to purchase the company.
I think people underestimate the "gee whiz" factor that goes into games, that people play them specifically because new technology is kind of fun, rather than any of the game's inherent qualities. "Quake 3," or any Playstation game, are unlikely to be popular 5 years from now, except with the nostalgia crowd.
On the other hand, Bach concertos, or "Songs in the Key of Life," will still be available 100 years from now.
- Check if my ruler was accurate, by comparing it against a cube of water weighing 1 pound.
- Convert 7,500,000 inches into the equivalent number of miles.
- Hand calculate Newtonian psychics equations involving mass and acceleration.
Get with it, US! Why do you think American weight and measurement skills are lagging so far behind foreign nations?!
Similarly, if I start my own printing press to make copies of "The New York Times" evey morning, I wouldn't have to pay any journalists or photographers. Maybe I could sell it for a quarter, instead of a dollar! Few would consider this legit. Many of the people here a software programmers, you'd have to work for a commercial program and then see it be entirely bootlegged, wouldn't you?
Many of the arguments here are similarly self-serving, but make even less sense.
For instance, the argument that the RIAA rips off musicians, so they lose all complaining rights - nobody forces musicians to sign with the RIAA. They do this because despite the expenses, they realize the RIAA has resources to promote even relatively untalented musicians to riches and stardom. There's many record labels which will cut better deals and still have wide distribution. Heck, even Self-released music can get sold on Amazon, or get national record release...
Or, the "it's really expensive, so I have a right to copy it" argument. The way the econony works, you have a right to put forth your economic vote and just not have the music, and wait for it to come up on radio - there's plenty of good music that sells for less than $19, or musicians who allow the distribution of their mp3s...
As the subject line says: "never again!" I found it was extremely expensive for what you get (maybe $400, about the same as paying to take a UC class for a UC alumnai, and much more than the $45 night school at a JC will cost). Interaction between other students was haphazard, and it was difficult to arrange AIM sessions - which is only natural when you're dealing with professionals in different time zones. There's no possibility of lectures, and the class boiled down to "read the book, turn in homework, get back a grade and some brief comments."
I'm reading other posts that are saying "No learning - Ha! that's what *real* college is like! I kill me!" (+5 humorous) or "you take out what you put into it." I disagree with both these points. Being in a real college allows you to meet others interested in the subject, and allows an easy way to learn outside of reading the book - I really benefit from hearing lectures, from being able to ask offhand points of clarifications, from seeing how other students approach things, and just being in a classroom environment.
True, like any class, "you take out what you put into it." However, you also hope for a little something more. When I took an online course, I really felt I should have just saved the money and read the textbook on my own.
And as I said, there's obvious, extreme examples, where movies, books, radio, have had an unquestionably undesirable effect, and 99.8% of the population would think it should, in certain contexts, be restricted. Hutu radio, Sayyid Qutb, "Birth of a Nation," Nazi paraphenilia in Europe.
These limits on 100% freedom are a fact of life, and make sense, and have the general support of the people. I think the real question is, do video games deserve to have similar limits? I dunnow, but I think it's a legitimate question. What if it stopped hundreds of murders a year? (I doubt it, but for argument) Regardless of the mental state of these murderers, it would be worth it.
That's why the typical argument (I play video games, and I've never killed people) fails. Most people who are going to kill are deeply disturbed. The argument is whether the video games bring out latent homocidal tendencies. Culture can have negative effects on people's behavior.
An extreme example: people saw the movie "Birth of a Nation." The majority liked it for the spectacle and the new cinematic techniques. However, others siezed on the racist content, the KKK re-formed, and lynchings and increasingly racist laws happened. That's an extreme example just to prove the point that culture can directly have a negative effect.
Another example is music. A number of individuals were encouraged to try drugs by hippie culture, which was defined by music. A number of individuals consciously modeled themselves after gangsta stereotypes after hearing gangsta rap, and lived a lifestyle that just doesn't have a place in the Great Society. (Similarly, I've listened to "Sgt. Pepper's" and "Straight Outta Compton", but I've never shot a policeman on acid (me, not the cop))
On the opposite end, obviously a lot of culture really is harmless.
But I don't think it's unreasonable to question culture's ability to influence events - and if it's unhealthy, to restrict it.
Flame away :)
They're in a weird situation where they can't release the cool new devices for listening to music and video that other companies are, because they're percieved as encouraging piracy, and movies & videos is where Sony makes the money. Sony MP3 players suck because of the hostile DRM check-in/check-out system. Even minidisc.org peoples (a cult audience for sure) are ready to ditch MDs, frustrated by having to workaround the check-in system, and that you can't upload (when many MD users like bootlegging)
This (and more especially, the PSP) seem like an attempt to use the insanely positive perception of their Playstation to piggyback onto other formats - for instance, the PSP will be released at the same time as a media player, which plays music/video off the little discs.
By itself, the PSP shouldn't be a good format - you can't record to it, it doesn't have the information of a DVD-Audio or SACD, and by the time it comes out, smart media cards will be both smaller and hold more information. Sony's hoping people buy the PSP and its audio discs because they like that it's Sony, rather than quality of the product, and the dominant format will be a DRM one.
This new product seems like it will be one of many by the time it reaches America - except, it'll have tighter DRM, and Sony controls it. A hard drive and a DVD writer. A start-up company could release one of these next month.
Personally I don't think either scheme will work - it's more a desperate move by a company that's doing bad business, has promised in two years to do amazing business (a promise recieved skeptically by analysts), and has its hands tied by conflicting interests in its unprofitable hardware business, and its profitable software business.
I'm not a Sony expert or whatever, but I have friends who work for Sony Japan, I read minidisc.org, and one can't help but hear about them. The general positivity of this discussion is annoying. Sony is no better than the often-targetted MS, they just have better marketing.
It's easy (and often accurate, and hopefully funny) to joke about Slashdot over-analysis of movies like "The Matrix." That's because, although such movies may express the vagaries of a philosophy, obviously people are just looking to bullshit about a movie they really liked for the special effects and action sequences.
In the other case - where people really are interested in analyzing the movie, to get at the deeper meaning - you can't help but think that the time would be much better spent reading a religious or philosophical book. Many of them are freely available on the web, form the basis for their civilizations, but likely haven't been read by these "Matrix" analyzers. Similarly, one wouldn't watch "Tai Chi Master" to get a grasp on Taoism.
That's not to say all movies are stupid. Or that no movies are worthy of analysis. Just that repeated philosophical discussion of "The Matrix" is a joke-worthy subject.
Ugh. Can't people just admit they like it because it has lots of guns, and people in skin-tight leather? They're making it out like the DVD is popular for purposes of meditation.
Jean Baudrillard, interviewed (some time ago) by the NY Times. He claimed any relation to "Simulacra and Simulation" and "The Matrix" was "born mostly of misunderstanding." Similarly, Matrix 2 is about as dumbed down an argument on free-will as you'll get...
If you want an intelligent discussion of philosophy, read a book you lazy fucks.
On the opposite side, "Spider Man" was pretty good, that got promoted like a mother.
As far as the business goes, it seems like word of mouth type movies sometimes get popular, but often-times don't. It took an Oscar for "Spirited Away" to get big.
And we have a winner for the "Standard American Opinion of Animation" award. :)
Too many anime fans confuse "intelligent for a cartoon" with "intelligent." Sure, your average anime is more intelligent than your average American cartoon. However, I also enjoy reading, and real literature is far more subtle, intelligent, and sophisticated than *any* cartoon.
Jumped the shark? I've lived in Japan and I semi-frequently visit friends there. I don't know specifics, but there's a lot less anime on TV, and video games have clearly replaced anime for the Zeitgeist of Japanese youth. So, it seems unlikely that it will continue getting popular in America, when less and less quality work is being created in Japan.
Also worth mentioning: Japanese anime is aimed at young kids and, at the oldest, high schoolers. American fans are much older than Japanese fans. If you went to Japan and talked about the intelligence of anime, you'd get a lot of weird looks...
Please. Aside from the excellent Disney-esque movies Hayao Miyazaki continues to release, anime has long since "jumped the shark." This is true in both Japan and America, and it's only not obvious in America because Cartoon Network can drag out ancient shows and make like they're new.
Honestly, I don't see Tenchi Muyo or Dragon Ball Z being any more intelligent than Spongebob or Texas Avery. Anyway, I wanted to see something truly intelligent, animation wouldn't be the first place I looked...
But, the investor took over the company, and assumed legal liability. Napster was privately held.
Regardless, the American economy is based on copyrights and patents, on paying East Asians 12 cents an hour, to press DVDs or manufacture iPods or making elite-label clothes, that end up selling for much more than most any East Asian could afford. The US *has* to vigorously protect the system - if copyright & patent violation becomes common practice, the American economy will get seriously screwed. After all, we don't have manufacturing anymore - we've become a knowledge & entertainment center.
It's much worse than Venture Capitalists being held liable for the actions of the corporations they end up owning. That's standard business practice anyway.
I don't think this is an insightful comment. Pay music download sites have been a huge flop. One could argue that it's because the music range wasn't as large as could be asked, but people still use Gnutella, and the music range on that is ridiculously small. It comes down to, there's no possible way to have a sucessful for-pay music download service, when users download the same music for free.
Music sites aren't crazy. And the history of media shows, the best thing that can happen to profits is people buying the White Album on a new format. If it was possible to make money selling MP3's, they would.
Most Japanese people eat rice with every meal. They are *thin*. I don't think it's all genetic, because I know various Japanese who started eating fast food or went to America, and literally ballooned in weight. In fact when I was there, I had weight-loss problems, eating that crazy Japanese shit they eat.
Pointing out sumo wrestlers isn't fair, sumo wrestlers eat gigantic amounts of rice gruel & meat, right before sleeping!
It's a good theory, but I think there's empirical evidence problems. I live in a Chinatown, and nobody is fat - yet peoples (including me) are eating rice or noodles with almost every meal. Walk over to a KFC, and people are all fat and gross.
Hawai'i ("two scoops rice, one scoop Mac salad") has the healthiest population of any US state, Texas has the least. I have to believe Texans have a diet *much* closer to the Atkins diet than Hawai'i.
So while I know people who've lost weight by cutting down on carbohydrates, I think there's more complex issues at work, other than "eating much carbs makes you fat."
Cowboy Bebop doesn't come off as particularly adult. The characters can be described with 2 or 3 adjectives, Faye is around mostly to show off her animated ass, and in general it's not as intelligent as an Hollywood action flick.
CD's don't sound as good as a DAT or LP, but people use them because they're more convenient. 192kbps sounds pretty good, and it's far more convenient - so why not?
Sure Linkin Park or Avril Lavignone can have a huge $50 million concert tour. But there is NO WAY those bands would have gotten so big without the studio system.
If people had an unlimited amount of time/energy they could listen to amazing amounts of music, read all the zines, and decide for themselves what was best, and then support those bands.
However for most people, they only get to know what's played on the radio, what's played on MTV, or what they heard in a movie. It's obvious that major record labels are best able to deal with these sources, and put their music on the playlist.
Any indie-music fan will tell you that of the top 10 CD's released in a given year, only one or two will be major label. However, these other 8 or 9 can only hope for a cult following, and even members of very popular indie bands (say, the Aislers Set) will have day jobs.
So going to a major label may be a Faustian deal. But if a band aims to become the next Beatles, there's no way around it.
No. Prices are a definite deterrent. Many people either don't download MP3s, or something that having broadband would really help at, or have fast Internet at work/school, and don't need it at home.
I'm a big enough nerd to post on Slashdot, and I'd rather save the $40/month that upgrading to broadband would cost me.
"Most people have no choice?" I just have to believe that a large percentage *do* have a choice. Maybe not if you live in Kansas, but almost anybody in a large city, or suburb thereof...
To wit: How many innovations can the market support? Didn't the dot-com market teach us that most innovations end up being unmarketable or stupid, and even with good innovations, the adaptation isn't immediate? And that even with good innovations that are adapted, another well-established company/industry will steal your thunder, or sue you of existense?
And how many consulting shops will the market support? How many innovation shops? VC's and other sources of money have learned to be suspicious of companies with vague promises of innovation. Do we support ourselves in the meantime? And what if it takes a number of people to design this innovative idea?
So you advice boils down to "Come up with a great invention that revolutionizes everything and makes you lots of money." A nice thought, but hardly +5 Insightful.
What can I say, you've got to draw a line somewhere - and a book called _Google Hacks_ is definitely on the other side of the line.
Google gives fine results as it is. For, say, researchers, it doesn't take that long to learn to type '"Sex on the beach" -"alcoholic drink"' at the prompt. Who want to turn Google into a cool toy, besides an incredible dork? I'm talking, even compared to normal Slashdot activities.
If somebody bought this for me, I would return it for a real book, and make a mental note to find new friends.
Are you suggesting that the best alternative to a Microsoft Passport type scheme would be colonizing other planets?