Yes, but the ratio of the movies' box-office takes to their production costs dropped dramatically with the prequels. The original movie grossed more than thirty times its production cost; [i]Episode I[/i] grossed "only" about four times its cost. Sure, they all make far more money than I'll ever see, but the prequels aren't nearly as profitable as the originals, in terms of the return on each dollar invested.
People always forget that Lucas produced Howard the Duck in 1986 as his next major scifi work.
Actually, more people remember that than remember that it wasn't exactly his movie; unlike Star Wars, Indiana Jones, American Graffiti, THX 1138 and Willow, which were all his creations, Howard the Duck was based on a Marvel Comics character, and it was both written and directed by other people (longtime Lucas associates Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, to be specific; Huyck directed, Katz produced, and they co-wrote it together, so the couple - they're married - are pretty much responsible for Howard as a film. Lucas was incidental).
I personally think Lucas' creativity took a turn for the worse around 1993. His works prior to that were mostly fine, with several excellent works; his worst works (of his own creation, as opposed to the various movies he executive-produced for other filmmakers) from before the early '90s are probably Willow and the made-for-TV Ewok movies, and even those were Ok for what they were meant to be. After 1993, though, he brought us Radioland Murders and the Star Wars prequels and special editions. I think most of us would agree all those efforts are at least fairly flawed, and perhaps worse. I'm personally inclined to attribute the fact there may be anything worthwhile in any of them to all of them having been at least "on the drawing board" since before '93 or so, when he was still having good ideas.
In other words, yeah, I'm afraid he's not quite what he was (and I hate to say it; I grew up a pretty serious Lucasfilm geek), but I wouldn't pin his decline as far back as '86 just because of Howard. That was just one movie out of a bunch he served as executive producer on, usually for friends or other filmmakers he admired or wanted to help out, and many of those other movies are quite worthwhile (Kagemusha, Body Heat, Twice Upon a Time, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, Latino, Labyrinth, Tucker: The Man and His Dream), and include movies made concurrently with or following Howard the Duck.
Actually, I imagine it'll be a bit less than that. First of all, a lot of the winning codes will probably never get used; some bottlecaps will be thrown away without the drinkers realizing they'd won anything, some won't sell before the promotion ends, some will be bought by people who don't have computers, and so on.
Then there's Apple's cut. While obviously the labels get the majority of the iTMS's revenues, Apple still gets a small slice, reportedly something like 35 cents and almost certainly larger than 14 or 15 (which is the rate they'd have to get for the labels to get $85 million out of $99 million, even if all the codes were used).
Finally, the iTMS does have a fair bit of non-RIAA music, and some of the codes will undoubtedly get used for some of that. I do still expect the RIAA labels to get probably upwards of $50 million, but there's no way they'll get $85 million.
No, no problem with that; frankly, I think it's great that you're sticking to your principles. I just want to point out something:
BUT... since the money I'd be paying for a soda is now going in part to RIAA artists through itunes... I will not be buying sodas from Pepsi at least for the duration of this promotion.
RIAA artists won't make their money until customers cash in their winning codes and use them for songs from RIAA artists. Pepsi will pay for whatever songs people get via the promotion, and they don't have to be RIAA songs. You can keep drinking Pepsi with a clean conscience; if you get a winning bottlecap, you can use it for some indie song untainted by the RIAA. Unfortunately the iTMS isn't searchable by RIAA-status; you'll have to do your homework elsewhere - but if you already buy RIAA-free tunes, you probably have a good idea what's safe to buy under your boycott anyway.
CD ripping is just one of those things where if you don't have enough resources on hand, and you don't have the sluggish jitter-correction option enabled (which would possibly defeat the purpose of ripping with more than one drive),
Unfortunate. I'd also been thinking of getting another optical drive (just a decent CD-ROM I could put in the second bay in my mirrored drive door G4) for ripping lots of CDs at once, and I'd wondered how effective the system might be at ripping more than one disc at a time. However, I also thought it might be good to at least alternating them - while one disc is ripping, I could put another in the other drive and start correcting all the track info that came back from the CDDB all screwy. I find I have to tweak the info on nearly everything I rip anyway to get it to my liking, so if I could do that on one CD while another is ripping, it might still be worth having a cheap second drive for...
(That, plus entirely different considerations, like having more than one game CD mounted at a time to prevent having to swap with multi-disc games, or the like...)
But getting back to rips, with error correction enabled, might not the machine slow down as needed when ripping to ensure that sort of thing doesn't happen?
That's very interesting; thanks for sharing your perspective - I knew LEGO was important to the country, but I had no idea how much.
Certainly the best solution possible would probably be to simply get more consumers to buy more LEGO, but I really don't know what that would take. I do think it's sad that such a deservedly legendary toy that fosters such creativity and imagination doesn't seem to hold the same cachet among consumers it once did; it's not just LEGO's loss, it's theirs, too, and they don't even know it.
They do still have those buckets of bricks. As far as I can tell, they've always offered at least a few large plastic buckets or tubs full of hundreds of basic, general parts in assorted colors; certainly one can get those now (they have one large tub now that has 1000 pieces and costs $20).
The price of LEGO has indeed gone up over the years, it's true; so have the prices of cars, peanut butter, shirts, and most other things. LEGO is just as vulnerable to the effects of inflation and other economic phenomena as anything else, sadly enough, and they simply can't produce and offer stuff at '70s prices any more.
I wouldn't be surprised if they are finding that: 1) they can't give away Harry Potter sets
Actually, their top moneymaking set last year was a Harry Potter set (and one of the large, expensive ones at that - the big Hogwarts Castle set. It's sold almost a million units since it was launched in 2001).
But they also make general parts assortments. In some ways, one can find more "open," "nonspecialized" LEGO now than back in the '70s. You can directly order bags of just one kind of basic brick from them, for example, and many of the LEGO stores have bins of parts so one can just fill a cup or a bag with parts, as in a candy store.
Tellingly, the Make and Create sets are apparently a bright spot for the company; reportedly they're among the few things they do really well, which seems to indicate their customers do indeed want general, nonspecialized sets that encourage imaginative, free-form building and unguided play as much as possible (though I do know one of the Harry Potter sets was apparently their biggest seller last year, but I guess that's an aberration). If nothing else, those sets also have some of the better price/piece ratios among all their current offerings...
I just looked at the eensy print on some of the boxes I have, and they say either "Components made in DENMARK, SWITZERLAND and USA," "Components made in DENMARK and SWITZERLAND," or just "Components made in DENMARK."
I think I've seen other packages mention other countries, though, including Mexico, but from my quick, admittedly unscientific survey it definitely appears the majority of bricks come from just three countries, none of which is one I'd guess is particularly cheap to manufacture stuff in. Might the company do well to move some of its production to other countries that can make it for lower cost (without sacrificing quality, of course)? I can't believe they'd ever completely abandon Denmark as a main production locale, but do they need to manufacture everything in expensive countries? Could they not do some of their manufacturing to their standards elsewhere?
It's going to happen here. Initially some ppl will buy HP instead of iPod, Apple will cry, and cut the license.
There's a key difference, though - Apple didn't make the Mac clones, and thus didn't get money from the hardware. It is making HP's iPod (or whatever they wind up calling it). Apple will make money providing the players to HP, who will merely resell them.
I'd bet there are sections of the agreement that stipulate HP can't cross certain boundaries to compete with Apple's iPods (selling its player for dramatically less, for example). It's not like Apple wouldn't have thought of this stuff already.
That Rio Nitrus costs $154 at the absolute rock-bottom price at which one can find it, sure (but at the store from which I was posting, it sold for $219.99). It also has less than half the capacity of the iPod mini. The new Rio Nitrus, I'm told, has the same capacity as the iPod mini at the same list price, which muddies the waters a bit.
I am sure one will soon be able to find the 4 GB Rio Nitrus below MSRP as well, though (unlike the iPod mini, of course; one thing about Apple's stuff is that it's harder to get discounts on). Will that alone make it a more compelling buy than the iPod mini? That's part of what I was asking; I'm keen to find out...
I just had to laugh when I saw the new iPods. What was Apple thinking? Who would possibly consider getting a 4 GB model for $250 when you could get a 15 GB model for only $50 more?
I guess it depends on your starting point. If you're thinking of dropping $250 on a player, then sure, it makes sense to spend just $50 more and get one with more than three times the capacity - but what if you're initially thinking of spending, say, just $200? That's what lots of flash-based players cost that hold just 256 MB; the iPod mini holds 16 times that and costs just $50 more. It's a lot easier to make the jump to justify spending an extra $50 than an extra $100, so while lots of people who might get an iPod mini will get a 15 GB iPod instead, there'll also be people who might get one of those $199 256 MB flash players who wind up getting an iPod mini instead - but probably few people who'd plan on getting one of those flash players but wind up spending $100 more for a 15 GB iPod.
If one iPod bites into sales of the other, it hardly matters anyway from Apple's POV, since at the end of the day it's still selling iPods. All they care about is biting into sales of the flash players, and the iPod minis will help them do that better than if they just had only the regular, non-mini iPods.
I had the same initial reaction to the pricing of the iPod minis, but after thinking about it (and looking over the competition - I'm posting from CompUSA), I'm not sure it's so bad after all. I just walked over to the MP3 players, and there are scads of flash-based ones that hold only 256 MB and cost from $179.99 to $199.99, along with lower-capacity players ranging from 64 to 128 MB that run from $79.99 to $119.99. There's also a low-end hard drive player, a Rio Nitrus, that holds 1.5 GB and costs $219.99. It probably goes without saying none of them are as nice to use as iPods.
The iPod minis may not have great price/storage ratios compared to the regular iPods, but compared to these other things they're absolute bargains. If anyone is buying the other players for whatever reason (just not quite enough money to spend a few dozen extra dollars for a regular iPod, or don't need the capacity and would rather have smaller size, whatever), the iPod minis might actually be just what they need.
I'm told they they just announced an updated version of that Rio Nitrus; it'll hold 4 GB, and sell for $249 - the same as the iPod mini. It appears these two will go head-to-head; I'm curious to see how they do, both against each other and against other players (at both ends of the price and capacity scales)...
All that said, I personally want to hold out until I can afford the $499 for the 40 GB "regular" iPod, and even if I didn't want that much capacity, I'd still be more inclined to spend the extra $50 to get the 15 GB instead of a 4 GB mini. I can totally see the appeal of the minis, though.
In terms of musical accomplishment and genius, U2 has a far, far richer body of work and have lasted longer.
Even Bob Dylan's 1980s work has more to it than the Talking Heads does - the Travelling Wilburys, Infidels, parts of Empire Burlesque, etc. And HE had been doing it for 20 years before then.
Other artists did more in the 1980s, had longer and more successful and more influential careers, and by comparison, the Talking Heads was more a footnote than anything else.
Much of what you say I can't argue with, if only because it's all subjective, but FWIW one of your apparent underlying assumptions (that David Byrne's career lasted a certain time and has since ended) is incorrect. Yeah, he was a member of a band that no longer performs together, but that was just one phase of his career. He's kept making music after leaving Talking Heads, and continues to make music to this day. Comparing just his Talking Heads work to Bob Dylan's entire career is meaningless; one might as well compare just Bob Dylan's Traveling Wilburys work to David Byrne's entire career. Comparing U2's duration to David Byrne's doesn't serve your case at all, since Byrne's (as opposed to Talking Heads's) is longer.
Oh, and just FWIW, David Byrne himself would be among the first to champion many of the other artists you cite. I'd also bet dollars to donuts many of those other artists you say are so much greater (more influential, longer-lasting, etc.) hold him in pretty high regard themselves.
Exactly. Additionally, the iPod is already at a pretty sweet spot for portability and usability; making one substantially smaller would probably mean rethinking its much-lauded UI. I don't think I want them making the screen or controls smaller. If they can make the inner workings smaller, great; just keep it in the same size case, and use the internal space savings for a bigger battery.
Well, for starters, there's all of them, since everything from the iTMS can be played on up to three authorized computers, each of which has full usage rights (can burn CDs, transfer to iPods, use songs in projects made with the other iApps, stream music to other computers on the network, etc.). The up-to-three authorized computers can be changed at any time (deauthorizing one computer to authorize another), so the music's not tied to a specific machine; you can take it with you to your next rig when you upgrade.
By comparison, anything bought from BuyMusic.com has full rights (burning, transfer to portable players, etc.) on only the "primary computer," i.e., the one on which the music was actually downloaded. Even if the music can be played on other machines (not all do; I'll mention a few examples), the "secondary" machines can't burn CDs of it, can't load it onto MP3 players, etc.
Aside from that, there's the simple fact that BuyMusic's DRM isn't uniform even across its own catalog, let alone equivalent to anyone else's. Some songs let you play on up to three computers, some on just one; some things let you transfer it to players an unlimited number of times, some just 10 times, or 5, or something else (there may be some that don't permit it at all); some let you burn to CD an unlimited number of times, some just 10 times or 5 or 3 or whatever.
But wait; you wanted specific examples. Ok, here you go - these are all albums available at both outlets, but with tighter restrictions from BuyMusic.com than from the iTMS:
- Try This, by Pink. From BuyMusic, this allows only 10 CD burns.
- Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues, by Stevie Ray Vaughan. This supports only 5 portable player transfers and 5 CD burns.
- Kevin Mahogany, by Kevin Mahogany. This allows only 3 CD burns.
- Let's Dance, by David Bowie. This allows only 1 computer, 3 player transfers, and 3 CD burns.
- 16 Biggest Hits, by Johnny Cash. 5 player transfers, 5 CD burns.
- John Philip Sousa's Great American Marches I - 1 computer, 3 player transfers, and 3 CD burns.
- 8 Mile soundtrack, by Eminem. 1 computer.
- Are You Experienced, by Jimi Hendrix. 1 computer.
- Heavenly Place, by Jaci Velasquez. 3 CD burns.
- Evil Empire, by Rage Against the Machine. 5 transfers, 5 burns.
That's 10 albums BM.com sells with tighter restrictions than the iTMS has, right there. Once again, the iTMS permits use on up to three computers, changeable at any time and with full usage for each, while even if a BM purchase permits playing on three, only one can burn the track to CD or transfer to a player, and one can't deauthorize the primary computer to authorize a new one, so you're stuck burning CDs and filling players with that music from that one machine; also, the iTMS permits unlimited iPod transfers and unlimited CD burns for every track.
Hell, not only are the actual restrictions themselves on BM music a hassle, but just the fact that different selections have different restrictions is a pain - who wants to keep track of how many more times one can do this or that with this track or that album?? The fact the usage rules are uniform for all tracks from the iTMS is nice in and of itself; the fact those rules are more lenient than what you'll find at BM is nicer still.
Oh? Is it doing something right by actually misleading viewers?
According to a recent article by American Journalism Review, several different polls have revealed a notable cross section of Americans subscribe to various misconceptions or believe outright falsehoods about the war on terror and the war on Iraq; while it's not uncommon for Americans to be ill-informed about a given issue of the day, it is historically unusual for so many people who claim to "pay close attention to" a given specific issue to still harbor such misconceptions about it (usually, Americans are far more likely to believe various falsehoods about an issue when they aren't particularly interested in it and don't follow it much). Digging deeper, AJR found the likelihood of people believing something that wasn't true tended to hinge on what source they got their news from (article quoted below):
"Among Republicans in the poll, says PIPA's Steven Kull, those who said they were closely following the news about Iraq were more apt to have these perceptions than those who weren't following the news closely. This "suggests that there's some kind of distorting process going on," he says. It's a distortion on two fronts: one being a personal bias that leads someone to reach conclusions that conform to that person's beliefs, and two, "some skewing in the way the information is being presented," he says.
PIPA further analyzed its data from this summer to see if there were relationships between people's beliefs and their main news sources. And it found some: Those who said they watched the Fox News Channel "very closely" were more likely to say evidence of WMD had been found or that people in the world favor the U.S. having gone to war with Iraq than those who watched Fox "not very closely" or "not closely at all." For CNN, the opposite was true--those watching the network very closely were less apt to have these misperceptions. There was little difference among the attention levels of NBC, ABC or CBS viewers.
When PIPA compared Republicans who supported the war, would vote for Bush in 2004 and listed Fox as their primary news source with Republicans who met the first two criteria but listed other news sources, it still found differences in beliefs. Loyal Fox viewers were more likely to have some misperceptions about Iraq.
It's debatable whether that means there's something in the way news is presented or in the way Fox fans choose to hear it."
Yeah, I'd say Fox certainly doesn't put a liberal spin on topics. Note how that's not the same thing as putting no spin on topics. Given a greater likelihood of attentive Fox viewers to believe outright falsehoods than attentive consumers of other news sources exhibit (among other things), Fox looks to be the biggest spinner of news among the leading, mainstream media outlets in the US.
If true, the fact they even considered such a suit is worthy of attention, for a number of reasons (what it says about Fox, for starters).
If nothing else, it's funny. That's why it was marked with the "It's funny. Laugh." icon. Most humor stories aren't really "news," but that doesn't mean they're not worthwhile, unless you're one of those dour individuals who despises levity in all its forms.
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Yes, but the ratio of the movies' box-office takes to their production costs dropped dramatically with the prequels. The original movie grossed more than thirty times its production cost; [i]Episode I[/i] grossed "only" about four times its cost. Sure, they all make far more money than I'll ever see, but the prequels aren't nearly as profitable as the originals, in terms of the return on each dollar invested.
Actually, more people remember that than remember that it wasn't exactly his movie; unlike Star Wars, Indiana Jones, American Graffiti, THX 1138 and Willow, which were all his creations, Howard the Duck was based on a Marvel Comics character, and it was both written and directed by other people (longtime Lucas associates Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, to be specific; Huyck directed, Katz produced, and they co-wrote it together, so the couple - they're married - are pretty much responsible for Howard as a film. Lucas was incidental).
I personally think Lucas' creativity took a turn for the worse around 1993. His works prior to that were mostly fine, with several excellent works; his worst works (of his own creation, as opposed to the various movies he executive-produced for other filmmakers) from before the early '90s are probably Willow and the made-for-TV Ewok movies, and even those were Ok for what they were meant to be. After 1993, though, he brought us Radioland Murders and the Star Wars prequels and special editions. I think most of us would agree all those efforts are at least fairly flawed, and perhaps worse. I'm personally inclined to attribute the fact there may be anything worthwhile in any of them to all of them having been at least "on the drawing board" since before '93 or so, when he was still having good ideas.
In other words, yeah, I'm afraid he's not quite what he was (and I hate to say it; I grew up a pretty serious Lucasfilm geek), but I wouldn't pin his decline as far back as '86 just because of Howard. That was just one movie out of a bunch he served as executive producer on, usually for friends or other filmmakers he admired or wanted to help out, and many of those other movies are quite worthwhile (Kagemusha, Body Heat, Twice Upon a Time, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, Latino, Labyrinth, Tucker: The Man and His Dream), and include movies made concurrently with or following Howard the Duck.
Then there's Apple's cut. While obviously the labels get the majority of the iTMS's revenues, Apple still gets a small slice, reportedly something like 35 cents and almost certainly larger than 14 or 15 (which is the rate they'd have to get for the labels to get $85 million out of $99 million, even if all the codes were used).
Finally, the iTMS does have a fair bit of non-RIAA music, and some of the codes will undoubtedly get used for some of that. I do still expect the RIAA labels to get probably upwards of $50 million, but there's no way they'll get $85 million.
RIAA artists won't make their money until customers cash in their winning codes and use them for songs from RIAA artists. Pepsi will pay for whatever songs people get via the promotion, and they don't have to be RIAA songs. You can keep drinking Pepsi with a clean conscience; if you get a winning bottlecap, you can use it for some indie song untainted by the RIAA. Unfortunately the iTMS isn't searchable by RIAA-status; you'll have to do your homework elsewhere - but if you already buy RIAA-free tunes, you probably have a good idea what's safe to buy under your boycott anyway.
Unfortunate. I'd also been thinking of getting another optical drive (just a decent CD-ROM I could put in the second bay in my mirrored drive door G4) for ripping lots of CDs at once, and I'd wondered how effective the system might be at ripping more than one disc at a time. However, I also thought it might be good to at least alternating them - while one disc is ripping, I could put another in the other drive and start correcting all the track info that came back from the CDDB all screwy. I find I have to tweak the info on nearly everything I rip anyway to get it to my liking, so if I could do that on one CD while another is ripping, it might still be worth having a cheap second drive for...
(That, plus entirely different considerations, like having more than one game CD mounted at a time to prevent having to swap with multi-disc games, or the like...)
But getting back to rips, with error correction enabled, might not the machine slow down as needed when ripping to ensure that sort of thing doesn't happen?
This one?
Certainly the best solution possible would probably be to simply get more consumers to buy more LEGO, but I really don't know what that would take. I do think it's sad that such a deservedly legendary toy that fosters such creativity and imagination doesn't seem to hold the same cachet among consumers it once did; it's not just LEGO's loss, it's theirs, too, and they don't even know it.
The price of LEGO has indeed gone up over the years, it's true; so have the prices of cars, peanut butter, shirts, and most other things. LEGO is just as vulnerable to the effects of inflation and other economic phenomena as anything else, sadly enough, and they simply can't produce and offer stuff at '70s prices any more.
Actually, their top moneymaking set last year was a Harry Potter set (and one of the large, expensive ones at that - the big Hogwarts Castle set. It's sold almost a million units since it was launched in 2001).
Tellingly, the Make and Create sets are apparently a bright spot for the company; reportedly they're among the few things they do really well, which seems to indicate their customers do indeed want general, nonspecialized sets that encourage imaginative, free-form building and unguided play as much as possible (though I do know one of the Harry Potter sets was apparently their biggest seller last year, but I guess that's an aberration). If nothing else, those sets also have some of the better price/piece ratios among all their current offerings...
I think I've seen other packages mention other countries, though, including Mexico, but from my quick, admittedly unscientific survey it definitely appears the majority of bricks come from just three countries, none of which is one I'd guess is particularly cheap to manufacture stuff in. Might the company do well to move some of its production to other countries that can make it for lower cost (without sacrificing quality, of course)? I can't believe they'd ever completely abandon Denmark as a main production locale, but do they need to manufacture everything in expensive countries? Could they not do some of their manufacturing to their standards elsewhere?
There's a key difference, though - Apple didn't make the Mac clones, and thus didn't get money from the hardware. It is making HP's iPod (or whatever they wind up calling it). Apple will make money providing the players to HP, who will merely resell them.
I'd bet there are sections of the agreement that stipulate HP can't cross certain boundaries to compete with Apple's iPods (selling its player for dramatically less, for example). It's not like Apple wouldn't have thought of this stuff already.
I am sure one will soon be able to find the 4 GB Rio Nitrus below MSRP as well, though (unlike the iPod mini, of course; one thing about Apple's stuff is that it's harder to get discounts on). Will that alone make it a more compelling buy than the iPod mini? That's part of what I was asking; I'm keen to find out...
I guess it depends on your starting point. If you're thinking of dropping $250 on a player, then sure, it makes sense to spend just $50 more and get one with more than three times the capacity - but what if you're initially thinking of spending, say, just $200? That's what lots of flash-based players cost that hold just 256 MB; the iPod mini holds 16 times that and costs just $50 more. It's a lot easier to make the jump to justify spending an extra $50 than an extra $100, so while lots of people who might get an iPod mini will get a 15 GB iPod instead, there'll also be people who might get one of those $199 256 MB flash players who wind up getting an iPod mini instead - but probably few people who'd plan on getting one of those flash players but wind up spending $100 more for a 15 GB iPod.
If one iPod bites into sales of the other, it hardly matters anyway from Apple's POV, since at the end of the day it's still selling iPods. All they care about is biting into sales of the flash players, and the iPod minis will help them do that better than if they just had only the regular, non-mini iPods.
The iPod minis may not have great price/storage ratios compared to the regular iPods, but compared to these other things they're absolute bargains. If anyone is buying the other players for whatever reason (just not quite enough money to spend a few dozen extra dollars for a regular iPod, or don't need the capacity and would rather have smaller size, whatever), the iPod minis might actually be just what they need.
I'm told they they just announced an updated version of that Rio Nitrus; it'll hold 4 GB, and sell for $249 - the same as the iPod mini. It appears these two will go head-to-head; I'm curious to see how they do, both against each other and against other players (at both ends of the price and capacity scales)...
All that said, I personally want to hold out until I can afford the $499 for the 40 GB "regular" iPod, and even if I didn't want that much capacity, I'd still be more inclined to spend the extra $50 to get the 15 GB instead of a 4 GB mini. I can totally see the appeal of the minis, though.
Right on. Those people who just want to have a good family time with their children at the local bar shouldn't have to see adult stuff like that.
;)
Much of what you say I can't argue with, if only because it's all subjective, but FWIW one of your apparent underlying assumptions (that David Byrne's career lasted a certain time and has since ended) is incorrect. Yeah, he was a member of a band that no longer performs together, but that was just one phase of his career. He's kept making music after leaving Talking Heads, and continues to make music to this day. Comparing just his Talking Heads work to Bob Dylan's entire career is meaningless; one might as well compare just Bob Dylan's Traveling Wilburys work to David Byrne's entire career. Comparing U2's duration to David Byrne's doesn't serve your case at all, since Byrne's (as opposed to Talking Heads's) is longer.
Oh, and just FWIW, David Byrne himself would be among the first to champion many of the other artists you cite. I'd also bet dollars to donuts many of those other artists you say are so much greater (more influential, longer-lasting, etc.) hold him in pretty high regard themselves.
A Mighty Wind. Funniest thing I've seen in a theater this year...
Exactly. Additionally, the iPod is already at a pretty sweet spot for portability and usability; making one substantially smaller would probably mean rethinking its much-lauded UI. I don't think I want them making the screen or controls smaller. If they can make the inner workings smaller, great; just keep it in the same size case, and use the internal space savings for a bigger battery.
Well, for starters, there's all of them, since everything from the iTMS can be played on up to three authorized computers, each of which has full usage rights (can burn CDs, transfer to iPods, use songs in projects made with the other iApps, stream music to other computers on the network, etc.). The up-to-three authorized computers can be changed at any time (deauthorizing one computer to authorize another), so the music's not tied to a specific machine; you can take it with you to your next rig when you upgrade.
By comparison, anything bought from BuyMusic.com has full rights (burning, transfer to portable players, etc.) on only the "primary computer," i.e., the one on which the music was actually downloaded. Even if the music can be played on other machines (not all do; I'll mention a few examples), the "secondary" machines can't burn CDs of it, can't load it onto MP3 players, etc.
Aside from that, there's the simple fact that BuyMusic's DRM isn't uniform even across its own catalog, let alone equivalent to anyone else's. Some songs let you play on up to three computers, some on just one; some things let you transfer it to players an unlimited number of times, some just 10 times, or 5, or something else (there may be some that don't permit it at all); some let you burn to CD an unlimited number of times, some just 10 times or 5 or 3 or whatever.
But wait; you wanted specific examples. Ok, here you go - these are all albums available at both outlets, but with tighter restrictions from BuyMusic.com than from the iTMS:
- Try This, by Pink. From BuyMusic, this allows only 10 CD burns.
- Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues, by Stevie Ray Vaughan. This supports only 5 portable player transfers and 5 CD burns.
- Kevin Mahogany, by Kevin Mahogany. This allows only 3 CD burns.
- Let's Dance, by David Bowie. This allows only 1 computer, 3 player transfers, and 3 CD burns.
- 16 Biggest Hits, by Johnny Cash. 5 player transfers, 5 CD burns.
- John Philip Sousa's Great American Marches I - 1 computer, 3 player transfers, and 3 CD burns.
- 8 Mile soundtrack, by Eminem. 1 computer.
- Are You Experienced, by Jimi Hendrix. 1 computer.
- Heavenly Place, by Jaci Velasquez. 3 CD burns.
- Evil Empire, by Rage Against the Machine. 5 transfers, 5 burns.
That's 10 albums BM.com sells with tighter restrictions than the iTMS has, right there. Once again, the iTMS permits use on up to three computers, changeable at any time and with full usage for each, while even if a BM purchase permits playing on three, only one can burn the track to CD or transfer to a player, and one can't deauthorize the primary computer to authorize a new one, so you're stuck burning CDs and filling players with that music from that one machine; also, the iTMS permits unlimited iPod transfers and unlimited CD burns for every track.
Hell, not only are the actual restrictions themselves on BM music a hassle, but just the fact that different selections have different restrictions is a pain - who wants to keep track of how many more times one can do this or that with this track or that album?? The fact the usage rules are uniform for all tracks from the iTMS is nice in and of itself; the fact those rules are more lenient than what you'll find at BM is nicer still.
Not so. There are songs at both the iTunes Music Store and BuyMusic.com, for example, that have harsher limitations from BuyMusic than from the iTMS.
According to a recent article by American Journalism Review, several different polls have revealed a notable cross section of Americans subscribe to various misconceptions or believe outright falsehoods about the war on terror and the war on Iraq; while it's not uncommon for Americans to be ill-informed about a given issue of the day, it is historically unusual for so many people who claim to "pay close attention to" a given specific issue to still harbor such misconceptions about it (usually, Americans are far more likely to believe various falsehoods about an issue when they aren't particularly interested in it and don't follow it much). Digging deeper, AJR found the likelihood of people believing something that wasn't true tended to hinge on what source they got their news from (article quoted below):
Yeah, I'd say Fox certainly doesn't put a liberal spin on topics. Note how that's not the same thing as putting no spin on topics. Given a greater likelihood of attentive Fox viewers to believe outright falsehoods than attentive consumers of other news sources exhibit (among other things), Fox looks to be the biggest spinner of news among the leading, mainstream media outlets in the US.
If nothing else, it's funny. That's why it was marked with the "It's funny. Laugh." icon. Most humor stories aren't really "news," but that doesn't mean they're not worthwhile, unless you're one of those dour individuals who despises levity in all its forms.
Well, in fairness, we are talking about Fox News viewers.
This already happened a long time ago in Orange County.