Before the movie opened, my only knowledge of it came from having seen the QuickTime trailer on Apple's site; I think I never saw the trailer in a theater. I saw the film fairly early in its run, before it became such a monster hit; I started seeing the TV ads quite a bit later, once they realized the movie had the potential to go through the roof.
Ummm... when I said "soundtracks," I'm principally talking about orchestral scores - think John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Lalo Schifrin, Michael Nyman, Elmer Bernstein, Danny Elfman, Alfred Newman, Bernard Herrmann, etc. You obviously didn't look at any of the links in my original post.;) The albums I was referring to are emphatically not "compilations of individual songs," but unified, cohesive works.;)
But thats the key issue: we simply cannot rant against the RIAA unless we first confirm that they're doing anything wrong.
Oh, we can confirm they're doing things that are wrong, all right. The question is whether they're doing things that are illegal. Sadly, there's a difference, I'm truly sorry to say.
Name the last album you listend to that had a theme, thematic or musical, through the whole album...soundtacks don't count!
Why the hell shouldn't soundtracks count? They're a legitimate musical form thatmanypeoplehappentoenjoy a great deal. It so happens that not only do I personally listen to soundtracks more than any other kind of album (I have two large racks of CDs, each of which holds music belonging into one or the other of the two basic categories of music in my personal organizational scheme, "soundtracks" and "everything else"), but I also know a number of people with similar interests; I know people who have CD counts into four or five digits, where 80% or more of the titles are soundtrack and score albums (I personally have a rather paltry collection by comparison - perhaps 300 CDs total, about half of them soundtracks, but someday I'll have more...:)
That said, I do find myself largely in agreement with your other observations, though, but it's not complete agreement; what you said doesn't apply to everything out there. These things aren't absolutes.
"Is the failure of conventional music sales reinforcement that the RIAA's business plan just doesn't work, or will it just provide them with more ammunition against the P2P crowd?"
Actually, the most current MDD models (not the one I have, unfortunately; I got mine in October, when they were indeed FW 400-only) do in fact have a FW 800 port (obviously, this link will probably be good only a couple more days, until Apple replaces the current Power Mac with the new one, as seems certain now).
Also, the Xserve has a slightly different FireWire mix - two FW 800 ports in the back, one FW 400 port in the front.
Any idea? Indeed - according to the Register article, "Something seems to be happening on the PowerBook front, at any rate. One reseller was told this week that his order for a number of 15in PowerBooks was cancelled by Apple, notification of which was appended with a comment that he should wait until Monday..."
Tell me about it. Actually, don't - even now as an adult I don't make enough to afford it (I'm just an impoverished grad student), but I buy the wonderful little bricks anyway. I just can't get enough!
I desperately wish I knew what became of all my childhood LEGO. I at least remember what became of my Atari VCS, my comics, and my Star Wars action figures, but for the life of me, I have no idea what happened to my bricks. I wish I still had all those '70s and '80s sets I used to have. As it is, the oldest LEGO I have now is from some sets offered through a mail-in promotion from Kellogg's in the early '90s, and all the rest is stuff I've bought in just the last 15 months or so, but it's truly frightening how much I've bought in that time, considering how little money I have.
Some of the Macs available now do indeed sport FW 800. I'm not sure if that's what you meant, or if you were referring to the next gen. Just in case you meant the former, the currently-available Power Mac G4 and the 17" PowerBook G4 both have it, as does the Xserve.
That does not appear to be the same as 'one month plus the length of time the original was there' to me.
Nor to me, either; where'd you get "one month plus"? I said only "a period of time at least equal to the duration of the original criticism and at least 24 hours," which I think accurately paraphrases the first item listed in the article's "excerpts from its proposal":
"The reply should be made publicly available in a prominent place for a period of time (that) is at least equal to the period of time during which the contested information was publicly available, but, in any case, no less than for 24 hours."
I didn't say anything about the original time plus an additional month. I just mentioned having the reply for the same time as the original critical work, which is what the article cites as a proposal.
You don't. You might have to link to it. Ignore the biased article. Try reading the actual report summary.
Of course. I have in fact tried, but the links in both the original article and your reply here give me 404 errors; in lieu of reading it, I went by what the article stated.
What about the stipulation that the response must be made available for a period of time at least equal to the duration of the original criticism and at least 24 hours?
Does a Google cache count?
I don't know; does it? It didn't sound as though it would from what I was able to read; you tell me...
At any rate, I was speaking in a more general sense about whether anyone who offered criticism in any medium should be obligated to provide access to a rebuttal by the target of said criticism. Specific provisions of the draft that address concerns are good and all, but I was asking whether this kind of thing is a good idea as a general rule.
What if the offended party simply submits the response to you, though, and doesn't post it somewhere else where you can link to it? Wouldn't you still have to post it?
Even if it's just somebody posting an opinion in a privately-run, one-person blog? If I have a site devoted solely to posting my opinion on various things, why should I have to put the speech of somebody I criticized on it? Yes, it'd be good of me to do so, but why should I be forced to? If you criticized someone a few times in casual conversation, should you be obligated to then recite that person's side of the story in subsequent conversations?
What about the stipulation that the response must be made available for a period of time at least equal to the duration of the original criticism and at least 24 hours? If you have a blog and one day decide you just don't want to maintain it any more (or can't afford the fees associated with hosting, or whatever) and decide to take it down, should you then be required to keep the site running an additional period of time just to be sure the response is available for the same length of time as your original comment or longer?
What a rare delight to see a Slashdotter offer such a lovely compliment to a fellow Slashdotter!:D
Re:Will it deter conspiracy "theorists" ?
on
Roswell Declassified
·
· Score: 4, Funny
the theory that aliens have infiltrated the highest levels of government can't be disproved.
Conspiracy theory is a belief system, and as such is highly resistant to facts.
What a coincidence - so are the highest levels of government.
Ha, it looks like you forgot your audience, bud. At Slashdot, open source is always the best tool for the job, even if the job is opening a can of dog food.
"Some guy: Oh, crap, this can opener won't work!
"Slashdot reader: Have your tried Linux?
Well, in fairness, have you tried Linux for opening cans of dog food???
Fie to your newfangled equestrian skills! Humanity crested and began to decline the moment stone knapping techniques fell out of vogue. I hardly ever meet someone these days who can competently produce a decent Acheulean or Mousterian toolkit. And look at the mess we're in for it!
Perhaps, but FWIW in my first job, as a summer hire working at a USAF base, I was issued work gloves that came with wearing instructions - I kid you not. Somehow I doubt the US government official or contractor who wrote them did so to be funny, either...:)
Actually, there are some tracks over 7 minutes long available individually for 99 cents; at least a few are more than twice that, in fact. As far as I can tell, they're all from genres like jazz, classical, or soundtracks, though, where tracks of that length are common; it may be that they do have that restriction for genres like rock / pop where most songs are pretty short anyway and that restriction affects just a tiny percentage of tracks, but not for other genres like the ones I mentioned where it would dramatically cut back the selection of individual 99 cent tracks...
It may be just certain genres to which the 7-minute thing applies; it certainly doesn't apply to all the tracks at the iTMS. I've seen tracks over 16 minutes long there that are still available individually for 99 cents each; the thing is, as far as I can tell, they're all things like big band / swing, classical, and film score tracks (what I like to consider real alternative music;) . Presumably the fact that the overwhelming majority of songs in popular music are just a few minutes long, while tracks from other kinds of music are frequently much longer (and hence having them available only as part of album purchases would mean a lot fewer individual tracks available in those formats), has something to do with it, but I don't know...
I have spoken to tech support reps from India at least once or twice that I know of. I'm just saying it's not always evident. Check out some of the last few paragraphs of the article:
That keenness is a concern to Padmajai Goenka, a 23-year-old technical support worker in Mumbai, India, who goes by the name of Pam when she's on duty troubleshooting problems for puzzled PC users in the United States who very rarely know they are speaking to someone who lives thousands of miles away.
Goenka, who requested her company name be withheld, said that she was trained to "act American."
"Even though there is a lot of yelling from the clients, I love this job." Goenka said. "I have been fascinated with America since I was a little girl. Now I get paid to pretend I am American -- it's wonderful."
Indian call center workers receive meticulous training before they are allowed to field tech support calls. Farhat Gupta, owner of several Bangalore call centers, said that little attention is paid to technical training, as "all the answers are always on the computer screen in front of the workers. We exist for people who do not want to use the Internet themselves to find their own answers."
Instead, instruction is centered on learning American culture, and "losing the British accents they all pick up in school," Gupta, who has an office in Jackson Heights, Queens, said.
Trainees typically watch dozens of American movies and TV shows for the first week to acclimatize themselves to U.S. slang and accents.
Obviously not all companies use these kinds of practices to simulate Americanness in their tech support people; some companies make no effort to disguise their people as being people someplace other than who and where they are. But apparently at least some companies do this, and apparently at least some of their US customers are indeed fooled by it.
Slashdot Mirror
Before the movie opened, my only knowledge of it came from having seen the QuickTime trailer on Apple's site; I think I never saw the trailer in a theater. I saw the film fairly early in its run, before it became such a monster hit; I started seeing the TV ads quite a bit later, once they realized the movie had the potential to go through the roof.
Ummm... when I said "soundtracks," I'm principally talking about orchestral scores - think John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Lalo Schifrin, Michael Nyman, Elmer Bernstein, Danny Elfman, Alfred Newman, Bernard Herrmann, etc. You obviously didn't look at any of the links in my original post. ;) The albums I was referring to are emphatically not "compilations of individual songs," but unified, cohesive works. ;)
Oh, we can confirm they're doing things that are wrong, all right. The question is whether they're doing things that are illegal. Sadly, there's a difference, I'm truly sorry to say.
Why the hell shouldn't soundtracks count? They're a legitimate musical form that many people happen to enjoy a great deal. It so happens that not only do I personally listen to soundtracks more than any other kind of album (I have two large racks of CDs, each of which holds music belonging into one or the other of the two basic categories of music in my personal organizational scheme, "soundtracks" and "everything else"), but I also know a number of people with similar interests; I know people who have CD counts into four or five digits, where 80% or more of the titles are soundtrack and score albums (I personally have a rather paltry collection by comparison - perhaps 300 CDs total, about half of them soundtracks, but someday I'll have more... :)
That said, I do find myself largely in agreement with your other observations, though, but it's not complete agreement; what you said doesn't apply to everything out there. These things aren't absolutes.
Man, I know all about that, too - my small kitchen table has been covered with the things more or less continuously for the past several months... :o :D
I believe the answers are yes, and yes.
Also, the Xserve has a slightly different FireWire mix - two FW 800 ports in the back, one FW 400 port in the front.
:)
I desperately wish I knew what became of all my childhood LEGO. I at least remember what became of my Atari VCS, my comics, and my Star Wars action figures, but for the life of me, I have no idea what happened to my bricks. I wish I still had all those '70s and '80s sets I used to have. As it is, the oldest LEGO I have now is from some sets offered through a mail-in promotion from Kellogg's in the early '90s, and all the rest is stuff I've bought in just the last 15 months or so, but it's truly frightening how much I've bought in that time, considering how little money I have.
Some of the Macs available now do indeed sport FW 800. I'm not sure if that's what you meant, or if you were referring to the next gen. Just in case you meant the former, the currently-available Power Mac G4 and the 17" PowerBook G4 both have it, as does the Xserve.
Nor to me, either; where'd you get "one month plus"? I said only "a period of time at least equal to the duration of the original criticism and at least 24 hours," which I think accurately paraphrases the first item listed in the article's "excerpts from its proposal":
"The reply should be made publicly available in a prominent place for a period of time (that) is at least equal to the period of time during which the contested information was publicly available, but, in any case, no less than for 24 hours."
I didn't say anything about the original time plus an additional month. I just mentioned having the reply for the same time as the original critical work, which is what the article cites as a proposal.
I can use the link now, though.
Of course. I have in fact tried, but the links in both the original article and your reply here give me 404 errors; in lieu of reading it, I went by what the article stated.
I don't know; does it? It didn't sound as though it would from what I was able to read; you tell me...
At any rate, I was speaking in a more general sense about whether anyone who offered criticism in any medium should be obligated to provide access to a rebuttal by the target of said criticism. Specific provisions of the draft that address concerns are good and all, but I was asking whether this kind of thing is a good idea as a general rule.
What if the offended party simply submits the response to you, though, and doesn't post it somewhere else where you can link to it? Wouldn't you still have to post it?
What about the stipulation that the response must be made available for a period of time at least equal to the duration of the original criticism and at least 24 hours? If you have a blog and one day decide you just don't want to maintain it any more (or can't afford the fees associated with hosting, or whatever) and decide to take it down, should you then be required to keep the site running an additional period of time just to be sure the response is available for the same length of time as your original comment or longer?
What a rare delight to see a Slashdotter offer such a lovely compliment to a fellow Slashdotter! :D
What a coincidence - so are the highest levels of government.
;)
Well, in fairness, have you tried Linux for opening cans of dog food???
;)
;)
But... but... Marathon is one of the all-time LAN gaming classics! You have to have it!!! :o
Fie to your newfangled equestrian skills! Humanity crested and began to decline the moment stone knapping techniques fell out of vogue. I hardly ever meet someone these days who can competently produce a decent Acheulean or Mousterian toolkit. And look at the mess we're in for it!
Of course, Apple hasn't shipped a computer in colors other than white/grey/silver in, what, over two years??...
Perhaps, but FWIW in my first job, as a summer hire working at a USAF base, I was issued work gloves that came with wearing instructions - I kid you not. Somehow I doubt the US government official or contractor who wrote them did so to be funny, either... :)
Actually, there are some tracks over 7 minutes long available individually for 99 cents; at least a few are more than twice that, in fact. As far as I can tell, they're all from genres like jazz, classical, or soundtracks, though, where tracks of that length are common; it may be that they do have that restriction for genres like rock / pop where most songs are pretty short anyway and that restriction affects just a tiny percentage of tracks, but not for other genres like the ones I mentioned where it would dramatically cut back the selection of individual 99 cent tracks...
It may be just certain genres to which the 7-minute thing applies; it certainly doesn't apply to all the tracks at the iTMS. I've seen tracks over 16 minutes long there that are still available individually for 99 cents each; the thing is, as far as I can tell, they're all things like big band / swing, classical, and film score tracks (what I like to consider real alternative music ;) . Presumably the fact that the overwhelming majority of songs in popular music are just a few minutes long, while tracks from other kinds of music are frequently much longer (and hence having them available only as part of album purchases would mean a lot fewer individual tracks available in those formats), has something to do with it, but I don't know...
Better yet, check out this other article, linked from the above one.
Obviously not all companies use these kinds of practices to simulate Americanness in their tech support people; some companies make no effort to disguise their people as being people someplace other than who and where they are. But apparently at least some companies do this, and apparently at least some of their US customers are indeed fooled by it.