It's interesting you mentioned Weird Al. Also brings to minds Mad Magazine. Both Al and Mad have fought extensively to establish in the courts that parodies *are* quite legal, and to make a parody of something, you have to use the same background music/artwork! I think in Weird Al and Mad's case, they always replayed the music with their own bands or drew the artwork with their own artists, so maybe that's how they slipped it past the courts. If that's the case, artists should take a clue from this. To use a sample, just make your own sample that sounds nearly the same as the original one, and you're set.
For example, Static Revenger, a dance DJ/producer, created a song, "Longtime", that appears to use a sample from Boston's famous song, Longtime. However, upon further investigation, it turns out that he just made a really good cover of the original song and used it in his "remix". Now he's safe from being sued since he didn't sample it directly.
Hiphop producers should take a cue from this and adopt the practice. It's definitely cheaper than paying off $1.5/million a sample!
I agree widescreen is better for getting a better view of the action (after all, your eyes are used to looking left and right), but it's also the responsibility of the director to make the focus of the frame isn't spread to both extremities of the picture. Think about it, you're always focused on one part of the image (especially in the theatre), and having something happening far away would generally be bad. That's why most movies DO translate to 4:3 fairly well, because directors usually keep that in mind.
Don't expect your good ol' 4:3 format go by the wayside anytime soon, there's still some people with black and white TV's out there!
If anyone from a record company is reading this: Here's the answer.
Embed a 5-10 second audio ad in your pop songs at the beginning, post the MP3 on your site for download for free, and charge advertisers per download. It's just like radio. The vast majority of your user base is too lazy to cut the ad out.
It's like radio with half the distribution costs.
Really, how is downloading a song different from calling the radio station and requesting it? (Besides the instant gratification part).
That "database somewhere" of IP address to MAC address is the DHCP client lease table on your DHCP server.
Unless you are saying that you IP address follows your _user_ account rather than your NIC's MAC address, in which case your school would truly have something different.
Sorry, I sounded like a newbie back there. The IP is tied to your *account*, not your MAC. So whenever your MAC changes, you gotta get on someone else's comp and update your MAC address in the database. The other use for this is port security -- the switches won't talk to you unless your MAC is registered with the database with an active user account. That way, your IP follows you throught your path through college. Pretty handy.
At my school, we use a DHCP/Static IP combination. When you register with a network, your computer is assigned a permanent TCP/IP address that stays with your MAC address/Account (Which are linked on a database somewhere). Then, DHCP is used to configure your machine wherever you happen to be at. You get the ease of DHCP with the routability of a static IP. If the DHCP server ever messes up for some reason, you can simply put in your static IP and run with it.
I'm not sure the hardware/software solution that's required to implement this, but on a campus of 5,000+ people, it surely cuts down on tech support calls.
You would think the video industry would learn the first time around with the fantastic failure of the infamous Divx format. Same idea as VOD, slightly different delivery method.
Even though I hate government agencies, here's what I propose: Newbies must get an Internet License to be able to log on. You don't let people drive on the road without a license, why should they be allowed to roam free online without one? This would include passing some sort of Netiquette test and of course a road course with an bitter old net user who lost his.COM job who hates your guts.
Will it happen? Probably not. But oh man would that be nice.
Look at Vinyl singles. All new club music (house/breakbeat/trance/drum 'n bass, etc) comes out on vinyl first. They're usually singles, 2-3 tracks a release on average, and the LPs cost $7-8 each. So, $.99 in that regard isn't so bad.
Then again, you'll never have these small releases available instantly when the come out like they are at the record stores...
This isn't really a huge issue, it's just illustrating the need for another certification program. Look at the semiconductor market: There's semiconductors that you can use in everything, then there's semiconductors rated MILSPEC and Hospital grade, which have been tested and are approved in critical situations. Same damn semiconductor more or less, just has been exhaustively tested. They usually cost many times that of the other part, but you KNOW it will work, 'cause whoever made it is going to stand behind it.
We need the same thing for software. Someone to set up some guidelines, and provide certification to software that is going to be used in a critical application. Hell, maybe even the UL could open a division and do it. It is plain stupid to assume authors have liability over all software written, especially in the open source world. However, if I buy a product, and its software has been certified by a trustworthy organization, I'd feel better about myself.
It has to be somewhat focused, but it can be focused over a very wide area using large dishes, on the order of 10s of meters. Remember, the power density will decrease at the square of the radius (area=pi*r^2). The end result is an energy level that's only slightly above that of what you get during the day by being outside, but when it gets concentrated by the dish on the receiving end, the power is all there. This was the same idea behind that orbital solar to microwave array -- the receiving dish would be a few hundred meters across so stuff that gets in the way of the beam won't be instantly cooked.
Say you want to beam 10,000 watts of power somewhere. If you have a 1-foot radius dish, your power per square foot is ~3100 watts. Your typical microwave is somewhere in the order of 500-1000 watts per square foot. You'd get fried if you touch that beam. However, increase your dish size to 25 feet in radius. You're down to 5 watts per square foot. The OSHA safe level of exposure is about.2 watts/square foot, so it's still dangerous, but not to the point of instant death anymore.
The idea is that converting microwave energy is more efficent than converting solar energy (I forget why, but theoretically solar panels can not be more than 30-50% efficent, no matter what), so this would be quite interesting if it worked out well.
Most IMAX movies aren't 2 hour features, because most people can't sit through that much sensory stimulation. You tend to get nauseous after 20-30 minutes or so. That, and judging by the way the original matrix was filmed (lots of scene changes and things that require eye movement around the screen), this would be just too much for your average viewer.
The other problem is that, since the master is on 35 mm film and IMax uses 70mm film at twice the framerate, there won't be any visual improvement quality wise over the regular theatre version. Now, IMAX films that use IMAX masters are something else to see, but this is just Matrix on a bigger screen and sound system.
Right, if your website is one page and maintained by one person. However, take a look at the NYT website for a minute. Looking at it, I see that it's not made with a "newspaper in a box" program, so obviously they employed some programmers to make the site in the first place. This probably took them a year and they are constantly updating it. My guess is 5-10 people on a $40,000 a year salary. This is just for the underlying code. Add in all the web designers you have working full time, all the journalists you hired to do online stuff, photograph manipulators, classified ad management, and of course your additions to the editorial staff. Factor in costs to integrate the new system with the old system, and I can easily see how operating costs can reach millions a year in labor alone! Let's not forget the one time fees of equipment, probably adding on a server room to the building, and the labor to install all of that mess. Add in your bandwidth fees, and however much it cost to get the new fiber laid to your new facility...
There are MANY hidden costs in setting up a HIGH TRAFFIC high profile site in your facilities (I'm working off the assumption that they host it in-house). To keep it updated every day, that's another feat in itself.
So, $7.5Mil a year, while a lot, isn't completely unreasonable.
Until SSDs get an order of mangitude cheaper, HDDs will continue to rule! For the thousands that SDDs cost, you can built a huge striped RAID of quick 120 GB drives that will perform more than fast enough for any existing applications.
Paintbrush and minesweeper will run like they've never run before.
How is this different from taking your handy home air compressor and attaching it to a PVC pipe? I did this with a 1/2" pipe once when I was a kid-- I could clear acorns into the neighbors yard pretty easily. I couldn't find a bigger pipe so I couldn't launch anything significant.
With the crap that's released these days, they obviously want to cut back so the release will be a giant surprise and noone will know it sucks before they get to the theatre.
However with my shitty cam screener, I can easily see the paper thin plot and save my $7.
The music distribution business as we currently know it is now obsolete. The music industry needs to accept this and move onto the new format, or be left holding the scraps of what people won't buy anymore. MP3 is the new de facto standard, and it's here to stay. Adapt or die. No matter what format you use, there will always be piracy. There was with VHS, tapes, CDs, and now MP3s. Yeah, it gets easier. That just means you have to make better music that's worth buying.
There are indie labels out there still making money despite all this "piracy". Here's a thought, If I were in a band, I rather lose money from people stealing my records than fizzle out and die because noone heard me!! Nothing is worse than death through obscurity, and the internet is helping to revolutionize that endo of the business. I can't imagine how many talented musicians have failed simply because people couldn't hear their music. These are the people that play for ridiculously cheap rates just to get exposure, and they can't wait for people to trade their music. Just to get heard! [/rant]
I will admit my music purchases have significantly declined since MP3s came about, but I look back at the CDs I bought before that and most of them are CRAP. I still occasionally buy a CD that's REALLY good and full of good songs, but those are very few and far between.
The commercial amusement industry has done this for years. They develop a game/large machine, put it on location, and they use the simple "how much money's in the box" to determine how to price the machine, what needs to be fixed, or even whether to put it into production. It helps because you get a fresh perspective outside of your internal testers. Glad to see the hardware market starting to embrace this technique, as it could save them a lot of money on not producing a shitty product.
For 90% of printing needs out there, unless you're doing photographs, go ahead and buy a personal laser such as the venerable Laserjet 6L. These little buggers can be had for about $40-50 offa eBay. Install a free separation pad kit, buy a $40 cartridge, and you're set for 1500+ pages. Not to mention that no inkjet can hold a candle to laser text quality. I've been in college for three years, and haven't once needed a color printer for anything.
The trend might be looping back around on itself. This new era of free music swapping, in my opinion, is helping to boost concert attendance (I only speak from anecdotal evidence), especially for smaller bands/artists. I can think of several concerts I went to simply because I had heard the music on MP3 beforehand. Face it, it's a well known fact that artists get jack shit from record sales, but make their money on live performances. In that regard, the more people who have access to your music, the more that will probably show up to your performance.
The only people getting screwed is the record companies, who I have yet to hear about anything positive they do besdies promote lousy (in general) music. Is that so bad?
I know the software industry isn't really cut out for this, but why the hell can't they make a solid product and support it indefinitely? If it ain't broke, don't fix it! For example, my father's company still runs a DOS application programmed in the late 80's that is STILL SUPPORTED. It works *perfectly*. If it aint' broke, why fix it? The major problems we run into are because M$ forces us to upgrade operating systems ever 4 years and getting the DOS app to work again becomes increasingly difficult.
We are seriously considering a platform change to linux.
What incentive is there for a company to make a sometimes multi-million dollar investment in a product that isn't guaranteed but for four years? My uncle runs a manufacturing plant, and has machines in there built in the *1920's* that are still on the line. Whenever they break, his shop fixes them now (see an open source link here?).
Get with it Microsoft. Build a product for companies to use long term. We don't ALL need the latest 'features'.
Get an IMAP mail account, and your mail will be accesible from your Windows and Linux installations as well as any other computer you may log in to on the internet.
I can't remember where I read it, but they did the composting by doing all the gollum shots with the actors, then doing the shots without the actors with the exact same camera movements, then hours of painstaking composting where Gollum and the actors actually interacted with each other.
Slashdot Mirror
It's interesting you mentioned Weird Al. Also brings to minds Mad Magazine. Both Al and Mad have fought extensively to establish in the courts that parodies *are* quite legal, and to make a parody of something, you have to use the same background music/artwork! I think in Weird Al and Mad's case, they always replayed the music with their own bands or drew the artwork with their own artists, so maybe that's how they slipped it past the courts. If that's the case, artists should take a clue from this. To use a sample, just make your own sample that sounds nearly the same as the original one, and you're set.
For example, Static Revenger, a dance DJ/producer, created a song, "Longtime", that appears to use a sample from Boston's famous song, Longtime. However, upon further investigation, it turns out that he just made a really good cover of the original song and used it in his "remix". Now he's safe from being sued since he didn't sample it directly.
Hiphop producers should take a cue from this and adopt the practice. It's definitely cheaper than paying off $1.5/million a sample!
I agree widescreen is better for getting a better view of the action (after all, your eyes are used to looking left and right), but it's also the responsibility of the director to make the focus of the frame isn't spread to both extremities of the picture. Think about it, you're always focused on one part of the image (especially in the theatre), and having something happening far away would generally be bad. That's why most movies DO translate to 4:3 fairly well, because directors usually keep that in mind.
Don't expect your good ol' 4:3 format go by the wayside anytime soon, there's still some people with black and white TV's out there!
If anyone from a record company is reading this: Here's the answer.
Embed a 5-10 second audio ad in your pop songs at the beginning, post the MP3 on your site for download for free, and charge advertisers per download. It's just like radio. The vast majority of your user base is too lazy to cut the ad out.
It's like radio with half the distribution costs.
Really, how is downloading a song different from calling the radio station and requesting it? (Besides the instant gratification part).
Sorry, I sounded like a newbie back there. The IP is tied to your *account*, not your MAC. So whenever your MAC changes, you gotta get on someone else's comp and update your MAC address in the database. The other use for this is port security -- the switches won't talk to you unless your MAC is registered with the database with an active user account. That way, your IP follows you throught your path through college. Pretty handy.
At my school, we use a DHCP/Static IP combination. When you register with a network, your computer is assigned a permanent TCP/IP address that stays with your MAC address/Account (Which are linked on a database somewhere). Then, DHCP is used to configure your machine wherever you happen to be at. You get the ease of DHCP with the routability of a static IP. If the DHCP server ever messes up for some reason, you can simply put in your static IP and run with it. I'm not sure the hardware/software solution that's required to implement this, but on a campus of 5,000+ people, it surely cuts down on tech support calls.
You would think the video industry would learn the first time around with the fantastic failure of the infamous Divx format. Same idea as VOD, slightly different delivery method.
Even though I hate government agencies, here's what I propose: Newbies must get an Internet License to be able to log on. You don't let people drive on the road without a license, why should they be allowed to roam free online without one? This would include passing some sort of Netiquette test and of course a road course with an bitter old net user who lost his .COM job who hates your guts.
Will it happen? Probably not. But oh man would that be nice.
Look at Vinyl singles. All new club music (house/breakbeat/trance/drum 'n bass, etc) comes out on vinyl first. They're usually singles, 2-3 tracks a release on average, and the LPs cost $7-8 each. So, $.99 in that regard isn't so bad. Then again, you'll never have these small releases available instantly when the come out like they are at the record stores...
This isn't really a huge issue, it's just illustrating the need for another certification program. Look at the semiconductor market: There's semiconductors that you can use in everything, then there's semiconductors rated MILSPEC and Hospital grade, which have been tested and are approved in critical situations. Same damn semiconductor more or less, just has been exhaustively tested. They usually cost many times that of the other part, but you KNOW it will work, 'cause whoever made it is going to stand behind it.
We need the same thing for software. Someone to set up some guidelines, and provide certification to software that is going to be used in a critical application. Hell, maybe even the UL could open a division and do it. It is plain stupid to assume authors have liability over all software written, especially in the open source world. However, if I buy a product, and its software has been certified by a trustworthy organization, I'd feel better about myself.
It has to be somewhat focused, but it can be focused over a very wide area using large dishes, on the order of 10s of meters. Remember, the power density will decrease at the square of the radius (area=pi*r^2). The end result is an energy level that's only slightly above that of what you get during the day by being outside, but when it gets concentrated by the dish on the receiving end, the power is all there. This was the same idea behind that orbital solar to microwave array -- the receiving dish would be a few hundred meters across so stuff that gets in the way of the beam won't be instantly cooked.
.2 watts/square foot, so it's still dangerous, but not to the point of instant death anymore.
Say you want to beam 10,000 watts of power somewhere. If you have a 1-foot radius dish, your power per square foot is ~3100 watts. Your typical microwave is somewhere in the order of 500-1000 watts per square foot. You'd get fried if you touch that beam. However, increase your dish size to 25 feet in radius. You're down to 5 watts per square foot. The OSHA safe level of exposure is about
The idea is that converting microwave energy is more efficent than converting solar energy (I forget why, but theoretically solar panels can not be more than 30-50% efficent, no matter what), so this would be quite interesting if it worked out well.
Most IMAX movies aren't 2 hour features, because most people can't sit through that much sensory stimulation. You tend to get nauseous after 20-30 minutes or so. That, and judging by the way the original matrix was filmed (lots of scene changes and things that require eye movement around the screen), this would be just too much for your average viewer.
The other problem is that, since the master is on 35 mm film and IMax uses 70mm film at twice the framerate, there won't be any visual improvement quality wise over the regular theatre version. Now, IMAX films that use IMAX masters are something else to see, but this is just Matrix on a bigger screen and sound system.
Nothing's illegal until you're caught. Now it's worse to get caught. Don't get caught.
Nah, look at Apple's Xserve RAID. Dedicated IDE controller for every drive. And it's still way cheaper than any SSD.
Right, if your website is one page and maintained by one person. However, take a look at the NYT website for a minute. Looking at it, I see that it's not made with a "newspaper in a box" program, so obviously they employed some programmers to make the site in the first place. This probably took them a year and they are constantly updating it. My guess is 5-10 people on a $40,000 a year salary. This is just for the underlying code. Add in all the web designers you have working full time, all the journalists you hired to do online stuff, photograph manipulators, classified ad management, and of course your additions to the editorial staff. Factor in costs to integrate the new system with the old system, and I can easily see how operating costs can reach millions a year in labor alone! Let's not forget the one time fees of equipment, probably adding on a server room to the building, and the labor to install all of that mess. Add in your bandwidth fees, and however much it cost to get the new fiber laid to your new facility...
There are MANY hidden costs in setting up a HIGH TRAFFIC high profile site in your facilities (I'm working off the assumption that they host it in-house). To keep it updated every day, that's another feat in itself.
So, $7.5Mil a year, while a lot, isn't completely unreasonable.
Until SSDs get an order of mangitude cheaper, HDDs will continue to rule! For the thousands that SDDs cost, you can built a huge striped RAID of quick 120 GB drives that will perform more than fast enough for any existing applications. Paintbrush and minesweeper will run like they've never run before.
How is this different from taking your handy home air compressor and attaching it to a PVC pipe? I did this with a 1/2" pipe once when I was a kid-- I could clear acorns into the neighbors yard pretty easily. I couldn't find a bigger pipe so I couldn't launch anything significant.
With the crap that's released these days, they obviously want to cut back so the release will be a giant surprise and noone will know it sucks before they get to the theatre. However with my shitty cam screener, I can easily see the paper thin plot and save my $7.
The music distribution business as we currently know it is now obsolete. The music industry needs to accept this and move onto the new format, or be left holding the scraps of what people won't buy anymore. MP3 is the new de facto standard, and it's here to stay. Adapt or die. No matter what format you use, there will always be piracy. There was with VHS, tapes, CDs, and now MP3s. Yeah, it gets easier. That just means you have to make better music that's worth buying. There are indie labels out there still making money despite all this "piracy". Here's a thought, If I were in a band, I rather lose money from people stealing my records than fizzle out and die because noone heard me!! Nothing is worse than death through obscurity, and the internet is helping to revolutionize that endo of the business. I can't imagine how many talented musicians have failed simply because people couldn't hear their music. These are the people that play for ridiculously cheap rates just to get exposure, and they can't wait for people to trade their music. Just to get heard! [/rant] I will admit my music purchases have significantly declined since MP3s came about, but I look back at the CDs I bought before that and most of them are CRAP. I still occasionally buy a CD that's REALLY good and full of good songs, but those are very few and far between.
The commercial amusement industry has done this for years. They develop a game/large machine, put it on location, and they use the simple "how much money's in the box" to determine how to price the machine, what needs to be fixed, or even whether to put it into production. It helps because you get a fresh perspective outside of your internal testers. Glad to see the hardware market starting to embrace this technique, as it could save them a lot of money on not producing a shitty product.
For 90% of printing needs out there, unless you're doing photographs, go ahead and buy a personal laser such as the venerable Laserjet 6L. These little buggers can be had for about $40-50 offa eBay. Install a free separation pad kit, buy a $40 cartridge, and you're set for 1500+ pages. Not to mention that no inkjet can hold a candle to laser text quality. I've been in college for three years, and haven't once needed a color printer for anything.
The trend might be looping back around on itself. This new era of free music swapping, in my opinion, is helping to boost concert attendance (I only speak from anecdotal evidence), especially for smaller bands/artists. I can think of several concerts I went to simply because I had heard the music on MP3 beforehand. Face it, it's a well known fact that artists get jack shit from record sales, but make their money on live performances. In that regard, the more people who have access to your music, the more that will probably show up to your performance. The only people getting screwed is the record companies, who I have yet to hear about anything positive they do besdies promote lousy (in general) music. Is that so bad?
Curious, is your .com company still in business? :-)
I know the software industry isn't really cut out for this, but why the hell can't they make a solid product and support it indefinitely? If it ain't broke, don't fix it! For example, my father's company still runs a DOS application programmed in the late 80's that is STILL SUPPORTED. It works *perfectly*. If it aint' broke, why fix it? The major problems we run into are because M$ forces us to upgrade operating systems ever 4 years and getting the DOS app to work again becomes increasingly difficult.
We are seriously considering a platform change to linux.
What incentive is there for a company to make a sometimes multi-million dollar investment in a product that isn't guaranteed but for four years? My uncle runs a manufacturing plant, and has machines in there built in the *1920's* that are still on the line. Whenever they break, his shop fixes them now (see an open source link here?).
Get with it Microsoft. Build a product for companies to use long term. We don't ALL need the latest 'features'.
Get an IMAP mail account, and your mail will be accesible from your Windows and Linux installations as well as any other computer you may log in to on the internet.
I can't remember where I read it, but they did the composting by doing all the gollum shots with the actors, then doing the shots without the actors with the exact same camera movements, then hours of painstaking composting where Gollum and the actors actually interacted with each other.