I don't know if it's crucial to have the checks be 1x1, but you can get a gray checkerboard in GIMP by just creating a transparent image, maximizing the window, and zooming in.
With that installed base, it will be fairly easy to translate into the market for movies being sold in that format.
I don't really think so. It might turn some tech people on, but unless blu-ray can be differentiated as a product, nobody will ditch DVD movies for this.
The length of movies is typically between 1.5 and 2.5 hours, with notable exceptions. These movies can be fit onto a DVD with quality that is damn nice on an HDTV. What does the average consumer see when someone shows them a blu-ray disc? A DVD. All they see is another disc that needs another player, and all this after they just made a nervous leap into digital media two years ago. Not to mention the fact that HDTV will be standard in a few years, so after people upgrade to that, what will be their incentive to switch to blu-ray movies? DVDs are already packed to the gills with extras that people think they'll watch but never do, or only watch once. So, the only real reason to upgrade to a blu-ray library (and believe me, people will be loth to do that) is some marked difference in presentation and possibly product nature (e.g. durability), which I don't see blu-ray doing. A blu-ray movie at 2^256 lines of resolution sure won't be pushing out any affordable new TVs.
Not many people started buying DVD audio discs because they had a DVD player, and not many people will be interested in blu-ray movies either.
But it definitely slows down piracy since those discs are more expensive (lowers pirates profit).
I think most people in the U.S. download things illegally because they want the convenience, the lower cost (not zero due to initial purchase of writing hardware and discs), and, of course, the ability to enjoy the data. Considering that, what do you think the chances are that demand for downstream bandwidth 5x what we have now, will be much higher two years from now?
I was thinking: if you divide the amount of RAM available to the PS2 by the capacity of dual-layer DVDs, you get about 0.034. If you multiply 54 GB by 0.0034, you get ~183.60 MB. As impressive as 54 GB on a single disc sounds, it makes sense from a "scaling"/being-able-to-take-advantage-of perspective. Of course, if you consider the maximum size advertised in this article, which is 200 GB, you get 680.0 MB. What are the odds that the PS3 will have 512 MB of ram? 384?
Their site prominently displays the message "Roll over each document to get a summary." True to form, this feature relies on the "alt" text of an image being displayed as a tooltip, which is only reliably available in Internet Explorer.
Mozilla, or at least Firefox, has done this for a while -- it just goes to Google and grabs the first result (i.e. "I'm feeling lucky"). It's neat and I've used it, but I don't really use it a lot.
Here's a free lesson for all the people who choose their school based on the prizes: How do you find the lowest common denominator? Answer: Look in the mirror!
Actually my school had a pretty paltry sports program, but I'd almost just consider that coincidence. It probably will have a more extensive sports program in the future to garner money, attention and acclaim. Actually, our baseball team had a very talented player who is in the spotlight in the big leagues now.
You have a very good point of course, and in the U.S.A., it is presumed (hopefully) that nobody is right; that we must all conflate our ideas into some compromise. I guess a free subscription to Napster or a free iPod just strikes me as completely superfluous to the experience of going to a University. I realize that schools have problems with kids stealing music through the internet, but if the schools want to respond to that (which they may not be doing with these "free" gifts), they should take the information from the authorities and identify the offenders. Of course, if these gifts can be turned down in favor of a credit to tuition, then I have less of a problem with it. If the items or services are given through the school as a third party for corporations, then I'd question the ethics associated with that.
Network ports (and possibly wi-fi) are conveniences of the campus, and depending on the major you pick (e.g. Computer Science) it may indicate how serious or competent a given institution is. However, I would not pick a school based on what consolation prizes they hand out; I would pick a school based on the graduates they turn out, and the curiculuum. I'd furthermore be insulted if my school possibly spent my tuition money on lures for people who may not really care about school or take it seriously.
Internet Explorer isn't the most widely used browser because it is "the best," but because it came bundled with Windows- it's already there for people to use. The same may happen with this[..]
All the technology that will allow WMP 10 and the music store to work (e.g. DRM protection and the ability to play music) will be built into DirectX, and DirectX will be integrated into Windows. This is how IE already is; you may be able to delete "IEXPLORE.EXE," but you can never be rid of the libraries that IE is built out of. Have you ever wondered why IE starts up so quickly? It's because the rendering engine is built into Explorer (the program that gives you icons and the "start menu" and associated toolbars), and Windows uses Explorer as the default UI. Try it yourself: run "EXPLORER.EXE," type a URL into the pathname text box, and hit enter. Surprise! You're using IE!
If history is a guide, Microsoft will use the same tactics it used to integrate IE into the OS, to integrate DirectX (and therefore the DRM tools) into the operating system, assuming they haven't been already. If only we could view the source code for DirectX, we could know what someone else has installed on our computer and has left lying dormant. I don't think it's responsible to Trojan-horse features onto a user's computer without them knowing, and then claim sanctuary under a license agreement. In other words, if those features are already on my computer, they had damn well better have been explicitly declared to me well before I signed a license agreement.
Nobody owns my computer but me. Microsoft has no right to load my computer with features that I don't want and can't get rid of. Would you buy a car that costs 25% more than it should, simply because the manufacturer added more features than you needed? Of course you wouldn't! I build my computers, and that includes software. Operating systems should not be an all-or-nothing thing. You don't want the clock? Fine, no clock! You don't want DirectX or an HTML renderer? Fine!
So, when Microsoft gets busted for unfair pricing, is it because they're overpricing, or is it because they had to fund R&D on features that the end user can't use, can't find, and can't get rid of?
And that's just the insidious way that Microsoft is able to get away with nothing more than fines: nobody in any branch of government understands what "MSHTML.DLL" is, or what integrating it into the operating system really means. All they know is that there's an icon in the toolbar, and when you click it, it opens up a window.
Cars, skyscrapers, airplanes, poured cement. All these things are easy to test and inspect by either overseeing their construction or taking them apart and looking at what's inside. Who looks at software? Nobody.
Damnit to hell, every kid needs to read Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. You could have murdered a room full of people in front of me, and that would not have had the lasting effect that those books did. Kids need a healthy fear of the unknown, scarecrows, hooks, women, children, adults, women, dogs, and spiders.
Also, I've not read Heather has Two Mommies, but the title alone is an insult to my intelligence. I realize we're in a transition period, and that book was written ten years ago, but surely it's better to have stories that feature characters that just happen to be gay? It's hard to fight against something that doesn't fight against you (at least not directly). Leave the politics to the ignorant adults. Children don't develop morals through preaching, they develop them from experience. Preaching only inspires fear.
Of course, it's also immensely selfish and one sided.
Not necessarily, at least in my view.
Consider a serial killer. Serial killers act on what is tantamount to instinct. After a lifetime of abuse, the behavior they exhibit somehow provides them with relief or a sense of sanity.
When a serial killer is caught, they should be incarcerated and every attempt should be made, in good faith, to help them deal with what's inside of them. If and when they're released, and end up killing again, one of two parties is responsible: the killer or the people who determined it was safe for the person to be let back into society. In this case, revenge by those affected by the crimes is a fitting consequence for those responsible. If the killer reverts or denies his treatment (or denies the reasoning for being treated), his destruction is justified. If the people who treated him provided ineffective treatment or made a poor decision about the killer's release, then they should bear retribution. Of course, your agreement with these results may be skewed by your conclusions about the efficacy of a given society.
The serial killer example is complicated, and was, admittedly, simplified in this case, but I wonder if revenge doesn't serve a purpose in society. Certainly if the serial killer felt that his society failed him by not helping him when he needed it, society needs to be taught, through force if necessary, to pay for its inaction? Much credence is given to non-violent solutions, but there is a point, when someone has been given their chance, that society, or themselves, would be better served by destruction or punitive action.
So, I wonder if revenge isn't something of an instinct, or a component of some instinct. If it is, it has already played a role in the creation of society.
If you would like to know more about society, revenge, and ethics, I recommend the movie Dogville.
Oh I guess I should have said that I have no idea how much it costs to hire musicians or a conductor:-) I just took those numbers as examples. I thought about using a fake currency, but I decided against it since the real problem is the ratios. You could easily find out how much it costs to rent a proper indoor venue, though: call around to theaters and orchestra halls. I imagine with some sweet talking they'd spill their guts about the performers as well.
I think many people have tried to do the "ultimate performance" of Beethoven! If you could pull that off, I'm pretty sure you'd be a Nobel Prize winner! All I ask is that you start with Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Fawn.:-)
It's important to come to terms with money. Money is just a way for people to acknowledge that somebody else did something they wanted done. If you grow an apple, and I would like one, I'd show my appreciation through money. Money can be abused, taken for granted and misattributed, but the good thing about that is that money simply amplifies the weaknesses of those who abuse it.
So, money itself isn't evil. If someone makes damn good music for me, you can bet I'll give them some money, because it's worth it and I recognize the effort. It's a show of respect! So, just act according to what you feel is right, and don't stand for immorality that you can control.
I wasn't trying to suggest that hobbyist mucisians factored into my argument. I suppose my concluding remark was misleading (I picked it for effect), but the inclusion of specific fees should have been enough to segregate the two arguments.
Another reason amateur music should be factored out of discussions like this is because hobby music is just that: a hobby. I don't think I have one song by a hobby band, and I certainly don't think I paid for one. If I found a hobby band that was good and also didn't care about getting money for their music, of course I'd get copies of their music somehow. Besides the fact that all distribution costs money, though, all artists who feel passionate about their art would love to be able to live off of it. Not necessarily make money from it, but devote their life to it. And what could be more satisfying than knowing you earned your livlihood through your work? I hinted at this point before, but it wasn't elaborated for the most part.
So, going through your collection of music, can you recommend me a band that pays for all its music expenses as you describe?
My intention isn't to silence anybody. My intention is to debunk the rationalizations some people have for stealing music, especially the excuse that the money is going "out there somewhere" to be burned in the Nordic fireplace of any given CEO. Just do your research, find what you like, and pay whatever price is there.
I'll take the ostensibly most fragile example: public domain classical music.
The original artists get no royalty from this music. Indeed, they're dead. So anyone can take this music and perform it, and sell it. Take an orchestra playing a complex symphony, for example. If you want the music to sound like the composer intended, you need excellent musicians, and a master conductor. The conductor is very important not the least because in many pieces of music, there are written notes left by the composer as to how things should sound, and most of the time these notes are single words (e.g. "soft").
Alright, so we have this whole crew assembled. Where will they play? Well, it depends on how you want it to sound, and how many friends you'll bring with you. We'll pick the bandshell.
Okay, now everything is prepared. Let's take a quick look at the bill, and the specific bill, while we wait:
Bill: Music & royalties... FREE Bandshell rental... FREE (compliments of the City! How nice) Conductor's fee... $2500 Musicians... $15000
Specific bill (not included in bill): Education for conductor... $160,000 Education for musicians... [x] * $160,000 All the stuff that people need to live (even musicians )... $who knows Interest on education loans... $who knows
Conductors usually don't perform every day. Neither do musicians, so their fees are adjusted for that. Musicians also have very expensive instruments that they need to make the music sound as best it can (for you, but they also *want* these instruments because they love music. Funny how that works). They also need to pay for the upkeep of these instruments. And they need really nice clothes for some reason.
Everything I've said here applies to the presentation of all music, and I didn't even go into recording or distribution.
It's not as though some evil person is making music cost money. If good vibes paid for studios, record pressing, server fees (for music distributed online) and advertising (including concerts), that would be great, but it doesnt. Every band needs to do all of that if they want to do music for a living. Who pays for that living?
The major record labels' stance is that they are there to do business, and they just happen to make music in the pursuit of earning money. Don't let that get you down, and even more importantly, don't let it affect your ability to be skeptical and inquisitive. If you don't keep an independent train of critical thought, you can get taken advantage of. Take Real for example. Real has attempted to rally the efforts of those in the tech crowd who are uninformed, to try to make themselves money they did not earn.
If you don't want to pay for music, don't listen to music.
Real wants to be able to put their own copy-protected files onto the iPod. That is why they want to be able to convert their files into the copy-protected AAC format. So, what Real really wants is to be able to siphon profit off of the most popular digital music player on the market. By corollary, they want to force Apple to allow arbitrary file encodings to be supported on the iPod.
No other music player on the market has featured open firmware (or software) to allow for features to be added by the end user, or other businesses for that matter. If anyone has a problem with Apple on this issue, they therefore have a problem with the entire menagerie of digital music players.
Also, Real Rhapsody customers may be in for a shock when Apple releases an iPod update that breaks all their purchased songs. It may also be possible that the converted Rhapsody files may be interpreted differently than what is listed in the terms of the Rhapsody license agreement. Imagine a car insurance salesman trying to sell you a policy for your Inifinity G20, when you notice the top of the policy states that the car in question is a "Lexus LS300." When questioned, the salesman insists it will be fine.
You can't ask for somebody's opinion and then mod them down for giving it simply because you don't agree with it.
The premise of a modding system that includes, for example, the ability to mark something "Funny" is based at least in part on opinion, so logically this whole argument is tainted.
As for the movies, I think it is important to consider the perspective of whoever you ask. Shrek, for example, teaches (not preaches) tolerance based on reason and love. It also has a decent amount of simple yet contemporary humor. If someone has the idea that they've somehow transcended some of these elements, they may close themselves off to the movie altogether and make pejorative remarks about it.
Personally, when I watch just about anything, I can pick out or identify with some element or aspect of it. Heartbreaking and vulnerable personalities show themselves through the fence-cracks of even the most offensive, smarmy or tedious of situations or people.
For example, earlier today, a young couple was sitting on the steps of an apartment building. I didn't bear any connection to them at all; I just looked at them by accident. She was smiling at him, and he smiled back at her. Then he looked away, and I knew at that moment that he didn't care about her, and that he was thinking about it. And he'd probably think about it later too, and struggle with it, and then awkwardly deal with it and feel better.
I guess all I'm trying to say is that, at least for me, trying to remain "open" has been valuable. The feelings that lurk in me probably lurk darker in those who dodge my eyes on the sidewalk.
I think that this will be a very interesting case study in the capabilities of the OSS community to create secure, reliable, and ultimately "better" (you be the judge) software than those in the Cathedral. While Linux is popular, it is isolated. That is, Mozilla is a crossover OSS product, as this "Windows-only" exploit shows.
I'd like to see Mozilla products increase in popularity and press coverage, so we can have something substantial to point to to say "that is how well OSS can work."
Most of the objections people seem to have are in regards to either temporal location or continued experience. Your desires are your own, but I'd just like to say that I'd trade longevity for reincarnation any day. It's probably a pretty romantic idea, but I'd rather die and come back and see everything with new eyes again.
I too would be interested to see what happens in the future, but to be honest, I really wouldn't fight for it. I was born now, and I'll take what I've been given. I think the challenge of temporal location lies in whether you are comfortable calling someplace your home. Not dealing with that is an infinite journey of desire that cannot be sated.
Life is not defined just by knowledge, but by participating in experience, and part of this experience is to return to the stream of life from which you spawned. Everything gives back to everything else, and death is the ultimate fulfillment of this promise. If other things didn't die, you wouldn't live.
Living in opposition to or fear of death is depravity. If you let it go, I think you'll find that your participation in life can be enriching and peaceful.
I'd almost go as far as to posit that this article is an elaborate joke.
Why, exactly, is death a problem? Just pause a moment and really think about why death is a problem, for you.
Life doesn't work without death. In the end, that fact should be very life-affirming and comforting to you. Look around outside and realize that even horrible deaths contribute inifnitely to the natural world.
It seems to me that the family of this man knows that this wouldn't stand in court, so they're bringing it out now, in hopes that Google will think the publicity harmful to their IPO, and offer a settlement.
I for one hope that Google does not settle with them. I hope Google humiliates them in court and countersues them for wreckless prosecution. Google is the result of hard-work and fair competition. This family should be ashamed to use their forbearer's academic pursuits in a shallow attempt to gain money.
I hope that this doesnt wind up sucking. But, unfortunatly, I think it will.
I was worried as well, but I went to iMDB and, having seen who's involved, I feel a little better. Some of the people include:
Mertin Freeman as Arthur Dent. He plays Tim on The Office, and I consider him to be a very promising fit for Arthur, based on his performance in that show.
Mos Def as Ford Prefect. Sounds good!.
John Malkovich. Cool!.
Sam Rockwell as Zaphod. Time will tell how well suited he is for this role, but I've envjoyed him in everything I've seen him in, and he seems to have a decent range.
It looks like a very creative cast listing. Trying to picture all these actors on screen in the same movie is already getting me a bit excited. I'm sure you'll notice that many of the main people involved in this are British. Hopefully, in some simple way, that means this will be a pretty faithful (and hopefully inspired) movie. After all, I doubt a U.S. film exec would have come up with this on their own.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know if it's crucial to have the checks be 1x1, but you can get a gray checkerboard in GIMP by just creating a transparent image, maximizing the window, and zooming in.
The length of movies is typically between 1.5 and 2.5 hours, with notable exceptions. These movies can be fit onto a DVD with quality that is damn nice on an HDTV. What does the average consumer see when someone shows them a blu-ray disc? A DVD. All they see is another disc that needs another player, and all this after they just made a nervous leap into digital media two years ago. Not to mention the fact that HDTV will be standard in a few years, so after people upgrade to that, what will be their incentive to switch to blu-ray movies? DVDs are already packed to the gills with extras that people think they'll watch but never do, or only watch once. So, the only real reason to upgrade to a blu-ray library (and believe me, people will be loth to do that) is some marked difference in presentation and possibly product nature (e.g. durability), which I don't see blu-ray doing. A blu-ray movie at 2^256 lines of resolution sure won't be pushing out any affordable new TVs.
Not many people started buying DVD audio discs because they had a DVD player, and not many people will be interested in blu-ray movies either.
I was thinking: if you divide the amount of RAM available to the PS2 by the capacity of dual-layer DVDs, you get about 0.034. If you multiply 54 GB by 0.0034, you get ~183.60 MB. As impressive as 54 GB on a single disc sounds, it makes sense from a "scaling"/being-able-to-take-advantage-of perspective. Of course, if you consider the maximum size advertised in this article, which is 200 GB, you get 680.0 MB. What are the odds that the PS3 will have 512 MB of ram? 384?
Their site prominently displays the message "Roll over each document to get a summary." True to form, this feature relies on the "alt" text of an image being displayed as a tooltip, which is only reliably available in Internet Explorer.
Assholes!
Mozilla, or at least Firefox, has done this for a while -- it just goes to Google and grabs the first result (i.e. "I'm feeling lucky"). It's neat and I've used it, but I don't really use it a lot.
Here's a free lesson for all the people who choose their school based on the prizes: How do you find the lowest common denominator? Answer: Look in the mirror!
Ohh, disss!
Actually my school had a pretty paltry sports program, but I'd almost just consider that coincidence. It probably will have a more extensive sports program in the future to garner money, attention and acclaim. Actually, our baseball team had a very talented player who is in the spotlight in the big leagues now.
You have a very good point of course, and in the U.S.A., it is presumed (hopefully) that nobody is right; that we must all conflate our ideas into some compromise. I guess a free subscription to Napster or a free iPod just strikes me as completely superfluous to the experience of going to a University. I realize that schools have problems with kids stealing music through the internet, but if the schools want to respond to that (which they may not be doing with these "free" gifts), they should take the information from the authorities and identify the offenders. Of course, if these gifts can be turned down in favor of a credit to tuition, then I have less of a problem with it. If the items or services are given through the school as a third party for corporations, then I'd question the ethics associated with that.
Network ports (and possibly wi-fi) are conveniences of the campus, and depending on the major you pick (e.g. Computer Science) it may indicate how serious or competent a given institution is. However, I would not pick a school based on what consolation prizes they hand out; I would pick a school based on the graduates they turn out, and the curiculuum. I'd furthermore be insulted if my school possibly spent my tuition money on lures for people who may not really care about school or take it seriously.
I noticed that the blacklist of English words includes "shit" twice.
China also requires its citizens to wipe twice after excreting.
If history is a guide, Microsoft will use the same tactics it used to integrate IE into the OS, to integrate DirectX (and therefore the DRM tools) into the operating system, assuming they haven't been already. If only we could view the source code for DirectX, we could know what someone else has installed on our computer and has left lying dormant. I don't think it's responsible to Trojan-horse features onto a user's computer without them knowing, and then claim sanctuary under a license agreement. In other words, if those features are already on my computer, they had damn well better have been explicitly declared to me well before I signed a license agreement.
Nobody owns my computer but me. Microsoft has no right to load my computer with features that I don't want and can't get rid of. Would you buy a car that costs 25% more than it should, simply because the manufacturer added more features than you needed? Of course you wouldn't! I build my computers, and that includes software. Operating systems should not be an all-or-nothing thing. You don't want the clock? Fine, no clock! You don't want DirectX or an HTML renderer? Fine!
So, when Microsoft gets busted for unfair pricing, is it because they're overpricing, or is it because they had to fund R&D on features that the end user can't use, can't find, and can't get rid of?
And that's just the insidious way that Microsoft is able to get away with nothing more than fines: nobody in any branch of government understands what "MSHTML.DLL" is, or what integrating it into the operating system really means. All they know is that there's an icon in the toolbar, and when you click it, it opens up a window.
Cars, skyscrapers, airplanes, poured cement. All these things are easy to test and inspect by either overseeing their construction or taking them apart and looking at what's inside. Who looks at software? Nobody.
Damnit to hell, every kid needs to read Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. You could have murdered a room full of people in front of me, and that would not have had the lasting effect that those books did. Kids need a healthy fear of the unknown, scarecrows, hooks, women, children, adults, women, dogs, and spiders.
Also, I've not read Heather has Two Mommies, but the title alone is an insult to my intelligence. I realize we're in a transition period, and that book was written ten years ago, but surely it's better to have stories that feature characters that just happen to be gay? It's hard to fight against something that doesn't fight against you (at least not directly). Leave the politics to the ignorant adults. Children don't develop morals through preaching, they develop them from experience. Preaching only inspires fear.
Of course, it's also immensely selfish and one sided.
Not necessarily, at least in my view.
Consider a serial killer. Serial killers act on what is tantamount to instinct. After a lifetime of abuse, the behavior they exhibit somehow provides them with relief or a sense of sanity.
When a serial killer is caught, they should be incarcerated and every attempt should be made, in good faith, to help them deal with what's inside of them. If and when they're released, and end up killing again, one of two parties is responsible: the killer or the people who determined it was safe for the person to be let back into society. In this case, revenge by those affected by the crimes is a fitting consequence for those responsible. If the killer reverts or denies his treatment (or denies the reasoning for being treated), his destruction is justified. If the people who treated him provided ineffective treatment or made a poor decision about the killer's release, then they should bear retribution. Of course, your agreement with these results may be skewed by your conclusions about the efficacy of a given society.
The serial killer example is complicated, and was, admittedly, simplified in this case, but I wonder if revenge doesn't serve a purpose in society. Certainly if the serial killer felt that his society failed him by not helping him when he needed it, society needs to be taught, through force if necessary, to pay for its inaction? Much credence is given to non-violent solutions, but there is a point, when someone has been given their chance, that society, or themselves, would be better served by destruction or punitive action.
So, I wonder if revenge isn't something of an instinct, or a component of some instinct. If it is, it has already played a role in the creation of society.
If you would like to know more about society, revenge, and ethics, I recommend the movie Dogville.
Oh I guess I should have said that I have no idea how much it costs to hire musicians or a conductor :-) I just took those numbers as examples. I thought about using a fake currency, but I decided against it since the real problem is the ratios. You could easily find out how much it costs to rent a proper indoor venue, though: call around to theaters and orchestra halls. I imagine with some sweet talking they'd spill their guts about the performers as well.
:-)
I think many people have tried to do the "ultimate performance" of Beethoven! If you could pull that off, I'm pretty sure you'd be a Nobel Prize winner! All I ask is that you start with Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Fawn.
It's important to come to terms with money. Money is just a way for people to acknowledge that somebody else did something they wanted done. If you grow an apple, and I would like one, I'd show my appreciation through money. Money can be abused, taken for granted and misattributed, but the good thing about that is that money simply amplifies the weaknesses of those who abuse it.
So, money itself isn't evil. If someone makes damn good music for me, you can bet I'll give them some money, because it's worth it and I recognize the effort. It's a show of respect! So, just act according to what you feel is right, and don't stand for immorality that you can control.
I wasn't trying to suggest that hobbyist mucisians factored into my argument. I suppose my concluding remark was misleading (I picked it for effect), but the inclusion of specific fees should have been enough to segregate the two arguments.
Another reason amateur music should be factored out of discussions like this is because hobby music is just that: a hobby. I don't think I have one song by a hobby band, and I certainly don't think I paid for one. If I found a hobby band that was good and also didn't care about getting money for their music, of course I'd get copies of their music somehow. Besides the fact that all distribution costs money, though, all artists who feel passionate about their art would love to be able to live off of it. Not necessarily make money from it, but devote their life to it. And what could be more satisfying than knowing you earned your livlihood through your work? I hinted at this point before, but it wasn't elaborated for the most part.
So, going through your collection of music, can you recommend me a band that pays for all its music expenses as you describe?
My intention isn't to silence anybody. My intention is to debunk the rationalizations some people have for stealing music, especially the excuse that the money is going "out there somewhere" to be burned in the Nordic fireplace of any given CEO. Just do your research, find what you like, and pay whatever price is there.
The original artists get no royalty from this music. Indeed, they're dead. So anyone can take this music and perform it, and sell it. Take an orchestra playing a complex symphony, for example. If you want the music to sound like the composer intended, you need excellent musicians, and a master conductor. The conductor is very important not the least because in many pieces of music, there are written notes left by the composer as to how things should sound, and most of the time these notes are single words (e.g. "soft").
Alright, so we have this whole crew assembled. Where will they play? Well, it depends on how you want it to sound, and how many friends you'll bring with you. We'll pick the bandshell.
Okay, now everything is prepared. Let's take a quick look at the bill, and the specific bill, while we wait:
Conductors usually don't perform every day. Neither do musicians, so their fees are adjusted for that. Musicians also have very expensive instruments that they need to make the music sound as best it can (for you, but they also *want* these instruments because they love music. Funny how that works). They also need to pay for the upkeep of these instruments. And they need really nice clothes for some reason.
Everything I've said here applies to the presentation of all music, and I didn't even go into recording or distribution.
It's not as though some evil person is making music cost money. If good vibes paid for studios, record pressing, server fees (for music distributed online) and advertising (including concerts), that would be great, but it doesnt. Every band needs to do all of that if they want to do music for a living. Who pays for that living?
The major record labels' stance is that they are there to do business, and they just happen to make music in the pursuit of earning money. Don't let that get you down, and even more importantly, don't let it affect your ability to be skeptical and inquisitive. If you don't keep an independent train of critical thought, you can get taken advantage of. Take Real for example. Real has attempted to rally the efforts of those in the tech crowd who are uninformed, to try to make themselves money they did not earn.
If you don't want to pay for music, don't listen to music.
What the practice of software development really needs is some way to assign blame to people and keep them under pressure to get things right. Right?
Hooking a computer up to a lava lamp is neat (however not as cool as the Ambient Orb), but treating programmers like Pavlovian dogs is ridiculous.
Real wants to be able to put their own copy-protected files onto the iPod. That is why they want to be able to convert their files into the copy-protected AAC format. So, what Real really wants is to be able to siphon profit off of the most popular digital music player on the market. By corollary, they want to force Apple to allow arbitrary file encodings to be supported on the iPod.
No other music player on the market has featured open firmware (or software) to allow for features to be added by the end user, or other businesses for that matter. If anyone has a problem with Apple on this issue, they therefore have a problem with the entire menagerie of digital music players.
Also, Real Rhapsody customers may be in for a shock when Apple releases an iPod update that breaks all their purchased songs. It may also be possible that the converted Rhapsody files may be interpreted differently than what is listed in the terms of the Rhapsody license agreement. Imagine a car insurance salesman trying to sell you a policy for your Inifinity G20, when you notice the top of the policy states that the car in question is a "Lexus LS300." When questioned, the salesman insists it will be fine.
The premise of a modding system that includes, for example, the ability to mark something "Funny" is based at least in part on opinion, so logically this whole argument is tainted.
As for the movies, I think it is important to consider the perspective of whoever you ask. Shrek, for example, teaches (not preaches) tolerance based on reason and love. It also has a decent amount of simple yet contemporary humor. If someone has the idea that they've somehow transcended some of these elements, they may close themselves off to the movie altogether and make pejorative remarks about it.
Personally, when I watch just about anything, I can pick out or identify with some element or aspect of it. Heartbreaking and vulnerable personalities show themselves through the fence-cracks of even the most offensive, smarmy or tedious of situations or people.
For example, earlier today, a young couple was sitting on the steps of an apartment building. I didn't bear any connection to them at all; I just looked at them by accident. She was smiling at him, and he smiled back at her. Then he looked away, and I knew at that moment that he didn't care about her, and that he was thinking about it. And he'd probably think about it later too, and struggle with it, and then awkwardly deal with it and feel better.
I guess all I'm trying to say is that, at least for me, trying to remain "open" has been valuable. The feelings that lurk in me probably lurk darker in those who dodge my eyes on the sidewalk.
I think that this will be a very interesting case study in the capabilities of the OSS community to create secure, reliable, and ultimately "better" (you be the judge) software than those in the Cathedral. While Linux is popular, it is isolated. That is, Mozilla is a crossover OSS product, as this "Windows-only" exploit shows.
I'd like to see Mozilla products increase in popularity and press coverage, so we can have something substantial to point to to say "that is how well OSS can work."
Most of the objections people seem to have are in regards to either temporal location or continued experience. Your desires are your own, but I'd just like to say that I'd trade longevity for reincarnation any day. It's probably a pretty romantic idea, but I'd rather die and come back and see everything with new eyes again.
I too would be interested to see what happens in the future, but to be honest, I really wouldn't fight for it. I was born now, and I'll take what I've been given. I think the challenge of temporal location lies in whether you are comfortable calling someplace your home. Not dealing with that is an infinite journey of desire that cannot be sated.
Life is not defined just by knowledge, but by participating in experience, and part of this experience is to return to the stream of life from which you spawned. Everything gives back to everything else, and death is the ultimate fulfillment of this promise. If other things didn't die, you wouldn't live.
Living in opposition to or fear of death is depravity. If you let it go, I think you'll find that your participation in life can be enriching and peaceful.
I'd almost go as far as to posit that this article is an elaborate joke.
Why, exactly, is death a problem? Just pause a moment and really think about why death is a problem, for you.
Life doesn't work without death. In the end, that fact should be very life-affirming and comforting to you. Look around outside and realize that even horrible deaths contribute inifnitely to the natural world.
People weren't meant to live in fear of death.
How prescient!
It seems to me that the family of this man knows that this wouldn't stand in court, so they're bringing it out now, in hopes that Google will think the publicity harmful to their IPO, and offer a settlement.
I for one hope that Google does not settle with them. I hope Google humiliates them in court and countersues them for wreckless prosecution. Google is the result of hard-work and fair competition. This family should be ashamed to use their forbearer's academic pursuits in a shallow attempt to gain money.
I was worried as well, but I went to iMDB and, having seen who's involved, I feel a little better. Some of the people include:
It looks like a very creative cast listing. Trying to picture all these actors on screen in the same movie is already getting me a bit excited. I'm sure you'll notice that many of the main people involved in this are British. Hopefully, in some simple way, that means this will be a pretty faithful (and hopefully inspired) movie. After all, I doubt a U.S. film exec would have come up with this on their own.