This is not about Ticketmaster the Giant Evil Corporation, it is about auctioning of tickets, and so the point is not monopoly vs competition, but the business model. Often, competition is largely irrelevant when it comes to business model; what are the differences between supermarkets, US mobile telephone service providers, or auto manufacturers? Their products/services have mostly superficial differences, and they all follow the same business model. If I want a different option when it comes to buying my food or private transportation, what options do I really have? I can choose from different merchants of the same model.
And so Ticketmaster has introduced a different business model, which we are debating.
I would argue that auctioning tickets benefits the consumer more, in light of this monopoly Ticketmaster has. With full auctioning of all tickets, the true commercial value will be soon apparent, and prices will either rise or fall, regardless of whether Ticketmaster has a monopoly or a dozen competitors, because Ticketmaster would not be setting the prices, nor would promoters or performers.
Prices would be determined directly by the consumer, and therefore Ticketmaster and the others could no longer be blamed for being greedy, but rather they would be merely reflecting the true demand for live entertainment product.
The end-user has really very little choice in matters like this, aside from not going to ticketed events.
That is the only choice they need. They go and pay, or they don't go and don't pay. Why is this so bad?
Y'know, I've heard that supermarkets have near total control over the distribution of food, and often jack up prices by 35% or more! The manufacturers of the food themselves jack up the prices far in excess of what they are paying the farmers for! Do you know how much a 50lb sack of potatoes costs? Do you know what a small order of fries costs? Is there no shame in the things they will do to chase a profit??!?
The funny thing about people who act as if concert tickets were a basic human right, and who complain about gouging by the entertainment industry, and complain about poor quality entertainment product, is that they are really big suckers. It is the entertainment industry which has marketed itself into your brain and convinced you they are important, and you have embraced them and decided they are important, and now you resent them for being important. No matter how much you hate them because they abuse you, you can't stop loving them and can't give them up. Stop complaining or stop being obssessed.
Anybody upset by this news needs to re-evaluate their priorities. This is an example of the market determining the cost of access to ENTERTAINMENT. Under no realistic circumstances, never in your life will you or anyone you know ever NEED to go to a concert. It is not a basic human right to get front row tickets.
The costs of the food you eat and the energy you need to be warm and comfortable are driven by supply and demand, and fluctuate daily. Those are things that matter. Entertainment, in the big picture, doesn't matter. Why should anybody be guaranteed good, cheap concert tickets? Should entertainment be goverment-run and socialised?
Especially here on slashdot, the argument has repeatedly been made that the entertainment industry needs to rethink its business model to better reflect how people receive and use their entertainment. Now, a major part of the entertainment industry has rethought part of their business model and has come up with an idea which is fair and makes a lot of sense. Relying on supply and demand will does not unfairly tip the scales in favour of Big Business. If people don't want to spend a lot of money to see a concert, then prices will stay low. Prices will only rise if you decide you want to spend more.
I have made the point on slashdot before, that the people who complain the most about the cost and quality of entertainment, be it CDs, movies or concerts, are probably the ones who should be paying the most, because they value it the most. If you are afraid that opening up the pricing of concerts to direct market forces will push your costs through the roof, then you are really complaining about your own (and others') problem of putting too much emphasis on securing entertainment, and spending too much money on it.
If you don't like it, don't go. If it's too expensive, don't pay for it. It is only entertainment; you could make your own for free, if you tried hard enough. It really is that simple.
If he landing badly in the water it would be like a belly-flop from hell.
I'm sure landing on water wouldn't be ideal, but remember, he wouldn't be coming straight down, but rather at an acute angle and attempting to flare as he approaches landing, so I would think that hitting water, while still bearing a high chance of injury, would hurt a lot less than hitting the ground.
He might not be able to swim in the flying suit, but an inflatable emergency vest would help him considerably.
I'm sure these guys know what they're doing and are figuring out the equations, but here's a suggestion I would like to make: try landing in the suit near the edge of a big cliff, like perhaps near the Grand Canyon, for example. If Jeb gets very low and doesn't like his chances, he could try his damndest to pull up and clear the cliff edge, giving him another chance to release his parachute.
On the other hand, if he did pass the point of no return and went for the landing and overshot a bit, that might be a problem. hmmm.
Water - try landing on water first. Or a mattress - king-size, preferably.
Haven't industrial designers figured this out yet? Integrated handles stink (especially ones styled like this one). The thing doesn't seem to be intended as a portable device - why make a handle such a prominent part of the design?
With the bulge on the top of the case this unit will need additional shelf height, and prohibits stacking with other electronics.
An unusual apartment building was inaugurated in Brazil, each of whose 11 storeys turns independently, giving lucky residents 360-degree views of the eco-friendly city of Curitiba.
So is this tower meant to be a slap in the face to Curitiba? With the extra resources required to build and maintain it, as well as the energy required to operate, this building is certainly not eco-friendly.
"the retired director of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency tops a list of five men that President Bush is considering to take over the space agency."
How does this fit in with the supposed parallel goals of Bush's long-term space-defence plans and his statements regarding putting a man on Mars?
Prior to 2000, civilian GPS signals were deliberately degraded, leaving nonmilitary equipment with a margin of error of about 300 feet. But that year, then-President Bill Clinton ordered the so-called selective availability (SA) feature turned off. That made the systems the business community uses accurate to within 30 feet and sparked a lot of the increased usage we see today. Sales of civilian GPS equipment hit $4.7 billion last year, according to analyst Ron Stearns of Frost & Sullivan in San Jose, Calif., up from $3.9 billion in 2002. By 2008, nonmilitary sales could be $10.8 billion.
So far, civilian signal accuracy has held, even after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the war in Afghanistan; SA has remained off during the war in Iraq. An accurate GPS system for civilians and military personnel alike is now a matter of national policy, says the Interagency GPS Executive Board, a U.S. government agency, which reaffirmed its policy in a statement posted to its Web site last week.
"We are not planning to degrade GPS, and there are no plans to degrade GPS," says Jason Kim, a GPS board spokesman. "The decision to turn off SA was a serious national policy decision. Obviously it could be overruled, but no one is seriously contemplating that right now."
There are no export restrictions on civilian GPS technology, so potential U.S. enemies could easily buy the equipment and attempt to use it to their advantage. Still, it makes little sense for the U.S. to revert to the fuzzy civilian signal. Even under dire military emergencies, doing so would give U.S. forces no advantage. Terrorist attacks don't call for much navigation precision. The military has it own highly accurate tamper-proof encrypted signal that civilian equipment can't receive....if the U.S. needs to deny GPS use to Iraqi forces, it is understood to have the ability to do so. Glen Gibbons, a GPS analyst who also edits a technical magazine on the technology, says the Air Force can send false GPS-like signals over selected areas that would prompt civilian equipment to show incorrect position data. Says Gibbons of the military: "Their plans involve doing something in the area of operations, but not to the satellites themselves."
As a little guy(TM), how I can give my feedback to ICANN?
ICANN seems like a big machine, run by... who knows? Who decides on these rules? Didn't they learn anything from the sex.com case? (perhaps that is too long ago and they have forgotten already) If they expect a big spike in appeals (as mentioned in the article), shouldn't that be indication enough that this rule change be reconsidered?
I got through two pages when I gave up looking. Shouldn't a review have the price of the product being reviewed? Knowing the price is central to determining whether a product is a good value or not, or at least that's what I thought. Perhaps the reviewers know better than I.
Mathematical formulas indicate an understanding of such laws, so without that understanding, your cell phone wouldn't work.
So you're saying that if I didn't know a mathematical representation of heat loss/gain within a system that an ice cube won't cool my cola as it melts?
No, I'm saying that if you didn't know a mathematical representation of heat loss/gain within a system that you wouldn't be able to build a reliable mechanical refrigerator to cool your cola.
Over the past few years I lived in suburban areas (as opposed to downtown living) and noticed that hallowe'en lighting schemes on houses were becoming more popular. I don't get it. The spirit of Hallowe'en is to frighten people, or at least to pretend that you are trying to frighten people. A midnight graveyard lit with neon wouldn't be scary (except in regards to taste). Having your house brightly lit with orange lights isn't scary, not even to the wimpiest of little kids. Darkness is scary. A few well placed lights throwing ominous shadows is scary. Having your house lit up like it's Christmas is not scary, unless you have an unnatural fear of Christmas.
This site has a lot of vague accusations without real facts and/or background to back them up. I'm not saying any of the content on this site is correct or incorrect, but you'd have to be pretty gullible to believe any of it presented as it is.
Just by scanning it quickly I suspect some of it may be misleading. For example, saying he is anti-business could mean he has voted in favour of some environmental control (which by the standard of many is 'anti-business'). Also, the section listing items he has voted for doesn't mention that these vague, nasty sounding votes could have been for bigger, worthy bills with silly amendments buried in them, as happens all the time.
The content of this site reminds me that in modern US politics candidates for office can say just about anything they want about an opponent and the onus of clarification or disproving any misleading or false accusations is on the accused.
I can't say whether or not the practice of using the URL is valid or not, but I would consider the content of the site to be piss-poor at best, misleading at worst. Actually, the worst would be bald-faced lies, but I'm not going to start checking facts. Regardless, there is no shame in US politics today.
you: Not true. You can put YDL 4 on an old-world Mac, it's just not officially supported.
me: vrs 4 does not support pre-USB macs
I never said you can't install it, I said vrs 4 does not support pre-USB macs. Go ahead and install it, and have fun. The easier option I suggested is to get the vrs of YDL made to run on beige macs, rather than the one not made with beige macs in mind.
You just said I am wrong and then repeated what I said (with more words) as a correction to what I said. It seems modern American politics are starting to rub off on the general population.
Professionals go at about 50km/h for short distances (100km). This is on a road bike on flat terrain. But they usually travel in packs
Even in time trials, riding individually against the clock, professionals can ride faster than that. Average speeds in road races (when riding in a pack) are often only around 40km/h because the pack is not really "racing" a lot of the time; sometimes they are just cruising along, waiting for something to happen or for someone else to do something, particularly early in a race. If the pack is actually racing from the very start, expect the average speed on a flattish, 200km course to be 50km/h+
You take a mountain bike... friction from tires and that drops you to about 30km/h with no wind.
You had better hope you always have maximum friction between your tires and the ground no matter what kind of bike you ride, or else your bike will soon be going sideways.
It is the increased rolling resistance of mountain bike tires, not a difference in friction which will slow you down; imagine rolling an octagon rather than a circle.
Actually, that's not so true any longer; vrs 4 does not support pre-USB macs. If you want to run YDL on a beige G3 (or older model) you'll have to snatch up the last copies of vrs 3.x, while they last.
Slashdot Mirror
This is not about Ticketmaster the Giant Evil Corporation, it is about auctioning of tickets, and so the point is not monopoly vs competition, but the business model. Often, competition is largely irrelevant when it comes to business model; what are the differences between supermarkets, US mobile telephone service providers, or auto manufacturers? Their products/services have mostly superficial differences, and they all follow the same business model. If I want a different option when it comes to buying my food or private transportation, what options do I really have? I can choose from different merchants of the same model.
And so Ticketmaster has introduced a different business model, which we are debating.
I would argue that auctioning tickets benefits the consumer more, in light of this monopoly Ticketmaster has. With full auctioning of all tickets, the true commercial value will be soon apparent, and prices will either rise or fall, regardless of whether Ticketmaster has a monopoly or a dozen competitors, because Ticketmaster would not be setting the prices, nor would promoters or performers.
Prices would be determined directly by the consumer, and therefore Ticketmaster and the others could no longer be blamed for being greedy, but rather they would be merely reflecting the true demand for live entertainment product.
The end-user has really very little choice in matters like this, aside from not going to ticketed events.
That is the only choice they need. They go and pay, or they don't go and don't pay. Why is this so bad?
Y'know, I've heard that supermarkets have near total control over the distribution of food, and often jack up prices by 35% or more! The manufacturers of the food themselves jack up the prices far in excess of what they are paying the farmers for! Do you know how much a 50lb sack of potatoes costs? Do you know what a small order of fries costs? Is there no shame in the things they will do to chase a profit??!?
The funny thing about people who act as if concert tickets were a basic human right, and who complain about gouging by the entertainment industry, and complain about poor quality entertainment product, is that they are really big suckers. It is the entertainment industry which has marketed itself into your brain and convinced you they are important, and you have embraced them and decided they are important, and now you resent them for being important. No matter how much you hate them because they abuse you, you can't stop loving them and can't give them up. Stop complaining or stop being obssessed.
Anybody upset by this news needs to re-evaluate their priorities. This is an example of the market determining the cost of access to ENTERTAINMENT. Under no realistic circumstances, never in your life will you or anyone you know ever NEED to go to a concert. It is not a basic human right to get front row tickets.
The costs of the food you eat and the energy you need to be warm and comfortable are driven by supply and demand, and fluctuate daily. Those are things that matter. Entertainment, in the big picture, doesn't matter. Why should anybody be guaranteed good, cheap concert tickets? Should entertainment be goverment-run and socialised?
Especially here on slashdot, the argument has repeatedly been made that the entertainment industry needs to rethink its business model to better reflect how people receive and use their entertainment. Now, a major part of the entertainment industry has rethought part of their business model and has come up with an idea which is fair and makes a lot of sense. Relying on supply and demand will does not unfairly tip the scales in favour of Big Business. If people don't want to spend a lot of money to see a concert, then prices will stay low. Prices will only rise if you decide you want to spend more.
I have made the point on slashdot before, that the people who complain the most about the cost and quality of entertainment, be it CDs, movies or concerts, are probably the ones who should be paying the most, because they value it the most. If you are afraid that opening up the pricing of concerts to direct market forces will push your costs through the roof, then you are really complaining about your own (and others') problem of putting too much emphasis on securing entertainment, and spending too much money on it.
If you don't like it, don't go. If it's too expensive, don't pay for it. It is only entertainment; you could make your own for free, if you tried hard enough. It really is that simple.
The Plane Quiet Headphones appear to be the same product as the Kensington Noise Cancelling Headphones, with different colours and rebadging.
I've read some very negative reviews of the latter.
If he landing badly in the water it would be like a belly-flop from hell.
I'm sure landing on water wouldn't be ideal, but remember, he wouldn't be coming straight down, but rather at an acute angle and attempting to flare as he approaches landing, so I would think that hitting water, while still bearing a high chance of injury, would hurt a lot less than hitting the ground.
He might not be able to swim in the flying suit, but an inflatable emergency vest would help him considerably.
I'm sure these guys know what they're doing and are figuring out the equations, but here's a suggestion I would like to make: try landing in the suit near the edge of a big cliff, like perhaps near the Grand Canyon, for example. If Jeb gets very low and doesn't like his chances, he could try his damndest to pull up and clear the cliff edge, giving him another chance to release his parachute.
On the other hand, if he did pass the point of no return and went for the landing and overshot a bit, that might be a problem. hmmm.
Water - try landing on water first. Or a mattress - king-size, preferably.
Haven't industrial designers figured this out yet? Integrated handles stink (especially ones styled like this one). The thing doesn't seem to be intended as a portable device - why make a handle such a prominent part of the design?
With the bulge on the top of the case this unit will need additional shelf height, and prohibits stacking with other electronics.
this design: piss poor.
Alan Hilowitz says, "Starbucks is about great coffee and a relaxing experience."
In other words, feed a double-shot to that monkey on your back and he'll leave you alone for a while.
Yes and yes. I always read the instructions. I wish everyone would.
An unusual apartment building was inaugurated in Brazil, each of whose 11 storeys turns independently, giving lucky residents 360-degree views of the eco-friendly city of Curitiba.
So is this tower meant to be a slap in the face to Curitiba? With the extra resources required to build and maintain it, as well as the energy required to operate, this building is certainly not eco-friendly.
"1.8in HDDs are 0.8cm thick"
.8cm thin. Sheesh - get with it.
You mean
"the retired director of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency tops a list of five men that President Bush is considering to take over the space agency."
How does this fit in with the supposed parallel goals of Bush's long-term space-defence plans and his statements regarding putting a man on Mars?
"I seriously doubt that a degradation would occurs on US soil just for anti-terrorist purpose."
...if the U.S. needs to deny GPS use to Iraqi forces, it is understood to have the ability to do so. Glen Gibbons, a GPS analyst who also edits a technical magazine on the technology, says the Air Force can send false GPS-like signals over selected areas that would prompt civilian equipment to show incorrect position data. Says Gibbons of the military: "Their plans involve doing something in the area of operations, but not to the satellites themselves."
Well, it was degraded until 2000, but that is no longer US policy.
excerpt (about 50%) from forbes.com
Prior to 2000, civilian GPS signals were deliberately degraded, leaving nonmilitary equipment with a margin of error of about 300 feet. But that year, then-President Bill Clinton ordered the so-called selective availability (SA) feature turned off. That made the systems the business community uses accurate to within 30 feet and sparked a lot of the increased usage we see today. Sales of civilian GPS equipment hit $4.7 billion last year, according to analyst Ron Stearns of Frost & Sullivan in San Jose, Calif., up from $3.9 billion in 2002. By 2008, nonmilitary sales could be $10.8 billion.
So far, civilian signal accuracy has held, even after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the war in Afghanistan; SA has remained off during the war in Iraq. An accurate GPS system for civilians and military personnel alike is now a matter of national policy, says the Interagency GPS Executive Board, a U.S. government agency, which reaffirmed its policy in a statement posted to its Web site last week.
"We are not planning to degrade GPS, and there are no plans to degrade GPS," says Jason Kim, a GPS board spokesman. "The decision to turn off SA was a serious national policy decision. Obviously it could be overruled, but no one is seriously contemplating that right now."
There are no export restrictions on civilian GPS technology, so potential U.S. enemies could easily buy the equipment and attempt to use it to their advantage. Still, it makes little sense for the U.S. to revert to the fuzzy civilian signal. Even under dire military emergencies, doing so would give U.S. forces no advantage. Terrorist attacks don't call for much navigation precision. The military has it own highly accurate tamper-proof encrypted signal that civilian equipment can't receive.
What's wrong? Did you swallow your iPod again?
As a little guy(TM), how I can give my feedback to ICANN?
ICANN seems like a big machine, run by... who knows? Who decides on these rules? Didn't they learn anything from the sex.com case? (perhaps that is too long ago and they have forgotten already) If they expect a big spike in appeals (as mentioned in the article), shouldn't that be indication enough that this rule change be reconsidered?
"it's statistically impossible"
I think you mean "it's statistically unpossible".
I got through two pages when I gave up looking. Shouldn't a review have the price of the product being reviewed? Knowing the price is central to determining whether a product is a good value or not, or at least that's what I thought. Perhaps the reviewers know better than I.
Mathematical formulas indicate an understanding of such laws, so without that understanding, your cell phone wouldn't work.
So you're saying that if I didn't know a mathematical representation of heat loss/gain within a system that an ice cube won't cool my cola as it melts?
No, I'm saying that if you didn't know a mathematical representation of heat loss/gain within a system that you wouldn't be able to build a reliable mechanical refrigerator to cool your cola.
it wasn't for this equation, your cell phone wouldn't work.
If it wasn't for the laws of nature things wouldn't work. The mathematical formulas are our way of expressing them.
Mathematical formulas indicate an understanding of such laws, so without that understanding, your cell phone wouldn't work.
Over the past few years I lived in suburban areas (as opposed to downtown living) and noticed that hallowe'en lighting schemes on houses were becoming more popular. I don't get it. The spirit of Hallowe'en is to frighten people, or at least to pretend that you are trying to frighten people. A midnight graveyard lit with neon wouldn't be scary (except in regards to taste). Having your house brightly lit with orange lights isn't scary, not even to the wimpiest of little kids. Darkness is scary. A few well placed lights throwing ominous shadows is scary. Having your house lit up like it's Christmas is not scary, unless you have an unnatural fear of Christmas.
This site has a lot of vague accusations without real facts and/or background to back them up. I'm not saying any of the content on this site is correct or incorrect, but you'd have to be pretty gullible to believe any of it presented as it is.
Just by scanning it quickly I suspect some of it may be misleading. For example, saying he is anti-business could mean he has voted in favour of some environmental control (which by the standard of many is 'anti-business'). Also, the section listing items he has voted for doesn't mention that these vague, nasty sounding votes could have been for bigger, worthy bills with silly amendments buried in them, as happens all the time.
The content of this site reminds me that in modern US politics candidates for office can say just about anything they want about an opponent and the onus of clarification or disproving any misleading or false accusations is on the accused.
I can't say whether or not the practice of using the URL is valid or not, but I would consider the content of the site to be piss-poor at best, misleading at worst. Actually, the worst would be bald-faced lies, but I'm not going to start checking facts. Regardless, there is no shame in US politics today.
you: Not true. You can put YDL 4 on an old-world Mac, it's just not officially supported.
me: vrs 4 does not support pre-USB macs
I never said you can't install it, I said vrs 4 does not support pre-USB macs. Go ahead and install it, and have fun. The easier option I suggested is to get the vrs of YDL made to run on beige macs, rather than the one not made with beige macs in mind.
You just said I am wrong and then repeated what I said (with more words) as a correction to what I said. It seems modern American politics are starting to rub off on the general population.
Professionals go at about 50km/h for short distances (100km). This is on a road bike on flat terrain. But they usually travel in packs
Even in time trials, riding individually against the clock, professionals can ride faster than that. Average speeds in road races (when riding in a pack) are often only around 40km/h because the pack is not really "racing" a lot of the time; sometimes they are just cruising along, waiting for something to happen or for someone else to do something, particularly early in a race. If the pack is actually racing from the very start, expect the average speed on a flattish, 200km course to be 50km/h+
You take a mountain bike... friction from tires and that drops you to about 30km/h with no wind.
You had better hope you always have maximum friction between your tires and the ground no matter what kind of bike you ride, or else your bike will soon be going sideways.
It is the increased rolling resistance of mountain bike tires, not a difference in friction which will slow you down; imagine rolling an octagon rather than a circle.
Actually, that's not so true any longer; vrs 4 does not support pre-USB macs. If you want to run YDL on a beige G3 (or older model) you'll have to snatch up the last copies of vrs 3.x, while they last.
How long is a piece of string?