Aside from what the others have mentioned, you are forgetting that the Beatles and Stones started out covering blues & R&B artists while they were working "their way up from playing pubs and clubs...."
Agreed, but then it's an interpretation of the original, not a direct copy. If you're a guitarist who was inspired by, say, Muddy Waters, I don't see a problem with covering a few of his songs. Go a stage further than that and become a tribute band that tries to be a direct copy of the original, yes it takes some skill to do that but then you've sanitised your own capabilities and originality as a result.
As regards taking the original recording and playing about with it, anyone with enough time and a bit of computer software can do it - so I fail to see what "musicianship" is involved in that process.
Oh, I quite agree. I guess people really do want these £15 CDs though as they seem to sell pretty well.
I'm not so sure they are selling so well. Assuming your a Brit like me, you can't have failed to notice the constant "Sales" in the high street shops these days, the record shops in particular. I think Virgin and HMV are starting to realise that they've had it far too good for far too long and are showing signs of reducing some of their over-inflated prices. Five years ago, a "Sale" in any shop this close to Christmas was unheard of.
However I still fail to see how you're subsidising the file-sharers. Surely they're keeping the prices down for you? (whether such file-sharing is ethical is another matter).
That's just economics (as much as a geek like me understands economics anyway). Everything is priced based on the potential loss to be made from the product being incorporated into it's final price - for example, part of the, say, £1000 price tag of a brand new LCD TV takes into account the fact that 1 in 10 of them will be faulty, come back as a return which will then get junked, or repaired and sold off cheaply.
Likewise, the price of a CD must include what is lost due to file sharing - sure, if the file sharing stops, the greedy record companies aren't going to automatically reduce their prices but at least then you've taken away one of their excuses and have an easier job of exposing them to be the price-fixing bastards that they are.
As to the sig, yep, it's been said before - perhaps I should change "Japanese" to "Oriental"...
People use Linux for various reasons, not just because they're part of an anti-Microsoft or anti-Closed Source crusade.
I myself use it because I'm comfortable with programming in a UNIX environment and prefer using Open Source tools in both Linux and Windows - but I don't feel "dirty" editing a Word document in MS Office - if anything, because I know Office well enough by now, I get the job done quicker to have more "playtime" in Linux!
However, with that said, I don't understand why an application that just allows you to view files (rather than create or edit them) ever needs to be closed source anyway - if you're a car manufacturer you won't make a car that is only confortable for people who are 5'6" tall to drive, you'll make it with adjustable seats so it caters to the widest possible audience possible. I don't understand why MS, Adobe and others are so protective of viewing their file formats anyway when you still have to go buy their applications to create or change those file formats.
Are you under the impression that CD prices would fall if piracy was impossible?
Not directly, no. But if everyone was to be a bit more discerning and thought about the "value" of things before parting with their hard-earned cash or pirating stuff, the prices would have to be set by the demand - i.e. you couldn't keep charging £15 for a CD if no-one was buying them.
Actually, it's "we artists" but aside from that, so just how many Platinum Selling albums *have* you made then, Sparky?
theres so many ideas and styles that we have and it's sad that in the end we can only release one original version..
Again, it would always be nice to see some punctuation and capitalisation but, aside from that also, just what kind of "artist" are you? I am talking about "real musicians" here (you know, those people that actually play instruments and sing well rather than sampling everything from another piece of music or a computer?) because I always thought the idea was that when you made a studio recording, you went into the studio, practised a lot, had several goes at the recording, then sat there and mixed it until you got the final definitive version on the CD? Beyond that, you want lots of air play of that definitive version and sell a lot of CDs of it. Sure, people may cover your songs in the future but I doubt any artist would prefer to hear some hacked about piece of crap played rather than the definitive version they originally recorded.
just because you don't know where to look for good remixes or music doesn't mean you should piss on countless hard working souls.
You're right - I don't know where to look for good remixes because the music I listen to doesn't NEED to be remixed. If yours does, then fine, go do it, but I doubt very much there's any of it in my personal music collection.
At the grand old age of 44, I believe that I have finally discovered what is missing from the lives of the 16-25 year old crowd...
...they don't have "a nice cup of tea" anywhere near as frequently as they should.
For example:
1. Interactivity - Why does those youngsters need a plethora of widesceen/surround sound/commentary/frappuchino options on every bloody DVD that comes out? By the time you've worked out what bleeding settings you want, you've changed your mind about what you wanted to watch in the first place! BUT, make a nice hot strong cup of tea first, sit down in your favourite chair, take a sip of your tea and it *DOESN'T MATTER* what sound/screen/moccachino options are set, you WILL just relax and enjoy your movie whatever way the screen or sound is!
2. Remixing - What's this constant need to "fiddle about" with music with that lot? Why have they got to take "this bit from that track, that bit from this track" and then, *WHEN THEY'VE FINISHED* fiddling with it, they get some big black American bloke to do so much talking over it that you can't hear it anyway! BUT, if they just had a sip of a nice strong hot cup of tea first, they'd put all the CDs they want to listen to in a little pile next to their comfy chair and just *PLAY EACH ONE IN ORDER* while listening intently in a relaxed mood.
3. Coffee - What's all this business about "iced mocha laccamaccachino with marshmallows and little umbrella in the top" in, for example, Starbucks? You get a coffee because you are thirsty, you stand in a queue for 30 minutes and when you finally get to the end of the queue, you order something that takes a further two days to manufacture from start to finish... and then you wonder why you're miserable??? How simple is a nice hot cup of tea to make - teabag, hot water and milk and sugar if you want it, what's the big deal? And you can put it in a thermos flask and carry it about with you so you can have a nice, hot cup of tea whenever you want one.
4. Fashion - What's all this business about wearing jeans where the gusset is dangling down round by your knees? If we'd have worn those in my day, friends would have laughed at you for looking like you'd dropped a "brown trout" or two in the back of your Levi's! And how do you run??? Is this planet eventually going to be entirely inhabited by people in "sensible, cheap, elasticated waist jeans" because all the fashionable ones weren't able to run away quick enough from falling buildings, crashing airliners and raging infernos? BUT, before making those clothing choices, have a nice, hot, strong cup of tea and the caffeine entering your system combined with the warmth from the hot liquid, and "terminal clothing" will be a thing of the past!
Please stop with "Internet rebel/outlaw" crap! It's getting boring...
If you download music without paying for it, you are breaching copyright, end of story.
If you want to do something *POSITIVE* against the RIAA, then don't give them the justification for putting DRM on everything (which they say are anti-piracy measures). Don't copy it and don't buy it, unless you *TRULY* feel that the product is worth the money being asked for it. Or buy all your music in second-hand shops.
All the "file sharers" and "music communities" do is make it worse for honest customers like me who have to put up with copy-protection and over-priced CDs that subsidise your theft.
How is some one releasing a library under the LGPL and then another bloke using that library for another app different then the modern remix?
What kind of analogy is that??? A piece of music is more like a historical document - it's a statement about something that was going through the artist's mind at the time it was recorded. At that moment in time, it was produced and mixed as well as it oculd be, that's how it should be left... By *YOUR* analogy, we should go to the original written documents of, say, Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" and rewrite all the "s" characters in the text in crayon, purely because in those days they looked more like "f" characters!!!
Surely a software library is originally *written* with the view that it will probably be changed and enhanced.
I think what scares them more is the fact that they don't want you to try-berfore-you-buy and they don't want you reading reviews of new albums - because then you end up becoming more intelligent and discerning over your music.
I've got no idea who Jay-Z is but if it's stuff you like then good luck to you. But in my case, I listen to a lot of classic rock and blues music, here in the UK it's the stuff that doesn't get much radio airplay - for quite a few years, I was buying new CDs purely by guesswork and ended up, in most cases, being severely disappointed with my purchases because of the good old "two good tracks on the CD" syndrome. That's a helluva lot worse in my case because I prefer to listen to entire albums, not single tracks.
Nowadays, I read reviews in magazines and on the Internet before I buy anything. I've never used P2P apart from a very brief try with eMule and BitTorrent and cannot see the appeal of P2P compared to getting music from Usenet - but with that said, once I grab the MP3s I want, I either delete them, buy the CD and make my own (better quality) MP3s or delete them and don't buy the CD because they're just not worth the disk space.
Since I've been doing that, I now spend about 1/4 of what I used to on CDs, I have a fantastic music collection (having had a good eBay clear out also) and I'm very happy with music as a product over all - there's enough of my sort of music to keep me interested, I can buy my CDs cheap enough online without resorting to the rip-off merchants like HMV and Virgin, and I get good value for money from my music.
I personally don't see the appeal of paying to download music but that's just me - I think the problem with it is that in encourages hoarding for the sake of fashion. I see a lot of iPod owners bragging about the number of tracks they have on their player but rarely talk out what's actually on there or how often they listen to every track.
Piracy does "devalue" music greatly - after all, what's the better buzz? Getting an average piece of music free of charge or buying a classic piece of music for £10 or so?
In my day, they mixed the music right the *FIRST TIME* without having to constantly remix it...
Look, I'm a big Genesis and Peter Gabriel fan, and I raise my hat to him for doing the "Open Source thing" with his music.
But I *REALLY AM* getting sick and tired of these idiots who constantly think they can do a better job than the original artist in making his/her/their songs sound better - either through making some plasticized dance-beat cover version or just cutting the original into bits and having some rap bloke talk all over it.
And don't even talk to me about "tribute bands" - if they're clever enough to copy the original artist that well, they're clever enough to write their own original music and work their way up from playing pubs and clubs - just like The Rolling Stones and The Beatles had to do.
Please, go and mess about with your modern music as much as you like and do it with my blessing. But with regard to the stuff I've been listening to now for anything up to 35 years, *LEAVE IT ALONE*!!! It didn't need some kid calling himself a "DJ" messing about with it then so it doesn't need it now.
such as an eight-minute clip from a Jay-Z concert, the Wall Street Journal reports
Excuse my ignorance, but if Jay-Z knocked on my door and said "Hi, I'm Jay-Z", I would respond "Who?" and not bat an eyelid.
So why can't they throw in an eight-minute clip from a Uriah Heep concert, or Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" occasionally, just to keep we miserable old gits happy occasionally?
Firstly, I don't suffer from depression and never have done. I know at least one close relative who has, it's not something I would like to ever go through so I'd suggest you stop bandying about that word so lightly - at any rate, as an admitted drug user, it's more likely to be an after effect of that than anything I will ever do.
Secondly, I'm in my 40s so I don't claim to have much in the way of common interests with people who are young enough to be my children. Likewise, I have no personal desire to spend an entire evening in a loud, plastic theme pub serving brightly coloured drinks beneath a large, loud TV screen playing endless MTV videos at me - give me a quiet country pub any time. In other words, town centres hold absolutely no interest for me anyway from the perspective of a night out.
Thirdly, I went through the pot-smoking, "love everyone" hippy stuff - yeah, it was great fun at the time but then I grew up, got sensible and confident and realised it was just a phase I went through for when I wasn't all sensible and confident. Having experienced that, I'm just giving you some advice to save you finding it out for yourself in probably 15 to 20 years time.
However, despite my excessive years, I am able to offer some degree of hindsight and, for the reasons I explained in my first post, the pressure on people half my age to conform and be "cool" is far greater now than it ever was for me (at least in my opinion). So I'm just disappointed that those people don't want to push back harder on those media pressures and work on finding their own identities.
I've a loving wife, good job and enough money to do just about anything I please so I've no personal depression whatsoever. If I could turn back the clock 20 years then I would only do so if I could back and do exactly the same things with the same people at the same time again - I certainly wouldn't want to be 20 years younger now...
I live in britain, and go out every weekend with a huge group of friends, none of us violent or get into that kind of state... we're amongst a rising increase of people who take drugs that increase our likeliness of being friendly with each other. All statistics show that we are on the increase.
Please stop with that "namby pamby" hippy rubbish - I grew out of that myself 20 years ago!
If you want to do drugs, good luck to you and you can even have my vote in legalising all drugs if you want because, in my opinion, it's not up to the state to legislate on drug taking but up to the individual to face up to any of the consequences of it.
But if you can't make friends when you're not stoned, then you'd probably be better off spending your money on a few "Confidence and Relationships" evening classes....
Binge drinking in many areas is starting to decrease, where the new 24hour licensing is available, people don't need to ram as much down their neck as quickly as possible.
Rubbish! Binge drinking is on the increase because it's being sold as "cool" to do it - go into any British city or town centre today and they are just clones of each other! Same old plastic chain theme pubs with plastic personalities and endless bottles of brightly coloured alco-pops. Please explain to me why, when I go into the town centre on a Saturday afternoon, every one of these pubs has a bouncer now?
Crime statistics? They just changed the way crimes were measured and reported - just look here.
And if we're just going to throw web pages at each other, then how about this one discussing the increase in alcoholism in the UK.
MDMA? Was abuse of it ever that widespread, compared to say heroin, ecstasy and cocaine? Can't say I've heard about it in years, even though I tend to read The Guardian and don't allow tabloid rubbish papers into my house. But while we're discussing the increase in drug abuse, have a look at this article supporting my statement.
Since you're obviously so good at Googling for articles, how about looking for stats on "Slashdot readers with their heads obviously stuck up their backsides"... because I know of at least one.
I'd really like to see a social psychologist comment on this incident - these kinds of "rage" attacks are definitely on the increase and my impression is that in Britain, we seem to be the worst of any nation for this.
Then look at the wider picture here, with binge drinking also increasing and parts of our city centres becoming virtual war-zones on weekend evenings and you begin to wonder whatever happened to self-discipline and restraint in our society. Even take violence at football games - yes, it's decreased here in the past 20 years but only because there are so many police involved in crowd control, no violence ever has the chance to break out.
I'm certain that advertising and the media is at the core of this - kids today are constantly pounded with messages of not being "cool" until they buy, use or wear certain brands of electronic devices, clothing or music. But then, where's the education from parents that their kids just cannot have everything they want right there on the spot?
Maybe I'm wearing "rose-tinted spectacles" but I go out to other European countries a lot, particularly Spain, and I don't hear or see any of these kinds of behaviours - go out in the city streets at night and it's always a lot of people, particularly families, just out having a good time.
This is a really sad incident and we should be ashamed that it happened here.
There may be a large heap of bureaucracy that the EU still needs to sort out - but rather that than have President Blair hand us over hook, line and sinker as the 51st state of the USA.
What race of very rare Amazonian rain forest tree do Games Workshop use to make the paper for their rulebooks? This can be the only explanation as to why GW can charge £10 for a pamphlet with a few photos of plastic toy soldiers in it.
'm not sure it matters. I advertise my own businesses on the web, and I accept advertising on my sites. I've sold numerous ads just for my site for repeat customers who realize I give them more than they pay out of supporting my site. I support some sites repeatedly because those sites make me a profit for what I invest.
If you're a big company, you gauge your profits NOT on what others say but what you actually witness through numbers paid and profits made. If you don't make a profit, the traffic reports mean NOTHING. If you make MORE profits than you were expecting, the traffic reports mean NOTHING.
Whoa! Slow down there, cowpoke! Ya lost me frum dat big ol' word "matters". Ya ought'a remember most of us here simple Slashdot townsfolk be simple code farmers a-tinkering with dem der machines till da cows come home. Why, we even has us a good hearty laugh at dem words "Microsoft Works".
Slashdot Mirror
Agreed, but then it's an interpretation of the original, not a direct copy. If you're a guitarist who was inspired by, say, Muddy Waters, I don't see a problem with covering a few of his songs. Go a stage further than that and become a tribute band that tries to be a direct copy of the original, yes it takes some skill to do that but then you've sanitised your own capabilities and originality as a result.
As regards taking the original recording and playing about with it, anyone with enough time and a bit of computer software can do it - so I fail to see what "musicianship" is involved in that process.
I'm not so sure they are selling so well. Assuming your a Brit like me, you can't have failed to notice the constant "Sales" in the high street shops these days, the record shops in particular. I think Virgin and HMV are starting to realise that they've had it far too good for far too long and are showing signs of reducing some of their over-inflated prices. Five years ago, a "Sale" in any shop this close to Christmas was unheard of.
However I still fail to see how you're subsidising the file-sharers. Surely they're keeping the prices down for you? (whether such file-sharing is ethical is another matter).
That's just economics (as much as a geek like me understands economics anyway). Everything is priced based on the potential loss to be made from the product being incorporated into it's final price - for example, part of the, say, £1000 price tag of a brand new LCD TV takes into account the fact that 1 in 10 of them will be faulty, come back as a return which will then get junked, or repaired and sold off cheaply.
Likewise, the price of a CD must include what is lost due to file sharing - sure, if the file sharing stops, the greedy record companies aren't going to automatically reduce their prices but at least then you've taken away one of their excuses and have an easier job of exposing them to be the price-fixing bastards that they are.
As to the sig, yep, it's been said before - perhaps I should change "Japanese" to "Oriental"...
I myself use it because I'm comfortable with programming in a UNIX environment and prefer using Open Source tools in both Linux and Windows - but I don't feel "dirty" editing a Word document in MS Office - if anything, because I know Office well enough by now, I get the job done quicker to have more "playtime" in Linux!
However, with that said, I don't understand why an application that just allows you to view files (rather than create or edit them) ever needs to be closed source anyway - if you're a car manufacturer you won't make a car that is only confortable for people who are 5'6" tall to drive, you'll make it with adjustable seats so it caters to the widest possible audience possible. I don't understand why MS, Adobe and others are so protective of viewing their file formats anyway when you still have to go buy their applications to create or change those file formats.
Not directly, no. But if everyone was to be a bit more discerning and thought about the "value" of things before parting with their hard-earned cash or pirating stuff, the prices would have to be set by the demand - i.e. you couldn't keep charging £15 for a CD if no-one was buying them.
Actually, it's "we artists" but aside from that, so just how many Platinum Selling albums *have* you made then, Sparky?
theres so many ideas and styles that we have and it's sad that in the end we can only release one original version..
Again, it would always be nice to see some punctuation and capitalisation but, aside from that also, just what kind of "artist" are you? I am talking about "real musicians" here (you know, those people that actually play instruments and sing well rather than sampling everything from another piece of music or a computer?) because I always thought the idea was that when you made a studio recording, you went into the studio, practised a lot, had several goes at the recording, then sat there and mixed it until you got the final definitive version on the CD? Beyond that, you want lots of air play of that definitive version and sell a lot of CDs of it. Sure, people may cover your songs in the future but I doubt any artist would prefer to hear some hacked about piece of crap played rather than the definitive version they originally recorded.
just because you don't know where to look for good remixes or music doesn't mean you should piss on countless hard working souls.
You're right - I don't know where to look for good remixes because the music I listen to doesn't NEED to be remixed. If yours does, then fine, go do it, but I doubt very much there's any of it in my personal music collection.
For example:
1. Interactivity - Why does those youngsters need a plethora of widesceen/surround sound/commentary/frappuchino options on every bloody DVD that comes out? By the time you've worked out what bleeding settings you want, you've changed your mind about what you wanted to watch in the first place! BUT, make a nice hot strong cup of tea first, sit down in your favourite chair, take a sip of your tea and it *DOESN'T MATTER* what sound/screen/moccachino options are set, you WILL just relax and enjoy your movie whatever way the screen or sound is!
2. Remixing - What's this constant need to "fiddle about" with music with that lot? Why have they got to take "this bit from that track, that bit from this track" and then, *WHEN THEY'VE FINISHED* fiddling with it, they get some big black American bloke to do so much talking over it that you can't hear it anyway! BUT, if they just had a sip of a nice strong hot cup of tea first, they'd put all the CDs they want to listen to in a little pile next to their comfy chair and just *PLAY EACH ONE IN ORDER* while listening intently in a relaxed mood.
3. Coffee - What's all this business about "iced mocha laccamaccachino with marshmallows and little umbrella in the top" in, for example, Starbucks? You get a coffee because you are thirsty, you stand in a queue for 30 minutes and when you finally get to the end of the queue, you order something that takes a further two days to manufacture from start to finish... and then you wonder why you're miserable??? How simple is a nice hot cup of tea to make - teabag, hot water and milk and sugar if you want it, what's the big deal? And you can put it in a thermos flask and carry it about with you so you can have a nice, hot cup of tea whenever you want one.
4. Fashion - What's all this business about wearing jeans where the gusset is dangling down round by your knees? If we'd have worn those in my day, friends would have laughed at you for looking like you'd dropped a "brown trout" or two in the back of your Levi's! And how do you run??? Is this planet eventually going to be entirely inhabited by people in "sensible, cheap, elasticated waist jeans" because all the fashionable ones weren't able to run away quick enough from falling buildings, crashing airliners and raging infernos? BUT, before making those clothing choices, have a nice, hot, strong cup of tea and the caffeine entering your system combined with the warmth from the hot liquid, and "terminal clothing" will be a thing of the past!
Tea, nice and hot... that's the answer.
Anime is for people who like lots of cartoons of Cthuloid tentacles raping schoolgirls. That's it.
There's a new browser version out today. That's all. Now move along, nothing else to see here.
If you download music without paying for it, you are breaching copyright, end of story.
If you want to do something *POSITIVE* against the RIAA, then don't give them the justification for putting DRM on everything (which they say are anti-piracy measures). Don't copy it and don't buy it, unless you *TRULY* feel that the product is worth the money being asked for it. Or buy all your music in second-hand shops.
All the "file sharers" and "music communities" do is make it worse for honest customers like me who have to put up with copy-protection and over-priced CDs that subsidise your theft.
What kind of analogy is that??? A piece of music is more like a historical document - it's a statement about something that was going through the artist's mind at the time it was recorded. At that moment in time, it was produced and mixed as well as it oculd be, that's how it should be left... By *YOUR* analogy, we should go to the original written documents of, say, Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" and rewrite all the "s" characters in the text in crayon, purely because in those days they looked more like "f" characters!!!
Surely a software library is originally *written* with the view that it will probably be changed and enhanced.
A *TERRIBLE* analogy, I'm afraid...
I've got no idea who Jay-Z is but if it's stuff you like then good luck to you. But in my case, I listen to a lot of classic rock and blues music, here in the UK it's the stuff that doesn't get much radio airplay - for quite a few years, I was buying new CDs purely by guesswork and ended up, in most cases, being severely disappointed with my purchases because of the good old "two good tracks on the CD" syndrome. That's a helluva lot worse in my case because I prefer to listen to entire albums, not single tracks.
Nowadays, I read reviews in magazines and on the Internet before I buy anything. I've never used P2P apart from a very brief try with eMule and BitTorrent and cannot see the appeal of P2P compared to getting music from Usenet - but with that said, once I grab the MP3s I want, I either delete them, buy the CD and make my own (better quality) MP3s or delete them and don't buy the CD because they're just not worth the disk space.
Since I've been doing that, I now spend about 1/4 of what I used to on CDs, I have a fantastic music collection (having had a good eBay clear out also) and I'm very happy with music as a product over all - there's enough of my sort of music to keep me interested, I can buy my CDs cheap enough online without resorting to the rip-off merchants like HMV and Virgin, and I get good value for money from my music.
I personally don't see the appeal of paying to download music but that's just me - I think the problem with it is that in encourages hoarding for the sake of fashion. I see a lot of iPod owners bragging about the number of tracks they have on their player but rarely talk out what's actually on there or how often they listen to every track.
Piracy does "devalue" music greatly - after all, what's the better buzz? Getting an average piece of music free of charge or buying a classic piece of music for £10 or so?
Look, I'm a big Genesis and Peter Gabriel fan, and I raise my hat to him for doing the "Open Source thing" with his music.
But I *REALLY AM* getting sick and tired of these idiots who constantly think they can do a better job than the original artist in making his/her/their songs sound better - either through making some plasticized dance-beat cover version or just cutting the original into bits and having some rap bloke talk all over it.
And don't even talk to me about "tribute bands" - if they're clever enough to copy the original artist that well, they're clever enough to write their own original music and work their way up from playing pubs and clubs - just like The Rolling Stones and The Beatles had to do.
Please, go and mess about with your modern music as much as you like and do it with my blessing. But with regard to the stuff I've been listening to now for anything up to 35 years, *LEAVE IT ALONE*!!! It didn't need some kid calling himself a "DJ" messing about with it then so it doesn't need it now.
Excuse my ignorance, but if Jay-Z knocked on my door and said "Hi, I'm Jay-Z", I would respond "Who?" and not bat an eyelid.
So why can't they throw in an eight-minute clip from a Uriah Heep concert, or Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" occasionally, just to keep we miserable old gits happy occasionally?
Firstly, I don't suffer from depression and never have done. I know at least one close relative who has, it's not something I would like to ever go through so I'd suggest you stop bandying about that word so lightly - at any rate, as an admitted drug user, it's more likely to be an after effect of that than anything I will ever do.
Secondly, I'm in my 40s so I don't claim to have much in the way of common interests with people who are young enough to be my children. Likewise, I have no personal desire to spend an entire evening in a loud, plastic theme pub serving brightly coloured drinks beneath a large, loud TV screen playing endless MTV videos at me - give me a quiet country pub any time. In other words, town centres hold absolutely no interest for me anyway from the perspective of a night out.
Thirdly, I went through the pot-smoking, "love everyone" hippy stuff - yeah, it was great fun at the time but then I grew up, got sensible and confident and realised it was just a phase I went through for when I wasn't all sensible and confident. Having experienced that, I'm just giving you some advice to save you finding it out for yourself in probably 15 to 20 years time.
However, despite my excessive years, I am able to offer some degree of hindsight and, for the reasons I explained in my first post, the pressure on people half my age to conform and be "cool" is far greater now than it ever was for me (at least in my opinion). So I'm just disappointed that those people don't want to push back harder on those media pressures and work on finding their own identities.
I've a loving wife, good job and enough money to do just about anything I please so I've no personal depression whatsoever. If I could turn back the clock 20 years then I would only do so if I could back and do exactly the same things with the same people at the same time again - I certainly wouldn't want to be 20 years younger now...
Please stop with that "namby pamby" hippy rubbish - I grew out of that myself 20 years ago!
If you want to do drugs, good luck to you and you can even have my vote in legalising all drugs if you want because, in my opinion, it's not up to the state to legislate on drug taking but up to the individual to face up to any of the consequences of it.
But if you can't make friends when you're not stoned, then you'd probably be better off spending your money on a few "Confidence and Relationships" evening classes....
Binge drinking in many areas is starting to decrease, where the new 24hour licensing is available, people don't need to ram as much down their neck as quickly as possible.
Rubbish! Binge drinking is on the increase because it's being sold as "cool" to do it - go into any British city or town centre today and they are just clones of each other! Same old plastic chain theme pubs with plastic personalities and endless bottles of brightly coloured alco-pops. Please explain to me why, when I go into the town centre on a Saturday afternoon, every one of these pubs has a bouncer now?
And if we're just going to throw web pages at each other, then how about this one discussing the increase in alcoholism in the UK.
MDMA? Was abuse of it ever that widespread, compared to say heroin, ecstasy and cocaine? Can't say I've heard about it in years, even though I tend to read The Guardian and don't allow tabloid rubbish papers into my house. But while we're discussing the increase in drug abuse, have a look at this article supporting my statement.
Since you're obviously so good at Googling for articles, how about looking for stats on "Slashdot readers with their heads obviously stuck up their backsides"... because I know of at least one.
Hadn't you better get back to work??? Lunchtime is over in the Sony Marketing department now, isn't it?
Then look at the wider picture here, with binge drinking also increasing and parts of our city centres becoming virtual war-zones on weekend evenings and you begin to wonder whatever happened to self-discipline and restraint in our society. Even take violence at football games - yes, it's decreased here in the past 20 years but only because there are so many police involved in crowd control, no violence ever has the chance to break out.
I'm certain that advertising and the media is at the core of this - kids today are constantly pounded with messages of not being "cool" until they buy, use or wear certain brands of electronic devices, clothing or music. But then, where's the education from parents that their kids just cannot have everything they want right there on the spot?
Maybe I'm wearing "rose-tinted spectacles" but I go out to other European countries a lot, particularly Spain, and I don't hear or see any of these kinds of behaviours - go out in the city streets at night and it's always a lot of people, particularly families, just out having a good time.
This is a really sad incident and we should be ashamed that it happened here.
There may be a large heap of bureaucracy that the EU still needs to sort out - but rather that than have President Blair hand us over hook, line and sinker as the 51st state of the USA.
..."reasons why this cannot be anyone's fault at Apple" responses from the fanboys...
Nope. Sorry. Just given the old "enthusiasm" gland a bit of a prod but it's still limp and dormant...
Will you be maintaining authenticity with the real world and charging as much for plastic equipment as you do for metal equipment?
Just how do you manage to set these at "3" for the average GW shop employee?
What race of very rare Amazonian rain forest tree do Games Workshop use to make the paper for their rulebooks? This can be the only explanation as to why GW can charge £10 for a pamphlet with a few photos of plastic toy soldiers in it.
Whoa! Slow down there, cowpoke! Ya lost me frum dat big ol' word "matters". Ya ought'a remember most of us here simple Slashdot townsfolk be simple code farmers a-tinkering with dem der machines till da cows come home. Why, we even has us a good hearty laugh at dem words "Microsoft Works".