Since I have some international stock and taxes get somewhat tricky on those (plus I hate doing taxes), I end up going to H+R Block Premium every spring. At the premium office here, everyone I've ran across is a CPA.
I've been pointed out some great things to know like you can carry capital gains losses over $3k to next year. $3000 is the limit you can claim per year. I had no clue about that 'feature' of the tax code.
The first year I went to H+R Block, I went to the 'normal' office and the guy had no clue what to do with freaking dividends! He asked me what form I needed for them. So, my experience has been hunt down one of the 'premium' offices in your vincinity. It ended up costing me about $200 this year, but I only had to spend 45 minutes one Saturday morning on it, and I would have ended up dropping $50 on TaxCut and being paranoid about screwing up all year.
I can attest to this. There used to be a large electronics store (SunTV) here and they would sell the 'top 10 CDs' for $9.77 each week. Later, I talked to a guy who was a manager there and he said they took about a $1 loss per CD, in hopes everybody who came in the store would buy speaker wire or a printer cartridge, or other such high mark up items. I know I never did. Maybe that's why that chain is no longer around in Ohio.
Last time I checked (a few months ago), Midheaven's mail order page was STILL asking for your credit card number to order on an insecure web page. Slick.
Don't forget about my favorite John Cusack movie, The Grifters. A band from Memphis, TN took that name and have made several great albums since the early 90's.
But this won't happen. The companies that want copy protection on CDs are going to ram it down our collective throats and if anything raise the price of CDs for this new feature. If the new album by FlavorOfTheMonth comes out and is copy protected and has a tiny warning label on it, is that going stop any of the sheep from buying it? Absolutely not.
You know this warning label is going to be mangled by the time if it ever goes on a CD. It'll be something slick like 'Trusted Disc', 'Terrorist Free' or some other BS. Like others have mentioned, I wish it would say 'may not play in your hardware, and may break it actually'. Not holding my breath for that.
Here's a pic of the Sega Power Base Converter. You can't really tell by the picture, but I remember the thing being huge and awkward. I'm not sure if it even worked with the redesign of the Genesis.
Now that I think about, I can't remember many Master System games I'd want to play. Safari Hunt? Out Run?
Sounds likes SCMS which is in *most* DAT machines. Makes trying to make backups of copies pretty near impossible without buying a stripping device or a professional unit. Backups of Copies != Piracy.
If I was telling this to a 12 year old guy, I would encourage him to surround himself with girls at all times. That's right, get laughed at when you take Home Economics in high school, are in marching band and work at a Flower shop. You'll always get the last laugh when you're going for a ride on the bone rollercoaster;)
I'm digging deep into my memory on a Sunday morning, but I vividly remember something along these same lines written by a guy from the United Kingdom circa 96 or 97. I think it was called the Similarity Engine, and you would type in a name of a band, and it would bring up a ranked list of other bands you may like. It was just a web page, so it didn't dynamically give you new suggestions based on what you typed in next. It was a very cool thing at the time. Turned me on to a lot of obscure bands just based on My Bloody Valentine obsession;)
I think CDNow bought the guy out so they could use it for the 'If you like this artist, buy these!' links on their pages.
The only reason SBC/Ameritech did anything in Ohio was the threat of having their income suspended.
Ohio AG: We got a ruling that says if you dont improve your service by X% amount, you can't report your profits to SBC, your parent company. SBC/Ameritech: Consider it done!
Needless to say, here are my experiences with SBC/Ameritech in the last year:
Scheduled appointment to get resedential phone line installed in new home build. Missed appointment by 2 months. Called, bitched, nada. Filed complaint with PUCO (Public Utilities COmission). Phone line installed in 2 days.
Co-worker's SBC DSL line hangs his internet connection whenever he picks up the phone to make a voice call. SBC claims it's not a problem.
Friend got SBC/Yahoo! DSL service through promo. When he talked to SBC, they said he was close enough to the CO that he could get 1.5/384, instead of the standard 768/128. Service started on 768/128 speed. Called and now is told he can't get the faster speed. Upload rate is more like 80k a second to *anywhere*.
SBC started printing 2 different 'amount due' figures on each resedential phone bill. This has to confuse older people.
SBC is running radio ads now bitching about how Sprint/MCI is lobbying them out of long distance service in Ohio. SBC effectively crippled CoreComm from offering reasonable service here.
After moving to my house and getting a phone line installed (the 2 month wait), I could have gotten SBC DSL service. I waited 4 months to get cable modem service. When a geek will wait for broadband, you know something's not quite right;)
Since I tend to have no emotional connection with actors, the first thing I thought of when I heard that Phil Hartman was murdered was 'oh no! Troy McClure and Lionel Hutz are gone!'
My favorite line from the show was between Marge and Lionel Hutz that went something like this:
LH: Oh no! We've drawn Judge Snyder!
M: Is that a bad thing?
LH: Well he's kinda had it in for me ever since I accidentally ran over his dog.
M: Oh
LH: Well replace 'accidentally' with 'repeatedly' and 'dog' with 'son'.
during the saturn/ps1 wars, sega again had first mover advantage. but they negated that advantage by 1) coming out at too high a price point (i think $300) and 2) missing the boat w.r.t 3D gaming - the saturn just couldn't handle it.
If I remember right, Sega moved up the release date of the Saturn to May 95 from September 95. They announced this at the Spring CES show to try to give themselves a boost/hype machine and blindside Sony. Problem was that all the 1st/2nd party Saturn games were rushed out and none of the third party support had finished games at the early May launch. I remember the Saturn being $399 or $449 at launch, sitting next to 3 or 4 games during the first few months. The PS1 was $299 at launch on 9/9/95 and had Ridge Raaaacer, Toshinden and about 10 other games at launch, and about 50 to 75 by Christmas.
There's definately a sweet-spot for launch time. If you launch too early (Ask Trip Hawkins and 3DO) your price point is too high and your technology looks dated by the time the next system launches. If you wait too long you're behind in user base and no one wants to develop games for your tiny user base.
Anymore, I think these are the keys to success:
Launch console at $299 or less
Keep lips firmly attached to Electronic Arts' ass at all times.
Backwards compatiability with previous generation of console.
Don't name your system after any feline. (The Atari Rule).
I know for a fact that if you get a decent deal with a reputable/experienced indie label (like several mentioned above), that you (the artist) can make some decent cash.
I'm buddies with someone who is/was on [X label above] records. They released 3 albums, and each album sold *about* 15,000 to 20,000 copies. That's pretty good for an indie, but nothing earth shattering. I'm sure a lot of indepedent releases sell in that range, with some of the bigger bands on Matador regular selling 50k to 75k per release.
Anyways, their handshake deal with [X label above] was 50/50. They get a 50% cut of all CDs sold.
He made close to $30,000 last year on sales of the back catalog.
Think about the math. You're a band with a moderate following. You release an album. It does fairly well. Say it sells... 20,000 copies. At wholesale the album sells for $8. that's $160k. Your band sees 50%. That's $80k. You divvy it up 3 ways. Each band member has an income around $27k. Throw in X dollars that you make from a tour. $30 to $35k a year for playing music you love and seeing the world isn't too shabby. Imagine if the album sells a modest 40,000 copies. That means if the band is a trio, each member gets a cut of over $50k.
To see how much money you'd make on a major label, check out the article Steve Albini wrote.
You can make money playing music you love. You don't have to sell your soul out to the music mafia.
Well there's definately other possibilites for the prices to leak. I used to be a paperboy, and I would get the Thanksgiving ads at least a week in advance. This was standard practice since there were usually 2 or 3 'ad drops' leading up to the Thanksgiving paper.
I imagine that the plants that actually press the circulars have access to it weeks in advance.
I know when I (nor my parents, since I was a minor) never signed any NDA's when I got a paper route. And you know I used this 'perk' to figure out who had Super Nintendo games on sale, or what movies were on TV a week in advance week. Ahh, the dark ages.
While I admit that I don't read many AOLTW owned sites, I am a RoadRunner customer, but in my area it's offered by Insight Communications and not Time-Warner. My email is 'branded' as rr (@insight.rr.com), but I don't write a check to Time-Warner for my online service. I'd be interested to know how this would work out, or if I get bent over as I suspect. Now that I look at the article again, it looks like it may be AOL only, and not even include Time Warner's RoadRunner customers. Yikes.
To see what exactly the AOLTW empire owns, check out Who Owns What
Slashdot Mirror
Since I have some international stock and taxes get somewhat tricky on those (plus I hate doing taxes), I end up going to H+R Block Premium every spring. At the premium office here, everyone I've ran across is a CPA.
I've been pointed out some great things to know like you can carry capital gains losses over $3k to next year. $3000 is the limit you can claim per year. I had no clue about that 'feature' of the tax code.
The first year I went to H+R Block, I went to the 'normal' office and the guy had no clue what to do with freaking dividends! He asked me what form I needed for them. So, my experience has been hunt down one of the 'premium' offices in your vincinity. It ended up costing me about $200 this year, but I only had to spend 45 minutes one Saturday morning on it, and I would have ended up dropping $50 on TaxCut and being paranoid about screwing up all year.
I can attest to this. There used to be a large electronics store (SunTV) here and they would sell the 'top 10 CDs' for $9.77 each week. Later, I talked to a guy who was a manager there and he said they took about a $1 loss per CD, in hopes everybody who came in the store would buy speaker wire or a printer cartridge, or other such high mark up items. I know I never did. Maybe that's why that chain is no longer around in Ohio.
Last time I checked (a few months ago), Midheaven's mail order page was STILL asking for your credit card number to order on an insecure web page. Slick.
Don't forget about my favorite John Cusack movie, The Grifters. A band from Memphis, TN took that name and have made several great albums since the early 90's.
You know this warning label is going to be mangled by the time if it ever goes on a CD. It'll be something slick like 'Trusted Disc', 'Terrorist Free' or some other BS. Like others have mentioned, I wish it would say 'may not play in your hardware, and may break it actually'. Not holding my breath for that.
Now that I think about, I can't remember many Master System games I'd want to play. Safari Hunt? Out Run?
Sounds likes SCMS which is in *most* DAT machines. Makes trying to make backups of copies pretty near impossible without buying a stripping device or a professional unit. Backups of Copies != Piracy.
People actually know how to forward stuff? If you can still print it out, I'm going to reserve my 1st ammendment rights at work ;)
If I was telling this to a 12 year old guy, I would encourage him to surround himself with girls at all times. That's right, get laughed at when you take Home Economics in high school, are in marching band and work at a Flower shop. You'll always get the last laugh when you're going for a ride on the bone rollercoaster ;)
I think CDNow bought the guy out so they could use it for the 'If you like this artist, buy these!' links on their pages.
See above for a diagram linking all the major music labels / just about everyone else to 'defense' contractors. Gotta love those frenchy Canadians.
Ohio AG: We got a ruling that says if you dont improve your service by X% amount, you can't report your profits to SBC, your parent company.
SBC/Ameritech: Consider it done!
Needless to say, here are my experiences with SBC/Ameritech in the last year:
Scheduled appointment to get resedential phone line installed in new home build. Missed appointment by 2 months. Called, bitched, nada. Filed complaint with PUCO (Public Utilities COmission). Phone line installed in 2 days.
Co-worker's SBC DSL line hangs his internet connection whenever he picks up the phone to make a voice call. SBC claims it's not a problem.
Friend got SBC/Yahoo! DSL service through promo. When he talked to SBC, they said he was close enough to the CO that he could get 1.5/384, instead of the standard 768/128. Service started on 768/128 speed. Called and now is told he can't get the faster speed. Upload rate is more like 80k a second to *anywhere*.
SBC started printing 2 different 'amount due' figures on each resedential phone bill. This has to confuse older people.
SBC is running radio ads now bitching about how Sprint/MCI is lobbying them out of long distance service in Ohio. SBC effectively crippled CoreComm from offering reasonable service here.
After moving to my house and getting a phone line installed (the 2 month wait), I could have gotten SBC DSL service. I waited 4 months to get cable modem service. When a geek will wait for broadband, you know something's not quite right ;)
LH: Mr. Simpson, this is the most blatant case of fraudulent advertising since my suit against the film "The Never Ending Story".
I need a lawyer like that.
My favorite line from the show was between Marge and Lionel Hutz that went something like this:
LH: Oh no! We've drawn Judge Snyder!
M: Is that a bad thing?
LH: Well he's kinda had it in for me ever since I accidentally ran over his dog.
M: Oh
LH: Well replace 'accidentally' with 'repeatedly' and 'dog' with 'son'.
Classic.
If I remember right, Sega moved up the release date of the Saturn to May 95 from September 95. They announced this at the Spring CES show to try to give themselves a boost/hype machine and blindside Sony. Problem was that all the 1st/2nd party Saturn games were rushed out and none of the third party support had finished games at the early May launch. I remember the Saturn being $399 or $449 at launch, sitting next to 3 or 4 games during the first few months. The PS1 was $299 at launch on 9/9/95 and had Ridge Raaaacer, Toshinden and about 10 other games at launch, and about 50 to 75 by Christmas.
There's definately a sweet-spot for launch time. If you launch too early (Ask Trip Hawkins and 3DO) your price point is too high and your technology looks dated by the time the next system launches. If you wait too long you're behind in user base and no one wants to develop games for your tiny user base.
Anymore, I think these are the keys to success:
Anyways, their handshake deal with [X label above] was 50/50. They get a 50% cut of all CDs sold.
He made close to $30,000 last year on sales of the back catalog.
Think about the math. You're a band with a moderate following. You release an album. It does fairly well. Say it sells... 20,000 copies. At wholesale the album sells for $8. that's $160k. Your band sees 50%. That's $80k. You divvy it up 3 ways. Each band member has an income around $27k. Throw in X dollars that you make from a tour. $30 to $35k a year for playing music you love and seeing the world isn't too shabby. Imagine if the album sells a modest 40,000 copies. That means if the band is a trio, each member gets a cut of over $50k.
To see how much money you'd make on a major label, check out the article Steve Albini wrote.
You can make money playing music you love. You don't have to sell your soul out to the music mafia.
Don't forget that K Records put out a split 7" record with Built to Spill and Marine Research. Cathy Rogers from Junkyard Wars is in Marine Research.
*still thinking about that dog show* :)
I imagine that the plants that actually press the circulars have access to it weeks in advance.
I know when I (nor my parents, since I was a minor) never signed any NDA's when I got a paper route. And you know I used this 'perk' to figure out who had Super Nintendo games on sale, or what movies were on TV a week in advance week. Ahh, the dark ages.
To see what exactly the AOLTW empire owns, check out Who Owns What
Or marketing for that matter. Can't you just see a bunch of hot girls walking up to geeks in bars trying to hawk iPhones.