This is not news. Labels have been digging their claws into concert revenue for years. When I was with the first Warped Tour, Sony was taking a 20% (if I remember accurately) cut from all Merch sales which dramatically reduced the artist's share since they didn't want to raise T-shirt prices for the fans. When you add a Bill Graham (west coast promoter) fee of 35% on top of this at the former Concord Pavilion, it was enough to cause all the performers (except Sublime) to pull all their merch from the booths for that show. Fans end up paying regardless.
Having worked as a game tester for Crystal Dynamics, I can tell you that I would NEVER work as a game tester again. This isn't because the company I worked for sucked. Crystal was a great company to work for (Free lunch, casual work atmosphere, cool co-workers, LAN parties after work). It was because testing bugs over and over and over and over and over again is the most mind numbing work I have ever done in my life. I suppose if you worked on an assembly line it might be worse, but the work is very similar. Repetition is the name of the game in Game Testing. I'm very happy to be a Systems Administrator now. I have no problems listening to users whine about their computers not working. At least the problems vary from day to day. I remember having to test the same bug 10 times each before writing it up (this sometimes took up to an hour to get through the game to the point where the bug occurs), then getting a new burn of the game only to have to do it again. See how long you can take that. Oh, and many game testers work under contract for one project rather than full time, so that 40K a year salary is NOT something you can always depend on.
CE goods have definitely declined in quality over the last few years. Take Tivo's warranty for example. My Tivo's hard drive failed and they wanted me to spend $100 so that I could send them my broken unit and they would send me a refurbished unit in exchange for the bad one. The refurbished unit would contain a hard drive that is no longer manufactured and has most likely come from another "broken" Tivo sent in for warranty service. It should be noted that my Tivo unit was still under full warranty for parts and labor. I declined to send it in and have repaired it myself. Not only has the quality of CE goods declined, but so has the quality of service that backs up these goods.
Religious schools are the brainwashing kind. They ask for faith without proof. I'll stick to science, thank you. Look at what religion has got us recently. You certainly don't see many scientists flying planes into buildings. They just design them. =)
Slashdot Mirror
They've got those great knives after all.
This is not news. Labels have been digging their claws into concert revenue for years. When I was with the first Warped Tour, Sony was taking a 20% (if I remember accurately) cut from all Merch sales which dramatically reduced the artist's share since they didn't want to raise T-shirt prices for the fans. When you add a Bill Graham (west coast promoter) fee of 35% on top of this at the former Concord Pavilion, it was enough to cause all the performers (except Sublime) to pull all their merch from the booths for that show. Fans end up paying regardless.
Having worked as a game tester for Crystal Dynamics, I can tell you that I would NEVER work as a game tester again. This isn't because the company I worked for sucked. Crystal was a great company to work for (Free lunch, casual work atmosphere, cool co-workers, LAN parties after work). It was because testing bugs over and over and over and over and over again is the most mind numbing work I have ever done in my life. I suppose if you worked on an assembly line it might be worse, but the work is very similar. Repetition is the name of the game in Game Testing. I'm very happy to be a Systems Administrator now. I have no problems listening to users whine about their computers not working. At least the problems vary from day to day. I remember having to test the same bug 10 times each before writing it up (this sometimes took up to an hour to get through the game to the point where the bug occurs), then getting a new burn of the game only to have to do it again. See how long you can take that. Oh, and many game testers work under contract for one project rather than full time, so that 40K a year salary is NOT something you can always depend on.
Did Tara Reid have to dump him eleven times?
Automatically change any documents on your PC that have Pacbell Park references to SBC Global Park. Go Giants!
CE goods have definitely declined in quality over the last few years. Take Tivo's warranty for example. My Tivo's hard drive failed and they wanted me to spend $100 so that I could send them my broken unit and they would send me a refurbished unit in exchange for the bad one. The refurbished unit would contain a hard drive that is no longer manufactured and has most likely come from another "broken" Tivo sent in for warranty service. It should be noted that my Tivo unit was still under full warranty for parts and labor. I declined to send it in and have repaired it myself. Not only has the quality of CE goods declined, but so has the quality of service that backs up these goods.
Too bad it don't count for squat when you're an AC.
Religious schools are the brainwashing kind. They ask for faith without proof. I'll stick to science, thank you. Look at what religion has got us recently. You certainly don't see many scientists flying planes into buildings. They just design them. =)