Dear Dean,
It has recently come to my attention that amongst certain students that attend your university certain unethical and illegal acts are being perpetuated on university campus. Underage drinking, drug abuse, and violence threaten to undermine the media cartels who market them for entertainment value to our youth. Therefore I'm so sorry to ask you to do what years of our nation's finest have not been able to - stop these criminal activities in our youth. As of November you are hereby required to find some means of monitoring and logging the activities of the free citizens that are your students on the notion that since some large portion of them are engaged in the drug traffic trade or are at least practicing rape or alchoholism- so says the study funded by the lobbyists that brought this to my attention. It is up to you to place sufficient invasions of privacy that these activities cease! Unless some measurable progress (at least 4 high profile arrests that I can show on CNN) is made by November, the committee and I will have no option but to recall all or some of the federal grants that allow you to educate our youth.
Thank you,
Your Congressman
Maybe life where your neighbors might pop a bomb underneath the public bus or your nephew drove a tank through an orphanage going after terrorists last night is inherently productive to "thinking outside the box."
Or maybe when life has the really viable option to turn crappy you just engage in more involved wishful thinking.
The problems with both theories is that many nations of Africa should be pumping out papers on cold fusion via dill pickles and spam on that basis.
Of course, first Macs need to become PCs for them to become drivers in the market. As long as only Apple makes Macs, they're doomed to those who need or think they need the specialized benefits of the Mac and Mac enthusiasts.
I don't see how you could do worse than use Walmart as a study basis for sociality theories. Just like Sears made some pretty profound implications for social change with their mail order business, the fact that Walmart has been basically transforming many rural areas they're part of by a flood of mass produced mid-quality goods has got to have some implications as well. Before Walmart many rural areas had to depend on untrustowrthy local distributors and access to urban centers, now they too can get cheaply made crap from around the world exactly like everyone else. In many ways they're like homogenized corporate flea markets.
I'm not saying that Walmart is good or bad. The way they use controls over their distribution and those implications of control are pretty nasty, but on the other hand I can't see how many places in rural America would be better off if there hadn't been a Walmart. It simply gives rural America better access to consumer goods than main street type small businesses could possibly afford to, covering goods that might not otherwise make it into smaller markets.
If you've decided that you've got to deal with hungry reef sharks to make your beer money then it doesn't matter which island you park your boat at, they're all equally hungry and equally dangerous. On the other hand, if you operate on the assumption that you're screwed no matter what and don't hire basic protections then you deserve to get eaten.
The proper solution, of course, is to starve the sharks into extinction and force new companies to result that understand what people want better and are prepared to figure out a way to make those desires translate into a more reasonable business model.
I think the only musicians I really feel sorry for are those who don't ever get listened to at all. They're the ones who are really doing it for nothing.
I suppose that's something for Biblical scholars to argue about. All I know is that it's nothing I caused and nothing that I have more than supporting evidence that anyone else had much to do with either, I'm just here.
I'm sure there are CIA operatives all over the world infiltrated into terrorist cells and in terrorist recruitment environments that practice the same sort of subterfuge. The common problem of any security measure has always been that it's only as strong as the man inside. There really isn't much that you can do about beyond what people do already, catch people in mistakes and hope that the electronic sorts of intelligence tip you off.
The present standards are obviously either changing or broken or else no one would be bothering to discuss this. There is a problem, the difference in thought is where the problem originates from and how to solve it.
Wow, trolling and flaming. Nice.
Since the world has changed since Mozart was alive, don't you think that we should give the idea that the future should be different from the present? I think it's pretty much a given already, so don't worry too much about it.
And yet, obviously, before the BMI's and Sony Music's of the world musicians still somehow made money and I never even heard about Mozart having to work in the mill to support his dirty music habit either. Amazing.
Of course it does, three major companies control most of the distribution channels for musicians in the country and one major company controls all radio. MP3.com obviously either isn't part of that network or is part of the network and purposely marginalized because it doesn't fit in with the larger marketing strategies of the larger companies. When was the last time you saw an unsigned band on TRL or heard a local, non-major label band on the radio? It makes a difference because they simply maintain too much control in the first place.
Can you imagine there being room on the schedule for entire television catalog if there were only ABC, NBC, and CBS on the tube still? Or if 90% of all theatres in the country were controlled by a single corporation that only had exclusive deals with the major movie players and therefore no indie movie could even be added to a play schedule at all without risking legal action from your main customers?
And how is the copying of your spear denying you the use of your spear? If your spear is superior and everyone copies the spear, is your spear made more valuable or less valuable? Now that everyone is enjoying superior spears, aren't the whole lot of you made superior in the spearish sense?
Now, you own the design of the spear and possess it. Everyone must give you 3 conkle shells to copy your spear, everyone who has conkle shells is in a rush to give them to you. Some people copy your spear without giving you shells, so you stab them with your spear and give the chief many conkle shells to prevent yourself from being punished.
Many years later your children own the design on all spears, no more spears are being designed by other people and few superior spears even by your children. Indeed, the workers your children hire sometimes produce superior spears but they have no opportunity to gain many conkles such as you did because they are only workers producing spears in the name of your children. The chiefs and your children have come to an agreement allowing them to use their spears on any who dare to produce any spears at all. This is very profitable for the chiefs, since your children have many conkles to pay to him. How is your spear increasing the public good now?
If they're the only game in town that's not a choice when you want to play.
Phrased differently, if three grocery stores controlled all food distribution then everyone would basically have to sign whatever forms they waved in front of their faces too if they wanted to eat. When the option is doing what you're good at by signing away your rights and paying the rent vs. doing something else and possibly not paying the rent, that isn't much of a choice.
But we all know that won't happen because the current industry model won't allow it to happen. There are too many pockets being lined by inflating prices on music and not enough to lose by keeping prices fixed at their current levels.
When was the last time you saw the price of music DECREASE besides when all the hair bands went into the discount bin in 91? There isn't a free market in the music industry, there is a price fixing cartel of less than a handful of companies that collectively control most of the music that gets put on shelves.
Basically they're going against a smoking type arguement. Everyone knows that smoking is bad for you and can have serious consequences, and that music swapping can lead to jail time. If they had made smoking down and out illegal though they would have forced everyone who smoked into an us versus them midnset and pretty much pissed off the general public of "don't kick the common man" mentality. This is exactly what the music industry has done and continues to do, furthermore they shamelessly promote and profit from filesharing in their other corporate faces. It makes them look like asses, and stupid asses at that. Sony Music basically says "don't do anything that our other division, Sony Electronics, makes easy with their huge sales of portable mp3 players." With that kind of corporate logic it's hard to take them seriously.
Slashdot Mirror
Dear Dean,
It has recently come to my attention that amongst certain students that attend your university certain unethical and illegal acts are being perpetuated on university campus. Underage drinking, drug abuse, and violence threaten to undermine the media cartels who market them for entertainment value to our youth. Therefore I'm so sorry to ask you to do what years of our nation's finest have not been able to - stop these criminal activities in our youth. As of November you are hereby required to find some means of monitoring and logging the activities of the free citizens that are your students on the notion that since some large portion of them are engaged in the drug traffic trade or are at least practicing rape or alchoholism- so says the study funded by the lobbyists that brought this to my attention. It is up to you to place sufficient invasions of privacy that these activities cease! Unless some measurable progress (at least 4 high profile arrests that I can show on CNN) is made by November, the committee and I will have no option but to recall all or some of the federal grants that allow you to educate our youth.
Thank you,
Your Congressman
I can just see the novelty market for this...
Tweed sweaters with that "old man" smell
Bras for your teenage daughter that smell like gun smoke.
Skirts for your ex-wife that smell like female dogs in heat, but only to other dogs. Now an excuse to get her a present this year!
Bed sheets that always smell like you've washed them.
Car upolstery that always smells new.
Child clothes that smell like bubblegum.
Man, I can imagine doing something like this in a dorm but for only 20 bucks? You'd think that it would at least be worth TWO large pizzas a month...
Maybe life where your neighbors might pop a bomb underneath the public bus or your nephew drove a tank through an orphanage going after terrorists last night is inherently productive to "thinking outside the box."
Or maybe when life has the really viable option to turn crappy you just engage in more involved wishful thinking.
The problems with both theories is that many nations of Africa should be pumping out papers on cold fusion via dill pickles and spam on that basis.
Maybe modern men squeeze too hard.
Of course, first Macs need to become PCs for them to become drivers in the market. As long as only Apple makes Macs, they're doomed to those who need or think they need the specialized benefits of the Mac and Mac enthusiasts.
I don't see how you could do worse than use Walmart as a study basis for sociality theories. Just like Sears made some pretty profound implications for social change with their mail order business, the fact that Walmart has been basically transforming many rural areas they're part of by a flood of mass produced mid-quality goods has got to have some implications as well. Before Walmart many rural areas had to depend on untrustowrthy local distributors and access to urban centers, now they too can get cheaply made crap from around the world exactly like everyone else. In many ways they're like homogenized corporate flea markets.
I'm not saying that Walmart is good or bad. The way they use controls over their distribution and those implications of control are pretty nasty, but on the other hand I can't see how many places in rural America would be better off if there hadn't been a Walmart. It simply gives rural America better access to consumer goods than main street type small businesses could possibly afford to, covering goods that might not otherwise make it into smaller markets.
If you've decided that you've got to deal with hungry reef sharks to make your beer money then it doesn't matter which island you park your boat at, they're all equally hungry and equally dangerous. On the other hand, if you operate on the assumption that you're screwed no matter what and don't hire basic protections then you deserve to get eaten.
The proper solution, of course, is to starve the sharks into extinction and force new companies to result that understand what people want better and are prepared to figure out a way to make those desires translate into a more reasonable business model.
I think the only musicians I really feel sorry for are those who don't ever get listened to at all. They're the ones who are really doing it for nothing.
I suppose that's something for Biblical scholars to argue about. All I know is that it's nothing I caused and nothing that I have more than supporting evidence that anyone else had much to do with either, I'm just here.
I'm not dead because I'm alive.
Which neighborhood sells cocaine-laced lemonade?
I'm sure there are CIA operatives all over the world infiltrated into terrorist cells and in terrorist recruitment environments that practice the same sort of subterfuge. The common problem of any security measure has always been that it's only as strong as the man inside. There really isn't much that you can do about beyond what people do already, catch people in mistakes and hope that the electronic sorts of intelligence tip you off.
So the best thing for X-Box Linux would be to make sure that they could run everything coming out of the the regualr X-Box?
The present standards are obviously either changing or broken or else no one would be bothering to discuss this. There is a problem, the difference in thought is where the problem originates from and how to solve it.
Wow, trolling and flaming. Nice. Since the world has changed since Mozart was alive, don't you think that we should give the idea that the future should be different from the present? I think it's pretty much a given already, so don't worry too much about it.
And yet, obviously, before the BMI's and Sony Music's of the world musicians still somehow made money and I never even heard about Mozart having to work in the mill to support his dirty music habit either. Amazing.
Of course it does, three major companies control most of the distribution channels for musicians in the country and one major company controls all radio. MP3.com obviously either isn't part of that network or is part of the network and purposely marginalized because it doesn't fit in with the larger marketing strategies of the larger companies. When was the last time you saw an unsigned band on TRL or heard a local, non-major label band on the radio? It makes a difference because they simply maintain too much control in the first place.
Can you imagine there being room on the schedule for entire television catalog if there were only ABC, NBC, and CBS on the tube still? Or if 90% of all theatres in the country were controlled by a single corporation that only had exclusive deals with the major movie players and therefore no indie movie could even be added to a play schedule at all without risking legal action from your main customers?
No one could take away the tangible aspects of art. A performance would still be a performance, a painting a painting.
And how is the copying of your spear denying you the use of your spear? If your spear is superior and everyone copies the spear, is your spear made more valuable or less valuable? Now that everyone is enjoying superior spears, aren't the whole lot of you made superior in the spearish sense?
Now, you own the design of the spear and possess it. Everyone must give you 3 conkle shells to copy your spear, everyone who has conkle shells is in a rush to give them to you. Some people copy your spear without giving you shells, so you stab them with your spear and give the chief many conkle shells to prevent yourself from being punished.
Many years later your children own the design on all spears, no more spears are being designed by other people and few superior spears even by your children. Indeed, the workers your children hire sometimes produce superior spears but they have no opportunity to gain many conkles such as you did because they are only workers producing spears in the name of your children. The chiefs and your children have come to an agreement allowing them to use their spears on any who dare to produce any spears at all. This is very profitable for the chiefs, since your children have many conkles to pay to him. How is your spear increasing the public good now?
If they're the only game in town that's not a choice when you want to play.
Phrased differently, if three grocery stores controlled all food distribution then everyone would basically have to sign whatever forms they waved in front of their faces too if they wanted to eat. When the option is doing what you're good at by signing away your rights and paying the rent vs. doing something else and possibly not paying the rent, that isn't much of a choice.
If it weren't for the public allowing those rights then the record industry would have none.
What they giveth, they can taketh away.
But we all know that won't happen because the current industry model won't allow it to happen. There are too many pockets being lined by inflating prices on music and not enough to lose by keeping prices fixed at their current levels.
When was the last time you saw the price of music DECREASE besides when all the hair bands went into the discount bin in 91? There isn't a free market in the music industry, there is a price fixing cartel of less than a handful of companies that collectively control most of the music that gets put on shelves.
Basically they're going against a smoking type arguement. Everyone knows that smoking is bad for you and can have serious consequences, and that music swapping can lead to jail time. If they had made smoking down and out illegal though they would have forced everyone who smoked into an us versus them midnset and pretty much pissed off the general public of "don't kick the common man" mentality. This is exactly what the music industry has done and continues to do, furthermore they shamelessly promote and profit from filesharing in their other corporate faces. It makes them look like asses, and stupid asses at that. Sony Music basically says "don't do anything that our other division, Sony Electronics, makes easy with their huge sales of portable mp3 players." With that kind of corporate logic it's hard to take them seriously.
No, it's Sydney so in that context it's always university. Duh, you'd think you'd never brought rubbers to school or passed out after a good pisser.
Disclaimer: I'm not Australian, but I really think the Crocodile Hunter is stupid enough to watch.