Lets see... something that costs upwards of 200M to produce using a cast of hundreds if not thousands versus something that can be slapped together by just getting 5 guys around a tape recorder.
The movie's costs have been theoretically recouped before the DVD/VHS release.
The CD's costs haven't been recouped. And "5 guys around a tape recorder" is a gross oversimplification.
The Cowboy Junkies' Trinity Sessions was literally "5 guys" around a Focusrite mic in a church. But that's the exception that proves the rule. Most major label releases are produced in a studio that's got $500,000 worth of gear and an equivalent amount of studio build-out: sound proofing, acoustic treatments, isolation booths.
Add to that the cost of marketing, pressing, printing...
Of the $16 retail price of a CD, the wholesale price is $8, the distrubtor gets between $1 and $2, and the retailer gets the rest.
The artist gets about $1 per unit. The songwriter gets a statutory rate of $.37 per track in most cases.
Then there's performance royalties, synchronization royalties, and transcription royalties. Learn a bit about the business before you critique it.
This problem would be resolved if they weren't charging the same price for a CD as a DVD Video.
What does the price of one have to do with the price of the other? Aside from the fact that this is digital information on a shiny plastic disk, there's no comparison. But, hey, I'll compare the two anyway.
A movie released on a DVD has usually made back its production costs at the box office (and then some). DVD/VHS sales and rentals are a secondary source of revenue for the studio.
A music CD's sales revenues are the main event for the artist and the label (and no, very few bands make money off of touring and merchandising...very, very few).
Okay, that's the supply side of things. How about the demand side?
I own some of my favorite movies on DVD. I own a lot of music CDs, too. I will maybe watch a DVD about five or six times before I get sort of tired of it and lend it to a friend or just stop watching it. Maybe I'll grab it off the shelf to play for a friend that hasn't seen it (and see it through their eyes, which freshens the experience).
By contrast, I can't count the number of times I've played my favorite CDs. I listen at home, in the car, at work. If I had a nickel for every time I listened to Television's Marquee Moon or Nirvana's Nevermind, I'd be rich enough to throw Steve Ballmer off of the Space Needle and get off on a technicality. $15 spent on a CD is a greater value to me than the same $15 spent on a DVD. Amortize that $15 against the amount of enjoyment you get from that creative work.
You want your budget to remain unscaithed? Here are my demands:
I require the sacrifice of one unblemished goat on a quarterly basis. Note: this goat is not to be taken from the pool of goats required to keep the SCSI devices working.
On a monthly basis, I require a tribute of 37 beaver pelts and two bushels of eagle feathers.
A casket of trinkets and jewels will be presented prior to the bi-annual performance review
Members of the IT department will bow down and touch their foreheads to the floor whenever I am present in their cube farm
Attractive female new IT hires shall be stripped, washed, and conducted to my office suite post haste. Droit du seigneur, and all that.
Failure to unblock the pr0n sites I like to surf on company time? That's a paddlin'.
Failure to maintain sufficient free space on the server for my pr0n? That's a paddlin'
Failure to lock down the corporate network except for the ports I need for the chat client I use to communitcate with my mistress? Decapitation, followed by defenestration.
I'm sure you'll agree that my terms are cruel but fair.
gotten a new CEO soon to loot your company and run (I experienced this... once I experienced a half million loss in options and 401K it was hard to like what my company had become when the CEO walked away with $500M)
Okay, maybe it's just me, but if I took a $500K loss and some motherfucker walked off with $500M, I'd be at his front door conducting a frank exchange of views with him while holding an AK-47 to his crotch. And if he agreed to make good my losses, he'd get his wife and kids back unharmed.
Motherfucking CEOs get away with this shit because the middle class lacks balls. Eighty years ago, if you were an assembly line worker at Ford or GM, you'd be sitting down in the factory, rioting, or throwing Molotov cocktails at the Pinkerton thugs that management hired to bust skulls.
But the middle class doesn't riot. The middle class has no stomach for violence. Every so often, the sons of the middle class might smash the windows of a Starbucks in the name of anti-globalization, but that's more teen angst than protest.
Ann "Visible Adam's Apple" Coulter once said that someone should shoot liberals so that they should know that they're vulnerable (this was right after 9/11, when she was really off the hook). I think the same should apply to CEOs who loot their companies and walk off with multi-million dollar "golden handjobs". Make them spend some of their "hard earned" millions on a security perimeter worthy of the Secret Service.
Except CHB didn't write the content. They reprinted it from a Rhode Island Scripps Howard newspaper (the retired couple lives in RI). Perhaps you'd like to accuse Scripps Howard of liberal bias?
And, writing a check for $6500 on a credit card sounds to me like typical financial matters, but maybe not "responsible", i.e., we have no idea if they were running large balances against no income, etc. (As a matter of fact, they say in the article they were making this payment because their balance "had gotten to an unhealthy level".
Late last year, MBNA, Citibank, and Bank of America, the biggest three credit card lenders, raised their minimum payments to 4% of outstanding balances from 2%, effectively doubling the minimum monthly payment.
Given that these were retirees, on a fixed budget, paying off these high interest unsecured loans would be prudent in light of this change in minimum payments.
And maybe they were just doing what one of my aged uncles used to do: he'd say "Borrow, borrow, borrow, die. It's the American Way. Let the kids fucking deal with it after I'm gone".
Me, I had my fill of high-interest credit cards. I'm down to two, an Amex Gold and a Citi Card, both of which I've had since the '80s, both of which get paid off every month. Amex expects that, and they make up for it by charging vendors something like 2% per transaction. Citibank must hate me; lenders call people who pay their balance every month "deadbeats". Sort of ironic.
When the dot.com bubble burst, I was holding $15K of high interest (8.9%) credit card debt. I paid it off before 9/11/01. No alarm bells there.
But recently, I sold off some stock in a company that bought a company that bought a company I helped found and deposited the money in my checking account (it was drawn against a Canadian bank). I had to speak to three managers before the transaction would be processed. I also had to "grease the wheel", assuring the manager that I intended to invest some of the money in a CD and put the rest into mutual and equity funds that the bank's investment division offered. After that, I was treated like a visiting pasha; they offered me their Premiere Banking private services, and the pretty girl who stalks the bank lobby holding a clipboard helped me fill out the necessary forms. I swear, I could have asked her for a happy ending when it was all over.
But I had no doubt that behind the scenes SARs (Suspicious Activity Reports) were being filed on me.
You see, this is why I back up my iTunes purchases to a Studer 2-track open reel deck and then store the tapes in a temperature and humidity controlled vault guarded by ninjas trained by Chuck Morris. It's the only way to be sure.
I'm not a good enough coder to write my own AAC codecs, should that format no longer be supported on comtemporary computers, but I can keep that Studer running until the heat death of the universe.
Plan B involves hexadecimal, a chisel, and a shitload of stone tablets. I've heard that this is really hard on the wrists, though.
To date, what form of government is advancing and which is in decline?
Taking the long view, governments with a decentralized structure will outlast those with a centralized structure by a large, large margin. Of course, this is a gross simplification, and it ignores economic structure and external events, but, all things being equal, decentralization is more robust.
The 1000 year Byzantine Empire had an Emperor, of course, but the day-to-day running of the Empire was in the hands of its civil servants. The Ottoman Empire was led by a sultan, but he had a court of advisors (viziers), and there were times when the Grand Vizier's rule trumped the sultan's power. As with Byzantium, day-to-day affairs were in the hands of the provincial governors (the Ottoman Empire had 29 provinces and three vassal states at its high water mark). This empire lasted over 600 years.
What does this say about the United States? There's a great deal of power invested in the three branches of the Federal government, but the states have as much (sometimes more) influence in the daily lives of American citizens, though lately (fifty, sixty years or so) the Federal government's power over its citizenry has grown in breadth and depth. In my opinion, this is both good and bad, depending on the issue (e.g., US overrules a governor who refuses to desegregate public schools: good; US overrules a state referendum on medicinal marijuana or assisted suicide: bad). But the point is that a decentralized government is like a decentralized Internet.
Contrast this with highly centralized governments, where all power is invested in one man or a small ruling council. How long did Yugoslavia survive after the death of Tito, or Nazi Germany after Hitler (okay, last one is a weak example because the Soviets were shelling Berlin when Adolf typed "i told u i was hardcore", but I want to keep the attention of the History Channel crowd)? How long will Cuba survive in situ after the passing of Castro (provided he doesn't have a dynastic successor as with North Korea after the death of Kim Il Sung)?
The cliched Joe Sixpack will probably never hear of this; heck, I don't think Joe Sixpack knows what RFID is.
Well, if Joe Sixpack has bought a new car within the past five years, he will. Maybe he won't know it as RFID per se, but he'll know that his car key is "chipped", and getting a duplicate costs $80 instead of $1.50.
And if Mr. Sixpack is a Wal*Mart employee, like 1.3 million other Americans, he'll even know RFID by name; it's used on pallets as inventory control.
Eventually, RFID will become as ubiquitous as bar codes.
Turns out popularity bred popularity, which explains why there's so much crap on the radio.
True, up to a point. There's a network effect here, since groups of people use common cultural touchstones as a means of relating with each other (e.g., talking about a movie, an album, or a sports team). A teenaged girl will buy Britney's album because her friends bought Britney's album. A system administrator will rent Office Space and will understand the references to "PC LOAD LETTER" and the red stapler when they come up in conversation (or in posts on Slashdot).
But none of these works would make it into the collective culture if they hadn't gotten past a gatekeeper.
The gatekeepers of our culture are the people who manage movie studios, publishing houses, and record labels. Producers, editors, and A&R people are risk averse people in risky businesses. Every album that's recorded, every book that's published, every movie that's produced means that hundreds of thousands, millions, or tens or hundreds of millions are risked in a venture that might not even break even. And even if such a venture does break even or run a modest profit, these people look upon such a return as a lost opportunity for a best seller, platinum album, or blockbuster hit.
So, they hew to the lowest common denominator. They play it safe. They run endless focus groups, listening parties, sneak previews. They catch the sequel disease: witness the Harry Potter phenomenon, the bidding war for Seattle grunge groups after Nirvana's breakout album Nevermind, multiple Lethal Weapon movies. Two movies about asteroids obliterating the Earth, two movies about monster volcanoes, two movies about Mars missions, all released within months of each other. Could the two Matrix sequels hold a candle to the first movie? Do I have to invoke the crawling horror of Star Wars I, II, and III?
It's rare that a unique work emerges from our popular culture, something so distinctive that imitating it would be a sacrelige. A Schindler's List, a Don DeLillo novel (I'm hard pressed to find a major record label example, since I mostly listen to indie acts -- that's where the unique talent has fled).
It's telling that Spielberg gets to make a work like Munich or Schindler's List because he's made billions for Hollywood. George Clooney said as much about Syriana and Good Night and Good Luck; after these films he'll owe the studio an Ocean's Thirteen. Sequelmania is Hollywood's answer to risk. Hence the crap that's clogging our culture.
Twenty years in the music industry taught me a one of many hard lessons: the risk averse A&R guy loves to know that your band sounds like someone who's made money for them. "We wouldn't know how to market you guys" is not what you want to hear from them. "You're in the business of marketing bands. Fucking learn." is not what they want to hear from you.
I ended up forming an indie label. It made all the difference.
I've observed a decrease in the frequency and intensity of spyware/adware infections among my business clients and residential customers (my company provides contract network and system administration for SMEs but does perform some residential work). I think mid-2004 was the high water mark for malware and drive-by infections.
There's one reason for this decline that's not mentioned in the brief article (though it may be in the paper referenced): users are actually getting smarter. Strange as that may sound to your average BOFH, I do think that many users are growing a clue (and no 2x4s were even needed).
I know that almost every residential customer, as they're writing out a check for $100 or $200 for spyware removal, asks two questions: "How did this happen?" and "What do I do to keep this from happening again?". My techs and I are more than happy to answer these questions.
I've suggested a broad range of solutions (there's no one-size-fits-all answer here):
Keep Windows and IE patched
Use Firefox, unless it's a site that requires IE (e.g., Windows Update, certain banks, Quickbooks Online, which depends on ActiveX controls)
If you're shopping for a new computer and aren't dependent on certain Windows-only software, try a Mac on for size
Finally, stay away from the shadier sites and don't download "free" (as in syphillis) software unless you know it's from a reputable developer
This last one is tough: some seemingly innocuous sites try to force installs on you. For example, I was trying to find the name of a song by some band, so I googled a snippet of lyrics and hit the first site returned in the result. Boom! "Would you like to install Vomit Cursor? [yes] [yes]". A client's teenaged daughter wanted to download "Doll Buddy Icons" for AIM (something to do with Bratz dolls and people on your buddy list, I think). Wham, 450 malware objects installed in ten minutes (I tracked the source by comparing the file dates of the dodgy.exe files with the dates of certain cookies).
When you tell clients that there's no free lunch on the internet and that there are companies whose business model consists of taking control of your computer, you can actually see enlightenment happen. The heavens open up, angels play harps, and everyone is bathed in a warm glowing light. Pretty cool when this happens.
In my experience, it depends somewhat on the size of the company. A large organization may have the resources (money, other employees who can fill in with you while you're training, etc.) that a small or medium sized company lacks. This is a rule with plenty of exceptions, though.
Twenty-five years ago, my mother's company (a Big Pharma firm) paid to train her as an AS/400 systems analyst, promoting her from a position as an administrative assistant. She went from taking dictation in Pittman shorthand and typing to writing code, all on the company's dime. Systems analysts were in short supply at the time, and the company preferred to train an intelligent person already in the organization over hiring outside.
My company, which is tiny (5 employees), it an exception to the rule. In order to keep our MSFT Certified Partner status, we need personnel who hold MCSE or better, and are paying to have some of our technicians certified. But it's my understanding that companies of our size expect new hires to hold equivalent certs (MCSE, A+, Net+, etc.).
I'd say that you should gently urge your company to pay for your training, and try to make a case that the return on the investment will benefit the firm. But you're going to have to spend time studying for the exams, some of which will spill over into your "free time". Consider it an investment in yourself, one that will be repaid if you ever need to change employers.
I work for a company that provides contract system and network administration for small- to medium-sized businesses. They pay us on a quarterly basis to do routine maintenance on their systems and to be available on an on-call basis. We also host, manage, develop, and design web sites.
If a client has a Win98 system and they're paying us to support it, we do, even if Microsoft has end-of-lifed that product. We try to get them to upgrade to something more recent if the hardware can support it, but companies in the SMB sector are usually reluctant to upgrade unless the computer goes into failure mode (lately, bad capacitors on motherboards have been making the decision for our clients).
On the other hand, when developing web sites, we try to be compliant with the more recent browsers (IE 4+/Netscape 4+, Mozilla/Firefox, Opera, Safari), though we do add alt tags to images, avoid frames, and check our work in lynx (I'm concerned about ADA compliance and access to blind users with screenreaders). Our clients usually don't have any clue about browser versions and accesibility; it's our job to make things work.
Bottom line: if you pay me, I'll support DOS 3.2. But if you're browsing one of our sites with Mosaic 0.99, prepare to be disappointed, unless you're a client that's willing to pay to have us write a script to detect your user agent and serve a circa 1993 site for your ancient browser. It's all about the Benjamins in the contract support business.
Ballistic missiles are largely, well, ballistic as you say. But modern ICBMs do need sophisticated guidance systems.
MIRV systems, multiple warheads delivered by one missile, do deviate from a purely ballistic course during the midcourse phase (sub-orbital flight between liftoff and re-entry). This is to help deploy the multiple warheads on different targets. The warhead bus uses small rocket engines to follow its pre-programmed course. Navigation was originally via inertial guidance or celestial tracking, but newer warhead buses use GPS.
Even single-warhead weapons need some sort of guidance in order to compensate for the effects of local gravity anomalies. Again, military-grade GPS is the preferred method.
Tactical ballistic missiles need guidance packages, too. The Scud, considered crude by modern standards, uses intertial guidance to control moveable surfaces on its fins during boost phase. Once its motor shuts off, however, gravity is in charge, as you have noted. Still, more recent tactical weapons have terminal phase guidance systems, so even these deviate from a purely ballistic mode of operation.
Musicians obtain the vast majority of their income from live performances. Recordings serve the same purpose as radio play -- to promote performances.
I see this falsehood repeated so often, especially when P2P is the subject. Having spent twenty years in the music industry, I can say with assurance that both of the above sentences are completely backwards.
In 2003, US gross numbers for live music totalled $2 billion. That same year, recorded music grossed $12 billion.
Most touring acts are lucky to break even. The exceptions are the top tier acts (U2, Rolling Stones) that can get $300/seat, and jam bands like Phish and the Dead who can count on their fans attending more than one show per tour and who have a low overhead (e.g., no flashy video walls). Losing money on a tour is so common that many bands' lawyers and accountants set up a shell corporation for the duration of the tour just to shelter the bands' assets from their creditors.
There are so many people getting paid during a tour, so many hands out waiting for their cut: the owner of the club/hockey arena/stadium/muddy field, the promoter, the insurance agency, the ad agency, the hired security goons, the (union) riggers who fly the lights and PA speakers, the people who lease the PA, the people who lease the van/semi/bus, the people who drive the van/semi/bus, roadies, techies, caterers, your manager, your agent, your lawyer, your accountant, and the person who stays behind at your house to make sure your rent is paid, your bills are paid, your plants are watered, and your cat doesn't die of loneliness and starvation. Don't forget your per diem on the road, meals on the road, and a place with a hot shower and a soft bed waiting for you at 3AM when your day is over. Touring is an exercise in logistics that makes Operation Desert Storm look like a picnic at the beach.
Bands tour in support of their record. That's why many recording contracts allow for label support of a tour once the recording is released. Not the other way around.
Finally, there are many acts that don't tour or stopped touring altogether. XTC rarely played live because Andy Partridge had stage fright. The Beatles played their last show in 1966 and kept releasing records for nearly four years, getting filthy rich in the process.
I really wasn't trying to compare Slashdot's and CNN's network infrastructure. I was just trying to make a simple observation. It's obvious that CNN had at least an order of magnitude more HTTP requests than Slashdot did on that day. Same with bbc.co.uk and msnbc.com on 9/11/2001.
But you have to consider that in 2001 Slashdot's network infrastructure was smaller than that of CNN, the BBC, or MSNBC. And it handled its request load better than the aforementioned web sites.
Mullen: But I think this is important -- is the United States communication infrastructure a critical part of a terrorist attack? Not because of taking it out, but because of keeping it up. Right? You know what happened to the CNN Web site on 9/11?
Harrison: It was like Slashdot hooked to it.
I was working at home on 9/11, and yes: CNN was down until they put up a no-graphics static page. Slashdot was up and running just fine.
Anent to the article, I think the so-called cyberterror threat is not so much Al Qaeda as it is Eastern European organized crime, and the threat is more centered towards e-commerce (Amazon, eBay, gambling sites) than public infrastructure.
Al Qaeda wants to perform acts that make people afraid to go to work, not acts that keep them from bidding on Beanie Babies or playing Texas Hold-em. DDos-ing Amazon or Partypoker.com isn't the sort of deadly blow against the infidels that gets them out of bed in the morning. Yuri and Vladimir, on the other hand...
But the real "cyberterror" threat is the potential US Government overreaction towards any potential threat, real or imagined. Since the early '90s, the government has viewed the Internet as something big, scary, and untamed. COPA, DMCA, you name it, they'll regulate it. Even now, look at the way the Federal Election Commission has been eyeballing political blogs: free speech or political contributions?
If there's a threat, it'll be from Capitol Hill or 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, not some cave on the Afghani-Pakistani border.
I predict that the comments to follow this story will consist of...
54 comments about the double-entendre of the story's headline
37 comments from people wondering where the gorillas got the credit card needed to order the Leatherman from thinkgeek.com
15 "I, for one, welcome our tool-using gorilla overlords..."
9 "In Soviet Uganda..."
3 actually substantive comments about the use of tools among primates and other animals, such as chimps using sticks to probe anthills and termite mounds, seagulls dropping shellfish on beachside parking lots to break them open, dolphins using sea sponges to protect their snouts as they forage for food near stinging stonefish, and wood finches using twigs and cactus spines to pry insects out of tree trunks.
This isn't a new idea. Twenty years ago, I was trying to raise funds to build a recording studio. A friend of mine, studying for his MBA at Harvard brought me a spiral-bound book that listed VC firms categorized by the fields that they were interested in (e.g., biotech, software, hardware, defense, etc.). All of them were way out of my league, but it made for interesting reading, in a "follow the money" sense.
Ten years after that, when I was involved in a dot.com startup, we ended up pitching to some of the VC firms listed in that spiral-bound book (on Wall Street, not Sand Hill Road).
From what I've gathered from the experiences of friends involved with vulture captial funding, it's a last resort, the only option if angel funding, friends and family, and lines of credit don't pan out.
Slashdot Mirror
The movie's costs have been theoretically recouped before the DVD/VHS release.
The CD's costs haven't been recouped. And "5 guys around a tape recorder" is a gross oversimplification.
The Cowboy Junkies' Trinity Sessions was literally "5 guys" around a Focusrite mic in a church. But that's the exception that proves the rule. Most major label releases are produced in a studio that's got $500,000 worth of gear and an equivalent amount of studio build-out: sound proofing, acoustic treatments, isolation booths.
Add to that the cost of marketing, pressing, printing...
Of the $16 retail price of a CD, the wholesale price is $8, the distrubtor gets between $1 and $2, and the retailer gets the rest.
The artist gets about $1 per unit. The songwriter gets a statutory rate of $.37 per track in most cases.
Then there's performance royalties, synchronization royalties, and transcription royalties. Learn a bit about the business before you critique it.
k.
What does the price of one have to do with the price of the other? Aside from the fact that this is digital information on a shiny plastic disk, there's no comparison. But, hey, I'll compare the two anyway.
A movie released on a DVD has usually made back its production costs at the box office (and then some). DVD/VHS sales and rentals are a secondary source of revenue for the studio.
A music CD's sales revenues are the main event for the artist and the label (and no, very few bands make money off of touring and merchandising...very, very few).
Okay, that's the supply side of things. How about the demand side?
I own some of my favorite movies on DVD. I own a lot of music CDs, too. I will maybe watch a DVD about five or six times before I get sort of tired of it and lend it to a friend or just stop watching it. Maybe I'll grab it off the shelf to play for a friend that hasn't seen it (and see it through their eyes, which freshens the experience).
By contrast, I can't count the number of times I've played my favorite CDs. I listen at home, in the car, at work. If I had a nickel for every time I listened to Television's Marquee Moon or Nirvana's Nevermind, I'd be rich enough to throw Steve Ballmer off of the Space Needle and get off on a technicality. $15 spent on a CD is a greater value to me than the same $15 spent on a DVD. Amortize that $15 against the amount of enjoyment you get from that creative work.
k.
You want your budget to remain unscaithed? Here are my demands:
I'm sure you'll agree that my terms are cruel but fair.
My name is Karlo Takki, and I am an IT Manager.
k.
Okay, maybe it's just me, but if I took a $500K loss and some motherfucker walked off with $500M, I'd be at his front door conducting a frank exchange of views with him while holding an AK-47 to his crotch. And if he agreed to make good my losses, he'd get his wife and kids back unharmed.
Motherfucking CEOs get away with this shit because the middle class lacks balls. Eighty years ago, if you were an assembly line worker at Ford or GM, you'd be sitting down in the factory, rioting, or throwing Molotov cocktails at the Pinkerton thugs that management hired to bust skulls.
But the middle class doesn't riot. The middle class has no stomach for violence. Every so often, the sons of the middle class might smash the windows of a Starbucks in the name of anti-globalization, but that's more teen angst than protest.
Ann "Visible Adam's Apple" Coulter once said that someone should shoot liberals so that they should know that they're vulnerable (this was right after 9/11, when she was really off the hook). I think the same should apply to CEOs who loot their companies and walk off with multi-million dollar "golden handjobs". Make them spend some of their "hard earned" millions on a security perimeter worthy of the Secret Service.
k.
Except CHB didn't write the content. They reprinted it from a Rhode Island Scripps Howard newspaper (the retired couple lives in RI). Perhaps you'd like to accuse Scripps Howard of liberal bias?
k.
Late last year, MBNA, Citibank, and Bank of America, the biggest three credit card lenders, raised their minimum payments to 4% of outstanding balances from 2%, effectively doubling the minimum monthly payment.
Given that these were retirees, on a fixed budget, paying off these high interest unsecured loans would be prudent in light of this change in minimum payments.
And maybe they were just doing what one of my aged uncles used to do: he'd say "Borrow, borrow, borrow, die. It's the American Way. Let the kids fucking deal with it after I'm gone".
Me, I had my fill of high-interest credit cards. I'm down to two, an Amex Gold and a Citi Card, both of which I've had since the '80s, both of which get paid off every month. Amex expects that, and they make up for it by charging vendors something like 2% per transaction. Citibank must hate me; lenders call people who pay their balance every month "deadbeats". Sort of ironic.
When the dot.com bubble burst, I was holding $15K of high interest (8.9%) credit card debt. I paid it off before 9/11/01. No alarm bells there.
But recently, I sold off some stock in a company that bought a company that bought a company I helped found and deposited the money in my checking account (it was drawn against a Canadian bank). I had to speak to three managers before the transaction would be processed. I also had to "grease the wheel", assuring the manager that I intended to invest some of the money in a CD and put the rest into mutual and equity funds that the bank's investment division offered. After that, I was treated like a visiting pasha; they offered me their Premiere Banking private services, and the pretty girl who stalks the bank lobby holding a clipboard helped me fill out the necessary forms. I swear, I could have asked her for a happy ending when it was all over.
But I had no doubt that behind the scenes SARs (Suspicious Activity Reports) were being filed on me.
Man, I should have asked for the hand job.
k.
You see, this is why I back up my iTunes purchases to a Studer 2-track open reel deck and then store the tapes in a temperature and humidity controlled vault guarded by ninjas trained by Chuck Morris. It's the only way to be sure.
I'm not a good enough coder to write my own AAC codecs, should that format no longer be supported on comtemporary computers, but I can keep that Studer running until the heat death of the universe.
Plan B involves hexadecimal, a chisel, and a shitload of stone tablets. I've heard that this is really hard on the wrists, though.
k.
Taking the long view, governments with a decentralized structure will outlast those with a centralized structure by a large, large margin. Of course, this is a gross simplification, and it ignores economic structure and external events, but, all things being equal, decentralization is more robust.
The 1000 year Byzantine Empire had an Emperor, of course, but the day-to-day running of the Empire was in the hands of its civil servants. The Ottoman Empire was led by a sultan, but he had a court of advisors (viziers), and there were times when the Grand Vizier's rule trumped the sultan's power. As with Byzantium, day-to-day affairs were in the hands of the provincial governors (the Ottoman Empire had 29 provinces and three vassal states at its high water mark). This empire lasted over 600 years.
What does this say about the United States? There's a great deal of power invested in the three branches of the Federal government, but the states have as much (sometimes more) influence in the daily lives of American citizens, though lately (fifty, sixty years or so) the Federal government's power over its citizenry has grown in breadth and depth. In my opinion, this is both good and bad, depending on the issue (e.g., US overrules a governor who refuses to desegregate public schools: good; US overrules a state referendum on medicinal marijuana or assisted suicide: bad). But the point is that a decentralized government is like a decentralized Internet.
Contrast this with highly centralized governments, where all power is invested in one man or a small ruling council. How long did Yugoslavia survive after the death of Tito, or Nazi Germany after Hitler (okay, last one is a weak example because the Soviets were shelling Berlin when Adolf typed "i told u i was hardcore", but I want to keep the attention of the History Channel crowd)? How long will Cuba survive in situ after the passing of Castro (provided he doesn't have a dynastic successor as with North Korea after the death of Kim Il Sung)?
k.
Well, if Joe Sixpack has bought a new car within the past five years, he will. Maybe he won't know it as RFID per se, but he'll know that his car key is "chipped", and getting a duplicate costs $80 instead of $1.50.
And if Mr. Sixpack is a Wal*Mart employee, like 1.3 million other Americans, he'll even know RFID by name; it's used on pallets as inventory control.
Eventually, RFID will become as ubiquitous as bar codes.
k.
True, up to a point. There's a network effect here, since groups of people use common cultural touchstones as a means of relating with each other (e.g., talking about a movie, an album, or a sports team). A teenaged girl will buy Britney's album because her friends bought Britney's album. A system administrator will rent Office Space and will understand the references to "PC LOAD LETTER" and the red stapler when they come up in conversation (or in posts on Slashdot).
But none of these works would make it into the collective culture if they hadn't gotten past a gatekeeper.
The gatekeepers of our culture are the people who manage movie studios, publishing houses, and record labels. Producers, editors, and A&R people are risk averse people in risky businesses. Every album that's recorded, every book that's published, every movie that's produced means that hundreds of thousands, millions, or tens or hundreds of millions are risked in a venture that might not even break even. And even if such a venture does break even or run a modest profit, these people look upon such a return as a lost opportunity for a best seller, platinum album, or blockbuster hit.
So, they hew to the lowest common denominator. They play it safe. They run endless focus groups, listening parties, sneak previews. They catch the sequel disease: witness the Harry Potter phenomenon, the bidding war for Seattle grunge groups after Nirvana's breakout album Nevermind, multiple Lethal Weapon movies. Two movies about asteroids obliterating the Earth, two movies about monster volcanoes, two movies about Mars missions, all released within months of each other. Could the two Matrix sequels hold a candle to the first movie? Do I have to invoke the crawling horror of Star Wars I, II, and III?
It's rare that a unique work emerges from our popular culture, something so distinctive that imitating it would be a sacrelige. A Schindler's List, a Don DeLillo novel (I'm hard pressed to find a major record label example, since I mostly listen to indie acts -- that's where the unique talent has fled).
It's telling that Spielberg gets to make a work like Munich or Schindler's List because he's made billions for Hollywood. George Clooney said as much about Syriana and Good Night and Good Luck; after these films he'll owe the studio an Ocean's Thirteen. Sequelmania is Hollywood's answer to risk. Hence the crap that's clogging our culture.
Twenty years in the music industry taught me a one of many hard lessons: the risk averse A&R guy loves to know that your band sounds like someone who's made money for them. "We wouldn't know how to market you guys" is not what you want to hear from them. "You're in the business of marketing bands. Fucking learn." is not what they want to hear from you.
I ended up forming an indie label. It made all the difference.
k.
I did this just last week, when I was home from work with a bad cold.
And that's how I made Eggs Benedict with a cell phone.
k.
There's one reason for this decline that's not mentioned in the brief article (though it may be in the paper referenced): users are actually getting smarter. Strange as that may sound to your average BOFH, I do think that many users are growing a clue (and no 2x4s were even needed).
I know that almost every residential customer, as they're writing out a check for $100 or $200 for spyware removal, asks two questions: "How did this happen?" and "What do I do to keep this from happening again?". My techs and I are more than happy to answer these questions.
I've suggested a broad range of solutions (there's no one-size-fits-all answer here):
This last one is tough: some seemingly innocuous sites try to force installs on you. For example, I was trying to find the name of a song by some band, so I googled a snippet of lyrics and hit the first site returned in the result. Boom! "Would you like to install Vomit Cursor? [yes] [yes]". A client's teenaged daughter wanted to download "Doll Buddy Icons" for AIM (something to do with Bratz dolls and people on your buddy list, I think). Wham, 450 malware objects installed in ten minutes (I tracked the source by comparing the file dates of the dodgy
When you tell clients that there's no free lunch on the internet and that there are companies whose business model consists of taking control of your computer, you can actually see enlightenment happen. The heavens open up, angels play harps, and everyone is bathed in a warm glowing light. Pretty cool when this happens.
k.
In my experience, it depends somewhat on the size of the company. A large organization may have the resources (money, other employees who can fill in with you while you're training, etc.) that a small or medium sized company lacks. This is a rule with plenty of exceptions, though.
Twenty-five years ago, my mother's company (a Big Pharma firm) paid to train her as an AS/400 systems analyst, promoting her from a position as an administrative assistant. She went from taking dictation in Pittman shorthand and typing to writing code, all on the company's dime. Systems analysts were in short supply at the time, and the company preferred to train an intelligent person already in the organization over hiring outside.
My company, which is tiny (5 employees), it an exception to the rule. In order to keep our MSFT Certified Partner status, we need personnel who hold MCSE or better, and are paying to have some of our technicians certified. But it's my understanding that companies of our size expect new hires to hold equivalent certs (MCSE, A+, Net+, etc.).
I'd say that you should gently urge your company to pay for your training, and try to make a case that the return on the investment will benefit the firm. But you're going to have to spend time studying for the exams, some of which will spill over into your "free time". Consider it an investment in yourself, one that will be repaid if you ever need to change employers.
Just my 2.
k.
I work for a company that provides contract system and network administration for small- to medium-sized businesses. They pay us on a quarterly basis to do routine maintenance on their systems and to be available on an on-call basis. We also host, manage, develop, and design web sites.
If a client has a Win98 system and they're paying us to support it, we do, even if Microsoft has end-of-lifed that product. We try to get them to upgrade to something more recent if the hardware can support it, but companies in the SMB sector are usually reluctant to upgrade unless the computer goes into failure mode (lately, bad capacitors on motherboards have been making the decision for our clients).
On the other hand, when developing web sites, we try to be compliant with the more recent browsers (IE 4+/Netscape 4+, Mozilla/Firefox, Opera, Safari), though we do add alt tags to images, avoid frames, and check our work in lynx (I'm concerned about ADA compliance and access to blind users with screenreaders). Our clients usually don't have any clue about browser versions and accesibility; it's our job to make things work.
Bottom line: if you pay me, I'll support DOS 3.2. But if you're browsing one of our sites with Mosaic 0.99, prepare to be disappointed, unless you're a client that's willing to pay to have us write a script to detect your user agent and serve a circa 1993 site for your ancient browser. It's all about the Benjamins in the contract support business.
k.
Ballistic missiles are largely, well, ballistic as you say. But modern ICBMs do need sophisticated guidance systems.
MIRV systems, multiple warheads delivered by one missile, do deviate from a purely ballistic course during the midcourse phase (sub-orbital flight between liftoff and re-entry). This is to help deploy the multiple warheads on different targets. The warhead bus uses small rocket engines to follow its pre-programmed course. Navigation was originally via inertial guidance or celestial tracking, but newer warhead buses use GPS.
Even single-warhead weapons need some sort of guidance in order to compensate for the effects of local gravity anomalies. Again, military-grade GPS is the preferred method.
Tactical ballistic missiles need guidance packages, too. The Scud, considered crude by modern standards, uses intertial guidance to control moveable surfaces on its fins during boost phase. Once its motor shuts off, however, gravity is in charge, as you have noted. Still, more recent tactical weapons have terminal phase guidance systems, so even these deviate from a purely ballistic mode of operation.
k.
I see this falsehood repeated so often, especially when P2P is the subject. Having spent twenty years in the music industry, I can say with assurance that both of the above sentences are completely backwards.
In 2003, US gross numbers for live music totalled $2 billion. That same year, recorded music grossed $12 billion.
Most touring acts are lucky to break even. The exceptions are the top tier acts (U2, Rolling Stones) that can get $300/seat, and jam bands like Phish and the Dead who can count on their fans attending more than one show per tour and who have a low overhead (e.g., no flashy video walls). Losing money on a tour is so common that many bands' lawyers and accountants set up a shell corporation for the duration of the tour just to shelter the bands' assets from their creditors.
There are so many people getting paid during a tour, so many hands out waiting for their cut: the owner of the club/hockey arena/stadium/muddy field, the promoter, the insurance agency, the ad agency, the hired security goons, the (union) riggers who fly the lights and PA speakers, the people who lease the PA, the people who lease the van/semi/bus, the people who drive the van/semi/bus, roadies, techies, caterers, your manager, your agent, your lawyer, your accountant, and the person who stays behind at your house to make sure your rent is paid, your bills are paid, your plants are watered, and your cat doesn't die of loneliness and starvation. Don't forget your per diem on the road, meals on the road, and a place with a hot shower and a soft bed waiting for you at 3AM when your day is over. Touring is an exercise in logistics that makes Operation Desert Storm look like a picnic at the beach.
Bands tour in support of their record. That's why many recording contracts allow for label support of a tour once the recording is released. Not the other way around.
Finally, there are many acts that don't tour or stopped touring altogether. XTC rarely played live because Andy Partridge had stage fright. The Beatles played their last show in 1966 and kept releasing records for nearly four years, getting filthy rich in the process.
k.
k.
I really wasn't trying to compare Slashdot's and CNN's network infrastructure. I was just trying to make a simple observation. It's obvious that CNN had at least an order of magnitude more HTTP requests than Slashdot did on that day. Same with bbc.co.uk and msnbc.com on 9/11/2001.
But you have to consider that in 2001 Slashdot's network infrastructure was smaller than that of CNN, the BBC, or MSNBC. And it handled its request load better than the aforementioned web sites.
I'm just sayin'.
k.
I was working at home on 9/11, and yes: CNN was down until they put up a no-graphics static page. Slashdot was up and running just fine.
Anent to the article, I think the so-called cyberterror threat is not so much Al Qaeda as it is Eastern European organized crime, and the threat is more centered towards e-commerce (Amazon, eBay, gambling sites) than public infrastructure.
Al Qaeda wants to perform acts that make people afraid to go to work, not acts that keep them from bidding on Beanie Babies or playing Texas Hold-em. DDos-ing Amazon or Partypoker.com isn't the sort of deadly blow against the infidels that gets them out of bed in the morning. Yuri and Vladimir, on the other hand...
But the real "cyberterror" threat is the potential US Government overreaction towards any potential threat, real or imagined. Since the early '90s, the government has viewed the Internet as something big, scary, and untamed. COPA, DMCA, you name it, they'll regulate it. Even now, look at the way the Federal Election Commission has been eyeballing political blogs: free speech or political contributions?
If there's a threat, it'll be from Capitol Hill or 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, not some cave on the Afghani-Pakistani border.
k.
Thanks for the troll ratings, astroturfers. Ballmer won't be throwing chairs at you. For now.
k.
Yeah, cleaning that off of my XP box was a royal pain in the ass.
Thanks, Bill.
k.
k.
k.
Obviously, it was because they were crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
k.
Seriously, though...
This isn't a new idea. Twenty years ago, I was trying to raise funds to build a recording studio. A friend of mine, studying for his MBA at Harvard brought me a spiral-bound book that listed VC firms categorized by the fields that they were interested in (e.g., biotech, software, hardware, defense, etc.). All of them were way out of my league, but it made for interesting reading, in a "follow the money" sense.
Ten years after that, when I was involved in a dot.com startup, we ended up pitching to some of the VC firms listed in that spiral-bound book (on Wall Street, not Sand Hill Road).
From what I've gathered from the experiences of friends involved with vulture captial funding, it's a last resort, the only option if angel funding, friends and family, and lines of credit don't pan out.
k.