Every time something like this hits the wires the first reaction is always outrage, but I think there is a benefit to the RIAA going after teenages and people in their 20's. Before you flame me, hear me out.
Most of my friends fall into the previously stated age catagory, and for the most part we are finding that some of the laws of this land ruffle our fur for one reason or another. You might say "so what?", well when enough people who are young enough to risk everything get sick of the status quo something will happen.
What the RIAA is doing might just make one teen out there into our modern day Thomas Paine or John Hancock. People see something they don't like and make great moves to change it. An advantage and a danger of having a Republic. Why lament the laws that we don't like when we can work to change them?
Even if what is being done is "illegal" according to the laws of the United States, does that prevent action to change these laws? In short, no. The Boston Tea Party, the fight for women's voting rights, Martin Luther King's crusade for equality all were none violent (for the most part) actions that sought to overturn laws and cultural norms that were seen as unfair or overbearing.
So why could the same thing not occur today with the RIAA and the copyright laws? After all, the cat is out of the bag, and it's not going to be put back in.
I think saying a good percentage is pushing it. In this market (Augusta, GA - market 114), the cable penetration is only about 48% (my research is at my desk at work, so I'm not 100% sure of that number, but it is under 50%). The elimination of broadcast TV means about 52% of the population would be without television.
Not to mention, where would you get your local news without local broadcast stations? And there would be hundreds of unemployed persons resulting from such an action as well.
Just the 2-cents of an employee of an NBC affiliate.
This could be a great boon for people that want to move to solar power but need something less obtrusive due to neighborhood covenants and the like. Of course that is assuming that you could get approval from your neighbors to have a blue roof.
This could also be useful in the automotive industry I would think. No longer would cars have to be designed to fit to a solar panel. The possibilities are out there!
I find myself wondering if advances like this could lead us to ways to increase the percentage of our brain that we use. I believe, and I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, that we use somewhere around 10% of our brain. Imagine if a few microchips and such could elevate that to 25%.
Regardless of how much a particular group of people might prefer anarchy to a societal group the chances that such a form of society maintaining that freedom approach 0 quickly. It is inevitable that someone will be called on to make a decision that will effect the rest of the group at some time. That was the fundamental flaw of Marx's theory. Most humans, by nature, need someone to guide and direct their lives. As a society grows, the need for leaders, or elites, grows as well since it would be all-consuming for each person to know each aspect of what was going on in society. Can you image having to understand all the aspects of society and power structure, even in an area as small as a town? While science has developed a chaos theory, social science seems to follow the reverse. It seems that no matter which society you choose to follow it is eventually going to begin to show power difference, class seperation, and disassociated social networks.
All in all I found it very intersting how the bell curve was worked into the discussion. Coming from a math/comp sci background and moving to communications I am always looking for a bridge between the two.
I was thinking this myself. Road to Perdition had all the makings of a best picture. The storyline was great, there are some truly memorable lines, and the cinematography was great (not Requim for a Dream or Pi great, but great none the less). It's interesting how quickly movies that were released at the beginning of the year disappear, even if there is an "Oscar buzz" around the movie when it is released. It really speaks to our entertainment oriented society that great movies from a cinematic standpoint is forgotten only becaue it was released early in the year. What's to stop film studios from deciding that they are now only going to release their blockbuster films late in the year, leaving us to wallow through the mediocre offerings during spring and early summer.
If GE gets the buy of DirectTV it would only mean that they have another outlet for the NBC stuff besides Bravo, MSNBC, and CNBC. Just what the world needs, Friends and Frasier 24/7 straight to your TV.
Wouldn't it make more sense if you were a company that produced a large, bloated program that has a long history of poor performance that you would want to get input from people that might be able to streamline your program and optimize its performance? We were always taught in computer classes that the best programs where the ones that got the job done, correctly, with a minimum of code and in the quickest possible way. As much as we all might dislike Microsoft, Windows has the ability to be a good OS, it just hasn't been allowed to get anywhere near that ability. It seems each iteration of Windows creates more bugs and more bloated code rather than the reverse (which would would expect in most software programs). So, IMHO, Microsoft should move to open source, perhaps just releasing large segments of Windows code so they can protect their business (otherwise why release anything?). Ask programmers to streamline the code, even to the point of optimizing it for AMD, Intel, and Cyrix chips individually (Make Bill happy that he can market 3 versions of Windows).
I find the combination of AMD's price and decent performace to be perfect for my needs. As a recent college grad I'm lucky to afford peanut butter much less a P4 chip. Due to my need for Windows (little sister) I've not run Linuz on any of my first string machines. It runs great on a P200 though;-)
I've not been able to properly benchmark my new machine however. I recently put together a 2600+, however my mobo has fried itself twice in less than 3 months. Waiting on Albatron to issue me another return authorization.
I remember when Neural Networks were big, what prevented them from entering the gaming world in force? They were purported to be able to evolve depending on the data that they recieved and were capable of learning new things. Would that kind of AI be what game developers (and gamers) would really want?
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Every time something like this hits the wires the first reaction is always outrage, but I think there is a benefit to the RIAA going after teenages and people in their 20's. Before you flame me, hear me out.
Most of my friends fall into the previously stated age catagory, and for the most part we are finding that some of the laws of this land ruffle our fur for one reason or another. You might say "so what?", well when enough people who are young enough to risk everything get sick of the status quo something will happen.
What the RIAA is doing might just make one teen out there into our modern day Thomas Paine or John Hancock. People see something they don't like and make great moves to change it. An advantage and a danger of having a Republic. Why lament the laws that we don't like when we can work to change them?
Even if what is being done is "illegal" according to the laws of the United States, does that prevent action to change these laws? In short, no. The Boston Tea Party, the fight for women's voting rights, Martin Luther King's crusade for equality all were none violent (for the most part) actions that sought to overturn laws and cultural norms that were seen as unfair or overbearing.
So why could the same thing not occur today with the RIAA and the copyright laws? After all, the cat is out of the bag, and it's not going to be put back in.
Just my two cents.
I think saying a good percentage is pushing it. In this market (Augusta, GA - market 114), the cable penetration is only about 48% (my research is at my desk at work, so I'm not 100% sure of that number, but it is under 50%). The elimination of broadcast TV means about 52% of the population would be without television. Not to mention, where would you get your local news without local broadcast stations? And there would be hundreds of unemployed persons resulting from such an action as well. Just the 2-cents of an employee of an NBC affiliate.
This could be a great boon for people that want to move to solar power but need something less obtrusive due to neighborhood covenants and the like. Of course that is assuming that you could get approval from your neighbors to have a blue roof.
This could also be useful in the automotive industry I would think. No longer would cars have to be designed to fit to a solar panel. The possibilities are out there!
I find myself wondering if advances like this could lead us to ways to increase the percentage of our brain that we use. I believe, and I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, that we use somewhere around 10% of our brain. Imagine if a few microchips and such could elevate that to 25%.
Regardless of how much a particular group of people might prefer anarchy to a societal group the chances that such a form of society maintaining that freedom approach 0 quickly. It is inevitable that someone will be called on to make a decision that will effect the rest of the group at some time. That was the fundamental flaw of Marx's theory. Most humans, by nature, need someone to guide and direct their lives. As a society grows, the need for leaders, or elites, grows as well since it would be all-consuming for each person to know each aspect of what was going on in society. Can you image having to understand all the aspects of society and power structure, even in an area as small as a town? While science has developed a chaos theory, social science seems to follow the reverse. It seems that no matter which society you choose to follow it is eventually going to begin to show power difference, class seperation, and disassociated social networks. All in all I found it very intersting how the bell curve was worked into the discussion. Coming from a math/comp sci background and moving to communications I am always looking for a bridge between the two.
I was thinking this myself. Road to Perdition had all the makings of a best picture. The storyline was great, there are some truly memorable lines, and the cinematography was great (not Requim for a Dream or Pi great, but great none the less). It's interesting how quickly movies that were released at the beginning of the year disappear, even if there is an "Oscar buzz" around the movie when it is released. It really speaks to our entertainment oriented society that great movies from a cinematic standpoint is forgotten only becaue it was released early in the year. What's to stop film studios from deciding that they are now only going to release their blockbuster films late in the year, leaving us to wallow through the mediocre offerings during spring and early summer.
Actually I do. I work for a GE subsidiary, NBC to be exact. :-)
If GE gets the buy of DirectTV it would only mean that they have another outlet for the NBC stuff besides Bravo, MSNBC, and CNBC. Just what the world needs, Friends and Frasier 24/7 straight to your TV.
Wouldn't it make more sense if you were a company that produced a large, bloated program that has a long history of poor performance that you would want to get input from people that might be able to streamline your program and optimize its performance? We were always taught in computer classes that the best programs where the ones that got the job done, correctly, with a minimum of code and in the quickest possible way. As much as we all might dislike Microsoft, Windows has the ability to be a good OS, it just hasn't been allowed to get anywhere near that ability. It seems each iteration of Windows creates more bugs and more bloated code rather than the reverse (which would would expect in most software programs). So, IMHO, Microsoft should move to open source, perhaps just releasing large segments of Windows code so they can protect their business (otherwise why release anything?). Ask programmers to streamline the code, even to the point of optimizing it for AMD, Intel, and Cyrix chips individually (Make Bill happy that he can market 3 versions of Windows).
I find the combination of AMD's price and decent performace to be perfect for my needs. As a recent college grad I'm lucky to afford peanut butter much less a P4 chip. Due to my need for Windows (little sister) I've not run Linuz on any of my first string machines. It runs great on a P200 though ;-)
I've not been able to properly benchmark my new machine however. I recently put together a 2600+, however my mobo has fried itself twice in less than 3 months. Waiting on Albatron to issue me another return authorization.
I remember when Neural Networks were big, what prevented them from entering the gaming world in force? They were purported to be able to evolve depending on the data that they recieved and were capable of learning new things. Would that kind of AI be what game developers (and gamers) would really want?