If this is that fast (half a nS actuation time) and static as well, the implications go well beyond memory applications. OR gates, AND gates and flip/flops (every single nanotube is a complete f/f) are the building blocks of every CPU out there. What about a 128 bit CPU that didn't need an air conditioner to keep from destruction? A CPU with a 1nS clock cycle time and a few MB of on chip cache?
It's a very cool idea, but I'm wondering why they didn't mention these issues. Is it an unmentioned limitation of the technology, or a limitation of the Economist's journalistic scope?
No step 5? What happens when you find the song you're downloading sucks?
Your list is stupid - listening too much to Geoff Goldblum, I see. Honestly, the way so many mac users seem to be mindless drones for the jobs machine is what keeps me from even considering a mac - just as I avoid all cults.
Example: itunes "preview": click for 30 second "preview." Waste precious bandwidth (important for modem users) downloading crap that will be thrown away.
My way: download the file I want. The only difference is I have to be proactive to stop the download, you have to be proactive and download (30 seconds of) the same song twice.
Most of the music I download is 256kbps or better MP3. More importantly, most of it is NOT same-as-the-others crap you find in domestic distribution. This afternoon I downloaded Goldfrapp's latest "Black Cherry" - can you even get Goldfrapp at ye olde itunes shoppe? (I went there to see for myself, but apparently you can't even browse the catalog unless you've already become an apple-fied corporate drone).
How about Natacha Atlas? Linda? Nome? Garmarna? Blowzabella? Most of these I had never even heard of before I found them on usenet, and ALL of them I find infinitely more listenable than most of the US domestic stuff I have heard in ages. The domestic stuff I want (Bjork, Luscious Jackson, heart, led zepp, pink floyd and the other 70's "classic" bands, cranes, siouxsie, pil and other punks of the 80's) I already bought AT LEAST once - no way am I gona pay a buck a track for the "priviledge" of downloading tracks of lower quality than those I can get free while supporting the same crooks that have been corrupting "the industry" (at least) since I was a kid.
And that's most important of all: giving money to itunes means giving money to the RIAA. If Neil Young sets up a tipjar where I can send him ten bucks I'll happily dip into paypal. But he won't be doing that anytime soon, because that would violate his "exclusive" contract with his label. The goal of anyone who values this medium should be to avoid, at every turn, feeding more dollars into any corporate lobbying machine that thinks nothing of suing young college students for operating a goddamn search engine.
No one harping on the evils of plastic bags seems aware that so many of these "useless" plastic bags are now made from a corn starch blend that allows them to break down quickly in the rain or sun.
Banning these thin, useless bags seems rather stupid . The "better" thicker bags will NOT break down like the thin corn starch bags, which will just make the problem worse. Seems more logical to require ALL shopping bags be of the corn starch variety. Or, better still, require all shopping sacks to be of cloth or nylon webbing; I myself have two shopping bags that have lasted years. If shoppers have to spend a dollar or two on their shopping sacks, they likely won't be throwing them on the side of the road.
Of course, I still collect paper bags - they're great for cooking (ie dump greasy fried torillas in them and shake to clean away the oil, use as shakers for breading chicken and seafood, etc). And once they're oil impregnated they'll keep the tortillas crispy for a few days. When done, toss'em in the recycling heap and use'em for next year's plant food.
What? No compost heap?
Maybe if more African nations invested some energy in composting they would actually rebuild enough soil to grow some damn food. Banning all plastic bags might be a good step in that direction.
I have all that now with a $10 a month usenet account. I point my web browser at their handy interface, browse for files I want (or do a global search of everything posted to usenet in the last 28 days) and click on what looks interesting. The quality will instantly be apparent to me, as the second it begins downloading I can "preview" the file in winamp. if the file sucks (low bitrate, bad rip) it's no problem at all to delete the download from the queue in my download manager. All in all it takes LESS time than visiting a "store" AND I have all the bandwidth I can muster (not hard when you view the e-world through two dixie cups and a string).
"Do the right thing?" Far as I'm concerned "the right thing" is putting the RIAA out of business as soon as possible. damn skippy I "do the right thing" - they'll never get another penny from me; I done bought my last copy of Sergeant Pepper's.
But that was my point: using internet storage for personal info is a lame idea (at least until there's an open "paladium" platform that can be reasonably trusted). Having a backpack server that keeps all my info handy in an encrypted partition would be very handy - especially since it could communicate with that ipod or whatever else I wanted to carry.
People have been coming out with swiss army computers for years and they inevitably fail. If I want a phone I want something that's comfy in my hand and doesn't require me to operate a dozen buttons before I can even dial the number.
So far as having tunes in an ipod - think about this: there's little real differnce between this and an ipod except for the i/o. A server only appliance with bluetooth (type) connectivity could communicate with a "diskless ipod" - that means instead of spending $400 for a new music gadget you spend $100 PLUS the server. Seems like less of a value? Not to those of us who would like to enjoy higher quality sound with our primo earbuds. Not to those of us who would like to use the device at home. And I get to choose the security on my data and I get to choose the interface.
That's a great point, except for a few little details that kill it.
1) Where is this data stored online? Microsoft? Slashdot? Geocities? I dunno about you, but I have quite a lot of personal stuff that I might like to access away from home, and so far nobody I trust is offering free gigs of bandwidth and storage.
2) I'm on dialup. Where I live there's not going to be broadband for sometime, if ever. I could travel a few miles to the library and make use of their bandwidth, but that just means carrying along CDs to upload to someplace when I could just as easily carry a "brick" and not have to upload anything at all.
3) Even on dialup I'm behind a personal firewall. Even if you wee dumb enough to trust geocities or Microsoft with your personal info, are you gonna trust them to keep it safe from crackers, hackers and spammers?
I tried reading this artcile, but couldn't get through it, because, the writing is, so, tedious.
It's great, that technology allows us all to communicate, with one another, but, it's a trajedy, the more trafficked websites, don't seem to care enough, to perform even basic grammatical editing, before publishing a story.
OK moron, why don't you quote the part where I said I postanything at all?
"Chant" or no, you seem incapable of realizing the inference - that is, the difference between me downloading music I already fucking bought and me (or anyone) uploading music I don't own.
One of these things I do. The other I don't. You are obviously incapable of understanding this, but there it is one last time on the off chance your linguistic skills have realized a radical improvement in the last 24 hours.
This post (and most of those nodding along with it in agreement) are stupidly shortsighted. You don't need a million dollar studio to record "sound" - listen to Bjork or Linda to hear some of the best of what's possible (And yes, Bjork uses a studio - but Linda's "studio" is her living room and Vorona is as high quality a recording as anything produced in Hollywood or Memphis). No one said The Downward Spiral sounds like shit because so much of it was produced with a Mac in someone's home studio.
Twenty years ago Lene Lovich recorded an album in the bottom of a giant copper boiler because of the unique sound. And Lenny Kravitz still records much of his stuff with an old tube Ampex 4-track very similar to the 2 track I bought for $35. Doesn't mean all of it can't be properly mixed with a modern digital console; like any instrument, what matters is knowing what you're doing. If the people producing contemporary pop don't have this knowledge, that ain't the fault of the tool maker - it's the fault of the sheep that continue to support the industry by buying the crap.
I make perfect sense - you simply are not reading what I am saying. You are, instead, reading what you wish to read from my comments.
Joe gearhead posts "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" to a newsgroup. I download "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" FROM that newsgroup. Where have I made anything at all publicly available?
More importantly, how have I even infringed copyright? I already purchased "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" - thrice, in fact: on 8 track, LP, and CD.
the RIAA is in deep shit because those old farts like me, who have bought the same goddamn music on three or four formats, no longer have to do it. My MFSL print of Dreamboat Annie is but a wall decoration now, and the CD version sounds like shit; might as well enjoy the MP3 and call it a day. And I really don't need "pristine CD quality" to enjoy the Sex Pistols and the Dead Kennedys.
But I'll burn in hell before I buy a fifth copy of "Sgt. Pepper's."
Zen Fascists will control you
100% natural
You will jog for the master race
And always wear the happy face
Close your eyes, can't happen here
Big Bro on white horse is near
The hippies won't come back you say
Mellow out or you will pay...
You making the tracks available for anyone to download is a violation of copyright, just as if you photocopy a book and leave it for anyone to take and read.
You're obviously not paying attention at all. Where did I say I have made ANYTHING available for download?
You need to pay more attention in computer science class. Obviously you don't know the difference between uploading a file and downloading a file. Have you even heard of USENET?
As an indie label I support all the actions against the thieves.
And as a free thinking individual living (sorta) in the real world, I fully support your further alienating potential customers by calling them names. And I also fully support these actions by the RIAA - the sooner they piss everyone off, the sooner we hear that final death rattle from the dinosaurs.
For instance, to make a great album we spend around $10,000 per track.
Well, if I even believed your bullshit about being "in the industry" I'd laugh loudly at your numbers - but since I don't, I'll just laugh loudly at your lame grasp for credibility.
Come to think of it... with your apparently abyssmal knowledge of networking, your inability to respond to a point of fact, your divisive language and complete oblivion to concepts about fair use in a modern society, I might almost believe you really are in the entertainment industry...
Apparently you are confused about the difference between upload and download.
If I put a gun to somone's head and pulled the trigger I'd be a murderer. But golly... I never did that, either, so I'm not. Nor am I a thief, nor a pirate.
You want a picture of the CD jackets?
How many times do I have to buy "Sgt. Peppers" in order to be able to listen to it?
AND, it's not "the artists right." It's not "the artists" filing these lawsuits, because it's not "the artist's" music anymore - they SOLD IT to the record company. It's THE RECORD COMPANY's "right" to distribute, not the artist. Fact: they couldn't SELL you their music themselves even if they wanted to, unless THEY sold you recordings they themselves "bought" from their label. The reason no artists have online "tip jars" for people who download their music is because that would constitute an endorsement of (what the RIAA calls) piracy. The artists have no more "right" to distribute their own music than you or I.
If there were no record companies THEN you might actually have a point...and I'm gonna do all I can to see that happen.
The problem is students often have student loans. And you can't declare bankruptcy if you have outstanding student loans.
So, I suppose we could help them pay off those loans so they could then file for bankruptcy... but it owuld make a lot more sense just to pay off the fine for them.
Golly, I wonder why their website seems to be down (again?)
Every time I see stuff like this I laugh. The record industry is So incredibly fucked.
I quit buying CDs two years ago and left them all behind when I moved; I just about have replaced every CD I ever owned with MP3s downloaded from usenet, and my collection is more diverse than at any time since my teens - with music from France, Russia (lotsa russian stuff), Spain, Mexico...
At least Hollywood has the movie studios to save it; I can see Nashville in 2020 now... hmmm, it looks a lot like Detroit in the 80's.
Re:Double density floppy anyone?
on
High Density CDs
·
· Score: 1
At least I can buy a DVD RAM (or DVD-R or DVD+R) drive from a variety of sources.
So... I can buy a 1.2GB (nonstandard) drive using old tech for $240, or I can buy a (standard) 4.7GB drive using new(er) tech for just a little more than HALF THAT PRICE. (Computer geeks currently lists a NEW Toshiba DVD RAM drive for $139, and NEW Pioneer and NEC DVD-R drives still cheaper than this quaint plextor hack.)
With every p2p, usenet and chat client. It's uncannily easy to get first-run films even before they are released to theaters; older films and TV shows are exchanged in IRC and usenet "rooms" of all flavors. Many of these are very high quality - I still recall how floored I was the first time I watched the copy of "Fight Club" I downloaded, and also how floored I was when I realized the usenet-ized copy of "Sleepy Hollow" was, despite the apparent problems with an amateurish encode, still of higher quality than the version running on PPV cable.
Didn't stop me from buying "Fight club" on DVD, nor did it stop me from picking up "Sleepy Hollow" when I found it in the bargain bin. Many DVD rips traded in usenet are of much higher quality than the crap DirecTV broadcasts - so what? DirecTV has more convenience, and DVDs have higher quality. I have no qualms about collecting stuff sqirreled away from usenet, but that's still not going to stop me from picking up what I *really* like on DVD.
The studios are absolutely NOT holding back PPV internet - no more than the RIAA is "holding back" internet based distribution. These services are going to continue with or without "the industry."
I live in a rural community that doesn't even have cable. the cable TV line runs right by us, but no one around here is willing to pay for the up-front costs of connecting the town. And with 7 miles of copper between us and the nearest pop, ain't no DSL, either. But I can buy or rent a movie at any of a dozen places within a fifteen minute drive.
I can pay three bucks to watch a shit quality stream from DirecTV, or I can go rent the DVD for the same price and, while I'm at it, either rip it myself or pony up just a few more dollars and have a "perfect copy" forever.
I have their first US video release "ALL the things she said" right here on DVD. It was purchased at the Virgin megastore in Hollywood, and guess how much it cost?
three bucks.
The CD is still twenty bucks, but I don't really care since I already had it on MP3 and, if I'm not gonna pay Neil Young, I'm SURE not gonna pay these two.
As a matter of fact, the local NBC affiliate is owned by the same group that owns the local FOX affiliate.
And this in a town of a few thousand in a tiny market (NE Mississippi). And the local CBS affiliate recently started running UPN on one of its alternate DTV transponders. We have a granfd total of five local stations - four if you don't count PBS (I mean "etv"). Those four are owned by only two companies - and one of the companies insists it won't go digital, which means in just a couple more years we're going to have all of three local stations with only ONE company (the CBS/UPN affiliate) controlling ALL the local news. Even the mayor of the damn town used to be one of their news anchors!
And everything to do with culture. If you are invading a planet, where do you hide while infiltrating their species? You hide in the form of the dumbest animals in direct contact with the species. Dogs and cats are no good since they are either pets or pests. Cows are the perfect form because they are in direct contact with humans, yet live in remote rural areas where anyone talking about space ship traffic will not be credulous.
If aliens are among us, why are we not finding dead aliens washed up on our shores? Why have we never found a dead alien?
Well, duh - you overlook the obvious: WE HAVE!
Why isn't blood involved in these "cattle mutilations?" Because these vampire cows don't have blood! These are the very bodies you are saying we never see! Why don't vultures feast on the carcass? Because these alien bodies are inedible! Even animals know better than to eat poisonous carrion, so they avoid these rotting space aliens like the plague they have become.
Why do you think these bodies are always showing up in some poor farmer's field? Because UFOs never fly into highly populated areas! These space alien vampire cows avoid contact with human society as much as possible, so when an accident does happen it inevitably involves a body or two rotting away in an unpopulated farmer's field.
Fools. The obvious answer to all your skepticism has been right before you all this time, and not one of you "enlightened" souls has had the sense to realize the obvious...
Slashdot Mirror
It's a very cool idea, but I'm wondering why they didn't mention these issues. Is it an unmentioned limitation of the technology, or a limitation of the Economist's journalistic scope?
Your list is stupid - listening too much to Geoff Goldblum, I see. Honestly, the way so many mac users seem to be mindless drones for the jobs machine is what keeps me from even considering a mac - just as I avoid all cults.
Example: itunes "preview": click for 30 second "preview." Waste precious bandwidth (important for modem users) downloading crap that will be thrown away.
My way: download the file I want. The only difference is I have to be proactive to stop the download, you have to be proactive and download (30 seconds of) the same song twice.
Most of the music I download is 256kbps or better MP3. More importantly, most of it is NOT same-as-the-others crap you find in domestic distribution. This afternoon I downloaded Goldfrapp's latest "Black Cherry" - can you even get Goldfrapp at ye olde itunes shoppe? (I went there to see for myself, but apparently you can't even browse the catalog unless you've already become an apple-fied corporate drone).
How about Natacha Atlas? Linda? Nome? Garmarna? Blowzabella? Most of these I had never even heard of before I found them on usenet, and ALL of them I find infinitely more listenable than most of the US domestic stuff I have heard in ages. The domestic stuff I want (Bjork, Luscious Jackson, heart, led zepp, pink floyd and the other 70's "classic" bands, cranes, siouxsie, pil and other punks of the 80's) I already bought AT LEAST once - no way am I gona pay a buck a track for the "priviledge" of downloading tracks of lower quality than those I can get free while supporting the same crooks that have been corrupting "the industry" (at least) since I was a kid.
And that's most important of all: giving money to itunes means giving money to the RIAA. If Neil Young sets up a tipjar where I can send him ten bucks I'll happily dip into paypal. But he won't be doing that anytime soon, because that would violate his "exclusive" contract with his label. The goal of anyone who values this medium should be to avoid, at every turn, feeding more dollars into any corporate lobbying machine that thinks nothing of suing young college students for operating a goddamn search engine.
Banning these thin, useless bags seems rather stupid . The "better" thicker bags will NOT break down like the thin corn starch bags, which will just make the problem worse. Seems more logical to require ALL shopping bags be of the corn starch variety. Or, better still, require all shopping sacks to be of cloth or nylon webbing; I myself have two shopping bags that have lasted years. If shoppers have to spend a dollar or two on their shopping sacks, they likely won't be throwing them on the side of the road.
Of course, I still collect paper bags - they're great for cooking (ie dump greasy fried torillas in them and shake to clean away the oil, use as shakers for breading chicken and seafood, etc). And once they're oil impregnated they'll keep the tortillas crispy for a few days. When done, toss'em in the recycling heap and use'em for next year's plant food.
What? No compost heap?
Maybe if more African nations invested some energy in composting they would actually rebuild enough soil to grow some damn food. Banning all plastic bags might be a good step in that direction.
I have all that now with a $10 a month usenet account. I point my web browser at their handy interface, browse for files I want (or do a global search of everything posted to usenet in the last 28 days) and click on what looks interesting. The quality will instantly be apparent to me, as the second it begins downloading I can "preview" the file in winamp. if the file sucks (low bitrate, bad rip) it's no problem at all to delete the download from the queue in my download manager. All in all it takes LESS time than visiting a "store" AND I have all the bandwidth I can muster (not hard when you view the e-world through two dixie cups and a string).
"Do the right thing?" Far as I'm concerned "the right thing" is putting the RIAA out of business as soon as possible. damn skippy I "do the right thing" - they'll never get another penny from me; I done bought my last copy of Sergeant Pepper's.
But that was my point: using internet storage for personal info is a lame idea (at least until there's an open "paladium" platform that can be reasonably trusted). Having a backpack server that keeps all my info handy in an encrypted partition would be very handy - especially since it could communicate with that ipod or whatever else I wanted to carry.
People have been coming out with swiss army computers for years and they inevitably fail. If I want a phone I want something that's comfy in my hand and doesn't require me to operate a dozen buttons before I can even dial the number.
So far as having tunes in an ipod - think about this: there's little real differnce between this and an ipod except for the i/o. A server only appliance with bluetooth (type) connectivity could communicate with a "diskless ipod" - that means instead of spending $400 for a new music gadget you spend $100 PLUS the server. Seems like less of a value? Not to those of us who would like to enjoy higher quality sound with our primo earbuds. Not to those of us who would like to use the device at home. And I get to choose the security on my data and I get to choose the interface.
That's a great point, except for a few little details that kill it.
1) Where is this data stored online? Microsoft? Slashdot? Geocities? I dunno about you, but I have quite a lot of personal stuff that I might like to access away from home, and so far nobody I trust is offering free gigs of bandwidth and storage.
2) I'm on dialup. Where I live there's not going to be broadband for sometime, if ever. I could travel a few miles to the library and make use of their bandwidth, but that just means carrying along CDs to upload to someplace when I could just as easily carry a "brick" and not have to upload anything at all.
3) Even on dialup I'm behind a personal firewall. Even if you wee dumb enough to trust geocities or Microsoft with your personal info, are you gonna trust them to keep it safe from crackers, hackers and spammers?
It's great, that technology allows us all to communicate, with one another, but, it's a trajedy, the more trafficked websites, don't seem to care enough, to perform even basic grammatical editing, before publishing a story.
Grrr.
ROTFL. Good one, trollboy.
"Chant" or no, you seem incapable of realizing the inference - that is, the difference between me downloading music I already fucking bought and me (or anyone) uploading music I don't own.
One of these things I do. The other I don't. You are obviously incapable of understanding this, but there it is one last time on the off chance your linguistic skills have realized a radical improvement in the last 24 hours.
Get it yet, trollboy?
troll, troll, troll your post...
You mean "the indistry" that's going down like the titanic?
Whose problem is that?
Too bad you still don't understand the difference between posting and fetching.
Twenty years ago Lene Lovich recorded an album in the bottom of a giant copper boiler because of the unique sound. And Lenny Kravitz still records much of his stuff with an old tube Ampex 4-track very similar to the 2 track I bought for $35. Doesn't mean all of it can't be properly mixed with a modern digital console; like any instrument, what matters is knowing what you're doing. If the people producing contemporary pop don't have this knowledge, that ain't the fault of the tool maker - it's the fault of the sheep that continue to support the industry by buying the crap.
Techno is new age punk.
Joe gearhead posts "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" to a newsgroup. I download "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" FROM that newsgroup. Where have I made anything at all publicly available?
More importantly, how have I even infringed copyright? I already purchased "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" - thrice, in fact: on 8 track, LP, and CD.
the RIAA is in deep shit because those old farts like me, who have bought the same goddamn music on three or four formats, no longer have to do it. My MFSL print of Dreamboat Annie is but a wall decoration now, and the CD version sounds like shit; might as well enjoy the MP3 and call it a day. And I really don't need "pristine CD quality" to enjoy the Sex Pistols and the Dead Kennedys.
But I'll burn in hell before I buy a fifth copy of "Sgt. Pepper's."
Great music doesn't have to come from the US, or even an RIAA member.
And it damn sure doesn't have to cost ten grand a track to produce quality music. I doubt Jonatha spent that much to produce the DVD!
Zen Fascists will control you
100% natural
You will jog for the master race
And always wear the happy face
Close your eyes, can't happen here
Big Bro on white horse is near
The hippies won't come back you say
Mellow out or you will pay...
California Uber Alles
Uber Alles California...
As an indie label I support all the actions against the thieves.
And as a free thinking individual living (sorta) in the real world, I fully support your further alienating potential customers by calling them names. And I also fully support these actions by the RIAA - the sooner they piss everyone off, the sooner we hear that final death rattle from the dinosaurs.
For instance, to make a great album we spend around $10,000 per track. Well, if I even believed your bullshit about being "in the industry" I'd laugh loudly at your numbers - but since I don't, I'll just laugh loudly at your lame grasp for credibility.
Come to think of it... with your apparently abyssmal knowledge of networking, your inability to respond to a point of fact, your divisive language and complete oblivion to concepts about fair use in a modern society, I might almost believe you really are in the entertainment industry...
"Put" what up?
Apparently you are confused about the difference between upload and download.
If I put a gun to somone's head and pulled the trigger I'd be a murderer. But golly... I never did that, either, so I'm not. Nor am I a thief, nor a pirate.
You want a picture of the CD jackets?
How many times do I have to buy "Sgt. Peppers" in order to be able to listen to it?
AND, it's not "the artists right." It's not "the artists" filing these lawsuits, because it's not "the artist's" music anymore - they SOLD IT to the record company. It's THE RECORD COMPANY's "right" to distribute, not the artist. Fact: they couldn't SELL you their music themselves even if they wanted to, unless THEY sold you recordings they themselves "bought" from their label. The reason no artists have online "tip jars" for people who download their music is because that would constitute an endorsement of (what the RIAA calls) piracy. The artists have no more "right" to distribute their own music than you or I.
If there were no record companies THEN you might actually have a point...and I'm gonna do all I can to see that happen.
Just for you...
If that's really the message this would send, put me down for ten bucks.
It's a free market economy. The sooner they go the way of the buggywhip the better off we'll all be.
The problem is students often have student loans. And you can't declare bankruptcy if you have outstanding student loans.
So, I suppose we could help them pay off those loans so they could then file for bankruptcy... but it owuld make a lot more sense just to pay off the fine for them.
Can you say "troll?" Sure... I knew ya could...
Every time I see stuff like this I laugh. The record industry is So incredibly fucked. I quit buying CDs two years ago and left them all behind when I moved; I just about have replaced every CD I ever owned with MP3s downloaded from usenet, and my collection is more diverse than at any time since my teens - with music from France, Russia (lotsa russian stuff), Spain, Mexico...
At least Hollywood has the movie studios to save it; I can see Nashville in 2020 now... hmmm, it looks a lot like Detroit in the 80's.
At least I can buy a DVD RAM (or DVD-R or DVD+R) drive from a variety of sources.
So... I can buy a 1.2GB (nonstandard) drive using old tech for $240, or I can buy a (standard) 4.7GB drive using new(er) tech for just a little more than HALF THAT PRICE. (Computer geeks currently lists a NEW Toshiba DVD RAM drive for $139, and NEW Pioneer and NEC DVD-R drives still cheaper than this quaint plextor hack.)
Duuuuuhhhh... I wonder which I should choose?
With every p2p, usenet and chat client. It's uncannily easy to get first-run films even before they are released to theaters; older films and TV shows are exchanged in IRC and usenet "rooms" of all flavors. Many of these are very high quality -
I still recall how floored I was the first time I watched the copy of "Fight Club" I downloaded, and also how floored I was when I realized the usenet-ized copy of "Sleepy Hollow" was, despite the apparent problems with an amateurish encode, still of higher quality than the version running on PPV cable.
Didn't stop me from buying "Fight club" on DVD, nor did it stop me from picking up "Sleepy Hollow" when I found it in the bargain bin. Many DVD rips traded in usenet are of much higher quality than the crap DirecTV broadcasts - so what? DirecTV has more convenience, and DVDs have higher quality. I have no qualms about collecting stuff sqirreled away from usenet, but that's still not going to stop me from picking up what I *really* like on DVD.
The studios are absolutely NOT holding back PPV internet - no more than the RIAA is "holding back" internet based distribution. These services are going to continue with or without "the industry."
I live in a rural community that doesn't even have cable. the cable TV line runs right by us, but no one around here is willing to pay for the up-front costs of connecting the town. And with 7 miles of copper between us and the nearest pop, ain't no DSL, either. But I can buy or rent a movie at any of a dozen places within a fifteen minute drive.
I can pay three bucks to watch a shit quality stream from DirecTV, or I can go rent the DVD for the same price and, while I'm at it, either rip it myself or pony up just a few more dollars and have a "perfect copy" forever.
So how is VOD gonna compete with that?
I have their first US video release "ALL the things she said" right here on DVD. It was purchased at the Virgin megastore in Hollywood, and guess how much it cost?
three bucks.
The CD is still twenty bucks, but I don't really care since I already had it on MP3 and, if I'm not gonna pay Neil Young, I'm SURE not gonna pay these two.
As a matter of fact, the local NBC affiliate is owned by the same group that owns the local FOX affiliate.
And this in a town of a few thousand in a tiny market (NE Mississippi). And the local CBS affiliate recently started running UPN on one of its alternate DTV transponders. We have a granfd total of five local stations - four if you don't count PBS (I mean "etv"). Those four are owned by only two companies - and one of the companies insists it won't go digital, which means in just a couple more years we're going to have all of three local stations with only ONE company (the CBS/UPN affiliate) controlling ALL the local news. Even the mayor of the damn town used to be one of their news anchors!
And yes, they also own the local newspaper.
And everything to do with culture. If you are invading a planet, where do you hide while infiltrating their species? You hide in the form of the dumbest animals in direct contact with the species. Dogs and cats are no good since they are either pets or pests. Cows are the perfect form because they are in direct contact with humans, yet live in remote rural areas where anyone talking about space ship traffic will not be credulous.
It's the perfect ruse...
If aliens are among us, why are we not finding dead aliens washed up on our shores? Why have we never found a dead alien?
Well, duh - you overlook the obvious: WE HAVE!
Why isn't blood involved in these "cattle mutilations?" Because these vampire cows don't have blood! These are the very bodies you are saying we never see! Why don't vultures feast on the carcass? Because these alien bodies are inedible! Even animals know better than to eat poisonous carrion, so they avoid these rotting space aliens like the plague they have become.
Why do you think these bodies are always showing up in some poor farmer's field? Because UFOs never fly into highly populated areas! These space alien vampire cows avoid contact with human society as much as possible, so when an accident does happen it inevitably involves a body or two rotting away in an unpopulated farmer's field.
Fools. The obvious answer to all your skepticism has been right before you all this time, and not one of you "enlightened" souls has had the sense to realize the obvious...
COWS ARE ALIEN VAMPIRES FROM OUTER SPACE