That may have been a bit of an exaggeration. But, DVDs. I'm looking at the basic cost of replication and packaging. Googling "DVD replication" yields a bunch of companies who all seem to be around $2 or less per disc. Even factoring in the cost of some fancier package and marketing, i think the markup (going just by what I've observed in retail stores, $30 dvds) is ridiculous.
I would love to see a breakdown of that pricing with solid numbers backing up this "burden" that piracy is putting on the shoulders of Americans... especially versus the obscene amount of hype and glitz that often surround quite mediocre offerings.
from tfa, Ashcroft: "The theft of intellectual property victimizes not only its owners and their employees, but also the American people, who shoulder the burden of increased costs for goods and services."
What about the big entertainment companies' "victimizing" the American people by charging $30 for something that costs $1 to produce? What about the cost of entry for talented individuals into the world of professional entertainment being so enormous that it banks on people being brainwashed into longing for human-manufactured super-star gods (rather than actual talent or substance of real everyday people)?
I think these are more direct causes of the "cost burden" that mainstream entertainment causes the American people to "shoulder." The people who aren't aware yet of entertainment alternatives such as independent film or local music are not simply getting stuff for free because they can. They are getting the stuff because it isn't, and has never been, available for a fair price. But they are so hooked on mainstream entertainment, like it's crack, that they can't resist.
I think the most detrimental thing to society is when the average person takes up a "cause" to "prove something" and is blind to the fact that they are no good at what they're trying to do. This is a generalization that I think can apply to any situation. As it pertains to this discussion, if a woman is simply out to prove that she's good at math by pursuing a career in math, and she's not really any good at math at all, but people are afraid to point that out because of her "cause," that's not good.
We constantly seem to lose sight of pursuing what we enjoy and are good at when we're trying so hard to take up causes and prove things. Go out, kick some ass, and let someone else decide whether or not you've proven anything to the world when the day is done. How other people interpret your life's work is largely irrelevant to your own enjoyment of it and success at it.
I don't see why it's a surprise that Gates takes no real position on the philosophy of IP. His aim is to make money, and one product that his company offers is a method for DRM. This interviewer is sitting there trying to make Gates squirm, and it's rather silly.
To sum up what Gates says: 1) There is a need for DRM that comes from the idea that artists should get paid for what they do. 2) M$ get money to wrap content up in that DRM. 3) See you later, I'm going to buy a few more houses.
Here's the crux of the GM/Patent problem, as referenced by another poster. When you introduce the GM DNA into nature, there's no way really to control natural processes such as wind blowing seeds around, etc. In essence, over time, it is almost inevitable that this "patented" GM stuff will get mixed in with the "natural" stuff, so all of a sudden a farmer is liable for penalties through no fault of his own (not necessarily *forced* but not something he did on purpose). Carry that principle through to all potentially GM life and the issue looks a bit spooky.
>> Additionally, some laws found in those books are not politically correct in the current day and age (men should not sleep with other men, not to fornicate, not to have sex with animals).
Damn, I feel old now. When did screwing animals become polictically correct???!!!
>>Says you, but that's your opinion only. Many people say that they are children.
Those people are founding their opinion on religious beliefs that not everyone shares. I respect your beliefs, but don't legislate them on me.
>>Yes, but "we" allowed that decision to be legal.
And my friend, that is democracy in action, not that it is even the government's right to decide what individuals do with their own bodies to begin with.
>> Let me get this straight: in your ideal world, the innocent should be killed and the guilty should go free? Nice.
First of all, that is illogical hyperbole. Second of all, nice convenient omission of the grandparent's "Love thy enemy" argument. Hypocrisy is what makes uber-religious folk so difficult to understand. The fact is, if you REALLY love life, that love should encompass ALL LIFE. Meaning that waging war should be against your belief, meaning that capital punishment should be against your belief, meaning abortion should be against your belief.
>> not bullshit. It's anybody's business who thinks that killing for perceived convenience has no place in a civilized society
Isn't is killing for convenience to wage war against an enemy to install a new government that paves the way for easier flow of international commerce? Isn't it killing for convenience to execute somebody so that they will never again commit a crime?
How about this biblical reference: Let he without sin cast the first stone. Wakeup call: It is not yours or anybody else's right, privelege, calling, or job to judge other human beings.
This reminds me of the ads they show now before movies in the movie theater: I just paid 9 bucks to watch a movie and now, BEFORE THE 8 ZILLION TRAILERS EVEN, I have to watch television-style ads??? Give me a break! So now I'm gonna pay $50 for a game, then have to watch ADS? Correct me if I'm wrong, but ads have traditionally offset the cost of stuff. So why do the prices AND the number of ads keep rising?
How do we round the corner of convincing people that third-party voting is NOT wasting a vote? The Libertarian ideology makes so much sense; yet, it is the radical difference from the status quo that scares people so much.
So, how can we inject Badnarik into mainstream public debate? How do we get the hard questions in there about the possibility of changing foreign policy vs. how we continually allow this slip into a "police state?" How can we get past the notion of "having to choose the lesser of two evils" to something that actually makes sense for what I perceive as the consciousness of a silent majority of the populace??
It is I think Dutch. It looks like it was shot by a drunk teenager with a VHS camera. I cannot possibly express enough what a disappointment it was to rip open the red envelope and pop the disk in, only to see what I saw.
I have not lost faith in foreign films. But, much like the US after 9/11, I've begun to rethink my foreign policy.
because liberty is not something you trade, period. as an individual conscious human being, your liberty is YOURS; nobody gives it to you, or doles it out when necessary. that we would even consider liberty as a thing to bargain with is an example of a terrible mass mental illness that "civilized" people unknowlingly share and perpetuate.
All right, I listen to Howard and I like him. One thing he accomplishes, if you can get past the actuality of having KKK's Daniel Carver on the air, is to put hateful people like that in the proper context. Hateful people are noisy to an untrained ear, but they are absolute morons when you can hear them interacting with genuine people.
And so we come to the issue of free speech. Protect it. Wherever you are and whatever they are saying. And, if you have kids, treat hateful people the same way you treat the birds and the bees talk. Yes, it does exist, and here is what civilized intelligent people have to say about it.
I'm 31, and I can say only from personal experience that my generation is a lot more open-minded and tolerant than the previous one. Progress. Legislation has no effect on peoples' hatefulness. Eliminating hatefulness is a slow process. Take a look at yourself and your kids; lead by example. Teach peace.
a few albums have begun creeping upward. Aerosmith's newest was priced at $11.99 last week, while rock-guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani's new release was $14.99
This goes right to the heart of why the RIAA and the music industry as a whole are so evil. C'mon, $11.99? $14.99? Those are CD prices! At least CDs are physical copies that took *time* to reproduce! Digital copies cost next to nothing to reproduce, and take little to no time to make.
Soooo... What the hell? They're going to start "price tiering??" I mean, you can blah blah blah all you want about how that's capitalism, etc., but this seems outright criminal. It is basically telling people, "You may as well either stick with P2P, or get off your ass and get to Wal-Mart and buy the real CD, because you ain't gettin' a discount here."
The thing that baffles me is, why all of a sudden does everyone in the seem to have the urgent, pressing need to be in telephone contact with everyone at all times? When did people all of a sudden aquire such important agendas that it is necessary to be either staring at the crappy cell phone display, or walking with the damn thing attached to their heads?
The answer is simple: They DON'T have anything urgent or important 99% of the time. Cell phones fill in gaps of time where people might stop and think, or relax. Like walking through the city back to the train. Relaxing on the bus ride home.
This is why cell phones are annoying. Far be it for me to personally decide what's important to others, but cell phone users, you must ask yourselves: "Is it really necessary for me to be talking on the phone right now?"
The test would be, "Is this a life or death situation?" or "If my wife doesn't know that I'm one train station away, will she file for divorce?" If the answer is "yes," then you should probably throw your cell phone and run.
This reminds me of a couple of guys who commissioned me to do an html-based soccer strategy CD-ROM. There was this hot-shot soccer coach that had given us an outline of the contents, but with no detail. His face on the product would evidently sell this thing like mad.
I finally got to a point where I had the structure and the design and everything, and was like "Okay, did the coach give you the content?" They said he was out of the country and gave me a competitor CD-ROM to "see if I got any ideas from it." I took it, and looked at it, and whatever. Then a day or two later I asked again about the coach. Still no dice.
After about a week, it became obvious that they just wanted me to copy the contents off of the competitor's CD-ROM! I told them I wouldn't do that. It ended there; I think they figured I would be dumb and not point out that copying the contents was illegal, so they were surprised I said anything.
At least they paid me; I'm not even sure what ever happened to that whole thing.
They were caught by a joint investigation of the Federal Bureau of investigation, Welsh police, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Internet security consultants.
Is it not badass, getting arrested by a dude in red driving a moose?? Or is it all the Molsons I've been housing?
Wasn't anyone else impressed with the _real_ breakthrough: Styrofoam that generates brain waves!!! Think of all the effort those guys must have gone through to create that styrofoam head just to _begin_ developing that kind of video game controller!
Tried it. I am using IE, Win2000, corporate LAN, and I got this:
We have detected that your system is missing one or more of the requi rements in order to view this demo.
Click here to see a list of requirements and troubleshooting tips for this demo.
Feel free to contact us with any questions or additional help in viewing the demo at: videocommercial@unicast.com.
Looking at the list, it appears that I meet all of the requirements. The only other thing that--for some reason--is not listed on the requirements page, is that I have my privacy setting on "high," and I blocked a cookie from the site... Oh well.
All I hear when people start talking about TV shows is emptiness and sadness.
It isn't necessarily because what they watch sucks. It is because of the bland reality they are living. Having nothing else to talk about. I'm not a snob; I won't wield the "I'M SOOOOOOO INTELLIGENT AND YOU BOOOORE ME" argument (which is what people immediately think of you when you tell them you don't watch tv). I just want to hear about something real. Do people have hobbies anymore? Do they think anymore?
I like life. I don't need to live vicariously through television. TV is all right once in a blue moon. But it is not the be-all end-all of human existence. Yet somehow, in this culture of ours, it has snuck into our top needs right under air, water, and food!
Slashdot Mirror
That may have been a bit of an exaggeration. But, DVDs. I'm looking at the basic cost of replication and packaging. Googling "DVD replication" yields a bunch of companies who all seem to be around $2 or less per disc. Even factoring in the cost of some fancier package and marketing, i think the markup (going just by what I've observed in retail stores, $30 dvds) is ridiculous.
I would love to see a breakdown of that pricing with solid numbers backing up this "burden" that piracy is putting on the shoulders of Americans... especially versus the obscene amount of hype and glitz that often surround quite mediocre offerings.
from tfa, Ashcroft: "The theft of intellectual property victimizes not only its owners and their employees, but also the American people, who shoulder the burden of increased costs for goods and services."
What about the big entertainment companies' "victimizing" the American people by charging $30 for something that costs $1 to produce? What about the cost of entry for talented individuals into the world of professional entertainment being so enormous that it banks on people being brainwashed into longing for human-manufactured super-star gods (rather than actual talent or substance of real everyday people)?
I think these are more direct causes of the "cost burden" that mainstream entertainment causes the American people to "shoulder." The people who aren't aware yet of entertainment alternatives such as independent film or local music are not simply getting stuff for free because they can. They are getting the stuff because it isn't, and has never been, available for a fair price. But they are so hooked on mainstream entertainment, like it's crack, that they can't resist.
I think the most detrimental thing to society is when the average person takes up a "cause" to "prove something" and is blind to the fact that they are no good at what they're trying to do. This is a generalization that I think can apply to any situation. As it pertains to this discussion, if a woman is simply out to prove that she's good at math by pursuing a career in math, and she's not really any good at math at all, but people are afraid to point that out because of her "cause," that's not good.
We constantly seem to lose sight of pursuing what we enjoy and are good at when we're trying so hard to take up causes and prove things. Go out, kick some ass, and let someone else decide whether or not you've proven anything to the world when the day is done. How other people interpret your life's work is largely irrelevant to your own enjoyment of it and success at it.
I don't see why it's a surprise that Gates takes no real position on the philosophy of IP. His aim is to make money, and one product that his company offers is a method for DRM. This interviewer is sitting there trying to make Gates squirm, and it's rather silly.
To sum up what Gates says: 1) There is a need for DRM that comes from the idea that artists should get paid for what they do. 2) M$ get money to wrap content up in that DRM. 3) See you later, I'm going to buy a few more houses.
"he doesn't even have his license, lisa!!"
Sounds like a bad Alanis Morrisette song.
>>Fortunately I have plenty of books and they don't have a broadcast flag.
Let's just hope Farenheit 451 does not prove to be similarly prophetic.
Here's the crux of the GM/Patent problem, as referenced by another poster. When you introduce the GM DNA into nature, there's no way really to control natural processes such as wind blowing seeds around, etc. In essence, over time, it is almost inevitable that this "patented" GM stuff will get mixed in with the "natural" stuff, so all of a sudden a farmer is liable for penalties through no fault of his own (not necessarily *forced* but not something he did on purpose). Carry that principle through to all potentially GM life and the issue looks a bit spooky.
>> Additionally, some laws found in those books are not politically correct in the current day and age (men should not sleep with other men, not to fornicate, not to have sex with animals).
Damn, I feel old now. When did screwing animals become polictically correct???!!!
>>Says you, but that's your opinion only. Many people say that they are children.
Those people are founding their opinion on religious beliefs that not everyone shares. I respect your beliefs, but don't legislate them on me.
>>Yes, but "we" allowed that decision to be legal.
And my friend, that is democracy in action, not that it is even the government's right to decide what individuals do with their own bodies to begin with.
>> Let me get this straight: in your ideal world, the innocent should be killed and the guilty should go free? Nice.
First of all, that is illogical hyperbole. Second of all, nice convenient omission of the grandparent's "Love thy enemy" argument. Hypocrisy is what makes uber-religious folk so difficult to understand. The fact is, if you REALLY love life, that love should encompass ALL LIFE. Meaning that waging war should be against your belief, meaning that capital punishment should be against your belief, meaning abortion should be against your belief.
>> not bullshit. It's anybody's business who thinks that killing for perceived convenience has no place in a civilized society
Isn't is killing for convenience to wage war against an enemy to install a new government that paves the way for easier flow of international commerce? Isn't it killing for convenience to execute somebody so that they will never again commit a crime?
How about this biblical reference: Let he without sin cast the first stone. Wakeup call: It is not yours or anybody else's right, privelege, calling, or job to judge other human beings.
You forgot this classic!
This reminds me of the ads they show now before movies in the movie theater: I just paid 9 bucks to watch a movie and now, BEFORE THE 8 ZILLION TRAILERS EVEN, I have to watch television-style ads??? Give me a break! So now I'm gonna pay $50 for a game, then have to watch ADS? Correct me if I'm wrong, but ads have traditionally offset the cost of stuff. So why do the prices AND the number of ads keep rising?
How do we round the corner of convincing people that third-party voting is NOT wasting a vote? The Libertarian ideology makes so much sense; yet, it is the radical difference from the status quo that scares people so much.
So, how can we inject Badnarik into mainstream public debate? How do we get the hard questions in there about the possibility of changing foreign policy vs. how we continually allow this slip into a "police state?" How can we get past the notion of "having to choose the lesser of two evils" to something that actually makes sense for what I perceive as the consciousness of a silent majority of the populace??
I got this movie called "Italian for Beginners" from Netflix, based on a recommendation.
2 26 77&trkid=73
http://www.netflix.com/MovieDisplay?movieid=600
It is I think Dutch. It looks like it was shot by a drunk teenager with a VHS camera. I cannot possibly express enough what a disappointment it was to rip open the red envelope and pop the disk in, only to see what I saw.
I have not lost faith in foreign films. But, much like the US after 9/11, I've begun to rethink my foreign policy.
because liberty is not something you trade, period. as an individual conscious human being, your liberty is YOURS; nobody gives it to you, or doles it out when necessary. that we would even consider liberty as a thing to bargain with is an example of a terrible mass mental illness that "civilized" people unknowlingly share and perpetuate.
Rubber trees: Gene Simmons, Kiss
All right, I listen to Howard and I like him. One thing he accomplishes, if you can get past the actuality of having KKK's Daniel Carver on the air, is to put hateful people like that in the proper context. Hateful people are noisy to an untrained ear, but they are absolute morons when you can hear them interacting with genuine people.
And so we come to the issue of free speech. Protect it. Wherever you are and whatever they are saying. And, if you have kids, treat hateful people the same way you treat the birds and the bees talk. Yes, it does exist, and here is what civilized intelligent people have to say about it.
I'm 31, and I can say only from personal experience that my generation is a lot more open-minded and tolerant than the previous one. Progress. Legislation has no effect on peoples' hatefulness. Eliminating hatefulness is a slow process. Take a look at yourself and your kids; lead by example. Teach peace.
This goes right to the heart of why the RIAA and the music industry as a whole are so evil. C'mon, $11.99? $14.99? Those are CD prices! At least CDs are physical copies that took *time* to reproduce! Digital copies cost next to nothing to reproduce, and take little to no time to make.
Soooo... What the hell? They're going to start "price tiering??" I mean, you can blah blah blah all you want about how that's capitalism, etc., but this seems outright criminal. It is basically telling people, "You may as well either stick with P2P, or get off your ass and get to Wal-Mart and buy the real CD, because you ain't gettin' a discount here."
The thing that baffles me is, why all of a sudden does everyone in the seem to have the urgent, pressing need to be in telephone contact with everyone at all times? When did people all of a sudden aquire such important agendas that it is necessary to be either staring at the crappy cell phone display, or walking with the damn thing attached to their heads?
The answer is simple: They DON'T have anything urgent or important 99% of the time. Cell phones fill in gaps of time where people might stop and think, or relax. Like walking through the city back to the train. Relaxing on the bus ride home.
This is why cell phones are annoying. Far be it for me to personally decide what's important to others, but cell phone users, you must ask yourselves: "Is it really necessary for me to be talking on the phone right now?"
The test would be, "Is this a life or death situation?" or "If my wife doesn't know that I'm one train station away, will she file for divorce?" If the answer is "yes," then you should probably throw your cell phone and run.
This reminds me of a couple of guys who commissioned me to do an html-based soccer strategy CD-ROM. There was this hot-shot soccer coach that had given us an outline of the contents, but with no detail. His face on the product would evidently sell this thing like mad.
I finally got to a point where I had the structure and the design and everything, and was like "Okay, did the coach give you the content?" They said he was out of the country and gave me a competitor CD-ROM to "see if I got any ideas from it." I took it, and looked at it, and whatever. Then a day or two later I asked again about the coach. Still no dice.
After about a week, it became obvious that they just wanted me to copy the contents off of the competitor's CD-ROM! I told them I wouldn't do that. It ended there; I think they figured I would be dumb and not point out that copying the contents was illegal, so they were surprised I said anything.
At least they paid me; I'm not even sure what ever happened to that whole thing.
IMHO, it's probably not a good idea to have a cow making decisions in a project environment like that.
Is it not badass, getting arrested by a dude in red driving a moose?? Or is it all the Molsons I've been housing?
Wasn't anyone else impressed with the _real_ breakthrough: Styrofoam that generates brain waves!!! Think of all the effort those guys must have gone through to create that styrofoam head just to _begin_ developing that kind of video game controller!
Tried it. I am using IE, Win2000, corporate LAN, and I got this:
We have detected that your system is missing one or more of the requi rements in order to view this demo.
Click here to see a list of requirements and troubleshooting tips for this demo.
Feel free to contact us with any questions or additional help in viewing the demo at: videocommercial@unicast.com.
Looking at the list, it appears that I meet all of the requirements. The only other thing that--for some reason--is not listed on the requirements page, is that I have my privacy setting on "high," and I blocked a cookie from the site... Oh well.
All I hear when people start talking about TV shows is emptiness and sadness.
It isn't necessarily because what they watch sucks. It is because of the bland reality they are living. Having nothing else to talk about. I'm not a snob; I won't wield the "I'M SOOOOOOO INTELLIGENT AND YOU BOOOORE ME" argument (which is what people immediately think of you when you tell them you don't watch tv). I just want to hear about something real. Do people have hobbies anymore? Do they think anymore?
I like life. I don't need to live vicariously through television. TV is all right once in a blue moon. But it is not the be-all end-all of human existence. Yet somehow, in this culture of ours, it has snuck into our top needs right under air, water, and food!