Yup. I'll never forget the first time I clicked play after hooking up my 5.1 surround and widescreen LCD and throwing From Dusk Till Dawn in the DVD player. That was an "aha" moment of realizing that there truly wasn't anything missing from my home viewing environment anymore. To me, it's "nice" to go to the theater once in a while as simply an activity to get out and do something-- arriving 20 minutes late, of course, to skip the ads and trailers.
Your train of thought is interesting, but doesn't address the poster's assertion (which is absolutely true): The constitution is a limitation of government power, NOT a "grant of rights" to the citizens. One of the problems with my fellow US citizens is that they don't know this, and propogate the idea that the "Bill of Rights" enumerates rights of the people.
>> preferred by the low information crowd This is exactly what they're suppressing. Certain stuff is actually trending naturally within the FB discourse, but the curators are suppressing that-- in addition to injecting material that isn't really trending at all. So, whatever the "low information crowd" is discussing, when viewed through the "Trending" filter, is actually "liberal low information crowd" stuff mixed with "FB censors" stuff.
I agree that FB censorship isn't a crime. But it *is* misleading to call a list of news stories "Trending" when stories that are *actually* trending are explicitly excluded; and, when stories that have fallen out of interest with FB users (an therefore are *not* trending) are explicitly injected. It should also be noted that-- regardless of whether or not FB wants to be people's primary news source (which I have a hard time believing)-- the manipulation of the perceived discourse of users is an evil application of peer pressure.
I tried to find the actual verbiage of Prop 1 just now with no luck. So, I'm willing to accept that the question was confusing. However, from all of the news coverage that I was able to dig up, it seems pretty clear that it would be nearly impossible to escape the "spirit" of what the question was and what "yes" and "no" actually meant.
Roku has been offering sports through its platform for a few years now. https://channelstore.roku.com/... I don't think avid TV people do too much serious research about cutting the cable cord unless they really have to. FYI, I've been cable-free (internet only) for 10+ years now, and have noticed the validity of arguments against cutting the cord rapidly diminishing. When I see commericals for Xfinity X1, I actually feel the same way about that as I do about the commericials for "free tv" that are really just selling TV antennae-- disingenuous overselling of underwhelming products. My regular antenna works just fine.;)
My only real exposure to the Apple watch has been reading these types of stories about it, but this is the first time that I noticed their market share. Out of the many entries in the smart watch category, they have more than half? How can that possibly be considered a failure? I have had a first generation Pebble for a while, and really everything that folks write about the Apple watch reminds me of my Pebble experience: It's neat for seeing messages on your wrist, but--after a while-- remembering to charge it in the context of not really being useful has led me to stuff it in the drawer.
If they are trying to pay for something but it isn't available for sale, they aren't really exercising any sense of entitlement. The market has rejected them - and their money - so they are obtaining what they want some other way. There is no indication from this - and if anything counter indication - that they wouldn't pay for it if they could.
So, people should work for free, without compensation? Just because the work is "creative" or "intellectual" does not eliminate the value of it, nor does it entitle you to be able to enjoy it. Money does that. Go buy the DVD if a particular movie is such a necessity for you. Or are DVDs unavailable in Canada?
I don't know whether you've ever owned any Apple products; I presume not. What I was most pleasantly surprised to discover when I got my first Mac (Macbook Pro, 2014) was the gigantic support infrastructure that they have built. Between the Apple stores and perpetual OS upgrades, they have built and are maintaining their business on the notion that computers aren't disposable crap; rather, they are worth fixing, maintaining, and expanding. While their products are pricey, it was pretty clear to me that I wasn't just buying hardware and an OS.
In addition, the integration between my Macbook, iPhone, and AppleTV "just works." I have messed with home networking a little bit, and at one point had an Ubuntu media server hooked into my PC and Roku, running some streaming web apps. The Apple infrastructure achieves everything that I spent hours figuring out in minutes.
I would say that "quality" is the concept that they trade on. Wrapped up in that is the fuzzy stuff like UX, and hipster-ness; but I find that, for the first time with technology, I have a "brand loyalty" that grew naturally, and purely from experience. While I'm certain that Steve Jobs handily navigated Apple on the path that led them to market leadership, I don't sense that his absence has diminished Apple quality. All of the recent innovation and financial talk is just "noteworthy static" within the bigger picture.
The consistency is: Grow up. Your examples (which seem somewhat plausible) are, at best, simplistic and-- while they do showcase silly examples of social-just-gone-too-far-- don't really measure up to the issue at hand. The issue at hand is *institutional discrimination* (that is, discrimination enshrined in law).
If you find your viewpoints being bombarded in ways the you find inconsistent, why not take a look at your own attitude? Are you *really* so confused about this? Here's a hint: Those "feelings" that you think should "matter" are *irrational fears* that are carelessly reaffirmed by religious fearmongerers who love people like you (who naively argue while discussing topics like this, "Who, me? I am the rational one.").
Here's more info on that guy, Paul R. McHugh: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... . Seems that his research frequently nicely supports a religious-right agenda.
>> Copyright "piracy" was defined more than 100 years ago. It's a legal term, and it relates to those who copy and reproduce copyrighted works for profit. 1. Those running piracy sites collect advertising dollars--> profit. 2. Those who download illegal files started with nothing before the download, and end up with a digital file--> profit. I do believe that the definition of "friend" in the context of "p2p sharing" is ambiguous, though. Probably there should be some kind of standard in the law with regard to file sharing that allows for "virtual gathering sharing" or something (e.g. the equivalent of playing a movie or music for a private gathering of people). However, I don't think making copies of copyrighted material available for millions of downloaders would meet that standard.
This. Probably most of the anti-union sentiment in this dicussion was ingrained via lifelong propaganda. I don't think it's a Right/Left thing. In the so-called "whitecollar" world, unions are particularly repulsive because "bluecollar" has such a negative connotation. Why?
It's weird that pro-Windows folks are saying "this isn't so bad," pointing out how easy it is to turn off. Why would my operating system recommend apps in the first place? Others are suggesting that "perhaps I'll find an app that I never would have noticed with these suggestions." When I have a need for functionality, I will actively research apps! Do Windows users really sit around waiting for "surprise apps"?
IMHO, starting with Windows 8, Windows began transforming into a steaming cesspool of unusable crap. Recently, when faced with having to drop some money on a new computer, I switched from Windows to Mac. I'm not a fanboi, but because Windows started to dumb desktops down into the smartphone form factor, I figured: If I have to learn a new UI anyway, why not just switch? Now, I very much appreciate using an unobtrusive OS that lets me load files and run applications, and that also allows me to update the OS when I want to, at no additional cost.
I'm still forced to use Win8 at work (we're completely entangled in Office365 now), and to support my wife's Win8 machine at home, and that is enough Windows for me.
I see lots of people attacking Neil Young's music and "conflict of interest" regarding the Pono player (plus lots of the old Slashdot ignorance reflected in pseudo-scientific knowledge about audio). Here's an objective video that explains the actual science of streaming audio encoding. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I live in the city and take taxis quite often. While traveling for business, my counterparts used Uber exclusively when we went out at night. My conclusion: I didn't notice any difference in the service offered, other than the Uber driver had a mini van rather than a sedan. The wait time seemed comparable to calling a taxi. I'm not sure how you would "hail" an Uber driver, though. Anyway, from a customer's perspective, I am definitely perplexed by the Uber hype.
There are already laws that lay out compensation rules for the use of artists' materials, and no company can ever legally withhold compensation from artists whose music they use.
I sense a lot of ignorance regarding how much work goes into a professionally recorded song. Regardless of whether or not you enjoy the final product, the team that brings professional recordings to the public includes one or more songwriters, recording engineers, producers, mixing engineers, mastering engineers, graphic designers, manufacturers, distribution channels, etc. So yes, a song that you may not like *does* have a production cost associated with it and, yes, the people associated with that song *do* deserve compensation for their work, like any other professional.
This is why/how an "industry" exists behind recorded music nowadays. It is clearly possible for you, with your "good taste in music," who only admires "working musicians," to only attend live shows. Just keep in mind that there is more "work" involved in creating a professional recording than you apparently realize.
As for the songwriter-- without him/her, there wouldn't be anything for those people to work on! Why should songwriters not demand just compensation? And why should there be a limit to the spoils that can be enjoyed by those who helped create songs and recordings of those songs? What if the consumers of $your_product suddenly decided that, because $your_product is so ubiquitously enjoyed by so many people, you should just give $your_product away for free; and, worse, these consumers did nothing but complain whenever you tried to speak up for your right to compensation for providing $your_product?
Yes! A complete signal chain with quality equipment is the best way to get your $whatever sound. I've been writing and recording songs for most of my life, and have been all-digital for many years. By the time I kind of knew what I was doing, I took a step back and re-learned how to listen to music, with the question in my mind, "What the heck is wrong with how *my* stuff sounds vs. classic recordings?" The answer I arrived at was: The absence of analog saturation. All of the old-school analog hardware that all of the old beloved classics are recorded through *add distortion* in the form of the harmonics created by analog saturation. This distortion makes sounds more pleasing to human ears. I had lingered for years under the impression that leveraging the "exactness of digital" was a desirable achievement; but the "color of analog" is the secret audio sauce. So, does vinyl "sound better" than digital? The "science of vinyl" shows that it absolutely cannot match the dynamics of a digital recording. Digital is capable of better stereo imaging; a 26db better dynamic range; and can reproduce a higher frequency bandwidth. Unfortunately, the superior specs of digital recording have been abused since the inception of CDs because of the so-called "loudness wars." Some early digital mastering engineer must have thought, "Thank goodness I don't have to worry about the needle jumping," and subsequently turned everything up to 11, forgetting what "dynamics" is all about. And so, dynamics did, in a sense, vanish from popular digital recordings. If you've only been exposed to digital re-masters that are louder and less dynamic than the original recordings, or contemporary music recorded digitally to be "loud" and "sound good on earbuds," I can see how the limitations of vinyl would represent a "more dynamic" sound to you. The resurgence of vinyl seems-- at best-- a cute and hip marketing ploy to collect something, and "Sound Quality!" is the mantra of the suckers who own lots of vinyl. It's about the analog saturation and dynamics of the recording. And digital can reproduce that better than vinyl. I'd much rather collect music in a medium that sounds best, requires no physical maintenance, and will retain the quality of the recorded material forever, without degradation. Maybe, one day, the loudness wars of the Music Industry will end, and great-sounding (and appropriately saturated) digital music will become the norm and sound awesome through an excellent set of speakers. Or earbuds. Or your little monophonic cell phone speaker.
As a musician, I've been in situations where someone tries out for my band. He has really nice gear, and can play some neat licks. But when it comes to playing an actual song, or even writing a part, it becomes clear that he doesn't really have any talent. He has definitely practiced and acquired some skill (and I'm not claiming to be some kind of prodigy), but I can detect that he isn't "feeling the music" and won't be invited back. TFA seems to summarize a scientific explanation for this type of "band tryout" story. As a parent, I'm mindful of the balance between nurturing my child's perceived innate talent and getting her to try new activities until she can figure out what she likes. Hopefully, what she likes will relate to her innate talent so that she'll thrive rather than struggle.
Look, you can all sit there in your cynical, sarcastic universes, laughing at this poignant initiative; but I, for one, actively welcome the forthcoming Utopia, of which this is just one building block.
Slashdot Mirror
Yup. I'll never forget the first time I clicked play after hooking up my 5.1 surround and widescreen LCD and throwing From Dusk Till Dawn in the DVD player. That was an "aha" moment of realizing that there truly wasn't anything missing from my home viewing environment anymore. To me, it's "nice" to go to the theater once in a while as simply an activity to get out and do something-- arriving 20 minutes late, of course, to skip the ads and trailers.
Your train of thought is interesting, but doesn't address the poster's assertion (which is absolutely true): The constitution is a limitation of government power, NOT a "grant of rights" to the citizens. One of the problems with my fellow US citizens is that they don't know this, and propogate the idea that the "Bill of Rights" enumerates rights of the people.
>> preferred by the low information crowd
This is exactly what they're suppressing. Certain stuff is actually trending naturally within the FB discourse, but the curators are suppressing that-- in addition to injecting material that isn't really trending at all. So, whatever the "low information crowd" is discussing, when viewed through the "Trending" filter, is actually "liberal low information crowd" stuff mixed with "FB censors" stuff.
I agree that FB censorship isn't a crime. But it *is* misleading to call a list of news stories "Trending" when stories that are *actually* trending are explicitly excluded; and, when stories that have fallen out of interest with FB users (an therefore are *not* trending) are explicitly injected.
It should also be noted that-- regardless of whether or not FB wants to be people's primary news source (which I have a hard time believing)-- the manipulation of the perceived discourse of users is an evil application of peer pressure.
I tried to find the actual verbiage of Prop 1 just now with no luck. So, I'm willing to accept that the question was confusing. However, from all of the news coverage that I was able to dig up, it seems pretty clear that it would be nearly impossible to escape the "spirit" of what the question was and what "yes" and "no" actually meant.
Exactly. "Bundles" make me feel the same way. Yuck. Exactly what I don't want. I will only pay for something that I know I will watch, thanks.
https://channelstore.roku.com/...
Roku has been offering sports through its platform for a few years now. ;)
https://channelstore.roku.com/...
I don't think avid TV people do too much serious research about cutting the cable cord unless they really have to. FYI, I've been cable-free (internet only) for 10+ years now, and have noticed the validity of arguments against cutting the cord rapidly diminishing. When I see commericals for Xfinity X1, I actually feel the same way about that as I do about the commericials for "free tv" that are really just selling TV antennae-- disingenuous overselling of underwhelming products. My regular antenna works just fine.
My only real exposure to the Apple watch has been reading these types of stories about it, but this is the first time that I noticed their market share. Out of the many entries in the smart watch category, they have more than half? How can that possibly be considered a failure?
I have had a first generation Pebble for a while, and really everything that folks write about the Apple watch reminds me of my Pebble experience: It's neat for seeing messages on your wrist, but--after a while-- remembering to charge it in the context of not really being useful has led me to stuff it in the drawer.
With the goal of enriching society, not the authors.
Right, so are you going to work for free then?
If they are trying to pay for something but it isn't available for sale, they aren't really exercising any sense of entitlement. The market has rejected them - and their money - so they are obtaining what they want some other way. There is no indication from this - and if anything counter indication - that they wouldn't pay for it if they could.
So, people should work for free, without compensation? Just because the work is "creative" or "intellectual" does not eliminate the value of it, nor does it entitle you to be able to enjoy it. Money does that. Go buy the DVD if a particular movie is such a necessity for you. Or are DVDs unavailable in Canada?
I don't know whether you've ever owned any Apple products; I presume not. What I was most pleasantly surprised to discover when I got my first Mac (Macbook Pro, 2014) was the gigantic support infrastructure that they have built. Between the Apple stores and perpetual OS upgrades, they have built and are maintaining their business on the notion that computers aren't disposable crap; rather, they are worth fixing, maintaining, and expanding. While their products are pricey, it was pretty clear to me that I wasn't just buying hardware and an OS.
In addition, the integration between my Macbook, iPhone, and AppleTV "just works." I have messed with home networking a little bit, and at one point had an Ubuntu media server hooked into my PC and Roku, running some streaming web apps. The Apple infrastructure achieves everything that I spent hours figuring out in minutes.
I would say that "quality" is the concept that they trade on. Wrapped up in that is the fuzzy stuff like UX, and hipster-ness; but I find that, for the first time with technology, I have a "brand loyalty" that grew naturally, and purely from experience. While I'm certain that Steve Jobs handily navigated Apple on the path that led them to market leadership, I don't sense that his absence has diminished Apple quality. All of the recent innovation and financial talk is just "noteworthy static" within the bigger picture.
The consistency is: Grow up. Your examples (which seem somewhat plausible) are, at best, simplistic and-- while they do showcase silly examples of social-just-gone-too-far-- don't really measure up to the issue at hand. The issue at hand is *institutional discrimination* (that is, discrimination enshrined in law).
If you find your viewpoints being bombarded in ways the you find inconsistent, why not take a look at your own attitude? Are you *really* so confused about this? Here's a hint: Those "feelings" that you think should "matter" are *irrational fears* that are carelessly reaffirmed by religious fearmongerers who love people like you (who naively argue while discussing topics like this, "Who, me? I am the rational one.").
Here's more info on that guy, Paul R. McHugh: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... . Seems that his research frequently nicely supports a religious-right agenda.
>> Copyright "piracy" was defined more than 100 years ago. It's a legal term, and it relates to those who copy and reproduce copyrighted works for profit.
1. Those running piracy sites collect advertising dollars--> profit.
2. Those who download illegal files started with nothing before the download, and end up with a digital file--> profit.
I do believe that the definition of "friend" in the context of "p2p sharing" is ambiguous, though. Probably there should be some kind of standard in the law with regard to file sharing that allows for "virtual gathering sharing" or something (e.g. the equivalent of playing a movie or music for a private gathering of people). However, I don't think making copies of copyrighted material available for millions of downloaders would meet that standard.
This. Probably most of the anti-union sentiment in this dicussion was ingrained via lifelong propaganda. I don't think it's a Right/Left thing. In the so-called "whitecollar" world, unions are particularly repulsive because "bluecollar" has such a negative connotation. Why?
It's weird that pro-Windows folks are saying "this isn't so bad," pointing out how easy it is to turn off. Why would my operating system recommend apps in the first place? Others are suggesting that "perhaps I'll find an app that I never would have noticed with these suggestions." When I have a need for functionality, I will actively research apps! Do Windows users really sit around waiting for "surprise apps"?
IMHO, starting with Windows 8, Windows began transforming into a steaming cesspool of unusable crap. Recently, when faced with having to drop some money on a new computer, I switched from Windows to Mac. I'm not a fanboi, but because Windows started to dumb desktops down into the smartphone form factor, I figured: If I have to learn a new UI anyway, why not just switch? Now, I very much appreciate using an unobtrusive OS that lets me load files and run applications, and that also allows me to update the OS when I want to, at no additional cost.
I'm still forced to use Win8 at work (we're completely entangled in Office365 now), and to support my wife's Win8 machine at home, and that is enough Windows for me.
I see lots of people attacking Neil Young's music and "conflict of interest" regarding the Pono player (plus lots of the old Slashdot ignorance reflected in pseudo-scientific knowledge about audio). Here's an objective video that explains the actual science of streaming audio encoding.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I live in the city and take taxis quite often. While traveling for business, my counterparts used Uber exclusively when we went out at night. My conclusion: I didn't notice any difference in the service offered, other than the Uber driver had a mini van rather than a sedan. The wait time seemed comparable to calling a taxi. I'm not sure how you would "hail" an Uber driver, though.
Anyway, from a customer's perspective, I am definitely perplexed by the Uber hype.
There are already laws that lay out compensation rules for the use of artists' materials, and no company can ever legally withhold compensation from artists whose music they use.
I sense a lot of ignorance regarding how much work goes into a professionally recorded song. Regardless of whether or not you enjoy the final product, the team that brings professional recordings to the public includes one or more songwriters, recording engineers, producers, mixing engineers, mastering engineers, graphic designers, manufacturers, distribution channels, etc. So yes, a song that you may not like *does* have a production cost associated with it and, yes, the people associated with that song *do* deserve compensation for their work, like any other professional.
This is why/how an "industry" exists behind recorded music nowadays. It is clearly possible for you, with your "good taste in music," who only admires "working musicians," to only attend live shows. Just keep in mind that there is more "work" involved in creating a professional recording than you apparently realize.
As for the songwriter-- without him/her, there wouldn't be anything for those people to work on! Why should songwriters not demand just compensation? And why should there be a limit to the spoils that can be enjoyed by those who helped create songs and recordings of those songs? What if the consumers of $your_product suddenly decided that, because $your_product is so ubiquitously enjoyed by so many people, you should just give $your_product away for free; and, worse, these consumers did nothing but complain whenever you tried to speak up for your right to compensation for providing $your_product?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt01...
Yes! A complete signal chain with quality equipment is the best way to get your $whatever sound.
I've been writing and recording songs for most of my life, and have been all-digital for many years. By the time I kind of knew what I was doing, I took a step back and re-learned how to listen to music, with the question in my mind, "What the heck is wrong with how *my* stuff sounds vs. classic recordings?" The answer I arrived at was: The absence of analog saturation. All of the old-school analog hardware that all of the old beloved classics are recorded through *add distortion* in the form of the harmonics created by analog saturation. This distortion makes sounds more pleasing to human ears. I had lingered for years under the impression that leveraging the "exactness of digital" was a desirable achievement; but the "color of analog" is the secret audio sauce.
So, does vinyl "sound better" than digital? The "science of vinyl" shows that it absolutely cannot match the dynamics of a digital recording. Digital is capable of better stereo imaging; a 26db better dynamic range; and can reproduce a higher frequency bandwidth. Unfortunately, the superior specs of digital recording have been abused since the inception of CDs because of the so-called "loudness wars." Some early digital mastering engineer must have thought, "Thank goodness I don't have to worry about the needle jumping," and subsequently turned everything up to 11, forgetting what "dynamics" is all about. And so, dynamics did, in a sense, vanish from popular digital recordings. If you've only been exposed to digital re-masters that are louder and less dynamic than the original recordings, or contemporary music recorded digitally to be "loud" and "sound good on earbuds," I can see how the limitations of vinyl would represent a "more dynamic" sound to you.
The resurgence of vinyl seems-- at best-- a cute and hip marketing ploy to collect something, and "Sound Quality!" is the mantra of the suckers who own lots of vinyl. It's about the analog saturation and dynamics of the recording. And digital can reproduce that better than vinyl. I'd much rather collect music in a medium that sounds best, requires no physical maintenance, and will retain the quality of the recorded material forever, without degradation.
Maybe, one day, the loudness wars of the Music Industry will end, and great-sounding (and appropriately saturated) digital music will become the norm and sound awesome through an excellent set of speakers. Or earbuds. Or your little monophonic cell phone speaker.
As a musician, I've been in situations where someone tries out for my band. He has really nice gear, and can play some neat licks. But when it comes to playing an actual song, or even writing a part, it becomes clear that he doesn't really have any talent. He has definitely practiced and acquired some skill (and I'm not claiming to be some kind of prodigy), but I can detect that he isn't "feeling the music" and won't be invited back. TFA seems to summarize a scientific explanation for this type of "band tryout" story.
As a parent, I'm mindful of the balance between nurturing my child's perceived innate talent and getting her to try new activities until she can figure out what she likes. Hopefully, what she likes will relate to her innate talent so that she'll thrive rather than struggle.
Look, you can all sit there in your cynical, sarcastic universes, laughing at this poignant initiative; but I, for one, actively welcome the forthcoming Utopia, of which this is just one building block.