Next thing you know, you'll be talking about memory optimization for Win3.11 with QMM, filtering SAP advertisements on the WAN, or configuring TCP/IP packet drivers so you can use this new Internet program called "Mosaic."
There are measures for IQ, but none that are possible for wisdom. "Wisdom" is like "soul" or "vital essence" that way. Metaphysical rather than physical.
Oh, you mean like Karma? I dunno,/. seems to be able to measure it.
Just use Linux. Linux fixes this. Linux fixes everything! Linux is the answer to all problems. Linux is the solution for all your needs. Linux Linux Linux!!! Surely I will get +5 insightful for being so pro-Linux!
Sales Tax, Gross Receipts Tax, Income Tax, Employee Tax, Capital Gains Tax, Excise Tax, Property Tax, Real Estate Transfer Tax; how many ways our government finds to tax the same money over and over again.
I don't know where you live and work, but I used to work for a major HP/Compaq VAR in the NYC area. For a while we had a major problem shipping notebook computers via a certain three-letter shipping outlet. Someone in the shipper's local transfer station was opening the boxes, taking out the laptop and accessories, replacing them with the equivalent weight in bricks, and then sealing them back up as if they were never opened. This happened on both incoming and outgoing shipments.
Commercial shrink-wrap sealers necessary to make a product look like its never been opened are not cheap in comparison to the price of a hard disk. I think it's much more likely that a store employee stole the hard disk and re-wrapped it using the store's own sealer -- which I'm sure every Best Buy has in their warehouse -- rather than the customer. On top of which, retail stores have insurance to cover big losses and figure a certain amount of theft and fraud into the mark-up on sales. Unless they have some reason to suspect this customer is a repeat offender, their treatment was very short-sighted. I doubt that this customer will ever return to Best Buy when its time to buy that $3,000 HDTV (or the $100 HDMI cable, $120 home theater power filter and all the other overpriced crap BB tries to pile on a sale). And, over time, that will cost BB more than the $100 write-off against taxes that they would have encountered.
Precisely. I fly extensively for work. On flights longer than 5 hours, I get to fly business class. It always gives me a chuckle when I see the check-in attendant attach the big, bold "PRIORITY" tag to my bag. Because I'm always at the airport at least 90 minutes before departure time, my bags are always among the last to come down the chute, PRIORITY tag notwithstanding.
I pay $16.20/month to Optimum Online for equipment ($9.95 for DVR upgrade, $6.03 for the digital tuner box (dual-tuner HDTV 80GB), and $0.22 for the remote). I've had the same equipment without replacement or service calls for three years, for a total cost of about $580.
If I had TiVO I'd have paid more for the hardware plus the monthly TiVO service fee. I feel like I'm still ahead of the game, and prolly will be for another 3-5 years.
The only downside is having to hunt through the vendor's website looking for drivers for all the hardware. And you don't get the vendor specific apps.
But this is a significant obstacle for most people, especially when the OEM doesn't post individual downloads for drivers and utilities. Between the time Dell stopped shipping XP in favor of Vista and then started again, I had to buy a laptop for my son. I got an Inspiron E1505 with Vista Premium. As far as I'm concerned, Vista is a bloated piece of garbage. His 2GHz Core Duo with 2GB RAM ran like a pig and most of his games wouldn't work. Dell didn't offer drivers download at the time, only a recovery disk. So, to put XP Pro on the lappy I had to find OEM drivers for each piece of hardware in the machine. It took over a week (part time). And I've run into the same problem with HP (in fact, they are even worse than Dell in this regard).
But on to the subject at hand. I think the problem is that its hard to justify the value of paying up to $400 (Vista Ultimate retail) for the OS, when a new computer with the OS installed can be bought from Dell for $600. And what do you get for $400? A disk, a key code and a license card; no printed documentation, no free support, no money-back guarantee. It's hard to convince the average computer that a copy of Windows should be any more expensive than, say, a Pirates of the Caribbean DVD. And frankly, I would tend to agree.
Microsoft spends about $6.5-7 Billion annually on R&D. Let's say they have 20 products they actively support and develop (it's more, but I don't feel like doing the research) so that's about $325M per product for R&D per year. The latest episode of Pirates of the Caribbean cost about $300M to produce. When released on DVD, Pirates will retail for $25.00. Add in another $10 for seeing Pirates in the theater, and that's $35.00 "per user."
I realize this is a simplistic view and there's other economic factors involved. But in my mind I can't justify paying 10x more for a copy of Windows Vista than I do for a DVD movie release. The R&D, production, support and other costs just don't add up to being 10x more than producing and distributing a successful movie.
And the proof of this lies in the enterprise licensing market. I work for a very large corporation, more than 100k employees. I am told that, during recent contract negotiations, we got a price of around $100 per user/year for Windows OS, Office Pro, Windows Server User CAL and Software Assurance. That's a far cry from the almost $700 it would cost at retail prices.
That said, I don't pirate Microsoft products. As a Microsoft Partner I get more than enough licenses of all the Microsoft product I use for $300/year. If it weren't for that, I'd probably switch to F/OSS versions of most of the packages I use.
My snot has limited supply too, but it's not worth anything.
Everyone has snot. So supply is not limited unless your snot has special properties that makes it more desirable than everyone else's snot.
Even if your snot was unique, and one can argue that from a DNA perspective, this might be true. There also must be demand. Without any demand, no matter how limited the supply, your snot has no particular value.
But if your snot had some unique and desirable quantity that caused a demand, then your snot would indeed have value. And if demand was sufficient to exceed your supply, then the value would increase until an equilibrium was reached between cost and perceived/actual benefit.
So I suggest you start experimenting with your snot to find it's unique and marketable properties. If nothing else, it gives you an excuse for picking your nose.
A distinction should be made between a website that can't function without client-side scripting, and websites that use it to support various functions but can work without it.
Maybe it's just me, but 30% of the sites I visit won't work at all with Java blocked.
Another 20% are mostly functional but are so broken format-wise as to be nearly unreadable.
5-10% just give a blank page because Flash Player isn't detected.
99% of these sites are hosted in the US by US-based companies advertising to US-based customers, a violation of the rights of persons with vision disabilities, and a potential breach of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It's also, IMHO, a waste of bandwidth, particularly in a country with such poor high-speed broadband deployment.
Fortunately, Slashdot works with scripting disabled, so it is friendly to the blind. In fact, looking at some of the color schemes used for certain categories, being blind might be an advantage, rather than a handicap!
Should we double-guess what Microsoft tells us in their tech notes, and manually check every single patch?
Yes, absolutely! How manual it needs to be depends on your environment. Do you think Microsoft tests patches against Peoplesoft? SAP? Oracle? Sybase? Java? Cognos? Citrix? Etc??? What about the other non-MS apps that keep your business running? The custom ActiveX modules needed for your proprietary order booking system?
how can any end user co. be expected to test out all these on their production networks? How exactly can sysadmins go about checking all these patches themselves?
End users on production networks should be the LAST to see the patches. First, they should go through a quarantined test lab. We use VMWare for that. If that passes, we release via WSUS to our development environment. Every application has an "owner," a person ultimately responsible for the support and maintenance of a particular program, even if it is "off-the-shelf." App owners are also responsible for developing and maintaining a test script that exercises all areas of the app, and running through that script as part of the patch testing process.
After quarantine (24hrs) and app test, (target 48 hrs), we release to pilot networks using WSUS. After two days with the Pilot users without problems, we release to our production WSUS for general roll-out.
If your a publicly-traded company in the USA subject to SOX, or ISO-27002/BS7799(Part 2) or PCI-complaint, or if you deal with personally identifiable information related to financial transactions or healthcare, your generally expected to have documented test processes with evidence of control and review that the processes are being followed. Many large, multinational companies require the same standards of all their partners (consultants, development houses, outsourcing Other businesses might not be legally compelled to do this, but depending on your size and the complexity of your environment, you would be foolish to simply throw out patches to "a few 100 PC's" without a bit of due diligence.
A separate vetting process and a delay of a week is insane IMO - with zero day attacks and little info. to work on - sysadmins are better off doing Automatic Updates.
The insanity is to make sweeping changes to the fundamental foundation of your entire technology infrastructure without so much as even reading the technical notes for possible counter-indications or caveats. Zero-day attacks are mostly due to poor network security at the border. With perimeter and internal firewalls, transparent proxies, email security gateways, antivirus/antispyware, limited user rights and proper administration, the risks associated with virtually any unpatched vulnerability can be reduced to acceptable levels.
As far as I'm concerned, you are a trainwreck looking for a place to happen. I hope that your not one of my company's partners in India.
Not if you have a Motorola RAZR: it's anodized Aluminium, and damn tough if I do say so myself
Not the new ones. I got a new RAZR v3max from Cingular to take advantage of the faster data transfer rates. I am very disappointed both with the build quality and the horrid user interface. Mostly plastic with a thin, etched metal cover. Larger overall size and flimsy hinge. Nothing like the original RAZR except for general shape and keypad.
I gave it to my daughter and switched to blackberry instead.
for %f in (*.avi) do ffmpeg -i "%f" -target dvd -aspect 16x9 "%f.mpg"
If used in a script, change the single "%" to "%%". File extension is not renamed, new extension is concatenated.
You would need to follow-up with something like
ren "*.avi.mpg" "*.mpg"
I don't think the colon will work, might be interpreted as a device name, but i'm not sure. Assuming there's a windows version of ffmpeg, the docs should tell you if an alternate parameter format is required.
I buy the 70% and 100% Cacao bars. You can really taste the cacao beans in the 70% but it's not completely bitter. The 100% takes a bit getting used to...
And here I thought chocolate was a candy, an indulgence, a culinary luxury to be enjoyed for it's own smooth deliciousness. Who knew that I should be conditioning myself to tolerate only pure "Cacau" bars, just as I might do with fish oil, so I can rest smugly in my chocolate snobishness.
But wait, processing the bean discards much of the natural taste and benefit. Better to eat the beans whole, directly from the tree, than to pollute them by the touch of man or machine. This is truly the way of the chocolate elite.
And I hear that chewing the leaves is enjoyable, too. I especially like the leaves!
One notable example is your passport: a photo ID is required to get a passport.
A photo ID is not required to get a US Passport. In fact, it is surprising how little documentation you need to get a US Passport. All you need is a certified Birth Certificate, (or official letter of No Record), and a person who has known you for at least two years and is willing to vouch for your. Ref:.
I know this because my son lost his wallet and all his ID. It was easier to get a US Passport than a new state driver's license. We took his birth certificate to the post office and I signed the voucher as his father. When the Passport arrived we used that, his birth certificate and statement from his bank account to get his driver's license.
It often takes a lot of money to turn those words into a complete album, and that's why the record companies insist on having exclusive distribution rights: so they can make their money back.
Last time I checked, you can't produce, record, edit, manufacture, package, or distribute silence. So, presumably, the words and music are a considerable contribution to "a complete album." And furthermore, the mechanics of turning words and sheet music into a recording that thousands -- hopefully millions -- of consumers will buy begins with the performance of a talented and recognizable group of performing artists and ends with that same group's editing skills and creative vision.
I'm not minimalizing the ongoing investment that music labels make towards marketing, production, distribution, etc. If they pay to produce a particular recording then, by all rights, they are entitled to a fair consideration in return for each and every copy of that recording that is sold, regardless of whether it is on physical media or downloaded from iTunes. But in my mind, fair does in no way approach the 50-80% cut folks claim the labels get today, but I guess that varies by arrangement and is a matter for contracts and agents and lawyers to decide.
Given the complexity of something like DVD, HD-DVD or BluRay it's really to be expected.
So, in other words, it's ok for me to pay $400 for a new, standards-certified, HD-DVD player and then $30.00 each for HD-DVD-labeled movies, but I shouldn't expect them to work together? And because I've probably owned the HD-DVD player for several weeks/months before coming to this sad realization, and because I obviously need to open the shrink wrap on the HD-DVD movie before attempting to play it, I cannot recover any of the money I've paid for this premium, standards-organization-certified, combination of player and media?
Well, at least now that I own the physical media and therefore have legal license to play the movie, I can legally download a working, albeit lower-quality copy off the Internet. Oh wait, that's still illegal.
Eventually, all the crap that the entertainment companies go through to implement copy protection, (a.k.a. DRM), is going to wind up frustrating even the most steadfast consumers of legally-aquired recordings, and they will be driven to pirate downloads as a matter of survival.
I had to explain to them that if your problem is that a web server is slow, the answer isn't to install VMWare server on it, set up two host operating systems, and say, "There! Now I have two web servers."
Better yet, I'll setup one $50k 4x Quad-Core Xeon system with 8GB RAM, 4 NIC's, etc and load up $20k of VMWare ESX and I can easily run 8 Web server instances and get ALMOST the same performance and availability as 8 separate $5k servers. Maybe this makes sense somewhere out 3-4 years based on mangement, power and space costs-savings, but I can't see it.
There are right and wrong applications for virtualization. Don't try to force round pegs into square holes.
For example, the Tesla Roadster. The company uses those high prices to pay back the R&D. Unfortunately (for them) they soon run out of rich people to sell to. They then accept lower profit margins (but higher sales) by selling to the middle class and then the poor, in turn.
So, your saying that I have to buy this car before my less fortunate neighbors can get high speed Internet?
Honey, but I just have to buy that $100,000 electric sportscar. It's the socially-responsible thing for us to do!
I think that anything over 1meg download is considered 'broadband'.
Would it surprise you to know that anything at or above 200kbps download is considered "High Speed" Broadband by the FCC? Reference.
DSL Tech: Here you go sir, all done.
Customer: Great, I can't wait to try out that blazing Internet speed.
Customer: Hey, what gives? This is slow as hell. I can't even watch one live video feed.
DSL Tech: Well what do you expect across 200kbps?
Customer: But I was promised "High Speed Internet" for $29.95/month.
DSL Tech: According to the FCC, this *IS* High Speed Internet.
Customer: But your TV ad said "Guaranteed 500x faster than modem"
DSL Tech: 200kbps *IS* more than 500x faster than a 300 BAUD modem!
Shouldn't the ISPs roll out innovative service in areas where it is likely to catch on, and not areas where it is likely to be unused? I'm all for the ISPs having to commit to/document the speeds they're offering, however. Furthermore, can't you call an ISP and ask if they have service in a certain area at the moment?
Telcos and Cable Companies have, for years, promised faster, cheaper, more innovative and more widespread services in exchange for deregulation, rate increases, and government-approved monopolization. In many cases they have failed to deliver on these promises, instead cherry-picking neighborhoods with high income and all but shunning lower-income and even blue-collar middle income neighborhoods. But through very creative statistical manipulations, they can make their coverage appear on paper to be much better than reality. The last thing they want is for this Emperor to go on parade.
But let's say that telcos are allowed to cherry pick on broadband. Is this such a bad thing? Imagine if we were just deploying the national telephone system today and Bell Telephone was allowed to cherry pick among modern neighborhoods. Would they invest in communities that could afford to pay the top rate and subscribe to all the optional features? Of course they would. But then would they invest in communities where even basic service might be unaffordable, where maybe 1 in 1,000 would subscribe to a value-added feature, where people struggling to pay for rent and food and healthcare might wind up going months past due on their phone service? Certainly not. And this is more-or-less where the broadband market is at today.
So what happens is the gap between Rich and Poor widens, and the slope one needs to climb from impoverished to self-sufficiency becomes steeper and higher. If I can't get Broadband access it will cost me a minimum of $30.00/month for a phone line and $15.00 for a dial-up ISP, plus long-distance charges. If I CAN get Broadband, I can spend $30/month for Broadband and $15.00 for VoIP dialtone service, which includes 500 minutes/month long distance, plus I get better on-line access to research sources, government agencies, school system websites, and more. With broadband I can potentially work from home using VPN or Citrix-based applications to escape the salary limitations of a depressed, urban area. Hell, if the commercials are to be believed, I can get rich selling merchandise on eBay that I never have to see, touch or pay for.
The point is that the telcos and cable companies are given franchise by the government to operate as a de facto monopoly within a certain community because of the expected, indeed promised benefit to the general public. These companies should be accountable to the public to demonstrate they are operating according to their contractual obligations. Moreover, since these are all PUBLIC CORPORATIONS it is even more important that their activities be subject to public scrutiny.
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Thinnet? LOCALTALK??? Are you stuck in the '80's?
Next thing you know, you'll be talking about memory optimization for Win3.11 with QMM, filtering SAP advertisements on the WAN, or configuring TCP/IP packet drivers so you can use this new Internet program called "Mosaic."
Just use Linux. Linux fixes this. Linux fixes everything! Linux is the answer to all problems. Linux is the solution for all your needs. Linux Linux Linux!!! Surely I will get +5 insightful for being so pro-Linux!
Sales Tax, Gross Receipts Tax, Income Tax, Employee Tax, Capital Gains Tax, Excise Tax, Property Tax, Real Estate Transfer Tax; how many ways our government finds to tax the same money over and over again.
I don't know where you live and work, but I used to work for a major HP/Compaq VAR in the NYC area. For a while we had a major problem shipping notebook computers via a certain three-letter shipping outlet. Someone in the shipper's local transfer station was opening the boxes, taking out the laptop and accessories, replacing them with the equivalent weight in bricks, and then sealing them back up as if they were never opened. This happened on both incoming and outgoing shipments.
Commercial shrink-wrap sealers necessary to make a product look like its never been opened are not cheap in comparison to the price of a hard disk. I think it's much more likely that a store employee stole the hard disk and re-wrapped it using the store's own sealer -- which I'm sure every Best Buy has in their warehouse -- rather than the customer. On top of which, retail stores have insurance to cover big losses and figure a certain amount of theft and fraud into the mark-up on sales. Unless they have some reason to suspect this customer is a repeat offender, their treatment was very short-sighted. I doubt that this customer will ever return to Best Buy when its time to buy that $3,000 HDTV (or the $100 HDMI cable, $120 home theater power filter and all the other overpriced crap BB tries to pile on a sale). And, over time, that will cost BB more than the $100 write-off against taxes that they would have encountered.
I pay $16.20/month to Optimum Online for equipment ($9.95 for DVR upgrade, $6.03 for the digital tuner box (dual-tuner HDTV 80GB), and $0.22 for the remote). I've had the same equipment without replacement or service calls for three years, for a total cost of about $580. If I had TiVO I'd have paid more for the hardware plus the monthly TiVO service fee. I feel like I'm still ahead of the game, and prolly will be for another 3-5 years.
But this is a significant obstacle for most people, especially when the OEM doesn't post individual downloads for drivers and utilities. Between the time Dell stopped shipping XP in favor of Vista and then started again, I had to buy a laptop for my son. I got an Inspiron E1505 with Vista Premium. As far as I'm concerned, Vista is a bloated piece of garbage. His 2GHz Core Duo with 2GB RAM ran like a pig and most of his games wouldn't work. Dell didn't offer drivers download at the time, only a recovery disk. So, to put XP Pro on the lappy I had to find OEM drivers for each piece of hardware in the machine. It took over a week (part time). And I've run into the same problem with HP (in fact, they are even worse than Dell in this regard).
But on to the subject at hand. I think the problem is that its hard to justify the value of paying up to $400 (Vista Ultimate retail) for the OS, when a new computer with the OS installed can be bought from Dell for $600. And what do you get for $400? A disk, a key code and a license card; no printed documentation, no free support, no money-back guarantee. It's hard to convince the average computer that a copy of Windows should be any more expensive than, say, a Pirates of the Caribbean DVD. And frankly, I would tend to agree.
Microsoft spends about $6.5-7 Billion annually on R&D. Let's say they have 20 products they actively support and develop (it's more, but I don't feel like doing the research) so that's about $325M per product for R&D per year. The latest episode of Pirates of the Caribbean cost about $300M to produce. When released on DVD, Pirates will retail for $25.00. Add in another $10 for seeing Pirates in the theater, and that's $35.00 "per user."
I realize this is a simplistic view and there's other economic factors involved. But in my mind I can't justify paying 10x more for a copy of Windows Vista than I do for a DVD movie release. The R&D, production, support and other costs just don't add up to being 10x more than producing and distributing a successful movie.
And the proof of this lies in the enterprise licensing market. I work for a very large corporation, more than 100k employees. I am told that, during recent contract negotiations, we got a price of around $100 per user/year for Windows OS, Office Pro, Windows Server User CAL and Software Assurance. That's a far cry from the almost $700 it would cost at retail prices.
That said, I don't pirate Microsoft products. As a Microsoft Partner I get more than enough licenses of all the Microsoft product I use for $300/year. If it weren't for that, I'd probably switch to F/OSS versions of most of the packages I use.
Everyone has snot. So supply is not limited unless your snot has special properties that makes it more desirable than everyone else's snot.
Even if your snot was unique, and one can argue that from a DNA perspective, this might be true. There also must be demand. Without any demand, no matter how limited the supply, your snot has no particular value.
But if your snot had some unique and desirable quantity that caused a demand, then your snot would indeed have value. And if demand was sufficient to exceed your supply, then the value would increase until an equilibrium was reached between cost and perceived/actual benefit.
So I suggest you start experimenting with your snot to find it's unique and marketable properties. If nothing else, it gives you an excuse for picking your nose.
Actually, PayPal does offer a MoneyMarket account that is currently paying ~5% returns.
Maybe it's just me, but 30% of the sites I visit won't work at all with Java blocked.
Another 20% are mostly functional but are so broken format-wise as to be nearly unreadable.
5-10% just give a blank page because Flash Player isn't detected.
99% of these sites are hosted in the US by US-based companies advertising to US-based customers, a violation of the rights of persons with vision disabilities, and a potential breach of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It's also, IMHO, a waste of bandwidth, particularly in a country with such poor high-speed broadband deployment.
Fortunately, Slashdot works with scripting disabled, so it is friendly to the blind. In fact, looking at some of the color schemes used for certain categories, being blind might be an advantage, rather than a handicap!
End users on production networks should be the LAST to see the patches. First, they should go through a quarantined test lab. We use VMWare for that. If that passes, we release via WSUS to our development environment. Every application has an "owner," a person ultimately responsible for the support and maintenance of a particular program, even if it is "off-the-shelf." App owners are also responsible for developing and maintaining a test script that exercises all areas of the app, and running through that script as part of the patch testing process.
After quarantine (24hrs) and app test, (target 48 hrs), we release to pilot networks using WSUS. After two days with the Pilot users without problems, we release to our production WSUS for general roll-out.
If your a publicly-traded company in the USA subject to SOX, or ISO-27002/BS7799(Part 2) or PCI-complaint, or if you deal with personally identifiable information related to financial transactions or healthcare, your generally expected to have documented test processes with evidence of control and review that the processes are being followed. Many large, multinational companies require the same standards of all their partners (consultants, development houses, outsourcing Other businesses might not be legally compelled to do this, but depending on your size and the complexity of your environment, you would be foolish to simply throw out patches to "a few 100 PC's" without a bit of due diligence.
The insanity is to make sweeping changes to the fundamental foundation of your entire technology infrastructure without so much as even reading the technical notes for possible counter-indications or caveats. Zero-day attacks are mostly due to poor network security at the border. With perimeter and internal firewalls, transparent proxies, email security gateways, antivirus/antispyware, limited user rights and proper administration, the risks associated with virtually any unpatched vulnerability can be reduced to acceptable levels.
As far as I'm concerned, you are a trainwreck looking for a place to happen. I hope that your not one of my company's partners in India.I have two words for you: Sports Photography
Not the new ones. I got a new RAZR v3max from Cingular to take advantage of the faster data transfer rates. I am very disappointed both with the build quality and the horrid user interface. Mostly plastic with a thin, etched metal cover. Larger overall size and flimsy hinge. Nothing like the original RAZR except for general shape and keypad.
I gave it to my daughter and switched to blackberry instead.And here I thought chocolate was a candy, an indulgence, a culinary luxury to be enjoyed for it's own smooth deliciousness. Who knew that I should be conditioning myself to tolerate only pure "Cacau" bars, just as I might do with fish oil, so I can rest smugly in my chocolate snobishness.
But wait, processing the bean discards much of the natural taste and benefit. Better to eat the beans whole, directly from the tree, than to pollute them by the touch of man or machine. This is truly the way of the chocolate elite.
And I hear that chewing the leaves is enjoyable, too. I especially like the leaves!
A photo ID is not required to get a US Passport. In fact, it is surprising how little documentation you need to get a US Passport. All you need is a certified Birth Certificate, (or official letter of No Record), and a person who has known you for at least two years and is willing to vouch for your. Ref: .
I know this because my son lost his wallet and all his ID. It was easier to get a US Passport than a new state driver's license. We took his birth certificate to the post office and I signed the voucher as his father. When the Passport arrived we used that, his birth certificate and statement from his bank account to get his driver's license.
Last time I checked, you can't produce, record, edit, manufacture, package, or distribute silence. So, presumably, the words and music are a considerable contribution to "a complete album." And furthermore, the mechanics of turning words and sheet music into a recording that thousands -- hopefully millions -- of consumers will buy begins with the performance of a talented and recognizable group of performing artists and ends with that same group's editing skills and creative vision.
I'm not minimalizing the ongoing investment that music labels make towards marketing, production, distribution, etc. If they pay to produce a particular recording then, by all rights, they are entitled to a fair consideration in return for each and every copy of that recording that is sold, regardless of whether it is on physical media or downloaded from iTunes. But in my mind, fair does in no way approach the 50-80% cut folks claim the labels get today, but I guess that varies by arrangement and is a matter for contracts and agents and lawyers to decide.
So, in other words, it's ok for me to pay $400 for a new, standards-certified, HD-DVD player and then $30.00 each for HD-DVD-labeled movies, but I shouldn't expect them to work together? And because I've probably owned the HD-DVD player for several weeks/months before coming to this sad realization, and because I obviously need to open the shrink wrap on the HD-DVD movie before attempting to play it, I cannot recover any of the money I've paid for this premium, standards-organization-certified, combination of player and media?
Well, at least now that I own the physical media and therefore have legal license to play the movie, I can legally download a working, albeit lower-quality copy off the Internet. Oh wait, that's still illegal.
Eventually, all the crap that the entertainment companies go through to implement copy protection, (a.k.a. DRM), is going to wind up frustrating even the most steadfast consumers of legally-aquired recordings, and they will be driven to pirate downloads as a matter of survival.
Better yet, I'll setup one $50k 4x Quad-Core Xeon system with 8GB RAM, 4 NIC's, etc and load up $20k of VMWare ESX and I can easily run 8 Web server instances and get ALMOST the same performance and availability as 8 separate $5k servers. Maybe this makes sense somewhere out 3-4 years based on mangement, power and space costs-savings, but I can't see it.
There are right and wrong applications for virtualization. Don't try to force round pegs into square holes.
So, your saying that I have to buy this car before my less fortunate neighbors can get high speed Internet?
Honey, but I just have to buy that $100,000 electric sportscar. It's the socially-responsible thing for us to do!
Would it surprise you to know that anything at or above 200kbps download is considered "High Speed" Broadband by the FCC? Reference.
DSL Tech: Here you go sir, all done.Customer: Great, I can't wait to try out that blazing Internet speed.
Customer: Hey, what gives? This is slow as hell. I can't even watch one live video feed.
DSL Tech: Well what do you expect across 200kbps?
Customer: But I was promised "High Speed Internet" for $29.95/month.
DSL Tech: According to the FCC, this *IS* High Speed Internet.
Customer: But your TV ad said "Guaranteed 500x faster than modem"
DSL Tech: 200kbps *IS* more than 500x faster than a 300 BAUD modem!
Telcos and Cable Companies have, for years, promised faster, cheaper, more innovative and more widespread services in exchange for deregulation, rate increases, and government-approved monopolization. In many cases they have failed to deliver on these promises, instead cherry-picking neighborhoods with high income and all but shunning lower-income and even blue-collar middle income neighborhoods. But through very creative statistical manipulations, they can make their coverage appear on paper to be much better than reality. The last thing they want is for this Emperor to go on parade.
But let's say that telcos are allowed to cherry pick on broadband. Is this such a bad thing? Imagine if we were just deploying the national telephone system today and Bell Telephone was allowed to cherry pick among modern neighborhoods. Would they invest in communities that could afford to pay the top rate and subscribe to all the optional features? Of course they would. But then would they invest in communities where even basic service might be unaffordable, where maybe 1 in 1,000 would subscribe to a value-added feature, where people struggling to pay for rent and food and healthcare might wind up going months past due on their phone service? Certainly not. And this is more-or-less where the broadband market is at today.
So what happens is the gap between Rich and Poor widens, and the slope one needs to climb from impoverished to self-sufficiency becomes steeper and higher. If I can't get Broadband access it will cost me a minimum of $30.00/month for a phone line and $15.00 for a dial-up ISP, plus long-distance charges. If I CAN get Broadband, I can spend $30/month for Broadband and $15.00 for VoIP dialtone service, which includes 500 minutes/month long distance, plus I get better on-line access to research sources, government agencies, school system websites, and more. With broadband I can potentially work from home using VPN or Citrix-based applications to escape the salary limitations of a depressed, urban area. Hell, if the commercials are to be believed, I can get rich selling merchandise on eBay that I never have to see, touch or pay for.
The point is that the telcos and cable companies are given franchise by the government to operate as a de facto monopoly within a certain community because of the expected, indeed promised benefit to the general public. These companies should be accountable to the public to demonstrate they are operating according to their contractual obligations. Moreover, since these are all PUBLIC CORPORATIONS it is even more important that their activities be subject to public scrutiny.