Seriously, everyone's suggesting these complex (for a normal coffee shop) solutions when they've already found one.
That's because there are better solutions. Such as those proposed here. Solutions that don't piss off your loyal customers that also like to use wifi in the coffee shop. People that hang around a coffee shop for other reasons often tend to buy more of your food. The trick is to discourage the freeloaders. There are many ways to do it.
You would? Have you listened to FM radio lately? Morning radio on FM is a cesspool of rancid ass-shit, later in the afternoon it's commercial after commercial with an occasional song thrown in to tease the listener.. when evening comes, it's the same crap britney speers/back street boys songs played over and over.
With the possible exception of NPR.
You are absolutely ri..........
WE INTERRUPT THIS INSIGHTFUL +1 FUNNY POST TO REMIND YOU THAT ITS READERS LIKE YOU THAT HELP FUND SLASHDOT AND KEEP SUCH INSIGHTFUL, FUNNY COMMENTS FLOWING THROUGH THE INTERNET. IF YOU COULD JUST SEND US MORE MONEY, WE PROMISE TO LET YOU CONTINUE READING THIS MESSAGE. JUST KIDDING, WE ACTUALLY WILL CONTINUE ASKING FOR MONEY FOR THE NEXT HALF HOUR NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO. STAY TUNED!
Yes it's unfortunate that people won't be able to live off their art, but somehow this isn't so horribly upsetting when you consider that the best music comes from people who aren't drenched in celebrity, and the best movies come from independant film-makers.
First of all, your idea that the best art is free art flies in the face of hundreds of years of art-making. Ask Mozart and hundreds of classical artists, musicians, painters, sculpters, etc. who created some of the finest art in the world for wealthy benefactors.
Secondly, you are incredibly short-sighted if you think all these great movies will be made if it starts to become unprofitable to make movies.
Third, yes there are good independent films. There are also horrible independent films. And independent filmmakers are constantly striving to MAKE MORE MONEY so they can spend it on their movies (and perhaps, make a living). There are good and bad big budget movies, as well. There are artistic movies, and there are entertaining movies.
The main point being all these people need to make money or the industry cannot sustain itself. Ignoring the main earners, the directors, producers, actors, the film industry also employs thousands of people in the direct production of a movie. And thousands more are employed in supporting arenas (screening the movies, creating the derivative works, etc).
As a token of my belief in the future of these industries, I hereby release all the available recorded works of my band, The Vaudeville Act, into the public domain.
And you should respect that not all artists want to release their works in this manner.
What the hell... Going through the trouble of burning shitty workprint copies for your friends that looks like a 10 year old VHS tape quality-wise, with a huge counter in the corner.
So set aside SWIII for a moment, and consider the rest of the content on Elite Torrents. Digital rips of HDTV quality broadcast TV shows with the ads stripped out for you. I admit, I've downloaded a few episodes from torrent sites when I fail to catch the original broadcast and there are no re-broadcasts scheduled. The quality is amazing.
I truly believe the amount of people doing this was neglible compared to those going with their friends to the theaters and getting it in top notch quality with surround sound, despite the cost.
Of course it was neglible. The movie grossed 300 million worldwide in the first WEEKEND. However, Elite Torrents was doing more than helping spread Ep 3.
I think the concentration of wealth that is Hollywood is proof positive that movies are overpriced.
No, its proof positive that they are successful business people. If you want proof that movies are overpriced, you'll have to wait until the market for movies takes a severe downturn after prices continue to rise.
Has the P2P revolution hurt hollywod and the music industry? No, they've only helped it.
Prove it.
Instead, the studios should make their movies free and make money off the presentation of their media.
So buy or start a studio, give your movies away for free, don't enforce your copyrights, and try to make money off the presentation of your media.
Oh, you only want to dictate how other people run their businesses?
TOUGH SHIT. You have the right not to watch the movie, not to break their licensing terms and take it for free.
You can throw words like "illegal" and "rape" around all you want, but when Elite Torrents has more than a hundred thousand members alone... the people have spoken. It's time for something new.
Do me a favor. Look up the phrase "tyranny of the majority," and tell me if you really think just because a large group of people think its ok, its ok. I heard one time thousands of Americans owned slaves. Guess that was OK, too? I hear companies violate the GPL all the time. I guess that's ok as long as there are thousands of companies doing it, right?
I do like the insider's look at Apple, also, but I think Apple would be opening itself up to shareholder lawsuits and SEC troubles if it has officially told an employee it is OK to post "insider info." For example, the information ASOT posted in the discussion of the video capabilities in iTunes could be considered vital information that should not be divulged to only a small group of people.
1. ASOT is too familiar with the technical underpinnings of Apple technology. Steve Jobs is smart smart smart, a great businessman, but there is no way he is this familiar with all the technical details. That was what Woz was for, remember? (No I'm not implying this is Woz, since he clearly no longer has this much access to Apple.)
2. There's no way the CEO of a public company would risk the MAJOR, MAJOR, MAJOR lawsuits and trouble that could be caused from the SEC and shareholders by divulging valuable information on Slashdot. There are rules the company officers must strictly follow in regards to how they divulge information previously unknown to the public. The information must reasonably be made publically available, not posted anonymously on Slashdot.
3. Steve Jobs gets more bang for his buck by keeping things top secret until the next time he's doing a keynote.
This is why sarcasm doesn't work online, by the way - the speaker is a stranger to you and so you don't know he's smart enough not to believe something dumb, and so step 4 up above doesn't trigger.
Sorry to burst your theory, but I don't know the level of intelligence of any slashdotter, and I laugh at sarcastic remarks here constantly. It has nothing to do with whether or not you know or care about someone's intelligence, only whether or not they are (a) able to convey sarcasm properly, and/or (b) you are ready to receive it.
When sarcasm fails online, it is because sarcasm is often missed in print. Either the person writing the sarcastic remark has to write well, or the person reading the sarcastic remark has to be in a "sarcastic frame of mind."
Contrast this to sarcasm spoken aloud, where the inflection, tone of voice, pauses in deliverance, etc. help frame the remark as being sarcastic.
Claiming its not about your rights because you're not in jail is like saying slavery wasn't about your rights because you weren't black.
OK, Vicente Fox, I got your back.
Anyway, I fail to see the unsettling implications here as I often fail to do in the YRO section. (BTW, shouldn't the color scheme here be shiny metallic... you know, tin foil colored?)
They already have these things designed to keep track of the prisoners... they're called jail cells. So they want to augment this tracking with RFID bracelets. WTF cares???
Implying this is a slippery slope to tracking non-felons is like saying, "You better watch out, next thing you know, they'll be using those new-fangled "jail cells" to keep everyone locked up!"
The truth is that in 2002, Turner CEO Jamie Kellner said that editing out commercials entirely with special software in DVRs is stealing. Nobody cares if you hit the fast-forward button. The networks care if you use software to automatically edit the commercials out entirely.
I usually agree with your posts, but in this case you are wrong.
"Turner Broadcasting CEO Jamie Kellner is quoted in the trade journal 'Cableworld' saying, 'Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to watch the spots. Any time you skip a commercial you're actually stealing the programming.'"
I don't want to come off sounding like your typical anti-corporate zealot, but there's a big big BIG difference between a 12 year old girl violating copyright law and a multimillion dollar company violating copyright law.
Well, not exactly. The "movie:" keyword was a story as you pointed out.
However, this story points out that that keyword is no longer needed, if you just search for a movie title of a currently playing movie, it comes up with that info in the results.
UnleSs thEy have A BOt capable of huMan level thinking they won't find a Blasted thing.
Apparantly you are not familiar with the NSA. They excel at cryptography and pattern recognition, pattern analysis, etc. Why do you think your elite code would be so hard to notice? It took me about 30 seconds to device a program to look for patterns like yours.
They don't need to develop something to do everything for them, just to flag data that should be examined further, presumably by humans in this field.
Kick the dog... meaning Microsoft didn't do anything this week, while three of its competitors made news in different ways. Out of frustration, Microsoft kicked the dog.
See this is a new type of business model that Microsoft can't beat.
It's not a business model, it's a non-business model, since Mozilla is not-for-profit.
But aside from semantics, Microsoft is still beating it, and they are doing it based on apathy. All they need to do is fix the flaws in IE when they release 7.x, and it will be "good enough" for people to use it rather than downloading another browser.
The only way Firefox+friends can ever over-take IE is if Windows usage slips considerably, which I think it eventually will with strong competitors like Apple and Linux.
Practically speaking, it doesn't matter who has the most users as long as there is healthy competition and standards support.
Tabbed browsing was a good first feature to copy, but now Opera has native SVG support, a voice-recognition UI, and a nifty bookmarking system that saves excerpts of the bookmarked pages. Come on, Firefox guys, what are you waiting for? I want my open-source innovation!
(I will now patiently await my Flamebait moderation.)
Well, you deserve it.
Are you honestly going to say Opera hasn't copied ideas from any place else?
Or that it doesn't lack features found in Firefox? (For one, can I download or write extensions for Opera? Not to my knowledge.)
Copying non-patented features is fair competition, and it's how software products evolve over time.
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously, everyone's suggesting these complex (for a normal coffee shop) solutions when they've already found one.
That's because there are better solutions. Such as those proposed here. Solutions that don't piss off your loyal customers that also like to use wifi in the coffee shop. People that hang around a coffee shop for other reasons often tend to buy more of your food. The trick is to discourage the freeloaders. There are many ways to do it.
You would? Have you listened to FM radio lately? Morning radio on FM is a cesspool of rancid ass-shit, later in the afternoon it's commercial after commercial with an occasional song thrown in to tease the listener.. when evening comes, it's the same crap britney speers/back street boys songs played over and over.
With the possible exception of NPR.
You are absolutely ri..........
WE INTERRUPT THIS INSIGHTFUL +1 FUNNY POST TO REMIND YOU THAT ITS READERS LIKE YOU THAT HELP FUND SLASHDOT AND KEEP SUCH INSIGHTFUL, FUNNY COMMENTS FLOWING THROUGH THE INTERNET. IF YOU COULD JUST SEND US MORE MONEY, WE PROMISE TO LET YOU CONTINUE READING THIS MESSAGE. JUST KIDDING, WE ACTUALLY WILL CONTINUE ASKING FOR MONEY FOR THE NEXT HALF HOUR NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO. STAY TUNED!
Yes it's unfortunate that people won't be able to live off their art, but somehow this isn't so horribly upsetting when you consider that the best music comes from people who aren't drenched in celebrity, and the best movies come from independant film-makers.
First of all, your idea that the best art is free art flies in the face of hundreds of years of art-making. Ask Mozart and hundreds of classical artists, musicians, painters, sculpters, etc. who created some of the finest art in the world for wealthy benefactors.
Secondly, you are incredibly short-sighted if you think all these great movies will be made if it starts to become unprofitable to make movies.
Third, yes there are good independent films. There are also horrible independent films. And independent filmmakers are constantly striving to MAKE MORE MONEY so they can spend it on their movies (and perhaps, make a living). There are good and bad big budget movies, as well. There are artistic movies, and there are entertaining movies.
The main point being all these people need to make money or the industry cannot sustain itself. Ignoring the main earners, the directors, producers, actors, the film industry also employs thousands of people in the direct production of a movie. And thousands more are employed in supporting arenas (screening the movies, creating the derivative works, etc).
As a token of my belief in the future of these industries, I hereby release all the available recorded works of my band, The Vaudeville Act, into the public domain.
And you should respect that not all artists want to release their works in this manner.
No Princess Bride... Inconcieveable!
You keep misspelling that word. I don't think it's spelled the way you think it's spelled.
What the hell... Going through the trouble of burning shitty workprint copies for your friends that looks like a 10 year old VHS tape quality-wise, with a huge counter in the corner.
So set aside SWIII for a moment, and consider the rest of the content on Elite Torrents. Digital rips of HDTV quality broadcast TV shows with the ads stripped out for you. I admit, I've downloaded a few episodes from torrent sites when I fail to catch the original broadcast and there are no re-broadcasts scheduled. The quality is amazing.
I truly believe the amount of people doing this was neglible compared to those going with their friends to the theaters and getting it in top notch quality with surround sound, despite the cost.
Of course it was neglible. The movie grossed 300 million worldwide in the first WEEKEND. However, Elite Torrents was doing more than helping spread Ep 3.
I think the concentration of wealth that is Hollywood is proof positive that movies are overpriced.
No, its proof positive that they are successful business people. If you want proof that movies are overpriced, you'll have to wait until the market for movies takes a severe downturn after prices continue to rise.
Has the P2P revolution hurt hollywod and the music industry? No, they've only helped it.
Prove it.
Instead, the studios should make their movies free and make money off the presentation of their media.
So buy or start a studio, give your movies away for free, don't enforce your copyrights, and try to make money off the presentation of your media.
Oh, you only want to dictate how other people run their businesses?
TOUGH SHIT. You have the right not to watch the movie, not to break their licensing terms and take it for free.
You can throw words like "illegal" and "rape" around all you want, but when Elite Torrents has more than a hundred thousand members alone... the people have spoken. It's time for something new.
Do me a favor. Look up the phrase "tyranny of the majority," and tell me if you really think just because a large group of people think its ok, its ok. I heard one time thousands of Americans owned slaves. Guess that was OK, too? I hear companies violate the GPL all the time. I guess that's ok as long as there are thousands of companies doing it, right?
I'd bet that 9K out of the 10K downloaders actually paid to see the movie anyway.
How many of the downloaders burned a copy for their friends?
How many of the downloaders burned dozens of copies and sold them on the streets of cities worldwide?
I do like the insider's look at Apple, also, but I think Apple would be opening itself up to shareholder lawsuits and SEC troubles if it has officially told an employee it is OK to post "insider info." For example, the information ASOT posted in the discussion of the video capabilities in iTunes could be considered vital information that should not be divulged to only a small group of people.
Here are three reasons why:
1. ASOT is too familiar with the technical underpinnings of Apple technology. Steve Jobs is smart smart smart, a great businessman, but there is no way he is this familiar with all the technical details. That was what Woz was for, remember? (No I'm not implying this is Woz, since he clearly no longer has this much access to Apple.)
2. There's no way the CEO of a public company would risk the MAJOR, MAJOR, MAJOR lawsuits and trouble that could be caused from the SEC and shareholders by divulging valuable information on Slashdot. There are rules the company officers must strictly follow in regards to how they divulge information previously unknown to the public. The information must reasonably be made publically available, not posted anonymously on Slashdot.
3. Steve Jobs gets more bang for his buck by keeping things top secret until the next time he's doing a keynote.
This is why sarcasm doesn't work online, by the way - the speaker is a stranger to you and so you don't know he's smart enough not to believe something dumb, and so step 4 up above doesn't trigger.
Sorry to burst your theory, but I don't know the level of intelligence of any slashdotter, and I laugh at sarcastic remarks here constantly. It has nothing to do with whether or not you know or care about someone's intelligence, only whether or not they are (a) able to convey sarcasm properly, and/or (b) you are ready to receive it.
When sarcasm fails online, it is because sarcasm is often missed in print. Either the person writing the sarcastic remark has to write well, or the person reading the sarcastic remark has to be in a "sarcastic frame of mind."
Contrast this to sarcasm spoken aloud, where the inflection, tone of voice, pauses in deliverance, etc. help frame the remark as being sarcastic.
Claiming its not about your rights because you're not in jail is like saying slavery wasn't about your rights because you weren't black.
OK, Vicente Fox, I got your back.
Anyway, I fail to see the unsettling implications here as I often fail to do in the YRO section. (BTW, shouldn't the color scheme here be shiny metallic... you know, tin foil colored?)
They already have these things designed to keep track of the prisoners... they're called jail cells. So they want to augment this tracking with RFID bracelets. WTF cares???
Implying this is a slippery slope to tracking non-felons is like saying, "You better watch out, next thing you know, they'll be using those new-fangled "jail cells" to keep everyone locked up!"
OK, so I'm bad at analogies.
ASOT, here's the link I was reading on this:
http://www.canarytrap.com/kellnerstealing.html
How else can it be interpreted? The guy's insane.
The truth is that in 2002, Turner CEO Jamie Kellner said that editing out commercials entirely with special software in DVRs is stealing. Nobody cares if you hit the fast-forward button. The networks care if you use software to automatically edit the commercials out entirely.
I usually agree with your posts, but in this case you are wrong.
"Turner Broadcasting CEO Jamie Kellner is quoted in the trade journal 'Cableworld' saying, 'Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to watch the spots. Any time you skip a commercial you're actually stealing the programming.'"
ourPod
1 The earth is mostly empty land.
I heard the earth was mostly water.
I don't want to come off sounding like your typical anti-corporate zealot, but there's a big big BIG difference between a 12 year old girl violating copyright law and a multimillion dollar company violating copyright law.
What about a guy in the middle of the ocean?
Well, not exactly. The "movie:" keyword was a story as you pointed out.
However, this story points out that that keyword is no longer needed, if you just search for a movie title of a currently playing movie, it comes up with that info in the results.
You have to spell it correctly. ;-)
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Maybe we'll finally be able to search and LOCATE WHERE ALL THE FUCKING MONEY WENT.
UnleSs thEy have A BOt capable of huMan level thinking they won't find a Blasted thing.
Apparantly you are not familiar with the NSA. They excel at cryptography and pattern recognition, pattern analysis, etc. Why do you think your elite code would be so hard to notice? It took me about 30 seconds to device a program to look for patterns like yours.
They don't need to develop something to do everything for them, just to flag data that should be examined further, presumably by humans in this field.
You are guilty as charged.
Kick the dog... meaning Microsoft didn't do anything this week, while three of its competitors made news in different ways. Out of frustration, Microsoft kicked the dog.
See this is a new type of business model that Microsoft can't beat.
It's not a business model, it's a non-business model, since Mozilla is not-for-profit.
But aside from semantics, Microsoft is still beating it, and they are doing it based on apathy. All they need to do is fix the flaws in IE when they release 7.x, and it will be "good enough" for people to use it rather than downloading another browser.
The only way Firefox+friends can ever over-take IE is if Windows usage slips considerably, which I think it eventually will with strong competitors like Apple and Linux.
Practically speaking, it doesn't matter who has the most users as long as there is healthy competition and standards support.
Tabbed browsing was a good first feature to copy, but now Opera has native SVG support, a voice-recognition UI, and a nifty bookmarking system that saves excerpts of the bookmarked pages. Come on, Firefox guys, what are you waiting for? I want my open-source innovation!
(I will now patiently await my Flamebait moderation.)
Well, you deserve it.
Are you honestly going to say Opera hasn't copied ideas from any place else?
Or that it doesn't lack features found in Firefox? (For one, can I download or write extensions for Opera? Not to my knowledge.)
Copying non-patented features is fair competition, and it's how software products evolve over time.
Maybe everyone should just use lynx?
<?xml version="1.0"?>d td">c id=12524293</link>
<!DOCTYPE rss SYSTEM "http://my.netscape.com/publish/formats/rss-0.91.
<rss version="0.91">
<channel>
<copyright>Copyright 2005 That's Unpossible!</copyright>
<pubDate>Fri, 13 May 2005 14:49:01 PST</pubDate>
<description>Response to Re: Download count</description>
<link>http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=149370&
<item>
<title>Re: Download count</title>
<description>I found your post, and the ensuing link, extremely helpful. Thanks!!!</description>
</item>
</channel>
<smartass>Enabled</smartass>
</rss>
Uh - NO - (why is this insiteful)
Because it causes people to vehemently rise up against it?
OH... you meant insightful.