I think maybe it's important to expand on an idea in my previous post:
THE NEW ENTERTAINMENT MODEL IS BUSKING
I am not at all likely to pay sight-unseen for a new-to-me television show. I'll have to be convinced that it's going to be worth my valuable dollar. Even the shows that have proven themselves to me are would find it challenging to get me to pay a full shot upfront. Might get me to pay half up-front, half on satisfaction, but only if I've learned to trust their product.
There is only one answer. Entertainers are going to go back to their roots: busking.
You entertain me well, and pass the hat after. You'll get what you deserve: if the show was a delight, you have a great career, with a generous income. Good buskers make a damn fine wage, and that's on the generosity of only a few thousand people a day. Imagine if their audience was as big as all television.
Provide me entertainment, and I'll reward justly. It's only fair.
The only reason I stop BitTorrent: because I need the drive space. (Were I a gamer, I'd stop it during multiplayer games.)
Invent a harddrive/router/torrent/video client. Use a bog-standard router with all the usual lan/wan/wlan/firewall/etc stuff. Add code to set port for torrenting (Azureus style).
Add hardware interface and code to support torrent client and single-line LCD interface. Hardware is bog-standard. Code will allow deletion of only those shows that have achieved a 1.1 share ratio; and only those shows that have an inadequate seed/peer ratio. Code displays filename to LCD, which has a scroll wheel and delete button associated with list viewing; and standard play/pause/fwd/back buttons for video viewing.
Add code to serve a web interface to the torrent client, wrt bandwidth, ports, security, and especially RSS feeds and selection filters.
The code uses a custom, open-source OS and video player. This OS need not be Linux; it doesn't need anything like that amount of complexity, I think. Needs to be Open so that more codecs can be developed for it.
Bingo. P2P that works. Make it cheap, make it easy, make it plentiful.
The real trick is in figuring out a fair payment system so that media producers get the money they need to make their shows. They're not going to be able to rely on advertising any more: they will need to just make it really easy for people to pay after they've watched it, and encourange a culture that is charitable to busking.
Oh! how I long for the day when they finally realize I want to pay for the entertainment I watch!
The fact is that their business model is d.e.a.d.: I have become an extremely selective media user. I refuse to purchase cable television; the cost is an order of magnitude more than the value I would receive. The same applies for movies; I do not derive fifteen dollars worth of enjoyment from all but a few very exceptional films (and the commercials at the beginning are, in fact, a significant reduction in their value).
I rely exclusively on torrents and rental DVDs for my television entertainment now. I get the benefit of selecting the time and location (I use a laptop) of viewing. There are no commercials, saving me ten minutes of annoying, aggravating brainwashing, and at "free," the price is sweet.
If the producers would simply skip the distributors and make it easy for me to pay them directly, I'd actually be willing to flow some cash their way.
My price points are:
Family Guy: probably a buck an episode if the quality of humour remained as surreal, unexpected, and edgy.
Scrubs: about the same, especially if it helps them avoid becoming maudlin.
Regenesis: a couple bucks an episode, but that's going to plummet if they don't start wrapping up some of the damned stories. Too many loose-ends, unless they're going to all come together in one brainfucking twist that scares the living bejesus out of me.
The trick, really, is to ask me to pay after I've seen the episode. Sometimes I've been hurting from laughing at, say, Family Guy. Hit me up then and I'd throw a wallet at you: give me more, damn the cost!
The solution is easy, too: there are three ceramic pads. One merely executes a Towers of Hanoi routine to work one's way down to the defective brick.
The only thing that he has to hold over their head
on
Metered HTTP Proxy?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
...is being online.
Wow. That's quite the predicament. The only thing he can do as reward/punishment is control their net access. The. Only. Thing.
Makes one yearn for the good old days, when a parent was able to say "no" to borrowing the car, going on a date, purchasing the latest trendy thing, watching television, or assigning extra chores.
The Direct Marketing Association already runs a do-not-call list. I've used it. Getting one's name on it is good for about three years. All DMA members seem to respect it; the only unsolicited calls I get now are from two or three local charities; perhaps a half-dozen calls over a year.
Can't see the need to organize this at a government level, given how successful the DMA dnc list is.
Sheesuz. His one-man show came through my tiny town of thirty thousand about two weeks ago. Didn't notice any front page stories here on Slashdot. Will we get another front pager when he gets back to New York? Biloxi? Podunk?
It's not fair that the government provides us free schools and teachers. The private companies can't... oh. Wait. They've already been privatized: http://www.whafh.com/modules/case/index.php?action =view&id=198
Seems to me you could swap the yellow and red or blue toner cartridges and easily identify exactly where the dots are being placed. Then... I dunno, make a printer driver that prints black dots at exactly those locations?
So, please, tell me how my use of this drug causes harm to others and society. Of course, you'll be good enough to provide examples wherein such harm is a good deal more significant than the harm caused by the consumption of other drugs, like caffeine and alcohol.
I think they've seen what P2P has done to the music industry, and they're taking pre-emptive action.
What, pray tell, has P2P done to the music industry?
'cause the stuff I've read indicates that it's been a benefit. RIAA likes to bemoan the decline of sales, but it turns out that the decline is less than what one would have expected given the economic downturn; it appears, then, that P2P has actually increased album sales.
Geez, what if they communicated their learning to their unit? "CrazyGamer69 likes to hide behind boxes; be careful when approaching boxes!" "TopDoggy is carrying a flak weapon: keep your distance!"
The difference is that Opera has actually been available for since 1996. OpenOffice has been around since 2000, and only hit v1.0 status in 2002.
For the past nine years you could have been using a browser that was more secure than MSIE. In all that time you would never have worried about a web page hijacking your browser and fubaring your system.
Freedom has a value, to be sure. That value can be measured in dollars, in openness, in time not lost in system malfunctions.
...is that for at least a half-dozen years that half-million users could have coughed up a measely thirty bucks and had Opera. Five bucks a year for a browser that is fast, small, secure, has tabbed browsing, awesome bookmark management, integrated kickass email, popup blocking, etcetera endless freakin' etcetera.
I gotta ask: was waiting for "free" worth an extra six years of suffering?
Myself, I think y'all paid heavily for your reluctance to cough up some pissant cash.
Firefox will never "get there." Is there anything innovative in Firefox that wasn't pioneered by Opera? Like so much open-source software, the UI and functionality rely heavily on innovations created by commercial companies.
Mouse gestures? Put into the browser first by Opera. Tabs? Likewise. Extensive keyboard navigation? Oh, what a surprise. Revolutionary email sorting system? Opera, of course. Code that rewrites pages so they work better on small screens? Opera. Pop-up ad supression? Opera. And on and on.
Slashdot Mirror
I think maybe it's important to expand on an idea in my previous post:
THE NEW ENTERTAINMENT MODEL IS BUSKING
I am not at all likely to pay sight-unseen for a new-to-me television show. I'll have to be convinced that it's going to be worth my valuable dollar. Even the shows that have proven themselves to me are would find it challenging to get me to pay a full shot upfront. Might get me to pay half up-front, half on satisfaction, but only if I've learned to trust their product.
There is only one answer. Entertainers are going to go back to their roots: busking.
You entertain me well, and pass the hat after. You'll get what you deserve: if the show was a delight, you have a great career, with a generous income. Good buskers make a damn fine wage, and that's on the generosity of only a few thousand people a day. Imagine if their audience was as big as all television.
Provide me entertainment, and I'll reward justly. It's only fair.
MAKE MONEY FAST: INVENT HARDWARE-BASED BITTORRENT
The only reason I stop BitTorrent: because I need the drive space. (Were I a gamer, I'd stop it during multiplayer games.)
Invent a harddrive/router/torrent/video client. Use a bog-standard router with all the usual lan/wan/wlan/firewall/etc stuff. Add code to set port for torrenting (Azureus style).
Add hardware interface and code to support torrent client and single-line LCD interface. Hardware is bog-standard. Code will allow deletion of only those shows that have achieved a 1.1 share ratio; and only those shows that have an inadequate seed/peer ratio. Code displays filename to LCD, which has a scroll wheel and delete button associated with list viewing; and standard play/pause/fwd/back buttons for video viewing.
Add code to serve a web interface to the torrent client, wrt bandwidth, ports, security, and especially RSS feeds and selection filters.
The code uses a custom, open-source OS and video player. This OS need not be Linux; it doesn't need anything like that amount of complexity, I think. Needs to be Open so that more codecs can be developed for it.
Bingo. P2P that works. Make it cheap, make it easy, make it plentiful.
The real trick is in figuring out a fair payment system so that media producers get the money they need to make their shows. They're not going to be able to rely on advertising any more: they will need to just make it really easy for people to pay after they've watched it, and encourange a culture that is charitable to busking.
Oh! how I long for the day when they finally realize I want to pay for the entertainment I watch!
The fact is that their business model is d.e.a.d.: I have become an extremely selective media user. I refuse to purchase cable television; the cost is an order of magnitude more than the value I would receive. The same applies for movies; I do not derive fifteen dollars worth of enjoyment from all but a few very exceptional films (and the commercials at the beginning are, in fact, a significant reduction in their value).
I rely exclusively on torrents and rental DVDs for my television entertainment now. I get the benefit of selecting the time and location (I use a laptop) of viewing. There are no commercials, saving me ten minutes of annoying, aggravating brainwashing, and at "free," the price is sweet.
If the producers would simply skip the distributors and make it easy for me to pay them directly, I'd actually be willing to flow some cash their way.
My price points are:
Family Guy: probably a buck an episode if the quality of humour remained as surreal, unexpected, and edgy.
Scrubs: about the same, especially if it helps them avoid becoming maudlin.
Regenesis: a couple bucks an episode, but that's going to plummet if they don't start wrapping up some of the damned stories. Too many loose-ends, unless they're going to all come together in one brainfucking twist that scares the living bejesus out of me.
The trick, really, is to ask me to pay after I've seen the episode. Sometimes I've been hurting from laughing at, say, Family Guy. Hit me up then and I'd throw a wallet at you: give me more, damn the cost!
The solution is easy, too: there are three ceramic pads. One merely executes a Towers of Hanoi routine to work one's way down to the defective brick.
...is being online.
Wow. That's quite the predicament. The only thing he can do as reward/punishment is control their net access. The. Only. Thing.
Makes one yearn for the good old days, when a parent was able to say "no" to borrowing the car, going on a date, purchasing the latest trendy thing, watching television, or assigning extra chores.
Indeed! I WANT to support the shows that I enjoy, so that more of them can be produced. It's in my best self-interest to throw a few bucks their way.
The Direct Marketing Association already runs a do-not-call list. I've used it. Getting one's name on it is good for about three years. All DMA members seem to respect it; the only unsolicited calls I get now are from two or three local charities; perhaps a half-dozen calls over a year.
Can't see the need to organize this at a government level, given how successful the DMA dnc list is.
Sheesuz. His one-man show came through my tiny town of thirty thousand about two weeks ago. Didn't notice any front page stories here on Slashdot. Will we get another front pager when he gets back to New York? Biloxi? Podunk?
and also had the news/info yesterday somehow.
That "somehow" is merely that the show is taped months in advance. The ending has been known for ages, having been leaked by an audience member.
I'm browsing here at +2. That said, you are the only one rabbiting on about Fyodor's use of language.
It's not fair that the government provides us free schools and teachers. The private companies can't... oh. Wait. They've already been privatized: http://www.whafh.com/modules/case/index.php?action =view&id=198
Seems to me you could swap the yellow and red or blue toner cartridges and easily identify exactly where the dots are being placed. Then... I dunno, make a printer driver that prints black dots at exactly those locations?
I don't even smoke 'em; I vapourize them.
So, please, tell me how my use of this drug causes harm to others and society. Of course, you'll be good enough to provide examples wherein such harm is a good deal more significant than the harm caused by the consumption of other drugs, like caffeine and alcohol.
Pray tell, how is society/self victimized? Please tell us specifically what harm comes to me or to you if I light up a joint.
I think they've seen what P2P has done to the music industry, and they're taking pre-emptive action.
What, pray tell, has P2P done to the music industry?
'cause the stuff I've read indicates that it's been a benefit. RIAA likes to bemoan the decline of sales, but it turns out that the decline is less than what one would have expected given the economic downturn; it appears, then, that P2P has actually increased album sales.
Good gameplay is playing online against other human beings. *Much* more exciting, challenging, and satisfying than playing against bots.
Anything that gets bots playing more like humans is a Good Thing in my book.
Geez, what if they communicated their learning to their unit? "CrazyGamer69 likes to hide behind boxes; be careful when approaching boxes!" "TopDoggy is carrying a flak weapon: keep your distance!"
It could get downright difficult...
And it would be nice if there were a few more variables guiding their behaviour.
A hopped-up Grunt who has been really kicking ass on the enemy probably isn't going to immediately run away just because his Elite buddy bit the turf.
A "flight or fight" variable would help a lot, and should be influenced by health, energy, success, perceived threat, perceived gain, etc.
The difference is that Opera has actually been available for since 1996. OpenOffice has been around since 2000, and only hit v1.0 status in 2002.
For the past nine years you could have been using a browser that was more secure than MSIE. In all that time you would never have worried about a web page hijacking your browser and fubaring your system.
Freedom has a value, to be sure. That value can be measured in dollars, in openness, in time not lost in system malfunctions.
XUL rocks, though. Really rocks.
Good god, look over at Newfoundland. Did anyone survive?!
...is that for at least a half-dozen years that half-million users could have coughed up a measely thirty bucks and had Opera. Five bucks a year for a browser that is fast, small, secure, has tabbed browsing, awesome bookmark management, integrated kickass email, popup blocking, etcetera endless freakin' etcetera.
I gotta ask: was waiting for "free" worth an extra six years of suffering?
Myself, I think y'all paid heavily for your reluctance to cough up some pissant cash.
I'm on a laptop with touchpad, so my "mouse" use is a little awkward. I use it to point at links but not so much for any of the application UI.
Of course Microsoft puts themself on top. Can you ever imagine Microsoft being the bottom/submissive? Not bloody likely.
What is alcohol, if not a drug?
Firefox will never "get there." Is there anything innovative in Firefox that wasn't pioneered by Opera? Like so much open-source software, the UI and functionality rely heavily on innovations created by commercial companies.
Mouse gestures? Put into the browser first by Opera. Tabs? Likewise. Extensive keyboard navigation? Oh, what a surprise. Revolutionary email sorting system? Opera, of course. Code that rewrites pages so they work better on small screens? Opera. Pop-up ad supression? Opera. And on and on.
What has Firefox pioneered?