Before records came out, professional musicians made money by playing gigs. We need to get back to that.
That fact is, most musicians today make money like this, by playing clubs and concerts. It's a pretty small percentage of people that make the majority of their bread by selling albums, and the people that do make money by doing this tend to not need it; they play stadiums anyway.
I have no problem with screwing those jerks. It's not like they're better musicians, they are primarily made famous by the music industry which is probably the least innovative one around (listen to the radio lately? Backsteet boyz clones and alt-rock both suck.)
Recorded music should be something traded by fans and used by bands to hype their live performances. End of (&^%ing story.
If this thing really does work such that whatever I _want_ the application to do (within its paramaters) it does, I think it'd be interesting to connect it to a synthesizer. Kinda like a theramin, but cooler.:-D
I'm 18. Before reading about all these happenings in Seattle, I thought the police were generally a competant law enforcing bunch, even if this did on occasion cause me and my drinkin buddies to flee down fire escapes to avoid bein arrested. Whatever. In light of their needlessly violent treatment of the mostly non-violent protesters, my opinion of the police has fallen signifigantly, from "irritating people with opposite but valid views" to "incompetant goat-diddlers". It is only my hope that other people my age will come to the same resolution.
I'd love to interview someone with one of these dodads stuck in his head. I'm mostly curious as to how fluid the control of the thing is. Also, I'd love trying to stick one in a kid's head, as the more plastic neurons would adapt really well (as a side note, i would've volunteered for this, so don't go calling me a mad scientist nazi doctor. Ya jerks.)
I think wearable computers are an just an example of the kinds of things that are going to happen in the next 10 or so years and that have been happening in the last 2 or 3; specifically a movement from computers as desktop troll boxes used as a specific seperate appliance to a fully integrated tool used in all household and day to day activities. Already in the US, we've seen the internet take computers from the homes of only geeks+dorks to a widespread upper-mid class consumer item. The influence of this has led to such goofy looking contraptions as the imac and other (in the case of the imac successful) attempts to appeal to ordinary consumer culture as opposed to the nitty gritty tastes of geeks. This will have two effects; a new appliance used only for gathering information and the proliferation of low powered networked computers (LPNC's "LupNicks" teehee!) in major household appliances. The informational appliances could turn out to be clothing, probably some piece of eyewear connected to a internet box connected via radio waves to my household LAN then to the net. I imagine these would have to be voice controlled. As for the household appliances, computerization would vary according to need. I suspect that each appliance would connect to one's household LAN again via radio waves for the purpose of supplying access to various sensor registers in the device; my fridge would have sensors for eggs + 40oz bottles of malt liquor. When a register reaches a certain value, some script is run (ie: emailing local stores for more eggs/beer). These devices will become popular when a) cheap and b) sexy and appealing over TV.
This is just getting silly. The US government doesn't want to allow exportation of source code for strong crypto and thinks this is gonna make a damned difference!? Do they honestly think they can prevent the Chinese or the Indians or the drug cartels from developing their own (also raises the "who cares anyway?" questions...)? Its not like the concepts behind this stuff are poorly understood! Also it seems kinda rude in terms of foreign policy to declare to someone you're trying to build a trade relationship with that you're not going to give them access to something that would give them privacy; by doing this the US is openly admitting the fact that they're spying on everyone. Now granted we already could've guessed, but for them to stand up and yell it on a street corner is just stoopid.
-gaffney, who wishes to hell he were old enough to vote.
I predict that within 20 years, advances in the fields of robotics and AI will make obsolete all assembly line level jobs. The work can be reduced to simple enough steps that someone is going to realize its just cheaper to mechanize the whole nine yards. The resulting reductions in cost will be so great that no business will be able to remain competitive without upgrading. When this happens, there's going to be a whole lot of people without jobs, and a whole lot of heavy industry based economies that are going to hit the fan. What the hell are these largely unskilled people gonna do? How are they going to support themselves? I can forsee two possible end results, neither of them pretty. First, in wealthier, economically diverse countries, the non-working class will either be retrained by the government to do useful work (which I would imagine would be hard to find), or more likely supported on government welfare. In poorer countries, everything is just gonna go to hell. The other possibility would be to reduce the population; simply remove the industrial working class by randomly sterilizing a large number of people.
Both of these possibilities scare the crap out of me.
Slashdot Mirror
Before records came out, professional musicians made money by playing gigs. We need to get back to that.
That fact is, most musicians today make money like this, by playing clubs and concerts. It's a pretty small percentage of people that make the majority of their bread by selling albums, and the people that do make money by doing this tend to not need it; they play stadiums anyway.
I have no problem with screwing those jerks. It's not like they're better musicians, they are primarily made famous by the music industry which is probably the least innovative one around (listen to the radio lately? Backsteet boyz clones and alt-rock both suck.)
Recorded music should be something traded by fans and used by bands to hype their live performances. End of (&^%ing story.
-gaffney
If this thing really does work such that whatever I _want_ the application to do (within its paramaters) it does, I think it'd be interesting to connect it to a synthesizer. Kinda like a theramin, but cooler. :-D
I'm 18. Before reading about all these happenings in Seattle, I thought the police were generally a competant law enforcing bunch, even if this did on occasion cause me and my drinkin buddies to flee down fire escapes to avoid bein arrested. Whatever.
In light of their needlessly violent treatment of the mostly non-violent protesters, my opinion of the police has fallen signifigantly, from "irritating people with opposite but valid views" to "incompetant goat-diddlers". It is only my hope that other people my age will come to the same resolution.
I'm starting to be optimistic.
-gaffney
I'd love to interview someone with one of these dodads stuck in his head. I'm mostly curious as to how fluid the control of the thing is.
Also, I'd love trying to stick one in a kid's head, as the more plastic neurons would adapt really well (as a side note, i would've volunteered for this, so don't go calling me a mad scientist nazi doctor. Ya jerks.)
-gaffney
I think wearable computers are an just an example of the kinds of things that are going to happen in the next 10 or so years and that have been happening in the last 2 or 3; specifically a movement from computers as desktop troll boxes used as a specific seperate appliance to a fully integrated tool used in all household and day to day activities.
Already in the US, we've seen the internet take computers from the homes of only geeks+dorks to a widespread upper-mid class consumer item. The influence of this has led to such goofy looking contraptions as the imac and other (in the case of the imac successful) attempts to appeal to ordinary consumer culture as opposed to the nitty gritty tastes of geeks.
This will have two effects; a new appliance used only for gathering information and the proliferation of low powered networked computers (LPNC's "LupNicks" teehee!) in major household appliances.
The informational appliances could turn out to be clothing, probably some piece of eyewear connected to a internet box connected via radio waves to my household LAN then to the net. I imagine these would have to be voice controlled.
As for the household appliances, computerization would vary according to need. I suspect that each appliance would connect to one's household LAN again via radio waves for the purpose of supplying access to various sensor registers in the device; my fridge would have sensors for eggs + 40oz bottles of malt liquor. When a register reaches a certain value, some script is run (ie: emailing local stores for more eggs/beer).
These devices will become popular when a) cheap and b) sexy and appealing over TV.
-gaffney
>before you assert that
> good cryptosystems are easily understood.
Not easily understood, _widely_ understood.
What I meant was the concepts behind strong crypto are easily accessible to someone with technical knowlege or the money to hire such people.
-gaffney
This is just getting silly. The US government doesn't want to allow exportation of source code for strong crypto and thinks this is gonna make a damned difference!? Do they honestly think they can prevent the Chinese or the Indians or the drug cartels from developing their own (also raises the "who cares anyway?" questions...)? Its not like the concepts behind this stuff are poorly understood!
Also it seems kinda rude in terms of foreign policy to declare to someone you're trying to build a trade relationship with that you're not going to give them access to something that would give them privacy; by doing this the US is openly admitting the fact that they're spying on everyone. Now granted we already could've guessed, but for them to stand up and yell it on a street corner is just stoopid.
-gaffney, who wishes to hell he were old enough to vote.
I predict that within 20 years, advances in the fields of robotics and AI will make obsolete all assembly line level jobs. The work can be reduced to simple enough steps that someone is going to realize its just cheaper to mechanize the whole nine yards. The resulting reductions in cost will be so great that no business will be able to remain competitive without upgrading.
When this happens, there's going to be a whole lot of people without jobs, and a whole lot of heavy industry based economies that are going to hit the fan.
What the hell are these largely unskilled people gonna do? How are they going to support themselves? I can forsee two possible end results, neither of them pretty.
First, in wealthier, economically diverse countries, the non-working class will either be retrained by the government to do useful work (which I would imagine would be hard to find), or more likely supported on government welfare. In poorer countries, everything is just gonna go to hell.
The other possibility would be to reduce the population; simply remove the industrial working class by randomly sterilizing a large number of people.
Both of these possibilities scare the crap out of me.