I'll be doing my part by effectively making the primary focus of The Swindle a tool to learn the truth behind the activities of the RIAA and its member companies, and providing tools to help people share their thoughts with their representatives/advertisers of RIAA-controlled media/recoworms.
As a future parent, I have long since decided that I will teach my kids that while Mr. Mackey is right, drugs ARE bad, m'kay, what's FAR more dangerous to the individual and society than a few lines of blow every now and again is the concept of a taxpayer-funded propoganda organization tasked with spreading misinformation, statistics that are damn lies, and just plain wrong, divisive thoughts in the minds of the populace with the sole purpose of numbing them to the war on civil liberties that is the "War On Drugs", which does admiteddly benefit many Americans - specifically those living off the ultra-corrupt industry that is law enforcement.
Using Doubleclick ads does not surprise me one little itty bit.
Gee, so I can look forward to the glorious promise of my PIII 1Ghz Screamin' Expensive Super-Charged Tower Of Power From Hell becoming...uhmm..a dumb terminal?
Not to sound obnoxious, but the last 5 Napster stories posted on Slashdot had already been posted on The Swindle, in most cases days earlier. Regrettably, noone seems to have noticed. Owell.
"Tao has been talking for some time now about our developments to create Digital Heaven(TM) and we see Amiga and its community as a fundamental part of the new order that can make it happen and take an industry lead. With the sheer tenacity and the many qualities of McEwen and his Amiga team, the world is going to see Amiga as a Premier Brand for connected digital appliances," said Francis Charig Chairman of the Tao-Group.
Clearly, the Amiga is going to Do It But Good (tm) this time - they're parterning with someone capable of delivering Digital Heaven!(tm) Oh, but Tao - be careful! Your Trademarked Phrase Of Goodness (tm) seems to have been taken from you by an evil Cybersquatter!:
Registrant:
Digital Heaven (DIGITALHEAVEN2-DOM)
725 Winslow St.
Crockett, CA 94525
US
Domain Name: digitalheaven.com
Administrative Contact, Billing Contact:
Petty, Rob (PR117-ORG)
10g1cb0mb@VALUE.NET
Digital Heaven
725 WInslow St.
Crockett, CA 94525
US
510.787.1268
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
DNS Admin (DA817-ORG) dns@VALUE.NET,
Value Net
2855 Mitchell Dr. Suite #105
Walnut Creek, CA 94598
US
(925) 943-5769
Record last updated on 25-Aug-1997.
Record expires on 26-Aug-2000.
Record created on 25-Aug-1997.
Database last updated on 2-Jun-2000 13:41:57 EDT.
Really, A Discussion Of Cubicles...
on
Hump Day Quickies
·
· Score: 2
..just isn't complete without at least one mention of the legendary cubicle prank.
Not to reply to my own message, but hundreds of people apparently agreed with me that my admiteddly offtopic posting of the "work for hire" bill scam that is now before the Senate demanded more information - and I just did the research. And the results are VERY scary. Seems the record biz/RIAA have bought a VERY offtopic, VERY sweeping little amendment to an otherwise completely unrelated bill - regarding satellite signal retransmission. See my latest report for more.
As someone tracking this story very closely on my own site, I can tell you that a popular item of discussion in this whole sorry state of affairs centers around the all-important question:
What EXACTLY is the "secret recipe" used by NetPD to determine someone is a "MEtallica Pirate"? And, seeing definite vagueness regarding the TOS of the Napster agreement with regards to bannable activity, what's going to happen when a group amoung these 300,000 ex-fans decides, instead of simply recreating Napster accounts, decides to challenge Napster's assertion that they were actually in posession of Metallica tracks? This is just a sordid state of affairs.
OFFTOPIC, and I apologize, but if you want to get even more pissed off at the music business then read this article reporting on a bill before the US House Of Reps. that would declare ALL published artistic musical work "work for hire". This is a VERY, VERY bad thing, arguably just as bad as the War on MP3 - but it's NOT BEING COVERED IN THE MEDIA. Yet.
Let me share this comment from The Swindle, my response in the discussion thread on this very topic to the question "How do you justify saying Napster promotes CD sales instead of detracting from them?":
Sure. I contend that Napster, and free distribution of MP3 tracks actually promotes CD sales, as opposed to detracting from them.
I base this assertion on the idea that Napster and MP3 is just another way to listen to music. Plain and simple. You can hear music for free on the radio. You can hear music for free on television. You can also hear music for free on the Internet. Granted, the net now gives you the ability to be VERY specific about what you hear - but common sense tells us that only a tiny fraction of Napster traders actually hoard every MP3 they download and store it in a giant collection, to be pulled from as their only means of listening to music. To think otherwise is absurd, like saying that most people tape all their music from the radio and only use their cassettes to listen to their favourite tunes.
People buy CDs for many reasons that radio OR MP3 will never be able to undermine. They buy the CD to support the band. They buy the CD because it's a status symbol to have the CD if you call yourself a "fan". You buy the CD to impress your friends with your exceptional musical tastes, the CD sitting on your music shelf. You buy the CD for the material such as the lyric sheets, the cover art, the funny liner notes. You buy the CD so you can listen to the music in your car, or on your walkman, since you're part of the 99% of people who don't yet have MP3 players in their cars or own a portable MP3 player.
For these reasons, you have to conclude that MP3 / Napster is a medium, NOT a replacement for the media. And as a very, VERY effective medium, just like radio, the promotional benefit far outsrips the revenue loss tied to that tiny fraction of people who will abuse the medium strictly to avoid ponying up for the CD. Yes, I could fire up Napster and find each and every track off the latest Linda Perry record. But how many people do you know, and be honest, that have the hard drive space/CD Burner that allows them to archive all the albums they want in MP3 format, and that actually abuse this medium to expressly have all digital music collections?
To assert that MP3 / Napster should be eliminated is absurd, and ignorant of the inevitable new medium that WILL supplant radio as we know it today. If we ban or outlaw MP3 or Napster, we really should ban radio as well - because there ar e people that tape songs of the radio, make mix tapes, heck make recordings of complete albums, and not only NOT buy the CD, but (gasp) make copies of their tapes for friends! Heck, since we're at the beat-piracy game, we should outlaw all current CD, cassette, and stereo equipment, which could easily be used to make copies of CDs and cassettes for friends, as is commonly done.
It just doesn't add up. MP3 is not the problem. Napster is not the problem. The fear that the music industry has over the new medium that is digital music is the problem. With the old medium of radio, the industry had ALL the control over who got "pushed", when artists got "pushed", and how popular that "push" would be. With the new medium, the record companies have virtually no control - it's like what would happen if every radio station in the country decided tomorrow to just play whatever the hell they wanted to. That control over promotion, THAT is the key motivation that the record industry has to do everything in their power to obscure, cloud, and reposition this issue into one of "piracy" and "copyright infringement".
Now, if only Dr. Dre could see this. Maybe he'd understand.
Altough I realize I'm about to get flamed halfway to Mars, I simply have to point out that I've been covering this story for a week at The Swindle. Several pretty pointed editorial/stories are up for your review/consideration.
for the dangerously small 3rd party developer community. Yikes.
If Be gets some deals set that puts their tech in a few million set-top boxes, there's really not going to be much motivation from their standpoint to continue supporting a standalone OS, especially when it's now being given away for free and there's not a lot of people using it anyway (support market).
Perhaps the curse of having a very stable, easy to use OS? (small/weak support/services market when going the "free" model).
Perhaps they could keep Be Free, by introducing a lot of bloat/bugs in future revisions of the OS, thus causing paid support business to take off. Hmm.
Perhaps they could just market a $15,000 version with some nice hardware as an "Avid Killer".
I don't like to talk about this too often, but I will admit that I had a little run-in with the authorities as a youth, as a direct result of too many videogames.
When I was 8, I was sent to a shrink after spending days running back and forth in front of my apartment building with a bucket of water in my hands screaming "Get out of the way! Get out of the way! I must prevent the Mad Bomber from succeeding in his evil plans!".
This was followed by the unfortunate episode where I crafted a giant yellow arrow (not like a bow and arrow, but an arrow as in the symbol that points to something) and ran around town screaming out "Foul Rhindle! I will find and defeat you! I must keep moving! The bat wants my arrow!".
Of course, I hit rock bottom the time I stole several dozen live chickens from the local farm and threw them out into the road at rush hour.
(sigh)
Okay, my therapist says sharing all of those painful memories will make me feel better. I do already.
1)Banks and financial institutions already have web sites. If there's a significant bank or FI that doesnt yet have a dot.com they don't deserve a.banc address.
2) to infer this scheme will somehow lessen the stress on the supply of domain names now out there is absurd. NOONE is going to give up any of the existing registered names because a.shop equivalent is available- they will just register more names in addition to the ones they have.
3) If anything, this will help the domain-squatting industry as it will rush to register EVERY common sense dictionary word/phrase and lock them up behind the internets answer to ticket scalpers, unless NSI plans to do the unthinkable and limit the number of domains a single entity can register (not bloody likely).
4) Conclusion - this is a scam, a swindle, to make bucks. I spit on it.
I read the outpouring of venom on the announcement of the Hellmouth book, and admiteddly I wasn't sure how I felt about all of this user-comment/ownership stuff.
I was especially concerned that there wasn't a Taco/Hemos post (if there was a missed it, please correct me) that DIRECTLY addressed the question of a perceived incosistency between the "comments owned by poster" text on the Slashdot footer and the charachterization by Hemos of the posts as "a public forum".
HOWEVER, Rob's comments above resolve any concerns I could see with any of this for two very important reasons:
1) Rob informed us that this book WOULD be available electronically, and presumably, this means free of charge - (again, please correct me if I'm wrong). This means that we can make the choice to whether we wish to support the chosen charitable organizations involved with the book in harmony with reading and passing along the important messages it contains. Feeling free to pass the text of this book around to as many people as possible seems like something I WANT to do; I'd be willing to host a mirror of the text on a non-commercial area of my web sites. I'm assuming if it's deemed helpful I could be called on to do so.
2) Rob has stated that we will have the ability to designate our comments as "proprietary" or "public" as soon as possible. This is a very Good Thing on multiple levels: the level of confusion this will clear up on Slashdot, and knowing that the Slash code, and presumably this new functionality, will be "open", it will be possible to use this code as inspiration for the ame functionality in Slash and other GPL'd weblog applications, like the one I use, PHPSlash.
I don't always post "pro-slashdot" sentiments, so I stand by my objectivity, but Rob/Hemos/Katz deserve a ton of credit and respect here, and those who would otherwise need to grow up.
You know, I hate to reply to myself but I just realized what a great candidate this flick has to be for this sort of thing. It's black and white, which has to make the size of the data to be compressed/streamed a lot less (or am I just an idiot?).
So long as this is a pay ONCE, view on demand scheme, of course. No DivX-type swindles, thank you.
you're assuming "corporate" software goes through a lot of QA, or for that matter adequate QA. As someone who has spent years of his life DEEP in the trenches in a software QA role at a "very corporate" software concern, let me assure you that often, the all-important bottom line trumps the QA process. Often.
Dee Snider (lead singer of Twisted Sister) has demonstrated just how far his career has falled by recently signing on as the wacky morning man for a Hartford, CT pop-rock station, WMRQ. It's kinda sad to see, actually. And time has NOT been kind to Mr. Snider in the looks department, either.
Strangeland 2 is gonna have to be pretty extreme to get my respect.
Slashdot Mirror
This was covered on The Swindle, uhmm...2 weeks ago. At that time, a whopping 60 dollars had been donated.
I wish Fairtunes the best of luck, tho. I put my money where my mouth is.
I'm sorry. I REALLY like Linux and all, but this seems to be akin to a small war to CNN coverage-wise here.
It's a FRIGGIN WRISTWATCH.
Jesus. I can only imagine the stop-the-presses-obsess-over-this coverage the day they get Linux running on The Clapper.
Here I was ready to cancel a busy Friday night. Thank the heavens.
I'll be doing my part by effectively making the primary focus of The Swindle a tool to learn the truth behind the activities of the RIAA and its member companies, and providing tools to help people share their thoughts with their representatives/advertisers of RIAA-controlled media/recoworms.
Stay tuned.
As a future parent, I have long since decided that I will teach my kids that while Mr. Mackey is right, drugs ARE bad, m'kay, what's FAR more dangerous to the individual and society than a few lines of blow every now and again is the concept of a taxpayer-funded propoganda organization tasked with spreading misinformation, statistics that are damn lies, and just plain wrong, divisive thoughts in the minds of the populace with the sole purpose of numbing them to the war on civil liberties that is the "War On Drugs", which does admiteddly benefit many Americans - specifically those living off the ultra-corrupt industry that is law enforcement.
Using Doubleclick ads does not surprise me one little itty bit.
Gee, so I can look forward to the glorious promise of my PIII 1Ghz Screamin' Expensive Super-Charged Tower Of Power From Hell becoming...uhmm..a dumb terminal?
Joy!
Not.
Add me to the list of people ESPECIALLY disappointed in the producers of my favourite cable TV show. This is bad, very bad.
MEthinks I'll mention this tonight on Swindle Chat (8:00 PM EST on EFnet channel #theswindle)
Damn. Damn. Damn. I really like this show. Now I'm gonna have to put up an illegal fan site.
Not to sound obnoxious, but the last 5 Napster stories posted on Slashdot had already been posted on The Swindle, in most cases days earlier. Regrettably, noone seems to have noticed. Owell.
Is this the same Tao mentioned in yesterday's (gasp) Amiga story?
(mind starting to race)
from the article:
"Tao has been talking for some time now about our developments to create Digital Heaven(TM) and we see Amiga and its community as a fundamental part of the new order that can make it happen and take an industry lead. With the sheer tenacity and the many qualities of McEwen and his Amiga team, the world is going to see Amiga as a Premier Brand for connected digital appliances," said Francis Charig Chairman of the Tao-Group.
Clearly, the Amiga is going to Do It But Good (tm) this time - they're parterning with someone capable of delivering Digital Heaven!(tm) Oh, but Tao - be careful! Your Trademarked Phrase Of Goodness (tm) seems to have been taken from you by an evil Cybersquatter!:
Registrant:
Digital Heaven (DIGITALHEAVEN2-DOM)
725 Winslow St.
Crockett, CA 94525
US
Domain Name: digitalheaven.com
Administrative Contact, Billing Contact:
Petty, Rob (PR117-ORG)
10g1cb0mb@VALUE.NET
Digital Heaven
725 WInslow St.
Crockett, CA 94525
US
510.787.1268
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
DNS Admin (DA817-ORG) dns@VALUE.NET,
Value Net
2855 Mitchell Dr. Suite #105
Walnut Creek, CA 94598
US
(925) 943-5769
Record last updated on 25-Aug-1997.
Record expires on 26-Aug-2000.
Record created on 25-Aug-1997.
Database last updated on 2-Jun-2000 13:41:57 EDT.
..just isn't complete without at least one mention of the legendary cubicle prank.
Not to reply to my own message, but hundreds of people apparently agreed with me that my admiteddly offtopic posting of the "work for hire" bill scam that is now before the Senate demanded more information - and I just did the research. And the results are VERY scary. Seems the record biz/RIAA have bought a VERY offtopic, VERY sweeping little amendment to an otherwise completely unrelated bill - regarding satellite signal retransmission. See my latest report for more.
As someone tracking this story very closely on my own site, I can tell you that a popular item of discussion in this whole sorry state of affairs centers around the all-important question:
What EXACTLY is the "secret recipe" used by NetPD to determine someone is a "MEtallica Pirate"? And, seeing definite vagueness regarding the TOS of the Napster agreement with regards to bannable activity, what's going to happen when a group amoung these 300,000 ex-fans decides, instead of simply recreating Napster accounts, decides to challenge Napster's assertion that they were actually in posession of Metallica tracks? This is just a sordid state of affairs.
OFFTOPIC, and I apologize, but if you want to get even more pissed off at the music business then read this article reporting on a bill before the US House Of Reps. that would declare ALL published artistic musical work "work for hire". This is a VERY, VERY bad thing, arguably just as bad as the War on MP3 - but it's NOT BEING COVERED IN THE MEDIA. Yet.
Let me share this comment from The Swindle, my response in the discussion thread on this very topic to the question "How do you justify saying Napster promotes CD sales instead of detracting from them?":
Sure. I contend that Napster, and free distribution of MP3 tracks actually promotes CD sales, as opposed to detracting from them.
I base this assertion on the idea that Napster and MP3 is just another way to listen to music. Plain and simple. You can hear music for free on the radio. You can hear music for free on television. You can also hear music for
free on the Internet. Granted, the net now gives you the ability to be VERY specific about what you hear - but common sense tells us that only a tiny fraction of Napster traders actually hoard every MP3 they download and store it in a giant collection, to be pulled from as their only means of listening to music. To think otherwise is
absurd, like saying that most people tape all their music from the radio and only use their cassettes to listen to their favourite tunes.
People buy CDs for many reasons that radio OR MP3 will never be able to undermine. They buy the CD to support the band. They buy the CD because it's a status symbol to have the CD if you call yourself a "fan". You buy the CD to impress your friends with your exceptional musical tastes, the CD sitting on your music shelf. You buy the CD for the material such as the lyric sheets, the cover art, the funny liner notes. You buy the CD so you
can listen to the music in your car, or on your walkman, since you're part of the 99% of people who don't yet have MP3 players in their cars or own a portable MP3 player.
For these reasons, you have to conclude that MP3 / Napster is a medium, NOT a replacement for the media. And as a very, VERY effective medium, just like radio, the promotional benefit far outsrips the revenue loss tied to that tiny fraction of people who will abuse the medium strictly to avoid ponying up for the CD. Yes, I could fire
up Napster and find each and every track off the latest Linda Perry record. But how many people do you know, and be honest, that have the hard drive space/CD Burner that allows them to archive all the albums they want in MP3 format, and that actually abuse this medium to expressly have all digital music collections?
To assert that MP3 / Napster should be eliminated is absurd, and ignorant of the inevitable new medium that WILL supplant radio as we know it today. If we ban or outlaw MP3 or Napster, we really should ban radio as well - because there ar e people that tape songs of the radio, make mix tapes, heck make recordings of complete albums, and not only NOT buy the CD, but (gasp) make copies of their tapes for friends! Heck, since
we're at the beat-piracy game, we should outlaw all current CD, cassette, and stereo equipment, which could easily be used to make copies of CDs and cassettes for friends, as is commonly done.
It just doesn't add up. MP3 is not the problem. Napster is not the problem. The fear that the music industry has over the new medium that is digital music is the problem. With the old medium of radio, the industry had ALL the control over who got "pushed", when artists got "pushed", and how popular that "push" would be. With the
new medium, the record companies have virtually no control - it's like what would happen if every radio station in the country decided tomorrow to just play whatever the hell they wanted to. That control over promotion, THAT is the key motivation that the record industry has to do everything in their power to obscure, cloud, and reposition this issue into one of "piracy" and "copyright infringement".
Now, if only Dr. Dre could see this. Maybe he'd understand.
Most Beta programs offer the volunteer testers free stuff. So what do we get? Slashdot T-Shirts? Underwear? Condoms? Kitchenware?
before someone makes a Janet Reno to run around your Sim neighbourhood taking all the children and removing them from the game at gunpoint.
Actually, I was looking for something to do tonight....hmm.
(evil snicker)
Altough I realize I'm about to get flamed halfway to Mars, I simply have to point out that I've been covering this story for a week at The Swindle. Several pretty pointed editorial/stories are up for your review/consideration.
for the dangerously small 3rd party developer community. Yikes.
If Be gets some deals set that puts their tech in a few million set-top boxes, there's really not going to be much motivation from their standpoint to continue supporting a standalone OS, especially when it's now being given away for free and there's not a lot of people using it anyway (support market).
Perhaps the curse of having a very stable, easy to use OS? (small/weak support/services market when going the "free" model).
Perhaps they could keep Be Free, by introducing a lot of bloat/bugs in future revisions of the OS, thus causing paid support business to take off. Hmm.
Perhaps they could just market a $15,000 version with some nice hardware as an "Avid Killer".
I don't like to talk about this too often, but I will admit that I had a little run-in with the authorities as a youth, as a direct result of too many videogames.
When I was 8, I was sent to a shrink after spending days running back and forth in front of my apartment building with a bucket of water in my hands screaming "Get out of the way! Get out of the way! I must prevent the Mad Bomber from succeeding in his evil plans!".
This was followed by the unfortunate episode where I crafted a giant yellow arrow (not like a bow and arrow, but an arrow as in the symbol that points to something) and ran around town screaming out "Foul Rhindle! I will find and defeat you! I must keep moving! The bat wants my arrow!".
Of course, I hit rock bottom the time I stole several dozen live chickens from the local farm and threw them out into the road at rush hour.
(sigh)
Okay, my therapist says sharing all of those painful memories will make me feel better. I do already.
1)Banks and financial institutions already have web sites. If there's a significant bank or FI that doesnt yet have a dot.com they don't deserve a .banc address.
.shop equivalent is available- they will just register more names in addition to the ones they have.
2) to infer this scheme will somehow lessen the stress on the supply of domain names now out there is absurd. NOONE is going to give up any of the existing registered names because a
3) If anything, this will help the domain-squatting industry as it will rush to register EVERY common sense dictionary word/phrase and lock them up behind the internets answer to ticket scalpers, unless NSI plans to do the unthinkable and limit the number of domains a single entity can register (not bloody likely).
4) Conclusion - this is a scam, a swindle, to make bucks. I spit on it.
I read the outpouring of venom on the announcement of the Hellmouth book, and admiteddly I wasn't sure how I felt about all of this user-comment/ownership stuff.
I was especially concerned that there wasn't a Taco/Hemos post (if there was a missed it, please correct me) that DIRECTLY addressed the question of a perceived incosistency between the "comments owned by poster" text on the Slashdot footer and the charachterization by Hemos of the posts as "a public forum".
HOWEVER, Rob's comments above resolve any concerns I could see with any of this for two very important reasons:
1) Rob informed us that this book WOULD be available electronically, and presumably, this means free of charge - (again, please correct me if I'm wrong). This means that we can make the choice to whether we wish to support the chosen charitable organizations involved with the book in harmony with reading and passing along the important messages it contains. Feeling free to pass the text of this book around to as many people as possible seems like something I WANT to do; I'd be willing to host a mirror of the text on a non-commercial area of my web sites. I'm assuming if it's deemed helpful I could be called on to do so.
2) Rob has stated that we will have the ability to designate our comments as "proprietary" or "public" as soon as possible. This is a very Good Thing on multiple levels: the level of confusion this will clear up on Slashdot, and knowing that the Slash code, and presumably this new functionality, will be "open", it will be possible to use this code as inspiration for the ame functionality in Slash and other GPL'd weblog applications, like the one I use, PHPSlash.
I don't always post "pro-slashdot" sentiments, so I stand by my objectivity, but Rob/Hemos/Katz deserve a ton of credit and respect here, and those who would otherwise need to grow up.
You know, I hate to reply to myself but I just realized what a great candidate this flick has to be for this sort of thing. It's black and white, which has to make the size of the data to be compressed/streamed a lot less (or am I just an idiot?).
So long as this is a pay ONCE, view on demand scheme, of course. No DivX-type swindles, thank you.
a nominal fee if "Clerks" (the best thing to come out of Miramax IMHO) was available on the 'net to me on demand.
Uh-huh.
you're assuming "corporate" software goes through a lot of QA, or for that matter adequate QA. As someone who has spent years of his life DEEP in the trenches in a software QA role at a "very corporate" software concern, let me assure you that often, the all-important bottom line trumps the QA process. Often.
Dee Snider (lead singer of Twisted Sister) has demonstrated just how far his career has falled by recently signing on as the wacky morning man for a Hartford, CT pop-rock station, WMRQ. It's kinda sad to see, actually. And time has NOT been kind to Mr. Snider in the looks department, either.
Strangeland 2 is gonna have to be pretty extreme to get my respect.