Agreed.
Anyone who says that greenhouse gas emissions are decreasing: you are utterly out of touch with reality. In the next five years, the United States and Europe will fall to #3 and #4 in terms of coal burning (a large source of greenhouse gases) behind India and China, who are INCREASING their use of fossil fuels--China is sitting on a reserve of coal and is burning it...fast.
The article is both wrong and right. Global warming exists, but only in a certain fashion...calling what's happening with Earth's climate 'global warming' is a bit convoluted.
Look up the current theory of Climate Change (NOTE: NOT global warming) that is essentially a cybernetic system between cooling and warming. Global warming is influenced (and induced) by a rise in greenhouse gases (CO2, SOx, NOx, H20, etc) and the earth's greenhouse effect; these are shadowed by what is now known as Global Dimming, which is essentially the cooling of the atmosphere due to particulate pollutants.
The small particle emissions (from fossil fuel burning, for example) create vapors and clouds in the atmosphere that, rather than absorbing light, like unaffected clouds, REFLECTS light from the atmosphere, thus resulting in the cooling effect some areas are seeing.
So no, kids, the problem isn't simply switching to hydrogen-powered cars or reducing particle pollution--that results in the devastating heatwave in Europe during the summer of 2003 that led to the deaths of 20,000 people in Italy and 10,000 in France. By reducing particle emissions to reduce respiratory illness, we are inadvertently creating an entirely accelerated set of problems...
This stuff is fairly new, and most policy makers are utterly unaware of it.
Human-influnced climate change isn't new...(mesopotamia was once called the 'fertile crescent')
As a musician, producer, and recording engineer, I have to ask one little question: what about those who DO write their own material for their albums? Much of the time, they still get screwed, after the producer and label decide which songs to scrap and then the label gives them 15 points or some other absurdly low amount of compensation for each sales. That's why you see more and more bands that are producing themselves--that's the only way to truly turn a profit.
No, the longer the half-life means the longer it is radioactive...by definition.
Plutonium's atomic mass is greater than Cesium or Strontium's, and thus it has more to decay. Radioactivity is the discharge of energy in the form of alpha, beta, and gamma radiation: gamma being the most deadly. A half-life has very little to do with exactly how radioactive an atom is. Just because it takes longer to break down doesn't mean that it doesn't emit fewer hazardous particles. Some of the noble gasses, for example, are unstable and with half lives of mere minutes, but they do not emit the alpha, beta, gamma radiation which makes plutonium, uranium, strontium, cesium, radium, etc deadly.
Insert complementary and reactionary ad hominem here.
Yeah, it's absolutely amazing; an 'environmentalist' believes the media spin provided by the United States government and media following the TMI accident. The accident released 2.4 million curies into the atmosphere, including radioactive noble gases! For those of you non-chemists, a curie is equal to 3.7x10^10 decays per second. That's not significant radiation?
Now, Cesium-137 (which was being tracked to determine the extent of radioactive fallout) has a half-life of 30 years. After 4 decades, therefore, the radioactivity of the fallout would not be 1/1,000 the strength, but just under one half! In terms of spent nuclear fuel from nuclear reactors, where the hell do expect to be able to store it if we continue at this pace? The entire bedrock and soil would be radioactive, as well as water seepage and atmospheric pollution! The half-life of Pu-240 is 6,560 years, and the half-life of Pu-239 is 24,110 years! That's longer than steel or iron will last, my friend.
If you follow the Chernobyl accident, the problem they're facing now is that the sarcophagus they placed around the core (which melted down 60% in the accident, devastating the USSR and especially Finland and the rest of Scandanavia) is buckling and falling apart. This lobbyist really doesn't know the facts; rather, he formed his opinion a priori and shunted all other relevant facts and interdisciplinary persepctives which may suggest the duplicitous misinformation of his words.
Okay...so tell me where my logic falls awry. Apple develops a product (iPod) that requires a software interface (pragmatically speaking a 'driver' of sorts, which is iTunes)...why should iTunes be forced to work with any other product than its intended medium, the iPod? I understand issues of monopolization and anti-competitive action but this doesn't strike me as such. It simply strikes me as Apple developing a better product. Should certain software NOT be restricted to certain hardware?
Digidesign's ProTools recording software only works with Digidesign interfaces (or more recently, the M-Box by M-Audio). This is the same scenario, in my eyes. Should ProTools be forced to open to other DAW controllers and recording interfaces, or is it simply a form of patent protection that can be viewed as two pieces of an identical system, necessary to operate one another?
If you RTFA you'd understand, or perhaps realise, that this is more than just a description of propaganda. A policy to control the entire electromagnetic spectrum, for me, anyway, is the objectionable portion of the article. If the United States gains full control over wireless communications, such as GPS, cellular phones, wi-fi signals, and communications satellites, as well as the Internet, the implications are far greater than simply propagandist. The ability to monitor, or destroy, global communications, at will, becomes reality. It would be more than mere propaganda, it's seeking to create a weapon--it would not be a 'counter attack' as you put it, it would be the digital equivalent of martial law. Pre-emptive strikes, please note, dear reader, are not retaliatory; they're just that: pre-emptive. With all of the recent hooplah over the US seeking to control the internet and bypass international control, as well as the wiretap scandal, and abuse of the PATRIOT Act's already abusive powers, you have far too much faith in the United States government. So yes, it appears as the United States is attempting to control the internet, not seeking to retaliate against enemies. Saying Emmanuel Goldstein or doesn't make him real, and saying '9/11' every bloody second of the day doesn't doesn't increase the threat of terrorist attacks--especially on something as international and independent as the Internet, which isn't localized or centralised in any way, thus making difficult for a rogue organisation to 'control' it.
You're telling me that there aren't people in Ohio who get less than $5.15 an hour, then? Because that's just simply not true. Even among waiters and waitresses who are supposed to get subsidised by tips, they make less than $4 an hour. Note, that's just the minimum wages for those occupations not taken with exceptions, or as you called it 'employment circumstance'.
"Like the Federal wage and hour law, State law often exempts particular occupations or industries from the minimum labor standard generally applied to covered employment. Particular exemptions are not identified in this table. Users are encouraged to consult the laws of particular States in determining whether the State's minimum wage applies to a particular employment. This information often may be found at the websites maintained by State labor departments. Links to these websites are available at www.dol.gov/esa/contacts/state_of.htm."
...actually there are occupational exceptions, as well as exceptions based upon the revenue of a company. That's what I specified, and again, check the Dept of Labor's website if you don't believe me. http://www.dol.gov/esa/minwage/america.htm
Erm....Federal minimum wage, at $5.15 an hour, is well below the poverty level for a normal (40 hour) work week.
However, state regulations MAY vary! In Ohio, for example, if a company makes under $150,000 a year, as many small businesses do, minimum wage is $2.80/hour. Employers who make $150,000 to $500,000 annually? $3.35 an hour. State law mandates $4.25 an hour as minimum wage.
Your anecdote about your family business, is quaint, but does nothing to address the issue. People who bitch about minimum wage have a right to bitch about it--it's interdisciplinary economics. The idea of a living wage isn't exactly new, that was the POINT of minimum wage at one point in time, until rampant inflation occured. The fact is that many capitalist/consumerist establishments, ie businesses, seek only a larger profit margin and by paying their employees less--even the $5.15 an hour federal minimum wage--as companies such as Wal Mart often do, it impacts society as a whole. The rich make more money, the lower class works more in order to be able to live. The middle class decreases as poverty increases (which it has, since Bush took office in 2001). Capitalism rose within the middle class and cannot exist without it.
So no, I can't let you get away with that blatant ad hominem against those who support a living wage. People who bitch about the minimum wage don't 'betray their utter ignorance of basic high-school economics'--(a) it's neither basic, nor high-school level, (b) it has profound impacts upon a society, and (c) your appeal to authority/emotion were cute but don't do anything to muffle your argumentem ad ignorantiam.
This to me is just another reminder of the fact that musicians, if they wish to exist and succeed, independent of labels, MUST encourage downloading and distribution of their music so as to avoid the hegemonic devices of the music industry to protect their mechanical copyrights, such as DRM and indeed, the exclusive recording contracts themselves. If a recording artist is not able to record or release material under any other label, including his own, the recording label alone controls the works of that artist. It becomes more than just patronage at that point--it's owernship. However, by exploiting the channels of communication and promotion that the labels wish to avoid at all costs, whether because they are young technologies, or because they seem to have little profitability, such as P2P,.torrent, Internet radio, and increasingly, XM and satellite radio, the independent artists gain a monopoly of those mediums and can exist--without being on a label, and without the power of the label looming over them.
I wrote a short paper on this, entitled 'On Music and Paradigms', available in PDF format, here.
I do, and your reiteration of your points sounds like a trumpet in defence of the current industry stratification. With the current model, the Recording profits because of an Artist--in reality, an Artist should profit because of a Recording. The recording shouldn't precede the artist. That is, it would not be possible for a label to profit without artists to record. The labels rely and depend upon the artists. How then, does it make sense, for the labels to pay the artist minimally and as a result obtain huge profit margins through exploitation and maintain hegemonic control which would eliminate the possibility of an artist defying the paradigm and succeed without a label's intervention? It's a system of continual monopoly. I encourage you to read the precis I composed for a more detailed argument/explanation.
Advertising is one reason for joining with a major label, but performances and word-of-mouth themselves are better advertisment; in fact, only recently have television commericals or billboards played an important role in advertising. Radio traditionally has been an artist's best medium for advertisment. Advertising, however, means nothing without distribution. Major labels distribute globally through retailers, which independent artists would have a difficult time emulating, unless they have achieved substantial success on the charts (Which is difficult, if not impossible, for indie artists due to the connections between radio--Viacom, Infinity, and Clearchannel--and the labels. Thus indie artists have to find different means of advertising as well). It's not some arcane industry secret that artists typically only make 8-15 points (cents per dollar) from album sales, and from that have to pay for studio time/musicians, managers, lawyers, tours, etc. The label handles manufacturing and distribution.
Interestingly, though, a growing number of artists, including myself, are choosing to survive as 'independent' as its profit margins are higher, and the artists themselves do not forfeit the copyrights to their songs to the labels. When you pirate music, the copyright you are breaching is not of the artist; the copyright for the recording typically is owned by their label.
More on this (and more) is discussed in a paper I wrote, available here.
Many anthropologists argue that, being white in America, it is impossible to not be racist, as much of the privelege we enjoy is due to "whiteness." Whiteness, the dominating force in American culture, semiotically interpreted signfies power, wealth, and education. All binary oppositions are attributed to the "other", or non-whites.
Coco Fusco argues that race is a construct, as there is no essential, or biological difference between races.
Glossing over the details and saying "we are all one race" and ignoring the issue of prejudice existing will not solve the problem--only by being cognizant of the consequences of whiteness and its diminionizing effect on the 'other' can we overcome it.
When you take into account 'typing' and 'stereotyping', the complexity of the problem becomes overwhelming. It's easy to say 'stereotypes must be based upon something' without recognising that the alleged truth of stereotypes might indeed stem from semiotics--blacks are underpriveleged which can result in illiteracy, poverty, crime, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Agreed. Anyone who says that greenhouse gas emissions are decreasing: you are utterly out of touch with reality. In the next five years, the United States and Europe will fall to #3 and #4 in terms of coal burning (a large source of greenhouse gases) behind India and China, who are INCREASING their use of fossil fuels--China is sitting on a reserve of coal and is burning it...fast. The article is both wrong and right. Global warming exists, but only in a certain fashion...calling what's happening with Earth's climate 'global warming' is a bit convoluted. Look up the current theory of Climate Change (NOTE: NOT global warming) that is essentially a cybernetic system between cooling and warming. Global warming is influenced (and induced) by a rise in greenhouse gases (CO2, SOx, NOx, H20, etc) and the earth's greenhouse effect; these are shadowed by what is now known as Global Dimming, which is essentially the cooling of the atmosphere due to particulate pollutants. The small particle emissions (from fossil fuel burning, for example) create vapors and clouds in the atmosphere that, rather than absorbing light, like unaffected clouds, REFLECTS light from the atmosphere, thus resulting in the cooling effect some areas are seeing. So no, kids, the problem isn't simply switching to hydrogen-powered cars or reducing particle pollution--that results in the devastating heatwave in Europe during the summer of 2003 that led to the deaths of 20,000 people in Italy and 10,000 in France. By reducing particle emissions to reduce respiratory illness, we are inadvertently creating an entirely accelerated set of problems... This stuff is fairly new, and most policy makers are utterly unaware of it. Human-influnced climate change isn't new...(mesopotamia was once called the 'fertile crescent')
It's Lexis-Nexis, not Nexis-Lexis
15 cents per dollar of the profit
As a musician, producer, and recording engineer, I have to ask one little question: what about those who DO write their own material for their albums? Much of the time, they still get screwed, after the producer and label decide which songs to scrap and then the label gives them 15 points or some other absurdly low amount of compensation for each sales. That's why you see more and more bands that are producing themselves--that's the only way to truly turn a profit.
Check out this article by Steve Albini, the producer who did Nirvana's album In Utero. He describes an all-too-common instance of exploitation.
...Is paid in human lives. We're too stupid to use this technology.
No, the longer the half-life means the longer it is radioactive...by definition.
Plutonium's atomic mass is greater than Cesium or Strontium's, and thus it has more to decay. Radioactivity is the discharge of energy in the form of alpha, beta, and gamma radiation: gamma being the most deadly. A half-life has very little to do with exactly how radioactive an atom is. Just because it takes longer to break down doesn't mean that it doesn't emit fewer hazardous particles. Some of the noble gasses, for example, are unstable and with half lives of mere minutes, but they do not emit the alpha, beta, gamma radiation which makes plutonium, uranium, strontium, cesium, radium, etc deadly.
Insert complementary and reactionary ad hominem here.
Please, I encourage you to read.
Yeah, it's absolutely amazing; an 'environmentalist' believes the media spin provided by the United States government and media following the TMI accident. The accident released 2.4 million curies into the atmosphere, including radioactive noble gases! For those of you non-chemists, a curie is equal to 3.7x10^10 decays per second. That's not significant radiation?
Now, Cesium-137 (which was being tracked to determine the extent of radioactive fallout) has a half-life of 30 years. After 4 decades, therefore, the radioactivity of the fallout would not be 1/1,000 the strength, but just under one half! In terms of spent nuclear fuel from nuclear reactors, where the hell do expect to be able to store it if we continue at this pace? The entire bedrock and soil would be radioactive, as well as water seepage and atmospheric pollution! The half-life of Pu-240 is 6,560 years, and the half-life of Pu-239 is 24,110 years! That's longer than steel or iron will last, my friend.
If you follow the Chernobyl accident, the problem they're facing now is that the sarcophagus they placed around the core (which melted down 60% in the accident, devastating the USSR and especially Finland and the rest of Scandanavia) is buckling and falling apart. This lobbyist really doesn't know the facts; rather, he formed his opinion a priori and shunted all other relevant facts and interdisciplinary persepctives which may suggest the duplicitous misinformation of his words.
Amazing, isn't it?
Okay...so tell me where my logic falls awry. Apple develops a product (iPod) that requires a software interface (pragmatically speaking a 'driver' of sorts, which is iTunes)...why should iTunes be forced to work with any other product than its intended medium, the iPod? I understand issues of monopolization and anti-competitive action but this doesn't strike me as such. It simply strikes me as Apple developing a better product. Should certain software NOT be restricted to certain hardware?
Digidesign's ProTools recording software only works with Digidesign interfaces (or more recently, the M-Box by M-Audio). This is the same scenario, in my eyes. Should ProTools be forced to open to other DAW controllers and recording interfaces, or is it simply a form of patent protection that can be viewed as two pieces of an identical system, necessary to operate one another?
Am I missing a step?
Talk about a new way to get fucked
If you RTFA you'd understand, or perhaps realise, that this is more than just a description of propaganda. A policy to control the entire electromagnetic spectrum, for me, anyway, is the objectionable portion of the article. If the United States gains full control over wireless communications, such as GPS, cellular phones, wi-fi signals, and communications satellites, as well as the Internet, the implications are far greater than simply propagandist. The ability to monitor, or destroy, global communications, at will, becomes reality. It would be more than mere propaganda, it's seeking to create a weapon--it would not be a 'counter attack' as you put it, it would be the digital equivalent of martial law. Pre-emptive strikes, please note, dear reader, are not retaliatory; they're just that: pre-emptive. With all of the recent hooplah over the US seeking to control the internet and bypass international control, as well as the wiretap scandal, and abuse of the PATRIOT Act's already abusive powers, you have far too much faith in the United States government. So yes, it appears as the United States is attempting to control the internet, not seeking to retaliate against enemies. Saying Emmanuel Goldstein or doesn't make him real, and saying '9/11' every bloody second of the day doesn't doesn't increase the threat of terrorist attacks--especially on something as international and independent as the Internet, which isn't localized or centralised in any way, thus making difficult for a rogue organisation to 'control' it.
Guns don't kill people...People kill people
You're telling me that there aren't people in Ohio who get less than $5.15 an hour, then? Because that's just simply not true. Even among waiters and waitresses who are supposed to get subsidised by tips, they make less than $4 an hour. Note, that's just the minimum wages for those occupations not taken with exceptions, or as you called it 'employment circumstance'.
"Like the Federal wage and hour law, State law often exempts particular occupations or industries from the minimum labor standard generally applied to covered employment. Particular exemptions are not identified in this table. Users are encouraged to consult the laws of particular States in determining whether the State's minimum wage applies to a particular employment. This information often may be found at the websites maintained by State labor departments. Links to these websites are available at www.dol.gov/esa/contacts/state_of.htm."
RT[whole]FA
...actually there are occupational exceptions, as well as exceptions based upon the revenue of a company. That's what I specified, and again, check the Dept of Labor's website if you don't believe me. http://www.dol.gov/esa/minwage/america.htm
Link to Ohio minimum wage law, here. Forgot to include it in the post.
Erm....Federal minimum wage, at $5.15 an hour, is well below the poverty level for a normal (40 hour) work week.
However, state regulations MAY vary! In Ohio, for example, if a company makes under $150,000 a year, as many small businesses do, minimum wage is $2.80/hour. Employers who make $150,000 to $500,000 annually? $3.35 an hour. State law mandates $4.25 an hour as minimum wage.
Your anecdote about your family business, is quaint, but does nothing to address the issue. People who bitch about minimum wage have a right to bitch about it--it's interdisciplinary economics. The idea of a living wage isn't exactly new, that was the POINT of minimum wage at one point in time, until rampant inflation occured. The fact is that many capitalist/consumerist establishments, ie businesses, seek only a larger profit margin and by paying their employees less--even the $5.15 an hour federal minimum wage--as companies such as Wal Mart often do, it impacts society as a whole. The rich make more money, the lower class works more in order to be able to live. The middle class decreases as poverty increases (which it has, since Bush took office in 2001). Capitalism rose within the middle class and cannot exist without it.
So no, I can't let you get away with that blatant ad hominem against those who support a living wage. People who bitch about the minimum wage don't 'betray their utter ignorance of basic high-school economics'--(a) it's neither basic, nor high-school level, (b) it has profound impacts upon a society, and (c) your appeal to authority/emotion were cute but don't do anything to muffle your argumentem ad ignorantiam.
This to me is just another reminder of the fact that musicians, if they wish to exist and succeed, independent of labels, MUST encourage downloading and distribution of their music so as to avoid the hegemonic devices of the music industry to protect their mechanical copyrights, such as DRM and indeed, the exclusive recording contracts themselves. If a recording artist is not able to record or release material under any other label, including his own, the recording label alone controls the works of that artist. It becomes more than just patronage at that point--it's owernship. However, by exploiting the channels of communication and promotion that the labels wish to avoid at all costs, whether because they are young technologies, or because they seem to have little profitability, such as P2P, .torrent, Internet radio, and increasingly, XM and satellite radio, the independent artists gain a monopoly of those mediums and can exist--without being on a label, and without the power of the label looming over them.
I wrote a short paper on this, entitled 'On Music and Paradigms', available in PDF format, here.
It's not just the people on MySpace we have to worry about in terms of perversions of the English language... (It's spelled 'coming') ;)
Yeah, I got that error when I voted for Kerry on the electronic voting machines in Ohio in '04
I do, and your reiteration of your points sounds like a trumpet in defence of the current industry stratification. With the current model, the Recording profits because of an Artist--in reality, an Artist should profit because of a Recording. The recording shouldn't precede the artist. That is, it would not be possible for a label to profit without artists to record. The labels rely and depend upon the artists. How then, does it make sense, for the labels to pay the artist minimally and as a result obtain huge profit margins through exploitation and maintain hegemonic control which would eliminate the possibility of an artist defying the paradigm and succeed without a label's intervention? It's a system of continual monopoly. I encourage you to read the precis I composed for a more detailed argument/explanation.
A recording, just FYI, is "a specific performance in time." Just so we're on the same page.
Advertising is one reason for joining with a major label, but performances and word-of-mouth themselves are better advertisment; in fact, only recently have television commericals or billboards played an important role in advertising. Radio traditionally has been an artist's best medium for advertisment. Advertising, however, means nothing without distribution. Major labels distribute globally through retailers, which independent artists would have a difficult time emulating, unless they have achieved substantial success on the charts (Which is difficult, if not impossible, for indie artists due to the connections between radio--Viacom, Infinity, and Clearchannel--and the labels. Thus indie artists have to find different means of advertising as well). It's not some arcane industry secret that artists typically only make 8-15 points (cents per dollar) from album sales, and from that have to pay for studio time/musicians, managers, lawyers, tours, etc. The label handles manufacturing and distribution.
Interestingly, though, a growing number of artists, including myself, are choosing to survive as 'independent' as its profit margins are higher, and the artists themselves do not forfeit the copyrights to their songs to the labels. When you pirate music, the copyright you are breaching is not of the artist; the copyright for the recording typically is owned by their label.
More on this (and more) is discussed in a paper I wrote, available here.
...the episode of South Park where God invents the PSP to find a human to command his armies against the army of hell. America's Army 2.0 anyone?
- Yellow road signs - Marriage fidelity - Nutrition information on the label - The 10 Commandments - Speed limits ...merely "suggestions"
Well, so was Goatse, so it's obviously been done before...
Many anthropologists argue that, being white in America, it is impossible to not be racist, as much of the privelege we enjoy is due to "whiteness." Whiteness, the dominating force in American culture, semiotically interpreted signfies power, wealth, and education. All binary oppositions are attributed to the "other", or non-whites.
Coco Fusco argues that race is a construct, as there is no essential, or biological difference between races.
Glossing over the details and saying "we are all one race" and ignoring the issue of prejudice existing will not solve the problem--only by being cognizant of the consequences of whiteness and its diminionizing effect on the 'other' can we overcome it.
When you take into account 'typing' and 'stereotyping', the complexity of the problem becomes overwhelming. It's easy to say 'stereotypes must be based upon something' without recognising that the alleged truth of stereotypes might indeed stem from semiotics--blacks are underpriveleged which can result in illiteracy, poverty, crime, etc.
We create our own hell.