And for my money, I've always considered Voodoo PC to be my choice as far as a prebuilt system goes. Especially now that they're one one of the few 'elite' brands not owned by some other corporation.
Probably because I don't know they exist.:) Plus, I have discovered in my college lab work that the ability to save to a remote database for retrieval later is very, very handy.
Why is it that everyone beats up on artists just for becoming successful? That's what they were doing before some guy from the music industry came in and said "Hey, you wanna do exactly what you're doing now, only for more money?" Who in their right mind would say no to that?
Being successful in their work is not a crime and is not synonymous with being morally bankrupt. You'd be surprised at how little the artists have control of financial decisions after a big label comes in. Especially if said band is wet behind the ears as far as being suavvy business men.
With most companies I might be a little more worried, but the way Google battled the US Goverment when they tried to get ahold of those records (as opposed to AOL who wetted itself and went and cried in the corner) is reassuring. Sure, they'll use the money for advertising. So what? That happens anyway. Even "outside" the Internet. Seriously, watch The Corporation if you don't believe real-world product placement exists. Data mining has been happening for decades before Google came along. So yeah, they do it. But I'd have to say they're probably the most responsible ones about it. The bottom line is it's nice to finally have a viable (and free!) solution to Word and Excel.
Meh, you're right. I'm probably being a little naive. But I did realize that.
However, I know the reason why I'm tempted to download 'illegally' isn't that I just wanna stick it to the man. I mean, these are people that are doing work, just like me, and I can understand why they wanna be paid for it just like anyone else. I just can't afford to pay what they ask most of the time. I know, personally, that if there was a service out there that let me get an original, DVD-quality download at, I dunno, half(?) the price of a normal DVD, I'd probably buy the movies a lot more often.
Perhaps I'm wrongly assuming most of us have a sense of fair play . . . ? *shrug*
In my experience, it's really hit or miss. TV shows aren't normally that big of a problem, but there are so many copies of things out there that are just . . . well, bad. Let's face it, a lot of people out there participating in piracy just really don't know what they're doing. So when you download something off of a p2p network, it's really kind of a gamble. My point was at least with a commericial service you know they'll get it right and you'll have a high-quality, watchable copy the first time around. At least you'd better or the service isn't gonna be around long.
Downloadable movies/TV shows are great, because this is one area where they won't have too much trouble combatting filesharing networks if they do it right. Chances are the downloadable copies are gonna be of better quality than the freebies, and if they're cheaper than an in-store DVD, then most people - especially anyone who's into movies or cares about the quality of rips - will happily take a legal middle ground.
The only thing I'm worried about is how proprietary this is gonna be. What's this download gonna be formatted as? Will it be some specialty format like Apple does with 'mp3s' you download from them, or will it be something standard, like an.iso image that you can burn straight to a DVD if you choose? Should be interesting to see where they go with this.
Significant amounts of money went into making TV shows and movies and the like and any system must ensure that the producer gets his cut
In a brief aside, there's a theory that I've been working on in my studies in which I have postulated that the amount of happiness/benefit that a person recieves based on the amount of money that person makes is an inverse exponential function. Really, I claim it is subject to the law of deminishing returns. I won't go into the full discussion, but I think most people would agree that doubling the salary for someone who makes $20,000/year is going to have a more profound impact on that person's lifestyle than if you doubled a person's wage from $1mil to $2mil. Yeah, you get a bigger house and another car or whatever. But as far as social brackets go, in the latter example, the same change is not going to escalate the person as far up the ladder as in the former.
Now, that being said . . . how much is it really gonna hurt people like Tim Burton or Jon Peters or Peter Jackson or M. Night Shyamalan if they get paid, say, 10% less per flick for the public to have the opportunity to have a fair use policy that's actually fair?
Well, in that case we'd have about 500+ planets, because you'd have to count all the asteriods in along with it. And it doesn't really make sense to do that. Not to mention the hell 4th grade science would become having to memorize all those names . . .
You know, I've read just about every post on this particular thread, and for all your argueing and bickering about IP laws and whether John Lennon's estate is protected and music belonging to the wealthy in the middle ages . . . I have to say you're all missing the bigger picture.
The OLGA have been shut down. Why? To protect artists? That's the biggest load of bullshit I've ever heard. First off: Tab books do NOT exist for every band out there. Even the major ones don't have tab books for all their albums, and most people don't buy that shit anyway. So I hold that whole arguement bogus. Second: Even if there WERE official, licensed tabs available for every song ever written the moment it came out, IMHO these people are still not breaking copywrite laws lest they copy the tabs right out of the books and share them. Even then, there's no convincing way to prove that's how they did that.
Bottom line, these tabbers - and I am one myself - spend sometimes HOURS sitting in front of the computer or the CD player, figuring out these songs, writing down an interpretation . . . and then post it on the Internet for free. They get no pay for their hard work. And all the recognition for the song remains with the artist. What this allows is for fans of the artist's work to pay homage to the bands they love by learning their songs. How, exactly, does that *hurt* artists? Especially given, as some people have pointed out, that listening to other people and learning to play their songs is how current artists got started writing their own. It's how you develop your style.
Basically, I call bullshit on this entire process, and I'll contuinue to use Ultimate Guitar to look at and submit tabs.
Honestly, I'm not too worried about this. They store information - so what? That's their business. Trafficking information. It's what they do. Considering how honest and forthright Google has always been, and how vehemently it fought against the US Government about turning records over, I'm really not too worried about how Google is handling my saved searches. Really, who is the more wrong, Google for logging searches or the guy sweating that fact as he downloads kiddie porn?
I hope I'm not to Johnny-come-lately with this idea (read: too far down on the list of comments to get noticed), but be two-faced. I mean, why not? You're dealing with two different clientelles, right? Why not have two different places for them to be.
Here's what I envision. Someplace in the back, maybe near the bathrooms or whatever, you have this seperate gaming room for the hardcore gamers who like to host LAN parties and stuff. Make it glass and see through (it'll be a nice style and it'll attract people into it who normally wouldn't go in, and will also add to the atmosphere of the cafe part), but make it sound-proof as well. This will be a place for gamers who wanna go in and use headsets and trash talk or have small little LAN games and trash-talk amongst each other. Maybe even make it a premium area. Like, hey, you can sit out in the cafe and game for free, but you gotta play the pre-installed games, and you gotta be quiet about it. Pay $5, though . . . you can get up to 4 hours in the 'gaming booth', install your own games, be loud and boisterous, do what you want.
Heck, a set up like that, you could rent that room out for LAN parties and birthday parties or whatever else you can think of.
Just an idea, but I think one that, if implemented properly and with more thought than I've given it in the past 5 seconds, will really make your idea take off. Kudos.
Paul makes some other silly points in this article too, such as saying Microsoft has done more than Apple in the last 6 years by stating that there have been loads of Windows editions released, despite it being Apple's policy to have only one version of OS X targetted for non-server use.
Just to clarify, I believe that Paul was being a bit fascitious here. From TFA:
He claimed that Apple shipped five "major" updates to OS X, including Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar, Panther, and Tiger, though I'd argue that virtually none of those were major updates at all.
By that measure, Microsoft has improved Windows by a far greater degree.
He's not saying that that is a good measure for a company having done more for their operating system: he's saying that's the metric that Steve Jobs chose to use for his audience (it seems to have been used as a sort of propaganda, IMHO), and if that's the measure Apple wants to use, then in that sense Jobs is incorrect.
Who has actually done more work in the past 5 years is up to the reader to decided.
Ah, a very good point! Of course, doing Internet Radio better than Pandora does it is hard to imagine. But, then again, if anyone could do it, Google could. I have a feeling this will be a long way down the road. Sooner or later, people are gonna get fed up with the RIAA and MPAA and, even in a fake democracy, people oughta get what they want once in awhile. Once the RIAA are dogs without teeth (hope and pray, people), then Google will have a chance to wow us with their ideas about music.
Perhaps it would be an advanced form of Internet radio, where each user gets a personalized stream of the music they like, and Google uses their context and marketing technology to make a tidy profit off of the millions of attentive ears.
Pandora beat them to it. I suppose they could always buy out the Music Genome Project . . .
Oh, that's not at all redundant. Let's use the OTHER shiny plastic disc. It's much better. Plus, you'll have to buy all new stuff to play it in! It's good for the economy. Do it....Or the terroists win.
Why, in the name of whatever God or Goddess you choose to (not) believe in, do we need something the size of a DVD to hold 12 apparently pre-compressed tracks when most modern day releases take up barely 2/3 of a normal CD? To justify a higher price point, perhaps?
The idea of a physical medium is as antiquated as the internal combustion engine and is being kept around for the exact same reason: corporate greed. Don't get me wrong, I like buying CD's. I appreciate the value of the package along with the art . . . but as far as this idea goes, sliced bread was better.
I definitely agree with you on all points. My post was more in response to the way I wish things could be.
Still, even side-stepping the issues of Bangladesh rice farmers and the United States of Europe, Russia and China are two examples of countries who have their own independent space programs. At least an attempt to intermingle with the Russians has been made a la Mir. It'd just be nice if we could perhaps go a step farther, as small as that step may appear in the grand view of things. Hell, Japan would probably go in on it, too, seeing as they probably make/design a lot of the electronics needed in a space shuttle anyway. I'm sure countries like Australia, Canada, and New Zealand wouldn't mind contributing what they can for a bit of a leg up into space exploration.
Someone else here hit the nail on the head, though. Until someone can come up with a way to make a disgusting amount of money by solving either of these issues, we're going to see stagnation on progress in those areas. It's one of the downsides of a capitalist society.
First of all, as you pointed out . . . one little guy from one little city suggesting to Bush we should share something with our neighbor isn't gonna get anywhere. And indeed . . . that's kind of my point. In the past, the sharing thing hasn't gone too well. But I'd like to think - and maybe I'm overly optomistic here - that if our race as a whole has evolved to the point where we may be on the cusp of space colonization, that maybe we can learn to leave our baggage at the door when go into the great beyond.
Second, sorry if that last post seemed overly abusive. I've been in Australia the past 6 months or so . . . I guess I've started seeing America from a more worldly viewpoint, and hey . . . sometimes it pisses me off.:)
Well, that, and any Farscape fan doesn't want what happened on Earth in that show to become a reality . . .
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Actually, the summary says he's a mathematician, which directly implies a degree of some sort in Mathematics.
And for my money, I've always considered Voodoo PC to be my choice as far as a prebuilt system goes. Especially now that they're one one of the few 'elite' brands not owned by some other corporation.
Probably because I don't know they exist. :) Plus, I have discovered in my college lab work that the ability to save to a remote database for retrieval later is very, very handy.
Why is it that everyone beats up on artists just for becoming successful? That's what they were doing before some guy from the music industry came in and said "Hey, you wanna do exactly what you're doing now, only for more money?" Who in their right mind would say no to that?
Being successful in their work is not a crime and is not synonymous with being morally bankrupt. You'd be surprised at how little the artists have control of financial decisions after a big label comes in. Especially if said band is wet behind the ears as far as being suavvy business men.
Sure, they'll use the money for advertising
And by money I mean data. One in the same nowadays, right?
With most companies I might be a little more worried, but the way Google battled the US Goverment when they tried to get ahold of those records (as opposed to AOL who wetted itself and went and cried in the corner) is reassuring. Sure, they'll use the money for advertising. So what? That happens anyway. Even "outside" the Internet. Seriously, watch The Corporation if you don't believe real-world product placement exists. Data mining has been happening for decades before Google came along. So yeah, they do it. But I'd have to say they're probably the most responsible ones about it. The bottom line is it's nice to finally have a viable (and free!) solution to Word and Excel.
Meh, you're right. I'm probably being a little naive. But I did realize that.
However, I know the reason why I'm tempted to download 'illegally' isn't that I just wanna stick it to the man. I mean, these are people that are doing work, just like me, and I can understand why they wanna be paid for it just like anyone else. I just can't afford to pay what they ask most of the time. I know, personally, that if there was a service out there that let me get an original, DVD-quality download at, I dunno, half(?) the price of a normal DVD, I'd probably buy the movies a lot more often.
Perhaps I'm wrongly assuming most of us have a sense of fair play . . . ? *shrug*
In my experience, it's really hit or miss. TV shows aren't normally that big of a problem, but there are so many copies of things out there that are just . . . well, bad. Let's face it, a lot of people out there participating in piracy just really don't know what they're doing. So when you download something off of a p2p network, it's really kind of a gamble. My point was at least with a commericial service you know they'll get it right and you'll have a high-quality, watchable copy the first time around. At least you'd better or the service isn't gonna be around long.
Downloadable movies/TV shows are great, because this is one area where they won't have too much trouble combatting filesharing networks if they do it right. Chances are the downloadable copies are gonna be of better quality than the freebies, and if they're cheaper than an in-store DVD, then most people - especially anyone who's into movies or cares about the quality of rips - will happily take a legal middle ground.
.iso image that you can burn straight to a DVD if you choose? Should be interesting to see where they go with this.
The only thing I'm worried about is how proprietary this is gonna be. What's this download gonna be formatted as? Will it be some specialty format like Apple does with 'mp3s' you download from them, or will it be something standard, like an
In a brief aside, there's a theory that I've been working on in my studies in which I have postulated that the amount of happiness/benefit that a person recieves based on the amount of money that person makes is an inverse exponential function. Really, I claim it is subject to the law of deminishing returns. I won't go into the full discussion, but I think most people would agree that doubling the salary for someone who makes $20,000/year is going to have a more profound impact on that person's lifestyle than if you doubled a person's wage from $1mil to $2mil. Yeah, you get a bigger house and another car or whatever. But as far as social brackets go, in the latter example, the same change is not going to escalate the person as far up the ladder as in the former.
Now, that being said . . . how much is it really gonna hurt people like Tim Burton or Jon Peters or Peter Jackson or M. Night Shyamalan if they get paid, say, 10% less per flick for the public to have the opportunity to have a fair use policy that's actually fair?
Well, in that case we'd have about 500+ planets, because you'd have to count all the asteriods in along with it. And it doesn't really make sense to do that. Not to mention the hell 4th grade science would become having to memorize all those names . . .
You know, I've read just about every post on this particular thread, and for all your argueing and bickering about IP laws and whether John Lennon's estate is protected and music belonging to the wealthy in the middle ages . . . I have to say you're all missing the bigger picture.
The OLGA have been shut down. Why? To protect artists? That's the biggest load of bullshit I've ever heard. First off: Tab books do NOT exist for every band out there. Even the major ones don't have tab books for all their albums, and most people don't buy that shit anyway. So I hold that whole arguement bogus. Second: Even if there WERE official, licensed tabs available for every song ever written the moment it came out, IMHO these people are still not breaking copywrite laws lest they copy the tabs right out of the books and share them. Even then, there's no convincing way to prove that's how they did that.
Bottom line, these tabbers - and I am one myself - spend sometimes HOURS sitting in front of the computer or the CD player, figuring out these songs, writing down an interpretation . . . and then post it on the Internet for free. They get no pay for their hard work. And all the recognition for the song remains with the artist. What this allows is for fans of the artist's work to pay homage to the bands they love by learning their songs. How, exactly, does that *hurt* artists? Especially given, as some people have pointed out, that listening to other people and learning to play their songs is how current artists got started writing their own. It's how you develop your style.
Basically, I call bullshit on this entire process, and I'll contuinue to use Ultimate Guitar to look at and submit tabs.
Honestly, I'm not too worried about this. They store information - so what? That's their business. Trafficking information. It's what they do. Considering how honest and forthright Google has always been, and how vehemently it fought against the US Government about turning records over, I'm really not too worried about how Google is handling my saved searches. Really, who is the more wrong, Google for logging searches or the guy sweating that fact as he downloads kiddie porn?
I hope I'm not to Johnny-come-lately with this idea (read: too far down on the list of comments to get noticed), but be two-faced. I mean, why not? You're dealing with two different clientelles, right? Why not have two different places for them to be.
Here's what I envision. Someplace in the back, maybe near the bathrooms or whatever, you have this seperate gaming room for the hardcore gamers who like to host LAN parties and stuff. Make it glass and see through (it'll be a nice style and it'll attract people into it who normally wouldn't go in, and will also add to the atmosphere of the cafe part), but make it sound-proof as well. This will be a place for gamers who wanna go in and use headsets and trash talk or have small little LAN games and trash-talk amongst each other. Maybe even make it a premium area. Like, hey, you can sit out in the cafe and game for free, but you gotta play the pre-installed games, and you gotta be quiet about it. Pay $5, though . . . you can get up to 4 hours in the 'gaming booth', install your own games, be loud and boisterous, do what you want.
Heck, a set up like that, you could rent that room out for LAN parties and birthday parties or whatever else you can think of.
Just an idea, but I think one that, if implemented properly and with more thought than I've given it in the past 5 seconds, will really make your idea take off. Kudos.
He's not saying that that is a good measure for a company having done more for their operating system: he's saying that's the metric that Steve Jobs chose to use for his audience (it seems to have been used as a sort of propaganda, IMHO), and if that's the measure Apple wants to use, then in that sense Jobs is incorrect.
Who has actually done more work in the past 5 years is up to the reader to decided.
Someone wiser than I once said "Common sense is not that common."
Ah, a very good point! Of course, doing Internet Radio better than Pandora does it is hard to imagine. But, then again, if anyone could do it, Google could. I have a feeling this will be a long way down the road. Sooner or later, people are gonna get fed up with the RIAA and MPAA and, even in a fake democracy, people oughta get what they want once in awhile. Once the RIAA are dogs without teeth (hope and pray, people), then Google will have a chance to wow us with their ideas about music.
Oh, to be on the list of employees whose code was hacked to bits by the (Mad) Black Hatters.
Layoffs, anyone?
Are they making a phone or a dildo?
Oh, that's not at all redundant. Let's use the OTHER shiny plastic disc. It's much better. Plus, you'll have to buy all new stuff to play it in! It's good for the economy. Do it. ...Or the terroists win.
Why, in the name of whatever God or Goddess you choose to (not) believe in, do we need something the size of a DVD to hold 12 apparently pre-compressed tracks when most modern day releases take up barely 2/3 of a normal CD? To justify a higher price point, perhaps?
The idea of a physical medium is as antiquated as the internal combustion engine and is being kept around for the exact same reason: corporate greed. Don't get me wrong, I like buying CD's. I appreciate the value of the package along with the art . . . but as far as this idea goes, sliced bread was better.
I definitely agree with you on all points. My post was more in response to the way I wish things could be.
Still, even side-stepping the issues of Bangladesh rice farmers and the United States of Europe, Russia and China are two examples of countries who have their own independent space programs. At least an attempt to intermingle with the Russians has been made a la Mir. It'd just be nice if we could perhaps go a step farther, as small as that step may appear in the grand view of things. Hell, Japan would probably go in on it, too, seeing as they probably make/design a lot of the electronics needed in a space shuttle anyway. I'm sure countries like Australia, Canada, and New Zealand wouldn't mind contributing what they can for a bit of a leg up into space exploration.
Someone else here hit the nail on the head, though. Until someone can come up with a way to make a disgusting amount of money by solving either of these issues, we're going to see stagnation on progress in those areas. It's one of the downsides of a capitalist society.
First of all, as you pointed out . . . one little guy from one little city suggesting to Bush we should share something with our neighbor isn't gonna get anywhere. And indeed . . . that's kind of my point. In the past, the sharing thing hasn't gone too well. But I'd like to think - and maybe I'm overly optomistic here - that if our race as a whole has evolved to the point where we may be on the cusp of space colonization, that maybe we can learn to leave our baggage at the door when go into the great beyond. Second, sorry if that last post seemed overly abusive. I've been in Australia the past 6 months or so . . . I guess I've started seeing America from a more worldly viewpoint, and hey . . . sometimes it pisses me off. :)
Well, that, and any Farscape fan doesn't want what happened on Earth in that show to become a reality . . .