April 2002 Archives
[via Plastic] I think that last sentence was transcribed wrong. Anyway, it looks like the big media distribution companies are going to keep ramping up the hysteria until they can convince the government to give them absolute control of your home electronics. [and thanks to O-Dub for the picture] P.S. I occasionally watch TV with my aunt & uncle when I visit them. They have a habit of muting the TV sound during commecial breaks so they can talk to each other. Does this make them hardened criminals too?Because of the ad skips.... It's theft. Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to watch the spots. Otherwise you couldn't get the show on an ad-supported basis. Any time you skip a commercial or watch the button you're actually stealing the programming.
Otherwise, though, I'm just too tired of the trial to follow it closely. Which may have been Microsoft's strategy all along.But Jones conceded during questioning that some of Windows interlocking code benefits Microsoft commercially and does not have a clear technical reason to be commingled.
This is the writer who finally got me to take a real interest in football.Tuesday Morning Quarterback operates from the premise that pro football is an absurd artificial universe, and therefore takes nothing seriously. (Of course, there are entire NFL teams that treat pro football as an absurd artificial universe.) The column, subject of feature stories in the New York Times and USA Today, as well as on NPR, mixes hard football commentary with history, science, science fiction, politics and anything else that can be shoehorned in, regardless of relevancy.
1. Take the number of years the ethnic group in question was abused/enslaved/pushed off land/discriminated against/provided smallpox-covered blankets/made to work illegally for pennies a day by white folk here in the US. This is your number X.
2. Take the number of years members of the ethnic group in question have been able to join a private country club in Georgia. This is your number Y.
3. Divide X by Y.
If the resulting number is greater than one... It's probably best that you keep your wryly amusing idea to yourself.
Clue No. 1: Most of the "serious" Goth's I've known have been tooAcross the street in the Independence Center mall, the store Hot Topic is perhaps the only one in the area that carries Goth merchandise. The back wall displays several black velvet and lace medieval-era gowns and dresses.
An employee of the store, who said he was not allowed to give his name, said many teens in the area feel stifled by the suburban blandness of Blue Springs and are seeking forms of self-expression.
He said he is angry that police are singling out a group whose members are no more likely to get involved in criminal activity than the cleanest-cut teens.
"Some (Goths) are as wholesome as kids get. It's just that they wear black clothes and makeup," he said.
In light of these words from a group that (unlike the RIAA) actually has to deal with music consumers, I have to reconsider my blanket condemnation of the music distribution industry. [via Blogaritaville via Boing Boing]Over the last year we’ve heard a lot about the fact that no legitimate business can compete with “free,” and that the file sharing services, starting with Napster, needed to be shut down. By extension, of course, if Napster is a contributory infringer of copyright, this means that the music fans who file share, are primary infringers, or pirates. From NARM’s perspective, we think this industry should be thinking long and hard about the viability of any approach that treats all our customers like criminals.
In thinking this issue through, we’ve increasingly come to the conclusion that the decision tree isn’t about “free”, it’s about value. In today’s marketplace, survey after survey tells us music fans think most CDs contain only one or two good cuts. Their reluctance to pay $15 – $20 for two good cuts is evident not just through depressed sales of hit titles, but also through the increased sales of used CDs. Many retailers are concerned that the value proposition for music is no longer competitive in the consumers’ eyes.
We all need to return to listening to consumers, and really listening. If we just blow them off as immoral pirates who simply want to steal music, we’ll never fix the problems we see today. But if we get back to treating customers with a bit of respect, and if we pay attention to the 24% of downloaders bought more music because of file-sharing last year, and to the 81% that are willing to pay for music, then we have a chance of turning sales around.
Perhaps it is unfair to compare the current legislative efforts to protect copyright interests or to prevent children from being exposed to images and words that are beyond their years with the unambiguous horror of burning a book because of the ideas contained inside. But technology does not make such distinctions, and capability creates opportunity. Already software filters have been turned on controversial ideas and unpopular organizations. And new copyright techniques will digitally incinerate recorded words that might otherwise be widely available.
Just what we need. Somebody being distracted from the road just to figure out how to turn on their windshield wipers. Update: To get a taste of the true horror, go to BMW's 7 Series page and click on "Ergonomics".The New 7 series BMW no longer has all those knobs and buttons that clutter up the dashboard - you know, where each knob does one thing that you can count on. Instead, it has a single controller located on the center console that "functions similarly to a computer mouse." It drives a display in the center of the dashboard. It is called the iDrive: i for "intuitive". (Don't get me started on intuitive. You know what's intuitive? Fear of heights. Everything else we call intuitive, such as walking or using a pencil took years of practice. Is that what we want? A control that takes years of practice?)
The recap of the West Wing episode in question is here, including the recapper's "Aaron Sorkin is not laughing with you" rant.And indeed, the online fan base does occasionally have a direct effect on the show, in the convention known as the "shout-out": a character named after an online poster, a playful reference to an Internet joke, or occasionally, a direct satire of the online herd. ("Worst! Episode! Ever!") The most startling such shout-out occurred just last week, when Aaron Sorkin, The West Wing creator who sparred with posters on Television Without Pity (back when it was called "mighty big tv"), struck back at his tormentors—by enlisting them in a subplot on his show. When White House Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman discovers a critical Web site devoted to him, he becomes tangled in its byzantine internal politics, then (like Sorkin) sees one of his posts end up in the newspapers. Lyman's special tormentor, the moderator of the site, is portrayed as a muumuu-clad, chain-smoking dictator—a nasty slap at Sorkin's own nemesis at Television Without Pity. The majority of the site's posters were amused, but a few took umbrage. "Glark" (the technical director of TWP) responded online: "If 'we' at TWOP are the TV critic terrorists and we've gotten under his skin enough that he's changing the way he writes and shoe-horning these plots into the show then—ladies and gentlemen—the terrorists have already won."
