I disagree. I see no humor in it. I found prank phone calls mildly amusing when I was 11, but I don't find them particularly funny now that I've grown-up and am having sex on a regular basis. Perhaps there's a direct correlation there.
I mean the top members of Pranknet all live at home with their moms, or they're almost twice as old as the ones that live at home with their moms ... I doubt any of them have touched a breast, let alone found a woman to allow them to put their penis anywhere near them.
You'd figure with that large of a group of Mama's Boys, they'd be a little more sensitive to embarrassing women in public.
If one were to play a video from a DVD in front of the cable box, could Comcast then get sued by the MPAA for DMCA violation, since the camera is recording the analog output of a DVD protected by CSS, and would be considered an attempt to circumvent copy-protection mechanisms? Forcing Comcast to remove its camera as a form to adhere to safe-harbor provisions?
No one has mentioned anything about the red light accidents because it's been shown that red light cameras do little to reduce accidents overall.
When red light cameras get installed, there is a slight decrease in t-bone accidents from cross-traffic, but generally an increase in rear-end collisions when someone unsafely slams on the brakes at a yellow light to avoid a red-light camera induced ticket.
And then when revenues fall from the cameras, politicians/police shorten the length of the yellow lights, thus resulting in an increase in red-light offenses.
That's been the repeated pattern in Texas, North Carolina, now California, and a handful of other mid-west & western states.
If you truly are concerned about reducing accidents, saving all that money you mentioned, then insist that they REMOVE every red-light camera, and institute a mandatory 3-second all-red time where all lights in the intersection are red to allow any lingering cars time to remove themselves from the intersection. If safety is priority #1, then traffic enforcement is a priority >1, and allowing law breakers time to get out of the way of cross-traffic would be a higher priority than giving them a ticket.
Red light cameras put traffic enforcement at a priority greater than safety, placing ticket revenue generation above accident prevention. So, by encouraging red light cameras, particularly at every intersection, you are saying your priorities are #1 traffic violation ticket generation, and #2 or greater is safety.
Who DID do the investigative reporting, is the bigger question. Did any major news sources put in the leg work & figure all this out? No! So, how well did the pros do against the amateurs? Well, the amateurs did amazingly well, and the pros stayed home. I guess it wasn't raining enough to get them out of their offices. Maybe a Google outage would get them back on the streets.
The point hasn't been missed, you're making an additional point. The original point: without newspapers, who will do investigative journalism. The response: on-line news will, and here's an example. You now introduce a NEW point, asking how reliable they will be.
It seems here, that the Smoking Gun (1) traveled not only across the country but INTERNATIONALLY to chase their story, and (2) they were highly successful at making contacts, following leads, uncovering information that the Federal Bureau of Investigations could not, and writing a comprehensive and well thought out story. At no point did they need to do any of that, the Smoking Gun is doing well enough as it is with TV deals and one of the top news sites on the Internet today; but they did do it, did it well, and will learn and do it even better next time. They are motivated to do it for the same reasons the print newspapers are motivated to do it, so your "amateur" argument doesn't hold because they did not behave as "amateurs" but are proving themselves to be the new "pros", while the old "pros" are proving to be the new "amateurs".
So, what we have here is proof that (1) newspapers dropped the ball on a huge story, (2) an on-line source picked up the slack and was able to conduct a thorough and successful investigative report, and (3) their business model allows them to give it away for free to readers and financially support the report, reporters, & site.
You can keep your blinders on, but here is a clear-cut example of why newspapers themselves aren't NEEDED. Most newspapers don't do ANY investigative reporting, or even have field reporters on staff anymore. The big papers (NYT, WP, BG) SOMETIMES, MAYBE conduct an investigative report if it's big enough, falls neatly enough in their laps, and doesn't piss off the advertisers or anyone the editor in chief likes. What we have shown in this story is a return to true investigative news reporting, for the love of the sport.
"If every newspaper in the country disappeared in the morning, what the heck would you talk about on your blog?"
How about:
Newspapers all over the country disappear, unable to build 21st century business models. Bloggers of the world step-up and continue journalism torch. News keeps happening, people keep reporting on it. The world continues.
Right, a musician gets paid to produce music. A musician does not get paid from someone listening to music.
If I listen to a song being played in public, I don't feel obliged to shell out $1 to the artist. By the point the music has reached my ears, the music has already been produced, and the musician should have already been paid, because the production is done.
I will pay a band to produce live music through a cover charge, ticket price, or venue paying the band. Pre-recorded music is either (1) produced for free and used as advertising for the band, or (2) commissioned and paid for before the music is released.
Before, I paid for the magnetic tape or plastic disc that housed the music. Not the music on the media. For further evidence, if I scratched my CD, I didn't get a new CD for free, and I lost access to the music. The money was never for the music on the disc, but for the disc itself.
I have never paid for music in my life. I have spent thousands of dollars on magnetic tape and plastic discs to temporarily gain access to music.
Um, I can definitely deny that there is an African kinship even within a single country. With the amount of entire villages being wiped off the map in waves of genocide across the African continent, there is no solidarity amongst Africans within Africa, or even countrymen. The lines are drawn more closely to old village/tribal lines, not political boundaries such as countries. Most political turmoil in Africa comes from which village/tribe currently has control of the country and how they're treating the other groups within their boundaries.
If you put a Kenyan and Nigerian in a room together, I doubt there would be much mutual respect.
It certainly sounds to me that if what they fear is that the aggregators are eating into the ad rates for long form journalism, then doesn't that sound like there is a large market segment of people who aren't interested in long form journalism and would instead prefer a short form or bullet list summary form?
So, instead of recognizing that they are actually talking about an untapped market, for quick pick-up & understand news stories, they complain that they are being stolen from?
I think journalists have gotten too used to reading their own words. Back in the Civil War, journalists learned to front-load stories. Get all basic & most important information out in the first paragraph, next important information in second paragraph, and so on, because telegraph wires could be cut at any time. Now, reading a news story sometimes feels like listening to bad high school poetry ... you never really get an idea of what the point is, it's painful to make your way through, and is usually full of short-sighted opinions. I frequently prefer to read summary or secondary insight pieces on news articles first, because then the fluff frequently gets cut and the actual news becomes more digestible. And then I'll go back and read the original stories to make sure the interpretation or perspective I read is one I agree with, unless I don't care that much or trust the summary source.
I echo the logical argument of the original story. Scammers are getting more nibbles, but aren't able to reel in as many big catches.
What I find more interesting is the chain of scamming. I should totally set-up an automatic reply to an e-mail address I purposely get injected into spamming lists which says:
"Thank you for your contacting me about (enlarging my pen1s, your incredible business opportunity, and/or that fantastic m0rtgage rate). I am unable to send you cash at the moment, like many Americans I am hit with hard financial times. But let me tell you how I intend to get myself out of it, and it can help you too! With my amazing discovery of a special blend of herbs and spices that make people want to give you money! I'm using it right now! You want to give me money, don't you! That's how great this works!!! Send $583 to..."
They want a cut of the rental fees, not the first-sale. They simply want MORE money. They're getting paid once for the product, they want to keep getting paid for the same product.
The problem is this (where we = "movie studies that don't get it"):
We make money.
Someone else is making money off our product, after we make our money off of them.
We want the money that person is making, too, without doing the work they're doing.
Essentially RedBox is ADDING VALUE to their product, and they want to be paid more for the added value that they didn't add.
"Did you know that in many states, taxis are just ordinary street cars without special licenses or other requirements to be on the road, but do require a special "permit license" from the city/ county / state / whatever to operate?"
But I mentioned specifically FLORIDA's taxi licensing requirements which is reference to the first link with the free taxi, which I cross-referenced with another story involving someone being arrested for giving someone a ride and asking for $5 when pressed. Which has nothing to do with any of those other states. So, talk all you want about other places, because that's the point ... I wasn't.
If you want to get back to the point instead of trying to talk me into a corner by arguing about other places than the one I was speaking to, feel free to go on, but since I've been addressing a single state, I will continue to do so and ignore all your other irrelevant chatter about other places.
"Did you know that in many places, taxis are subject to much stricter mandatory inspections than street cars?"
Those states don't matter, because I was talking about Florida, where one of the people mentioned in the article was running a free taxi service. And it seems irrelevant anyway, as the regular motor vehicle will need to pass inspections to be street legal ... why would greater inspections be required for a passenger that gives the driver a couple dollars over a friend sitting in the back-seat?
"Did you know that normal liablity insurance isn't enough to cover liablity for operating a taxi?"
While Florida does have increased insurance requirements for taxis, I don't necessarily think it's a good thing. So, insurance is still required to operate a motor vehicle that would cover liability for operating a car ... it's less than if specified as a taxi, which I don't think is a bad thing. So, I see it as a big deal as insurance is still required ... it's just not as high. If my friend in back-seat is going to be covered by insurance in case of an accident, I don't see why anything different needs to be applied to a passenger giving the driver a couple bucks voluntarily.
So those "pesky things" still exist whether or not this person has a taxi license.
An organization can have an official opinion, where a representative speaks on behalf of the opinion of the organization as a collective. Whether or not each individual member believes in the collective opinion. And generally, when a representative speaks officially in collective terms, the READERS are not included unless other indicators imply it, which weren't present in this story.
You assume inference of commenters in his use of pronouns. I don't. It's more a limitation of English where "we" can include or exclude "you". In this case, it does not include "us" as in the commenters, but "them" as in the organization members who post & work on the site behind-the-scenes.
I refer more to licensing requirements that limit the number of taxi cabs to an artificial supply cap, government-mandated rate charges to limit competitive advantages, and legal requirements that specifically apply to running a taxi service.
What you mention, liability insurance, vehicle inspection, safety requirements, etc, and those go along with vehicle registration. Not taxi service licensing requirements, so you're taking my argument against taxi licensing and applying an argument against vehicle registration.
You've obviously taken debate classes designed for politicians:
(1) find a sentence in your opponents argument (any sentence will do, as you aren't going to actually talk to it)
(2) misinterpret every aspect of what the person is saying
(3) argue a completely different point than your opponent was even talk about (bonus points if you work in reference to morality or children)
(4) ???
(5) profits!
More than likely this is a method to skirt Florida's taxi laws.
There was a story about a year ago about an old man who gave a ride to a young lady at a super market. At the end of the ride, the lady asked how much the man wanted for the ride. The man protested, and the lady insisted. He tossed a number, $5. She paid him, and he was then promptly arrested for running an illegal taxi service.
It appears if the guy in this articles charges ANYTHING, even the exact cost of gas consumed in giving someone a ride, then he would qualify as a taxi service with all the legal hoops that go along with entering that market.
Now, by not asking for any money at any time, and functioning entirely off of the donation of riders, he can possibly sidestep any licensing requirements for taxi services, keeping his bottom line down & not having to bow to regulatory forces.
So, more than likely, it's not so much a "pray" situation ... but a situation to avoid becoming government "prey".
On the post: But Who Will Do Investigative Reporting Without Newspapers?
Re:
I mean the top members of Pranknet all live at home with their moms, or they're almost twice as old as the ones that live at home with their moms ... I doubt any of them have touched a breast, let alone found a woman to allow them to put their penis anywhere near them.
You'd figure with that large of a group of Mama's Boys, they'd be a little more sensitive to embarrassing women in public.
On the post: The Return Of Cable Boxes That Spy On You
Re: Re:
On the post: The Return Of Cable Boxes That Spy On You
Re: I have a great piece of technology for you
On the post: Judge Throws Out Red Light Camera Tickets As Program Declared Illegal And Void
Re: running a red light
When red light cameras get installed, there is a slight decrease in t-bone accidents from cross-traffic, but generally an increase in rear-end collisions when someone unsafely slams on the brakes at a yellow light to avoid a red-light camera induced ticket.
And then when revenues fall from the cameras, politicians/police shorten the length of the yellow lights, thus resulting in an increase in red-light offenses.
That's been the repeated pattern in Texas, North Carolina, now California, and a handful of other mid-west & western states.
If you truly are concerned about reducing accidents, saving all that money you mentioned, then insist that they REMOVE every red-light camera, and institute a mandatory 3-second all-red time where all lights in the intersection are red to allow any lingering cars time to remove themselves from the intersection. If safety is priority #1, then traffic enforcement is a priority >1, and allowing law breakers time to get out of the way of cross-traffic would be a higher priority than giving them a ticket.
Red light cameras put traffic enforcement at a priority greater than safety, placing ticket revenue generation above accident prevention. So, by encouraging red light cameras, particularly at every intersection, you are saying your priorities are #1 traffic violation ticket generation, and #2 or greater is safety.
On the post: But Who Will Do Investigative Reporting Without Newspapers?
Re:
The point hasn't been missed, you're making an additional point. The original point: without newspapers, who will do investigative journalism. The response: on-line news will, and here's an example. You now introduce a NEW point, asking how reliable they will be.
It seems here, that the Smoking Gun (1) traveled not only across the country but INTERNATIONALLY to chase their story, and (2) they were highly successful at making contacts, following leads, uncovering information that the Federal Bureau of Investigations could not, and writing a comprehensive and well thought out story. At no point did they need to do any of that, the Smoking Gun is doing well enough as it is with TV deals and one of the top news sites on the Internet today; but they did do it, did it well, and will learn and do it even better next time. They are motivated to do it for the same reasons the print newspapers are motivated to do it, so your "amateur" argument doesn't hold because they did not behave as "amateurs" but are proving themselves to be the new "pros", while the old "pros" are proving to be the new "amateurs".
So, what we have here is proof that (1) newspapers dropped the ball on a huge story, (2) an on-line source picked up the slack and was able to conduct a thorough and successful investigative report, and (3) their business model allows them to give it away for free to readers and financially support the report, reporters, & site.
You can keep your blinders on, but here is a clear-cut example of why newspapers themselves aren't NEEDED. Most newspapers don't do ANY investigative reporting, or even have field reporters on staff anymore. The big papers (NYT, WP, BG) SOMETIMES, MAYBE conduct an investigative report if it's big enough, falls neatly enough in their laps, and doesn't piss off the advertisers or anyone the editor in chief likes. What we have shown in this story is a return to true investigative news reporting, for the love of the sport.
On the post: The Porn Industry, Free And Basic Economics
Re: Re: deliberate porn industry lies, they want a handout
(free DOESN'T mean unauthorized file sharing, that's an entirely different, though related, issue)
On the post: What's A Big City Without A Newspaper? Still A Big City Last I Checked
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: What's A Big City Without A Newspaper? Still A Big City Last I Checked
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: What's A Big City Without A Newspaper? Still A Big City Last I Checked
Re:
How about:
Newspapers all over the country disappear, unable to build 21st century business models. Bloggers of the world step-up and continue journalism torch. News keeps happening, people keep reporting on it. The world continues.
On the post: Musician: Any Aspiring Musician Should Download As Much Music As He Can
Re: Professional musician
If I listen to a song being played in public, I don't feel obliged to shell out $1 to the artist. By the point the music has reached my ears, the music has already been produced, and the musician should have already been paid, because the production is done.
I will pay a band to produce live music through a cover charge, ticket price, or venue paying the band. Pre-recorded music is either (1) produced for free and used as advertising for the band, or (2) commissioned and paid for before the music is released.
Before, I paid for the magnetic tape or plastic disc that housed the music. Not the music on the media. For further evidence, if I scratched my CD, I didn't get a new CD for free, and I lost access to the music. The money was never for the music on the disc, but for the disc itself.
I have never paid for music in my life. I have spent thousands of dollars on magnetic tape and plastic discs to temporarily gain access to music.
On the post: Washington Post Says Economy Is Bad... No, Good... No, Bad For Nigerian 419 Scammers
Re: Re: Re: Bailout
If you put a Kenyan and Nigerian in a room together, I doubt there would be much mutual respect.
On the post: Why Don't Newspapers 'Parasite' Themselves?
So, instead of recognizing that they are actually talking about an untapped market, for quick pick-up & understand news stories, they complain that they are being stolen from?
I think journalists have gotten too used to reading their own words. Back in the Civil War, journalists learned to front-load stories. Get all basic & most important information out in the first paragraph, next important information in second paragraph, and so on, because telegraph wires could be cut at any time. Now, reading a news story sometimes feels like listening to bad high school poetry ... you never really get an idea of what the point is, it's painful to make your way through, and is usually full of short-sighted opinions. I frequently prefer to read summary or secondary insight pieces on news articles first, because then the fluff frequently gets cut and the actual news becomes more digestible. And then I'll go back and read the original stories to make sure the interpretation or perspective I read is one I agree with, unless I don't care that much or trust the summary source.
On the post: Washington Post Says Economy Is Bad... No, Good... No, Bad For Nigerian 419 Scammers
What I find more interesting is the chain of scamming. I should totally set-up an automatic reply to an e-mail address I purposely get injected into spamming lists which says:
"Thank you for your contacting me about (enlarging my pen1s, your incredible business opportunity, and/or that fantastic m0rtgage rate). I am unable to send you cash at the moment, like many Americans I am hit with hard financial times. But let me tell you how I intend to get myself out of it, and it can help you too! With my amazing discovery of a special blend of herbs and spices that make people want to give you money! I'm using it right now! You want to give me money, don't you! That's how great this works!!! Send $583 to..."
On the post: Fox The Latest Studio To Declare War On Redbox
Re:
The problem is this (where we = "movie studies that don't get it"):
We make money.
Someone else is making money off our product, after we make our money off of them.
We want the money that person is making, too, without doing the work they're doing.
Essentially RedBox is ADDING VALUE to their product, and they want to be paid more for the added value that they didn't add.
On the post: Taxi Driver Does Pay What You Want... And It Works
Re: Re: Re:
But I mentioned specifically FLORIDA's taxi licensing requirements which is reference to the first link with the free taxi, which I cross-referenced with another story involving someone being arrested for giving someone a ride and asking for $5 when pressed. Which has nothing to do with any of those other states. So, talk all you want about other places, because that's the point ... I wasn't.
If you want to get back to the point instead of trying to talk me into a corner by arguing about other places than the one I was speaking to, feel free to go on, but since I've been addressing a single state, I will continue to do so and ignore all your other irrelevant chatter about other places.
"Did you know that in many places, taxis are subject to much stricter mandatory inspections than street cars?"
Those states don't matter, because I was talking about Florida, where one of the people mentioned in the article was running a free taxi service. And it seems irrelevant anyway, as the regular motor vehicle will need to pass inspections to be street legal ... why would greater inspections be required for a passenger that gives the driver a couple dollars over a friend sitting in the back-seat?
"Did you know that normal liablity insurance isn't enough to cover liablity for operating a taxi?"
While Florida does have increased insurance requirements for taxis, I don't necessarily think it's a good thing. So, insurance is still required to operate a motor vehicle that would cover liability for operating a car ... it's less than if specified as a taxi, which I don't think is a bad thing. So, I see it as a big deal as insurance is still required ... it's just not as high. If my friend in back-seat is going to be covered by insurance in case of an accident, I don't see why anything different needs to be applied to a passenger giving the driver a couple bucks voluntarily.
So those "pesky things" still exist whether or not this person has a taxi license.
On the post: Correcting A Few 'Facts' From The RIAA... For Which We Feel We Deserve Payment
Re: Re:
On the post: Correcting A Few 'Facts' From The RIAA... For Which We Feel We Deserve Payment
Re: Re: Re:
You assume inference of commenters in his use of pronouns. I don't. It's more a limitation of English where "we" can include or exclude "you". In this case, it does not include "us" as in the commenters, but "them" as in the organization members who post & work on the site behind-the-scenes.
On the post: Correcting A Few 'Facts' From The RIAA... For Which We Feel We Deserve Payment
Re:
On the post: Taxi Driver Does Pay What You Want... And It Works
Re:
What you mention, liability insurance, vehicle inspection, safety requirements, etc, and those go along with vehicle registration. Not taxi service licensing requirements, so you're taking my argument against taxi licensing and applying an argument against vehicle registration.
You've obviously taken debate classes designed for politicians:
(1) find a sentence in your opponents argument (any sentence will do, as you aren't going to actually talk to it)
(2) misinterpret every aspect of what the person is saying
(3) argue a completely different point than your opponent was even talk about (bonus points if you work in reference to morality or children)
(4) ???
(5) profits!
On the post: Taxi Driver Does Pay What You Want... And It Works
There was a story about a year ago about an old man who gave a ride to a young lady at a super market. At the end of the ride, the lady asked how much the man wanted for the ride. The man protested, and the lady insisted. He tossed a number, $5. She paid him, and he was then promptly arrested for running an illegal taxi service.
It appears if the guy in this articles charges ANYTHING, even the exact cost of gas consumed in giving someone a ride, then he would qualify as a taxi service with all the legal hoops that go along with entering that market.
Now, by not asking for any money at any time, and functioning entirely off of the donation of riders, he can possibly sidestep any licensing requirements for taxi services, keeping his bottom line down & not having to bow to regulatory forces.
So, more than likely, it's not so much a "pray" situation ... but a situation to avoid becoming government "prey".
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