I understand why the father would opt to take down the video without a legal fight. Let's just say he owns a gas station or he work(ed) the assembly line at Ford. How many hours in a day does a working man have to devote to a cause like this? If I owned anything, like a house, or a bank account with more than fifty dollars in it, I'd legitimately be concerned about what happens to nice people who get screwed in civil lawsuits. Even though this isn't likely to end up in the courts, I'd be thinking about my house, my kids and the legal fees I might be stuck with, and I'd take down the video.
You wouldn't believe how many checks show up in my mailbox every year from questionable class-action lawsuit settlements. One was for .79 cents. Which means the lawyers were paid millions of dollars to settle a class-action lawsuit on my behalf, even though I didn't believe I was harmed by whatever it was the bad evil corporate giant did.
Yesterday there was a $10 check in my mailbox from a lawsuit settlement over the price-fixing of computer memory chips. I paid $60 eight years ago for memory to upgrade my Thinkpad from a company named Crucial, and they threw in free Fedex next-day shipping. The computer is now in the bottom of a landfill, long forgotten (relax, you global warming freaks, I donated the Thinkpad to a charity that recycles computers.) I was not harmed in any way by Crucial, yet they were obligated by some bogus class-action lawsuit to reimburse me $10 for the purchase of merchandise that worked as advertised. If it wasn't for the lawsuit, I would have forgotten all about it.
I'm still waiting on my IPOD settlement. Boo-hoo, the screen was easily scratched, so I'm deserving of my share of the class-action settlement pie. $9.00 and some change I'm waiting for.
It's too bad that Shazam might be sued out of existence. I buy music all the time after using my G1 to identify a song that's playing somewhere.
It's amazing how great this service works. The rowdies in the apartment building next door to us were playing what sounded like rap music at full volume. From inside my condo, I pressed the Shazam icon on my phone, just for the hell of it, and within seconds, the program identified the song and the artist that was playing through closed windows, across an alley in the next building over.
Can someone explain to me exactly how the ISP provider determines what I'm doing with the data I'm downloading or uploading, and whether or not the data belongs to me?
Example. When I buy a movie from Itunes, the downloads take an insanely long time - as long as three hours. If someone was monitoring my data usage, it would look like I was either a bandwith hog or a bootleg downloader.
What about streaming movies on Netflix? This activity must consume a lot of bandwidth. If my American ISP were to start the same kind of policy as the UK companies, does this mean I'm going to get warning letters from my ISP, making me responsible for proving that I wasn't doing anything illegal? The whole thing seems ridiculous.
I also upload data and music files to a third-party storage service for my Google G1. From my home computer, I send files to a virtual drive that I can later access on my G1. Some of these files are huge. Right now this is just 'Gee-whiz look what I can do with my G1' and doesn't serve any useful purpose, but from my home computer, I'm uploading a hell of a lot of data. If the ISP decides to crack down on what they think are data bootleggers, do I have to prove that I really was uploading music I paid for, pictures of my cats (stop laughing), and data files that I created? Doesn't this also bring up real privacy issues?
That's my data, and without a search warrant or a court order, I don't believe that I should have to let my ISP peruse my subdirectories of stupid cat photos, with the data being stored with a third-party private storage service that I pay for and not hosted on my ISP.
I was telling a friend of mine the other day how bottled water in 3 gallon jugs has been sold via home delivery in Los Angeles for more than 100 years. From living back east, he didn't remember a similiar service, but he did recall clearly that relatives of his were buying small bottles of water by the case, as far back as the early 1960's. It was fashionable among the upper-middle-class Easterners. So bottled water is neither new nor revolutionary and it existed long before 1981.
The only thing that makes me really insane is when people use texting shorthand on a blog or in a grown-up discussion forum. UR grt. Same 2 u. God, that drives me crazy and I truly believe that using text shorthand when one is not texting is a sign of low-class and even lower intelligence.
Everything else I overlook. Life is too short to obsess over other people's grammar mistakes.
A year ago I paid less than $30 for an 8GB SDHC card for my Android G1 directly from Amazon.com. I could have bought a 16GB card for a few dollars more, but the 8GB card provides more storage space than I will ever need for my G1.
My point is that it's unconscionable for Microsoft to block access to generic storage devices, just so they can charge $30 for a proprietary 512MB Memory card or $130 for a 120GB HDD device for the XBOX 360. Microsoft has every right to charge whatever ridiculous prices they want for their add-on products, and I'm sure there are people who will just buy directly from them. However, they have no right to block the use of generic add-ons and storage accessories for the XBOX.
What would happen if T-Mobile crafted the G1 so that it wasn't compatible with generic devices, including car chargers, storage devices and adapters? There would have been people screaming about the greed of Google, T-Mobile and the G1 manufacturer, and I would have either broken my new T-Mo contract or gone back to using my five-year-old smart phone (which is still superior in almost every way to the G1).
And according to the Slippery Slope theory such behaviour will eventually lead you to breaking into the author's home and raping their dog.
I hope you feel better about yourself for stealing the author's precious words without paying for them. And raping his dog.
It's the author's fault for dressing his poodle up in those stupid doggie sweaters. What does he think will happen when some perv sees his sweet white poodle wearing nothing but a pink knitted cardigan?
I'm a fan of Garth Brooks, but comments like these are what cause me to put the credit card back in my wallet, without buying those expensive concert tickets.
There's plenty of musicians from the 70's and 80's who had a couple of hits, and they've spent the rest of their careers touring and playing smaller venues. It's possible to find most of them online, sign up for email updates through their websites, and keep track of their concert schedules. I prefer to support these artists.
I also saw the Carly Simon CD at Starbucks on one of my rare visits there, and it was positioned right next to the cash register. I remember picking up the CD package, looking at it and then putting it back, because I thought the price was too high.
The only thing that made the Google G1 worth owning was the open Android programming system. Everything else about the phone sucks, including the battery life, but the Android-based phones have the greatest potential, if Google will just leave the programmers alone, instead of circling the wagons and demanding takedowns of third-party ROM hacks.
No matter how much I cry and whine about it. In addition, if no one will pay me anything for it, or will only take it if its free, then its time to find something else to sell and use the free item as a "draw" to advertise another item. Thus giving the free item more value, not necessarily to the customer, but to me as a marketing tool. The better the free item is, the better the advertising and, hopefully, the more sales of the other item. That's not really from a business class. That's just COMMON SENSE!
Except that in the online business model, giving away books for a penny does not draw more customers. Most purchases of used books are one-time choices, with the sales venue owned by large online web presences - Amazon.com or Ebay, for instance. Even when I worked for a non-book business that was set up on Ebay, we rarely had repeat customers, although the company's feedback rating was always 100%.
So the 'loss leader' concept has failed and no longer has relevance in the modern sales world. I had a closet full of cat litter that I bought from one of those now-dead online companies that gave most everything away for free. My cat litter supply lasted longer than the company did. The same with free clothes, toys and household goods that were given away in abundance by long-dead dot.coms. I took more than I ever paid for because it was offered to me at free or nearly for free. Even at the time, I knew it would never last, that these dot-coms were built on a flimsy premise: Give stuff away for free, go public with our stock, sit back and watch the profits roll in.
The dot.com merchants that have thrived - Amazon and Ebay - always offered something tangible for sale, and they have constantly reinvented themselves. Never was anything given away for free in either of their business models.
I have to agree with Dean Singleton. In the used book business, the destroyer was simple - amateurs and hobbyists who sell their used books for a penny online, which is, in effect, giving the item away for free. These dilettantes don't pay taxes, salaries or anything else with their sales - they add nothing to society yet they have been allowed to destroy the livelihood of millions of Americans, not just company owners but all of the people who made a living as clerks, warehouse workers and managers of book distribution centers.
There was never any reason to give the books away for free. Even at a base price of $5.00 per book, most of the workers who lost their jobs in the used book industry would still be fully employed. It was the moronic dropping of everything to .01 cent that destroyed the industry, and I completely agree with Dean Singleton's observation:
When you give it away for free it has no value. When you begin charging for it it has some value.
However, as much as I agree with Singleton, it's too late for the news industry to stuff the genie back into the bottle, just as the used book industry will never be returned to any form of profitability.
It's too late. Free has gone on for way too long, and it has permeated every corner of society. I don't pay for my news, whether online or in print, because I've spent the last 15 years of my life being able to access the news online for free.
Does anyone else remember this happening? In 1990, I had to turn in and plug up my laptop at airport security to show that it worked. This happened to me more than once, in both the DC and Atlanta airports, but I can't remember it happening anywhere else. I had been told that if I didn't have my power cord, and the battery was dead in the laptop, then it couldn't go on the plane with me.
This wasn't such a big deal, but what p**d me off was the security screeners would insist on handling my camera, looking through the viewfinder and pressing buttons before they gave it back to me. I had the feeling that they really didn't know what they were doing, but were going through some act, probably for the benefit of the morons who were supervising them. I never carried film in the camera - I always mailed the finished 35mm rolls to Kodak, because I didn't want anyone at the airport to ruin my pictures.
I was really surprised that after 9/11, airport security didn't start doing this again. These acts were as pointless as taking off your shoes and walking barefoot through the screening area.
I've been buying MP3s for years, and never once have I felt the need to let a friend log into any of my online accounts to download a song that I'd already paid for. It seems like a ridiculous policy change that will irritate the hell out of the customers without accomplishing anything useful.
The media companies - networks, movie studios, record companies, online MP3 stores - are doing everything they possibly can to alienate their paying customers. From neutering Hulu to suing RedBox out of existence, the entertainment industry is hastening its own death.
(untitled comment)
(untitled comment)
Yesterday there was a $10 check in my mailbox from a lawsuit settlement over the price-fixing of computer memory chips. I paid $60 eight years ago for memory to upgrade my Thinkpad from a company named Crucial, and they threw in free Fedex next-day shipping. The computer is now in the bottom of a landfill, long forgotten (relax, you global warming freaks, I donated the Thinkpad to a charity that recycles computers.) I was not harmed in any way by Crucial, yet they were obligated by some bogus class-action lawsuit to reimburse me $10 for the purchase of merchandise that worked as advertised. If it wasn't for the lawsuit, I would have forgotten all about it.
I'm still waiting on my IPOD settlement. Boo-hoo, the screen was easily scratched, so I'm deserving of my share of the class-action settlement pie. $9.00 and some change I'm waiting for.
(untitled comment)
It's amazing how great this service works. The rowdies in the apartment building next door to us were playing what sounded like rap music at full volume. From inside my condo, I pressed the Shazam icon on my phone, just for the hell of it, and within seconds, the program identified the song and the artist that was playing through closed windows, across an alley in the next building over.
(untitled comment)
Example. When I buy a movie from Itunes, the downloads take an insanely long time - as long as three hours. If someone was monitoring my data usage, it would look like I was either a bandwith hog or a bootleg downloader.
What about streaming movies on Netflix? This activity must consume a lot of bandwidth. If my American ISP were to start the same kind of policy as the UK companies, does this mean I'm going to get warning letters from my ISP, making me responsible for proving that I wasn't doing anything illegal? The whole thing seems ridiculous.
I also upload data and music files to a third-party storage service for my Google G1. From my home computer, I send files to a virtual drive that I can later access on my G1. Some of these files are huge. Right now this is just 'Gee-whiz look what I can do with my G1' and doesn't serve any useful purpose, but from my home computer, I'm uploading a hell of a lot of data. If the ISP decides to crack down on what they think are data bootleggers, do I have to prove that I really was uploading music I paid for, pictures of my cats (stop laughing), and data files that I created? Doesn't this also bring up real privacy issues?
That's my data, and without a search warrant or a court order, I don't believe that I should have to let my ISP peruse my subdirectories of stupid cat photos, with the data being stored with a third-party private storage service that I pay for and not hosted on my ISP.
(untitled comment)
If it's vital to government, it's mission critical to Microsoft. Pretty funny stuff.
(untitled comment)
(untitled comment)
Everything else I overlook. Life is too short to obsess over other people's grammar mistakes.
(untitled comment)
My point is that it's unconscionable for Microsoft to block access to generic storage devices, just so they can charge $30 for a proprietary 512MB Memory card or $130 for a 120GB HDD device for the XBOX 360. Microsoft has every right to charge whatever ridiculous prices they want for their add-on products, and I'm sure there are people who will just buy directly from them. However, they have no right to block the use of generic add-ons and storage accessories for the XBOX.
What would happen if T-Mobile crafted the G1 so that it wasn't compatible with generic devices, including car chargers, storage devices and adapters? There would have been people screaming about the greed of Google, T-Mobile and the G1 manufacturer, and I would have either broken my new T-Mo contract or gone back to using my five-year-old smart phone (which is still superior in almost every way to the G1).
Poodles in crocheted sweaters
It's the author's fault for dressing his poodle up in those stupid doggie sweaters. What does he think will happen when some perv sees his sweet white poodle wearing nothing but a pink knitted cardigan?
(untitled comment)
There's plenty of musicians from the 70's and 80's who had a couple of hits, and they've spent the rest of their careers touring and playing smaller venues. It's possible to find most of them online, sign up for email updates through their websites, and keep track of their concert schedules. I prefer to support these artists.
(untitled comment)
Re:
(untitled comment)
Re:
(untitled comment)
(untitled comment)
Re: Let them do it
Except that in the online business model, giving away books for a penny does not draw more customers. Most purchases of used books are one-time choices, with the sales venue owned by large online web presences - Amazon.com or Ebay, for instance. Even when I worked for a non-book business that was set up on Ebay, we rarely had repeat customers, although the company's feedback rating was always 100%.
So the 'loss leader' concept has failed and no longer has relevance in the modern sales world. I had a closet full of cat litter that I bought from one of those now-dead online companies that gave most everything away for free. My cat litter supply lasted longer than the company did. The same with free clothes, toys and household goods that were given away in abundance by long-dead dot.coms. I took more than I ever paid for because it was offered to me at free or nearly for free. Even at the time, I knew it would never last, that these dot-coms were built on a flimsy premise: Give stuff away for free, go public with our stock, sit back and watch the profits roll in.
The dot.com merchants that have thrived - Amazon and Ebay - always offered something tangible for sale, and they have constantly reinvented themselves. Never was anything given away for free in either of their business models.
(untitled comment)
There was never any reason to give the books away for free. Even at a base price of $5.00 per book, most of the workers who lost their jobs in the used book industry would still be fully employed. It was the moronic dropping of everything to .01 cent that destroyed the industry, and I completely agree with Dean Singleton's observation:
When you give it away for free it has no value. When you begin charging for it it has some value.
However, as much as I agree with Singleton, it's too late for the news industry to stuff the genie back into the bottle, just as the used book industry will never be returned to any form of profitability.
It's too late. Free has gone on for way too long, and it has permeated every corner of society. I don't pay for my news, whether online or in print, because I've spent the last 15 years of my life being able to access the news online for free.
(untitled comment)
This wasn't such a big deal, but what p**d me off was the security screeners would insist on handling my camera, looking through the viewfinder and pressing buttons before they gave it back to me. I had the feeling that they really didn't know what they were doing, but were going through some act, probably for the benefit of the morons who were supervising them. I never carried film in the camera - I always mailed the finished 35mm rolls to Kodak, because I didn't want anyone at the airport to ruin my pictures.
I was really surprised that after 9/11, airport security didn't start doing this again. These acts were as pointless as taking off your shoes and walking barefoot through the screening area.
Re:
The media companies - networks, movie studios, record companies, online MP3 stores - are doing everything they possibly can to alienate their paying customers. From neutering Hulu to suing RedBox out of existence, the entertainment industry is hastening its own death.
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