Internet gambling is addictive, dangerous and should be outlawed,...
Mmmmm....cigarettes are also addictive & dangerous yet you do not outlaw them. Same goes for alcohol. For that matter there are many addicted to sex, yet it is still legal. (At least as long as you are a man & a woman, with the lights out and ONLY for procreation. Did I get enough sarcasm in that?)
Is the drunk that looses his job any different from a gambler who looses his money? ANYTHING can be addictive, dangerous, and a "serious threat to families and our society" (from Rep. Tom Osborne). Interestingly you can still bet on horses online. Can you say hypocrisy? I knew that you could.
This reeks of two things. First an election year tidbit to the conservatives who think everyone is stupid and needs to be treated like a 10 year old. Second, and more likely, this is a way to drive more money into real-world casinos that are sprouting up more and more across the nation. Real-world gambling = more money for government.
I do not gamble, online or otherwise. I do not see the fun in it. At least with poker there is some skill involved and there is some control in your hands. If you are going to stop one type of gambling online, then ALL types must be stopped.
An interesting side note - there is a note that most sports approve this ban because they feel that "web wagering could hurt the integrity of their sports." There have been plenty of documented cases of thrown games before online betting, and there will be plenty after. As long as there is ANY betting there will be no integrity.
Now I am all for cutting the ozone levels, and I don't mind (too much) paying an extra $.04/gallon for gas. However this struck me as odd:
A statewide anti-idling law for cars, trucks, buses and off-road vehicles. Municipalities in Northeast Ohio should adopt similar bans.
and
Strict enforcement of speed limits.
Ok, the point about trucks idling just to provide air conditioning to the driver sleeping the back, or worse yet just waiting to be loaded at the dock, however how is this going to be enforced? Will our already overworked cops be out with stop watches at the drive-up ATMs instead of out trying to catch speeders? Instead of directing traffic at the accident will they be handing out idling tickets?
And what about the strict enforement of speed limits? Right now most cops will let a lot go because if they did not traffic would come to a stand still. Which of course brings us back to the no idling rule.
Since we are talking some weird laws, why not just ban all gas-powered lawn maintenance equipment? Hell why not just eliminate gas-powered cars completely? Both are about as enforcable as the anti-idling law.
I also like the suggestion to increase the use of public transportation, including free on high ozone days, only works if you have a system that is actually useful in place. As for workplace changes, most employers are not willing to make ANY changes in how they do business.
Mmmmmm....no. Don't get me wrong, I think the lady has been seriously wronged, but I don't think the manufacturer should be held accountable. If they bill their recording as time-lapsed, I would think at least law enforcement would understand that and NOT arrest her in the first place.
There is some kind of training program for cops, firemen, etc. is going on around work. Therefore there are a bunch of signs up to direct people to the right areas. It is weird to drive down the road and see 'cadavers' with an arrow pointing you, presumably, to where the cadaver are. Explosives, searches, aggression are just a few I remember.
This is just a law to allow the cops to arrest people for panhandling. Period. Do people REALLY think that just passing a law requiring a special photo ID and saying you cannot panhandle in these locations will magically make people stop doing it? I realize politicians are not necessarily the sharpest crayons in the box, but come on people.
I am not arguing that there is an issue with panhandling in Akron. I know there is. It does not keep me from going downtown. What keeps me from going downtown is a lack of things that I am interested in. Let me say that again - What keeps me from going downtown is a lack of things that I am interested in.
I have rarely felt unsafe in Akron. I have been told though my perception maybe skewed given I am a 6 foot tall male.
Wow, what a shock. Teenagers lie about having sex. Surveys that show abstinence-only sex education programs work maybe unreliable because teens lie. Oh my am I shocked.
As long as there have been humans, they have been lying about having sex. As soon as you make something "bad", teens are going to try it. Maybe people need to live in the real world and realize teens will have sex. They will lie about having sex. We should equip these teens to be able to at least protect themselves from unwanted pregnancy.
We will not even bring up the whole sexually transmitted disease thing.
When Michael Stanley wrote that song, he of course was referring to Cleveland. Rumor has it that they recorded 200 or so different versions of the song, yelling various city names in place of the original Cleveland, including a version with Akron.
Today we went and put flowers on my grandfathers' graves, plus our mother and a couple of other non-veteran family members as is our tradition over the Memorial Day weekend. Maybe I was feeling a little nostalgic, maybe I just did not want to be around people (I had an invite to a neighbor's barbeque), but I spent a couple of hours driving around Akron today. This is not something I have done in many years, and boy have I missed a lot. I had heard about many of the projects around town - the new library (actually been in it), the new art museum (still in progress), and some other changes at the University of Akron, but to see some of the changes up close was something entirely different.
I drove by the big 4 rubber companies old plant ones: General (now an empty lot where they do cement recycling), Goodrich (Gojo and various other businesses), Firestone (no idea what they use it for now) and Goodyear (now their World Headquarters). So much has changed since the days when you got a good whiff of sulpher and knew another tire rolled off the lines.
As I drove around remembering the closed store that used to be a Lawsons, the chinese restaurant that used to be a Red Barn (where you could get burgers OR fried chicken) or the intersection that used to have 4 gas stations (now has 1, 2 empty lots and a car dealership) I got to wondering if I was not one of the people holding Akron back. Do I cling to tightly to the glory days? Maybe, like the phoenix of myth, we need to plow it all under to get something new to rise from the ashes, so to speak.
As much as I love Akron, it is never going to be a cool city. Sure, you might be able to pull the black-rimmed glasses off and dress her up in "cool" clothes, but at her core Akron is still in the AV club. If you get to know her, ignore the pocket protector and black socks, you find out she is a pretty interesting city. Maybe even cool it her own way. The rush to make Akron attractive to outsiders, I hope we do not loose what makes Akron, well, Akron.
There is one last bit that Michael Stanley left us with, which is a great reminder to all of us:
One thing I seem to recall from 9/11 is that the President and various other people wanted to get the various alphabet agencies to work closer together. Share the info. So NSA may say "we are only looking for terrorists" however the FBI or DEA may have access to the same data and use it for their own data mining efforts.
I was running a bit behind in my newspaper reading, but I came across an article in Monday's paper that brought back some wonderful memories.
On May 15, 1981 Len Barker pitched a perfect game. For those who do not follow baseball, that means Len Barker faced the minimum number of batters a pitcher can face in 9 innings - 27. 27 up, 27 down. No walks, no hits, no runs, no errors. No one reached base at all. This has only been done 15 times in the big leagues.
Slightly less thatn 7300 people were in the old Municipal Stadium (that held about 60,000 people for baseball) that night, however the game was on TV.
It was a Friday night. I remember because I used to wash dishes at a Friday night fish fry. As was usual, we would pop out from the kitchen to catch the score on the TV at the bar whenever we got a chance. About the fifth inning someone popped into the kitchen to let us know Lenny had a no-hitter going. We then popped out more frequently to see what was going on. We could pretty much see the TV from the door to the kitchen, so it was not hard. A couple of innings later someone popped in to let us know that Lenny had the perfect game going. All pretenses of work went out the door then as we stood around the bar, with just about everyone else, watching. Fingers crossed. Cheering each out. Completely freaking out when, as I recall, Rick Manning (now an annoucer for the Tribe on cable) caught the last fly out to center field.
For us Indian fans it was a touch with greatness. It had been 13 years since a perfect game had been done (1968 by Catfish Hunter), and the Indians were in, as one of the players put it, perpetual rebuild mode. For those who have seen the movie Major League, that is not too far off what those days were like. To see someone at the top of his game (it only took 104 pitches) was great. We never held much hope of a post-season - the American League East was the toughest division in those days. Many season the Indians' record would have kept them at least in the hunt for some post-season action, but the AL East they ended up in 5th or 6th.
Gas - $3.91/gallon. For the cheap stuff. Maybe the high end, but still it will probably be there for all of us later this year. What will it actually take for the government to start an initiative like the Moon landing to get us off of oil?
An interesting study. No good, easy answers (and I would not expect any), but I thought this is probably the biggest answer (emphasis mine):
Is it health care? This is a popular theory because all British citizens have access to a government-run health care system that encourages preventive care. Despite that striking difference, however, researchers hesitate to cite it as the explanation. After all, Americans spend nearly twice as much as the British do on health care, and many of the wealthiest Americans in the study, who presumably have insurance, are sicker than are the poorest Brits.
One thing about the American health care system (and I use the term system lightly here) there is not a lot of emphasis on preventative care. Few, if any, insurance companies work out deals for discounted gym memberships, weight loss programs, stop smoking programs, etc. I think insurance companies are starting to wake up to it, but we still have a LONG way to go. I am not even asking for the insurance company to make the programs available for free, just work out some kind of discount.
The stress pointed to in the article is very real. Brits I believe get 3, maybe 4, weeks of government mandated vacation a year. In the USA we get 0, although most companies give 2 weeks after 1 or 2 years of service. Even then most people are encouraged (and in some cases ordered) to not take their allotted vacation time. Even for those who do take their vacation, the vacation is as stressful as their job. A different kind of stress is still stress.
As I understand vacation in Europe, people will just take a week (or more) and get a house in the country and just kind of do nothing. No forced marches through Disney World, no "are we there yet" road trips. Just some time to relax and unplug from the world.
"The lawsuit does not seek specific monetary damages, but wants Google to prohibit 'advertising relating to Web sites that display, market or otherwise provide illegal access to pornography.'"
Hmmm... no mention of CHILD pornography in that. That statement reeks of election year grandstanding.
As mentioned anywhere that does have child (or I can imagine a few other categories) porn they do not allow advertising, block it from the search engine, and notify the authorities.
If you were really worried about child porn you would also go after Microsoft (MSN search) and Yahoo. Both have ads in their search engine, or are adding them soon. Besides there a tons of sites & even books on how to boost your search ranking that bypass all advertising.
As an aside, I do not recall seeing any porn ads in my search results from Google. Adsense is pretty good at matching advertisors to your search terms.
If someone really wants to stop the spread of porn, maybe you should go after the spammers who send me a ton of 'naked h0rny t33n' emails. Who needs to search when it comes to my inbox daily?
"Apple's dominance of the download market means the Cupertino-based company does have the upper hand for now, but analysts predict its market share will pare down as rival services, including online music subscription services, gain traction."
That is an interesting statement. Music subscriptions are EXACTLY what the music industry wants - essentially always paying for the music. I do think they are wrong about Apple's dominance though. Even with cheap music subscriptions (as low as $60/year) people are still going to want to buy and own some music. Unless someone can come up with something cheaper (unlikely) or at a similar price but without the iTunes DRM it will remain the place to go for legal music purchases.
It will be interesting to see what the use on PUlse for "recycled original series". I would love to see "Tremors, The Series" rear its Graboid head again, even just in reruns.
For many years I had the Scenic Rivers plates, although the plates for my new car are standard issue Ohio plates. I would seriously consider a blimp plate. Unique and the money goes to the local Red Cross.
I am working from home today to get some uninterrupted thinking time. As always it has paid off.
I got a call today that I let my answering machine (yes, I'm a bit old school) get. This is not unusual - because of telemarketers I never answer my home phone until I hear who it is. I am too cheap frugal to get caller ID. Anyone who knows me knows I do not answer my phone until after the answering machine picks up.
This was from John Morgan, to have Mr. or Mrs. Hill return his call at a toll-free number about my mortgage. Well John, if for some reason you read this - I am not returning your call you stinking telemarketer.
How do I know? A few things:
1) I am not married. Never have been. Therefore there is no Mrs. Hill on any mortgage papers. 2) I have no mortgage on my current house. 3) The mortgage I do have on my other house has never called me in almost 7 years. Ever. Not even while I was getting the mortgage. They like to work through mail. 4) Any communication I have had on the phone with the bank that is loosely affiliated to the mortgage company as always clearly identified the company they are with. I know that sounds weird, but the mortgage company & bank are separate entities but are owned by the same parent. They actually share the same building locally. 5) The mortgage that my mom had, on both houses, were in her name. She never remarried and had been divorced for 20+ years before she died. Therefore Mr. Hill on her mortgages.
AFI's Top 100 American Movies of All Time, or at least through 1998. Since one of my 101 things to do in 1001 days is to get through this list, I thought I would post where I stand on this right now. Some of these I may have seen given the weird tastes my mom had in movies, but I don't recall them.
1. CITIZEN KANE (1941) 2. CASABLANCA (1942) 3. THE GODFATHER (1972) 4. GONE WITH THE WIND (1939) 5. LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962) 6. THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939) 7. THE GRADUATE (1967) 8. ON THE WATERFRONT (1954) 9. SCHINDLER'S LIST (1993) 10. SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (1952) 11. IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946) 12. SUNSET BOULEVARD (1950) 13. THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI (1957) 14. SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959) 15. STAR WARS (1977) 16. ALL ABOUT EVE (1950) 17. THE AFRICAN QUEEN (1951) 18. PSYCHO (1960) 19. CHINATOWN (1974) 20. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (1975) 21. THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940) 22. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) 23. THE MALTESE FALCON (1941) 24. RAGING BULL (1980) 25. E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982) 26. DR. STRANGELOVE (1964) 27. BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967) 28. APOCALYPSE NOW (1979) 29. MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (1939) 30. THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1948) 31. ANNIE HALL (1977) 32. THE GODFATHER PART II (1974) 33. HIGH NOON (1952) 34. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962) 35. IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1934) 36. MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969) 37. THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (1946) 38. DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944) 39. DOCTOR ZHIVAGO (1965) 40. NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959) 41. WEST SIDE STORY (1961) 42. REAR WINDOW (1954) 43. KING KONG (1933) 44. THE BIRTH OF A NATION (1915) 45. A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951) 46. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971) 47. TAXI DRIVER (1976) 48. JAWS (1975) 49. SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (1937) 50. BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (1969) 51. THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940) 52. FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (1953) 53. AMADEUS (1984) 54. ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (1930) 55. THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965) 56. M*A*S*H (1970) 57. THE THIRD MAN (1949) 58. FANTASIA (1940) 59. REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955) 60. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) 61. VERTIGO (1958) 62. TOOTSIE (1982) 63. STAGECOACH (1939) 64. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977) 65. THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991) 66. NETWORK (1976) 67. THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962) 68. AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951) 69. SHANE (1953) 70. THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971) 71. FORREST GUMP (1994) 72. BEN-HUR (1959) 73. WUTHERING HEIGHTS (1939) 74. THE GOLD RUSH (1925) 75. DANCES WITH WOLVES (1990) 76. CITY LIGHTS (1931) 77. AMERICAN GRAFFITI (1973) 78. ROCKY (1976) 79. THE DEER HUNTER (1978) 80. THE WILD BUNCH (1969) 81. MODERN TIMES (1936) 82. GIANT (1956) 83. PLATOON (1986) 84. FARGO (1996) 85. DUCK SOUP (1933) 86. MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (1935) 87. FRANKENSTEIN (1931) 88. EASY RIDER (1969) 89. PATTON (1970) 90. THE JAZZ SINGER (1927) 91. MY FAIR LADY (1964) 92. A PLACE IN THE SUN (1951) 93. THE APARTMENT (1960) 94. GOODFELLAS (1990) 95. PULP FICTION (1994) 96. THE SEARCHERS (1956) 97. BRINGING UP BABY (1938) 98. UNFORGIVEN (1992) 99. GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER (1967) 100. YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (1942)
What I remember of Barnaby is he was a lot like Mr. Rogers but with fewer props and a much smaller audience, but just as entertaining.
Barnaby was as much a fixture of my youth as Super Host, Big Chuck & Hoolihan (later to become Big Chuck & Little John), Mr. Jingaling and The Ghoul.
Now a days you would not find such shows on TV, which is a shame. These hosts may not be great actors, but they knew there audiences and could tap into local in-jokes in a way that gets lost when people only look at the numbers. I do not think such shows would work well as a podcast either. Copyright issues aside, tapping into local jokes does not play well with an international audence.
The idea of on-line storage is nothing new. Four or five years ago there was a service that would sync files to a server between multiple machines. Amazon has had something similar for awhile, although it is a pay service.
One bit I found particularly odd:
"With Live Drive, all your information - movies, music, tax information, a high-definition videoconference you had with your grandmother, whatever - could be accessible from anywhere, on any device." [Emphasis mine]
I found this a bit chilling that anyone would even consider putting their tax info in a place they did not have a lot of control over. Microsoft still has a way to go to earn at least my trust, and frankly I would not even put that kind of info on GDrive. At least if it is on my machine I can disconnect my machine from the internet, or copy the file to a CD, etc. to keep that kind of information as private as possible.
Also, given some recent things from the RIAA or MPAA, what kind of responsibility would you have if someone cracked into your Live Drive and illegally downloaded the music and videos you had there? You legally owned them, however I am sure the alphabet groups could make something of a case that you were distributing them.
Don't get me wrong - it is a good idea. However at least right now internet storage has a ways to go to prove itself.
Although disappointing, it is not surprising given the cost of gas. I only hit the minimum number of trails last year - many of which are sort-of on the way home.
Although I am enjoying catching the photos of his trip, this post struck a chord with me. Going back to the old BBS days when we would hook up, snag as much as possible, send as much as possible, and get off the phone before my mom would kick my butt. These days of 24/7 Internet access, many times with always available wireless, it is fun to see some old school work.
Yet another attempt to figure out the Stradivari's secrets. I have heard records of some of the Stradivarius violins, however my untrained ear has never really noticed a difference.
An interesting twist. Show some patience, and be willing to put up with some ads, and you can get some popular shows for free.
The question will be have they listened to the conversation around advertising. People are willing to watch advertising if it is a) interesting and b) not jammed down their throat several times an hour. Consider the Super Bowl - many people watch the Super Bowl just to see the ads. Can they provide provocative, varied ads to keep people interested?
I am finally jumping on the bandwagon. Check out Triplux for more information, and a copy of the script for the countdown. Unfortunately Blogger does not want to allow the script to run. My 1001 days in 2 Jan 2009.
1. Find 300 total caches 2. Walk 5 days A week for 3 straight months 3. Read 100 books "document.location.href=this.options[this.selectedIndex].value;">
4. Completely clean out office 5. Get rid of entertainment center 6. Paint living room 7. Transfer all cds to MP3 8. Finish Route 66 walking program 9. Finish Civil War walking program 10. Finish Lewis & Clarke walking program 11. Finish College Walking program 12. Get a new car 13. Paint outside of House 14. Paint kitchen 15. Paint bedroom 16. Paint office 17. Paint Bathroom 18. Setup tai chi area 19. Complete a self study Javascript book 20. Finish Watch AFI's top 100 American Films of All Time 21. Replace basement windows 22. Lose 50 pounds 23. Replace tool bench 24. Landscape side of house 25. Finish Great Lakes Walking program 26. Finish Lighthouse Walking program 27. Finish Revolutionary War walking program 28. Finish Pony express Walking program 29. Walk a total of 2300 miles 30. Complete NaNoWriMo 31. Complete the Gold Award in the President's Challenge 32. Replace hose faucet 33. Take 500 pictures 34. Learn to juggle 3 balls 35. Release 200 Bookcrossing books 36. Get my Amazon wish list to transfer to my Palm through synch 37. Get my Netflix queue to transfer to my Palm through synch 38. Setup my old machine as a server 39. Get a new hair style 40. Get back in school for my accounting degree 41. Get a Microsoft certification 42. Complete at least half of the hours for my associate in Metaphysical studies at http://www.ccms.edu. 43. Complete Blogathon 44. Visit Lily Dale, NY 45. Setup my scanner (or get a new one if needed) 46. Get a t-shirt from Rubber City Clothing http://www.rubbercityclothing.com/ 47. Attend First Night 48. Get a computer desk 49. Take 1 yoga class a week for at least 3 months 50. Get a t-shirt from Think Geek 51. Get 150 volksmarch award 52. Update my resume (I have not touched it in 12 years) 53. Update my will 54. Visit either the new art museum (currently closed for construction) or Summit Art Space 55. See a live play 56. Go to an Akron or Cleveland symphony concert 57. Play a round of mini golf 58. Do morning pages every day for 2 months 59. Take a pottery class 60. Get coffee table up to attic (harder than you would think - need to clean a space in the attic!) 61. Get a set of gel pens for work 62. Get caught up on my magazine reading. Stay that way for a month. 63. Give 1 gallon of blood 64. Get new bed pillows 65. Get smaller trash/recycle cans for the kitchen 66. Setup a compost pile. 67. Redo The Artist Way, preferably with a group 68. Get a massage. 69. Come up with a signature item for geocaching. 70. Transfer last 2 phase study group tapes to MP3. 71. Get a program to extract the data from my time log into something useful for my timesheet 72. Get WiFi working again at home 73. Get a new cell phone 74. Get one of my many posters framed and hung somewhere in my house. 75. Overhaul the look of my blog 76. Replace drapes in office 77. Clean out my silverware drawer of all the crap I don't use 78. Get new glasses 79. Complete "Drawing for Dummies" 80. Watch all avaiable Stargate:SG1 episodes on DVD 81. Get my photo on my blog 82. Visit the Akron Zoo 83. Get a digital recorder I can use while driving and later convert the files to MP3. 84. Get an icon for my blog 85. Clean out my old software. 86. Pay off my new car from above. 87. Try 12 new receipes 88. Get something to transport my crystals in, with appropriate covers/padding 89. Get rid of my unused bulletin board 90. Get rid of my unused filing cabinet 91. Catch up on all the Star Trek:Hidden Frontier episodes 92. Get my inbox to 0 emails. 93. Visit Niagra Falls. 94. Fix my headboard 95. Attend after work social at least once a month for 6 months 96. See Mt. Rushmore 97. Clean off kitchen table. Eat dinner off of the table for a month. 98. Meditate every day for 1 month 99. Take clothe bags shopping every week for 3 months 100. Edge around the sidewalk, driveway, etc. 101. Complete 1 volkesbike event.
An interesting article. Some do have a valid complaint about how Microsoft software works. At least Bill (and all of Microsoft) uses its own products.
As a recent multi-monitor convert I can say there is a productivity gain from adding at least 1 monitor. For most of us I can't imagine more than 3 monitors as being beneficial, and in fact I would say many would find 3 to be a hinderance.
I like the idea of the tablet & desktop, along with the white board that will convert your scribblings into a graphic. Tablet PCs are just coming into their own, although they are still a little out of reach for the average PC user (corporate or home). Maybe Microsoft's new Ultra-Moble PCs will make tablet PCs available to the masses. I have resisted blogging about these (the Origami project) until they come out, but these have some great opportunity to get tablet programming to the unwashed masses (or at least us poor geeks).
I am of the opinion that, eventually, people will have several sized tablet-style computers much like you would have different sized pads of paper. The Ultra-Mobile will probably have limited use, much like a the half-sized notepads. The biggest use will be the small sized Palm/Pocket PC sized devices and the larger tablets. These I think are the common sized of papers used by people as well.
This struck a big chord with me. Now I have to admit I have not shopped at any of the places mentioned in the column, for various reasons:
Varca - It is on the wrong side of town and hard to get in & out of. I have been known to go to Bierce Hardware in Tallmadge before it became an Ace Hardware. I still get my glass repaired there.
Ahern's - I am not big on flowers, but even when we had to order them we worked with a store closer to our house. It, unfortunately, has closed as well.
Albright's - Frankly I don't buy that much lighting. One desk lamp and an outside flood light does not make for a great way to support any business.
The Freez - Out of the way for a custard stand, especially when I am about 5 minutes from the original Stricklands. They get 99% of my summer ice cream business.
The Hatterie - I do not wear that many hats. I have not bought a hat in at least 5 years, possibly longer.
However the point is a good one. I do try to support businesses that truely want to become a part of the community as much as I can. One store I do support is Acme grocery stores. My organic stuff is usually bought from The Mustard Seed or Kriegers.
There are times I wonder about Gearge Clooney, but this was pretty cool of him. This is the first time I had heard of him doing this. It does not sound like it is the first time he has done this. I wonder if it became newsworthy because of him winning an Oscar?
I am currently downloading an episode from season 2 of Star Trek:Hidden Frontier. Hidden Frontier is a fan effort of love, so it is not necessarily Oscar level performances, but it is entertaining. Each episode, so far, has been around 50-60 meg. Not huge, but still pretty good sized. Unfortunately so far most episodes require two downloads, plus an optional blooper file. This is an application screaming for BitTorrent. One file to get a whole season.
This is also something screaming for an RSS feed instead of constantly checking the site for a new episode. They do not seem to have an easily identified RSS feed just for the episodes.
Last weekend I spent some time downloading both music & film previews from SXSW. I did this last year as well, and the overall size is up: Just over 3 gig of music and another gig or so of film previews. At the same time I was downloading season 1 of Hidden Frontier and a few other things.
Now I know setting up an RSS feed is pretty much a no brainer anymore. In fact all blogging software has it built in. If the episodes were put on the net in blog form the RSS feed would become a given and there would be media goodness for all the Hidden Frontier fans.
However I am not sure how tough it is to setup a BitTorrent download. I am not a server guy, but I imagine there should be some way to easily get BitTorrent up and running for a site. Zipping the files together may not save space, but would make the season available as 1 file for download. That is what the SXSW people did - zipping MP3 usually results in a LARGER file, but it does make for 1 file for download.
The problem I have is Azureus always seems to bring my machine to a grinding halt. Azureus is, arguable, the most popular BitTorrent client around, but on my machine once I start it up the whole machine slows to a crawl. It also seems to introduce a fair amount in instability into my system, almost always requiring a reboot after extensive use. I noticed a similar problem with the Juice Receiver. Both are great programs, but to leave up for constant use you need to up your system resources a bit.
The true benefit of BitTorrent comes when you can leave your client up for long periods of time. However if your BitTorrent client kills the performance of your 512 meg laptop, you only leave it up as long as you are downloading something. I would love to leave my BitTorrent client up all the time. It helps everyone out, plus I could take advantage of BitTorrent podcast feeds.
I have been use Doppler as my primary podcast receiver. It has a few problems of its own, but it has a much smaller footprint than Juice, which allows me to leave it up all day. Doppler was written specifically for Windows, does a specific job, and does it well. My only real complaint has been it does not acknowledge a system shutdown request. That is small potatoes given all I get in return.
What would be great is a BitTorrent client that worked just like Doppler - small, efficient, and stable. If a BitTorrent client would play well in the background I would leave my running whenever my machine was on. If it played well with a podcast reciever even better. I would gladly switch many of my podcast feeds over to BitTorrent if I could consistently get feeds from small, stable programs that would allow me to use my machine while they worked in the background.
There has been talk about tighter integration between podcast recievers & BitTorrent for as long as podcasting has been around. Maybe both are too new to really make any headway on it. However with video podcasts this integration is becoming critical.
However an even bigger problem is mixed media fees. One of the first mixed media feeds I noticed was The Dawn and Drew Show. Every now and then they would release a video clip on their regular podcast feed. Adam Curry has been doing this a lot of late as well. When I was using iTunes as my player, this was not a problem. I would see the movies come up and I could take the time to watch them. However I now use either Windows Media Player (WMP) or my MP3 player for podcasts. I do this for many of the same reasons I switched from Juice - smaller footprint and it plays better with Windows. WMP handles some, but not all, video formats and my MP3 player handles no video at all (big shock there).
The problem is one player cannot handle all possible video formats, and there are plenty of popular ones out there. And what happens when someone wants to shoot a PDF through their podcast feed?
One of the advantages of a podcast receiver over a full RSS reader such as FeedDemon is that you can pretty much set up a feed and ignore it. You do not have to check show notes, you do not have to click on anything to fetch the enclosure. Of course going that route will let you know when you are getting the odd video. (FeedDemon does do auto downloading of enclosures, but runs into many of the same problems unless you consistently check the feed for what enclosures are being sent.)
So what is the answer? I'm not sure. To keep the asychronous of RSS, I would need some way of being notified when I am getting something "unexpected" in a feed. So, for example, when a video gets sent down a feed something happens to let me know I have something to attend to. Maybe the system tray icon could change, maybe an instant message, or an email. I would not want a message box to pop up every time something weird came through (although that might be an option for some people). It would also be cool if I could get a list of these files through the podcast receiver so I could play them at my leisure. That would be a lot simplier than playing Where's Waldo with these rouge files.
Ummmmm....yea, right. I am all against stupid drunk tricks, but I can't believe this is going to fly for long in Texas before EVERYONE starts to scream.
Cleveland is actually a pretty cool place to shoot second unit stuff. Skyscrapers, run down neighborhoods, industrial zones, even a port along Lake Erie.
I got this before St. Patrick's Day, but a busy week at work and some Internet problems over the weekend kept me from blogging about it. I still need to listen to the CD - just need to find some time to drop it in a player. I lack a CD player in my car. I left it at home today, so probably tomorrow. One thing I did notice is there was only 1 group on there that I have any CDs for - The Irish Rovers.
I hate this. Allow me to say what I said when there was first some communities opting out - what good is county council passing a law if the individual cities can decide to follow them or not? Either the cities within the county must follow the rules as presented or we need to get rid of county council. Otherwise we pay for no service.
I'm tired of the scare tactics, and frankly they will not work. Two words - charter schools. Akron Public Schools are making themselves irrelevant.
The School Board flat out lied to us about no schools getting shut down to get us to sign onto the reconstruction plan. You are talking about even further school closing, some regardless of the passing of the levy. Frankly if you are shutting schools down you don't need as many teachers anyways.
I can't afford any more, and frankly until the State legislator gets off its ass to fix school funding in a way that is constitutional according to the Ohio Supreme Court I am not voting for any more taxes for schools. I think we all should do that, maybe then instead of debating the state amphibian we can get our state representatives to do something constructive like fund public schools.
Instead of focusing on closing down the suppliers, maybe we need to concentrate on WHY so many people feel the need to take drugs. Cut on the demand, supply dries up.
As a general rule of thumb, I think it is a bad idea to outsource security of our ports to any country, Middle Eastern, China, England, even Canada. We don't outsource our national defense, why outsource port security?
There are times I doubt the intelligence of my cat Fuzzbutt. However he has learned that, pretty much, if I am reaching for him from my chair he is either going to a) to get petted b) get wet with flea stuff or c) get combed out, which usually hurts. Fuzzbutt likes to roll around on his back and he ends up with matted hair around his shoulders along his spine where he can't reach while cleaning.
Today he jumped up beside me while I was sitting on my bed. I keep a comb for my cats near by for just such an emergency. The above tribble-like clump of hair was from the combing. If he would just settle down beside me more often we would not have to go through all this hair pulling.
I never played for Patella, but I did have him for gym class in his last year of teaching. He was a great guy, and one of the best (if not THE best) coaches at Akron East High. Everyone I know who did play for him had great things to say about him.
Wil had the right idea, but the wrong format. Think SMS, aka text messages. Instant messages still suffer from inter operability problems, however AIM is better than nothing.
RSS is great for pushing out info, but there is a time sensitivity issue. If, using Wil's example, you had an appearance you would need to make sure to get it in your feed far enough ahead to a) allow people to see it in their feed and b) allow people to make plans. B obviously needs a bigger time lead than A, however you still would need at least 1 or 2 days to have a reasonable chance of letting everyone at least know.
However, what if you were asked to do a last minute fill in on Letterman? What if you need to cancel a meeting at the last minute with a group? Not everyone has their IM client open 24/7. Could you drop a quick text message to list and get near instantaneous notification? Not a new idea, but not one done here in the States. Mostly because US cell companies see text messaging as another way to gouge their customers get revenue. The rest of the world GETS how to use text messaging - from using it to how to charge for it.
However the flip side to this was a somewhat recent article on 43 Folders. RSS is great, but some of its uses have left us spending too much time managing our feeds sometimes. Wouldn't it be great if there was a way for readers to detect and let you know "we see your delivery of yak hair has arrived. Do you want to remove feed foobar?" or maybe "You have not received something on the foo feed for 30 days. Remove it?" I would not want to automatically whack a feed - some of mine intentionally receive little traffic but I want that traffic when it comes.
I guess there is just a matter of how we get info (there is a timeliness issue as well, but Merlin touches on that at 43 Folders). Think about it - many of us probably have an IM client or two, an email program, maybe a couple of web email accounts checked on the web, and an aggregator (or two). This does not include multiple devices many of us have (cell, PDA, multiple computers, god knows what else) or services we use to keep some of our local data synched amongst the different machines (think NewsGator & Feedburner). For some eliminating one piece of the puzzle is a great help.
I am not a huge baseball fan, but having someone so close to me age-wise die of a stroke is weird. Granted at 41 I could easily be a grandfather. My old neighbors were, and great grandparents by 60.
About the only time you hear of a stroke in someone this young is in child birth (which I think would have been a bigger story) or some kind of gentic thing. Such a death though makes you re evaluate how you are handling your own health. Time to cut back on the nachos and get back in the walking shoes.
Nothing personal guys, but who has 3+ hours to devote to this kind of show anymore? I think the awards are important, but I do not think the show itself is important.
One question over this merger - didn't the government break up AT&T over anti-trust issues before? Isn't AT&T pretty much back to where they were before the break up? We have accomplished what?
I have been a bad blogger. Almost a week ago I received a package from my secret pal in Spoil A Blogger. I got a copy of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I did not have a copy this. I saw it in the theaters and loved it. I thought it was much better than the version done by the BBC back in the 8o's. I know some people were upset because they included some things from the BBC radio show as well, but I still liked it.
I have to remember to keep my Amazon wish list up to date. Merlin over at 43 Folders recommends using your Amazon Wish List as a parking place for books, CDs, etc. you are looking to buy. I like the idea, although I have yet to take the time to figure out how to get the Amazon Wish List onto my Palm. Two way communication between my Palm and Amazon wish list would even be better.
I have not been feeling the need to post here on personal things for awhile, so I figured I should check in. Weather is still weird here, and I am feeling it a little still.
Mostly tonight I wanted to clear out some things from my personal to do list. An important project has washed up on my desk at work and I want to get some things cleared up here at home just in case the shit hits the fan on this and a bad time for me. I definately have mixed feelings on the project. I've been told it is simple, but I have heard THAT all too many times before. My intent is to whip it out quickly and easily, but that pain in the butt Murphy tends to have other things to say about my intent.
Actually I just looked at the time and realized I have not had dinner. A group of us at work go out once a month for lunch. We work in different departments but we like to get together and catch up. Today we went to a Chinese buffet so I am feeling a little full.
Down and dirty during the primary. Just remind us all of all the crap currently going on with the Republican controlled Ohio government. I have one thing to say:
Thank you Ken Blackwell.
Truth be told, I would not vote for you anyways. I saw one of your early ads, one that was not an attack ad. I do not agree with your views. Period. I also feel your views, as presented in that ad, will do nothing but harm Ohio.
If you want to attact smart, creative, young people to this state you don't concern yourself with taxes. You concern yourself with making the state a place where someone who is different feels comfortable. Has anyone listened to the reports put out by consultants for cities here in Ohio? Young creative people choose where to live, then worry about getting a job. Countries that have opened their borders (and wallets) to gay researchers are, surprise, getting gay researchers to flock to those countries. Worry about the environment, the parks, public transportation, and yes getting industry to come here. But more and more people do not have to go to their jobs, their jobs can come to them. Build a state that supports that, people will come, and then industry will follow.
They want to invite pastors or rabbis from Hartville churches or churches where village residents worship to say the prayer. Hough said he would like it limited to Judeo-Christian religions.
This is the only reason I am against prayer at governmetn meetings. If you are going to start the meeting with a prayer, and invite in ministers, then you also need to allow for any other religion within city bounds in this case. That also means that the ACLU or other group cannot trot in a ringer to test the law.
From the mayor:
``My luck is I'll have someone coming in doing satanic things and then I'm the anti-Christ and a devil worshipper,'' she said. ``I don't see how I can"
You cannot because people do not get that freedom of religion means all religions. If you are opening up a public forum with prayer then you need to allow all religions to participate or no religion to participate. Otherwise you are giving preferential treatment to some religions, which is a way of endorsing it, which violates the separation of church and state.
Sometimes people are stupid. Personally if a satanist was to do the opening prayer/blessing (a reasonable request to keep this to the spoken word of X number of minutes) I would not think that the council, mayor, or anyone involved in the process was necessarily a satanist.
RANT MODE ON
There are times I want to ship off all the whiny people who complain about how their relgion is shit on to a situation where they are truly not allowed to practice the religion. Maybe a year living in a predominately Muslim country would teach them a thing or two about persecution and let them appreciate how good they have it here in America.
One of the worst things about this, based upon this and other articles, is that some people who were getting free drugs from individual drug companies now have to pay. At least one of the drug companies, and I don't remember which one, WANTED to help out but the way the legislation was written they were not.
Apparently my old wireless router went coasters up (or, more appropriately, rubber feet up). We had blinky lights, could connect to it, but it was not allowing the internet through. Kind of defeats the purpose of the router. Granted I have not swapped the antennas for my high-gain antennas that gives me some kick-ass coverage. Right now I am sitting right next to the router, about 12 inches from the antenna so I am getting excellent reception. The setup program provided did not work, but if I skipped the setup everything worked great.
Now, of course, having cleared out space to put my laptop in my office (also know as the dumping ground) I found the comfort of sitting in my comfy office chair with my computer on a desk where I can easily move my legs under the table. Normally I work with a folding table in the living room.
Just double checking to see if w.Blogger works. So far all my internet apps have worked great. Now I just need to swap antennas.
Another all-volunteer labor of love project that is free. Much like Star Wars: Revelations this is a project of the fans.
This takes the original Star Trek to a new frontier - season 4. There are new actors playing our favorite roles. They do capture the idea of the character, but bring in a different twist.
I downloaded the pilot & episode 1 and I have to say they are pretty good. The effects were not as good in episode 1 as the pilot, in my opinion, but still pretty good. The acting reminded me of a local theater group - good but not great. Overall though it was well worth the time to download and watch. Best part - it is free of comercials!
Looks like they do one or two episodes a year, which I think is pretty good given it is all volunteers. Revelations took 2+ years for a 45 minute (roughly) film.
So, we pass a law that kinda, sort-of bans smoking in Summit county (except Akron & Cuyahoga Falls who already have laws), and then we back off and say "just kidding"? Grow a pair and leave the law as is! You can always change to the state-wide law later.
I have not been myself lately, and who I have been pretty much sucks. The big problem is I have been having "senior moments". The worst being I took a can soup to work for lunch, but forgot that in our new building (where we have been at for almost a year) does not have a can opener.
Things are getting better. I am feeling better, which is tied to the weather settling down some here. Up & down weather just zaps my energy. I have a few blog ideas that I need to work on over the next few days. I also need to do an episode of "This Old Blog" to rework some of my blog.
I lost my internet connection over the weekend, so I am heading directly home after work to deal with that. Tough to have ideas floating through you head I should still be writing these things up and have them ready, but I was being lazy over the weekend.
Hopefully my ISP will be back up and I can do some stuff this evening. It really sucked being without the internet for the last 2, almost 3 days.
Looks like a new model. Anyone who listens to Adam's Daily Source Code (or Delta Sierra Charly as it is usually referred to) know he has been talking about this. Getting advertisers to bid to put ads on your show. Kinda cool!
I wonder if people actually pay attention to what they say, and take a look around at the world and see if what they say lines up with it.
"'Nobody should blame the Muslims if they are unhappy about the images of the Prophet Muhammad,' Sherif said. 'It's forbidden to create a hate program to show that the prophet is a terrorist while he's not. Don't ask us to try to make people understand that this is not a campaign of hate.'
To me, hate is hate. Rioting & burning down buildings is hate to me. I can see NO justification for such a reaction to cartoons. A right to be angry? Yes. A right to destroy things? No. To me the response is way out of line.
Nasrallah, a black-turbaned, bearded cleric, demanded an apology for the cartoons and laws to prevent a repetition.
'There can be no settlement before an apology and there can be no settlement before laws are legislated by the European Parliament and the parliaments of European countries,' he said.
Islamic nations should demand 'a law committing the press and the media in the West that proscribes insulting our prophet. If this matter cannot be achieved that means they (West) insist on continuing this,' he added. "
Mmmmm...no. You can ask, but we are not going to do it. Strict Islamic nations are asked to treat women better, but they usually do not.
This one in particular I thought was funny:
Nasrallah said that if the controversy touched on Jews or Israel the West would have reacted differently and quickly.
For some reason I don't see Jews rioting or burning down embassies over a cartoon. I don't see Israel taking on the world unless we conform to their ideals. Granted at one point I heard they did want to right to have rulership on any Jew anywhere in the world, but that memory is a bit fuzzy so I don't put a lot of stock in it.
Organized religion of any type is not much on freedom, but this is getting out of hand.
1) As pointed out, as a consumer we pay for broadband. 2) Although NOT pointed out, companies like Google, Yahoo, etc. also pay for connectivity. AT&T, Verizon, etc do not let them hook up for free. I'm not sure about Vonage or Skype.
However, the problem is that broadband is changing how people do business. Skype and Vonage make it cheaper (and in some cases free) than having long distance even on your cell plan. In fact I just heard one guy on a podcast say his roaming in India was something like $4/minute for his cell. Skype was something like $.05/minute. Phone cards even have trouble at those prices.
DVD, iTunes, and Netflix (and similar companies) are changing the way we use cable. I recently cut back on my cable because it is cheaper for me to buy the shows I watched on a regular basis through iTunes or on DVD than to pay the amount they were asking for those channels.
Much like the music industry and now the movie industry, phone & cable companies are going to have to learn to change. Time Warner, at least here in Akron, offer bundles of cable, broadband & internet phone. They are adapting. AT&T needs to adapt also. DSL needs to get faster, cheaper, or ideally both. Can you beat the cost of Time Warner when bundling phone & internet service? Can you even cover all of Akron so *I* could even have the choice of AT&T?
I was listening to a podcast on the way in that made a good point - the lines between computer & TV are blurring. That has been true for music for some time, and is becoming true for phone service. "Old-timers" in these industries are going to have to learn to adapt or go the way of the dinosaurs.
I am trying something a little different and participating in Spoil-A-Blogger. Here are the answers:
Round 3 Questions
1. What is your favorite color? Blue, but I also like green.
2. What is your favorite scent? Pine, citrus
3. Where is your favorite place to vacation? I like cities where I can walk and see interesting things. The only place I have been multiple times is VA Beach.
4. Do you collect anything? No.
5. Do you have a favorite tv show? Monk, CSI, House
6. Are you crafty? If so, how? Not really. I have a collection of gel pens I use for mind mapping/brain storming but that is about it.
7. Do you have kids? no
8. Do you have pets? Yes - 2 cats Bright Eyes & Fuzzbutt.
9. What kind of movies do you like? Comedies, romantic comedies especially. Action/adventures and sci fi are also high on my list.
10. What kind of music do you listen to? Most anything except rap & older country music. Some modern country music like Faith Hill is ok. (It sounds more like pop to me.) The bulk of my CD collection is late 70s/early 80s pop/rock.
11. What kind of books do you like to read? Mysteries, sci fi, books on astrology.
12. Do you have a favorite magazine? Utne Reader
13. What is your favorite weekend activity? Volksmarches (walking - more). Just started Geocaching which is fun as well. Also enjoy watching movies.
14. What kind of work do you do? Computer programming.
15. What do you do for fun? Walking, reading, watching movies.
Now I don't want to sound stupid, but why does it take 12 years to develop a new craft to go to the Moon? If you look at the history from NASA attempts to do some manned or unmanned missions to the Moon date back to 1958, about 11 years before the first manned landing.
Thirty or so years ago we had a craft capable of landing on the Moon. It is not like they need to go back to the drawing board on this. Why so long?
As a side note - NASA's research will, eventually, affect the private sector much like how research in the military industry ripples out. It gives the economy a boost. I would rather see NASA getting the research money than the military.
Now having seen the comics I have to agree that Muslims have a reason to be offended. However I do not see a reason for the rioting and other destructive actions taken.
If situation was reversed: If an Iranian (Iraqi, etc.) paper made similarly offending cartoons about Christians and the Christians reacted like the Muslims did no doubt there would be cries of us keeping the Muslims down.
Might I add the Muslim reaction (which, no doubt, is from a small number of people) does nothing to make the case for Islam being a religion of peace.
This is a disease I'm not sure we really need a vaccine for. Granted I had an extremely light case of chicken pox. My brother probably would have killed for the vaccine with the case he got from me. Same with my one niece who was the last of the 3 (at the time) to get them (over Christmas to boot). They say there was 100 children a year who died from chicken pox (not sure what the population size is). Even if this is just Akron (and I think more like Ohio-wide), it still seems like a pretty low number to pad the drug companies already swelled bottom lines.
Although forcing me to spend $50 for trash pick up pisses me off, I am glad to see they will at least give me a discount for doing what I already do - recycling. I like it even more that they are going to punish those who do not recycle with higher trash rates.
This may sound weird, but I am happy the colder weather is coming. The last month or so has been right around one of those temperature borders, for me, makes it tough to not only dress but adjust to the weather. I prefer it to get cold and stay cold.
I have mixed feelings about this. I love that the filming has started on the fifth movie, but at the same time the fifth book was my least favorite to date.
To me not only did the story feel rushed but some of the things done to Harry, in particular, was flat out abusive and I felt the teenage rebelion thing was overplayed.
I am clearing out some old saved items in Bloglines and thought I would throw this out there. I do not have much time to dig into this site, but maybe someone might find it interesting.
Interesting info about how some of this works for those of us not in the industry. I found this from the Hollywood Reporter article interesting as well
The content owners take from downloading is nearly the same that a commercial-fee TV series episode generates from a DVD boxed set, according to Nielsen Entertainment analyst Larry Gerbrandt, who has done the most exhaustive analysis of on-demand program economics to date.
The down side of this is that the content owner can make the same amount of money without any real work. Assuming all the costs for the media (art work, etc) and bonus material. This could mean that future DVD releases will have less materials, or they will jack up the costs with the bonus material being an excuse.
In interesting warning system. Instead of trying to get TV & Radio stations to broadcast warnings you instead get a phone call. Sounds like a realization - with satelitte options you no longer have to watch local stations. The Beacon Journal has also had a falling in subscribers as well - making it tougher to get out local news.
Also, as the article pointed out, during THE blackout in 2003 there was limited ways to keep people notified as to what was going on.
If Al Franken or some other liberal person had made a similar comment I bet they would be hanging by their toes outside the White House now. Bet no one even pays attention to this comment by Coulter.
Of course the line "She drew more boos when she said the crack cocaine problem "has pretty much gone away."" shows how out of touch she is.
Definately a funny read and well worth it. My thanks to John Andersen for the link. John's site is a great read as well.
It was funny for me to read the article and realize how little I take advantage of my city dwelling. Granted our art museum is currently working out of temporary digs, but they are still showing some stuff. Plus there are still plenty of theater productions, concerts, etc. Granted the Akron Symphony is not internationally known, but 20 odd years ago they were pretty good.
Time to leverage my butt of the couch and get out in the world.
I was cleaning out some saved entries from Bloglines and came across this from Dave Winer. This page is a MUST have page for anyone who is in any way interested in what is going on in D. C.
The next step would be to have similar feeds for state government. City/county government would be nice, but this is where the local newspaper comes into play.
This is the most telling sign that main stream media (MSM) don't get it:
"'Without DRM, the explosion in the availability of music via digital channels would not have been possible. The purpose of DRM is not to alienate music fans, it is actually to improve your access to music. There are now at least 10 ways in which you can legally enjoy music - the list includes: ringtone, master ringtone, phone download, phone stream, a-la-carte download, disc, subscription, online stream, UMD music for PlayStation, kiosk and video. Without DRM, these options simply wouldn't be possible.' "
Later, a quote from the same guy:
"I agree with you we'd like nothing more than for you to be able to download or transfer music securely between your phone, your home and work PC, a couple of your players and your home Hi-Fi system, for example. But we don't make the technology, we create the music. It's the technology companies that hold the key to achieving this
Ummmm, yea, right. I know of few (ok, none) in the tech industry who would argue that we should NOT be able to copy music around our various devices legally. The only reason iTunes has been able to survive without lawsuits is to slap some pretty tight digital rights management (DRM) onto the system that does not allow for this kind of sharing. Trust me - DRM-free downloads would have been much easier for Apple to impliment. MSM insisted on it.
My guess - 75% of us are people who only want to get the music we want and make sure the artist gets fairly compensated. We do NOT want to have to pay for that music over and over again. In the movie Men In Black K (Tommy Lee Jones) talkes about having to by the White album again. All we want to do is avoid having to keep doing that!
BTW I think there are about 15% of people, mostly kids, who would pay for music if they could afford it and 10% who would never pay for music and will always get it illegally. iTunes and other services allow for getting that one song that 15% wants. The other 10% you are stuck with. You will never turn a profit with them anyways. No doubt some of that 10% would be willing to pay an artist directly for their work, so maybe the internet works for them.
I have checked on this from time to time to see if anything really sticks out on this.
Google Base seems to be a way to put content on the web if a) you don't have a website and/or b) you want to wrap some meta-data around it.
Option a seems silly to me. You can get a blog site for free which requires NO knowledge to setup and run. Hey, Google has such a site itself. Anyone tech-savvy enough to surf the net can use Blogger.
Option b also seems a little silly. Microformats provide a way to add some meta data. For some of the things, like recipes or want ads, why not create a microformat to facilitate searching?
Looking through some of there posted items you see things like Events & Activities (similar to Upcoming and classifieds like Craigslist.
Now the classified idea is not bad since Craigslist does not cover all cities, but this feels like a "me too" type of service. Google, much like Microsoft or Yahoo, wants to provide ALL your data services. Many of the guys at Off The Hook agree that having that much data concentrated at one spot is not a good idea. I have to agree. Google maybe good about security, but as we have seen recently in the news even some of the best can be compromised. Think about what would happen if someone took your computer. Think about what would happen if someone broke into Google (or any of the others) and got all your personal data.
An interesting article about the readings of the air in bars, and one reason I hate going to them or anywhere the allows smoking.
I have my 53K wrist band as a reminder about the 53,000 people who die from second hand smoke each year. We know this to be a preventable problem so why not prevent it?
Big media screams "the sky is falling" and tries to legislate the future.
It is interesting when other industries cry "we're loosing profits" they are told "oh well", but when big media is loosing profits it becomes a need to pass bad legislation. Let me give you a hint - if there is a need to change how media is handled someone will invent it. Just because we pass stupid laws in America does not mean other countries will follow suit. And trust me no amount of trade agreements will smooth this over. We keep this up and people will pull out of those agreements.
Take a look around people - the economy sucks. Gas is estimated to go over $3/gallon again. Guess what happens when gas is that much? People don't spend as much on stuff like CDs or DVDs. We don't go to movie theaters and wait for it on DVD. Many people are not BUYING CDs but instead are RENTING their music through legitimate services like Napster. As has been pointed out many times - why pay $15-$20 for 1 CD when that same amount will let you load up an MP3 player full of different music, and you can keep getting different music all through the month.
We pay $30, $40, $50 or more for cable/satellite TV. Now instead of "13 channels of shit on the TV to choose from" (to quote Pink Floyd) we have 70, 80, 200, or even more channels of shit. With all these choices we do not have to even rent movies or music sometimes - so much stuff is available to the consumer without even having to leave the house.
The problem is with so much spectrum to fill, you tend to get a lot of "lowest common denominator" stuff to fill the gaping void. Problem is - we are tired of it. How many more Britney Spears clones are you going to send our way (who, to me at least, is a clone of Madonna, but I digress)? How many more "reality" shows? I really paid attention to what I want to watch weekly - about 9.5 hours of TV that I REALLY want to watch. Given that 2 of those hours are reruns of shows that I really like that leaves 7.5 hours of original programming a week. One of those shows is Monk (which I download from iTunes now) that is only on 16 weeks a year. The 3 hours that I would consider "prime" TV (8-11) is 21 hours a week. I have 22 stations (including some shop-at-home stuff), which means I have the potential of 462 hours of entertainment a week. If you have one of the local satellite's 150 channel package that is 3150 hours of entertainment. I think I had 65 channels which was 1,365 hours. Of that I found 9.5 hours of entertainment, which is why I am now on the cheaper cable package.
Then there is Netflix. Last I heard they had some 50,000 titles. You local video store may have, what, 5000 titles? 10,000 titles? Netflix can get those little rented titles, like the entire Sundance Film Festival line up, that your local Blockbuster cannot. Yet more choices...
Now enter the internet. Aside from the music services above, ANY musician, video producer, or other content provider can make stuff available to the public. This makes places like CD Baby possible. This opens up the flood gates. You no longer need to go to a big label to get your music/video out - you can market directly to your fans.
And maybe that is the problem. Not only are the middlemen being squeezed out but also the top of the food chain, so to speak. We can find great music (or at least music like what we already have) that is completely independent of the RIAA. We can get movies that are as good as anything put out by MPAA members. We can get radio shows that are as good as anything on the air - terrestrial or satellite. Some for free, some for money, but all not controlled by the powers that be. Face it, every time we spend money on an independent artist we take money out of the pockets of the RIAA/MPAA members. It is all legal, but non-RIAA/MPAA.
Blogging started the wedge to break up main stream media, podcasting got the crack formed, and I think the powers the be see video podcasting (or whatever you want to call it) as splitting the dam wide open. Face it - we don't need "them" any more. So instead of trying to learn the new game they want to make the new game illegal.
Mondays is a group of geeks talking about all kinds of things, usually geeky.
A while back Richard Campbell had related a story about Goliath, an old HD. It reminded me of The Story of Mel.
For this episode the broke out the story of Goliath (click on the Story of Goliath link on the page) for anyone who does not want to wade through an hour episode to listen to the story. The story is geeky, but for anyone who wants to hear a description of an early (and I do mean EARLY) hard drive it is worth the 11 minutes the whole story takes. The language is at least PG-13, and I think R so use caution around young kids.
I hate to say it, but is this a good thing? People already do not manage their hard drive space because space is so cheap it is easier to leave crap on the machine and add a new drive than to really clear out the stuff you are not using.
The Feb 7th issue of PC Magazine talked about 1 terabyte (1024 gigs) drives affordable by the unwashed masses by the end of the year. I realize with music, video, scads of digital pics, email, and eBooks (they have not really caught on but with electronic ink they may) we need more space than in the past. But 1 terabyte? Home servers, OK. High end home systems for people shuffling large amounts of video? Ok. Mom & dad who browse, do email and keep digital photos? Over kill.
Just like when we have to clear out our physical space, we also need to clear out our electronic space periodically.
Let's see, my property is 150 x 50'. If it is more than 80' from my property then it is a violation. Most of my neighbors live withing that stretch. Oh, and by the way, Akron already has an ordinance on the books so this does not apply to you.
After seeing the fiasco of the smoking ban, which did not apply to Akron also, county government is becoming more and more useless by the day. Why do they bother with this kind of crap?
I have decided that I hate my Creative Labs Zen Extra. Ok, normally I LOVE the thing - nice interface, big buttons for fat fingers, and great price. I can even suffer with the lack of a play count on the thing (which would make syncing podcasts a TON simplier).
However I just reloaded a chunk of my music after doing a firmware upgrade. This thing holds 40 gig. I had about 10-12 gig on it, and I have a fair chunk of it to go. Unfortunately I lost a chunk of my ripped music with my hard drive failure last year, which means instead of copying it to my external HD (a Western Digital Passprot USB 40 gig drive) from the Zen I have to re-rip about 50 CDs.
Granted I was warned before hand, and I should have waited to make sure I had everything on my Passport. But given the size of jukeboxes (and they are getting bigger) there should be a way to upgrade the firmware without wiping the drive. Especially for those of us who still have USB 1.1 on our machines.
On a semi-related note - if you have a Creative Labs MP3 player, pick up Notmad Explorer. Yea it costs $25, but I just zipped all my music over quickly, and when you add a directory(ies) it will ask you if you want to create a playlist. Without a playcount this is a great way to get the latest stuff you just added, and makes working with your MP3 player as easy as working with a Windows app. Best $25 I spent on software in a long time.
Over 70% of music recorded before 1965 cannot be purchased legally in the US
That is a telling number. This is why people share music. Here is another quote from the article:
Sound recordings made after 1972 are protected by federal law. Recordings made before that were covered by state and common law copyright. These laws do not have expiration dates. The Library of Congress study found that 84 percent of recordings from before 1965 cannot be reissued without permission from the copyright holder, which is usually the original record label.
Here is what sucks - there is no LEGAL way to get this music. How many of the people who are trading these old albums would be willing to pay if the music were made available? If people are manually recording these albums into MP3, why couldn't some of these record labels do the same thing (no need to digitally remaster them) and make them available through iTunes or some similar means? I have heard similar problems with stuff released as late as the 80s. No money = no CD and definately to reissue to iTunes.
The record companies complain about piracy, lost sales, blah blah yet they treat their customers like criminals and do not respond to customers' needs. Want to earn some good will? Release some back catalog to MP3. Why not just release some of these old (the pre-1965) recordings to the public domain or creative commons? How much would it cost to have an intern record some of the old records to some kind of loss less format and then convert to MP3? Show your customers you care a little about them.
The original blog entry I found interesting only because it highlights what Nat said in the post, "...magazines are often only 10% relevant to you...". RSS can help you to get the most relevant stuff, and get it quickly.
Now the water problem has gotten a little better, or maybe I am just used to it. Fortunately I run my water through a Britta Filter so at least I do not get the taste.
Overall I have no problem with Intelligent Design - except when you try to pass it off as science. Intelligent Design belongs in a philosophy class, not a science class.
I was watching i TV which was running both Mysterious Ways and Body & Soul. Mysterious Ways ran for 44 episodes and Body & Soul only aired 8 (a ninth was never aired). I loved both of these series - both were shows I would go out of my way to watch.
Given these shows originally aired on Pax TV (which I think is now i TV based upon the shows on i), and they were some of the worst rated original shows on Pax, I doubt these shows will ever be put out on DVD. Not enough "perceived market" for these shows, based upon their ratings when on the air. Two other shows that I like, and would buy if available, are Tremors: The Series & The Others.
Truth be told, only Tremors: The Series probably has the numbers to warrent a full, proper DVD release. Tremors has a built in cult following. Mysterious Ways could pick up some viewers in DVD release, in my opinion. The other two are more "add to my NetFlix queue" type of series.
However, with the new video iPod and iTunes having TV series, could some of these old series get new life? I know some of the hang up has been music rights, but only 1 of these series might have had expensive music. This would allow for the fans to get the series at a reasonable cost, the owner of the rights would make a little more money with minimal (or no) outlay on their part. I am not an iTunes fan, but I would use it and maybe even buy a video iPod if that would let me have these series.
I work as a computer programmer by day, but at night I study metaphysics, play tai chi, and otherwise do non-technical stuff. I have a love of walking and watching movies. I like to read and never seem to spend enough time doing it. I also like to do genealogy, but again I do not spend a lot of time doing that as well (or at least as much as I would like).
