Category: observations

major labels: the problem with music

The band is now 1/4 of the way through its contract, has made the music industry more than 3 millon dollars richer, but is in the hole $14,000 on royalties. The band members have each earned about 1/3 as much as they would working at a 7-11, but they got to ride in a tour bus for a month.

A series of three essays on what a lifelong Democrat finds abhorrent about the conservatives . . . .

File-Sharing Battle Leaves Musicians Caught in Middle

A few artists, like Metallica and Loudon Wainwright III, have come out strongly in favor of the record industry’s crackdown. It could be seen as a gutsy move, considering the criticism Metallica faced from music fans when it campaigned against the file-sharing service Napster, which was declared illegal.

In a new song, “Something for Nothing,” Mr. Wainwright makes fun of the mentality of file sharers, singing: “It’s O.K. to steal, cuz it’s so nice to share.” As for the lawsuits, he said that he was not surprised. “If you’re going to break the law, the hammer is going to come down,” he said.

At the same time, other influential musicians and groups — like Moby, System of a Down, Public Enemy, and the Dead — contend that the record industry’s efforts are misguided and that it must work with the new technology instead of against it.

Some interesting background in this article: who would expect the Backstreet Boys not to have been paid any royalties? Of course, they may have gotten advances that made the issue moot: entertainment industry accounting practices make WorldCom look transparent by comparison.

I wrote almost a year ago that musicians should take a leaf from the movie stars of the 20s and 30s and start their own record labels. Author paulPosted on September 14, 2003Categories observations

Your RealAge is 35.2

Not that I’m putting too much credence into this,but it is interesting to see what factors are considered beneficial for long-term health. I think the test gives too much credit for some factors. Still worth the few minutes, I think. And you can create a profile that you can check back on later.

I have some things to write up that seem to scream “I am not a lawyer.” A new category is born.

Nicest of the Damned: Meet the iServe

Curtain rises, crowd gasps … There, on a table, are a couple of small, sexy boxes, about the size of the ill-fated G4 Cube, but with the latest Apple styling. “Introducing the iServe,” Steve would say.

But click through to the iServe ad referenced in this post and see a better idea, form-factor-wise.

Lawrence Lessig

Lessig waxes nostalgic about the value of old programs that, for reasons unrelated to their value to end-users, are obsolete and out of their reach. HyperCard has appeared on these pages before, and the maligned Newton MessagePad are ideas that are of no value to their copyright holders, but are locked away nonetheless.

But if the copyright were to have expired, and if the source code were available to all, then there is no doubt that some would find it useful to keep More alive. I’m sure there are many who share my affection for this clean bit of code, and I’m sure at least some could do good work bring it back to life. And not just More. Think of HyperCard, held hostage by Apple Corporation, despite a fanatically enthusiastic community of developers and fans who would keep it alive. Or Newton (yes, still protected) (no, stupid, not the man), which also has a following of fans.

If this code were free, then there are many who could, in the tradition of our framers, build upon it and use it, whether commercially or not. And thus at least some orphans would find a home, cared for and fed by those who love them most.

My guess is that if we still had More, HyperCard and the NewtonOS, in revitalized and up-to-date form, it would cannabilize some market segment, but I think that’s pretty narrow thinking. I expect the best aspects of all of these would be re-commercialized and would then be profitable for someone else, and not necessarily at the expense of the current hostage-takerscopyright-holders. If any company wanted to make a pure and simple outliner or card-based organization tool, they would have done it by now. So what are Symantc, Apple, et al afraid of?

InfoWorld: Moving to a Mac: September 05, 2003: By Chad Dickerson: Application Development

Now, you might ask: What does this really have to do with enterprise IT? The answer is simple: I used the Mac running OS X to replace a PC client and Linux server; the level of functionality was raised; and I did more with less. All the GNU and Unix tools I’ve used for years were right there in OS X: ps (process status), rsync, top, SSH (secure shell), Apache, Samba, and various Unix shells. I was able to access Windows file systems, and I easily shared Mac files to the Windows machine on my network via Samba, the open source file-sharing stalwart. I hardly struggled even for a second.

Better late than never, my friend.

CNN.com – Reactions mixed to Bush’s address – Sep. 7, 2003

[T]he $87 billion is “more than the federal government will spend on education this year, twice as much as the federal government will spend on our roads, bridges, highways and public transit systems.”

Why not? If the above quotation is true, Iraq will get more taxpayer dollars for its infrastructure than all 50 states combined.
Continue reading “Iraq as the 51st state?”