I broke down and applied for a corporate credit card today, as I felt it might alleviate some of the pain of receipt collection and expense report generation. I got a little worried when step 1 of the application process starts out:
Please visit https://www.americanexpress.com/applyforcard via the Internet…
as opposed to visiting it what… in person? The actual site seemed to work OK at least.
Last December, Caltrain was really late one morning. Looks like their mommy gave them a note, however: this was on every seat of the trains that afternoon…
Anyhow, I finally got around to scanning the note, which at least I found interesting.
In this article at Wired about digital projection of films and anti-piracy measures, Brad Hunt of the MPAA is quoted as saying:
“We’re not trying to describe specifically what is being done, because the effectiveness of these technologies is based on a lack of knowledge.”
Ah, the old “security through obscurity” tactic. That always works so well… not. But hey, don’t tell the MPAA; their continued ignorance is probably an overall good thing: the more shitty movies get pirated, the less likely people will pay to go see them, the more likely quality movies are to be made, for which people DO pay for. I have seen a bootleg or two in my time, largely because with a 17-month-old, I don’t get many opportunities to go to the movies, and I want to see some things before the DVD is released. Movies I like, I buy the DVDs for. Many other people are the same way, I’m sure. (Actually, a lot of folks are probably renting the dvds and not buying them, via Netflix or Blockbuster, but I tend to like to own movies that are worth watching, especially if there’s extras on the disc.)
Aside from that silliness above, the article basically just says there will be a time & location stamp in the film. Big whoop. I suspect (a) this won’t survive through the projection->camcorder->encoding (and possibly ->reencoding) process, and (b) most pirates just don’t care. Until you have to show ID and have your picture taken going into the theater, I don’t see this being much of a deterrent. Better plan: have ushers (remember them?) or security folks observe people in the theater, and spot people with camcorders. But wait, this would cost the theaters money, and is likely difficult to acheive 100% success, which is almost needed, due to the multiplication factor innate to piracy.
But hey, maybe it’ll stop the low-tech pirates hawking cheap dvds at swap meets and on the corner. Maybe…. but internet-based/p2p piracy, I seriously doubt it’ll have any effect. You know what would work? Making quality movies, giving something extra to the theater experience (interactivity? better value? purchase the DVD at a discount on the way out?), and treating your customers with respect instead of apathy, disdain, and mistrust.
I admit it, I’m totally geeked over the new Mac Mini. When we upgraded my wife’s old G3 tower to OS X a few years back, I was surely impressed with the “unix with a usable UI”, but it didn’t seem like a real replacement for my windows desktop, especially with the price/performance ratio (perceived or real) of Mac hardware. When we sold the G3 and got a G4 PowerBook, and eventually upgraded to Panther, I started thinking, “hmm, maybe I could use one of these as my desktop…” but again, I didn’t want to fork out for a pricey Mac in addition to my PC. And all the cheaper Macs came with CRTs, and moving to that from my 19″ LCD was going to be an unpleasant experience for both my eyes and my back.
Now that the Mac Mini is out, it seems like perhaps a perfect fit for me. Still not convinced I can switch 100% of what I do to the Mac, but willing to give it a shot. I’ll be able to run “real” apache, php, mysql, instead of the not-identical Windows ports (I’ve resorted to Virtual PC, which actually works pretty well). With the Mac Mini, I can keep my 19″ DVI LCD, my nice mouse, etc. and for a reasonable investment (say $600 for the higher-end Mini; I’ll hack my own RAM upgrade with a spare PC2700 512M DIMM I’ve got), I’ll see if I can be won over to the Gray side (if Linux is Light and MS is Dark?)
I went to order one on apple’s store site last night, and unlike the day before (when it said “order now and receive it by January 22nd”, it now says “ship time: 3-4 weeks”. Ugh! Well, I guess I’ll be standing in line outside thePalo Alto or Burlingame Apple Stores come January 22nd, when they are supposed to be available.
So AAPL is sitting just below $70 right now, buoyed in large part by massive, almost impossibly good iPod sales last quarter–I think it’s got a little way to come down, but I feel the Mini is going to be a big hit (and although the iPod Shuffle seems kind of silly to me, I suspect at its price points they’ll sell a ton of those, too.) I’m predicting the stock to maybe hit $100 in 2005, and split. Of course, I’m the guy who thought “Webvan can turn it around!” and promptly lost over 99% of my investment, so my stock pick track record has its share of missteps.
I’m actually kind of sad I just bought my parents a new Dell, too. And had to spend 2 days copying over stuff from their old dead PC, and teaching them how to use stuff, especially digital camera image importing, etc. That kind of stuff is trivial on the Mac. If I end up loving the Mac later this year maybe I’ll send them one too, and they can sell the Dell. Sounds like a good Mac Mini slogan: “sell your Dell!” I am convinced a lot of people with iPods and PCs are going to get Mac Minis, love OSX and iLife, and buy more expensive (read: higher-margin) Macs. Even if they just encourage more developers onto the platform, it’ll be a win for consumers. It’ll be an interesting 2005!
Check out OutFoxed, a video expose of Fox News (as if just watching it wasn’t enough to reveal its silliness and hipocrisy). You can watch the trailer, and download a bunch of clips, and they even support BitTorrent (yay!). Here’s my favorite still from the trailer, harking back Mike Moore’s ‘Bowling for Columbine’ premise about keeping the public in fear… “1) STAY INSIDE“!
OK, you want to be mad at someone? How about David T Chang and Urban Outfitters. He created a “game” called Ghettopoly. It’s being sold at the Urban Outfitters chain stores. I don’t honestly think I’ve ever bought anything there, but I certainly won’t in the future.
I don’t even want to potentially bump this motherfucker’s pagerank by linking to him, but… you have to see this, before someone burns his site down: http://www.ghettopoly.com/. It’s hosted by Yahoo!, so I’m off to write a complaint e-mail.
Here’s some of what MSNBC passes off as ‘coverage’ on it: ‘Ghettopoly’ game called ‘racist’ (why is racist quoted? Single quoted at that? WTF?!?)
It’s one thing to joke about our differences, encourage discussion, and have fun with friends. It’s another to mass market stereotypes, especially trivializing serious issues and painting with such a wide, offensive, brush. And yes this goes for Hollywood, too! Insensitivity is one thing, but this is truly tasteless and offensive. Is gangsta rap? Yeah, some of it is too, and some of that needs to be kicked to the curb, as well. But let’s start with this first. I can appreciate offensive humor, in a big way, but this isn’t really humorous–it’s simply exploitative. Once you get all the “jokes”, this game wouldn’t be funny, or fun. And it offers no commentary on the ghetto, no insight to make it humorous, only presents the ghetto and stereotypes of the ghetto as something to point and laugh at, not find a commonality with the subject that is the basis for true humor. It is the kind of “funny” 7 year olds laugh at when the bully breaks someone’s toy out of hate, not the kind when a comedian exposes and show the humor in stereotypes (think Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, or George Carlin.)
And now that I’ve visited the urban outfitter’s site, I see how this could happen. What a load of trash–beer-branded t-shirts, “jesus is my homeboy” logo’d stuff, and camo pants. I suggest they change their name to ‘Suburban Loutfitters’; apparently their target demographic is farm-dwelling militia members. I clicked around a lot, and was surprised to eventually find a nonwhite model. One. But then again, I don’t blame minority models for refusing to wear any of that shit 
A few years ago I thought it would be great, with all this fileswapping going on (Naptser was new), it would be cool if there was a way to pay artists when you download and like their stuff. A site, where the funds would go to them, and it would at least go easier on your conscience, even if you didn’t receive any kind of legal right to the content you might have received. This is fraught with problems in the Real World, such as the record companies wanting no business in this, what to do with collaborations (divx movies?!), how to make sure the artists themselves get the money, and the ever-present micropayment dillemas. (There’s lots more problems, but that’s the starter kit.)
Lately I’ve been finding this is an attractive idea to me again, but the problems aren’t really solved (maybe SMS helps with the micropayment issue a bit, in Europe, sort of, OK not really.) This is because I realize that I am quickly becoming CD-free, or trying to.
What does this mean? I moved to Europe a year ago; one thing I wasn’t going to take schlep overseas was a few hundred CDs (and especially not their cases). So I bought one of those big album thingys for CDs, and stuffed it with about 100 discs, and carted it over–I also brought my PC, which already had a sizable mp3 collection (probably 80% of which are from discs I own.) My CDs went into storage in the brother-in-law’s basement (as well as the DVD cases, and roughly 100 other boxes of junk.) Once I got to Spain, the first place I lived didn’t have a CD player, so I couldn’t play the CDs… but I could play them on my PC, and also drop stuff onto my mp3 player (a 192MB flash-based thing, good enough for a week of tunes without reloading.) The CDs collected dust. Before I moved I listened to CD-Rs burned of mp3s I owned, in my Aiwa aftermarket car stereo; partly because of the 10-albums to a disk capability, but also because I didn’t want my “original” cds to get stolen.
Later, I moved to a real place, but was never motivated to buy a real CD player (although did end up getting an alarm clock one, but only use the alarm clock functions.) Anyhow, I have this stack of CDs in the cabinet that I never look at or play. The songs are all ripped to mp3s on my or the wife’s computer (she is an iTunes fanatic, I’m windows boy.) Now I pull stuff onto her iPod and listen to it commuting back and forth to work, and no matter what, I don’t really have any use for these plastic disc things. They just take up space. I don’t miss the 500 I have in storage in the US, especially the ones whose content I really like, because the content is duplicated (”backed-up” if you’re reading this from the RIAA) on my PC.
Last week I was watching european MTV (Spanish I think, but we get several variants), and they played a video by some group (turns out one guy) called Four Tet. It was amazing. I searched emule and yah, the latest album is available. The next day (patience with the mule!) I was listening to the album, and really dug it. Great stuff. Before winamp delivered the last track, I was leaving him praise on his website’s comment form, and trying to figure out how to buy the album. Turns out it’s a small indie label (yay) called DominoRecords in the UK, and they have a pretty nice site. Within 15 minutes I had purchased that CD, and one of his previous ones as well. (The Internet is a great thing.)
That’s how I got back to the pay-the-artists-directly-website-is-a-great-idea (but really isn’t) idea. I want the music, and maybe the booklet would be cool, but damn, I don’t want more of those stupid prerecorded CD things. I would be much happier, and I suspect the artist would have been too, to just download the music off their site after I paid, and maybe pdf’s of the booklets. Virtual is good. I have lots of virtual space. Bandwidth is infinitely cheaper than pressing discs, printing booklets, assembly, packing, shipping, etc. I can’t be the only person who is willing to make the change (and if I could get a slight discount on the “license”, that would be great–but the 10 UKP was perfectly reasonable for the great music in this case, anyhow.) There’s no easy way to do this in aggregate, though. Maybe ASCAP and BMI could handle it for some music, since they already pay the artists, but that’s just a start (and methinks the RIAA would squelch this immediately anyhow.) And how do you pay painters, scultors of public art, dancers, and other people who you might want to?
Dealing with the status quo, I believe artists should probably all just have their own websites and accept Paypal donations or similar. It still leaves me with the problem of how I pay Bravo for the episodes of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, I’ve downloaded. I guess there will be a DVD set released at some point and I’ll buy that, just as my way of saying ‘thanks’. I can’t get Bravo in Spain, at all, but on the other hand, I had Bravo legitimately for years in the US and there was hardly ever anything decent on the channel, so maybe I’ve already “paid” for it. A problem for another day, and a more creative solution than I can devise now, to be sure.