Big surpise: Dvorak Doesn't get it

John Dvorak's Second Opinion: Backlash against Sony shows a bigger problem for media - Computer Hardware - Computer Software - Software - Opinion "Writers like myself and my editors make 1/10 the money people can make in the movie or music business for doing about the same amount of work (content generation). Our value is lessened by the fact that we cannot protect the written word from rampant copying. It started with the printing press, bootleg publishing, plagiarism, Xerox machines, email, online pilfering, cut-and-paste, etc., etc. We simply got used to it and live with it.
Sony and all the other big media companies are simply going to have to live with what writers and editors have lived with for some time: a big cut in pay."

It's simply amazing to me that "content producers" can't get over the idea that they'll be losing money. What they're really afraid of is is missing out on potentially making more money. They have the idea that someone, somewhere might not be paying them. What the can't see is that everyone, everywhere, would pay them for access to content (movies, music, radio shows, books) long unavailable. It's the long tail.

I'm sorry, Mr. Dvorak, that you don't make as much money as you think you should, but I hardly think you're only making a 10th of what your worth. From my perspective, what you produce isn't worth paying for as is.

But what about "wanted" pornography?

Leading Catholic cardinal warns parents about buying iPods for Christmas due to porn: "''The technology itself is not dangerous, in fact technology in itself is good,' Keeler said. 'The danger lies in the fact that there are not safeguards or regulations in place to protect children or teens from being exposed to unwanted pornography.' "

Talk about jumping on the bandwagon. The iPod is simply a listening or viewing device. You have to put what you want to see or listen to on their yourself. It ain't gonna just pop up, unasked for (although if you put porn on your iPod, it might show up in embarrassing times.

If iPod pornography is outlawed, then only pornographers will have iPods. Or teenagers. Or guys. Pretty much everyone, just like now.

I drink my coffee black

It's required, being a Murray. The rule is "you can start drinking coffee at any age, as long as it's black." My grandmother, may she rest in peace, would return from the grave and lecture me sternly if I started putting milk in my morning coffee.

I do, however, enjoy "coffee drinks", which I consider treats, not really coffee. And I've learned to ask, without embarrassment for a "grande soy chai latte, no water, extra hot." I just imagine myself Captain Picard ordering a drink from a replicator, "Tea. Earl Gray. Hot."

But alas, some never get over the fear and embarrassment.Lexington Herald-Leader | 11/10/2005 | I drink the coffee but don't speak the language: "We all will drink vending-machine coffee before I speak Starbuck again."

starbucks, Star Trek

Leave Your Brain Alone

I just finished reading the excellent On the Sea of Memory : A Journey from Forgetting to Remembering by Jonathan Cott. It is a touching and thought provoking review of memory and loss. Mr. Cott had 36 electroshock treatments and lost fifteen years of memory.

And then last night, on the way home, I heard this on NPR, 'My Lobotomy': Howard Dully's Journey. It is simply the most stunning thing I've ever heard on the radio.

I can barely speak of it. Both the lobotomy and electroshock are such crude and cruel treatments. How primitive. How misused.

The mind is something the brain does. Please, don't equate the brain with Heath Kit radios and Christmas chemistry sets. We have such a short time as conscience, thinking beings. Could stirring the brain with an ice pick ever be thought of as a good idea?

npr, memory, brain, mind

Moving up the Singularity Date

Google side-steps AI rumours - ZDNet UK News: "''We are not scanning all those books to be read by people,' explained one of my hosts after my talk. 'We are scanning them to be read by an AI,'' Dyson wrote in a posting on Edge.org following a visit to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of John von Neumann's proposal for a digital computer."

Upon reading this my insightful comment was "Fuck".

Useful term, that.

Well, we've all been wondering what Google's been up to. So, either they have a pet infant AI or they're planning for one. I hope their policy of "Don't be evil" is holding up.

Paging Dr. Asimov. Paging Dr. Asimov. Dr. Asmiov to the AI delivery room STAT!

AI, singularity, Asimov

DRM - More on the creeping evil

A friend and college, Adam Engst, vents his frustration on a seemingly simple and perfectly legal task, made agonizing by "Digital Rights Management" TidBITS: iPods Defeating Insomnia.

And it's more than annoyance if you've been following the news. This very week, Sony is in extremely hot water by installing what amounts to a Trojan horse and causing lots of problems.

DRM is simply this: the entertainment industry's attempt to remove well established consumer rights. I won't go out on a limb, yet, and claim that I won't buy anything with DRM, but I do urge you to contact your congressman and representatives and urge them not to support any legislation that removes or reduces your right to legally view, copy, time and place shift any media you purchase.