And the Winner is....Not US....

The time as come to wax poetically, or just rant... on and on,,,,,,,,,,

I have several pet issues, which I've covered in some detail. I don't want to bore you by going over ground you can just as easily read by clicking on my archives.
As you may know the Oscars are coming up very soon, I haven't watched a Oscar show in many years, I've also not watched any awards show for music in at least as many years.
I haven't let myself get pulled into the pettiness and shallowness and gaudiness of of toady's commercialism . While its hard to completely ignore the advertisements and the push to get you to buy into a system where you want it before you even know what it dose. It can be done. The thing to do is realize that 99% of the "stuff" that is pushed into the market is either useless or just plain junk that should never have ever been brought to market in the first place . I have been heard many a times, when a commercial come on, saying to whoever was around, usually myself,"If you believe that, I've got some Farmland in the Middle of the Ocean to Sell YOU" meaning they're full of" whatever adjective you want to insert.". and I don't believe one word of their BS.

This morning my seven year old daughter wrote up a list of item she wanted for her birthday this spring,there were only three, but the point is, She saw them all advertised on tv this morning and decided based on one 30 second spot that she wanted them. Of course I know by the time her birthday comes around she'll probably forgotten about them, but it bring home the point about people particularly young kids thinking they have to have every new thing that they see, whether they need it or not. Kids are not he only who fall into this trap. Many adults of the last couple of generations have grown up with advertising blasting at them from the time they wake up in the morning, till they go to bed at night. They think they have to have every new do-dad that is shown them. weather they need it or not..

The basic of the new economy is consumerism and a throw away mentality, that is use something once and throw it away. It all started after WWII during the prosperity of the 1950's when the US economy was a giant in the world, exporting more then we were importing and selling goods all over the world. Science was making new discoveries every day and they were trickling down to the consumers at unbelievable rate. Consumers were bombarded with a whole new world of goods and experiences that had never dreamed of, soon they had more stuff then they knew what to do with.All that new stuff has to go somewhere when is being replaced, It used to take 10 plus years before something needed replacing, now almost anything needs replacing in two -three years; either because it stops working entirely or because its so outdated its useless it has to go.

Technology was moved so faster that its impossible to keep up with it. Computers that cost $3,000.00 10 tears ago, are now relics sitting in the back of a closet collecting dust, while some of the faster of the older machine can be used as servers and linux boxes, the vast majority are consigned to the giant tech pile of trash we as a world are building everyday.

All of this is not even counting the push for alternative means of generating energy. windmills, solar, ect, and some really off the wall stuff that if implemented with the proper backing and funding and management could actually work, People have a knee-jerk reaction to new ideas, if we don't as a world and as a country step back and reexamine every idea to help save our world or we'll be digging our way out of a massive pile of Tech junk the suffocating us so we can't breathe what air there is.

I realize that this is a pretty broad indictment of the economic system which we've come to know and love. I think that one to take a step back and reevaluate what they're spending their time and money on in the way of contributing to the national economy.
Well, I guess thats my rant for this week, I hope it give folks some ideas of things they should think about...

And if we're not very careful the winner will not be us...

Tivo, Dish, Microsoft, and other News,of Noteable Interest

In reading over the rss feeds I have set up to come in on the top bar of my gmail, I found only two that piqued my interests. One of the Items that caught my attention is quite possibility a direct impact on me, Tivo suit of Dish Network on their "Stealing " of Tivo Patented Time Shifting technology. I hope that they can work this out like gentleman, and not have to have Dish shutting down millions of DVRs, I'm afraid that cats out of the bag, o to speak, Weather Tivo has a leg to stand on is after all theses years almost impossible to tell. What is in some way more scare then that prospect of Dish having to temporary disable all dvrs while they settle with Tivo. is when they're turn back on they're dumbed down and capabilities reduced so can conform to both what Tivo, and the DRM Gods want. Anyone who has read any of my earlier articles knows How I feel about DRM.

The next item that interested me is Microsoft's bid to buy Yahoo for 44.6 Billion dollars. Letters of interest have been written and published almost as soon as they were delivered. So much for keeping things on the QT.... I personally have very little use for Microsoft and even less for Yahoo.. Haven't used Yahoo in years.. Only use Microsoft by necessity . The big over all question is what dose this mean for consumers and and the Internet and computer world in general.. You can rest assured that every new computer bought will have Yahoo hooks into the next computer you buy if this goes through.
Microsoft has realized in spite of being the 500 pound gorilla in the computer software world, people don't like them in spite of having to use them daily. Unfortunately Yahoo's creditability with consumers has fallen, Google is the new 500 pound gollia in the Internet world and quickly branching out, I haven't even mentioned Apple yet, I just read that Apple stock rose sharply, Mac sales were up 64% YOY, a considerable jump in any one's book..., In the recent years Apple has made serious inroads into mainstream PC markets the advent of Intel macs that could be Dual booted OS X and Windows XP, now Vista, The mac min which was only 6 inches square and could dual boot, Apple is now announcing its newest laptop a super thin light model, of course there are major trade off to achieve this thin profile, such as no cd/dvd drive, among other things, I like thin and light I don't think I'm ready to make this kinds of trade offs to get it.. I said all this to say Microsoft has many business looking to taking a piece out of its hide, and Yahoo hasn't been faring much better against Google. I think the original google interface, one single search box and a logo, brought many people to , it was simple, it loaded quickly, especially on a dial-up connection which is what most folks were using, and I was up to about 2 years ago, in other words. KISS; Keep It Simple Stupid!!! Too bad Microsoft forgot KISS... There is the possibility that the FCC will step in and not let it go through even if Yahoo says yes.. In some respects it would be like Google buying Yahoo, FCC probably would let it go through either. Microsoft's search is failing miserably and Yahoo.. isn't doing any better, They hope to build a advertising basis and get more eyes seeing their ads, only problem is people have become so desensitized
to ads they don't really see them anymore, If there is a ad on a page I sort of automatically mentally block it out so I see it but I really don't see it not so I could tell you what it was 5 minutes later.. I think most people who spend a lot of time on line have learned to do this see without seeing. So all those extra eyes seeing their ads are seeing without seeing... Hopefully Microsoft investors will raise such a ruckus that the idea will be dropped..

On the other side of things,,The FCC spectrum action is coming along.. and One of the main big hurtles in the action is the "Open Access Spectrum" in the C block, It had a reserved bid of 4.71 billion dollar bid, The bid is still sealed as are all the bids for all of the different spectrum until the end of the action, which is when there are no mere bids, This is the airways we now use for our tv , By moving to the digital bands they are freeing up this the bandwidth to be used by communication companies to improve our services and add


Hopefully Tivo and Dish can settle their differences without undue bloodshed, although I doubt that they will. Microsoft was sleeping on the job when they came up with the idea of merging with Yahoo.The federal Spectrum auction is going to play out over the next few months. Then theres the February 9 2009 deadline. When analog signals will cease. by then the Auction will be over and the systems will be hopefully upgraded to newer cheaper capabilities.. Right now, the climate is changing and depending on which way the judges , bidders, and investors blow, it could be a interesting spring....

As A disclaimer,: I am very biased for and against some of the people, entities mentioned above. I say this to make you understand I mentioned these because I feel hat following theses stories will for many of us in the long run have a direct impact on our lives, and for many more a indirect impact. Do your own research and follow the leads to the stories and find out as much as you can about the FCC spectrum auctions and how you will be affected when he new rules go into effect. We now return you to our regularly scheduled blogging...


Ken

I am adding links to the items mentioned in this article:


http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/12782.cfm

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2008/02/open_access

http://macslash.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/22/1820202

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2008/02/msft_yhoo

Today's Media and The Future..

Early Adapters, pay through the nose... That said.....all the formats we have now, Mp3. wave, Apple's AAC, ect, Dvd, HD, & Blu-ray will eventually be superseded by whatever new technology is developed over the next years, However, as the film/movie preservationists have pointed out many times, as we move forward much is lost,, I am thinking both of lost films themselves and the the people who actually were there, and, almost as importantly , the equipment to play edit and do anything with the old media. This premise can be extended to many other things such as old computer hardware, there are millions of computer reels of data siting that no one can access because the machines to play the magnetic memory data tapes are not around any more. Soon there will be millions of VHS tapes laying all over the world with no vcrs to play them on, like the fate of 78rpm records, eventually cd and optical disc will suffer a similar fate... Although it will probably take longer.. All this is not counting what is eventually done with DRM and what effect it has on the hardware. All this is is to say, there is something ,to be said, for the printed page. One can still read a 100+ year old book and one may be able to read the same material digitally 1 year or even a week later after it was digitalized..

DRM is Digital Rights management, What it Essentially boils down to is the copyrights holder, be it the studio, author or production co, whoever, controlling what we can do with the content, whether we can record a show/movie to a pvr, or record something to a dvd burner like I have the big deal in all of this is that its digital, which means every copy is as good as the original, and theres no degradation over the copies like we had on the old analog tapes, What they don't want is perfect digital copies getting out in the world uncontrolled so they can't make any money off them The music industry tried DRM in their MP3s they sold and soon found it was a losing battle, People were still decoding the mp3 or most of them just ripped the music off their legal cds and put them up on file swapping sites anyways. So finely they are giving in and stripping all DRM off the MP3s they sell, Heres a link that will give you a general idea of what were talking about with the music. http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/01/amazon-adds-son.html As for movies Broadcasters can put in flags that tell receivers what they can and can't do with certain material, most of this is getting into the HD realm, Essentially, dumbing down and crippling sat and cable receivers, and making content harder to enjoy. However, the Saga is not dead, for proof, I refer you to the following link, http://wired.com/entertainment/music/news/2008/01/sony_music
The new battle cry will be watermarking so copyright holders can track a piece of material back to the original buyer and hold them responsible for letting the material getting into the wild.. Of course, privacy experts are having their say about the idea. The whole DRM/privacy issue will continue to boil over for many years to come, and probably will never be completly settled one way or the other, There will alway be a contingent of the population the change the status quo and fight for the rights of the average person, in this case, the right of the average person to play his own media as he see fits on what he sees fit.

Old Movie Studio System

The history of movies is very colorful especially in the black and white and early silent era.
The advent of the studio system and the star making machines and in the process created most of the greatest screen legends of all time, many of which still live on in at in in the hearts and minds of many. While none of the glitz and glamor of the old school movie machine still survive, except in studio warehouses and in very short and chopped clips of stars doing what they did best making appearances and generally creating the romance the public so desperately needed at the time.. The old studio system run their stars like horses in a race, however, the really good ones stood out , when they get to a certain point most were able to write they're own ticket or at least keep good steady work and build a very good catalogue of work,, In the process of building their careers they learned their trade, and earned the right to call their own shots, many eventually formed their own production companies allowing them to what they really wanted, if it didn't do as well as they hoped, that was OK, they were doing what they wanted.
Not everyone lead such colorful lives, many thousands of actors and actress did many parts that are now just being remembered and called to folks attention. Its nothing to find that a certain actor has done 15-20 films in a year, thus bring his total lifetime output of material up close to 100 if not more films over 50-60 year career.. How many of today stars can say their output comes anywheres near that kind of commitment. Theses people came to work everyday knew their lines and did the parts the best they knew how. That's not to say all the material they put out is Oscar material, obviously the greater number of work you do the chances increase that you'll get some of the better material..
The other thing to consider while they were making all those films every year, they generally didn't have a huge budget per film. Which by default means the director had to really have a vision in mind when he shot the film and and sent it to the editing room. If a director shoot it right there was really one one way to edit it so it would work and he Essentially edited while he shot. So he had to be really creative to get what he wanted on a tight budget.

Economics won't allow it, and the movie machine has changed too much to allow it, and its well-known that there were a lot of problems with the old studio system, However, the idea of bring back the old studio system dose have merit. One thing is would help insure actors got the training and dedication,they really need. One may wonder how many of today stars would have lasted in the old system,if they didn't measure up and didn't pan out at the end of their contract they studio could cut them loose and they had they're chance to be big stars.. Thee are a lot of very good reason why the studio system shouldn't be brought back , and equally as many reasons why it should be brought back. The people who are responsible for setting up the original system are long gone, However, the people running toady's systems would be hard pressed to try to get actors to sign multi- year deals with the actors knowing that they were at the beck and call of the studio and had no choice but to do whatever project was given them, and if they didn't they were fined. Not to mention the studios to really go back would have to hire in-house acting coaches dancing and a whole host of other specialized teachers to work with the contract players and keeping a staff a of screen writers busy, and stunt doubles and many other support personal, many of which they still have already.
But the bigger question is will the public accept the old studio system ?
I'm not a film movie historian, so I don't know all the ins and out of the old studio system, and even less about how the system works today, However, I do know that I don't see many movies today that can compare with the old movies of the40's and 50's, I don't know any actors today that I have a connection with, oh theres a couple I like well enough, but they don't have style or charisma the older ones had. They wee no angles back then either, but most of what they did pales in comparison to the stunts some of today "actors" have pulled. But they showed up on the set every morning and did the job. and turned in good performances. So in while the old studio system did have problems it still was able to produce most of the greatest films of all time, certainly some of my favorites, such as "Casablanca" And Boogie & Bacall in in "To Have and Have Not"


"You do know how to whistle, do you Steve,
You just put your lips together....
And Blow"

Bogart....Who........?

I was talking to a young lady of about 14, She was a very pleasant and polite young lady.
At one point I mentioned that one of My cats is named Bogart. At which point I got kind of a blank look, I asked her if the name sounded familiar, after a minute of thinking she finely said yes. She didn't remember the first name. I said the cat was named after Humphrey Bogart . She seemed to kind of know the name. I then proceed to to give a very general sketch of who he was and the movies he'd done, mentioning Casablanca, and the African Queen. Mentioning that he was born in 1899, and if Boggie was still alive, he'd be over 100 years old now. I also mentioned Lauren Bacall and their movies together. By this time, things were moving along and folks to go so, the history lesson was over.

The point of that little story which happens too many times everyday is that young people today have no sense of history . They have no concept that there was another world before MTV ,computers, Internet and 200 TV channels and Mp3s and all the technologies we enjoy today.
What do they think all they things I mentioned a line above were built on?
Granted the story about a teenager not knowing who Boggie was, is trivial in the grand scheme of things, however, insert a another world leader of Major importance in the name blank , and is it so silly? Take a poll and see how many kids know who Kennedy or Eisenhower , or Truman was, the list is far to long, but you get the idea.

As I've gotten older, I seem to developed more of a sense of the importance of history and keeping it alive, and preserving as much oral history as possible and making itassessable , to everyone and making it in formats that they understand. But, the meat of the material along with as much background detail about what is presented is very important to give the viewer a better sense of what it was like to be in the moment when they person is relating is stories, weather it be about the depression of the 30's or WWII, or Korea, or being around when Kennedy was around or when Man first walked on the moon.

A prime example is the Korean War, largely forgotten, in fact its been said the in many was it would have forgotten, except for a tv show called M*A*S*H . There are whole generations of kids who wouldn't know there had been a Korean war if they hadn't seen repeats of MASH, and were intrigued enough to do the research. But that's only a very rare example of the power of tv and a visual media in general.
Most of the time it offers mind numbing noise that is generally called music, propped up by scantly clad woman, whose only propose is to get every male in the sight of the picture, thinking about everything but what they should be thinking about at the time.
The tools are now available to record theses important memories and preserve them. There are volumes of history that not in the books sitting in VA hospitals and nursing homes across the world . Every day huge number of people die who if given the chance probably would have loved to sit down and tell their lives stories about growing up and living in a world very different then ours.
as far general dates and places, granted memory changes over time, however many can remember 1930 like it was yesterday, and can't remember what they had for breakfast that morning. Obviously some folks for various mental or physical reason aren't good candidates for and should be screened for suitability for doing such a interview. There is also the good it may do the All of those interviews should be edited for clearly and researched for at least the basic ground of the times they are regaling us with for acutes patients to have someone interest in their lives.
As this material is collect and cataloged it should be cross-referenced and indexed so anyone wanting a oral history of, say the depression, can put in a search and find interviews that tell about living in the depression, and have supporting information regarding that time and location where the interviewee is talking about so one can get a more complete picture of what they are talking about, that would mean that items that the mention in the interview such as cars, building and historical places should be cross referenced to give information relating to that item.
This database should be made available to every school and institutions of learning in the world. and need to be continually updated.
Lately I have become a big fan of TCM, or Turner Classic Movies, in fact ,I've always like the station as a whole and lately have become to see it as what it could possibly become a treasure trove of historical film and in many respects a window into our history. The history of motion pictures is from what little I can see is largely lost on the youth of today, Many kids don't know anyone older then say, 1980 or so, and have know idea that theres is a rich history of movies both silent and precode movies. While I am not a huge fan of silent movies personally, I do feel that they should be exposed to as many folks as possible, granted many probably won't get into it too much,they should at least know that they and many other movies are out there, there will be a few who will embrace it and help preserve it along with miles of reels of film. The push to High Definition has probably helped with the preservation of old films as they are upconverted to HD or as close as the negatives will allow.
I new class should be added to grade school, some to tie history and movie appreciation something to let teachers show young students a history of movies and tie it together with history or something else that they're doing in class, then students wouldn't be put off by the idea of watching a black & white movie, if its relevant to what they're doing today in life or at least class. Hopefully it would eventually foster a interest for older movies among at least a few students,,,

Welcome to VISTA -Land

This last weekend I ventured in to new territory.......... Vista-land...

Due to problems with one computer, and not knowing if it could easily fixed or have to be replaced, we decided that getting a laptop, that everyone could use would be a good idea, and help fill the void if we needed to replace one of the desktops. Of course thats not even counting the general connivance of having a portable around.
Any rate, the end result was, as usual, we spent less and got more. The choices for a laptop are varied and in some ways very few. One needs to think about what the primary use of the machine will be, and keeping in mind you eventually want to do more then you ever figured you would, and thus need more machine then you think you do..
There are several things to consider, the primary one for most folks is price, how much bang can I get for my buck? Nowadays quite a bit actually..
How much portability do you need? do you want some you can carry in a small bag and take almost anywhere, or do you need the bigger screen to run more intense programs and watch movies and screen big enough to see from a distance. Then there is the processor, the question is a little more involved; Intel, or AMD, and a desktop processor or a mobile processor. and then dual-core, and how fast. As you see, the choices in Hardware abound, depending on what you want to spend. You need lots of RAM, or memory as its often called. at least a gigs worth. more is better.
The primary reason for all the CPU power and ram is the operating system. Operating systems are famous for using too much of a systems resources. Every generation of OS had its quirks and problems. Vista, is no expectation.

A very brief primer; the operating system is the interface between the computer and the human using it. It converts what the user want to do into binary code which the computer can understand and act on. There have been a number of version over he years, first there was windows 3.1 which was a very early version of the GUI, or graphical user Interface, this made it relatively easy for the user to tell he computer what to do and have it do something useful. Then there was windows 95, then windows 98, each version was a huge leap in processor power and usefulness and functionality. However, all was not well in Windows land... Each version fixed problem form before and also brought new problems. I'm not going to delve int a history of the problems of earlier operating systems, they are well document. One can easily find volumes about older windows .
The Operating system in question today, is Vista, which I think is a stupid name, But then I thought XP was a stupid name too. not that anyone ever asked me. Name aside, XP was a huge jump from 98se. There several major improvements, the most important one to me was stability. Which meant it tended not to crash as often or as bad as older versions. Usually one program would crash and close and not take the whole system with it, forcing a complete reboot at a inconvenient time. There were other issues, which I'm not going into now, primarily security.


So, I went to the famous big box stores and shopped. We had set a budget, about 1/3 of what we had spent on the first laptop many years ago. and then it was seek and find..
The first thing I asked was if they had any XP units, None. so that left VISTA. then it was what they had on sale. and what features it had on it.
We finely chose a Compaq/HP that was on sale, This machine has a dual-core processor and a gig of RAM. Something VISTA needs, and even more is better.
I have not been looking forward to working on a VISTA machine, having spent the summer reading horror stories about it.
So far I have been impressed, and was not prepared to be a very happy camper.. I booted it up and and set it up and it found the wireless network. using Explorer, I downloaded FireFox and Sea monkey and then closed Explorer and haven't opened it since. I have deliberately left it plugged in and running and kept it going and it hasn't even blinked. I plugged in a very old web cam in the USB and it not only found it went out and found the drivers and installed them and it just worked! The promise of USB finely fulfilled..

As much as I hate to say it, at least, on this particular VISTA box seems to be working good. It seems to be responsive and it definably has a MAC like quality in the way it opens and closes windows and I get the feeling that it wants to emulate a MAC, without directly copyng it. Something that has been noted many times before. What will happen as time go on and its used more remains to be seen. I have a XP disc just waiting to jump in and replace VISTA if it ever becomes necessary. basically, when one a buys something like a computer they want it to just work and this particular one seems to be working right now. I am not going to use it as a excuse to vindicate the operating system as a whole, It is still bloated and full of problems that should have been solved long before it was released, if they had been, I wouldn't have spent the summer reading horror stories about it. Linux is also a option, doing s dual-boot and putting Ubunta, on a 2nd partition is something the geekier among us might do, a few will even get rid of windows altogether and run Linux solo, I can't bring myself to do so only because of dependency on windows programing for my pda , see earlier post about changing PIM platforms. In a ideal world I would be able to put the MAC OS on my XP/VISTA box and dual-boot, But I doubt that'll happen very soon.


I know lucky when I see it.. I just got lucky and got either a manufacture that knows how to install and tweak VISTA to work or just plain got a box that works.. at least for me. So Far....

The Paperless Office

The Paperless Office is coming....

Well, Sort of.................


I have been trying for years to tame the vast influx of paper that come though this office. And mostly losing...


As I'm sure you know, 90% of the paper material that come through your front door is JUNK, most of it not even good junk, that at least semi-fun to read. Most of the papers that I handle in he mail go straight to File 13, nowadays one needs a very big trash bin next to the desk.
The the question is; What to do with the stuff you have to keep, which can be a pretty big pile by the end of the year.
Bills that need to be paid, car and house insurance paperwork along with income tax and other paperwork you'll probably never need, but if you don't have, You WILL NEED. All of this stuff needs to be kept in some sort of file cabinet or system.
The idea of he paperless office was to do as much as possible electronically and keep copies in hard drive, all filed for easy access if you ever need them, you can find and print them out. sort of defeats the propose.


Now days with external hard drives huge and cheap, there's no reason not to have at least one back up drive to save everything on.
Getting all your receipts into digital form means getting a scanner. Earlier this year we replaced our old HP scanner, It wasn't easy. Apparently, almost all regular retail outlets only carry those multi-function machines, that scan, print fax and make coffee... All we wanted was a regular flatbed scanner. After much calling around, I finely found one place that still had a couple $100. scanners perfect for what we need, as we already have a couple of printers and don't need a fax machine.0-95%

The idea of the paperless office was to reduce the amount of work we have to do. In some places and with proper implantation it dose. But for the vast majority of of its just a dream,

There are defiantly some things that one can do to reduce the amount of paper that is handled, or at least the number of times that one has to handle the same piece of paper, The biggest thing is sorting stuff as it comes in. And sorting right over the trash bin is the place to do it,
Bills that have to be paid should be put in one place and paper that need to be filed should be either imminently filed or at least put in a place to be saved up and all filed at once. Of course we all know what generally what I've gone over, however, how many of us actually take the time to sit down and figure out a filing system and actually stick to it?

The ideal thing to do would be to scan all your paid bills, and receipts into one folder, then file the paper originals, then if you need copies of a item you can just print it out. The added benefit is that if you lose the original, you can still print out the copy. Doing a little more work up front and setting things up will save you time long run.

The computer revolution and Internet has made many thing possible that we couldn't do a few years ago, and many things we still do are easier, such as writing papers and doing spreadsheets and the like are far easier on computer then they were ever before, However, one wonders if the amount of work its saved us, is creating more work, then its saving us from, just a different kind of work. We spend hours a week on emails, again, 90% of which are JUNK. One can figure on changing their email address every 2-3 years as by that time, their address has been put out in the wild for every slammer to send their junk to. One can spend a lot of time managing their computer, running system programs such as defrag and anti virus program, and spy-ware programs, not to mention doing actual productive work. So how much other stuff isn't getting done because your sitting at the computer maintaining it or sorting email, or other routine task that computers were supposed to free us from.


There are several culprits to blame for all this wasted time, one other major problems is our operating system. 90-95% of the folks reading my blogs are looking at it in a windows system. XP is by far the most stable windows we've ever had, however,it dose have major security issues and thus makes running antivirus programs and the like, thus taking up more of the time, computers was supposed to free up for us. The idea was to get on do your work get done, get off and have a life, not spend hours maintaining your system so you can do your work and check email.


The question becomes how much is the dream of the paperless office costing you and haven't even come close to getting to a paperless office yet?

Open Letter to The RIAA

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Until a few years ago I had never heard of the RIAA.
Now it seems they've become the BIg Brother of the music world.
And they're looking for a fight. I venture to say that most folks had never heard of the RIAA until the started suing everyone for doing something they've been doing doing for many years. Actually they didn't know it at the time. When I bought a record, (LP) You remember them? I would play it the first time and make a copy onto whatever tape machine I had at the time, cassette or 8 track and put the record away and save the record. If someone wanted a copy I'd either make a copy from the record or the tape, whichever was easiest at the time, that not counting all the mixed tapes with songs from different artist on it. Of courses we were using good 'ole RCA jacks and swapping cables back and forth.we were using the technology we've had for the last 60+ years, of course Until about 20 years or so, we had never heard of digital anything. Now everything is digital theses days.

There is a term in the entrainment industry called "fair use". I first read about it in connection to the early days of VCR. The studios had tried kill VCR and the courts had rejected the studio argument's saying that consumers had a limited right to use the VCR to time shift TV broadcast to a more convent time.
I am not going to try to explain a very complicated subject, which I only have a broad and very basic understanding of the concept. Instead I will supply links at the bottom of the article to give you more detailed reading material.

The idea of this article is to try bring together the idea of protecting copyrighted material, and the individual consumers right to use the material as they see fit. It is generally accepted the one can make a couple copy's of a disc for back-up proposes. The question starts to be sticky when you try to give a copy to someone else. Is it just sharing a interesting work or stealing,?

In the early 1990's when the mp3 craze started and Napster came into vogue, and folks discovered they could copy all their Cd's into their computers, which were finely powerful and fast enough to actually store and play them, This also coincided with the opening up of the Apra-net, becoming the Internet. We all know the stories of college students sharing gigs of music through the campus. This is when the RIAA came out of hiding. Of course once the cat was out of the bag, so to speak it can't be put back in.


The records companys say the because of the sharing of music over the Internet that they had lost a substantial amount of sale, and thus monies they would have made through the sales of CDs during the heyday of file sharing. While this may be true, they know they will never get that money back. That's like saying you lost money because you didn't or did do or buy something and wanting the money you would have made back. Not going to happen. Essentially the 1990's and early 2000's is water under the bridge.

Its time for the RIAA to bite the bullet and sowoll hard and stand up and say they've made some big mistakes in the last 12 or so years. and essentially, be a man ,and take their lumps. and start over and work on new models is distribution , which if it wasn't for Apple and I-Tunes they probably still wouldn't be doing.

By continuing to down the path they are now, they are alienating they very public they are trying to reason with.

There is the question of where all the money that they get when they settle one of the suits goes. In theory, it should go to the artist, they are supposed to represent . We all know about the only people making money is the lawyers.

It would seem to me that if any suing was done at all it should be up to the artist themselves. After all it was their work that was "stolen" Then the RIAA can sue on behalf of the artist and the amounts of damages should be up to the artist themselves. and make sure they get the money.
I would venture to say most artist probably would elect not to sue, if nothing else because of the negative image it would bring them, and if the truth were known, most of them had probably done some file sharing themselves. Which puts them in a rather interesting spot. If a artist had the RIAA sue some one and in the course of the trial it come out that they had or even at the time were doing exactly what they were suing about, one can imaige what a laughing stock they would be.


There is also another aspect of the file sharing, that is how much of the material downloaded by folks is material that they already own in LP or cassette or 8-track from and what they were essentially doing was getting material they already own in a new format. That opens up more questions of fair use and copyright issues. If one can prove they a already own a copy of the material and were getting copies of their material.
No one I have seen has mentioned that issue.

In short , its time for the RIAA to back down and rethink its approach to the consumer. By continuing as they are they are in a lot of cases driving people into he idea that they don't want to support them and refuse to buy CDS , if nothing else in a form of protest.

I have been reading lately, the there has been a movement to drop DRM on mp3s. This is a sign that they have finely discovered that it don't work and causes more problems then it solves. Sony got into trouble earlier this year over a hidden root-kit it had on some of it CDs, which had actually damaged peoples computers.This proved that that model was not going to work and it was dropped by Sony after they were sued.

What it all boils down to is when doses "fair use" turn to stealing and who decides it and what are the penalties and who gets to droll them out.

This is a open letter to the RIAA asking them to rethink their tactics and consider the points I've mentioned.

As for the links;

Here are the links I promised;




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use


http://www.copyright.iupui.edu/fairuse.htm


http://w2.eff.org/IP/DRM/fair_use_and_drm.html


http://www.digitalconsumer.org/bill.html


http://www.eff.org/


http://www.riaa.com/

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All I Wanted to Do Was Buy A New TV.....

All I wanted to do was Buy a new TV....

Not go back to collage ..........



One could very easily utter those very words when One enters one of the new superstore, or big-box retailers, two, of which ,spring to mind and I think you know who I mean....

A few years ago buying a tv was relatively easy and straight forward .
You went in pick up the size you wanted, usually 27' diagonal, and went home, hooked it up to whatever source you got your signal. usually a roof antenna or in some cases rabbit ears on top of the tv.
In the days of yore, a tv was a piece of furniture. Manufactures tried to make a cabinets look like they belong in the room and not some ugly box with a screen sicking out in the middle of the room, they used real wood and and were finished like furniture. At least on the bigger 27 consul models, I remember seeing some nice looking tvs back then.

Back then you only had one connection to hook up, coaxial cable from your antenna. You got the sound from the tiny speakers which were built in the tv set.
And so it went, for many decades. Eventually black and white gave way to color.
Over the years stereo was introduced. First, there were stereo speakers built into the tv itself, After a fashion, connections were added to pipe to audio into external speaker and eventually running the audio into a stereo for a fuller richer sound.

As the tv has evolved, the was of getting the signal also changed. Cable tv was introduced and along with more channels. Now we have both cable and satellite distribution of tv content. Along with stations that show nothing but old shows that were made before this brave new media was ever dreamed up. That is a very short version of how tv came to be what what know today.

All of this to say choosing a tv has become challenge.
There are so many different ways to get content into your tv and almost all of them have a different connection.

Depending on what your source is,you can hook it up a number of ways. Of course for a very basic off air signal either standard definition, what your watching now. Or if you have a set with a built-in HD tuner, and the right antenna, in the right area, you can pull in off air High definition channels. Thats not even counting hooking up you dvd player.If you have RCA cables you can probably use them and get a ok picture. If you a dvd player with HDMI outputs and your tv has at least one HDMI input you can run the dvd player through it and it will upscale the picture to near high-definition quality and look really good.


The point is selecting a Hight definition tv is a daunting task. You must consider where your putting it, If in a bight living room with lots of light and windows a LCD, is considered the best option, if in a dark room or basement or dedicated viewing room, a plasma is considered best. Then the size, of the tv. The big thing is they have changed the screen format from the traditional 4;3 square that were used to , to the new 16;9 format. and they still use the old diagonal measuring system, which always was misleading to begin with, and who ever thought of the idea if measuring the screen diagonal in the first place? The screen size should be stated by at least the height and width of the cabinet so you know how much space the unit will actually take. and give you a much better idea if the size screen your getting.

I've said all this, and I haven't touched on screen resolution yet,
Our stranded definition tv is all the same approximately 480 lines and hasn't changed in over 60 years. Until now.
I could go into a lot of technical details that I'd probably wouldn't get right. I won't try to explain stuff I'm not a expert in, Instead I'll post some links at the end of the article,
Suffice to say , HDTV come in three varieties, 720p, 1080i, and 1080p.
The experts say 1080i is the best you can get right now, However there is very little content that is native 1080p, other then Sony's PS3 and Microsoft's X-Box 360, and some Hight-def dvd, that require a High-def dvd player to play them properly.
The broadcasters that do send a high def signal on send the lower 720p signal.which is still a HD signal, and WAY better then what we're used to seeing now.

I which I could just say get this or that brand and model. As you know a picture like audio is subjective, what looks or sounds good to one person my sound or look lousy to another. All one can do is read the reviews and actually go see the tvs in person and bring your own content to test it with. Bring material you know, both in HD and standard def. Ask the place to show you a standard def signal on the tv you looking at, some tvs handle the up converting from standard better then others, don't bring amainated material to test with, it will always look good no mater what. try looking at the tvs from different viewing angles and if possible different lighting.
As more stations convert to HD the choices of content increase, for some stations converting to HD is easier to integrate into the system then others. Particularly those who have a lot of old footage that they need to either up convert themselves or have it done for them. The success of the up converting depends a lot on the material they have to work with. Ideally working form the original print would be best, as you can guess that may not always be possible,
As you start on this venture, consider your source of HD content, at the low end of the scale, pulling it off air with a antenna is a option, depending on where you live, Most folks are going to go to either a cable or satellite system, either Direct tv or my personal favorite, Dish Network.
At the moment, Dish had almost forty channel in in their HD package, They seem to be adding channels on a regular basis. By the end of the year they could very easily have 50 channels give or take. Not that I'm specifically plugging them But I have had Dish for almost 10 years and have been very pleased with their service and channel selection. (Something to consider.)
Most HD tvs also have the options of piping you computer to the tv so you can use it as a monitor for the computer. This opens up a new world of content. Image being able to stream last night esispode of a a tv show of the computer and instead of watching it on your computer monitor, you watch it on your big tv. Having never done it yet, I can't vouch for the picture quality, however if its done right I hear it can look pretty good, But it defiantly opens new possibilities.

If your not sure how to hook up your new HD tv to get the best picture possible, it may be well worth the investment to have it professionally installed and set up.They will know the best way to hook it up given the source. I am not sure recommend using the installation services or even buying from one of the above mentioned big-box stores, simply because the level of training and expertise of the personal in the stores can very from some kid who barely know what a tv is, to a "expert" that may or may not actually know whats hes talking about.
I think, I'd subjust if possible and money allows go to a local custom installer who can sell you the equipment and install it and back it locally if there are any problems, if they install it they will probably adjust the calibration and fine tune it to get the best picture, you probably also get a matching surround sound system and they should install it too as a package deal. I realize that that is probably a more expensive way to go, and not everyone can do that but your sinking a considerable sum of money into your entertainment system, which hopefully you will have for many years to come.


So if your looking to get a new HDTV, take your time and do your research, because time is on our side, The longer you wait the lower the price goes, and the more content will be available to watch when you finely get a new tv.

Here is a excellent link for more information on choosing your new HDTV;


http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/34579/273701.html

A World Where Anything Will Play Anywhere....

The times, they are a changing,,,,
The times,they are a changing....


The media is a changing...
The media is a changing....

Apple and NBC recently had a falling out,
NBC has pulled all its shows from Apples I-Tunes....
Not that it makes any deference to me....
But.....


Theres a bigger story here..

If you read on you find the NBC is opening their own site to stream their own shows for free. As I investigated further I found that CBS, and ABC are also following suit.

Now it begs to question , will theses new models survive?
If you read closely you find at least with NBC, the commercials followed them to the new site.
Will people want to have the options of streaming a show with commercials and being tied to their computer for the privilege.
On the other hand with Apple I-tunes, you pay 1.99 or something to that effect and you get to download it to your machine and you own it. you can then play it on you computer, ipod, or stream it from your computer to your tv, using Apples I-Tv.

And that's not even counting burning your material to DVD, theres some rather heated discussions going on about that in some circles.

In a perfect world.. One could get any show, movie song or other media whenever one wanted, and watch it on whatever was convenient at the time. To be be able to watch a movies or or show on everything from a Ipod to a 50" plasma tv. with 7.1 surround sound.

What we need is a format and hardware both set-top, and portable the will recognize and automatically format and play the media in whatever form is available to the hardware, weather its a Ipod like hand held that can see any wireless network and pull any media off any shared folder, along with whatever is on the actual hardware, be it a hard drive,sd card.

All of this is not factoring in digital rights management(DRM). Hardware must be able to recognize what a file is and what allowed. There will always be a camp will fight and/or otherwise circumvent any DRM scheme that anyone come up. While I am in principle agree with the idea of protecting one own intellectual property . There is STILL such a thing as fair use. The problem is, over the last few years people have taken advantage of the concept of fair use to the point that the record company's having a heart attack and trying to recover a perceived loss. I not saying that haven't lost money over the last few years. However their methods of "recovering their losses" are only serving to strengthen opposition to DRM in general and the RIAA in particular.


The end result is a world with both media hardware and media software coming with DRM in the firmware. In the end the dream of a universal plug and play world, where any media will play on any media without its having to call home and see if its allowed is probably dead.

Back to the lead-in, When I have a computer that I can send a signal to my big tv and watch streaming media off the computer/internet and pipe the audio through the sound system, I'll be more interested in watching streaming media. One other possibility that comes to mind would be a satellite receiver that connects to the internet and gets its programing guide and other software over the internet and lets you surf the web on your tv through the sat receiver, of course you wouldn't have all the printer and other capabilities you have on your computer.
Unless of course you have one of the new media center pc, withe the turner and other niceties that Microsoft offers. Having never had the "pleasure" of using one I can't say how well they work. Xp or worst Vista running my digital media center is not my idea of the optimum media software. However,choices are limited in this respect, When a Tivio can brows web sites and stream media off the net and possibility even store it even temporary on its hard drive, then we're heading in the right direction..
So for now let the major network stream their shows on line for free,,,,,

I don't watch any of them anyways....



Ps; Heres the link to the original story;

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2007/10/nbc_itunes