Because you don't want to pay more than you feel its worth. Because it is faster, easier, and less antagonizing to steal than deal (with DRM). But not because its sitting there. Evidence emerging claims that the Long Tail theory, which states you'll seek out rarer items in the face of a large volume, does not apply to pirated music. Hit music is as popular to pirates as it is to the rest of the world and interest evaporates in a similar fashion.
If legal online music providers employed a decreasing price structure for music based on age, I believe they'd see increased profits both in initial sales and in the Long Tail. Songs debut at the highest cost, then become cheaper over time: $0.99 for new music, which decreases to $0.75 after six months, which decreases to $0.50 after a year, and so on. This maximizes initial sales and increase the potential for Long Tail sales by making the music eventually worthwhile to people who pirate.
I've finally gotten off my ass to start 3.0, which is a complete rewrite of the plugin. And I don't mean a style reformat. So far less than 1% of the original code is in this version. Below are a list of the important new features. And after the bump, some of those features are further explained.
New Features
- DOCUMENTATION (heh), including examples and videos.
- Better Rules interface (Plugin Triggers are now called Rules, to prevent confusion with Ping.fm Triggers)
- Interactive section on the New/Edit Post page so you can see what your pings will look like.
- Pings are sent after the post is published in an AJAX setup so you can make sure the pings happen.
- Support for individual services and custom Posting Groups.
- More powerful $variables. Control the length of individual variables.
- New variables ($tags, $cats, $tagcats, $striphtml, and $more)
- Notifications of scheduled pings are emailed to the blog admin. Read the rest of this entry »
(Young) People use the labels on alcohol to determine which booze gets them smashed faster. Just like (young) people use ESRP and MPAA ratings to choose the most entertaining games and movies. Further proof ratings do not prevent exposure of minors to questionable content. Mind you, I'm not advocating against ratings, I just get annoyed when people blame shit on Grand Theft Auto or R-rated movies.
A couple posts ago, I said that the recent preteen suicides were the parents' fault. Recently, a research study adds ammunition to that notion.
The UK study focused on mothers, but I'm positive the effect applies to fathers as well. The findings were as such: when a mother explains the emotional state of other people to their young children, those children grow up with more sophisticated social skills and have a more complex range of emotions. In other words, when your 3-year-old asks you why someone robbed a store and your reply is simply "because they are a bad person" you are working toward emotionally stunting your child.
This guidance effect degrades around the ages of 10 to 12. Though the reason is uncertain, it is surmised the increase of outside influences might play a role. I would think the onset of preteen independence is also worth consideration. The fact that both of the suicides last month were 11 is starting to make sense. They were at the age where the bullies were having an effect and the comfort of the parents no longer held the sway it once did. Their parents had neglected to give the children the proper social skills and the situation became unbearable. This logic applies to the bullies: their parents didn't teach them empathy or compassion. Or conversely, taught by example that selfish desires were more important.
Jerry Springer is known for putting four rednecks together on a stage with a pregnant slut saying she doesn't know the father is. But he might not have had the opportunity if their parents had spent more time in their lives. That's an old argument, really, but it gets truer by the generation.
I never finished watching "The Da Vinci Code" even after three attempts. Two of those tries, I fell asleep. That's why "Angels & Demons" surprised the hell out of me, to paraphrase my favorite line from the movie. One could argue over the finer points of the plot back story, but that would suggest the plot had more than a passing basis on factual events. To quote Tom Hanks in the Larry King interview last night, "This movie is a big, fat piece of fake goo." Though I'm sure the advertising people pulled their hair out over that misquotable phrase. Read the rest of this entry »
