If you think this pile is big, you should see the one Congress has been stacking up in D.C.
Archive for January, 2005
Sony No Baloney
Jan 19
Dell’s CEO, Kevin Rollins may be a smart guy … but he’s a bit of a moron, too.
In an interview with News.Com he compares the iPod to the Sony Walkman.
I’m sure that Steve Jobs was happy to hear that.
But he continued by calling the Walkman a “fad” and saying:
“Well, those things that become fads rage, and then they drop off. When I was growing up there was a product made by Sony called the Sony Walkman–a rage, everyone had to have one. Well, you don’t hear about the Walkman anymore. I believe that one-product wonders come and go. You have to have sustainable business models, sustainable strategy.”
I’m not going to say that Walkmans weren’t a “must-have” popular item … but they weren’t like jelly bracelets or parachute pants. Fads die. They go away.
Sony’s Walkman, on the other hand, had a huge impact on the culture, and it definitely wasn’t just a “one-product wonder” as Rollins put it.
- Walkmans created an industry. They spawned a whole slew of portable electronics.
- How many people still listen to them at the gym or on the subway?
- I just did a search at Circuit City and found 24 “Walkman” branded items that they carry.
Oh well. I guess he’s right about one thing: It’s foolish for a company to bet its entire business model on a “one-product wonder.” I’m tired of thinking about it. I think I’m gonna go play NCAA Football on my PlayStation for a while.
Communication Breakdown
Jan 18
People don’t think about this sort of thing when they’re talking about copyrights. Usually the topic centers around how music labels are losing money or screwing consumers. Or how movie piracy will put a makeup artist on the streets. (Even though digital editing of films might do it anyway.)
Forgotten in the argument are documentary films, which provide an incredibly valuable service in educating the public … especially in (of all places) schools.
Because of copyright extension laws like the Sonny Bono Act, it’s not only harder to make a documentary today, but to even reissue documentaries that have already been made. Some will soon be lost along with the Betamax tapes they’re stored on.
Check out this link from BoingBoing (which contains a link to a much longer article that’s also worth the read if you’ve got the time to kill): How copyright is killing culture
From New Scientist magazine:
Pentagon reveals rejected chemical weapons
Funny. I thought Tom Jones invented the “Sex Bomb” years ago…
Most bizarre among the plans was one for the development of an “aphrodisiac” chemical weapon that would make enemy soldiers sexually irresistible to each other. Provoking widespread homosexual behaviour among troops would cause a “distasteful but completely non-lethal” blow to morale, the proposal says.
I’m really sad
Jan 13
“A sense of humor is a measurement of the extent to which we realize that we are trapped in a world almost totally devoid of reason. Laughter is how we express the anxiety we feel at this knowledge.”
– Dave Barry
And he’s quitting. I am sad, indeed.
Bathroom reading?
Jan 10
Found this at a local bookstore last night:
This is fantastic news! CNN has fired rabid Troy Dungan impersonator Tucker Carlson from Crossfire. (And will likely fold Crossfire, altogether.)
Check out the story on Yahoo News:
CNN Lets ‘Crossfire’ Host Carlson Go
Key quotes:
The bow-tied wearing conservative pundit got into a public tussle last fall with comic Jon Stewart, who has been critical of cable political programs that devolve into shoutfests.
“I guess I come down more firmly in the Jon Stewart camp,” [CNN boss Jonathan] Klein told The Associated Press.
And the most promising to me:
“I doubt that when the president sits down with his advisers they scream at him to bring him up to date on all of the issues,” he said. “I don’t know why we don’t treat the audience with the same respect.”
I, I, Me, Me, Mine
Jan 6
What sort of response do you think you’ll get when you ask the richest man in the world the following question?
“In recent years, there’s been a lot of people clamoring to reform and restrict intellectual-property rights. It started out with just a few people, but now there are a bunch of advocates saying, ‘We’ve got to look at patents, we’ve got to look at copyrights.’ What’s driving this, and do you think intellectual-property laws need to be reformed?
If you answered that he’d call them commies, you’re right!
“No, I’d say that of the world’s economies, there’s more that believe in intellectual property today than ever. There are fewer communists in the world today than there were. There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don’t think that those incentives should exist.”
Check out the News.com story here. (That question in the Q&A is pretty close to the end.)
Bill Gates can credit pretty much his entire fortune to his ability to take advantage of the existing copyright and patent laws. What would you expect him to say? That he thinks the whole system is screwed up and needs reform? He’s precisely the sort of person who benefits from the current model.
(Perhaps ironically, some would argue that he started his fortune by BREAKING those laws.)