Dan Brown gets panned
Harry Mary Andruschak
So who is worse....Brown, Hubbard, or those who write the Left Behind
series? And remember they are all best sellers.
cryptoguy
wrote:
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/6194031/The-Lost-Sy...
>
> So who is worse....Brown, Hubbard, or those who write the Left Behind
> series? And remember they are all best sellers.
Dan Brown is a terrible writer. The others are said to be so, but I
managed to heed reviewers advice and not repeat the error of wasting a
few hours of my life on The DaVinci Code (the movie, btw, is much
better, but still silly).
When I read TDC, I discovered that I was quite familiar with the
sources of his 'revelations': I had read them over 20 years earlier,
when they first came out. The result was a bit like riding Pirates of
the Caribbean, but with all the maintenance lights on; every slapdash
borrowing, every creaky joint between plot elements was visible. I was
left looking at a poorly plotted and written action novel.
I doubt he's gotten better.
pt
hielan' laddie
(in article
<2fa904e6-93b9-4293...@z4g2000prh.googlegroups.com>):
>
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/6194031/The-Lost-Symbol-and-
> The-Da-Vinci-Code-author-Dan-Browns-20-worst-sentences.html
>
> So who is worse....Brown, Hubbard, or those who write the Left Behind
> series? And remember they are all best sellers.
Brown. It's not even close.
David Harmon
Mary Andruschak <adopts...@aol.com> wrote,
>So who is worse....Brown, Hubbard, or those who write the Left Behind
>series? And remember they are all best sellers.
What do you mean, "worse"? A guess from the seat of my pants is that
Hubbard has done more harm to more people's lives, if that's what.
Carol Hague
> On Sep 21, 12:25 am, Harry Mary Andruschak <adoptsoldc...@aol.com>
> wrote:
> > http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/6194031/The-Lost-Sy...
> >
> > So who is worse....Brown, Hubbard, or those who write the Left Behind
> > series? And remember they are all best sellers.
>
> Dan Brown is a terrible writer. The others are said to be so, but I
> managed to heed reviewers advice and not repeat the error of wasting a
> few hours of my life on The DaVinci Code (the movie, btw, is much
> better, but still silly).
Yes, well, the movie has Audrey Tautou in it, which makes up for an
awful lot :-)
--
Carol. www.mullimages.com
"This might as well say "bing tiddle tiddle bong".
It's complete gibberish," - Rodney McKay, Stargate: Atlantis
William December Starr
hielan' laddie <bobbi...@bobbybruce.co.uk.not> said:
> Harry Mary Andruschak wrote
>
>> So who is worse....Brown, Hubbard, or those who write the Left
>> Behind series? And remember they are all best sellers.
>
> Brown. It's not even close.
Unless one makes the argument that he's the least bad of the three,
because he's inflicted far fewer books upon the world than either of
the other two.
-- wds
Keith F. Lynch
> So who is worse....Brown, Hubbard, or those who write the Left
> Behind series? And remember they are all best sellers.
I'm baffled as to why any of these authors are popular. Perhaps
people only buy them *because* they're best sellers? But how did
they become best sellers in the first place?
Of course I feel exactly the same about Microsoft software.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.
David V. Loewe, Jr
<k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>Harry Mary Andruschak <adopts...@aol.com> wrote:
>> So who is worse....Brown, Hubbard, or those who write the Left
>> Behind series? And remember they are all best sellers.
>
>I'm baffled as to why any of these authors are popular. Perhaps
>people only buy them *because* they're best sellers? But how did
>they become best sellers in the first place?
Because people enjoy them.
>Of course I feel exactly the same about Microsoft software.
--
"It is a consolation to the wretched to have companions in misery."
- Publius Syrus
Karl Johanson
>> So who is worse....Brown, Hubbard, or those who write the Left
>> Behind series? And remember they are all best sellers.
>
> I'm baffled as to why any of these authors are popular. Perhaps
> people only buy them *because* they're best sellers? But how did
> they become best sellers in the first place?
> Of course I feel exactly the same about Microsoft software.
Principle of increasing returns. Why VHS beat out Beta.
That said, I haven't read Brown. Sometimes some stories work in people's
heads better than others.
Karl Johanson
netcat
says...
I've read one of his (which one was the one with antimatter, again?)
entirely due to the fact that I had a crew of electricians and painters
running amok in most of my apartment, and was cornered into the last
clean room with this being the only book on premises that I had not
read. It helped while away the time just fine. But both his prose and
plotting were rather atrocious. It started with him flat out telling us
to picture Langdon as Harrison Ford in tweed (I adore Harrison Ford, but
this didn't work for me at all, since the character mostly came across
as a bumbling idiot)and degenerated from there. Also, as an added bonus,
the translation also sucked big time.
rgds,
netcat
hielan' laddie
(in article <h9970k$mvb$1...@panix2.panix.com>):
Except that any one of his books contains far more sheer stupid than all of
the Left Behind books combined, a difficult task since the LB books are
fundie creationist crap, and El Ron did write a few Not So Bad books before
he became a con artist.
Paul Ciszek
In article <h99cie$mcc$4...@reader1.panix.com>,
Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>Harry Mary Andruschak <adopts...@aol.com> wrote:
>> So who is worse....Brown, Hubbard, or those who write the Left
>> Behind series? And remember they are all best sellers.
>
>I'm baffled as to why any of these authors are popular. Perhaps
>people only buy them *because* they're best sellers? But how did
>they become best sellers in the first place?
Keith, did you just commit blasphemy against The Market, the one
and only true judge of what is good?
--
Please reply to: | "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is
pciszek at panix dot com | indistinguishable from malice."
Autoreply is disabled |
GeekGirl
> In article <h99cie$mc...@reader1.panix.com>,
> Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>
> >> So who is worse....Brown, Hubbard, or those who write the Left
> >> Behind series? And remember they are all best sellers.
>
> >I'm baffled as to why any of these authors are popular. Perhaps
> >people only buy them *because* they're best sellers? But how did
> >they become best sellers in the first place?
>
> Keith, did you just commit blasphemy against The Market, the one
> and only true judge of what is good?
And in the UK:
"Transworld claimed that in its first 36 hours the book had broken the
record of total lifetime sales for any adult hardback novel ever
published in the UK, a record previously held by Thomas Harris'
Hannibal, which had total Nielsen BookScan sales of 298,773. The
publisher also confirmed that it was to reprint the book, which had an
initial UK print run of one million."
http://www.thebookseller.com/news/97209-brown-sets-new-uk-sales-record.html
GeekGirl
GeekGirl
> On Sep 21, 12:25 am, Harry Mary Andruschak <adoptsoldc...@aol.com>
> wrote:
>
> >http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/6194031/The-Lost-Sy...
>
> > So who is worse....Brown, Hubbard, or those who write the Left Behind
> > series? And remember they are all best sellers.
>
> Dan Brown is a terrible writer.
There a lots of terrible writers.
However, Dan Brown has an audience of a few million readers.
That said, "bestsellerdom" only means lots of sales. How many of
these bestsellers has anyone read these days: http://www.hawes.com/no1_f_d.htm
GeekGirl
David V. Loewe, Jr
Ciszek) wrote:
>Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>>Harry Mary Andruschak <adopts...@aol.com> wrote:
>>> So who is worse....Brown, Hubbard, or those who write the Left
>>> Behind series? And remember they are all best sellers.
>>
>>I'm baffled as to why any of these authors are popular. Perhaps
>>people only buy them *because* they're best sellers? But how did
>>they become best sellers in the first place?
>
>Keith, did you just commit blasphemy against The Market, the one
>and only true judge of what is good?
The better may fail in the market if it is overpriced and not widely
available (or only available from a limited number of manufacturers).
--
"He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch,
To win or lose it all."
- James Graham, Marquis of Montrose
David Friedman
<3b0e753c-8669-4861...@p15g2000vbl.googlegroups.com>,
GeekGirl <just.a...@gmail.com> wrote:
> That said, "bestsellerdom" only means lots of sales. How many of
> these bestsellers has anyone read these days:
> http://www.hawes.com/no1_f_d.htm
At least seven of them.
I'm surprised to discover that two of Mary Stewart's Merlin books were
best sellers.
--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of
_Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World_,
Cambridge University Press.
David Friedman
"David V. Loewe, Jr" <dave...@charter.net> wrote:
> On Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:45:22 +0000 (UTC), nos...@nospam.com (Paul
> Ciszek) wrote:
>
> >Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
> >>Harry Mary Andruschak <adopts...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> >>> So who is worse....Brown, Hubbard, or those who write the Left
> >>> Behind series? And remember they are all best sellers.
> >>
> >>I'm baffled as to why any of these authors are popular. Perhaps
> >>people only buy them *because* they're best sellers? But how did
> >>they become best sellers in the first place?
> >
> >Keith, did you just commit blasphemy against The Market, the one
> >and only true judge of what is good?
>
> The better may fail in the market if it is overpriced and not widely
> available (or only available from a limited number of manufacturers).
And "better" has multiple meanings in this context. One book might give
more pleasure to some sorts of readers, another to other sorts; if
relatively few people share your tastes, then the better book for you
may sell poorly.
And that's aside from the question of whether there are absolute
standards of "better" other than how much pleasure a book gives a reader.
David Loewe, Jr.
<dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
> "David V. Loewe, Jr" <dave...@charter.net> wrote:
>> On Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:45:22 +0000 (UTC), nos...@nospam.com (Paul
>> Ciszek) wrote:
>> >Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>> >>Harry Mary Andruschak <adopts...@aol.com> wrote:
>>
>> >>> So who is worse....Brown, Hubbard, or those who write the Left
>> >>> Behind series? And remember they are all best sellers.
>> >>
>> >>I'm baffled as to why any of these authors are popular. Perhaps
>> >>people only buy them *because* they're best sellers? But how did
>> >>they become best sellers in the first place?
>> >
>> >Keith, did you just commit blasphemy against The Market, the one
>> >and only true judge of what is good?
>>
>> The better may fail in the market if it is overpriced and not widely
>> available (or only available from a limited number of manufacturers).
>
>And "better" has multiple meanings in this context. One book might give
>more pleasure to some sorts of readers, another to other sorts; if
>relatively few people share your tastes, then the better book for you
>may sell poorly.
>
>And that's aside from the question of whether there are absolute
>standards of "better" other than how much pleasure a book gives a reader.
Indeed.
--
"...how much is absorbed by carbon dioxide? Eight hundredths of
one percent. One one-thousandth as important as water vapor.
You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as
doubling carbon dioxide."
Doctor Reid Bryson
Ben Yalow
>"Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote
>> Harry Mary Andruschak <adopts...@aol.com> wrote:
>>> So who is worse....Brown, Hubbard, or those who write the Left
>>> Behind series? And remember they are all best sellers.
>>
>> I'm baffled as to why any of these authors are popular. Perhaps
>> people only buy them *because* they're best sellers? But how did
>> they become best sellers in the first place?
>> Of course I feel exactly the same about Microsoft software.
>Principle of increasing returns. Why VHS beat out Beta.
VHS beat out Beta because Sony (which controlled Beta) said that they
wouldn't allow porn precorded Beta tapes. Since porn drove the adoption
of the VCR (most of the early prerecorded tapes were porn), then Sony/Beta
was out of the market.
And there was also the tape length problem -- Beta always stored less than
VHS.
>That said, I haven't read Brown. Sometimes some stories work in people's
>heads better than others.
>Karl Johanson
Ben
--
Ben Yalow yb...@panix.com
Not speaking for anybody
Keith F. Lynch
> VHS beat out Beta because Sony (which controlled Beta) said that
> they wouldn't allow porn precorded Beta tapes. Since porn drove the
> adoption of the VCR (most of the early prerecorded tapes were porn),
> then Sony/Beta was out of the market.
I'm skeptical. As I recall, VHS and Beta coexisted side by side for
quite some time. So the reason why VHS won can't depend on early
adopters.
Also, how could Sony force any such constraint?
> And there was also the tape length problem -- Beta always stored
> less than VHS.
That makes more sense.
I had always heard it was because Sony wouldn't allow other companies
to build machines to play or record Beta tapes. Either that or
required a hefty licensing fee. So Beta machines were always more
expensive.
Keith F. Lynch
>> Keith, did you just commit blasphemy against The Market, the one
>> and only true judge of what is good?
I've never said that the market is perfect, or that it is the one
and only true judge of what is good. I've merely said that it's far
better than government mandates.
Just imagine how many books your least favorite author could sell if
he could get the government to pass a law that everyone had to buy one
of his books every year. And he could set the price to whatever he
wanted, even thousand of dollars per book. I maintain that this would
be worse than the free market. Does anyone disagree?
And if you substitute "medical insurance" for "books," it's exactly
what Obama is proposing.
> The better may fail in the market if it is overpriced and not widely
> available (or only available from a limited number of manufacturers).
True, but mostly not relevant to mass-market books.
Keith F. Lynch
> Except that any one of his books contains far more sheer stupid than
> all of the Left Behind books combined, a difficult task since the LB
> books are fundie creationist crap, and El Ron did write a few Not So
> Bad books before he became a con artist.
Why is "What if fundie creationism is true?" a less acceptable premise
for a work of fiction than the equally implausble and far more overused
"What if magic is real?"?
Keith F. Lynch
> It started with him flat out telling us to picture Langdon as
I'm reminded of a Dave Barry column about writing a novel, in which
he says you should always describe your protagonist as looking like
whatever actor you want to play him when your novel is optioned
by Hollywood. Of course he was joking. Maybe Dan Brown took
him seriously.
> (I adore Harrison Ford, but this didn't work for me at all, since
> the character mostly came across as a bumbling idiot)
Maybe Dan Brown should have described him as looking exactly like
Peter Sellers and having a fake French accent.
Keith F. Lynch
> When I read TDC, I discovered that I was quite familiar with the
> sources of his 'revelations': I had read them over 20 years
> earlier, when they first came out.
Not to defend Dan Brown, but I would never condemn an author for
taking "What if X is true?" as a premise simply because X is more than
20 years old. If authors followed this implicit rule, there could
never again be a story that mentions aliens, interstellar travel,
AI, radical life extension, time travel, branching timelines, or the
singularity. (Or magic, but that might be a good thing, since "What
if magic is real?" is by far the most overused premise.)
hielan' laddie
(in article <h9brpb$gce$5...@reader1.panix.com>):
> hielan' laddie <dont....@go.away.co.uk> wrote:
>> Except that any one of his books contains far more sheer stupid than
>> all of the Left Behind books combined, a difficult task since the LB
>> books are fundie creationist crap, and El Ron did write a few Not So
>> Bad books before he became a con artist.
>
> Why is "What if fundie creationism is true?" a less acceptable premise
> for a work of fiction than the equally implausble and far more overused
> "What if magic is real?"?
>
If done properly it can be quite good. See further Stephen Brust's _To Reign
In Hell_ and Heinlein's _Job_.
All that needs be said about the writing skills of those who perpetuated the
LB books is that late Heinlein wrote rings around them.
All that needs be said about Brown's writing skills is that he's worse than
LaHaye and Jenkins.
David Friedman
"Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
> (Or magic, but that might be a good thing, since "What
> if magic is real?" is by far the most overused premise.)
I think there are two versions:
1. It's our world, apparently as it is, and magic is real although most
people don't realize it.
2. Fantasy, in which some sort of magic is a part of background.
I think 1 may be overused, not because it is more common than 2 (it
isn't) but because part of its effect depends on its being a surprise,
or at least seen as novel.
David Friedman
Ben Yalow <yb...@panix.com> wrote:
> In <vOYtm.173040$8B7....@newsfe20.iad> "Karl Johanson"
> <karljo...@shaw.ca> writes:
>
> >"Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote
> >> Harry Mary Andruschak <adopts...@aol.com> wrote:
> >>> So who is worse....Brown, Hubbard, or those who write the Left
> >>> Behind series? And remember they are all best sellers.
> >>
> >> I'm baffled as to why any of these authors are popular. Perhaps
> >> people only buy them *because* they're best sellers? But how did
> >> they become best sellers in the first place?
>
> >> Of course I feel exactly the same about Microsoft software.
>
> >Principle of increasing returns. Why VHS beat out Beta.
>
> VHS beat out Beta because Sony (which controlled Beta) said that they
> wouldn't allow porn precorded Beta tapes. Since porn drove the adoption
> of the VCR (most of the early prerecorded tapes were porn), then Sony/Beta
> was out of the market.
>
> And there was also the tape length problem -- Beta always stored less than
> VHS.
My memory is that Liebowitz and Margolis, in their book discussing (and
critiquing) network externality arguments, thought tape length was the
decisive issue.
Ben Yalow
>Ben Yalow <yb...@panix.com> wrote:
>> VHS beat out Beta because Sony (which controlled Beta) said that
>> they wouldn't allow porn precorded Beta tapes. Since porn drove the
>> adoption of the VCR (most of the early prerecorded tapes were porn),
>> then Sony/Beta was out of the market.
>I'm skeptical. As I recall, VHS and Beta coexisted side by side for
>quite some time. So the reason why VHS won can't depend on early
>adopters.
Only for a few years.
>Also, how could Sony force any such constraint?
By not selling tape duplicating machines to anyone who didn't sign a
license agreement, which included a "no porn" clause.
>> And there was also the tape length problem -- Beta always stored
>> less than VHS.
>That makes more sense.
>I had always heard it was because Sony wouldn't allow other companies
>to build machines to play or record Beta tapes. Either that or
>required a hefty licensing fee. So Beta machines were always more
>expensive.
>--
>Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
>Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.
Ben
cryptoguy
> cryptoguy <treifam...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > When I read TDC, I discovered that I was quite familiar with the
> > sources of his 'revelations': I had read them over 20 years
> > earlier, when they first came out.
>
> Not to defend Dan Brown, but I would never condemn an author for
> taking "What if X is true?" as a premise simply because X is more than
> 20 years old. If authors followed this implicit rule, there could
> never again be a story that mentions aliens, interstellar travel,
> AI, radical life extension, time travel, branching timelines, or the
> singularity. (Or magic, but that might be a good thing, since "What
> if magic is real?" is by far the most overused premise.)
I didn't condemn him for using 20 year old source material, for the
very reasons you present. I condemned him for being a lousy writer,
near the Lionel Fanthorpe level.
I was able to recognize the sheer inanity of his writing, partly
because I wasn't thinking too hard about the "Sensational Revelations"
aspects of the book, because I'd already read the sources he ripped
off.
Amusingly, the authors of 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail' (the main source)
sued him for plagiarism. They lost because they'd published their
hypothesis as actual history, and you can't plagiarize historical
facts.
pt
cryptoguy
wrote:
> In article <h9bmsf$m5...@reader1.panix.com>,
> Ben Yalow <yb...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > In <vOYtm.173040$8B7.44...@newsfe20.iad> "Karl Johanson"
> > >>> So who is worse....Brown, Hubbard, or those who write the Left
> > >>> Behind series? And remember they are all best sellers.
>
> > >> I'm baffled as to why any of these authors are popular. Perhaps
> > >> people only buy them *because* they're best sellers? But how did
> > >> they become best sellers in the first place?
>
> > >> Of course I feel exactly the same about Microsoft software.
>
> > >Principle of increasing returns. Why VHS beat out Beta.
>
> > VHS beat out Beta because Sony (which controlled Beta) said that they
> > wouldn't allow porn precorded Beta tapes. Since porn drove the adoption
> > of the VCR (most of the early prerecorded tapes were porn), then Sony/Beta
> > was out of the market.
>
> > And there was also the tape length problem -- Beta always stored less than
> > VHS.
>
> My memory is that Liebowitz and Margolis, in their book discussing (and
> critiquing) network externality arguments, thought tape length was the
> decisive issue.
Interesting. I'd heard that Sony refused to license their system for
publishing porn, and that was the act that killed it.
pt
cryptoguy
> Ben Yalow <yb...@panix.com> wrote:
> > VHS beat out Beta because Sony (which controlled Beta) said that
> > they wouldn't allow porn precorded Beta tapes. Since porn drove the
> > adoption of the VCR (most of the early prerecorded tapes were porn),
> > then Sony/Beta was out of the market.
>
> I'm skeptical. As I recall, VHS and Beta coexisted side by side for
> quite some time. So the reason why VHS won can't depend on early
> adopters.
>
> Also, how could Sony force any such constraint?
>
> > And there was also the tape length problem -- Beta always stored
> > less than VHS.
>
> That makes more sense.
>
> I had always heard it was because Sony wouldn't allow other companies
> to build machines to play or record Beta tapes. Either that or
> required a hefty licensing fee. So Beta machines were always more
> expensive.
I think we can find multiple cases where Sony thought it could define
an industry standard, and stumbled badly when the market showed them
wrong.
Betamax/vhs
Blueray/HDVD
SD Card/Memory stick.
Others?
pt
Karl Johanson
news:h9ae8...@news2.newsguy.com...
> On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 20:50:28 -0400, William December Starr wrote
> (in article <h9970k$mvb$1...@panix2.panix.com>):
>
>> In article <h981h...@news5.newsguy.com>,
>> hielan' laddie <bobbi...@bobbybruce.co.uk.not> said:
>>
>>> Harry Mary Andruschak wrote
>>>
>>>> So who is worse....Brown, Hubbard, or those who write the Left
>>>> Behind series? And remember they are all best sellers.
>>>
>>> Brown. It's not even close.
>>
>> Unless one makes the argument that he's the least bad of the three,
>> because he's inflicted far fewer books upon the world than either of
>> the other two.
>
> Except that any one of his books contains far more sheer stupid
I haven't read any of his books. Which ones did you read & what sort of
stupid do you think they have?
>than all of
> the Left Behind books combined, a difficult task since the LB books are
> fundie creationist crap, and El Ron did write a few Not So Bad books
> before
> he became a con artist.
Karl Johanson
Karl Johanson
news:h9bob4$9uk$1...@reader1.panix.com...
> Ben Yalow <yb...@panix.com> wrote:
>> VHS beat out Beta because Sony (which controlled Beta) said that
>> they wouldn't allow porn precorded Beta tapes. Since porn drove the
>> adoption of the VCR (most of the early prerecorded tapes were porn),
>> then Sony/Beta was out of the market.
>
> I'm skeptical. As I recall, VHS and Beta coexisted side by side for
> quite some time. So the reason why VHS won can't depend on early
> adopters.
>
> Also, how could Sony force any such constraint?
>
>> And there was also the tape length problem -- Beta always stored
>> less than VHS.
>
> That makes more sense.
>
> I had always heard it was because Sony wouldn't allow other companies
> to build machines to play or record Beta tapes. Either that or
> required a hefty licensing fee. So Beta machines were always more
> expensive.
I got a Beta for $300 Canadian when VHS players were around $500.
Later I got a VHS with a Beta configuration inside, so the tapes would last
longer.
Karl Johanson
Karl Johanson
>Dan Brown is a terrible writer.
What do you find terrible about his writting?
Karl Johanson
J.J. O'Shea
(in article <oUhum.441934$Ta5....@newsfe15.iad>):
> "hielan' laddie" <bobbi...@bobbybruce.co.uk.not> wrote in message
> news:h9ae8...@news2.newsguy.com...
>> On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 20:50:28 -0400, William December Starr wrote
>> (in article <h9970k$mvb$1...@panix2.panix.com>):
>>
>>> In article <h981h...@news5.newsguy.com>,
>>> hielan' laddie <bobbi...@bobbybruce.co.uk.not> said:
>>>
>>>> Harry Mary Andruschak wrote
>>>>
>>>>> So who is worse....Brown, Hubbard, or those who write the Left
>>>>> Behind series? And remember they are all best sellers.
>>>>
>>>> Brown. It's not even close.
>>>
>>> Unless one makes the argument that he's the least bad of the three,
>>> because he's inflicted far fewer books upon the world than either of
>>> the other two.
>>
>> Except that any one of his books contains far more sheer stupid
>
> I haven't read any of his books. Which ones did you read & what sort of
> stupid do you think they have?
_Da Vinci Code_. We'll start with the whole massive conspiracy thing; this
particular one is incredibly idiotic even for a stupid conspiracy theory.
It's actually more reasonable to believe that crop circles were created by
aliens instead of by drunk farmers than to take even one element of that
thing seriously. We'll go on to the blunders such as his saying that the
Sions are a real secret society, formed in the 11th century, when the whole
thing is a hoax thought up in 1956. And his claim that the Gnostics thought
that one Yeshua bar Miriam was, ahem, purely human. (well, okay, that's a
part of the massive conspiracy thing, but it's so stupid that it should be
mentioned all on its own.) Of course, there's the very name of the book...
Hint: look up the reason why Leonardo da Vinci was called that. Plus the
idiocy that such simple cyphers (most of the 'codes' are in fact cyphers,
Brown has a serious problem telling the difference...) could actually conceal
a damn thing for more than a few months rather than the centuries alleged.
If you want to have a quick overview of the massive stupid that is DVC, look
at the Wiki article, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Da_Vinci_Code>, which
is much too easy on it.
Brown simply made every possible error when writing the book, including a few
never seen before in a published work. I'm given to understand that _Angels
and Demons_ and the new one are _worse_.
>
>> than all of
>> the Left Behind books combined, a difficult task since the LB books are
>> fundie creationist crap, and El Ron did write a few Not So Bad books
>> before
>> he became a con artist.
>
> Karl Johanson
>
>
--
email to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com.
Philip Chee
> I think we can find multiple cases where Sony thought it could define
> an industry standard, and stumbled badly when the market showed them
> wrong.
>
> Betamax/vhs
> Blueray/HDVD
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Que?
> SD Card/Memory stick.
> Others?
Phil
--
Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my>, <phili...@gmail.com>
http://flashblock.mozdev.org/ http://xsidebar.mozdev.org
Guard us from the she-wolf and the wolf, and guard us from the thief,
oh Night, and so be good for us to pass.
[ ]One way to better your lot is to do a lot better...
* TagZilla 0.066.6
William December Starr
GeekGirl <just.a...@gmail.com> said:
> That said, "bestsellerdom" only means lots of sales. How many of
> these bestsellers has anyone read these days:
> http://www.hawes.com/no1_f_d.htm
That page, for those who don't care to follow the link, is "a
listing of adult fiction books which have made number one on the New
York Times Best Seller List along with the date that they first
reached number one, in date order. [...] This listing starts with
the very first book ever placed on the list back on August 9, 1942."
I'm surprised at how many of them I _have_ read: between 37 and 39,
counting two that I started but didn't finish<1>. A significant
chunk of that is eight Stephen Kings and and equal number of Tom
Clancys up to and including, but definitely not following,
_Executive Orders_. (Which, incidentally, at September 1996 is the
most recent one on the list that I've read. It'll be usurped by
_Anathem_ (September 2008) if I ever work up the courage to tackle
it, or _Turn Coat_ (April 2009) if I get around to resuming the
Harry Dresden books.)
The "between" is because I read a lot of Robert Ludlum back when,
and now I can't remember whether _The Holcroft Covenant_ and _The
Parsifal Mosaic_ were among them -- both titles _feel_ familiar, but
with all Ludlum titles that don't have "Bourne" in them sounding the
same<2> I can't be sure.
*1: _The Talisman_ by Stephen King and Peter Straub, and
_The Chamber_ by John Grisham.
*2: Except for the pair of two four-word outliers that he used for
his goofier books, _The Road to Gondolfo_, I think, and one
other.
-- wds
William December Starr
cryptoguy <treif...@gmail.com> said:
> Amusingly, the authors of 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail' (the main
> source) sued him for plagiarism. They lost because they'd
> published their hypothesis as actual history, and you can't
> plagiarize historical facts.
It should be noted that two of the three authors filed suit while
the third, Henry Lincoln, wanted nothing to do with it.
(Sfnal connection: Lincoln co-wrote three Patrick Troughton "Doctor
Who" stories and was the co-creator of the long-recurring character
Brigadier (and eventually Sir) Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart.)
-- wds
David V. Loewe, Jr
Starr) wrote:
>GeekGirl <just.a...@gmail.com> said:
>
>> That said, "bestsellerdom" only means lots of sales. How many of
>> these bestsellers has anyone read these days:
>> http://www.hawes.com/no1_f_d.htm
>
>That page, for those who don't care to follow the link, is "a
>listing of adult fiction books which have made number one on the New
>York Times Best Seller List along with the date that they first
>reached number one, in date order. [...] This listing starts with
>the very first book ever placed on the list back on August 9, 1942."
>
>I'm surprised at how many of them I _have_ read: between 37 and 39,
>counting two that I started but didn't finish<1>. A significant
>chunk of that is eight Stephen Kings and and equal number of Tom
>Clancys up to and including, but definitely not following,
>_Executive Orders_. (Which, incidentally, at September 1996 is the
>most recent one on the list that I've read. It'll be usurped by
>_Anathem_ (September 2008) if I ever work up the courage to tackle
>it, or _Turn Coat_ (April 2009) if I get around to resuming the
>Harry Dresden books.)
Lolita
Exodus
Advise And Consent
Hawaii
The Source
Valley Of The Dolls
Airport
Love Story
QB VII
The Exorcist
The Day Of The Jackal
Wheels
The Winds Of War
The Word
The Odessa File
Once Is Not Enough
Breakfast Of Champions
Watership Down
Centennial
The Thorn Birds
The Silmarillion
The Holcroft Covenant
Chesapeake
War And Remembrance
Overload
The Dead Zone
The Bourne Identity
Firestarter
The Covenant
Gorky Park
Cujo
The Parsifal Mosaic
The Prodigal Daughter
Different Seasons
Space
Poland
Pet Sematary
The Aquitaine Progression
First Among Equals
The Fourth Protocol
Texas
The Mammoth Hunters
The Bourne Supremacy
Last Of The Breed
Red Storm Rising
It
Misery
Presumed Innocent
Patriot Games
The Tommyknockers
Alaska
The Cardinal Of The Kremlin
The Queen Of The Damned
Clear And Present Danger
The Dark Half
The Bad Place
The Bourne Ultimatum
The Burden Of Proof
The Plains Of Passage
The Sum Of All Fears
Rising Sun
The Pelican Brief
Gerald's Game
The Client
Without Remorse
Disclosure
The Chamber
Debt Of Honor
Taltos
Insomnia
The Rainmaker
The Lost World
Intensity
The Runaway Jury
Executive Orders
Airframe
The Partner
Rainbow Six
The Path Of Daggers
Hannibal
The Brethren
Easy Prey
The Bear And The Dragon
Winter's Heart
Chosen Prey
The Shelters Of Stone
Red Rabbit
Prey
Crossroads Of Twilight
Naked Prey
The Teeth Of The Tiger
>The "between" is because I read a lot of Robert Ludlum back when,
>and now I can't remember whether _The Holcroft Covenant_ and _The
>Parsifal Mosaic_ were among them -- both titles _feel_ familiar, but
>with all Ludlum titles that don't have "Bourne" in them sounding the
>same<2> I can't be sure.
>
> *1: _The Talisman_ by Stephen King and Peter Straub, and
> _The Chamber_ by John Grisham.
>
> *2: Except for the pair of two four-word outliers that he used for
> his goofier books, _The Road to Gondolfo_, I think, and one
> other.
--
cryptoguy
> On Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:04:05 -0700 (PDT), cryptoguy wrote:
> > I think we can find multiple cases where Sony thought it could define
> > an industry standard, and stumbled badly when the market showed them
> > wrong.
>
> > Betamax/vhs
> > Blueray/HDVD
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Que?
>
> > SD Card/Memory stick.
> > Others?
Error on my part - HD-DVD, and I had the wrong end of the stick; this
is one where the Sony backed standard won.
But remember ATRAC? Minidisks? SDDS? DAT?
pt
David Loewe, Jr.
CDs?
--
"Will you come quietly, or must I use earplugs?"
- Russ Cage
Konrad Gaertner
>
> In article <3b0e753c-8669-4861...@p15g2000vbl.googlegroups.com>,
> GeekGirl <just.a...@gmail.com> said:
>
> > That said, "bestsellerdom" only means lots of sales. How many of
> > these bestsellers has anyone read these days:
> > http://www.hawes.com/no1_f_d.htm
>
> counting two that I started but didn't finish<1>.
I've read 11 or 12:
Curtain by Agatha Christie (probably)
Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie
Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkein
Oh, the Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss
The Path of Daggers by Robert Jordan
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling
Winter's Heart by Robert Jordan
Crossroads of Twilight by Robert Jordan
Turn Coat by Jim Butcher
Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris
--
Konrad Gaertner - - - - - - - - - - - - email: kgae...@tx.rr.com
http://kgbooklog.livejournal.com/
"I don't mind hidden depths but I insist that there be a surface."
-- James Nicoll
Keith F. Lynch
> I think we can find multiple cases where Sony thought it could
> define an industry standard, and stumbled badly when the market
> showed them wrong.
The first thing that comes to mind is their PC-wrecking attempt at
DRM on their CDs.
Keith F. Lynch
> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>> Also, how could Sony force any such constraint?
> By not selling tape duplicating machines to anyone who didn't sign a
> license agreement, which included a "no porn" clause.
Why couldn't anyone duplicate tapes by simply connecting two
mass-market VCRs together?
Ben Yalow
>Ben Yalow <yb...@panix.com> wrote:
>> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>>> Also, how could Sony force any such constraint?
>> By not selling tape duplicating machines to anyone who didn't sign a
>> license agreement, which included a "no porn" clause.
>Why couldn't anyone duplicate tapes by simply connecting two
>mass-market VCRs together?
Which is fine if you are (a) willing to lose a lot of fidelity, and (b)
don't want to make a lot of copies fast. For commercial duplication
(which is what you're doing for prerecorded tapes), either is deadly.
>--
>Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
>Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.
Ben
Karl Johanson
news:h9ctg...@news2.newsguy.com...
> On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:57:26 -0400, Karl Johanson wrote
> (in article <oUhum.441934$Ta5....@newsfe15.iad>):
>
>> "hielan' laddie" <bobbi...@bobbybruce.co.uk.not> wrote in message
>> news:h9ae8...@news2.newsguy.com...
>>> On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 20:50:28 -0400, William December Starr wrote
>>> (in article <h9970k$mvb$1...@panix2.panix.com>):
>>>
>>>> In article <h981h...@news5.newsguy.com>,
>>>> hielan' laddie <bobbi...@bobbybruce.co.uk.not> said:
>>>>
>>>>> Harry Mary Andruschak wrote
>>>>>
>>>>>> So who is worse....Brown, Hubbard, or those who write the Left
>>>>>> Behind series? And remember they are all best sellers.
>>>>>
>>>>> Brown. It's not even close.
>>>>
>>>> Unless one makes the argument that he's the least bad of the three,
>>>> because he's inflicted far fewer books upon the world than either of
>>>> the other two.
>>>
>>> Except that any one of his books contains far more sheer stupid
>>
>> I haven't read any of his books. Which ones did you read & what sort of
>> stupid do you think they have?
>
> _Da Vinci Code_.
So you've read one of his books, yet make sweeping comments about his
books... Interesting.
>We'll start with the whole massive conspiracy thing; this
> particular one is incredibly idiotic even for a stupid conspiracy theory.
Thank you. i very much appreciate the detail.
> It's actually more reasonable to believe that crop circles were created by
> aliens instead of by drunk farmers than to take even one element of that
> thing seriously. We'll go on to the blunders such as his saying that the
> Sions are a real secret society, formed in the 11th century, when the
> whole
> thing is a hoax thought up in 1956.
Interesting. Was he claiming or implying a degree of historical accuracy in
his work?
To be clear, I love playing "spot the error", especially "spot the science
error."
And his claim that the Gnostics thought
> that one Yeshua bar Miriam was, ahem, purely human. (well, okay, that's a
> part of the massive conspiracy thing, but it's so stupid that it should be
> mentioned all on its own.) Of course, there's the very name of the book...
> Hint: look up the reason why Leonardo da Vinci was called that. Plus the
> idiocy that such simple cyphers (most of the 'codes' are in fact cyphers,
> Brown has a serious problem telling the difference...)
I used to mix up the two as well.
> could actually conceal
> a damn thing for more than a few months rather than the centuries alleged.
>
> If you want to have a quick overview of the massive stupid that is DVC,
> look
> at the Wiki article, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Da_Vinci_Code>,
> which
> is much too easy on it.
>
> Brown simply made every possible error when writing the book,
Impressive.
William December Starr
"Karl Johanson" <karljo...@shaw.ca> said:
> "J.J. O'Shea" <try.n...@but.see.sig> wrote
>> Karl Johanson wrote
>>> "hielan' laddie" <bobbi...@bobbybruce.co.uk.not> wrote
>>>
>>>> Except that any one of his books contains far more sheer stupid
>>>
>>> I haven't read any of his books. Which ones did you read & what sort of
>>> stupid do you think they have?
>>
>> _Da Vinci Code_.
>
> So you've read one of his books, yet make sweeping comments about
> his books... Interesting.
So you like to use "interesting" as a sneer word... Interesting.
-- wds
T Guy
Why is "What if fundie creationism is true?" a less acceptable
premise
> for a work of fiction than the equally implausble and far more overused
> "What if magic is real?"?
(T Guy):
"What if fundie creationism is true?" is merely a sub-set of "What if
magic is real?"
T G
cryptoguy
> Ben Yalow <yb...@panix.com> wrote:
> > "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
> >> Also, how could Sony force any such constraint?
> > By not selling tape duplicating machines to anyone who didn't sign a
> > license agreement, which included a "no porn" clause.
>
> Why couldn't anyone duplicate tapes by simply connecting two
> mass-market VCRs together?
Yes, but that is not commercially viable. Tape duplicators run at much
higher than normal speed.
pt
Robert Sneddon
<k...@KeithLynch.net> writes
>Why couldn't anyone duplicate tapes by simply connecting two
>mass-market VCRs together?
It can be done that way -- this was a common method for anime fans in
the 90s to share rare Japanese anime before DVDs and BitTorrent. People
attending anime cons or club meetings would bring along their VCRs and
stack eight or ten of them together to make multiple copies of the
best-quality tape available.
Commercial "pirates" would do the same, sometimes on a large scale with
dozens or even hundreds of VCRs on racks in rented offices -- they were
often raided by police and copyright enforcement lawyers. Nowadays the
pirates do the same with DVDs and, I expect, Blu-ray discs too.
There were attempts to prevent prerecorded tapes being copied easily --
Macrovision was one such system which messed with the timing of the
horizontal and vertical sync signal in such a way it wouldn't affect TV
displays but the receiving VCR in a copy setup would recognise that it
was copying a "secure" tape and either stop recording it or corrupt the
recording in such a way as to make it useless. It didn't take long for
people to work around this, selling copy enhancement boxes connected
between the VCRs which would "restore" the syncs to their original specs
and thus defeat the copy protection.
--
To reply, my gmail address is nojay1 Robert Sneddon
J.J. O'Shea
(in article <h9fhm7$m3n$1...@panix2.panix.com>):
> In article <O%Cum.1267$bd1...@newsfe04.iad>,
> "Karl Johanson" <karljo...@shaw.ca> said:
>
>> "J.J. O'Shea" <try.n...@but.see.sig> wrote
>>> Karl Johanson wrote
>>>> "hielan' laddie" <bobbi...@bobbybruce.co.uk.not> wrote
>>>>
>>>>> Except that any one of his books contains far more sheer stupid
>>>>
>>>> I haven't read any of his books. Which ones did you read & what sort of
>>>> stupid do you think they have?
>>>
>>> _Da Vinci Code_.
>>
>> So you've read one of his books, yet make sweeping comments about
>> his books... Interesting.
I didn't even finish the one. It hit the wall on its way to the trash can
about half-way through. I can count the number of books that I've bought,
started to read, and thrown away in disgust on the fingers of one hand and
have three fingers left over. And thumbs don't count for this kind of thing.
Now, if you think really hard, you may be able to visualise which finger I'm
extending.
>
> So you like to use "interesting" as a sneer word... Interesting.
He hasn't even read as much of Brown's work as I have, and yet he manages to
disagree with my opinion. He's a troll.
Philip Chee
> But remember ATRAC?
No.
> Minidisks?
No.
> SDDS?
No.
> DAT?
Only used data grade DAT tapes to back up my ultrasparcs and HPs.
Phil
--
Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my>, <phili...@gmail.com>
http://flashblock.mozdev.org/ http://xsidebar.mozdev.org
Guard us from the she-wolf and the wolf, and guard us from the thief,
oh Night, and so be good for us to pass.
[ ]Tact is remembering a lady's name, and forgetting her age.
* TagZilla 0.066.6
cryptoguy
> On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 10:04:26 -0700 (PDT), cryptoguy wrote:
> > But remember ATRAC?
>
> No.
>
> > Minidisks?
>
> No.
>
> > SDDS?
>
> No.
>
> > DAT?
>
> Only used data grade DAT tapes to back up my ultrasparcs and HPs.
(I'll add MMCD, which lost to DVD)
Hence my point: Sony has a history of acting on the belief that it can
dictate (and patent) new industry standards, and failing to get them
accepted in the marketplace. That's not to say that it can't
occasionally succeed: the Playstation series of consoles, for example.
BluRay won out vs HD-DVD, but my suspicion is that selling bits on
physical media is a business model that won't last another 5 years.
pt
pt
T Guy
> I've never said that the market is perfect, or that it is the one
> and only true judge of what is good. I've merely said that it's far
> better than government mandates.
>
> Just imagine how many books your least favorite author could sell if
> he could get the government to pass a law that everyone had to buy one
> of his books every year. And he could set the price to whatever he
> wanted, even thousand of dollars per book. I maintain that this would
> be worse than the free market. Does anyone disagree?
> And if you substitute "medical insurance" for "books," it's exactly
> what Obama is proposing.
(T Guy):
I doubt that.
If only because there is a point to buying more than one book per
year.
Mind you, it would be interesting to speculate the opposite situation:
if the Queen and Gordon Brown announced that books were going to be
run like the NHS.
T Guy
Keith F. Lynch
> BluRay won out vs HD-DVD, but my suspicion is that selling bits on
> physical media is a business model that won't last another 5 years.
Maybe if they sell permanent licenses to download the music, book, or
movie that you bought as often as you like. I don't think most people
will put up with their movie or book collection vanishing whenever
they replace or upgrade their computer or e-book reader.
And I for one like to see books, CDs, and DVDs on the shelves. It
gives me more of a sense of ownership, of possession. They will still
be there if every electronic device I own dies. They will still be
there if the publisher goes out of business. Invited visitors can see
and admire my collection. But marketers and police (unless they have
a search warrant) have no idea what I own.
Karl Johanson
news:h9g9c...@news1.newsguy.com...
I didn't disagree with your opinion. I appreciated the details you gave as
to why you didn't like what you'd read of his stuff (note that I didn't
disagree with your points). Then I obsevered that you were claiming his
"books" were full of stupid when you've only read one of them (that isn't
disagreeing with you). Now you're claiming you haven't even read all of that
one.
Karl Johanson
David Loewe, Jr.
<k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>cryptoguy <treif...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> BluRay won out vs HD-DVD, but my suspicion is that selling bits on
>> physical media is a business model that won't last another 5 years.
>
>Maybe if they sell permanent licenses to download the music, book, or
>movie that you bought as often as you like. I don't think most people
>will put up with their movie or book collection vanishing whenever
>they replace or upgrade their computer or e-book reader.
>
>And I for one like to see books, CDs, and DVDs on the shelves. It
>gives me more of a sense of ownership, of possession. They will still
>be there if every electronic device I own dies.
How do you access the CDs and DVDs if every electronic device you own
dies?
>They will still be
>there if the publisher goes out of business. Invited visitors can see
>and admire my collection. But marketers and police (unless they have
>a search warrant) have no idea what I own.
--
"And so it was that later
As the Miller told his tale
That her face, at first just ghostly
Turned a whiter shade of pale"
Keith Reid & Gary Brooker
Nate Edel
> > http://www.hawes.com/no1_f_d.htm
>
> I'm surprised at how many of them I _have_ read: between 37 and 39,
> counting two that I started but didn't finish<1>.
I've read 9 - (3 of 9 are Harry Potters!), and most of those have been made
into movies, including one I didn't finish (the Name of the Rose) and one I
am suspended reading on to finish something else but still plan to finish
(Space, by Michener.)
I own at least two that I haven't read (A Feast for Crows and Ragtime, I think
there was third)
The semi-surprising part was that I've seen at least 41 movies made based on
books on the list, plus there were several more which I *think* were the
basis for movies I've seen.
--
Nate Edel http://www.cubiclehermit.com/
preferred email |
is "nate" at the | "I do have a cause, though. It's obscenity. I'm
posting domain | for it."
Nate Edel
> cryptoguy <treif...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > BluRay won out vs HD-DVD, but my suspicion is that selling bits on
> > physical media is a business model that won't last another 5 years.
>
> Maybe if they sell permanent licenses to download the music, book, or
> movie that you bought as often as you like. I don't think most people
> will put up with their movie or book collection vanishing whenever
> they replace or upgrade their computer or e-book reader.
DRM has mostly disappeared for music. Copying your downloads to a medium of
your choice (or several) is trivial as a result.
Given that I can still play .SID music (a format dating to the mid 1980s) on
my current machine, and for that matter, run PDP and S/370 binaries dating
to the 1970s via emulation, I don't worry much about MP3 going obsolete as a
format.
DRMed books and films are a bigger worry, and indeed despite being an early
adopter for many things, the only ebooks I'd consider paying for are the
handful of publishers' who sell DRMless ones (off the top of my head, Baen.)
Nate Edel
> Mind you, it would be interesting to speculate the opposite situation:
> if the Queen and Gordon Brown announced that books were going to be
> run like the NHS.
Isn't that basically how the BBC and the TV tax came to be? (Which doesn't
seem like a bad trade compared to broadcast TV in the US, let alone paying
for cable and STILL getting ads.)
Robert Sneddon
<arch...@sfchat.org> writes
>T Guy <Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk> wrote:
>> Mind you, it would be interesting to speculate the opposite situation:
>> if the Queen and Gordon Brown announced that books were going to be
>> run like the NHS.
>
>Isn't that basically how the BBC and the TV tax came to be?
Not really. The British Broadcasting Corporation grew out of the growth
of broadcast radio, that is a general broad casting of the signal to
many receivers rather than the one-to-one communications channel radio
initially started off being ("wireless" telephone). The BBC's operation
was deliberately set up to be separated from the Government, in part to
prevent a free-for-all over the radio spectrum by anyone who could build
and operate a transmitter. Its rasion d'etre to some extent was similar
to the ITU and the American FCC; no other broadcasters were permitted to
operate in the UK.
David Friedman
Robert Sneddon <fr...@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
Am I correct in believing that preventing a free for all over the radio
spectrum meant, in practice, leaving most of it unused, at least so far
as broadcast was concerned?
--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of
_Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World_,
Cambridge University Press.
Nels Satterlund
> Keith F. Lynch <k...@keithlynch.net> wrote:
>> cryptoguy <treif...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> BluRay won out vs HD-DVD, but my suspicion is that selling bits on
>>> physical media is a business model that won't last another 5 years.
>> Maybe if they sell permanent licenses to download the music, book, or
>> movie that you bought as often as you like. I don't think most people
>> will put up with their movie or book collection vanishing whenever
>> they replace or upgrade their computer or e-book reader.
>
> DRM has mostly disappeared for music. Copying your downloads to a medium of
> your choice (or several) is trivial as a result.
>
> Given that I can still play .SID music (a format dating to the mid 1980s) on
> my current machine, and for that matter, run PDP and S/370 binaries dating
> to the 1970s via emulation, I don't worry much about MP3 going obsolete as a
> format.
>
> DRMed books and films are a bigger worry, and indeed despite being an early
> adopter for many things, the only ebooks I'd consider paying for are the
> handful of publishers' who sell DRMless ones (off the top of my head, Baen.)
>
Embiid (SP) did their DMR right as far as DRM goes, they tied it to a
reader that you down loaded with your book(s) so even now that they are
out of business my reader still work and I can still read the books. I
do have to admit I have replaced many of them with non-DRM'ed versions
from Baen.
Nels
Liaden series mostly.
--
Nels E Satterlund I don't speak for the company
Ne...@Starstream.net <-- Use this address please,
My Lurkers motto: I read much better than I type.
Keith F. Lynch
> The BBC's operation was deliberately set up to be separated from
> the Government, in part to prevent a free-for-all over the radio
> spectrum by anyone who could build and operate a transmitter. Its
> rasion d'etre to some extent was similar to the ITU and the American
> FCC; no other broadcasters were permitted to operate in the UK.
That makes as much sense as mandating that all land, or all of any
other natural resource, be owned and used only by the government or
some organization established for that purpose by the government.
Can't have a free-for-all in which listeners have a hundred radio
stations to choose from, each operated by different people. Or in
which shoppers have hundreds of stores to shop at.
Is most of the broadcast spectrum in the UK left empty? Who does
that benefit?
Keith F. Lynch
> Isn't that basically how the BBC and the TV tax came to be? (Which
> doesn't seem like a bad trade compared to broadcast TV in the US,
> let alone paying for cable and STILL getting ads.)
If large numbers of people are fool enough to pay for cable TV *with*
ads, they get what they deserve.
Keith F. Lynch
> Embiid (SP) did their DMR right as far as DRM goes, they tied it to
> a reader that you down loaded with your book(s) so even now that
> they are out of business my reader still work and I can still read
> the books.
What happens when your reader breaks, wears out, or is stolen? Do
you have a backup? Can you load the backup into a new reader? A
new reader of a different kind, if that kind is no longer made?
Keith F. Lynch
> DRM has mostly disappeared for music. Copying your downloads to a
> medium of your choice (or several) is trivial as a result.
At yesterday's National Book Festival, I learned that numermous public
libraries are making downloadable books, movies, and music available.
The presentation was long on hype and short on facts, but since it
requires special software I assume it's DRM-infested.
Of course you aren't paying for those (except via taxes).
Keith F. Lynch
> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>> And I for one like to see books, CDs, and DVDs on the shelves. It
>> gives me more of a sense of ownership, of possession. They will
>> still be there if every electronic device I own dies.
> How do you access the CDs and DVDs if every electronic device you
> own dies?
I don't until I buy new devices.
I was contrasting it with a situation where my music (or whatever) is
DRM-infested and licensed only for my device, and it's not possible to
make backups, so if I ever had to replace the device I would lose my
whole music library.
A new CD player would cost far less than my CD collection. A new DVD
player would cost far less than my DVD collection. Pretty much any
consmumer electronics device would cost less than my book collection.
David V. Loewe, Jr
<k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>David Loewe, Jr. <dlo...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>>> And I for one like to see books, CDs, and DVDs on the shelves. It
>>> gives me more of a sense of ownership, of possession. They will
>>> still be there if every electronic device I own dies.
>
>> How do you access the CDs and DVDs if every electronic device you
>> own dies?
>
>I don't until I buy new devices.
>
>I was contrasting it with a situation where my music (or whatever) is
>DRM-infested and licensed only for my device, and it's not possible to
>make backups, so if I ever had to replace the device I would lose my
>whole music library.
<shrug>
My mp3s do not have nay DRM. None of the still pictures or videos I
have on my computer have any DRM.
>A new CD player would cost far less than my CD collection. A new DVD
>player would cost far less than my DVD collection. Pretty much any
>consmumer electronics device would cost less than my book collection.
--
"Choose your friends wisely."
Dr. Jerry Pournelle
David Loewe, Jr.
<k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>Nels Satterlund <Ne...@starstream.net> wrote:
>> Embiid (SP) did their DMR right as far as DRM goes, they tied it to
>> a reader that you down loaded with your book(s) so even now that
>> they are out of business my reader still work and I can still read
>> the books.
>
>What happens when your reader breaks, wears out, or is stolen? Do
>you have a backup? Can you load the backup into a new reader? A
>new reader of a different kind, if that kind is no longer made?
It looks to me like the reader is software as he downloaded it.
--
"Anybody that wants the presidency so much he'll spend two years
organising and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the
office."
- David Broder
Robert Sneddon
<k...@KeithLynch.net> writes
>That makes as much sense as mandating that all land, or all of any
>other natural resource, be owned and used only by the government or
>some organization established for that purpose by the government.
You should really stop and give some consideration to not using stupid
analogies when you want to parade your libertarian theories in front of
people.
Land doesn't spread its boundaries encroaching into other people's land
on an irregular basis as radio propagation does. Why is there not a
single AM or FM frequency in America for all the channels that want to
broadcast there? It would vastly simplify the design of transmitters,
reducing capital costs after all.
>Can't have a free-for-all in which listeners have a hundred radio
>stations to choose from, each operated by different people.
We did have that, even in the early days of British radio. There was
Radio Hilversum, Radio Luxembourg and all the other continental stations
outside the control of the British government. Depending on the
condition of the ionosphere they could cover hundreds of miles more than
their planned propagation, reaching into British airspace. Without
careful coordination of the limited frequencies available they could
have swamped or interfered with local transmissions. Remember that to
start with radio was quite low frequency; the BBC still broadcasts Radio
4 LW at 198kHz (it was 200kHz for a time). With a DSB of +/- 10kHz for
decent musical fidelity there's not a lot of space for non-interfering
adjacent channels in the bands being used then (typically 600-1100kHz).
There certainly wasn't spectrum space for a lot of independent
land-based transmitters.
Things have changed and there are now commercial stations as well as the
BBC in Britain, both radio and television. Most of the radio stations
operate in VHF FM (between about 88 and 104MHz) which has very limited
range so the same frequencies can be re-used as long as there is a good
separation geographically. There are also now some commercial AM
transmitters from 600kHz upwards as well interleaved with the BBC AM
channels.
>Is most of the broadcast spectrum in the UK left empty?
Simple answers to stupid questions --
Little of the spectrum is unused, of course -- off the top of my head
there are walkie-talkie bands, CB, mobile phones, terrestrial television
(which covers about 600MHz in total), radar systems, fishing and
shipping communications, ambulance, police and fire service radio
systems, frequencies allocated to military use, computer wireless
networking, car door alarm controllers, GPS and satellite TV downlinks,
radio time signal broadcasts, microwave data links and in the corners
there are also the radio amateurs. Add to that random radio noise from
the environment and assorted devices that aren't supposed to radiate but
do (street light ballasts etc.) it's a wonder that it works at all.
Actually it's not a wonder, it works because the governments of the
world under the guidance of the ITU regulate the uses of the radio
spectrum to prevent it turning into a horrid libertarian dog-eat-dog
mess that benefits no-one in the end.
> Who does
>that benefit?
Everybody. Even you can pick up broadcast radio channels without the
signal being swamped by multiple other nearby transmitters all on the
same frequency, thanks to the US government and its licencing rules and
enforcement arm (the FCC).
David Friedman
Robert Sneddon <fr...@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In message <h9oapp$ld7$6...@reader1.panix.com>, Keith F. Lynch
> <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes
>
> >That makes as much sense as mandating that all land, or all of any
> >other natural resource, be owned and used only by the government or
> >some organization established for that purpose by the government.
>
> You should really stop and give some consideration to not using stupid
> analogies when you want to parade your libertarian theories in front of
> people.
>
> Land doesn't spread its boundaries encroaching into other people's land
> on an irregular basis as radio propagation does. Why is there not a
> single AM or FM frequency in America for all the channels that want to
> broadcast there? It would vastly simplify the design of transmitters,
> reducing capital costs after all.
You are ignoring the obvious property based solution, which is to have
ownership by frequency, not by geography. The owner of a frequency can
then contract with users with regard to geographic assignment, allowing
for interference problems.
You should really give some consideration to thinking for at least
thirty seconds before posting, in order to see whether there is a
version of what you are attacking that makes sense, instead of taking it
for granted that, since the first version that occurs to you, doesn't,
that must be what the other poster intended.
...
Paul Ciszek
In article <ddfr-452AE3.1...@newsfarm.phx.highwinds-media.com>,
David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
>
>You are ignoring the obvious property based solution, which is to have
>ownership by frequency, not by geography. The owner of a frequency can
>then contract with users with regard to geographic assignment, allowing
>for interference problems.
And how does one become the legitimate owner of a frequency?
Sure, you can buy a frequency from someone who owned it previously,
but who had the rights to sell them in the first place?
As for allocating them irrespective of geography, that may trod on
national sovereignty. Say the nation of Slobovia is using 850kHz
for emergency services, and some bloke from nearby Liberteria says
"I own 850kHz now. See, here's my receipt." Slobovia may say
"We never agreed to any such sale. We're not going to modify
our emergency broadcasting system to suit you."
--
Please reply to: | "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is
pciszek at panix dot com | indistinguishable from malice."
Autoreply is disabled |
Nels Satterlund
> Nels Satterlund <Ne...@starstream.net> wrote:
>> Embiid (SP) did their DMR right as far as DRM goes, they tied it to
>> a reader that you down loaded with your book(s) so even now that
>> they are out of business my reader still work and I can still read
>> the books.
>
> What happens when your reader breaks, wears out, or is stolen? Do
> you have a backup? Can you load the backup into a new reader? A
> new reader of a different kind, if that kind is no longer made?
Well I have the reader (CSpotrun for the Palm and EmbiidReader for the
PC) on multiple computers, so I should be safe. The only way for it to
not work would be to no longer be able to run on a PC or a Palm. At
some point in the future I expect it will not work on a new Palm.
I currently have two Palms (IIIx & IIIxe) which I could use for reading
books.
Nels
Looks like I only have 4 books only in that format now
David Friedman
nos...@nospam.com (Paul Ciszek) wrote:
> In article <ddfr-452AE3.1...@newsfarm.phx.highwinds-media.com>,
> David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
> >
> >You are ignoring the obvious property based solution, which is to have
> >ownership by frequency, not by geography. The owner of a frequency can
> >then contract with users with regard to geographic assignment, allowing
> >for interference problems.
>
> And how does one become the legitimate owner of a frequency?
> Sure, you can buy a frequency from someone who owned it previously,
> but who had the rights to sell them in the first place?
That's the same issue that exists for ordinary property in land--yet
that institution seems to work pretty well.
The two obvious alternatives are some version of homesteading, in which
whoever first made use of a particular frequency--with some definition
of what counts as use--is the owner, and auction. The latter was a
radical idea when Coase proposed it about fifty years ago but is now, in
a modified form, government policy in the U.S.
> As for allocating them irrespective of geography, that may trod on
> national sovereignty.
That problem exists for government controlled broadcasts as well.
> Say the nation of Slobovia is using 850kHz
> for emergency services, and some bloke from nearby Liberteria says
> "I own 850kHz now. See, here's my receipt." Slobovia may say
> "We never agreed to any such sale. We're not going to modify
> our emergency broadcasting system to suit you."
Yes. Where countries are relatively small, one would need some form of
international agreement on recognition of the relevant property rights.
That's less of a problem for the U.S. or Brazil.
cryptoguy
> On Sat, 26 Sep 2009 02:55:22 +0000 (UTC), "Keith F. Lynch"
>
> <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
> >> BluRay won out vs HD-DVD, but my suspicion is that selling bits on
> >> physical media is a business model that won't last another 5 years.
>
> >Maybe if they sell permanent licenses to download the music, book, or
> >movie that you bought as often as you like. I don't think most people
> >will put up with their movie or book collection vanishing whenever
> >they replace or upgrade their computer or e-book reader.
>
> >And I for one like to see books, CDs, and DVDs on the shelves. It
> >gives me more of a sense of ownership, of possession. They will still
> >be there if every electronic device I own dies.
>
> How do you access the CDs and DVDs if every electronic device you own
> dies?
Keith makes a valid point that books have a long-term usability not
shared by digital media. That's an important difference, and I wasn't
thinking about printed books when I made my remark.
I'll amend my prediction to limit it to *digitally stored* material. I
don't think distributing bits on objects will be a major channel five
years from now. Poorly thought out business models requiring DRM will
probably be the last holdout.
The only other issue I can see is the development of some medium for
which the data requirements leap ahead of network speeds, as images
were in 70s, and video was in the 80s.
pt
cryptoguy
> Robert Sneddon <f...@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > The BBC's operation was deliberately set up to be separated from
> > the Government, in part to prevent a free-for-all over the radio
> > spectrum by anyone who could build and operate a transmitter. Its
> > rasion d'etre to some extent was similar to the ITU and the American
> > FCC; no other broadcasters were permitted to operate in the UK.
>
> That makes as much sense as mandating that all land, or all of any
> other natural resource, be owned and used only by the government or
> some organization established for that purpose by the government.
That's exactly how the world operates right now. Try not paying your
property taxes; you'll soon find out who really owns 'your' land.
pt
cryptoguy
> David Loewe, Jr. <dlo...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
> > "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
> >> And I for one like to see books, CDs, and DVDs on the shelves. It
> >> gives me more of a sense of ownership, of possession. They will
> >> still be there if every electronic device I own dies.
> > How do you access the CDs and DVDs if every electronic device you
> > own dies?
>
> I don't until I buy new devices.
>
> I was contrasting it with a situation where my music (or whatever) is
> DRM-infested and licensed only for my device, and it's not possible to
> make backups, so if I ever had to replace the device I would lose my
> whole music library.
>
> A new CD player would cost far less than my CD collection. A new DVD
> player would cost far less than my DVD collection. Pretty much any
> consmumer electronics device would cost less than my book collection.
How long will that situation last? Could you replace your 8-track
player? You're Edison wax cylinder player? I had to really scramble to
find a replacement a couple of years ago, when my laserdisk player
died. Now one of my background projects is to transfer my LDs to DVD
(though as disk space gets cheaper and cheaper, I feel less and less
motivated to burn the disks - I just keep the data on disk).
CD players will probably cease to be manufactured within 10 years, DVD
is probably the same.
My daughter has a t-shirt, which features an audiocassette with
angel's wings, and the text "1964-2003" (not sure about the end year).
pt
cryptoguy
> Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> > Nels Satterlund <Ne...@starstream.net> wrote:
> >> Embiid (SP) did their DMR right as far as DRM goes, they tied it to
> >> a reader that you down loaded with your book(s) so even now that
> >> they are out of business my reader still work and I can still read
> >> the books.
>
> > What happens when your reader breaks, wears out, or is stolen? Do
> > you have a backup? Can you load the backup into a new reader? A
> > new reader of a different kind, if that kind is no longer made?
>
> Well I have the reader (CSpotrun for the Palm and EmbiidReader for the
> PC) on multiple computers, so I should be safe. The only way for it to
> not work would be to no longer be able to run on a PC or a Palm. At
> some point in the future I expect it will not work on a new Palm.
>
> I currently have two Palms (IIIx & IIIxe) which I could use for reading
> books.
PalmOS is now defunct; Palm is moving into an entirely new system
(WebOS), initially with the Pre. I don't know what support is has (if
any) for legacy apps).
I've been using a Palm for over a decade, so this is a pain for me.
pt
Robert Sneddon
<ddfr-D222D6.2...@newsfarm.phx.highwinds-media.com>, David
Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> writes
>> And how does one become the legitimate owner of a frequency?
>> Sure, you can buy a frequency from someone who owned it previously,
>> but who had the rights to sell them in the first place?
>
>That's the same issue that exists for ordinary property in land--yet
>that institution seems to work pretty well.
It's trivial to build a fence to keep others off your land. You can't
build a fence to keep others off your frequency. Instead you rely on
government enforcement of the spectrum allocation rules, in extremis Men
With Guns.
We had a libertarian radio free-for-all once in Manchester, back in the
90s I think it was. Pirate broadcast radio stations were pretty common
then, operating on VHF FM covering a local area with a mixture of news,
opinion, music and adverts, often operated by Asian youths who felt the
regular commercial stations weren't playing the sort of things they
wanted to hear. For coverage reasons tall buildings were preferred for
this kind of operation -- better coverage and more places to hide the
transmitter. A particular cluster of high-rise flats near the city
centre ended up being the preferred site for several groups of pirate
broadcasters who started using each other's frequencies to try and
hijack their opponent's listeners. The result was an arms race with the
pirates installing more and more powerful RF amplifiers to swamp out
their competitors. These amps were built cheaply -- they were
effectively throwaway items since the equipment was usually confiscated
when the police and radio authorities did catch up with them. Because
they were cheap they clipped the outputs and splattered noise across the
RF spectrum and because they were powerful and well-sited they had an
effect on all the other legitimate radio users nearby in terms of
frequency and locality. This included the police, fire brigade,
ambulance services, taxi services etc. Nobody could actually hear
anything legible on the pirate frequencies by then; the war had reached
the point where they were trying to actively jam each other's
transmissions using noise generators and such.
Finally the mess started to affect air traffic control frequencies and
the authorities went in mob-handed. Some of the pirates got jail
sentences and the fad died out somewhat. Local short-range radio
stations were legalised and regulated and DAB has allowed the creation
of lots and lots of "microchannels" for niche broadcasters, satisfying
the demand.
>Yes. Where countries are relatively small, one would need some form of
>international agreement on recognition of the relevant property rights.
>That's less of a problem for the U.S. or Brazil.
There are radio stations near the US border with Canada and Mexico -- I
recall hearing about giant AM stations in Texas transmitting 50kW and
more of RF. At AM frequencies that can propagate a long way; in some
circumstances around the planet. Radio amateurs interested in low-power
operation (QRP) can initiiate two-way communications with other amateurs
on the other side of the world with only a few watts of RF energy when
the conditions are right (although they use very large antennas and
sensitive receivers). There is also the hobby called DXing for listeners
attempting to pick up broadcast stations in foreign countries, some of
them thousands of miles away.
One of the earliest broadcast frequency allocation agreements was
negotiated in Geneva in the 1920s to cover Europe. The nascent BBC was a
beneficiary of that agreement. Nowadays the ITU covers the entire world
in terms of RF frequency allocation and regulation.
David Friedman
Robert Sneddon <fr...@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In message
> <ddfr-D222D6.2...@newsfarm.phx.highwinds-media.com>, David
> Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> writes
> >In article <h9p39k$l3b$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
> > nos...@nospam.com (Paul Ciszek) wrote:
>
> >> And how does one become the legitimate owner of a frequency?
> >> Sure, you can buy a frequency from someone who owned it previously,
> >> but who had the rights to sell them in the first place?
> >
> >That's the same issue that exists for ordinary property in land--yet
> >that institution seems to work pretty well.
>
> It's trivial to build a fence to keep others off your land.
Fences are only a symbolic barrier to humans, unless they are awfully
big and expensive ones.
>Y ou can't
> build a fence to keep others off your frequency. Instead you rely on
> government enforcement of the spectrum allocation rules, in extremis Men
> With Guns.
Property in land relies on the threat of force as well, whether private
force, government force, or something in between.
You seem to be assuming both that all libertarians are anarchists and
that anarchists don't propose any mechanisms for the controlled use of
force in settling disputes. Both assumptions are wrong.
...
David Friedman
<efc617a4-e3fc-4214...@l31g2000vbp.googlegroups.com>,
cryptoguy <treif...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The only other issue I can see is the development of some medium for
> which the data requirements leap ahead of network speeds, as images
> were in 70s, and video was in the 80s.
One can imagine VR works doing that, depending on just how complete the
reality needs to be.
David V. Loewe, Jr
<treif...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Sep 27, 1:19�am, "David Loewe, Jr." <dlo...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, 26 Sep 2009 02:55:22 +0000 (UTC), "Keith F. Lynch"
>> <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>> >cryptoguy <treifam...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> BluRay won out vs HD-DVD, but my suspicion is that selling bits on
>> >> physical media is a business model that won't last another 5 years.
>>
>> >Maybe if they sell permanent licenses to download the music, book, or
>> >movie that you bought as often as you like. �I don't think most people
>> >will put up with their movie or book collection vanishing whenever
>> >they replace or upgrade their computer or e-book reader.
>>
>> >And I for one like to see books, CDs, and DVDs on the shelves. �It
>> >gives me more of a sense of ownership, of possession. �They will still
>> >be there if every electronic device I own dies. �
>>
>> How do you access the CDs and DVDs if every electronic device you own
>> dies?
>
>Keith makes a valid point that books have a long-term usability not
>shared by digital media. That's an important difference, and I wasn't
>thinking about printed books when I made my remark.
Can you read a first edition copy of Beowulf?
>I'll amend my prediction to limit it to *digitally stored* material. I
>don't think distributing bits on objects will be a major channel five
>years from now. Poorly thought out business models requiring DRM will
>probably be the last holdout.
>
>The only other issue I can see is the development of some medium for
>which the data requirements leap ahead of network speeds, as images
>were in 70s, and video was in the 80s.
--
"Even when uttered by Democrats, middle class often sounds like a
mealymouthed way of saying, Us, and not them, where them includes poor
people, snake handlers and those with pierced tongues."
- Barbara Ehrenreich
David Loewe, Jr.
<fr...@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> writes
>>Yes. Where countries are relatively small, one would need some form of
>>international agreement on recognition of the relevant property rights.
>>That's less of a problem for the U.S. or Brazil.
>
> There are radio stations near the US border with Canada and Mexico -- I
>recall hearing about giant AM stations in Texas transmitting 50kW and
>more of RF.
More like the other way around - giant AM stations in Mexico blasting
100kW into the US airwaves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear-channel_station
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_blaster
--
"Caught between the longing for love
And the struggle for the legal tender"
Clyde J. Browne
cryptoguy
wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Sep 2009 05:34:56 -0700 (PDT), cryptoguy
>
>
>
>
>
> <treifam...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >On Sep 27, 1:19 am, "David Loewe, Jr." <dlo...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> >> On Sat, 26 Sep 2009 02:55:22 +0000 (UTC), "Keith F. Lynch"
> >> <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
> >> >cryptoguy <treifam...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >> BluRay won out vs HD-DVD, but my suspicion is that selling bits on
> >> >> physical media is a business model that won't last another 5 years.
>
> >> >Maybe if they sell permanent licenses to download the music, book, or
> >> >movie that you bought as often as you like. I don't think most people
> >> >will put up with their movie or book collection vanishing whenever
> >> >they replace or upgrade their computer or e-book reader.
>
> >> >And I for one like to see books, CDs, and DVDs on the shelves. It
> >> >gives me more of a sense of ownership, of possession. They will still
> >> >be there if every electronic device I own dies.
>
> >> How do you access the CDs and DVDs if every electronic device you own
> >> dies?
>
> >Keith makes a valid point that books have a long-term usability not
> >shared by digital media. That's an important difference, and I wasn't
> >thinking about printed books when I made my remark.
>
> Can you read a first edition copy of Beowulf?
If we re-cast that as 'Could you read..." the answer (oddly enough),
is "Yes, if I put in the effort".
Event after 1000-1200 years, the oldest manuscript is thought by some
to be the actual author's working copy, so it's the "first edition",
to the extent that expression has meaning in a pre-printing era. It's
more or less in good condition. The script would be easy to learn, the
language (Old English) a little harder, though the fact that millions
of high school students in Britain pick up enough to pass A Level
exams shows its not *that* hard.
The point is that I wouldn't need a machine to do so - just other
books to learn the script and the language.
pt
David Loewe, Jr.
<treif...@gmail.com> wrote:
>The point is that I wouldn't need a machine to do so - just other
>books to learn the script and the language.
And my point was about the changing of the language.
--
"When it is broken down, the philosophy of environmentalism is the
philosophy of life on earth without humanity at all. Green becomes
the color of a forest that grows over unmarked graves."
Michelle Minton
cryptoguy
> On Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:55:59 -0700 (PDT), cryptoguy
>
> >The point is that I wouldn't need a machine to do so - just other
> >books to learn the script and the language.
>
> And my point was about the changing of the language.
Yes, and I fail to see your point, if any. Languages change, but we
don't lose access to material on obsolete languages do to a lack of
machines to read them, or copyright issues.
pt
Keith F. Lynch
> At AM frequencies that can propagate a long way; in some
> circumstances around the planet. Radio amateurs interested in
> low-power operation (QRP) can initiiate two-way communications with
> other amateurs on the other side of the world with only a few watts
It's been done with less than a milliwatt, albeit very slowly. It
is of course not done on the AM broadcast band, but on the shortwave
bands, which propagate over long distances much better.
Keith F. Lynch
> How long will that situation last? Could you replace your 8-track
> player?
Probably. If people still own a lot of 8-track tapes, then there's a
demand for 8-track tape players. Of course if the tapes have mostly
worn out by now...
> You're Edison wax cylinder player?
Probably not. There never were all that many Edison wax cylinders,
and most of them have long since worn out.
It's not difficult to buy a device to play LPs, 45s, or even 78s, due
to the ubiquity of those formats.
> I had to really scramble to find a replacement a couple of years
> ago, when my laserdisk player died.
Laserdiscs were never all that popular, at least compared to CDs and
DVDs. Assuming CDs and DVDs don't wear out by then, there will still
be large collections of them a century from now, hence still a large
demand for ways to play them. As far as I know, all DVD players will
also play CDs, and all Blu-ray players will also play DVDs and CDs.
I'm pleased that most people had sense enough to reject the tethered
pay-per-view DIVX discs. Those few who didn't learned a valuable
lesson when all their DIVX discs suddenly turned into drink coasters.
> CD players will probably cease to be manufactured within 10 years,
> DVD is probably the same.
I doubt it. Possibly they will only be available as combination
CD/DVD/Blu-ray/MP3 players. Just as you'd have a hard time finding
a new record player today that plays 78s but not LPs.
> My daughter has a t-shirt, which features an audiocassette with
> angel's wings, and the text "1964-2003" (not sure about the
> end year).
Blank audio cassettes are still being sold, as are recorders and
players for them.
David V. Loewe, Jr
Vanishingly few people can read Beowulf in the original.
--
"To the last, I grapple with thee; From Hell's heart, I stab at thee;
For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee."
-Herman Melville, "Moby Dick"
Keith F. Lynch
> Robert Sneddon <fr...@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes
>>> That makes as much sense as mandating that all land, or all of any
>>> other natural resource, be owned and used only by the government or
>>> some organization established for that purpose by the government.
>> You should really stop and give some consideration to not using
>> stupid analogies when you want to parade your libertarian theories
>> in front of people.
Ironically, this is one of the few areas in which I'm not only very
knowledgeable, but I also have the formal credentials to prove it.
Or at least to indicate that the US federal government accepts me
as knowledgeable. As a teenager, I obtained both the highest class
professional radio license and the highest class amateur radio license.
This required passing tests on both the technical and legal aspects
of radio communications.
>> Land doesn't spread its boundaries encroaching into other people's
>> land on an irregular basis as radio propagation does. Why is there
>> not a single AM or FM frequency in America for all the channels
>> that want to broadcast there? It would vastly simplify the design
>> of transmitters, reducing capital costs after all.
> You are ignoring the obvious property based solution, which is to
> have ownership by frequency, not by geography.
Or by both.
> You should really give some consideration to thinking for at least
> thirty seconds before posting, in order to see whether there is
> a version of what you are attacking that makes sense, instead of
> taking it for granted that, since the first version that occurs to
> you, doesn't, that must be what the other poster intended.
What fun is that? Bashing straw men is the official sport of Usenet.
Keith F. Lynch
> Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>> Is most of the broadcast spectrum in the UK left empty?
> Simple answers to stupid questions --
> Little of the spectrum is unused, of course -- off the top of my
> head there are walkie-talkie bands, CB, mobile phones, terrestrial
> television (which covers about 600MHz in total), radar systems,
> fishing and shipping communications, ambulance, police and fire
> service radio systems, frequencies allocated to military use,
> computer wireless networking, car door alarm controllers, GPS and
> satellite TV downlinks, radio time signal broadcasts, microwave
> data links and in the corners there are also the radio amateurs.
That's not a simple answer to a stupid question, that's a stupid
answer to a simple question. I asked about the *broadcast* spectrum.
Do you know what broadcasting is?
I'm pleased to hear that there are multiple competing commercial
stations, rather than there being nothing to listen to but the BBC
and, if you have shortwave, foreign stations.
(Listening to random mobile phone transmissions may be entertaining,
but it's also immoral and probably illegal. Listening to radar and
car alarm controllers sounds pretty boring, but there's no accounting
for taste.)
Robert Sneddon
<k...@KeithLynch.net> writes
>David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
>> Robert Sneddon <fr...@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>> You should really stop and give some consideration to not using
>>> stupid analogies when you want to parade your libertarian theories
>>> in front of people.
>
>Ironically, this is one of the few areas in which I'm not only very
>knowledgeable, but I also have the formal credentials to prove it.
Snap. Licenced radio amateur here, passed the UK exam under the
auspices of the City and Guilds Institute in 1981 but I've been inactive
for a while now.
So why did you throw away all your knowledge and experience about radio
and how it works and pull that stupid analogy about land out of your ass
to make a spurious point about radio spectrum allocation?
>>> Land doesn't spread its boundaries encroaching into other people's
>>> land on an irregular basis as radio propagation does.
>
>> You are ignoring the obvious property based solution, which is to
>> have ownership by frequency, not by geography.
>
>Or by both.
Frequencies can be and are re-used if there is sufficient separation
geographically and/or limits on radiated power and the antenna design
permits. It takes Men With Guns to enforce rules that allow for this --
there is not enough spectrum available for everyone who wants some to
have exclusive world-wide use of it, even with highest-bidder auctions
which do happen.
The UK Government sold off spectrum use rights to various mobile phone
frequencies a while back -- it raised several billion pounds for the
Treasury and beggared the mobile phone companies who won them. They are
the same frequencies used elsewhere in the world where the local
governments often ran similar auctions.
Robert Sneddon
<k...@KeithLynch.net> writes
>Robert Sneddon <fr...@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>>> Is most of the broadcast spectrum in the UK left empty?
>
>> Simple answers to stupid questions --
>
>> Little of the spectrum is unused, of course --
>
>answer to a simple question. I asked about the *broadcast* spectrum.
>Do you know what broadcasting is?
Yes, it's part of the radio spectrum. There is no such thing as a
"broadcast spectrum". Broadcasts are made on radio frequencies; to that
end enough space (and no more) is made in the radio spectrum for British
TV and radio broadcasts and a few other specialist broadcasting
operations such as MSF Rugby. Gaps are left between channels, especially
in the AM and LW radio bands to cope with possible interference from
stations in other countries nearby if propagation conditions permit. In
the case of TV there are five groups of main broadcast frequencies which
are spread across the country so that no reception area shares a
boundary with another of the same group. There are a couple of other
frequency groups that are used in very low-power repeater operations
using directional antennas to fill in gaps caused by geographical
shadowing of the main area's transmitter. The TV stations including the
BBC all use the same transmitter towers so a single fixed antenna will
receive all of the channels available.
I remember reading about enthusiasts on the south coast of England with
DX antennas who could receive French television signals and watch them
on SECAM receivers. The results were very variable depending on the
weather conditions, sunspots and time of day, I understand.
Ben Yalow
>David Loewe, Jr. <dlo...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>>> And I for one like to see books, CDs, and DVDs on the shelves. It
>>> gives me more of a sense of ownership, of possession. They will
>>> still be there if every electronic device I own dies.
>> How do you access the CDs and DVDs if every electronic device you
>> own dies?
>I don't until I buy new devices.
>I was contrasting it with a situation where my music (or whatever) is
>DRM-infested and licensed only for my device, and it's not possible to
>make backups, so if I ever had to replace the device I would lose my
>whole music library.
>A new CD player would cost far less than my CD collection. A new DVD
>player would cost far less than my DVD collection. Pretty much any
>consmumer electronics device would cost less than my book collection.
You are aware that all DVDs are DRM'ed, and are only playable on devices
licensed by the owners of the DRM, I assume.
>--
>Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
>Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.
Ben
--
Ben Yalow yb...@panix.com
Not speaking for anybody
Karl Johanson
news:h9rjcd$9kt$1...@reader1.panix.com...
> It's not difficult to buy a device to play LPs, 45s, or even 78s, due
> to the ubiquity of those formats.
We recently bought an LP / 45 player with a built in CD burner. Works pretty
good, but you have to futz with the settings a bit to get it to have the
songs come out as seperate CD tracks.
Karl Johanson
William December Starr
cryptoguy <treif...@gmail.com> said:
> Keith makes a valid point that books have a long-term usability
> not shared by digital media. That's an important difference, and
> I wasn't thinking about printed books when I made my remark.
ObSF: Title: The Holmes-Ginsbook Device
Author: Isaac Asimov
Year: 1968
In OPUS 100 (Asimov) and WORLDS OF IF (Frederik Pohl et al).
-- wds
William December Starr
cryptoguy <treif...@gmail.com> said:
> David V. Loewe, Jr" <davelo...@charter.net>
>
>> Can you read a first edition copy of Beowulf?
>
> If we re-cast that as 'Could you read..." the answer (oddly
> enough), is "Yes, if I put in the effort".
>
> Event after 1000-1200 years, the oldest manuscript is thought by
> some to be the actual author's working copy, so it's the "first
> edition", to the extent that expression has meaning in a
> pre-printing era. It's more or less in good condition. The script
> would be easy to learn, the language (Old English) a little
> harder, though the fact that millions of high school students in
> Britain pick up enough to pass A Level exams shows its not *that*
> hard.
What's tested on that? (Also, are these exams pass/fail, or does it
matter how well a student _does_ on them?)
-- wds
Paul Ciszek
In article <ddfr-D222D6.2...@newsfarm.phx.highwinds-media.com>,
David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
>In article <h9p39k$l3b$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
> nos...@nospam.com (Paul Ciszek) wrote:
>
>> In article <ddfr-452AE3.1...@newsfarm.phx.highwinds-media.com>,
>> David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >You are ignoring the obvious property based solution, which is to have
>> >ownership by frequency, not by geography. The owner of a frequency can
>> >then contract with users with regard to geographic assignment, allowing
>> >for interference problems.
>>
>> And how does one become the legitimate owner of a frequency?
>> Sure, you can buy a frequency from someone who owned it previously,
>> but who had the rights to sell them in the first place?
>
>That's the same issue that exists for ordinary property in land
It most certainly does. Which is why I am surprised that you bring it up.
You see, all title to land in the USA(*) ultimately derives from a
government land grant, following the forcible confiscation of that land
from the (ab)original inhabitants. Sure, you may have bought your land
from someone who inherited it from someone who bought it etc., but no one
can transfer a more legitimate claim to property than they had to begin
with, and that chain of ownership began with a illegitimate act by
libertarian standards.
>--yet that institution seems to work pretty well.
As currently enforced by the same opressive government that confiscated and
re-assigned the land, sure. I suspect that if the libertarians ever come
to power they will quietly grandfather in the existing "white-man's" claims
to land ownership and avoid the issue of the land having been confiscated
in the first place.
Basically, the government once doled out land. You are proposing that
the government dole out frequencies. Well, it does that now. It just
doesn't transfer ownership, only usage rights, much the same way it
handles navigable waterways. Personally, I think frequencies resemble
navigable waterways a lot more than they resemble land: Other people
can't use the same one you are using while you are using it, but nothing
remains there permanently; things only pass through.
(*) The only exceptions I can think of are artificial islands and some
land that was created by filling in parts of Boston harbor--and even that
was accomplished by swiping dirt from hills that were once Indian land.
The orginal confiscation may have been by government coercion, private
coercion, or some combination thereof, but neither was a legitimate
transaction by libertarian standards. Many different governments had
a hand in this process (with some interesting legal results in places
where land ownership derives from Spanish land grants) but the end result
was much the same. The situation with Hawaii is...murky. There appear
to have been several foreign-supported changes of government.
--
Please reply to: | "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is
pciszek at panix dot com | indistinguishable from malice."
Autoreply is disabled |
cryptoguy
> cryptoguy <treifam...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > My daughter has a t-shirt, which features an audiocassette with
> > angel's wings, and the text "1964-2003" (not sure about the
> > end year).
>
> Blank audio cassettes are still being sold, as are recorders and
> players for them.
You're correct. I (and the shirt) were misinformed.
However, they are becoming a niche market. This summer I had to
explain to my 19 year old daughter and her friends what they were, and
why they had been important. The only working player we own is in the
dash of our oldest car. It is normally occupied by an adapter so you
can play an mp3 player through it.
pt