...once it's rooted and open. Even then, these consume-er devices hold little interest (so far anyway - I used my iTouch for about a month). But if it's walled? Forget it.

- js.

I have 2TBs. I'm twice as arty.

Google is the modern equivalent of a huge, integrated television network, perhaps what in the past might have been a combined NBC/CBS.

It's pricey output, the things it spends its money on, from Google Maps to search to Google + to bandwidth are today's equivalent of tentpole programming like Ed Sullivan, Bonanza, The Tonight Show, Roots etc,. Its product of course, is viewers, us in other words, who are bundled and sold to advertisers in essentially the same fashion the TV networks did in the sixties.

Surely at this point in time this can't be up for debate or even news.

We "watch" Google all day long. Sometimes for hours, sometimes for moments. The fact that we interact a bit more with it doesn't alter the business equation or the reality of our relationship with the company.

- js.

He damn well better demand an investigation of News Corp. too. Only fair, O'Reilly.

i've noticed it depends on the definition of "features" and the newness of the movie. back catalog dvds have everything, but i'm not that into most of it like director's commentary and endless, behind the scenes self congratulatory fluff about how brilliant they all were to have been able to pull off this impossibly difficult film. i really do like the alternate language tracks, subtitles, audio options and chapters and these are almost always on the discs, even the new ones, while none of it is available in the stream, with the possible exception of english for the hearing impaired on a minority of content, which itself is a minority of catalog dvd titles. so it's discs for me from now on. then there's amazon prime, so much more than movies but $17/year cheaper than netfix's streaming only option.

It'll be full DVDs for me. Menus, x-tra features (RIPPABLE! - ahem) various languages & subs for the hearing impaired etc. Never streamed that much anyway. I'll stick to discs-by-mail, thanks.

Yes, and it's called WASTE. Came out in '03 and I've been "running" a decentralized mesh non-stop ever since.

lol. right.

me too! that and the oxygen-free sata cables i got from sandia labs keeps the bits pristine, the music minty fresh.

So slitting a goat's throat's ok but walking around w/a live chicken is beyond the pale apparently.

You reach your destination, but alas & alack

You need some compensation to get back in the black

You take the morning paper from the top of the stack

And read the situation from the front to the back

The only job that's open needs a man with a knack

So put it right back in the rack, Jack

Amen. Nothing beats perusing physical media.

sure apple. i lol'd.

Whilst I was admiring the gentle sway of her shapely derriere somebody stole my laptop!

"No, that's not what I mean. YOU are a 'user', and you want everything for free. The people that actually make, produce, and own music actually want to be paid for their work."

didn't you get paid for your work already, or do you believe you're someone who is entitled to be paid over and over for a job done once?

but you know what? i'm digressing. the scam is this: the record industry cannot survive without the giant promotional juggernaut that is free air and streamplay. it has been ever thus. if i need to give you a history lesson on this point you're in the wrong thread, but you convinced congress otherwise and to washington's decade long shame they bought it and gave you a law.

so then, if the people who want to get paid for their "work" depend on free airplay, and they do, don't blame the stations whose playlists are bankrolling "the people that actually make, produce, and own music" if the dj/owners resent that in return for this incredible sales tool - that far outweighs any potential royalty streams - they nevertheless get saddled with additional royalty costs that make it essentially impossible to stream profitably.

i humbly suggest that stations and internet sites stop playing and streaming music entirely until record sales flatline, recording artists go bust and cooler heads prevail. then we can go back to composer-only royalties for airplay and stations can once again make enough money that they don't have to beg listeners for handouts, and most importantly for you, record sales can increase and spoiled artists can once again go back to something resembling normalcy, which basically consists of whining about how crappy labels are for not promoting them enough with radio airplay or stream-throughs like their label mates in heavy rotation who are enjoying such healthy sales no dodgy exchange society could ever make up for it, shutdown notices or jail threats not withstanding.

i mean seriously, listening to grasping artists pine for both airplay and performance royalties is like listening to petty union arguments in the 1950s that performers should paid twice as much for new stereo records because early adopters were listening through two speakers.

the stench of entitlement and the disconnect of certain performers from the realities of the market is never ending and nausea inducing.

- js.

lol, you mean in addition to the scam being perpetrated by soundexchange. the amount of collected royalties vs. those distributed to performers is of course lopsided. but we all knew that going in didn't we?

btw, last i looked extraordinary rendition was legal too. depressing yes, but it doesn't make it right or even particularly noteworthy. .

- js.