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Comment: Re:What an unfortunate name... (Score 3, Interesting) 481

by Manuka (#37439876) Attached to: Netflix Creates Qwikster For DVD Only Business

Glad I'm not the only one that thought that.

Naming your company something that sounds like a failed Amway rebranding: FAIL #1.
Not checking to see who was using that brand name as a twitter ID: FAIL #2.

I'm guessing that the CFO recommended spinning off the DVD business ASAP before it bled the entire company dry. I give it 9-12 months.

Comment: This is at least workable. (Score 1) 407

by Manuka (#35392156) Attached to: Canadian Songwriters Propose $10/mo Internet Fee

May need to iron out the kinks a little and fine-tune the dollar amount, but conceptually, this is a workable idea (and surprisingly so, coming from the music business!). We've been screaming at the music industry to come up with ideas to allow them to adapt to and survive the new internet reality, and they're delivering on it.

It's not unlike the monthly license paid by commercial entities to Muzak and its ilk for playing background music in public locations or some of the licenses paid by churches for displaying lyrics.

The benefit to end users is the get-out-of-jail-free card for downloading all manner of content. Conceivably, on a package that includes the music/video license, QoS tagging could be implemented to improve the experience, providing the value add to the user. On the flip side, the benefit to an ISP is that they wouldn't have as much administrative headache of dealing with the copyright cops for that class of users. If ISPs have a way of identifying these sorts of users to content providers like Pandora, those content providers could provide a different tier of service, since they wouldn't have licensing to deal with either.

I think it's certainly an idea worth exploring and refining.

Power

Arizona Trialing System That Lets Utility System Control Home A/Cs 393

Posted by timothy
from the so-you-preferred-the-brownouts-sir dept.
AzTechGuy writes "Arizona Public Service Co., Arizona's largest power company, is implementing a test program that would put customers' thermostats under their control to help balance power needs during critical peak usage times. APS will be able to remote control the customers' thermostats to control power draw from their A/C when there is a critical power transmission issue on the grid. Customers will be able to override these settings if they desire."

Ah, the Tsar's bazaar's bizarre beaux-arts!

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