TV Network Exec Argues That Anything That Causes Cable Subscribers To Cut The Cord Is Illegal
Okay, let’s start this out right by noting that the headline is only slight hyperbole. We’ve already talked about the TV networks suing Aereo for letting people connect, via the internet, to a TV antenna that picks up over-the-air (i.e., free) TV programming in NYC. I still can’t quite figure out what the legal argument is here, other than that it upsets their business model. Watching over-the-air TV programming is, obviously, perfectly legal. We’ve yet to see a competent claim that place shifting legal TV is illegal. About the only real complaint is that this has the chance to drive more people to cut the cord, rather than pay ridiculously high cable/satellite TV prices. Of course, the networks these days thrive because of the insanely high carriage fees they get to charge the cable/satellite guys to include their network programming.
But, you know, disrupting the TV networks business model isn’t illegal.
Yet, as with the DISH Networks case, wherein the networks seem to be claiming that skipping commercials is illegal, the networks in the Aereo case don’t seem to have much of an argument other than “this disrupts our business model.”
In a hearing about whether or not the court should issue a preliminary injunction (as has happened in the similar, but different in important ways, ivi and Zediva cases) the judge didn’t just roll over for the networks, and allowed Aereo’s lawyers to grill an exec from CBS, who more or less admitted that they think (1) the DVR is a bigger threat than Aereo and (2) that their main issue is that Aereo may lead to more cord cutting.
But, again, getting more people to cut the cord isn’t illegal. This is, once again, appearing like a “felony interference with a business model” case. The network exec actually tried to make the argument on the stand that the fact that someone might cancel their cable subscription to use Aereo (cord cutting) is a form of “harm” that requires Aereo be shut down by preliminary injunction. Thankfully, the judge wasn’t buying that logic:
The judge also got into the act somewhat, addressing broadcasters’ insistence that any customer who cancels his or her cable service to sign up with Aereo is a problem. How does subtracting one subscriber impact advertising, asked the judge, which caused the CBS executive to admit that it would have to be one Nielsen household that canceled for impact, and later that it would more likely have to be a substantial number of defections.There was some other damning info that came out in the hearing, including the fact that the TV networks refused to even talk to Aereo, never sent a cease & desist, and only decided to sue once they found out that Barry Diller was backing Aereo. Hopefully, the judge refuses the injunction. At the very least, it’s good that he’s not willing to just roll over and kill innovative startups because they mess with the entertainment industry’s business model.
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from Techdirt.
Is the Hitman: Absolution nun trailer sexist? Only if you thought you were supposed to be turned on.
Yesterday IO Interactive and Square Enix released a trailer for Hitman: Absolution that CVG, The New Statesman, and The Mirror, among many others, have flagged as sexist.
The trailer shows Agent 47 getting dressed in a motel room as a group of women assassin’s, dressed as nuns, walking through the parking lot getting ready to kill him. As they near, they drop their habits to reveal torn stockings, vinyl corsets, and giant bazookas. Agent 47 figures out something’s amiss, and spends the rest of the trailer killing them.
“Let’s have none of the ooh-sexy-empowered women talk here,” Sarah Ditum argued in CVG, “these ladies rocked up to be knocked down, and because some videogame developers still have the mentality of a frightened prepubescent when faced with an actual female person, the best way to make them seem threatening was to make them look crazy sexy.”
What is so bizarre about these criticisms is their critical stinginess. The dramatic context of the trailer is about a hyperbolically degraded male character. The contrast with the nuns is to show in extreme exaggeration how un-sexual Agent 47 is, how thoroughly indifferent to base titillation. The nuns are all pulled from a narrow and not especially interesting model of feminine symmetry and attractiveness. The point is not to titillate hormonal viewers with low-BMI models with guns, but to embody a sexual ideal in a quickly scannable series of images, that will capture 47’s indifference to, and rejection of, the ideal. To depict an absurd ideal is not to endorse it. As with last year’s even nastier trailer that intercut a sequence of murders with footage of a naked woman showering, the point is to disturb and unsettle, not to arouse and reinforce the priveleged sexualization of women’s bodies.
That’s not a particularly novel approach to characterization. There’s a long and troubled history of male protagonists who demonstrate their seriousness through sexual indifference. But that is a very long way away from sexism, which must always mean the depiction reflects an inherent diminution of a particular sex.
If you want to criticize the trailer for its lack of social commentary, help yourself. IO’s making a game about a murderer who’s gradually lost touch with even the most basic instincts in human life. They’re not making a game about social justice, they’re making one about human degradation. 47 is the dehumanized one, not you, and not the cartoonish nuns who are self-conscious stereotypes. That people expected them to either be credibly arousing or icons of social commentary says more about the inflexibility of the audience than the game’s creators.
[via IO Interactive]
from Kill Screen Daily
The Best Nerf Guns for Custom Painting and Modding
Taking your first step into the world of making things is often the biggest mental hurdle; it’s easy to be overwhelmed by all the tools, techniques, and technologies available to makers when you just want to get that fully-formed idea you have in your head into an object you can touch and hold. Take crafting weapons from video games or movies, for example. Prop makers like Harrison Krix of Volpin Props practiced for years before he was able to make convincing Mass Effect rifles that are now even showing up in live action TV commercials. That’s daunting for someone who’s just starting out.
But as one growing community has found, prop makers can bypass the complicated fabrication process by using toy guns as a base for paint jobs and custom modifications. Specifically, Nerf guns. The bright-colored plastic toy guns lend themselves to gritty science-fiction or steampunk redesigns, as Hasbro wants to keep the in-store models unrealistic to stay kid-friendly. And they’re relatively cheap to boot.
I spoke with Brian Johnson of Johnson Arms about the process of modding Nerf guns and how he’s turned this hobby into a successful side business. Brian is a banker by day, and started modifying toy guns back in the 80s (when it was popular to spray black paint over orange safety tips of fake guns). When Nerf released its Maverick pistol in 2004, Brian says he felt compelled to paint it. The pistol had a great oversized revolver look that was a good fit for a military style—Johnson painted his in matte black and camo just as a fun project with his son. The gun still looked plastic-y, so Brian continued to add secondary colors. The finished project looked good enough that he tried selling it on eBay. Since then, he’s been painting and customizing Nerf guns in his garage and improving his techniques.
Nerf modders take their craft pretty seriously—very active forums are kept up to date with ongoing project diaries, studies of upcoming Nerf releases for modding potential, and in-depth guides to the best way to paint and mod each type of Nerf gun. Every modder has a different style and approach—some add elaborate ornamentation and accessories to completely transform the toys while others simply enjoy the practice of painting and weathering.
I asked Brian to give a rundown of some of his favorite Nerf gun toys to paint and mod, ranging from pistols that are easy to disassemble and spray paint to fully automatic rifles that cater to more advance modifications. Brian’s picks below are a great starting point for aspiring prop painters, along with the NerfRevolution and NerfHaven forums. You can find more of Brian’s awesome work at his Johnson Arms homepage.
Model: Nerf Maverick
Weapon Type: Pistol
Suitable Styles: Steampunk, Anime
Level of difficulty: Beginners+ (Disassembly photo)
Easy to disasseble and not too many internal parts to position for reassembly, along with minimum number of logos to remove. This is a great blaster to start with painting. It costs about $10 and has a great shape for many applications. Because of its retro revolver style, it’s great for things like steampunk or anywhere an over-size revolver would be appropriate (think Hellboy). Anime cartoons are known for having over-sized weapons, be they swords or guns.
Model: Nerf Longshot
Weapon Type: Rifle
Suitable Styles: Sci-Fi, Militaristic, Steampunk
Level of difficulty: Intermediate (Disassembly photo)
This is one of the best nerf guns out there. It’s old-school in that is still has the more powerful direct-plunger style system. They stopped selling them in the US in early 2011 so they’re becomming harder to find. A somewhat easy spring replacement can yield close to 100ft ranges. I love this model for it’s beefy appearance that lends itself well to a lot of styles. This is the one you see being used the most in a lot of indie sci-fi films.
Model: Nerf Vulcan
Weapon Type: Belt-fed Automatic Machine Gun
Suitable Styles: Sci-Fi, Militaristic, Modern, Steampunk
Level of difficulty: Advanced internals, tons of screws to remove. Great gun, but beginners beware! (Disassembly photo)
This is the beast of the nerf lineup. It’s belt-fed and full-auto. It’s an awesome looking gun by itself, and when customized it just looks like a monster. Most modders bump up the voltage to increase the power and rate of fire. Although I think this is a great gun, anyone new to modifying should be very careful of the internal components.
Model: Nerf Nite Finder
Weapon Type: Pistol
Suitable Styles: Steampunk
Level of difficulty: Very good for beginners and it introduces battery power for the “red dot target” (Disassembly photo)
This is another great blaster to start with in modding. Fairly simple internals, but it has batteries to power the red LED that projects a red “targeting recticle.” Having the (2) AA batteries really opens the doors to adding LEDs to the gun. It’s an easy one to do an air-restrictor removal modification on, which increases the distace of the dart by about 10 feet or so, especially with the streamline darts.
Model: Nerf Scout
Weapon Type: Pistol
Suitable Styles: Sci-Fi, Modern, Space Marines, Steampunk
Level of difficulty: Excellent gun for beginners+ (Disassembly photo)
This was once a very difficult blaster to obtain as it was only sold in a set that included the nerf Titan (the one that shoots a foot-long, giant nerf dart.) It’s one of the only Nerf designs to have a slide that resembles a modern semi-auto pistol. I really like this one for cosmetic mods and it’s pretty easy to remove the air-restrictor for added dart distance.
Model: Nerf Rayven
Weapon Type: Bullpup
Suitable Styles: Sci-Fi, Modern, Space Marines
Level of difficulty: Battery swap is excellent for beginners
I really like this new Nerf gun. It has a fantastic shape that lends itself well to sci-fi or modern weapon designs. It’s also a semi-auto gun so it can fire as fast as you can pull the trigger. The thing I like the most about this model is that because it’s battery powered (darts are propelled with two spinning wheels), you can install unprotected lithium-ion batteries to bump up the voltage to about 12.7 without stressing the motors too much. This gives the gun an increased range of about 60-70 feet before the stock darts start to veer off target. Here’s a detailed guide on how to do the battery upgrade.
Model: Nerf Stampede
Weapon Type: Full-auto rifle
Suitable Styles: Sci-Fi, Modern, Space Marines
Level of difficulty: Advanced internals, moderate for voltage modders (Internal photos)
This is the rifle that I use for a lot of tactical-style rifles. It has a great shape and lends itself to a lot of modern designs as well as futuristic weapons. Being that it’s full-auto, when you increase the voltage, this thing can shoot a stream of darts. Paired up with the 35-round drum of the Nerf raider, it’s a very formidable gun in a nerf war :)
(All custom Nerf photos courtesy Brian Johnson. Visit the Johnson Arms website for more information about custom Nerf)
from Tested
Lovecraft and Tesla Team-Up
This has got to be about the coolest team-up comic art since Jack Kirby drew Marvel Team-Up. H.P. Lovecraft and Nikola Tesla, by Travis Pitts. Immediate animated webseries of this neeeeded…
Until then, poster-size versions now available…
Just Let It Be
(My wife gives me the ‘Beatles’ Number One’ album. I immediately put it on my stereo and play it loud. My teenage daughter makes a disgusting face.)
Daughter: “Dad, its bad enough that’s music I hear on commercials, but do you have to play that old stuff so loud?”
Me: “Let me tell you something. When I was your age, my mother, said to me that when I grew up and I had my own home, I could play whatever I want as loud as I want.”
(I start pounding my chest.)
Me: “Now, you know what? This is my house! And this is my music! And I am going to play my music on my stereo in my house as loud as I want!”
(I crank up the volume. My daughter just stares at me, slowly shaking her head side to side.)
Picked At The Peaks Of Flavor
(Restaurant | Ontario, Canada)
(I work as a server at a vegan cafe when a girl in her twenties walks in.)
Me: “Hello, what can I get for you?”
Customer: “Hi, I’ll have a coffee to start. One sugar, two cream.”
Me: “Sorry, we actually don’t have cream, but we use soy milk.”
Customer: “Uh, what? Soy milk? Like beans? You put beans in your coffee? That’s gross. Who would put beans in their coffee?”
Me: “Actually, it’s pretty good, and coffee is actually made of coffee beans, right?”
Customer: “Haha, could you imagine that? That would be soooo gross!”
Me: “Well, you could think of coffee beans like seeds, too. But anyway, is soy milk okay in your coffee?”
Customer: “Seeds?! Haha, imagine that! No, it’s just rich dirt.”
Me: “Uh, what’s ‘rich dirt’?’
Customer: “Coffee, duh! You know…the brown powder that they dig from mountains!”
If People Won’t Pay A Monthly Fee For Facebook, Why Would They Pay For Newspapers?
We’ve been arguing about the long-term problems with paywalls for quite some time now, but more and more newspapers insist that they’re “the answer.” Of course, they seem to be asking the wrong question. They may be “the answer” to “doing something” in a desperate attempt to slow down people dropping their paper subscriptions, but they’re not a long term solution by any means. Beyond the fact that limiting the ability to share or link people to your content takes away significant value, we’ve also mentioned that it merely opens up a huge opportunity for others to step into the market and replace you. Newspapers don’t seem to think this is a real problem, but they are vastly underestimating the threat.
I haven’t seen it explained quite as clearly or in such perfect terms as longterm newspaper man John L. Robinson in explaining why paywalls are like “using band aids on a bullet wound (found via Jeff Nolan). Robinson points out that young people today — such as students — admit that they’re addicted to Facebook, and spend a ridiculous amount of time on the site. But if Facebook put up a paywall of about $10/month (not out of the ordinary for newspapers), they’d find alternatives:
I asked my class of 20-year-old Elon University students how many were on Facebook. All 33 raised their hands. Many of them suggested they were addicted to the social network. (It was all I could do to keep them off Facebook during class.) I asked how many would pay $1 a month for Facebook membership. All raised their hands.Robinson then notes that the exec he told this to was dismissive because his students “aren’t our readers anyway”. But they are the next generation, and any publication that plans to have a future might want to think about what gets them interested… not what sends them running to find alternatives.
“Five dollars?” I asked. A few dropped out.
“Ten dollars a month?” I asked. Nearly every hand stayed down.
“No one?” I said. “I thought you guys were addicted?”
A student piped up with an explanation: “Someone will invent something else to take its place that is free.”
I shared this anecdote with a newspaper executive when we were talking about newspaper paywalls. I said that if people wouldn’t pay for Facebook, they wouldn’t pay to get through a newspaper paywall.
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from Techdirt.
Christian Parody of Atheist Ad Ranked #4 Most-Complained-About Ad of All Time, Says UK Watchdog Group
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK, the ASA released a list of the most “complained-about ads of all time.”
Not making it into the Top Ten list: The Ariane-Sherine-inspired ad that began the worldwide atheist billboard barrage:
Taking the #4 spot on the list: The response ad put out by The Christian Party:
Complainants objected that the strap line ‘There definitely is a God. So join the Christian Party and enjoy your life’ was offensive to atheists and couldn’t be substantiated. Political party ads are out of our remit, but even if it had been in remit we wouldn’t have banned it because it was clearly a statement of opinion, rather than fact.
Amazingly, the #5 most-complained-about ad of all time featured the Pope supporting condom usage…
(Thanks to @Jonzee72 for the link!)
from Friendly Atheist
Author Tells DOJ The Authors Guild Doesn't Speak For Him & Amazon Is The Only Company Encouraging Competition
Author Joe Konrath has written a fantastic letter to the Justice Department to counter letters sent by the Association of Authors’ Representatives and the Authors Guild (and some others), complaining about the DOJ’s antitrust lawsuit against certain publishers and Apple to collude to keep ebook prices high. As Konrath notes, these groups don’t appear to actually represent authors, but do seem to be representing the best interests of the legacy gatekeepers.
I’m writing to tell you that these organizations did not solicit the views of their members, that they in no way speak on behalf of all or even most of their members, and that (as I imagine is obvious) they are motivated not by what’s best for consumers, but by what they see as best for themselves.The whole thing is a worthwhile read, and certainly raises questions about who gets to represent whom when such issues come up. For years, we’ve seen bogus claims that the RIAA represents “musicians” or that the MPAA represents “filmmakers,” when nothing could be further from the truth. In this case, though, it’s even more egregious, in that these organizations directly claim to represent authors. But, for the most part, they seem to be only be representing the interests of authors already successful under the old system — and going against every other author (and potential author) out there. In other words, their focus is on protectionism for established players, not what’s best for authors as a whole or the consumers they serve with their writing. That’s unfortunate.
I recognize that the heart of the DOJ’s suit is collusion, not high prices. But it’s clear that the legacy publishing industry’s strategy is to keep the prices of ebooks high so as not to cannibalize high-margin hardback sales. If the prices of legacy published books are kept artificially high it could be argued that my lower-priced self-published books are made more attractive by comparison, but I believe that a regime of higher-priced books is bad for the industry overall because it slows the growth of the global book market, which indeed hurts all sales. I also believe it’s obviously bad for consumers, especially lower-income consumers, who could buy more of the books they loved if those books weren’t priced so high.
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from Techdirt.
Good Thing They Caught Each Other, Part 2
(My boyfriend is a bit of a Pokémon nerd. We are laying in bed together cuddling.)
Boyfriend: “Head-butt.”
(He then proceeds to lightly head-butt me.)
Me: “What the?”
Boyfriend: “Girlfriend is confused. Use low kick.”
(He taps my leg with his foot.)
Me: *finally catching on, but without the energy to fight back.) “Girlfriend is fast asleep.” *closes eyes*
Boyfriend: “Pokéball go!” *wraps his arms around my waist, and pulls me close* “Girlfriend was caught!”
Related:
Good Thing They Caught Each Other
from Funny & Unusual Romantic & Love Stories - Not Always Romantic
When The Internet Deletes Hype
Editor and writer David Hepworth:
You can’t hide. I was talking to somebody in the record business recently who pointed out, rather mournfully, that it was no longer possible to hype people. What he meant was that it was no longer possible to convince them that something was more popular or widely adopted than it actually was. You no longer went into Radio 2 and told them that they should be playing a record because it was going to be popular among this or that demographic. You simply sent them a link to the You Tube page where they could see how many people had streamed the video. Digital is its own audit. This is something magazines are going to have to get used to.
“Digital is its own audit.” That’s really kind of interesting to me. I’m used to unique counts being obscured and lied about. But I hadn’t considered the open-count public services. And, of course, this is what Likes and RTs and +1s lead to. A world where we encourage everyone to vote on everything (an element of more than a few sf pieces).
Cultural voting, of course, leads to the triage suggested in the quote: following counts leads inexorably to media that play only the things they already know people like.
Which makes me prize things like Mary Anne Hobbs’ Saturday night show on XFM all the more: because I know that for three hours I will hear things that I have never heard before.
Still. Interesting point.
from Warren Ellis
The Undying
Michael Wolff says what must be said: in our desperate attempt to advance medicine we have created a population of millions who suffer because we will not let them die – every life is worth ending.
This is not anomalous; this is the norm.
The traditional exits, of a sudden heart attack, of dying in one’s sleep, of unreasonably dropping dead in the street, of even a terminal illness, are now exotic ways of going. The longer you live the longer it will take to die. The better you have lived the worse you may die. The healthier you are—through careful diet, diligent exercise, and attentive medical scrutiny—the harder it is to die. Part of the advance in life expectancy is that we have technologically inhibited the ultimate event. We have fought natural causes to almost a draw. If you eliminate smokers, drinkers, other substance abusers, the obese, and the fatally ill, you are left with a rapidly growing demographic segment peculiarly resistant to death’s appointment—though far, far, far from healthy.
Wolff goes on to outline the horrors:
This is not just a drawn-out, stoic, and heroic long good-bye. This is human carnage. Seventy percent of those older than 80 have a chronic disability, according to one study; 53 percent in this group have at least one severe disability; and 36 percent have moderate to severe cognitive impairments; you definitely don’t want to know what’s considered to be a moderate impairment.
From a young and healthy perspective, we tend to look at dementia as merely Alzheimer’s—a cancerlike bullet, an unfortunate genetic fate, which, with luck, we’ll avoid. In fact, Alzheimer’s is just one form—not, as it happens, my mother’s—of the ever-more-encompassing conditions of cognitive collapse that are the partners and the price of longevity.
There are now more than 5 million demented Americans. By 2050, upward of 15 million of us will have lost our minds.
from Pop Bioethics
She’s A Catho-holic
(My grandma is visiting for the week from Ireland. Like most Irish ladies of her age, she is a fiercely strong Catholic. I have just got home from school, along with my best friend. He is a British-Born Chinese guy named Kwan.)
Me: “Hello, Grandma.”
Grandma: “Hello dear! Oh, and who is your friend?”
Me: “This is Kwan.”
(My Grandma wrinkles her face a little.)
Grandma: “That’s not a Catholic name.”
Me: “No, it’s Chinese.”
Grandma: “No, that just wont do. I’ll call him Michael.”
Me: “But, Grandma—”
Grandma: *to Kwan* “Hello there Michael, would you like a cup of tea?”
Kwan: “Uh…”
Homeland Security List Of Monitored Words Includes Social Media, Hacker & Cloud
from Hacker News
20 Things I Should Have Known at 20
1. The world is trying to keep you stupid. From bank fees to interest rates to miracle diets, people who are not educated are easier to get money from and easier to lead. Educate yourself as much as possible for wealth, independence, and happiness.
2. Do not trust in institutions to educate you. By the time they’re build the curriculum, it’s likely that the system is outdated, sometimes utterly broken. You both learn and get respect from people worth getting it from by leading and doing, not by following.
3. Read as much as you can. Learn to speed read with high retention. Emerson Spartz taught me this while I was at a Summit Series event. He reads 2-3 books a week, so you can read one.
4. Connect with everyone, all the time. Be genuine about it. Learn to find something you like in each person, and then speak to that thing.
5. Don’t waste time being shy. Shyness is the belief that your emotions should be the arbitrators of your decision making process when the opposite is actually true.
6. If you feel weird about something during a relationship, that’s usually what you end up breaking up over.
7. Have as much contact as possible with older people. Personally, I met people at Podcamps. My friend Greg, at the age of 13, met his first future employer sitting next to him on a plane. The reason this is so valuable is because people your age don’t usually have the decision-making ability to help you very much. Also they know almost everything you will learn later, so ask them.
8. Find people that are cooler than you and hang out with them too. This and the corollary are both important: “don’t attempt to be average inside your group. Continuously attempt to be cooler than them (by doing cooler things, being more laid back, accepting, ambitious, etc.).”
9. You will become more conservative over time. This is just a fact. Those you surround yourself with create a kind of “bubble” that pushes you to support the status quo. For this reason, you need to do your craziest stuff NOW. Later on, you’ll become too afraid. Trust me.
10. Reduce all expenses as much as possible. I mean it. This creates a safety net that will allow you to do the crazier shit I mentioned above.
11. Instead of getting status through objects (which provide only temporary boosts), do it through experiences. In other words, a trip to Paris is a better choice than a new wardrobe. Studies show this also boosts happiness.
12. While you are living on the cheap, solve the money problem. Use the internet, because it’s like a cool little machine that helps you do your bidding. If you are currently living paycheck to paycheck, extend that to three weeks instead of two. Then, as you get better, you can think a month ahead, then three months, then six, and finally a year ahead. (The goal is to get to a point where you are thinking 5 years ahead.)
13. Learn to program.
14. Get a six-pack (or get thin, whatever your goal is) while you are young. Your hormones are in a better place to help you do this at a younger age. Don’t waste this opportunity, trust me.
15. Learn to cook. This will make everything much easier and it turns food from a chore + expensive habit into a pleasant + frugal one. I’m a big Jamie Oliver fan, but whatever you like is fine.
16. Sleep well. This and cooking will help with the six pack. If you think “I can sleep when I’m dead” or “I have too much to do to sleep,” I have news for you: you are INEFFICIENT, and sleep deprivation isn’t helping.
17. Get a reminder app for everything. Do not trust your own brain for your memory. Do not trust it for what you “feel like” you should be doing. Trust only the reminder app. I use RE.minder and Action Method.
18. Choose something huge to do, as well as allowing the waves of opportunity to help you along. If you don’t choose, some stuff may happen, but if you do choose, lots more will.
19. Get known for one thing. Spend like 5 years doing it instead of flopping around all over the place. If you want to shift afterwards, go ahead. Like I said, choose something.
20. Don’t try to “fix” anyone. Instead, look for someone who isn’t broken.
(This post was inspired by an email question from Daniel.)
from In Over Your Head
