Mush
Update: It’s my DSL, which is now working at about 28.8Kbps. Embarq/Sprint/whatever they call themselves these days is “aware of the problem” and their “engineers are working on it.” But no one bothered to tell the people who are paying for it. To find out you have to call and navigate the pinball phone system and rack up enough points to hear a recording. Telecoms and banks change their names more often than drug dealers.
It may be my DSL connection, but the ‘Net is extremely slow this morning. It acts like a Denial-Of-Service [DOS] attack. This really impacts my ability to work on my current project.
It could be related to all the people trying to file their taxes on this, the last day. Since the 15th fell on the weekend, and the 16th is a holiday in DC, people have until midnight tonight to file without penalty.
There is also a lot of traffic because of the Virginia shooting, but the information is flowing like cold oatmeal.
Things should speed up after all of the ‘Net music radio stations go out of business, thanks to the RIAA [Internet radio broadcasters dealt setback]. I have never seen an industry more hellbent on their own destruction. They are destroying their markets with greed. I don’t understand why people who “pay” terrestrial radio to play their music, want to gouge all other sources. If people don’t know your product exists, they are not apt to buy it. Too bad the large record record companies have not figured out that everyone else isn’t in their criminal class. Just because they’ve been “stealing” from artists for years doesn’t mean that everyone else is stealing from them. I don’t guess it occurs to them that if they cleaned up the way they dealt with performers, a lot of people would be more willing to deal with them. There are a lot of people who don’t look on stealing from thieves as a crime. A clue for record company executives: Charles Dickens died a while ago, so you can stop trying out for his latest novel.
3 comments
I can’t add much to your intertubes troubles, except sympathy. I hope the problem is straightened out soon.
As to the RIAA, they have lost, in me, one of the best customers they ever had. The short version: I do not buy recordings on any medium anymore, except as gifts, or occasionally used or remaindered.
I used to go into a CD store… or even a vinyl store, showing how old I am… and buy $100 worth of recordings without thinking too hard about it. No more. An industry that regularly stiffs its customers, and especially its future customers (college students), by prosecuting them to the extent of the law, gets no sympathy from me, and no business, either.
I don’t steal recordings… I don’t need to, because I already own over 1,000 purchased legitimately… but I don’t buy them either. Fuck ’em.
On a related topic… look up John Lee Hooker, one of the few blues singers to beat the recording industry at its own game. He recorded under so many aliases that musicologists are still not sure they know all of them. That’s one way to have as many “exclusive contracts” as one wants!
The RIAA is the reason sales are down. You aren’t the only one who won’t buy CDs any more because of their attitude that their customers are thieves. They have been stealing from artists for decades. They look at copyright as profit protection, not a protection for creativity. They put out CDs based on their view of profitability, not on artist merit. Like all corporate mindsets they are risk adverse, so don’t expect anything new and fresh from them, they aren’t interested until someone has already established their ability to make money.