Business

The Entertainment Industry Needs a New Business Model

By
January 19, 2019

I am not sure what most of the readers of this site think about the RIAA and MPAA or if they even know what those acronyms mean. If you are even a casual reader of most news sites, you have to be aware of the ongoing battle between technology companies and the entertainment industry.

I can honestly say I understand the plight the entertainment groups are faced with, which is that emerging technology always seems to be providing a way that could harm their profit margin. What I cannot appreciate is how they typically go about dealing with the dilemma, which is to fight it tooth and nail. Methods are employed to limit your ability to use technology, and even worse, untold millions of dollars are used to “influence” lawmakers to pass legislation in favor of businesses at the detriment of the people on the whole. This is clearly against the purpose that our government was designed for.

My opinions are strong in this area. I feel like the business in any industry has to evolve to meet the ever-changing market demands or something “fitter” will win out in the fight for the ever important dollar. The problem, in this case, is that there are serious dollars at work, and people are willing to do anything to keep those dollars flowing their direction.

I am not literary king, so I have often avoided commenting on this subject because I don’t think I can do it justice. I think another little part of me believes in conspiracy theories, so I am afraid that I will wake up to find my house being ransacked after bringing up topics such as these. I read an article today that I thought made a great point on the use of DRM (Digital Rights Management). It is titled Privately Hollywood admits DRM isn’t about piracy.

I think over time I will try to continue to point out articles I think are pertinent to this argument. The problem exists for the music as well as the movie industry. I have personal experience working in the music industry and have seen how even a seasoned entertainer has to fight against the insider bubble to try and make it in the industry. There are a lot of things wrong with the business, but in the end what matters to me most is that my rights as a citizen of my country cannot be infringed upon for the interests of a specific industry or business. That is just plain wrong.

Sorry, not a lot of humor in this post because I couldn’t really find much to laugh about. The consequences of what is happening with our laws and the current environment on this topic are truly frightening.

Mood

Typical Online Personas

By
January 18, 2019

Growing up we spend most of our time complaining that people don’t take us seriously enough. I know most teenagers think they know it all and no one realizes it or respects them for it. As an adult, most of us get over this though plenty of others do not.

Most adults I deal with on a day-to-day basis understand and even have a sense of humor. I know this may not seem like a novel concept, but it is harder to come by than I would have thought. Some people just take things too seriously and jump at the chance to take offense at even the smallest thing they can find.

I see this a lot in online discussions. Forums, comments on articles, and especially sites like Digg and Slashdot where commenting is a major portion of the community on which they are built tend to drive me crazy. I used to read through comments purely for entertainment, but the common types that appear bug me too much that I have given up reading anything other than the source article unless I am really intrigued by what others might have to say on the subject.

I have discussed before how the anonymity the ‘net gives people tends to bring out the worst in so many. So many people lose all practical inhibitions, meaning the good ones when it comes to social grace or simple respect for fellow human beings. They will jump on even the smallest error in a post as an opportunity to belittle the individual and invalidate any point that the individual might have been trying to make.

Here are a few of the common “types” I have observed when perusing such comment threads:

  • Those with a valid point to add to the discussion – a small minority
  • The spell checkers – those that flame any user that happens to let a typo through before submitting their comment
  • The grammar checkers – just like the spell checkers, but these believe they are the only ones with a mastery of the English language and consider it a shame that apparently no one else does.
  • The oppositional ones – they will take the opposite point of view on every discussion
  • The rule enforcers – those that report anyone they don’t like to the moderator for apparent rules violations.
  • The butt kissers – those that will gush with appreciation and compliments for the site administrators and moderators whenever an official announcement is posted.
  • The loyalists – the ones that want to be recognized for their long-standing loyalty and obvious prowess because they “have been there since the beginning”
  • The experts (aka know-it-alls) – whenever long debate ensues, these users jump in with the “official speak” and a list of references backing their position. Sometimes these types are right, other times they are just annoying.
  • The agree-ers – these just cannot see a thread and not participate. They will post “me too” or “yes” on every thread.
  • The I-can’t-search-for-myself types – will ask the same question that has been covered a hundred times before rather than search out the answer from the previous posts.
  • The propagandist – No matter what the topic, George Bush is at fault (or other conservative/liberal depending on your preference). Even if they think they are being funny, they will constantly throw in degrading comments showing their obvious slant.
  • The spammer – the idiot that acts as they care with some half-baked post and a huge signature line with all their products/sites they are advertising.There are oh so many more “types” out there, but that is a good start. Any other types you would like to add to the list?
lifestyle

Tired of Insomnia

By
January 16, 2019

Why is that as kids we fight sleep, and as adults we fight for it? Kids hate naps as toddlers, crying themselves to sleep (at least mine do) and the other youngsters do everything in their power to push bedtime later with every stall tactic imaginable. As a teenager, I remember staying up late to do the dumbest things, and curfew on weekends was something to be challenged at every opportunity. Now as an adult, I cherish every minute of quiet, dark bliss I can get. My wife would sleep double what she gets given even a chance.

So why is it I have such a hard time getting to sleep?

I want to sleep, I try to sleep, I just can’t fall asleep until the moment when I can barely keep my eyes open. Truthfully, I know why. I stress about things, and when I do, those things pass through my mind constantly until I can think of a solution. Then once I have a solution, I go over that solution repeatedly in my mind. I can’t turn it off, and until my brain just doesn’t have any more power to work on, it just keeps going.

So everyone has their suggestion, which of course works for them but rarely does a thing for me. Counting sheep is the old favorite, but that never did anything for me. Falling asleep with the TV on is not an option my wife would let me try, and when I have tried it in another room, I just stay awake engaged in what I am watching anyway. Ever heard the warm milk suggestion”¦blech!

What typically works for me is reading a good (read that brainless mystery) book for 30 minutes or so, which gets my mind off the matters of the day and slowing down so I can rest. Problem is always having a book I am interested in to read. I have read most everything of the authors I like, so it is always a quest to find a new author that is up to par.

Of course, for many years this situation worked wonders for me, giving me many more productive hours for my entrepreneurial ventures as I worked on the computer late into the night until I was practically dipping my head into the keyboard. I just don’t have the stamina for it anymore. I blame that on my kids. I still do tend to stay up late reading things on the computer, but my ability to be productive late at night is far less than in the past.

What makes it worse is if I don’t get to sleep quickly at night, I use that as an excuse to turn off my alarm and skip the gym the next morning. I need that gym time to get invigorated and to work on shedding the extra 20 lbs I have been trying to lose for some time.

Insomnia in my life just has to go. It sucks, no other way to put it. I need the ability to fall asleep on demand so I can wake up in the morning early to get my day going right. So do you have this problem, and if so, what do you do?

general

Dogs Love My Trash

By
January 14, 2019

This doesn’t happen all that often in my neighborhood, so I shouldn’t complain too much, but what fun would that be? It has happened plenty throughout my life though, so I feel justified.

I wake up this morning, finally feeling better after my 3+ day holiday bug, ready for the day. While getting ready, my wife opens the curtains and lets me know, “Some dog got in our trash.”

I am not sure how the trash routine is in your neck of the woods, but around here when there is a holiday we basically have no idea when our can is going to get emptied. We normally have Wednesday as our pick up day, but when a holiday happens early in the week, on the weekend, or in the last couple of weeks, our trash day is automatically bumped to some other day, so be prepared. It could happen on the same day too, we have no idea. Often it is the day after your normal pick up, but you just can’t count on that. We have planned on it in the past and had to deal with an overstuffed bin for an extra week because, by some superhuman feat, the trash guy was able to keep us on schedule.

I am sure there is some logic to all this, but the company engaged by the city to take care of our refuse doesn’t care to share it with all of us. Trust me, we do actually read our city monthly newsletter, so we would know! We have only lived here two years now, so perhaps they only announce it once every decade and I shouldn’t be complaining.

So, in lieu of knowing what the heck is going on, we – and all our neighbors – dutifully put out our trash on a normal day so we will be ready for whenever the pickup actually happens. Queue dog getting out of whatever stronghold a neighbor should have him in. It is the Christmas season, right? This dog definitely had himself a whole buffet of options available. With the inevitable overstuffing of garbage cans due to the discarded present packaging, lids are all askew and rampant aromas floating in the air.

You would expect trash strewn up and down the street from everyone can available, right? Wrong. Of course not. For some reason, the contents of my can hit this particular dogs delight. My wife mused,

“Maybe it’s the wonderful diapers we have in our can, dogs love those.”

Yuck. That is one thing that turns my stomach, but it’s true. Dog’s love the baby diapers. That can’t be the case though because the Utah water hit several of our neighbors this last year and we all have little ones under 1 yr. I guess my kid just has that special scent.

Whatever the reason, we were the only ones with the pleasure of having our trash spread for the world to see. Lucky us.

Mood

There’s Nothing on TV

By
January 12, 2019

I know I am overgeneralizing with that title, but I hope to make the point that TV these days has a lot of nothing worth watching.

Do you remember as a kid opening up the fridge and standing there for several minutes before your mom or dad yelled at asked you to close the door? Your reply was “but there’s nothing to eat!” Of course, there were plenty of things to eat in there, but none of it sounded all that interesting to you. You wanted something good.

That is the way I feel about TV these days. There is always plenty of channels with something on, but none of it sounds all that interesting to me. Fortunately, some smart people invented the DVR, which lets me digitally record shows, even automatically recording all new shows of certain series I indicate. This lets me watch what I think is interesting when I want to watch it.There’s Nothing on TV

Lately though, even having a DVR is not enough. I have come to the end of my most recent Dish Network contract feeling unsatisfied with what I am paying nearly $50 a month to have just the basic options of their service. What irks me, even more, is that they are still advertising the $29.95 rate that I signed up for, and not as a promotional price. About halfway through the service, they raised the rates due to “increasing costs of delivering high-quality content.” Hogwash.

So, at the end of the month, we are turning the service off. Prior to this most recent stint back on the Dish service, we chose as a family to not have any TV service for a little over a year. We found that we did more as a family, had more time to do other things, and we ended up watching many DVD based TV shows sans-commercials. For the most part, we really didn’t miss having live TV. We ended up subscribing for Dish to get a few channels and shows we wanted to catch since we are in a pocket that really doesn’t get any decent local reception. Now we again don’t feel it is worth it.

There’s Nothing on TV

With $50/mo in savings, I am planning to research some better antennae options mounted in my attic (so I don’t have a huge device on my roof) to see if I can pull down a better signal for local channels. I will miss TLC and Discovery, ESPN and TBS/TNT, but really that is about it. Otherwise, I plan to catch some shows online and perhaps just do more with the time I have wasted periodically watching TV. What a novel concept.

Maybe I’ll read a few more books or spend more time with my photography. Whatever I do, I know it will be more productive than watching TV.

Beauty

What Makes A Good Lipstick?

By
January 5, 2019

So many shades and so many types of Lipstick that can be found in the market can make the act of finding one indeed, really confusing. With that said, it’s easy to be caught up with the myriad of brands offering what looks like the same shade and type of lipstick. If you don’t want this to happen to you, here are some things that you should look into when you buy the next lipstick, whether it be Lip Care Spot or any other brand.

Long-Lasting

While it’s normal to have smudges every now and then, it would really be of great inconvenience if you were to have to retouch every now and then, as you see your lips with an uneven shade. Waterproof may not be necessarily the best option, but the rule of thumb is that you would only have to apply every few hours or so, and not more than that.

It Smells Pleasant

There are different means for you to define pleasant, but some lipsticks actually have a weird waxy smell that may not sit well with a lot of women, and even those that get to smell it. The lipstick should have trace amounts of perfume, in such a way that it is enough to make your lipstick smell good, but not too much to overwhelm your sense of smell.

It does not dehydrate your Lips

Some lipsticks have the undesirable behaviour of drying out lips. This is something that you do not want to happen. Most of the time, dried out lips will eventually cause them to bleed out and look flaky, which is far from desirable. Get lipstick that comes with natural oils like Vitamin E and Jojoba oils, as these help to lock the natural moisture of your lips in.