The Kindle: aka worst electronic device ever

I won't even bother linking to it, as the sheer thought of it makes me want to vomit. Essentially, it's a device that, in theory, lets you read written content much as you would a book.

This is one of the worst products I have ever seen. Let's go over the major problems:

1)Initial price. 400 bucks? You kidding me? Put some *gulp* advertisements in the programming, or something. That's ridiculous. The PS3 is now 400 bucks.

2)DRM. What. The. Fuck. You are now paying 10 bucks to rent a book? You can't resell it, return it, transfer it, etc. I call shenanigans.

3)Pricing for content: the whole point of digital distribution is that it should be cheaper. You don't have to pay for chopped down trees. So, why is this more expensive than a used book I can have shipped to me? And I can't resell it, which makes the problem even worse!

4)Esoteric formats: No .pdf compatibility? That might have actually made this thing worthwhile for a workplace setting. You have to use some DRM infested proprietary, or unpopular, nonsense? No thanks.

5)Fragility: Books are sturdy. If this is intended for the casual consumer, it is going to break within a year. Take a look at what a used book looks like. People apparently use them to prop up table legs, soak up motor oil, and stem blood loss when they aren't reading.

6)Limited Content: there isn't much on here, and there probably never will be, given the limited ability to put your own content, in whatever file format you want, on it. The high price might, might, have been justifiable if you could get out of print rare magazines or books on it. That would have been the one saving grace for this piece of shit device, but alas, twas not to be.

Gene Simmons hates you

If you download music. So, probably, he hates you.

http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=entertainmentNews&storyID=uri:2007-11-14T183959Z_01_N14187018_RTRIDST_0_ENTERTAINMENT-KISS-COL.XML&pageNumber=0&summit=

I understand how a musician like Gene Simmons, who might actually own the rights to some of his music, would be upset at the current downloading phenomenom.

But, I'd say he's the exception rather than the rule (and given his logic, we should therefore ignore him as an abberation). Maybe one in a thousand musicians have been directly hurt by downloading. The other 999 might actually benefit, or have benefited, from the loosening of the RIAA's borderline unconstitutional, retroactively implemented copyright stranglehold.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I cannot believe that thirty, forty, fifty, sixty year old songs by long dead musicians have had their copyrights retroactively extended to benefit a few record labels. And these ridiculous copyright laws end up affecting the rights to every song, not just the few valuable ones that led to the recording industry's lobbying efforts in the first place. The vast majority of affected music then just sits around collecting dust, unreleased and unusable, to protect the monopoly rights of a few holding companies who really only care about a handful of songs, anyway.

With a system that broken, I understand why people just say "screw the whole thing, I'm downloading whatever I want."

**CDs are a broken delivery mechanism, but that's not nearly as justifiable a reason for piracy.

***I don't mind retroactive copyright extensions for works of art owned by a living creator

Senseless

I have a pretty depressing new case I've been working on for a few weeks. An ex Marine, living in his parent's converted garage for a few years, walks into a store and puts his gun to the temple of a woman sitting on a nearby bench. He kills her instantly. He then shoots two employees (one of whom will be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life) before turning the gun on himself.

I now have to sort out this situation, communicate with the police, and basically wade through the mess this guy left behind. Ugly, ugly, ugly. No motive that anyone can find (and many folks have been looking very hard), no evidence that he'd ever been in the store previously or knew of any of the people involved. He was a bit of a nut, and had some prior incidents with the police, but nothing that would clue you in to what was going on in his dome.

Keep your head on a swivel, folks.

The Iron Law of Subsidies

I continuously argue with folks in various blogs/on-line forums about the affect of subsidies on human behavior. It's amazing how often people want to stick their fingers in their ears, shake their head, and scream "No, No, No" rather than accept the truth.

And this is the truth: if you pay a non-negligible amount of money (or the equivalent in goods or services) for behavior "X" to a large enough group of people, you will see an increase in behavior "X." This is so basic, I can't believe people don't acknowledge it.

It makes no difference what behavior "X" is, or how undesirable it appears on a social or personal level. It doesn't even matter if "X" is illegal, immoral, or just plain evil. If you subsidize, i.e., pay people if "X" happens, more people do it. This holds true for organ donations, for welfare, for "free" medical care if you are uninsured, to grow corn, etc.

Accept it.

Is television going the way of the music industry?

In the long run, web viewership will certainly damage traditional television ratings/revenues. We're seeing in our society a growing refusal to honor standard entertainment delivery packages. As the balance of power shifts from the hegemonic RIAA (and its borderline unconstitutional copyright monopoly) and the powerbrokers of the three big networks to file sharing, MP3s, "TIVO", and video streaming, consumers are unwilling to accept broken or frustrating product distribution.

For example, the twenty dollar CD with one desirable song, the shoddy theatre that plays fifteen minutes of commercials before the crappy movie begins, or the television network that airs important shows one time and then expects you to maybe catch it on a rerun or patiently wait a year to buy it on DVD. People want their content when and how they want it; they don't want companies dictating how they receive their entertainment.

Those that adapt and offer good products will thrive from the increased exposure and ancillary revenue streams (even if they're receiving less from traditional advertising); those that don't, will cry foul and dwindle away. Hard core pirates cannot be stopped -- just about everyone else will pay a fair price for a fair product so long as they aren't having a ten p.m. Friday time slot rammed down their throats.

Your organs are a valuable commodity: except to you.

I have wondered for years why folks are not allowed to sell tissue or other non-essential body parts while they are alive, or have their parts sold and the proceeds made part of their estate when they're dead. If the actual donors were allowed to profit, rather than just the hospitals, suppliers, and recipients, people wouldn't be on waiting lists for years and we wouldn't see an underground black market (disturbing funeral home thefts).

Creating a marketplace for organs/tissues would probably result in an immense increase in the available materials: that would be good for everyone, and the enlarged supply might even result in a reduced price (even with the cost of paying the donor factored in). Right now, it is acceptable for everybody to profit from organ transplants EXCEPT the person who has kindly decided to donate a part of themselves. Pay people to go onto donor lists or to give up extraneous organs/tissue, or agree to compensate their heirs, and you'll see more donors.

Without entering into a philosophical/religious debate about the need to honor the wishes of the deceased, our society has a mountain of legal precedent devoted to the idea that people may generally dispose of their assets after their demise in the manner they see fit. A human body contains (as horrible as this sounds...) numerous valuable assets. Just as people can choose to spend money on their tomb, casket, funeral arrangements, etc...they can also choose to let their bodily assets go with them into eternity. I'm not a fan of forcing people to become organ donors. Let them keep their organs if the price isn't right.

Is this selfish? Maybe, but in a capitalist society we do not force people to do for others without their consent (and, usually, money). In short, people are allowed to be "selfish pricks". Unless one typically offers his money, clothing, and housing to anyone who needs it, he should go a little easier on those who decide not to give parts of themselves away for free.

Another question is market regulation: people seem to envision these shadowy corporations springing into existence whose sole purpose is to hunt down organs from the poor for the benefit of the wealthy. This seem far-fetched. When there is money to be made and lives to be saved, the market demonstrates an incredible ability to self-organize (with regulatory help from the government); I doubt we'd see anything different in the organ market. Alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and adoptions are all highly regulated markets in which free exchanges are tightly controlled and in which many desired transactions are denied. Surprise, surprise, a black market forms! Similarly, in the highly regulated and tightly controlled tissue/organ market we also see a black market. That shouldn't be surprising. When the government steps in and tries to prevent desired transactions from occuring an illegitimate market is a foregone conclusion.

What if at your next doctor's visit, you were told that you would receive a few hundred dollars if you registered your genetic makeup into a database. If someone needed a donation later, you could be called and an offer could be made to buy your bone marrow (a relatively simple procedure)? We could virtually end deaths due to insufficient marrow, organs, etc.

Some interesting articles:

http://www.gmu.edu/departments/econo...te-ro-sell.htm (well-reasoned article)
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/murphy-s2.html (detailed list of the usual objections, and why they're wrong)
http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/ar..._the_purc.html
http://www.jhhuebert.com/articles/organs.html
http://www.globalideasbank.org/creend/CRE-17.HTML
http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/ne..._expert.htm l