Indignant Desert Birds

The behemoth that killed the newspapers

How much did you* pay for the last newspaper you read? I haven’t paid anything in years. If there isn’t someone acting like a reverse beggar– shoving paper in front of me as I leave the BART station– I don’t even think about The Examine. I may see a headline on the train and grab an abandoned paper– almost universally to be disappointed by the actual story.

Despite how many multitudes I may contain, most people are not me. Someone had to spend the $2.00 to discard the copy of the New York Times I parasitically consumed. That person paid… not quite enough to cover the cost of the ink and paper it was printed on.

Many people, however, do watch network news. They turn on their television and get it pipped into their livingroom or gym or… wherever. And they don’t pay the content-producers anything for this service. Cable networks and most newspapers are supposed to be a profit center. The FCC gives away certain parts of the broadcast spectrum in exchange for those parts being used for the public interest. Network news exists in order to fulfill this requirement.

All of these news-platforms try to create revenue by selling sections of their bandwidth to people who wish to sell things. These “advertisers” pay for the ink, paper, network and reportorial time that goes into each edition of every news story. In recent years, with the rise of Craigslist and reliable metrics around advertising effectiveness, the price of space has plummeted causing news organizations to rethink their revenue streams.

Articles like this one, therefore, are maddening. They assume that people not wanting to pay for content is an online phenomenon. It isn’t. It’s a phenomenon of media. People are not willing to pay (for TV or radio), or are only willing to pay a pittance (for a newspaper or magazine).

I agree that media needs to find new revenue streams. For the last decade, their current model has steadily lost relevance. If I had a solution to the mess, I’d probably make a whole lot of money. Since I’m unemployed, you can assume that I don’t have a solution. Whining that offline work is “undermined by free online content” misses the point entirely. Consumers are being asked to bear wholly new burdens that a century of media consumption has taught them is unnecessary. No one should be shocked it they refuse.

*I don’t hate you, just the second person. Sorry.

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Waterboarding is torture. Torture is against US and international law. The US has, in fact, convicted people of war crimes for waterboarding their POWs/detainees. Dick Cheney Confessed to advocating for waterboarding.

When will we start seeing Dick Cheney routinely referred to as “confessed war criminal Dick Cheney”?

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I’m currently in a “Jew class” (Rabbi Menacham Creditor’s Spiritual Practice and Jewish Law), and of the many things I’m learning – being gay is awesome (okay, I already knew that), Jews are crazy (right, I already knew that too), and I am a minority in the shul for not keeping kosher (ouch) – I also am learning that Starbucks is not a Jewish enterprise.

I’ll admit that any two Jews will have three opinions, and that Jewish thought has more than one opinion on this subject, but stay with me.

The Gemara, from which a lot of Jewish law is derived, says that you may not set up a fishing net too close to another person’s fishing net, making all the fish that would have gone into the original person’s net fall into yours. And while Starbucks doesn’t sell fish, this story simply says, don’t compete for the same business in the same town. While a bunch of rabbis later came on to dispute this claim, others created rules on which competition is allowed including: you are forbidden to open a store at the entrance of a dead-end alley if a similar store is already located farther within. These rabbis consider such competition unfair business practices because passer-bys will walk in the first business, but not see the other one father in the alley.

In downtown San Francisco, there are two Starbucks across the street from one another. Elsewhere, I’ve heard rumors that Starbucks purposely sets up shop near local coffee shops because they know that’s a good location for coffee, and hope to take that business. Obviously, Starbucks is not living up to the high Jewish standards of fair business transactions.

And yet! The other rabbis that dispute these claims, they believe that all “local” competitors are unrestricted in their ability to open a rival business. In this global age, I’m not sure local is a word I understand any more, and maybe Starbucks’ bad coffee is a Jewish enterprise after all. Or maybe it isn’t. We’ll never really know, though. We thrive on lively debate of our religion and daily (coffee) practice.

Edit:
A friend of mine pointed out this article, which says mom and pop shops are often helped by Starbucks being near them. While this may be true, it still doesn’t make them a Jewish enterprise. Christian, maybe, since Christians believe in love and good will much more (or, rather, in a different way) than Jews. So maybe Starbucks is an accidentally Christian enterprise, but they still doesn’t wear a kippah on their heads.

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I’m currently obsessed with Dragon Age:Origins*. The game play is old school, and story is deep. I’m about 17 hours in and I feel like I’m just beginning to get a handle on the shape of the story. When they say this is an 80 hour game, that’s not just marketing…

In this game, there is a type of magic which requires the use of human blood for energy. In the society as presented in the game Blood magic is evil, and when (in the past) it it had been left unchecked, slavery and tyranny were it’s inevitable outcomes. So, Blood Magic= Evil. Indeed, many of your companions like you more if you kill those who practice it.

Also, well, this game is dark. The first time I was forced to murder a demonically-possessed child, I (the player, me) was haunted. Was there anything I could have said or done differently so as to prevent that outcome? I congratulated the game makers on producing an actual emotional response in me. The second time, though, the game asked me to kill a possessed child I was livid. There has to be another way. There was.

Blood magic, of course.** The game asked me to make a moral choice: was I willing to sacrifice the child’s mother (who bears part-blame for the child’s possession), use forbidden magic, to save the life of this child? Or was I to let the child die? For me, the choice was simple. There was no way in hell I was going to murder another child. None. The pure visceral reaction I had surprised me, but again– the game had succeeded.

And I succeeded also. The child was saved. Sadly, mom did die. And yes, that blood will forever stain my virtual hands…

*Note to Cristian Game makers: I would totally buy a game called Church fathers: Origen. The selling your library, and visiting the sick chapters could be an awesome examination of early church life. I admit that the self castration mini-game wold make this an M rated game, however.

**I wouldn’t have set that up in the beginning without the payoff, would I?

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I try not to post videos without any accompanying commentary. But I figure this video speaks for itself.

Ok, fine. Some commentary

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As you may have noticed, the economy sucks right now. Indeed, the nicest thing that that Obama administration can say is that the rate at which our economy is shedding jobs has plummeted. That, and they create some pretty compelling evidence that this is all Bush’s fault. So thank the gods for the stimulus bill.

As you can see, the biggest single item was tax cuts. Tax cuts are ok, and since Obama campaigned on a platform of giving a tax cut to 95% of Americans, it was nice to see him fulfill one less than a month into the job. Still, the stimulative effect of tax cuts are kind of mixed

One of the other major uses of the money was on unemployment benefits. This was a great use of federal dollars. I don’t just say that because absent my unemployment check I’d have to move back home. In that sense, both my parents and I are very happy. Other people who are happy that I get an unemployment check:
The fine people at Safeway who sell me food every week.
The employees at the coffee shop down the street where I occasionally buy a coffee or breakfast– or both!
The good people at Valve, from whom I buy the occasional video game.
The nice people at PG&E, who gleefully sell me power.
The bastards at AT&T who take my money in exchange for intermittent 3G service.
I could mention Target, Comcast, Petco, and many, many more.

Without the Unemployment Insurance check, I could figure out something. I might have to move in with my parents, borrow money, spend very, very little and hope that the economy picks up soon. And if it were just me, no big deal. But multiply my decreased expenditure by 14.8 million Americans, and the economy will start to look even worse. Valve would shut down*, Target would file for bankruptcy, the coffee shop near my house would have few or no customers, and thus close. Safeway would lay off a bunch of people… Instead of 14.8 million jobless people, we might be looking at 20 million.

The trick to government stimulus is getting money into the hands of people who would spend it– and quickly. It is a real irony that the rational individual response to a recession is to stop spending–while the best government policy is to spend. Good public policy will figure out how to make that happen. The best two things governments have in their tool kits are unemployment insurance and food stamps.

The stimulus package was too small, and contained a lot of things that didn’t do much.** But the heart of it was to put money in the hands of people who needed it– and would be able to keep their friends and neighbors afloat with it. That’s great return on investment.

*thus permanently delaying Episode 3…
** I’m looking at you, cuts to corporate tax rates!

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I have long believed that my labor is worth something. Seems plausible. It is, in fact, the basis of a currency economy. So when I was told that in order to make it in my chosen field*, I’d have to spend some time working for someone and not getting paid for it. I find the suggestion outrageous. Yes, yes, play the game. Yes, yes, it’s the way things are done. Fine. Nonetheless, no one takes on an intern out of the goodness of their heart. I would be asked to answer mail, file papers, answer phones; all minor but necessary functions of an office. Things that, if people weren’t trying to do for free, would have to be paid for.

There are more people looking to get in to an entry level job than there are positions for them. Bosses therefore have let us bid-down the value of our work to the point where entry level jobs are called “internships”, and as a rule interns don’t get paid. Which is actually my point. There is a power dynamic at work. It’s the classic one where those who own the means of production are able to set the prices at which they will hire people to pull the levers of the machinery**. It seems nothing turns me into a communist faster than being asked to provide value to an organization without being recompensed for my time and energy.

Which brings up another point: who can afford to work for free? The only answer that springs to mind is: those who are being supported by someone else. Generally, the rich. It’s sort of disgusting that in America in order to have access to a high-level career, you need to build a network by bidding your labor-cost down to nothing. I’m not saying that only rich kids get internships. I’m not saying that no poor people do. I am saying that internships look like a tool by which power perpetuates itself. That is sort of the antithesis of what America is supposed to be about.

In other news: I had an interview yesterday for an internship. I don’t have to like a system in order to participate in it. In fact, I can hate it and still see that I need to do it. Nevertheless, the market has decreed that my skills, talents, experience and degree are all worthless. I’ve got to fix that…

*politics
** In my case, that would be the machinery of state

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I enjoy football. I know, it’s verboten thing for a geek to enjoy. If we enjoy it, we should keep it to ourselves. Enjoying football could lead to Madden. I can’t help it, though. A boy likes what he likes…

Speaking of which. This last Superbowl was aptly named The Misogyny Bowl for CBS’s allowing some truly hateful things on it’s bandwidth. The worst example is the hideous Dodge Charger ad:

This ad uses the voice of a TV serial killer to tell women that they impose so many rules and behaviors on men that the only choice we have is to buy a sports car. Wait, what?

This ad is truly awful, and anyone who thinks that angrily telling their s/o that watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer or True Blood requires more repayment than the inevitable hot sex* is, frankly, someone so dead to the world that not even an awesome sports car** will make them human.

And that was only one ad, among many, many, many more. Little remarked on was “Man’s Last Stand”‘s total opposite:

This song featured a joyous examination of the life of man. The whole thing is done to the finale of the William Tell Overture– a song about a man triumphing over an entire nation for his love of a woman. In contrast to the Dodge ad, this one speaks to men, and says, in essence “living up to society’s expectations isn’t always easy, but you’ve overcome it all, and deserve some really nice soap.”

The Dove for Men the ad seems to say that’s for little boys. Real men are comfortable enough to use the same soap as their wives. You know what? I agree. I’m not going to buy anything that calls me insecure. Because everyone knows that cool doesn’t need to swagger…

*true story: Both of those shows will get the watchers laid. Because they’re _hot_
** Which the Dodge Charger is not. I mean, have you seen their ad?***
*** Circular reasoning? I think so!

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Ubisoft’s new DRM scheme is bad.

A good DRM scheme needs to do three things 1) convert pirates into paying customers 2) convert more pirates than it chases away people who buy the software* without the DRM and 3) convert so many more pirates that it pays for the cost of implementing the DRM.

I know why software developers hate piracy. Developers, artists, marketers, et cetera are pouring their energy and time into creating something and it’s being taken from them without recompense. That must be infuriating. I’m vaguely surprised no one has taken a shotgun to pirate bay’s servers out of pure rage.**

Nonetheless, Ubisoft doesn’t answer to it’s artists. It answers to its shareholders. Seeing this DRM, I’m a bit surprised ubi’s owners*** aren’t up in (metaphorical) arms, demanding the (metaphorical) heads of their employees at UbiManagement.

Most pirates can’t be converted. They are parasites at best, saprophytes at worst. And because the pirates will be offered a work-anywhere, limits-free version of Ubi’s software, it will actually be a superior version. This will have the perverse effect of incentivizing piracy, possibly converting paying customers into non-paying thieves.

Add to that the shear cost of running servers 24/7. Ubi will be paying for it’s DRM until it goes out of business. They’ve actually decided to pay for every minute of frustration that they’re inflicting on their customers. That’s a novel sort of “share the pain” approach, but I see above: I think this move will cost them more customers than it will gain them.

So ultimately, I can only see this is a move born of pique, rather than business sense. Which is fine for artists, but bad for a company.

*Software here refers to the entire class of artifact that are infinitely reproducible without diminishing value of the artifact. This would include PC software, as well as books, movies and music.

**Thus proving that video games don’t cause violence.

***For US$10.65, you, too, can own about 1/1,00,000th of ubisoft

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