Capitalism

Wizard People, Dear Reader

This entry was posted in Capitalism Harry Potter Intellectual Property Movies on by

Oh, cool!

…in a makeshift screening room in a Brooklyn warehouse, more than 75 filmgoers paid $7 each to watch the first film in the series, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” Sort of.
On the screen “The Sorcerer’s Stone” played as it was released by Warner Brothers. But the original soundtrack, dialogue and all, was turned down and replaced by an alternate version created by a 27-year-old comic book artist from Austin, Tex., named Brad Neely.

There is some chance that this type of creative endeavor will run smack up against some kind of copyright defense mounted by the MPAA folks. Blocking creativity based on existing works is clearly the goal of the folks who want forever copyrights. And as Paul Goyette says:

It would indeed be a shame. Creating and making as much as watching and listening? This could be the perfect remedy for our passive, bloated, consumption-driven culture.

I think this possibility frightens the content folks. Why if folks sitting at home are watching content created by other folks hanging out at home and serving it from home or their friendly hosting company what happens to the revenue streams of the cable companies, the moviemakers, the recording industry, etc. Massive disintermediation becomes a real possibility.
Which, I think, would be a great thing for everyone except the legacy industries. Creative destruction at its best!
Read the New York Times article.
Oh yea, on my cable connection the download of Wizard People, Dear Reader is currently taking less then 30 minutes!

It’s Already There!

This entry was posted in Business US Capitalism Economics Information Internet Technology on by

I suspect that SK Bubba doesn’t really mean this post title: To Much Technology. Here’s the post:

I was just wondering where the heck a package was that was supposed to be delivered today. I called the company and got a tracking number and looked it up on the Internet. The carrier said it had been delivered to my door. I looked on the porch and sure enough, there it was. How pathetic is that?
I had a similar experience this morning. Vendor sends email that says the package they sent yesterday has been delivered. A couple minutes later the shipping clerk is carrying the package through my door.
What a wonderful example of a productivity improvement brought on by enough technology.
Not that many years ago when I purchased (business or personal) or shipped something (business) there was no such thing as a tracking number. Some of you will remember the numerous phone calls that would go back and forth between folks that went something like:
Buyer: My #$%$ package isn’t here yet!
Seller: But we shipped it yesterday….
Repeated many times.
Today tracking numbers are common. Business use is nearly universal and most online retailers include a tracking number in an email as part of their service process. And today’s conversation is most often with a computer database that tells one exactly where the package is…right now. It’s easier, less confrontational and I even have a sense that deliveries are on time more often as well.
There is a lot of people time that had been involved with tracking packages that has now been outsourced to technology and not to India or China.
Seems a good thing to me. And likely to get even better as the related technology becomes more pervasive.

Something is Broken

This entry was posted in ashcroft Capitalism Domestic Terrorism Drug Laws Law Enforcement Libertarianism on by

It is incarceration statistics time again and things have not improved in the US since we last visited this subject.
The rates are up:

Figures just released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics indicate that as of midyear 2003, there were nearly 2.1 million inmates in the nation�s prisons and jails, representing an increase of 2.9% over the previous twelve months.
This is a rate of 715 per 100,000 residents!!??
Who is the nearest competitor? It is Russia which jails 554 per 100,000 which is down from 690 per 100,000 in 1995.
How does the US compare to some other developed economies? It is not a pretty picture:
Rates of incarceration per 100,000 for other industrialized nations include Australia � 114, Canada — 116, England/Wales — 143, France — 95, Germany � 96, and Japan � 54.
Are you reading about uncontrolled lawlessness in any of these countries?
The numbers appear to support the points made by Zombyboy and the talking dog in the comments to this post that there is a large racist component in our existing drug laws:
One in eight (12.8%) black males aged 25-29 was in prison or jail at midyear 2002, as were 1 in 27(3.7%) Hispanic males and 1 in 63 (1.6%) white males in the same age group.
Things don’t look too good if you are a black male. And even worse if you are a black male drug user :
While African Americans constitute 13% of the nation�s monthly drug users, they represent 35% of those persons arrested for drug crime, 53% of drug convictions, and 58% of those in prison for drug offenses.
Who are the other 87% of drug users? No big surprise here: whites 72% of users, Hispanics 11% and others 4%.
To the folks that argue that the declining crime rates must be a result of the increased incarceration I say phooey. First, if this were the case then we should see declining admissions as well but, no, admissions are increasing. Second, we should be looking at these numbers and asking: Why do we need to jail so many at all? The real issue is that in the US, in the land of the free, some things are broken.
Societies that incarcerate this large a portion of their population need to do some serious self evaluation and reworking.
Governments that incarcerate this large a portion of their population need to be redesigned.
Via Talkleft and Let it Begin Here.

Ending the Addiction

This entry was posted in Capitalism Constitution Culture Domestic Terrorism Drug Laws Law Enforcement Libertarianism on by

Nope, not drug or alcohol addiction though I suspect Bill Masters, sheriff of San Miguel County, Colorado would support individuals working to end their addiction.
Instead Masters argues that it is time to end the drug war addiction:

“The only reason why drugs and crime have expanded to reach every Mayberry village in the country is our blind obedience to misguided laws and police tactics that just do not work,” Masters writes in his essay introducing the collection. “It is time to admit our own folly and stop our addiction to the drug war.”

What does the drug war addiction cost:

According to research cited in Master’s book The New Prohibition, state and federal authorities spend more than $9 billion a year to imprison close to half a million drug offenders. More people are sent to prison for drug offenses than for violent crimes, a trend that’s been consistent since 1989. The overall cost to the justice system of arresting, convicting, punishing and supervising drug offenders stands at about $70 billion a year.

$70 billion??? I suspect that we could find much better things to do with that money. Including, of course, rehabilitation and retraining for the ex drug war addicts.
The Masters article via Avedon Carol.