Basically, the RIAA and the radio lobby are tussling over the latter needing to pay the former for playing music and the compromise they are pushing is that the radio people pay the RIAA people some money and Congress passes a law requiring that any portable electronic device must include an FM radio.
No, that's not a joke.
Posted by MEC (Member # 2968) on :
So, who ends up paying for all of these radios?
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Either people who buy cell phones, people who pay taxes, or both.
As a blogger elsewhere pointed out, "compromise" is being bent past the breaking point in this usage (though that is the term being used in the press releases).
Thing is, this isn't nearly as bone-headed (in the sense of damage to the people's well-being) a move as the gross extensions of copyright . . . but it is very bone-headed. Any congressperson who proposes putting it into law is scum (not the worst sort of scum, but scum nonetheless).
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
*sigh* I hope the rest of us get the choice of non-radio versions.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Oh, good. Because accidentally turning on my phone's camera (that I never use) when I want the speakerphone wasn't annoying enough. Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
What's interesting about this is that there could be excellent rationale behind ensuring that people's phones all contain an FM chip, as this would be absurdly helpful in helping authorities manage crisis situations like mass poweroutage, forest fires and associated evacuations, inclement weather disasters, etc. Everyone's carrying a phone that can be tuned to an emergency system relay.
But the motives and interests behind this event are such that it just leaves me giving the middle finger to the whole lot of them.
Oh, and it's great to see the RIAA doing yet another thing which makes young people even more firmly disconnected from any guilt over music piracy, hur ur hurr
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
Bad news for those phones that are marketed to older people as "just phones, no other gadgets."
The older adult lobby and the young adult lobby can get together on this!
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Jitterbug: The Phone For Hopelessly Obsolete People™
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
May you live long enough to get such disrespect from those 50 years your junior. Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
This is the sort of thing that makes me daydream about using my great intellect For Good. To wit, by inventing an undetectable robot assassin that takes orders only from me, and then building twenty or thirty of them. A year or so of twenty to thirty nightly deaths of really egregious people, and we'd see some improvements around here.
An alternative is a death-ray satellite which, rather than leave a smoking crater where someone's house was, merely irradiates them enough to give them cancer in a couple of years. A few years of that and people would start to notice - as in, "Yes, now there is a God". For particularly obnoxious cases, up the dosage and make them die of radiation poisoning instead; an unpleasant way to go, by all accounts.
Posted by AchillesHeel (Member # 11736) on :
Um... is that your idea of dry wit or are you trying to build evidence for your insanity plea?
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
You're worried that my robot assassins, being themselves soulless monstrosities, might develop feelings for their targets? It's a point, certainly; hence the backup plan with the death rays.
Posted by AchillesHeel (Member # 11736) on :
If your coughcylontoasterscough question the moral conundrum that is murder, I know someone who could advise them.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka:
May you live long enough to get such disrespect from those 50 years your junior.
One of my favorite things to ponder is exactly what part of culture and/or my own advanced age is going to leave me hopelessly in the dust, or if it is going to be as pronounced as the digital divide/world change has made this generational gap for today's elderly. Or what ignorances I will promote for being stuck in an ignorant age.
But jitterbugs really are modeled exactly as I said it. it's terrifying, haha
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
quote:One of my favorite things to ponder is exactly what part of culture and/or my own advanced age is going to leave me hopelessly in the dust, or if it is going to be as pronounced as the digital divide/world change has made this generational gap for today's elderly.
I strongly suspect that my generation is going to be the last to grow old. I don't think we are very far from devising a way to stop aging, probably just when I am too old to benefit from such a treatment. Talk about a generation gap!
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Oh yea, that's possible, we could go all Gattica and I'll be the last pre-genemodified phenotype generation. That'd be sad. MISSED IT BY THAT MUCH, I'll keep muttering in my hospice chair.
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
Somewhat related to the old generation question--
I hope that when I hit 80 I will enjoy my bacon wrapped french fry with the same "fools, it hasn't killed me yet and you can't make me quit" attitude the 80 year old woman at the mall demonstrated puffing on her cigarette last week.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: This is the sort of thing that makes me daydream about using my great intellect For Good. To wit, by inventing an undetectable robot assassin that takes orders only from me, and then building twenty or thirty of them. A year or so of twenty to thirty nightly deaths of really egregious people, and we'd see some improvements around here.
An alternative is a death-ray satellite which, rather than leave a smoking crater where someone's house was, merely irradiates them enough to give them cancer in a couple of years. A few years of that and people would start to notice - as in, "Yes, now there is a God". For particularly obnoxious cases, up the dosage and make them die of radiation poisoning instead; an unpleasant way to go, by all accounts.
"Well, okay sir. But you do realize that your terrifying death-dealing machines are going to have to come equipped with an FM radio."
Posted by DDDaysh (Member # 9499) on :
Rivka, don't feel bad. I'm not even 30 yet, and my cell phone is so stripped down that it doesn't even HAVE a camera!
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
If I could have gotten one with the other features I wanted but no camera, I would have!
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
It's like they aren't even trying to hide their corporate greed with this proposed legislation.
Posted by plaid (Member # 2393) on :
quote:Originally posted by Xavier: I strongly suspect that my generation is going to be the last to grow old. I don't think we are very far from devising a way to stop aging, probably just when I am too old to benefit from such a treatment. Talk about a generation gap!
Yeah, and the young immortals will probably point at us wrinkled old geezers and say "HA ha!"
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