Apple plants seeds for pic downloads - iTunes going to the movies

The main sticking point is price.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who has been personally involved in the talks, initially proposed selling all films at a flat price of $9.99 — an offer the studios flatly rejected.

“We can’t be put in a position where we lose the ability to price our most popular content higher than less popular stuff,” said a studio exec close to the negotiations.

Apple has traditionally sold digital content at a single price: 99¢ for songs, $1.99 for TV shows and musicvideos. It has recently experimented with some longer video content, however, selling the Disney Channel telepic “High School Musical” for $9.99 and the “Battlestar Galactica” miniseries for $14.99.

Apple gives TV and music companies a 70% wholesale rate and is offering the same to film providers.

Okay, I can understand the appeal of having one price for all files. It simplifies things immensely, and makes a great marketing tool. Also, every retailer should have the right to set prices as he sees fit. HOWEVER - the retailer does not have the right to dictate price to the wholesaler/producers. This is one of the major gripes I’ve been hearing about Walmart, and Apple doesn’t need the kind of bad PR that Walmart has earned through this same behavior. The film distributors should be able to set their prices as they see fit, and if Apple wants to price the downloads so low that it is essentially paying the studios to allow people to DL films, well, let ‘em. I can guarantee you that’s not what Apple wants to do.
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Brother is home and we’re all going out for dinner tonight. I definitely won’t be on IM, but I really hope we’re home in time to catch the repeat Stargates…

:: crosses fingers ::

House of Cards by Keith R. A. DeCandido

Moya and crew are hired to transport a passenger back to his native world, which happens to be surrounded with an energy field that prevents non-living ships from entering or leaving. The place reminds Crichton of Las Vegas, and it’s got just as much intrigue. Gambling, mystery, assassination attempts, impersonating PK officers, spying, bargaining, and the threat of imminent destruction - it’s all woven together in a grand tapestry.

Set in season two, this is an entertaining read. Easily believeable as an episode of the series, it’s nice to see Crichton get a chance to be the intellectual scientist he was originally written to be. Everyone gets a chance to shine, and the plot is delightfully twisted - much more intricate than a single episode on video would have time to cover.

Tangled up in Blue by Joan D. Vinge

I picked this one up solely because of the author’s name (having read her short story Fireship, which I loved), not knowing it was a sequel. Despite that, it works; there is enough exposition in the action to make the world comprehensible. A group of cops, frustrated with their inability to make a dent in the trafficking of illegal items due to governmental corruption, have taken up the habit of vigilante justice on certain special days - namedays. Unfortunately, on the protagonist’s nameday, the vigilante bust goes very bad very fast, and the protagonist is the only one of the group to survive. Memory lost to the trauma, he has to figure out who to trust and how to survive what is obviously a widespread conspiracy. Excellently woven with clean, descriptive prose, this book has me wanting to get the rest of the Snow Queen saga as soon as possible.

Americans prefer video to national parks: study

Well, duh. Sometimes I wonder who they have running studies - they seem to keep coming to obvious conclusions.

The data, based on government statistics and other sources, were taken as a proxy for interest in nature in general.

That doesn’t seem quite right. I have more interest in nature in general than in national parks, if only because national parks generally require planned trips over longer distances. I’d much rather go to a local stable and rent a horse for a trail ride than drive or fly to another state to traipse through the woods. Horses are more fun. On the other hand, I don’t much like the outdoors because my fair skin burns very easily, and because the mosquitoes seem to love me, and because I really hate bugs/spiders/snakes.

Researchers tested more than two dozen possible explanations for the trend and found that 98 percent of the drop in national park visits was explained by video games, movie rentals, going out to movies, Internet use and rising fuel prices.

Other possible explanations such as family income or the aging population were ruled out.

They may be oversimplifying by leaving income out of it, particularly as fuel prices were being factored in. However, I find myself wondering - why do we really need to have a study on this? Unless we can encourage the federal government to sell some of these parks to private companies? I can’t imagine that all of them are in areas that would be popular for urban development, but large forests would likely be popular with the film industry, especially if they could get a better deal than what is available while the land is under federal control.

Frankly, though, I thought everyone knew our culture is obsessed with movies.

“When children choose TVs over trees, they lose touch with the physical world outside and the fundamental connection of those places to our daily lives,” McCormick said.

He makes it sound as if children will never see plants again. Frankly, the biggest reason K-12 age children lose touch with the world outside is the fact that they ended outdoor recess in the school system! When I was a kid, we went outside at least once a day to play. Sometimes we played on the swings, sometimes we played soccer (and there’s a story, because I had to convince the boys to let me play with them - they didn’t want girls on the field), and sometimes we just ran around playing games we invented ourselves. There was sun, there was grass, and there was even a tree on the playground. If you want kids experiencing nature, you need to set aside a time to let them out and explore it on their own, without teachers hovering and telling them what to think or feel about it.

I grant there is a danger of losing touch with reality if we become too insulated within the worlds of cyberspace and audivisual recordings, but I wouldn’t say the national parks were the primary way of “staying in touch.” It makes a lot more sense for people to experience nature in their own backyards with gardens and pets and ponds.