Why piracy matters

Dave Farquhar Copyright, Games, Music, Retro Computing , , , , , , ,

Rob O’Hara offers an interesting perspective on piracy.

I agree with him. 20 years ago, copyrighted material offered presence. It was something special.

Computer software was mostly sold in specialty stores. And if you wanted something, the store might or might not have it. There was a bit of a hunt involved. I still have fond memories of going to Dolgin’s, Babbage’s, and other long-gone stores to buy Commodore software. Sure, I pirated some stuff (who didn’t?) but mostly confined myself to pirating out-of-print stuff that you couldn’t otherwise get.

Believe it or not, I took pride in having a shelf of paid-for software.

Music was the same way. Back then, the average record store had a comparable selection to your local Target. If you decided you liked Joy Division or Sisters of Mercy, you had a long road ahead of you to collect all their stuff. Acquiring material that was far off the Top 40 path took time and effort, not just money.

Today it doesn’t matter what you want, you can probably find it in 30 minutes online. Legally, or, in most cases, illegally. Like a friend asked me about 10 years ago when broadband connections became attainable and this stuff started to change, “How can data be rare?”

The solution some people give is touring. That works for musicians, but not so well for everyone else. Book signings aren’t very profitable for most authors. There’s no close equivalent at all for software. Charging for service works for application software, but not at all for games.

The solution is to find other ways to make a living.

The loss? Culture, frankly. Music gets reduced to the lowest common denominator. Record labels can’t (or won’t) take a chance on promising young bands whose first few records don’t sell. Had U2 come on the scene in 1999 instead of 1979, it never would have made it. The Joshua Tree was a huge seller, but who’s ever heard of Boy and October? By today’s standards for first and second albums, they were flops.

The result is we see a lot more acts like Justin Timberlake, who can make a lot of money fast. If they fade from view, it doesn’t matter, because the record companies can always manufacture a replacement. Which leaves little reason to take a chance on someone who does things differently and takes a few years to really burst onto the scene. The environment doesn’t really favor the development of someone like Talking Heads, the Moody Blues, or much of anything else that deviates from the norm today. Or U2, for that matter, who may sound mainstream today, but they sure didn’t in 1980.

I see other arenas suffering too. Name me an innovative video game. There’s been very little innovation since Wolfenstein 3D came into being in 1992. Virtually everything since is just a variation on that same theme: Shoot everything that moves in a 3D environment. Yawn. That wasn’t even very innovative–it’s just that it happened in 3D. There were plenty of shoot-everything-that-moves games out there in the mid/late 1980s for the Nintendo NES. Wolfenstein itself was a remake of a 2D shooter from the early 80s for 8-bit computers called Castle Wolfenstein.

Creative people who want to have a house and a car and a few things to put in it find other ways to make a living. Like writing or doing graphic design for Pizza Today or another trade magazine. It’s steady work. It’s not glamorous and won’t make you famous, but it pays the bills. And it’s niche enough that it’s unlikely to be pirated.

Someone may find a way to make things work in this new reality. Odds are it won’t be someone in Washington. And it probably won’t happen tomorrow. Which is a shame.

A couple of links, one with a quote from Yours Truly

Dave Farquhar General

Speed traps. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch couldn’t find anyone willing to speak out about them, for fear of becoming a target. Until my phone rang.

The Slackers were right. I pretty much agree with this editorial. I did things a bit differently. But I think the GenX way is more sustainable.On the speed traps story: Minor infractions, like tail lights, speeding by 6 MPH, and illegal window tint catch criminals. So I see that. But Bella Villa and St. George take it too far. I’m pretty sure nobody’s going to rob a bank and then drive through either of those towns.

To me, there are much bigger problems than minor traffic infringements. I see kids riding mini-motorcycles at high speeds on the street all the time. They don’t follow traffic laws, they don’t have licenses, and they’re a danger to everyone: pedestrians, other vehicles, and themselves. Nobody ever seems to bother them, though.

Meanwhile, when you’re certain you’re going to get pulled over for something, you become too self-conscious and make mistakes. It makes you a worse driver. Everyone loses, except for the dinky speed-trap town’s bank account balance.

On GenX: I didn’t buy the total nomad philosophy. I got married, but late. I bought a house, but one I could afford. I realized early enough that I was a mercenary in every potential employer’s eyes. I did buy a small car and continue to drive it. I buy lots of used stuff. I lived sustainably, while putting down shallow roots and making changes that allowed me to do that. And I paid for that car and that house early. Real early.

And I did it while voting Republican, although since I don’t like neoconservative philosophy that relationship is strained. I want the government to live sensibly like I do.

Tips for running a garage sale

Dave Farquhar General , , , , , , , ,

On a forum I frequent, the discussion turned to garage sales, and some people shared some horror stories. As someone who visits a lot of garage sales, I’ve seen the ways people deal with some of the pitfalls. In the interest of encouraging garage sales, I’ll share my tips for running a garage sale.

tips for running a garage sale
Quick: can you spot the common (but very serious) error in this photo of a table at a garage sale? Keep reading and you’ll find the answer. This may be the most valuable of my tips for running a garage sale.

One problem is people showing up at 5 or 6 in the morning wanting to get in early. The best way to prevent this is to be vague about your address. Be specific enough that they can find it, but vague enough that they can’t find it early. What do I mean? Don’t say “2329 Jefferson” in your ad and streetcorner signs. Say “single-family sale, 23xx Jefferson.” Then, when you’re ready to open your sale, put a sign in your front yard and open your garage door. Last of all, have a helper go out and put some signs on nearby major intersections.

The early birds can still show up if they want, but they’ll have no choice but to sit in the car and wait for you, since they won’t even know for sure which house is having the sale. Only the people really, really serious about buying something will, and those are the people you want.

Lowballers are the other problem. I’ll admit, I’ve asked for discounts before when buying large quantities of stuff, but I don’t demand them. I see some people demanding discounts on everything, no matter how low the initial price is. Yes, I know that’s annoying. I’ve actually had people running sales ask me if I’m interested in the same thing they’re getting lowballed on, in hopes of selling it to me instead. Garage sale prices are already pennies on the dollar, but some people insist on squeezing out every last penny.

The best tactic is to lower your prices late in the sale, say, after 10 am. Advertise that prices will be 25% or 50% off at 10 am, and maybe knock something else off at 11 am. When a lowballer tries to play games with you, just say, “no discounts until 10 am.” They can come back then, assuming the item is still there. If they really want it, then they’ll pay your asking price.

Do be realistic about your prices, though. I once went to a sale, picked out 10 items (unmarked) and asked how much. I was expecting $10, maybe $20 at most, based on what I paid at other sales. She asked $60.

What did I do? I went through the pile again. It turned out half of it was stuff I could turn a small profit on at $6 each. Half of it was stuff I couldn’t sell for $6 myself. So I put those back. I reluctantly paid $30 for the other five. I honestly doubt anyone else expressed interest in what I put back. If it ever did sell, I’m sure she didn’t get $30 for it.

If you don’t know how to price something, visit a few sales yourself to get an idea what stuff goes for. Or at least visit your nearest thrift store and see what they charge for the kind of stuff you’ll be selling.

Leaving items unmarked and soliciting an offer encourages lowballers to offer 10 cents for things that ought to be priced a dollar. Or it leads to awkward exchanges like mine, where someone puts most of it back.

Do keep in mind a significant number of people who come to your sale are looking for things to re-sell. They may have a booth at a flea market or antique mall, they may sell on eBay, or something else. You’ll have some bargain hunters and curious neighbors, but most likely the majority will be resellers. Their profit margin isn’t your main concern. But the general rule of reselling is that 3x markup is the minimum that works. If an item sells on eBay for $10, the most you’re going to get from a reseller is about $3. The reason is because eBay is going to take $1.50 in commissions. The government is going to take another $1.50 or so in taxes. So the seller spends $3 to make $3-$4. But of course the seller would rather spend $1, sell for $10, and make $5-$6.

I’ve seen old Marx train cars priced at $50 at garage sales because the seller claimed he saw one just like it go for $100 on eBay. In the cases I’m thinking of, it’s always been a very common car worth no more than $20, so I know the seller was either lying or mistaken. If you think you have something really special, my advice is to attempt to sell it on eBay instead. You’re not going to get eBay prices at a garage sale. Essentially, as a garage sale operator, you’re a wholesaler.

If you don’t want to hassle with eBay, take a name and number from anyone who shows interest.

One tactic I see sometimes (and my family used) is to advertise a sale as a moving sale instead of a yard or garage sale, in order to get better prices. Advertising a moving sale can allow you to get better prices for your highest-end stuff, like furniture or nice electronics or perhaps name-brand clothes in nice condition. But things like used toys and VHS tapes sell for about the same price no matter what you call the sale.

Some people post phone numbers in the ad. Unless the ad runs the same day as the sale, this is a mistake. It’s just asking people to call you and want to see your stuff early. I admit I’ve done it myself. There have been a couple of times that I couldn’t find a sale, the ad had a number, and I called for directions and ended up buying a lot of stuff. But if you don’t want people calling you all hours of the day in advance, it’s probably not worth it. Putting a nearby landmark in your ad is just as effective and saves you the phone calls.

Finally, I’ve seen people take out ads a week or two in advance of the sale. I don’t see the point. Most circuit regulars don’t plan beyond the upcoming Saturday. So placing an ad early just forces you to do a lot of explaining to disappointed people that the sale is next week. The best day to advertise is the Friday before. The day of the sale is often too late, as many people have already made their plans. An ad in Saturday’s newspaper can draw in people who change their plans on Saturday morning, or people who plan spontaneously. But if you’re paying for the ad, Friday is best. If you advertise on Craigslist, run your ad early in the week and refresh it closer to Friday.

Did you catch the mistake in the photo at the top? Arguably there are two, but one of them is worse than the other. Organizing the stuff into logical groups would help it to sell better. The toy cars, the tools, and the electronics ought to all be together, rather than making it look like someone dumped a box of random stuff onto the table.

But the bigger problem is no price tags. The box of miniature light bulbs in the upper right would easily sell for $10 online. Mark it at $3, and it will sell. Unmarked, don’t be surprised if someone offers 10 cents.

And those are my tips for running a garage sale. I hope they help you have a less frustrating, more successful sale.

I think I found my next major purchase

Dave Farquhar Saving money

At Costco today, I found a solar-powered attic fan for $319. I’ve been thinking about an attic fan for a while. Solar power solves at least one problem very neatly: no need to run wiring to the thing.

The idea is that your attic can reach 150 degrees, and blowing that hot air out removes that heat blanket, so your living space stays cooler and your air conditioner doesn’t have to work as hard.Supposedly the savings is around $200 a year. So the fan pays for itself in about a year and a half. Not to mention making the house more comfortable.

I’ll be paying someone to install it though. I hate roofs. I hate heights and have a peculiar talent for injuring myself. So it’s worth it to pay someone else to install it, even if it costs a year or two of the fan’s savings to do it.

It’s worth it. A savings of $200 a year is significant.

Counterfeit software

Dave Farquhar Software

I had my first brush today with counterfeit software. I guess I’m not surprised that people fall for it (or maybe some don’t care), but if you know what you’re looking for, it’s possible not to get suckered.The software was presented as OEM software. That’s all well and good, and there’s nothing illegal about buying OEM software even without a hardware purchase. The vendor certainly doesn’t like it, but once they have their money they have very little control over what future distributors do with their software.

The problem with this software was that it just didn’t look right. The seller claimed his supplier repackaged the OEM software in paper sleeves. That’s fine, but Windows CDs aren’t printed in color. They have a hologram on them. These discs appeared to have a scanned image printed on them with an inkjet printer. They may have even been stick-on labels, rather than printable discs, because some of the discs still had perforated centers on them.

He also tried to sell me some Adobe Master Suite CS3 and CS4 discs. I’d never heard of Adobe selling OEM versions of its master suite, but I humored him. I half expected the discs all to have the same license key printed on the sleeve, but they did have unique keys. When I questioned the discs’ authenticity, he just said nobody who’s bought from him in the past year has complained about not being able to use the software. He didn’t deny they were counterfeits, but he also didn’t try to claim they were anything but.

Having seen authentic Adobe CDs, these didn’t look right either. Like the fake Microsoft discs, the artwork appeared to be printed on an inkjet printer of some sort. It was fuzzy. The styling was also very different from what I’m used to seeing from Adobe. There’s a certain minimal, elegant look that Adobe goes for in its designs, and the busy surface of these discs just didn’t look like that at all.

I didn’t open the sleeves and probably wouldn’t have been allowed to do so, but I’m pretty confident that opening them would have revealed the discs were burned, rather than commercially pressed.

I handed all of the discs back and kept my money. The prices on the Microsoft software weren’t much lower than what I could get it for from legitimate sources. The Adobe software was considerably cheaper, but I don’t want pirated software, and I certainly don’t want to pay a lot of money for pirated software. I’ll save that money for a used, legitimate copy of an older version instead.

I found a blog

Dave Farquhar Saving money

I found a blog: Fivepercent.us is all about saving energy. Over the course of the last 4-5 years, Tom Harrison and his family cut their electric bill in half. I’m impressed.Politics aside (and Tom Harrison admittedly is to the left of me), energy consumption is one place everyone can save some money. He argues that many people can save $100 a month or more. That’s better than a $1,200 raise, because it’s tax-free.

And while I’ve done lots of things to get more energy efficient–programmable thermostat, new HVAC system, plastic on the windows, spray-foam insulation and weatherstripping–my bills are still a lot higher than I would like. $70 a month during the winter, when I’m not running the A/C, seems like a lot. And I know little to none of that is climate control. So I’m glad I found it.

Energy isn’t likely to get any cheaper. So it makes sense to get started now.

Wiring the house

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , ,

My trusty Linksys WRT54G started dying yesterday. I think I’ve had it 3-4 years, so it’s had a decent run.

I have some temporary wiring in place until I decide what I want to do, but I really think I want some wired Ethernet.For one thing, my phone wiring is really bad, and I think that’s affecting my DSL speed and reliability. Modern CAT5 wiring would solve that problem neatly. And if I ran a dedicated unfiltered line straight to the modem and filtered lines everywhere else, I could get by with just a single line filter, instead of a half dozen. That should improve reliability too.

And while I’m running CAT5, I might as well run two wires, so I’ll have convenient network jacks in several places in the house. And if I’m running wire, I might as well run CAT5e and get gigabit capability. That should give me faster and more reliable networking, both locally and online.

The project would take about $100 worth of cable and jacks, I estimate. I already have plenty of jacks, so I’d just have to buy a spool of CAT5e. That, and find the time to run it.

I may keep wireless around for ultimate convenience (a combo DSL modem/router/access point costs about $70, which isn’t much more than another WRT54G, and my modem is getting old too), but I like the idea of having my desktop PCs connected via gigabit. It’ll make sharing drives more practical, and potentially much more secure if I get fancy with network segmenting and firewalling.

I think I’m going to be asking the network wizard at work a lot of questions… Good thing he sits right next to me.

And now mostly I need a free weekend to do all this.

The "good enough" PC

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , , , , , , , , ,

PC World has a treatise on “good enough” computing. This isn’t actually a new trend but it’s never stood still for as long as it has now.Jerry Pournelle used to describe cheap CPUs from Cyrix and IDT in the late 1990s as “good enough.” Running at 166 and 200 MHz, they ran Windows 95 and NT4 and Office 97 just fine. They weren’t good gaming CPUs, but for everything else, they were great, and you could build a computer with one of those and save $100 or more over using a comparable Intel CPU.

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The Pure Digital Flip Ultra F260W

Dave Farquhar Video ,

I bought a Flip Ultra last night. It’s the most featureless video camera I’ve ever used, but I like it. Surprised?

For what it’s designed to do, it works very well.The specs are unimpressive: Fixed focus, 1x digital zoom, 640×480 resolution, no expandability, 1 hour of recording time.

But sometimes you want simplicity. And it’s very simple to use. Hit one button to turn it on and another button to record. Plug it into your computer and software loads asking what you want to do. Arrange your recorded clips in sequence and it’ll shoot video straight to DVD or YouTube or your computer, among other things. If you want more features, you can load the clips into another video editor for heavier cleanup.

This morning I wanted to capture my son playing with his new toys. No problem. I set the camera up on a tripod and got to be part of the fun. All too often when shooting video, you miss all the fun because you’re babysitting the camera.

It’s small and light. It fits in a shirt pocket. I took it to church with me and shot a few seconds of my son playing in the cryroom.

You can playback and delete individual clips right from the unit, and you can hook it up to a TV if you want to see what it looks like on something other than its postage stamp-sized screen.

While I’d like autofocus, optical zoom, and the ability to record on SD cards, that’s just not all possible at a $150 price point. Not now. Maybe in a couple of years. In the meantime, this thing gets you by.

I’ll be able to capture some memories easily, and when I want to demonstrate something works when I sell it on eBay–like when I finally get around to selling those three Atari 8-bit computers in the basement, or thin the train collection a bit–it’ll take me five minutes to make the video and get it on Youtube. Embedding it in the eBay listing will be the hardest part. That’s good. And by being able to demonstrate that those computers and trains work, I should get higher bids, and I may even make back the money I spent on the camera.

For what this camera is meant to do, it’s great. Serious videographers will need something more powerful. But the casual user will love this thing. It works reasonably well, and it’s so easy to use, a lot of people won’t even have to read the instructions to start using it.