Non Forbes

Writers' Strike threatening Porn Industry

The strike by screenwriters in the Porn Writers Guild of America is wreaking a less public havoc on the pornography industry. Porn writers, concerned about declining revenue from broadcast TV, also seek a greater share of revenue from the future growth areas of DVD and online sales.

"Online sales and DVD may one day be the prime sources of revenue in our industry," stated union spokesman Seymour Beaver. We want to be sure we get our fair share of that for providing the writing that makes this industry tick.

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eBay should support the ReBay

There's a lot of equipment you don't need to have for long. And in some cases, the answer is to rent that equipment, but only a small subset of stuff is available for rental, especially at a good price.

So one alternative is what I would call a "ReBay" -- buy something used, typically via eBay, and then after done with it, sell it there again. In an efficient market, this costs only the depreciation on the unit, along with shipping and transaction fees. Unlike a rental, there is little time cost other than depreciation.

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Irony in the TV writers' strike

I have sympathy for the TV writers, because I believe the 3 most important elements of a good TV show are story, story and story. You need more than that, but without them you are toast.

But my reaction is not likely to help them. One of the things they are striking for is to make more money off DVD sales and online delivery of their video. But with The Daily Show off the air, we found ourselves reaching for... other old shows on DVD.

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Forming a "scanner club"

I've accumulated tons of paper, and automated scanner technology keeps getting better and better. I'm thinking about creating a "Scanner club." This club would purchase a high-end document scanner, ideally used on eBay. This would be combined with other needed tools such as a paper cutter able to remove the spines off bound documents (and even less-loved books) and possibly a dedicated computer. Then members of the club would each get a week with the scanner to do their documents, and at the end of that period, it would be re-sold on eBay, ie.

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Random audits of ballot generators

Today I attended a session led by Ka-Ping Yee at our Foresight Nanotech unconference on some of his new thinking in voting machines. While Ping was presenting a system to secure the type of voting machines we've been saddled with of late, both he, I and many others like the idea of an open source system which divides the ballot generator from the ballot counter. In such a system you have two machines. One helps the voter prepare a standard ballot that is human readable.

Eniac Programmer event postponed

I've been informed that the ENIAC programmer talk featuring Jean Bartik, a member of the world's first software team, has been postponed until sometime in January. I'll update with more information when it is worked out. Donors can transfer their seat to the later event, get a refund, or give it as a donation as they wish.

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