Stu's Place

Here’s an interesting thought, Google have taken down music videos from YouTube in the U.K. (and some other countries) as they say the artists are asking for too big a rate increase to play there works.

Conversely in this article on CNET Pete Waterman says he’s only earned $16 for the 150 million times “Never Gonna Give You UP” by Rick Astley has been played.

If that’s the whole story then this is a disgrace. But it does raise lots of questions, including:

• Pete only got $16, but what did everyone else in the food chain get?
• What did Google earn from the associated advertising (by which I mean profit after costs)
• How much is a fair rate?
• Should YouTube charge to view ‘Premium’ content.

From my point of view I think a lot of this is down to interpretation, and essentially it should be the artists who decide on the rate, and then Google can decide if this is acceptable or not and act accordingly on an individual basis, more or less what I understand has happened (with the exception that it appears to be a blanket ban).

At the end of the day I usually have little sympathy for the Music Industry, they often appear to be acting against their artists best interests or wishes, but they are a business and everyone deserves to be fairly paid.

At the same time Google as owners of you tube are under no obligation to show these or any other videos, they too are a business and deserve to make a fair profit.

It will be interesting to see how this one plays out. At the moment, from a promotional point of view, I think the music industry has more to loose. Until then I guess I have to BitTorrent my music videos (just joking, I can gladly live without them, but the old skool rave videos were a nice diversion on an occasional Saturday night).

I’ve been meaning to write a blog article similar to this for some time, but have been spurred on by replying to this posting made by an old friend of mine.Take a deep breath, and prepare to flame me if you will:

I'm not sure if I've posted a similar comment to this in the past, but I thoroughly recommend reading 'Tricks Of The Mind' by Derren Brown, he of Channel 4 illusionary. Apart from being entertaining in the same way as (I at least) find his shows, he also goes into detail about how his own personal beliefs have changed over the years, and does this with much humility.

In one section penned by the good Mr. Brown, he mentions the impact caused by 'The Silent Spring' published by Rachel Carson in 1962, at least as he (and I after a very little additional background reading) see it. At the risk of breaking copyright, I'll quote the relevant section (taken out of context of the argument for/against GM crops):

"Rachel Carson famously wrote The Silent Spring in 1962, and in it 'exposed' the environmental dangers of the pesticide DDT. She claimed it caused cancer of the liver, and offered anecdotal evidence of other damage to health. For many years in Bristol I was informally lectured by an organic-obsessed neighbour on the evils of pesticides. Clearly DDT was the great, moustachioed, cat-stroking, chair-swivelling Evil One of them all, compared to which all other bad pesticides were mere shabby-coated, fingerless-gloved villains sat on upturned whiskey crates playing gin-rummy in an episode of The Red Hand Gang. I was amazed to read in Taverne's book that no tests have ever been replicated to show that DDT damages the health of human beings. However, DDT is a fantastically effective way of preventing the spread of malaria. Between the 1940s and 1970, DDT prevented around fifty million human deaths from the fever. In 1963 there were 17 cases of malaria in Sri Lanka, and in 1968, after DDT was banned, there were over a million."

Now I know that is only one side of the story, and I did go on to read Taverne's book which he quotes (The March Of Unreason), along with a couple of others recommended by Brown, which again would inevitably show some bias such is the want of the hidden human psyche, but at least backed up by some(?) science, and I was left with pretty much the same conclusion.

To me, with my little knowledge (a dangerous thing?), Carson is worse than Hitler, or at the very least responsible for more deaths. As I write this, last Friday was Comic Relief 2009, and one of the main focuses was the heartbreaking effects of malaria. The situations shown had me close to tears on several occasions, but also made me angry that this is an necessary situation in the first place.

Science does indeed get things wrong, but peer review is a great thing and eventually the wrongs are righted with the net result that our life gets better, however the mass hysteria perpetuated by the press is shameful, and the MMR debacle is just another example of this. My son turned one last week, and as soon as he is offered it he will be having the MMR vaccine to protect not only himself, but those around him (I think we all know how the spread of the insidious disease measles has rocked since this shambolic MMR episode began). As has been repeatedly proven, MMR is safer than the individual injections!

In the meantime I will also be keeping my Low energy light-bulbs with their mercury poison, the plastic bottles with their various other nasty chemicals (where does the list stop on this one?), and if it's all right with you I'll also leave my mobile phone charger plugged in, but turn my central heating and hot water on 30 minutes later. Of course, that means I'll save more energy on the heating in one day than turning the charger off for many, many years would achieve, but it's hardly worthy of press attention is it?

Well, last time it was through choice, but this time the current economic climate is being used as an excuse to add me to the statistics, yes, I’ve been crunched as I expected I would be in my previous posting, so I’m officially on notice now.

It’s certainly an interesting state of affairs we’re going through globally at the moment. As to when the current economic turmoil is going to be over, this time around the guess of the man on the street (or out of work and almost on the street) is probably as good as the experts. I’m sure it won’t last for ever, but I genuinely do hope things change and we come out stronger. Unfortunately I think that opportunity may already have been missed.

I don’t blame the banks for bringing on the crunch, well not the banks alone anyway. The way I see it, they only did what they could get away with and it became a self fulfilling prophecy, which turned into a house of cards. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Blame the traders for their massive bonuses if you want, but really are they any worse than any of us? Honestly, I can’t see many people when presented with the opportunity of making massive amounts of money (in this case for effectively gambling) turning it down. At the end of the day I believe they just did what anyone else would do, the only difference is that they had the opportunity, others didn’t so it’s easy to feel cheated. The fact they still often seem to reward themselves so highly is a bit rottern though.

So whose fault is it?

I don’t know, probably all of us. The government is a popular answer for most, but they were benefiting from the excess, and as oblivious to the consequences as anyone else at the time. There were warning signs, but I can grudgingly understand why these were ignored.

What about the shareholders of the banks, shouldn’t they have been protecting their investments? Well, think who the major shareholders in the banks are…

So my take on it is that no one person or sector is to blame. We all enjoyed the cheap credit, the rising house prices (actually I’m not so sure about that), and the general trappings of living in a prosperous economy at the time, we just didn’t realise quite how badly it was being supported.

What does upset me is how the money is being squandered trying to get out of this situation. Sure some money needed to go into the banks, but it looks like it’s being done in such a way that no lessons will be learnt. It is a bail-out isn’t it?

I would have liked to see greater regulation in the banks, and more importantly some of this money going to making the country a better place, for example some of those billions could go towards improving our infrastructure, building road and rail links, investing in new power, funding new science, more efficient hospitals and the like. Then we may have a stronger country when we come out of the other side.

Should banks have been allowed to go under – probably not, it hurts too many innocent people. But it looks like some were bailed out a little too readily.

I don’t know how I’d fix things, I just wish I believed the lessons would be learnt.

And when’s it all going to be over? That depends if you’re talking about my individual troubles or that of the globe.

Either way, if I had a dollar…

...as the fish said in the desert.

Anyways, it's been a while since my last blog posting, or indeed any serious presence on the Internets. Just over 8 months apparently.

Well, nothing has happened during this time, so there's not been anything to write about.

Oh, apart from the fact my son, Adam Jack was born on 6th March at 00:05.

So that will make him a little over 10 weeks old now.

He's still not saying a lot, and when I asked him what 1+1 equalled he just looked blankly at me. But he's an absolute joy to have, and at the risk of speaking too soon he's a very easy baby, rarely causing a fuss.

I know it's been said by others, but it's fascinating watching him as each day he does something else a little different. At the moment he's obviously not really self aware, but the little things like when he started to find his "voice" or the way he will appear to deliberately give the toys hanging from his activity center a whack.

Naturally, it's not so good that he knows when we start eating and invariably then starts crying for his bottle, but then he's got a lot of growing to do. And my god, he's trying his best to do it!

Still, it's all a pleasure, and whatever you put in he gives twice as much back.

So here's to the calm before the storm, when the baby turns into a toddler. Then the really hard work starts!

You know, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and that's exactly what I know about politics, very little, but some things just stand out as inconceivable or just plain disgusting. Such is the report I've just watched on Zimbabwe.

I remember a few years ago noticing a pack of Baby Corn I'd bought from the supermarket had come from Zimbabwe, and I was at once both horrified and confused. This was about the time things were just starting to take a turn for the worse over there (at least this was when the negative reporting was just kicking in) so I was both disgusted that the store was stocking food from the area (and with my lack of noticing before I bought it) and wondered if my buying them would actually help somebody keep their job.

Now we see a Zimbabwe, once known as the bread basket of Africa, slowly and painfully dying from within, while a corrupt government, backed by other African leaders, destroys their own people.

Being from the first world I find this shocking. I think Zimbabwe was once first world too (or at least second), now it's definitely third world for the majority of the people, i.e. not the elite few.

We're told that we can't meddle in the affairs of Africa, they have their own ways of dealing with things that we shouldn't enforce our lifestyles and ideologies upon, but is this really any comfort for the victims and the country as they die a painful death?

And now, unbelievably, I'm watching a report on England playing Zimbabwe at cricket. Have I missed something, or is this just sick.

I'm ashamed. Ashamed we're involved in a badly thought out war in the Middle East while innocents die under a corrupt regime elsewhere. Zimbabwe deserve our help, after all they used to fly our flag if nothing else.

But then again, their neighbors are turning a blind eye, or even worse supporting what's going on.

I really don't understand, would somebody please explain to me what the hell is going on?

Imagine my surprise when I received a letter from Anglian Water telling me my payments had been reviewed and they had decided to start charging me £62 a month for my water usage!

Apparently I'm using way more water than a household of two should be, I suspect (by looking at the figures they are using) that I'm using more that a family of 4 would.

I don't understand. I have no visible leaks. the dishwasher (which incidentally is more environmentally friendly than washing up in the sink) is probably only on twice a week (three times occasionally), we tend to shower rather than bath, and I even turn the water off when brushing my teeth (don't worry, it goes back on whenever I spit in the bowl).

It just doesn't make sense.

One thing I have learnt though - a power shower can use a third more water than taking a bath! But having said that I make little use of the 'boost' button, so I doubt it's that.

Those bricks that go in the toilet cisterns aren't really a goer either as the damn things hardly chuck out any water these days as it is.

I really don't know what to do.

Ideas on a postcard to the usual address...