it occurs to Myself that many people use Yahoo!&trade for their home page. Myself does. But is Yahoo!&trade an anomoly? is it that one portal to the web that we all turn to, as the Saurday Evening Post was to its day? Yahoo!&trade has not the obligatory MSNBC power, not the AOLTime Warner vast empire, nor the zealotry masquerading as patriotism of FOX. Is Yahoo!&trade a new paradigm? time will tell. New hostile takeover paradigm anyone?

Yo Ho

a bit late,(Hawaiian time, ya know), but today is Talk like a Pirate Day So avast ye mateys. Arrr even Dave Barry says it be so.
via August

Music Wars Scene 20:
In which we see that its really the record labels screwing the musicians

Although a biased, anti-record label screed, this page gives a typical? example of how a new band can recieve a $250,000 advance, sell 250,000 copies of their new CD and end up with a net profit of about $4,000 for each band member:

The Balance Sheet: This is how much each player got paid at the end of the game.

Record company: $710,000
Producer: $90,000
Manager: $51,000
Studio: $52,500
Previous label: $50,000
Agent: $7,500
Lawyer: $12,000
Band member net income each: $4,031.25

via ampersand

This is one of the main reasons the consumer has very little sympathy for the record labels, most people know that its the record companies making the bulk of the money here, not the musicians, the major labels hold all the cards, even hold the musicians hostage, if you will, forcing musicians to deal on their terms, and many time it bites a big fat one. In many cases the record companies hold the legal copyright to the songs, and royalties are never paid out, until other costs are recouped. P2P threatens the existing paradigm, and maybe its about time for a shift.

Local Stuff

So now, here in Honolulu, the bus strike is into it's fourth week now, one month without any city buses. It's kind of odd seeing all the bus stops empty. Myself not being a bus rider I can't say what it's like to try around get around without it, but if one can do without it for a month wel maybe there's not such a demand after all. The hardest hit have been the senior citizens, and students. But other government unions are also watching this closely, because if the bus drivers do get the raise they are holding out for, other unions, whose contracts will come up for negotiation in 2004 will think they can get one too, even though the city says they have no money to give. Being a state employee, Myself would love to have a raise but I think its a bit unreasonable to expect one when the ecomony is not the best right now here. Even more so, the big shopping malls are also hurting because they are central hub points for the bus system and no busses means a lot less customers.