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Credit Karma vs Quizzle is a post from Best Hubris. All content exclusively written by Freelance Writing Business of ArcticLlama, LLC

I wanted to update, to write something clever, something intricate, something meaningful.

But…

I am so very, very tired.

Frankly I’m stalling so that I don’t go to bed so early that I can’t actually fall asleep.

Today, we link for no reason to this article about discount premium bonds and then we away for slumber.

So Tired is a post from Best Hubris. All content exclusively written by Freelance Writing Business of ArcticLlama, LLC

Here comes tax day. Taxes are not due today, taxes are due on April 17th this year.

How fast can investing make you rich?

There are many things standing in the way of a successful investment strategy. One of the most common is an unrealistic expecatation of how long it should take for investing to make you wealthy.

Tax Day Cometh? is a post from Best Hubris. All content exclusively written by Freelance Writing Business of ArcticLlama, LLC

Where Does Copyright Math Come From?

Piracy is a real problem, and it does hurt the creative industries. However, the so-called losses are greatly exaggerated.

The problem with the loss numbers that Hollywood and the music industry cite is that they assume that nearly everyone who downloads a pirated copy of something, like a movie or CD, would have bought the item otherwise, at full retail price. That’s right, the same people who illegally download free content, would, of course, simply pony up the full retail price for every DVD they download for free off the internet.

Does this make even the littlest bit of sense?

Of course not.

It is ludicrous to think that someone who might be willing to watch Cowboys vs Aliens for free, would shell out $19.99 for it otherwise. They would never rent it for $1.20 at Redbox. They wouldn’t dream of getting it from Netflix. And, they most certainly would not try and find a discounted or used copy online. They would buy it, except, you know, for piracy.

Pirates who download lots of movies often have hundreds, if not thousands, of movies saved on their disk that they will never watch.

After all, a bittorrent user can easily download 100 movies per month, but it takes a dedicated movie buff to watch that many. And, who in the world would even think about buying that many?

Check out my Quizzle Scam article.

The truth is that most pirated movies result, at best, in a lost rental. The vast majority of them represent a lost discount rental like the ones from Netflix or Redbox. In other words, even if piracy were stomped out tomorrow, DVD sales would not increase.

Indeed, in France, where tough “three-strikes” piracy laws led to radical declines in the amount of piracy did not increase sale of movies or music by a single penny. In fact, sales continued to fall.

Why Don’t People Buy DVDs Anymore?

Wonder why people really don’t buy DVDs anymore?

Because Hollywood got so blinded by pirates that it forgot about its customers. Those of us who do buy a DVD find that we have to sit through several unskippable screens of piracy warnings in both English and French. Then, we have unskippable menu animations and unskipple warnings that the commentary is not the official view of the studio and so on. In other words, it’s a pain to even play a DVD, and that’s after you find it.

I haven’t bought a DVD in years. I have over 100 sitting in boxes that never get played. My favorite movies of all-time come out maybe once per year. The reason is that I have to really want to watch it to dig the disc out, put it in, wait through all of that startup nonsense and then finally  get to see my movie.

What I do instead is watch Zombieland from my DVR. I recorded it off of USA. It’s edited for TV and I have to fast-forward through commercials, but at least if I have 30 minutes to watch some Zombieland, I don’t waste 15 of them setting it up. In fact, I might start buying movies again if I could put them on some sort of digital device like my iPod, but those that exist aren’t any simpler.

Why?

Because, once again, Hollywood cares more about pirates than it does about paying customers.

I might buy an iFilm box and connect it to my TV, load all my movies, and then play Zombieland whenever I want, but by the time I get around all of the DRM and restrictions and storage blocks and inability to backup or play on more than one TV, it isn’t worth it again, and I’m not buying movies.

And, neither is anyone else.

Check out my Credit Check Total review...

Enjoy your continuing losses Hollywood. You’re bringing it on yourself.

How Much Does Hollywood Really Lose to Piracy? is a post from Best Hubris. All content exclusively written by Freelance Writing Business of ArcticLlama, LLC

I had completely forgotten about my Posterous accounts until the company announced it had been acquired by Twitter.

Now, I like Twitter as much as the next tech-savvy guy, but it’s never been as useful for me as it has been for others. I wonder if the integration between Twitter and Posterous will change that?

In the meantime, check out some of the writings from ArcticLlama at FinanceGourmet and elsewhere around the web.

• Credit Check Total Review
• Credit Karma Monitoring Review
• Using My Blog Guest
• Is Traditional Television Dying

See you soon. I miss my Posterous, now that I remember it is here

Posterous Bought By Twitter is a post from Best Hubris. All content exclusively written by Freelance Writing Business of ArcticLlama, LLC

In 2008, however, things were different. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama took much longer than usual to sort out. By the time it was said and done, it turns out that Michigan’s delegates would have mattered, and might have affected the outcome. Of course, by then, nothing could be done because the candidates had skipped campaigning in the state with worthless delegates.

This year, it is the Republicans turn to be jackasses. The GOP apparently, isn’t tough enough to enforce its rules (or has learned from the Democrat’s mess less time) with any sort of penalties, so various states have taken it upon themselves to move up their primaries. This in turn makes the states that are “supposed” to have the early primaries move their elections up even further in order to stay in the front of the line.

The result of all this jockeying is that New Hampshire may end up having its primary in December, and thus, Iowa may end up having its in December, or even November, an entire year before the actual election, next fall.

Presidential Primary Reform

No politician is willing to talk about primary reform because there is always the chance that they may one day be running for President and there is no way quicker to lose Iowa or New Hampshire than to suggest that those states somehow are not entitled by God himself to be the first contests of any Presidential nominating process.

Of course, those claims are absurd. There is nothing special about Iowa or New Hampshire, or any other state, that makes them more entitled to being the first nominating contest.

It’s too late to do anything about it for this election season, but after the next Presidential election is over (well over a year away, mind you) it is time to go out and get real meaningful Presidential primary campaign reform.

A system where the first five slots are rotated among all 50 states would be the most fair. But, the most important thing is to get a drop dread, no nonsense start date. That start date should be no earlier than March of the same year the election is held. That is plenty of time for a real contest to occur and be settled before the general election.

The Democrat’s idea to strip states who start too soon of delegates seems like a good starting point. I’d go so far as to say that any member of the party in a state that moves its primary or caucus before the start date before the sanctioned start date will be barred until the next Presidential election from serving at the executive level of the national party. That might undercut the party votes that move these contests up.

In the meantime, some clever state (especially the bigger ones with more delegates) might want to consider the power lever that may exist near the end of the nominating contest. Imagine if in 2008, Michigan had moved its primary to the end of the nominating contest. The state would have been in the position of choosing the nominee, not just in position to “set the tone” as many of the earlier states are attempting to do.

Primary Election Stupidity is a post from Best Hubris. All content exclusively written by Freelance Writing Business of ArcticLlama, LLC

The "reform" in the weak patent legislation that limped out of Congress changes the system from a first-to-invent system to a first-to-file system. This essentially favors big corporations with a bunch of patent lawyers on staff.

Here is how the new patent system will work. If an inventor in Colorado invents a new kind of ski in January and submits a patent application in March, but another company submits a patent application for the same technology in February, the company wins, even if the other guy invented it first and can prove it. The only exception is if the first inventor can PROVE that the company copied his technology. Smaller companies or inventors who don’t race to the patent office could lose out.

On paper, this hurts small inventors, however, it also eliminates one bothersome aspect of the patent system where a company like IBM spends years developing a new technology and the files for a patent and then someone shows up out of the woodwork CLAIMING that they invented it first. Now, those companies won’t have to deal with those kinds of claims.

Failed Patent Reform

Of course, none of the real patent reforms necessary to fix the system were included. Patent trolls are still free to file their claims in the District of East Texas no matter how ridiculously tangential the connection to that area is. (Patent trolls keep a single, empty, office on record so that they can file a case where no one, not the defendant, not the plaintiff, and not the attorneys, actually has a real reason to file there.) For whatever reason, the courts in Eastern Texas have turned themselves into mindless lapdogs for patent troll attorneys, probably because it provides something interesting to do and a little bit of job security, even if it leads to a gross miscarriage of justice. The so-called reform does nothing to address this issue.

In addition, while Congress gleefully carved out exceptions in patent law for those industries willing to pay lobbyists and campaign contributions, they made no effort to fix the issue of overly broad patents of dubious value being used to force companies to pay up simply because it is cheaper and less hassle than to actually be correct.

In other words, things will only get worse as more patent lawyers use dirtier tricks and file broader patents just so that they can go to court and squeeze money from actual businesses. Patent law already has started to resemble the old Mafia extortion scam where a company is forced to pay, "or something bad might happen." Someday, years from now, when the patent system and all of lawsuits clogging the courts is even more of a laughing stock than it is today, Congress might get around to actually doing something meaningful for the U.S. economy and commerce, but until then, nothing substantial changes while Senators and Congressmen can pretend that they did something by pointing to this useless bill and saying, "I voted for patent reform."

Patent Reform Fails in Congress is a post from Best Hubris. All content exclusively written by Freelance Writing Business of ArcticLlama, LLC

The 1976 Winter Olympics were originally awarded to Denver. However, building everything to actually hold the Olympics in Denver required a citizen approved bond initiative that went down in flames. (One of the leaders of the campaign against the Olympics was Richard Lamm, who leveraged that notoriety into becoming Governor of Colorado.)

Denver remains the only city to ever give up the Olympics once having been formally awarded them by the International Olympic Committee.

Winter Olympics in Denver 2022

Every so often, some folks in Denver decide that it would be a good idea to have the Winter Olympics in Denver. This time, they are shooting to have the Winter Olympics in Denver in 2022.

On paper, having the Olympics in Denver sounds like a great idea. The reality, however, is a different story.

Colorado and Denver sound like wintery, snowy, places to the rest of the world. The reality is somewhat different. While it does get cold and it does snow, it doesn’t reliably do it all that often. Denver is a semi-arid climate, and that is true in the winter as well.

Denver gets big snow storms, that is true. Denver does not get snow every day. In fact, the Denver tourism office likes to tout that the city gets 300 days of sunshine per year. Do a little math and you’ll realize that means it isn’t sunny only 65 days each year. Throw in some cloudy days in Spring and Summer and you’ll see that it just isn’t actually snowing all that often in Denver. Storms come and go quickly.

Of course, none of that really matters because Denver isn’t in the mountains. The city’s well publicized moniker Mile High City is true. There are specially colored steps at the Capital Building showing exactly where one mile (5,280 ft.) above sea level is. Likewise, a row of purple seats at Coors Field, where the Colorado Rockies play, also denotes where one mile high is. But, the entire city of Denver and the surrounding metro area are relatively flat. No luge or skiing tracks are going to work around here.

The catch is that the slopes and snows in Colorado take place in the mountains. Weather forecasts regularly call for a chance of snow, but only above 7,000 feet or above 10,000 feet. The ski areas that Colorado is so famous for are well above that. In other words, fully half of the Winter Olympics won’t even take place in Denver, they’ll take place somewhere up in Summit County. The ski resorts in Utah, for example, are much closer to Salt Lake City.

In order for any of the Olympics to actually take place in Denver, you would have to have a split venue scenario where the indoor events, mainly those that take place on a skating rink, are in Denver, and all the outdoor events are up in the mountains somewhere.

Unfortunately, Colorado’s premier ski areas are more than two hours away from Denver, and that’s  in good traffic, which brings up the next catch.

The average winter weekend clogs I-70 with people heading up from Denver and Boulder for a ski weekend or day trip. Imagine adding the traffic of Olympic spectators and Olympic teams heading up for various events. And, I-70 isn’t the easiest highway to add lanes to. Another lane of traffic through the Eisenhower Tunnel would require another bore, a decade long project.

Again, in order to be even remotely practical, there would have to be two Olympic Villages, one in Denver and one up in the mountains.

Denver is a great city, and it is a wonderful place to live. Unfortunately, it just isn’t a very reasonable location for the Winter Olympics.

Denver Olympics – Where Bad Dreams Won’t Die is a post from Best Hubris. All content exclusively written by Freelance Writing Business of ArcticLlama, LLC

In March, Google only controlled 64.4 percent of search. While it is possible to have a monopoly with control over just 65 percent of a market, it isn’t likely to hold up in this case. First, the other 30 percent is controlled by a single competitor, so we aren’t talking about one company with a huge share and then 35 companies fighting over 1 percent scraps. In fact, a 65/30/5 split sounds like a lot of markets with a number one and a number two player.

Sadly, these numbers won’t stop the anti-trust trolls from making a run at Google. For one thing, in the U.S. at least, anti-trust is often highly political, and in politics perception is reality. Right now, the perception is that Google is all mighty.

For another, anti-trust lawsuits are, by nature, historical in nature. In order to prove that a company has used its dominate market position in an anti-competitive nature, the company has to have already used its dominate market position in an anti-competitive way.

In other words, the anti-trust actions that come Google’s way would be talking about 2009 and 2010, not March 2011, although Google may be able to play those numbers — particularly if they continue — into lesser penalties should they lose and/or choose to settle.

After all, it doesn’t make any sense to go breaking up the number one company in an industry just so the number two company can become the number one company.

In the meantime, maybe the company has paid a price for Google’ broken search algorithm being allowed to run too long. Maybe other non-Microsoft companies like Blekko can gain traction. And, maybe, all of this is nothing but a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.

Either way, the headlines for the technology writers out there virtually write themselves for anyone looking to get into a tizzy about the whole thing one way or another.

Microsoft Bing Now Controls 30 Percent of Search is a post from Best Hubris. All content exclusively written by Freelance Writing Business of ArcticLlama, LLC

However, Apple may have gone too far with its latest demands for apps that appear in the the App Store.  Any publisher that has an app in the Apple AppStore that offers a content subscription anywhere, including applications or services not available in the AppStore or even on iPhones or iPads, must also offer the same subscription at the same price from within the app. 

So far, so good.

However, any such subscription is subject to a 30 percent commission payable to Apple for the right to be included in the AppStore.

It seems that some publishers may be balking at this demand.

Here is how it works in Steve Jobs’ head.

A publisher might be able to sell 10,000 subscriptions on their own via their own website or through another device’s app store.  But, because of the popularity, ease of use, and integration of iPhone and iPads with Apple’s App Store, the same publisher could sell many more subscriptions, thereby justifying the charge made by Apple.

To some publishers, however, this is starting to sound like a ransom demand from Apple.  Their contention is that while Apple has made a great product and has been rewarded with high profits and sales of their electronics, the customer buying a subscription to a magazine or other publication is buying the value of the publisher, and Apple doesn’t have any right to those sales.

There is more at stake here than the math, not the least of which is the publishers’ ability to sell their product how and where they want. However, it is useful to break down the economics of selling subscriptions through the Apple Appstore.

If XYZ Publishing can sell 100,000 monthly subscriptions at a cost of $4 per month, that is $400,000 in revenue.

If XYZ Publishing sells all 100,000 subscriptions via the AppStore, then they lose $120,000 to Apple. That leaves just $280,000 in revenue. Over a year, that is a difference of nearly $1.5 million per year. That is a lot of salaries.

Is it worth it?

That depends entirely on how many subscriptions the publisher can sell without Apple versus how many they would sell with Apple.

If XYZ Publishing can sell just 70,000 subscriptions at $4 per month without using the AppStore, that is the same $280,000 in revenue that they would generate by selling 100,000 subs with the AppStore. But, if they can’t sell anywhere near that number without the AppStore, then Apple’s point is valid and the publishers have no choice but to play ball.

Apple Plays Chicken with Publishers

Here is where things get interesting.

Assume that publishers decide to not support iPhone or iPad apps and subscriptions. If just a handful of publishers go down this path, then there is no real impact on Apple or iPhone and iPad users.  Just like when the Beatles wouldn’t allow their music to be sold on iTunes.

However, if many publishers — or just a handful of the biggest ones — decide not to play ball with Apple and the AppStore, then iPhones and iPads become the devices that you can’t use to access everything. They’re great machines but they just do not have widespread support of all the features and functions that other devices do. Sound familiar Mac lovers?

Apple has already played this game once by declining to support Flash. However, that was a technical decision made to prevent Flash from causing sluggish performance and bad battery life on Apple devices. So far, Apple seems to have won that battle. (If we’re lucky it might finally cause a positive change in how Adobe supports and develops Flash.)

The big question is whether or not the game will play out the same with publishers who can’t really afford to be losing 30 percent off the top.

Consider a Sports Illustrated subscriber who learns that their subscription to the magazine allows them full, free access to all online SI content on any device EXCEPT an iPhone or iPad. Would that sway that user’s decision? What if there is a list as long as your arm of content that you can get anywhere except on an Apple device? Would that be enough to impact Apple sales?

This game was played before by the music industry and Apple’s iTunes store.  The music industry lost. Will the outcome be the same here?  The answer might determine whether iPhones and iPads are short-lived phenomenons or whether they change the world of publishing forever.

Will Apple Subscription Demand Destroy the iPhone is a post from Best Hubris. All content exclusively written by Freelance Writing Business of ArcticLlama, LLC