@Nonimus #25: Thank you for the well-thought out arguments. I think intelligent and polite discussion in the comment section is one of the things about Neatorama I'm very proud of.

I acknowledge your point about organized labor's role in seeking humane working conditions, health and retirement benefits, as well as fair compensation, but in this case, I dispute that the writers are not being paid their fair share in the first place.

Hollywood writers aren't mill workers - they're not being paid pittance. Perhaps they feel like they're not being paid enough, but welcome to the real world: 99.9% of workers feel like they're not being paid enough, but chances are market forces are already at work to determine the fair price of labor.

If a writer feels that the studio isn't paying her enough for a script, then she is free NOT to do it. If the studio can't find someone else to do it at the price it wants, then it'll be forced to raise what it's willing to pay. If it can find someone else to do it at that price, then it's a fair price to pay.

In regards to book authors getting portion of book sales, it's not an exact comparison. If a writer can work out his own agreement with a studio regarding residuals then great!

But there is no book author union forcing this issue. For the Writers Guild to interject itself and force the principle that ALL TV writers should get residuals from DVD sales and the Internet is an act of impediment to market forces.

@Sid Morrison #20: Forgot to say that I agree with you re: union rules. They're stupid.

I once talked to a set designer who was making a piece of prop, ran out of table space and set the piece down on the floor to grab a tool. When he turned around, a cleaner had taken it to throw it away. When he protested, the cleaner said that it was his job to throw away anything and everything that's on the floor according to union rules. He refused to give the piece back (citing union rules again) and the set designer had to remake the piece!

Another instance was a guy was carrying a prop and had to move an electrical cart because it was on his way. So he did what was natural, push the cart away a foot to the left or something like that - at this point, the electrician came screaming that he was taking away his livelihood because according to union rules, only he was allowed to move the cart.

These stories may be anecdotal, but ask anyone who's familiar with the movie industry and they'll confirm the waste and inefficiency caused by the union.

@Sid Morrison #20: As a long time commenter, Sid, you'd know that we don't censor comments because of your point of view. Most of your comments are posted without any delay.

Wordpress, the engine of this blog, has its own criteria for deciding whether a comment should be held for moderation or not. Part of the criteria is keyword match - though I can't honestly tell you if this is what triggered it for your comment.

Neatorama used to run a pretty strict profanity censor, but that was an unpopular feature and did get in the way of reading the comments, so we don't have profanity censor anymore.

I understand it's frustrating to have your clean comment held for moderation - I try to clear the moderation queue many times a day, though sometimes I just couldn't get to it because of work/life/sleep.

Unfortunately, moderation queue is necessary: it's the blog's last line of defense. About half of comments held in moderation are deleted because they were spam/ad hominem attack/inane comments.

Ah, forgot to write a comment: this contest had been called already - winners were notified by email. Because there were 20 of them, I didn't have the time to post up the winning entries. :(

@L #16: The way I see it, if the studios are going to be making more money, it should be distributed amongst the people who worked on the productions. Why should the top guys make more money when all the people under them (who made that revenue possible in the first place by actually writing and creating the shows) don’t get to share in it?

Because the studios foot the bill and take the risk, so it's their just reward to make money if the movie/show is successful. If the show tanks, then they lose all that money they spent on production/marketing - but the writers still get paid either way for the work they put in. This is the basic principle of capitalism.

Residuals is like all of the upside but none of the downside. How about if we make it fairer: writers (and actors and everyone else) get the back end, if they agree to pay and help minimize the loss if the movie flops?

@c-dub #18 and Ray #9: the movie industry is a big engine in California's economy. This strike will have a huge impact (the last one in 1988, which lasted more than 5 months, cost the economy $500 million).

There's a lot of collateral damage: mom & pop businesses that cater to the movie industry, as well as those who just happen to be in the same geographical areas (and thus have movie people as their customers) will be hurt badly.

Yowza! As if salt isn't bad enough for your health, there's chemicals to contend with if you use film canisters to store food!

@Mary Bon #6, no it wasn't a paid product placement on Neatorama. Those are disclosed. From time to time, I do blog about neat products that I run across the web.

@ ted #2: You get grouchyoitis, a common disease amongst commenters on blogs. :)

@ Binks #3: ouch, that sucks! I assume the domain registration expired and wasn't renewed in time ... I don't even know what remedy you can have b/c most registrars have a grace period where the original owner can re-register the domain name after its terms is up, but if you fail to do that, then it's fair game for anyone (including spammers) to register the name.

@skh.pcola #4: the list is skewed toward blogs that have lots of links but little content otherwise. Like instapundit and now Don Surber's blog.

@donna #5: "important" is my word, not theirs. The premise of their paper is that they did this analysis, which shows that if you read the blogs on their list (either top 21, top 100, or top 5000) then you're most likely to get exposed to more stories floating around on the blogosphere than if you were to only read Technorati's top 100 blogs. (see chart on their page which shows information captured vs. no of blogs read).

They claimed to be able to vacuum up more than 60% of all stories floating on the web by reading just the 100 blogs they listed. In comparison, by reading the Technorati Top 100 (which is ranked by in-links), you only "get" about 45% of the stories on the blogosphere.

@quack: I didn't have to register with LA Times to view it. Perhaps the website randomly asks people to register (or do so after X number of pageviews).

You guys are bad!

@edselpdx: I was a grad student at UCSF! I remember that during fleet week we can watch the planes fly from the towers on Parnassus.

Good memory, Miss C, here it is: Gecko Love.

@uur: I've checked just now and it's working. Must be a temporary glitch.

Bikini (for the gals) and shirtless (for the guys) aren't appropriate attire (or lack of it) for high school function. I think the principal should limit expression of school spirit to painted faces instead.

hen nan kan (lit: very difficult to see, i.e. very ugly)

Yes it was a computer joke, which by definition is not funny to the general public :)