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A Neuromarketing company was recently launched by an Atlanta Ad Veteran... exciting stuff. The story is here

The problem, among other, is that top-tier papers are expensive to produce. These folks have their own staff around the country and abroad, have specialists in many fields, the most sought-after columnists, etc. etc. I notice immediately in other papers that I'm mostly reading AP and Reuters, and they do a good job but don't break as much news.

Even if they make a larger fraction of their money off ads, most won't be profitable without subscriptions as well. And, of course, NYT isn't even asking for subscriptions, yet.

The paper NYT is quite expensive to subscribe to. The WP, which is local to me, just raised its newsstand price from 25 to 35 cents, a big jump %-wise that suggests they really do need that money (why endanger circulation?).

Most on point, NYT Digital has been losing money and laying off as they decide their next move in a declining advertising market. I've read similar stories elsewhere. The future is bleak -- look what happened to banner advertising

All the demographic info does is allow anonymous targeted marketing, which advertisers will pay more. So by signing up you indirectly increase their revenue.

Yeah, there are better ways to handle the log-ins, but I have the feeling the next step will be worse -- more intrusive ads or, most likely, paid-only access. I value being able to compare what different news sources are saying, but would hate to have to pay for each and every one.

i agree somewhat...all the shows on there are good ideas but there's only so many way you can:

Screensavers: Talk about using bash
Call for Help: Plug in a printer
CyberCrime: TAlk to somebody about ID theft
Fresh gear: The only 'fresh' show on the network
TechLive: "Bill gates announced xyz today, yesterday he announced zyx!"

and speaking of TechTV, read on fuckedcompany that they just closed 3 bureaus..12 people canned

here's the story

Some other silly stuff from this judge:

• Uhh, it's like way too confusing, dude Unable to reconcile federal and state laws. Ugh, week is illegal. This may or may not be a good thing, but the law is clear.
  
• no harm done! No one died, so US must be right.
  
• Wierd Would you believe that my grandfater lost two trucks of gold?
  
• From a Swamp of incompetence Seitz cries foul!
  
• I'm sure there's more but it's off topic.
  

Web designers must now take it on themselves to dissavow propriatory and impossible garbage such as activeX, and Flash when designing important sites. Google reduces the entire web with simple text, ticket sales should be so easy. Please use only published and open standards for important public services. Hint, you should be able to navigate it easily with lynx, a text based browser.

you'll find 38 scanners that are compatible with OS X out of the box, 95 more that are compatible with OS 9

Given that Apple has officially declared OS9 "dead", and all new macs ship with os x, that leaves new Macs compatible with 38 scanners. That's not really "most", is it? It's more like "some", or "a small percentage". Hell, that doesn't even really make a Mac a "digital hub". As I said before. I'm not disputing that Macs interoperate, what I'm disputing is that Apple's marketing is a load of shit.

But you're not about 'reasonable,' you're just another Mac basher who wants to feel superior because you were smart enough not to fall for "Steve Jobs' hype."

Is claiming that products "just work", when they only actually work with a small percentage of peripherals and software "reasonable"?

I'll leave the answer up to you... well.. Steve Jobs, because he's apparently the one thinking for you.

That link is not dead. Is it so hard to take out the space that the slashdot lameness filter puts in?

Since you can't manage it, I'll provide the correct link for you here.

The main thrust of my argument was moral rights - you should make a decision based upon the entire work, and either view it as it was meant to be seen, or respect the director's vision and not see it at all (if that's the director's wish.)

The secondary argument (censorship), was the idea that a third party could control what you can see or hear. Perhaps I should have modified the argument to encompass spam - I don't think anyone would contest the suitability of stopping spam mail (at least I wouldn't.) But would people stand for their mail to be subtly modified, even if they were notified of it? Also, the people maintaining block lists are not the same ones that are profiting the blocking of spam mail. The censorship argument is really an extension of the moral rights argument.

Personally, I have serious issues about taking this kind of activity to court, but after Clean-Flicks, in anticipation of being sued by the directors, sued first to declare their activity explicity legal, the DGA didn't have any choice but to go ahead and sue to protect artists' rights.

I think what it will boil down to is that clean-flicks will have to stop pre-cleaning films directly, since they are serving in a distributory capacity (in my opinion.) Instructions on how to do it yourself, closing your eyes, having a friend take care of it, that's fine by me - but editing someone else's work for profit? Not cool. I certainly would not allow my films to be edited, not without my involvement, or at least my consent.

You, the end user, can do whatever you want with the media. You can burn it, cut it up, remaster it, mix it, splice it, or throw it away. The instant you redistribute or start to share the results of your modifications, is where the creator becomes concerned - because it is then no longer their work, although it may be represented or assumed by the viewing public as such.

The instant where you redistribute for profit is where you cross the line - and that's what I assume the DGA is finding legal grounds to sue on.

BTW, I do believe that control over distribution is covered under the rights granted by the legislature.

Clean-Flicks' main legal problem is that "co-ownership" deal (where they say that the end-user and CF are the joint owners) is a shaky defense. If end users bought a copy of an "Austin Powers" videotape, delivered it to CF to sanitize, and then watched it, I don't think there would be an issue. However, they're offering edited films for rent, and are essentially acting as a distributor of altered content.

The real problem with this lawsuit is over gizmos allowing the user to implement blocking, as you come dangerously close to censoring just pure information (they sell a kind of "safe movie" software that tells your DVD player to censor your DVD at appropriate places.) However, I'm sure that the DGA is going to argue that because it's a monthly paid service - that there is technically no difference between the user having a set-top gizmo controlled by CF and getting an edited cable broadcast from CF. If you're going to piss on the DGA over something, piss on them over this.

Buying an XBox is a complete waste of cash. In case you haven't noticed, XBox sales are tanking compared to the PS2.

Funny, I've heard the opposite.

And with Sony actively developing the PS3, who's going to want MS's offering?

FUD. The PS3 is at least two years out from now, if not more. Sony is simply trying to do to Microsoft what they did to Sega (ie, when the Dreamcast started doing well, they began flooding the media with PS2 announcements, even though you wouldn't see the console for another year and some months).

The XBox had zilch, just some games that were "exclusives" only because MS bought up their producers for that reason.

And yet, the XBox library is growing quite well. The first run of games (Halo, Gotham, Amped, DOA3, etc) did quite well, with a number of them topping sales of 1 million. The next round was mostly filler (like all consoles, there is always a lot of filler -- even more so if the console is looking to increase its library size. the PSX has a bunch of filler crap, as does the PS2), with a few gems like Rallisport, Gunvalkyrie, and Crazy Taxi 3. There are a number of great games being released this month now, too. Sega GT 2002, Sega Soccer Slam (yes, a Gamecube port), the next rev of sports titles (NFL Fever 2003 in August, Madden 2003, NFL 2K3, etc), Dead to Rights, Quantum Redshift, and more. What's my point? A console can develop a great library even if it doesn't have the benefit of being backwards-compatible with something else. Hell, the SNES did quite well, even though it wasn't backwards-compatible with the NES. Same for the Genesis and SMS (though there was an adaptor there). And of course the PSX did quite well, even though it was Sony's first machine (after Square decided to get on board, of course).

If there's ever an X2, knowing MS, it probably won't be retro-happy. How else would they suck our wallets dry?

You just like making stuff up, right? Did you forget the 10+ years of backwards compatibility in Windows? The backwards compatibility in Office (new Office versions can read old Office files)? The simple truth is, Microsoft has proven that they value backwards compatibility in their other products, so why would you even think that they wouldn't with the XBox and theoretical XBox2?

They've been nearly 100% anti-Linux (as much as they are anti-competitive despite the DoJ rulings) and will probably go crying to the courts if it happens.

First off, there's absolutely nothing wrong with being "100% anti-Linux". It's simply not comparable to being "anti-competitive". (hell, for Microsoft to be anti-linux, that means they're acting competitively, so they can't be both anti-linux and anti-competitive, right? anti-competitive != anti-competition, since the goal of being competitive is to wipe our your competition.) Anyway, once again you've failed to apply past evidence to your argument -- namely, Microsoft generally uses the courts as a very last resort (unlike some other companies *cough*ORACLE*cough*, *cough*SUN*cough*, *cough*NETSCAPE*cough* who run to court if Microsoft bats an eyelash at them). In other words, I doubt you'll see Microsoft taking anybody to court over Linux on the XBox unless things start to get really bad.

Anyone who's out to "stick it to the man" (whether that's their motive or not) is OK in my book.

It simply amazes me that you can call Microsoft "the man" while at the same time praising Sony. Sony is just as "bad" as Microsoft, if not worse, but because their name isn't "Microsoft", I guess that doesn't really matter, does it?

We're getting there, still not quite "there" yet though...

"There is no reason to not use that dark fibre, and no reason to assume that it wouldn't be used. In fact, it would be ignorant to think it would just go wasted, never touched, because it can fill the roll it's needed for just as well as this new plastic fibre, possibly better, as we do not know the throughput on this new fibre. Also, from a cost standpoint, no matter how cheap it is to lay this new fibre down, corps have already eaten the cost of laying that dark fibre. It would be foolish to lay down new fibre when there is perfectly good fibre already laid, just waiting to be lit up."

People have been saying this for years, and yet companies continue to lay new fibre without ever turning on the dark fibre already available. This article has some excellent information on why I'm right. To quote a nice part of it, "...companies that installed fiber conduits in the late 1980s to latecomers who started installing cables last year. ... Most of the fiber is unused and many of the companies that installed it are struggling. ... the conventional wisdom among telecom experts is that about 95 percent of the nation's fiber is unused, or "dark." "

On to the next silly response...

"...couldn't qualify as a rant... and your two lines were not
a) a violent or extravagant speech or writing
or
b) a speech or piece of writing that incites anger or violence.

Perhaps you could call it a bit sarcastic, but definately not a semi rant, rant, or a raving.
"

Well, now let's see if this holds true.
If we click here and go to the noun, we find, "1 a : a bombastic extravagant speech"
Ok, let's go further. If you click here, you'll see that it says bombastic means "overblown". And if you click right over here, we'll see where extravagant means, "2 a : exceeding the limits of reason or necessity" (as in, overblown).
So a rant is... Something which is overblown and exceeds the limits of reason or necessity. Sort of like saying we should chop up all the dark fibre? I think so... :)

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

I think you'll find something more fitting to your personality either here, or there, or maybe here, or perhaps there, or here.

And as for 3 people being wrong, and you being right? Please check here.

Thankyoupleasedrivethrough

What kind of tax set-asides and credits did the city give them?

Their web site is here complete with wierd music and all. And Denver Business Journal article here.

Personally I belive that without copyright and patent laws the invention would be much more intensive - you'll have to move very fast to keep your competitors behind.

Compared with what? This says the median house in Albany sold for $120,000 in January of this year. People living in most of the traditional tech-heavy parts of the country would consider that laughably inexpensive.

This source (Google cache, HTML) calls Albany the second-most affordable city (prices relative to income) in the nation, and says, "Outside New York City, Tri-State rental space deemed suitable for industrial R&D is one-third to one-quarter the cost of similar space in Silicon Valley, Boston, Dallas, or Seattle." And according to this, the overall cost of living in the Bay Area ranges from 75% higher (Berkeley) to 285% higher (Atherton, admittedly an exceptional case).

As for traffic: "Drivers in other urban areas such as Albany or Hartford experience only about one-quarter the delay of a West Coast driver."

I'd actually like to hear what you consider affordable housing or light traffic...

he's given billions to charities.

The article states that there's potentially tens of thousands of consumers who might be eligible for the $40 refund. Of course that's only a few million dollars. Mere noise to a company with $38 billion in cash reserves. So it's not the financial impact, but the precedent the case sets.

Here's a link to an earlier article than the newsbytes story although it's very sparse on details. Looks like they *might* have contact info for Inurv though... Phone number perhaps?

"Officials at Inurv could not be reached for comment."

You obviously haven't heard of the Microsoft permatemp lawsuit. http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/200 0/12/11/daily7.html

I'm surprised no one has given one of the biggest reasons why multinationals have moved their R&D operations from the US to Canada - and that is the huge tax breaks the Canadian government makes to companies that do R&D.
Up to 40% of an engineers salary is paid by the Canadian government!!
Check out The Washington Business Journal for just one idea of why a company might want to move expensive R&D sites from the US to the great white north.

I'm also a software developer born-and-raised and currently living in Louisville, KY. Businesses and people across the USA need to stop thinking of Louisville as a "hick town"--I wildly assure you that IT IS NOT. As a former resident of upstate NY, Charlotte, NC and the SF bay area, I attest that Louisville is a modern city with very upstanding people and lots of things to do for a city its size (and it isn't so small -- 1 million in the metro area!).

Louisville has vibrant arts, sports, architecture, politics, business, attractions and nightspots and a very fun two-week festival in April/May surrounding the Kentucky Derby (including "Thunder Over Louisville", the nation's largest air power and fireworks show). And if that isn't enough, the University of Louisville includes a very good school of engineering.

Of course, the most important aspect of Louisville is her people, among the friendliest you'll ever run into.

Thank goodness for alcoholic geeks.

He hasn't just been a major backer. Over the past decade, he's given over $15 million to various initiatives. It's too bad all billionaires can't be more like him.

Here are a few things I found while reading about this a few months ago. What's interesting is this stuff is already in prototype in China and some other medical institutions. enjoy!

http://www.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/10/24/robot.heart.s urgery.ap/
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/regionalnews/eastas ia/china-15-11-00_01.htm
http://www.abcnews.go.com/local/wabc/oncall/40340_ 7252000.html
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_69581.html
http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2000/0 7/24/newscolumn1.html
http://www.office.com/global/0,2724,61-17731,FF.ht ml
http://dross38040.users2.50megs.com/page28.html

Cisco wanted to build a new power plant in the Coyote valley area but keep running into "green" opposition. Look at THIS for more info.

Your filter needs some tweeking. A quick search found several links. Two are:

Pipeline (It is a long article so you may want to search on girl scout.)

Bizjourna ls

Why was the H1B visa created? I believe it was because of an observed shortage of 'qualified people'.

What has been done to increase our shortage of qualified people since the creation of the H1B? Very little, what's up with that?

Since the 'shortage' of 'qualified people', top-level managers have been a little more patient of the comments from the 'artisans' rank and file. I have seen this.

We do need more help from experts from other places. But do we need so many? I believe not.

Since the massive downsizing of the early 1990's, we have seen the indifference of training from our own ranks. We have seen the hiring from outside at the expense of training from others. And now we have seen what is happening to those who have come here.

I understand the concept of Short Term Gains. I understand the concept of A New Life. I understand the concept of Logistics. Why does the American solution take the moving of whole populations?

Adam said that Mc Donald's serves Coke, and Burger King serves Pepsi. Actually, Burger King used to serve Pepsi, but switched back to Coke in 1990. (Burger King also served Coke prior to 1983 when it first switched to Pepsi.)

Just thought it was important.

P.S. I know this for several reasons, one of which is that the Frozen Coke is the only reason I ever go to Burger King.

This article claims $6.3 billion dollars of revenue for the video game industry in 1998. That include software and hardware. In 1997, the movie industry had total box office revenue of $6.2 billion according to this web page. I don't think that includes popcorn and soda. It definitely doesn't include video rentals and sales. The numbers show that even if the gaming industry isn't as large as the movie industry, it definitely deserves more respect from the press, as the original poster pointed out.