Well my boss in 1993 was able to control his home appliances (albeit not from a cellphone, but a landline phone) with his Mac and a modem. So this isn't really "future" technology, is it?
Advertising is not Evil. Most of the time there are people with actual goods and services that could be a value to someone. I am fine with Adds just as long as they are under control. A flash banner add is not a big deal.
I guess you aren't, but I'm offended by most ads because they are like bad movies; they are an insult to my (and everyone else's) intelligence and a waste of my time. For you to apologize for them makes me question the validity of your argument, frankly. Oh yeah, and it's "Ad", not "Add".
Having lived in the UK and Germany, the first thing I noticed was the relative lack of intellect-insulting advertisements (although the UK is catching up rapidly). How is it that societies like Germany and England can thrive and be competitive on the world market, without a ridiculously out-of-control, assault-the-consumer-with-ads mentality? I think the US would realize that people would still watch tv shows, still go to sporting events and still buy Tide with Bleach if all the ads just went away.
Ads will always pander to the bottom half of the bell-curve, because those are the same idiots who will actually buy the stuff (which is the point of the ad in the first place). The tricky part for advertisers is to trick enough suckers while offending the least amount of intelligent people as possible. I'm all for just making a damned good product, then throwing some ads out there to put your product in the public light, but no, that's not good enough for most companies, because if they are heavily advertised, they most likely are trying to compensate for some shortcoming.
Who? What? Looks like they failed at brand marketing. Now if you were to have said, "just look at the last 35 years of Budweiser ads", that would be crystal clear.
I am skeptical of the "corporate" web episodes experience too, but am very pleased with the ABC one. The HD shows are very good (after they spool up enough to be clear). The NBC one, however, is trash. What an awful-awful-awful player. And the double kick in the nuts is that they pulled their content from iTunes. At least on iTunes I could purchase The Office and watch it at my leisure WITHOUT "brief commercial interruptions". The web version is so choppy and pixelated at times that it is unwatchable.
Web ads can be contextually and geographically sensitive, depending on other factors it can contain known history/interests of the user as well.
To borrow from the NYT, then why do I keep getting spams for home mortgages and dating sites when I already own a house and I am already married? Those male enhancement ads, on the other hand...
TV ads are very geographically sensitive, and to an extent, contextual as well. Watch some Ultimate Fighting on Spike, and notice how all the ads are targeted to testosterone laden tough-guys.
I have to call BS. Not that I have a better study to point to or anything, but online ads are far easier to ignore than TV ads, because TV ads take up the whole screen. At one point, sporting events actually got advertisers to agree to letting the sports game stay on at the bottom of the screen during the commercials. The advertisers quickly balked because, surprise, nobody paid any attention to the ads, even though they took up 80% of the screen and had the audio. Same thing goes for the web, except in most cases the ads only take up a very small portion of the screen. Like right now, I can't even notice "The Future is Blu" ad at the top of this page without making a concerted effort to find it and look at it.
1.)
these Motorcycles are not "green", as long as the power to charge them
is generated by non-green powerplants.
You've exposed the most fraudulent part of the greenies' movement. Recharging batteries requires electricity, which in the US, is derived primarily from burning coal, which is worse ecologically than burning gasoline. As long as the Greenies keep pushing fake green agendas on us like electric cars but at the SAME TIME keep protesting nuclear power, this will never be a good solution.
Tired of hearing it or not, you aren't really hearing what we are saying. Nobody is saying that no good music is out there (as a matter of fact, we've pointed out some already). What we are saying is that the mainstream popular stuff keeps getting worse and worse with every 1/2 generation. And no, it isn't because I'm too old to appreciate it. At 38 and an active musician in several rock projects, I kind of keep up with the times. And for your favorite obscure music, good for you. Just because it is obscure though doesn't necessarily make it good (even though it very well may be). "I knew the band before they were famous" comes to mind. I guess this is sort of the FOSS movement mentality, but in musical form? I live in Austin, TX, so you don't need to tell me about 100s of great unsigned bands;-)
Take my generational challenge I posted earlier: write down 5 or 6 genres of music, then compare the mainstream hits from each genre from the 60s 70s 80s 90s and 00s. To get you started, just try some R&B from the 60s and 70s and compare it to today, then tell me with a straight face that modern R&B doesn't sucketh greatly. Most modern "R&B" is just resampled versions of the classics with rap over the top. Country? Better back then (better is a relative term, however). Rock, DEFINITELY better back then. Disco? ahhhhh, ok, you win on that one, although I'd prefer disco to techno if forced at gunpoint.
Undoubtedly you'll see a steady decline of musicianship, ultimately devolving from a group of musicians into a group of celebrities. Yes, every generation has had celebrity singers, but while the 70s may have had David Cassidy, they also had Peter Frampton, the Stones, Paul Simon, and about a billion other excellent (and mostly ugly) musicians. The celebrity:musician ratio back then was about 5:95, whereas today it is the other way around.
(disclaimer: I picked the 70s in this scenario to show that not every generation thinks theirs is the best, mine being the 80s...which, is still far better than today's crop of music).
Consider yourself lucky. There is plenty (albeit anecdotal) evidence just here on slashdot to the contrary. MOST of us have seem to be blessed with the "dies in less than four years" models. Hard drives fail so frequently that I can't even think of how old the oldest one I've ever owned lasted.
I don't like Hilary Clinton, but every once in a while she says something that is factually correct. I don't discredit her on those ocassions just because I don't like her or I think she has a known agenda.
I actually like My Chemical Romance because, surprise, the guitar player is actually pretty good. But unless the drop they whole "My daddy hates me so I'll cut myself" image, they won't be around past the next album (which would be a shame, since they are a bright light in an otherwise dim landscape).
"Two of Hearts", on the other hand, sucks...hard. BUT, in it's defense, it wasn't the defining song of its generation either. Bubble Gum Pop will always be around and will always (mostly) be bad. Is Britney Spears any better or worse than Stacy Q? To be fair, there was good pop back then (Jody Watley, for example) just as there was bad.
That's an interesting concept...I think I'll measure the corellation coefficient of Talk Radio listnership and Crappy Modern Pop Music. I'm going to guess there is a strong inverse correlation.
What I want to see are related content where the general public can respond to the articles and I can see, from both sides of the issue, responses that are far more relevant than the two pages and misquoted whinings that appear linked from Google News
Surf on over to Cnet.com and enjoy the "general public" responding with such relevance as, "M$ Windoze BLOWS!", or "Macs are GAY!". If that's not enough for you, then try reading "general public"'s posts about how great "Device-X-That-Isn't-Even-on-the-Market-Yet-but-I'm-going-to-Post-How-Awesome-This-Thing-Is-Because-I-Really-Really-Own-One-Already" is.
If that isn't enough comedy for you, try reading some "User Reviews" on Rottentomatoes.com. Frankly, I don't understand the appeal of what "general public" thinks.
While I think this is good, because it allows for sources to respond to an article, I think it's important to remember that the sources themselves may not always be truthful. If they don't like the way an article came out, they could say they were misquoted, even when they weren't.
Well at least it is out there, so the reader can decide if he/she believes the reporter or the quotee.
I would imagine that a 10 year old hard drive that was used all day would last longer than an ssd.
Considering in over 25 years of computing, I've never seen a hard drive last longer than 5 or so years, I'm just going to go ahead and bet that an ssd would be a better choice for me.
I'm not calling GnR "classic" because their tunes are still very much contemporary sounding (as opposed to truly classic rock like Zep, or Cream). For what it's worth, I see a growing trend of music moving back to the guitar oriented sounds of bands like GnR, which in my book, is a very good thing. Can you imagine the 20-somethings actually being able to play individual notes along the fretboard of a guitar as opposed to playing the same three power chords over and over again?
Niether did my 11-year old son, until he started playing Guitar Hero. The damndest thing is I already own 90% of those songs, and he's never shown much interest. Now he wants to buy all the songs, to which I just show him I already own them all (mostly on vinyl...heh).
Foghat and Mountain are kinda one-hit wonder-ish, but you don't know Stevie Ray Vaughn or the Scorpions? What are you, like 8?;-)
Every generation thinks its music is the best and the new stuff sucks. I think 80's metal is the best myself. I despise Boomer and Generation Y music. But that's just because I was a teenager in the 80's. Happens every generation.
That's why I think Led Zeppelin is the greatest rock band ever...because I was a teen during the 80s...oh wait. Sorry, I hear your argument a lot, but the older one gets, the less likely he/she is to believe that music from his/her generation is the best, because he/she has a little thing I like to call "perspective". Granted, some people just can't let go, and I'll admit, I hated Bon Jovi in their hayday, but now I have to admit, for run-of-the-mill-radio-friendly-rock, they aren't half bad.
That's not to say new music sucks, but new POPULAR music does sucketh greatly. This isn't solely the blame of young people either, because my 35-year old ex-wife listens to Soulja CrankShite whateverthehell. She buys ALL of the top 10 iTunes songs religiously. There are many like her.
You think 80s metal is the best because it is some of the best music, regardless of when you were born (not counting hair-bands though...that's when rock jumped the shark).
We should have ditched CDs long ago and we should have a la carte style cable service, ordering only those channels we wish, but none of this has happened yet either. For that matter, cars really haven't evolved much in 50 years either. If only 5% of industry would meet my desire for progress I'd be happy, but unfortunately capitalism dominates, thus keeping us mired in mediocrity for decades.
Music across all genres was better 15 years ago, just like your Salt N Peppa analogy proves! Seriously, check it out for yourselves. Write down all the genres you can think of, and they were ALL beter in 1990. Send me a list and I'll provide examples. I can't even stand rap or hip hop, but in comparison, that late 80s stuff was pretty damned good. But then again, that late 80s stuff actually had music laid down in the tracks.
Guitar Hero III man. My kid can't get enough Scorpions, SRV, Foghat and Mountain. Has he even replayed the AFI song once? I don't think so. A little perspective is all most intelligent young people need to see their crop of music is pretty lame compared to the old stuff.
I get the chance to instruct young people (18-24) for 16-week long classes a couple times a year, and I always bring up music debates for fun during our down times. With every class, good music that will stand the test of time falls on deaf ears. I often ask them, which song will still be listened to in 20 years, "Welcome to the Jungle" or "Insert Crappy One Hit Wonder Song Here"? Most of them actually think Fall Out Boy will have more playability in 20 years.
Slashdot Mirror
Well my boss in 1993 was able to control his home appliances (albeit not from a cellphone, but a landline phone) with his Mac and a modem. So this isn't really "future" technology, is it?
If google is so good, then why do I keep getting ads for University of Phoenix, when I've already graduated from the University of Phoenix?
If a web ad were well designed, we wouldn't be able to answer your question, because we wouldn't be aware we had clicked on an ad in the first place.
Having lived in the UK and Germany, the first thing I noticed was the relative lack of intellect-insulting advertisements (although the UK is catching up rapidly). How is it that societies like Germany and England can thrive and be competitive on the world market, without a ridiculously out-of-control, assault-the-consumer-with-ads mentality? I think the US would realize that people would still watch tv shows, still go to sporting events and still buy Tide with Bleach if all the ads just went away.
Ads will always pander to the bottom half of the bell-curve, because those are the same idiots who will actually buy the stuff (which is the point of the ad in the first place). The tricky part for advertisers is to trick enough suckers while offending the least amount of intelligent people as possible. I'm all for just making a damned good product, then throwing some ads out there to put your product in the public light, but no, that's not good enough for most companies, because if they are heavily advertised, they most likely are trying to compensate for some shortcoming.
ads are ads are ads are ads. They are all unwelcomed, unless I'm actively seeking them. But yeah, I'm an idiot.
I am skeptical of the "corporate" web episodes experience too, but am very pleased with the ABC one. The HD shows are very good (after they spool up enough to be clear). The NBC one, however, is trash. What an awful-awful-awful player. And the double kick in the nuts is that they pulled their content from iTunes. At least on iTunes I could purchase The Office and watch it at my leisure WITHOUT "brief commercial interruptions". The web version is so choppy and pixelated at times that it is unwatchable.
TV ads are very geographically sensitive, and to an extent, contextual as well. Watch some Ultimate Fighting on Spike, and notice how all the ads are targeted to testosterone laden tough-guys.
I have to call BS. Not that I have a better study to point to or anything, but online ads are far easier to ignore than TV ads, because TV ads take up the whole screen. At one point, sporting events actually got advertisers to agree to letting the sports game stay on at the bottom of the screen during the commercials. The advertisers quickly balked because, surprise, nobody paid any attention to the ads, even though they took up 80% of the screen and had the audio. Same thing goes for the web, except in most cases the ads only take up a very small portion of the screen. Like right now, I can't even notice "The Future is Blu" ad at the top of this page without making a concerted effort to find it and look at it.
Take my generational challenge I posted earlier: write down 5 or 6 genres of music, then compare the mainstream hits from each genre from the 60s 70s 80s 90s and 00s. To get you started, just try some R&B from the 60s and 70s and compare it to today, then tell me with a straight face that modern R&B doesn't sucketh greatly. Most modern "R&B" is just resampled versions of the classics with rap over the top. Country? Better back then (better is a relative term, however). Rock, DEFINITELY better back then. Disco? ahhhhh, ok, you win on that one, although I'd prefer disco to techno if forced at gunpoint.
Undoubtedly you'll see a steady decline of musicianship, ultimately devolving from a group of musicians into a group of celebrities. Yes, every generation has had celebrity singers, but while the 70s may have had David Cassidy, they also had Peter Frampton, the Stones, Paul Simon, and about a billion other excellent (and mostly ugly) musicians. The celebrity:musician ratio back then was about 5:95, whereas today it is the other way around.
(disclaimer: I picked the 70s in this scenario to show that not every generation thinks theirs is the best, mine being the 80s...which, is still far better than today's crop of music).
Consider yourself lucky. There is plenty (albeit anecdotal) evidence just here on slashdot to the contrary. MOST of us have seem to be blessed with the "dies in less than four years" models. Hard drives fail so frequently that I can't even think of how old the oldest one I've ever owned lasted.
I don't like Hilary Clinton, but every once in a while she says something that is factually correct. I don't discredit her on those ocassions just because I don't like her or I think she has a known agenda.
"Two of Hearts", on the other hand, sucks...hard. BUT, in it's defense, it wasn't the defining song of its generation either. Bubble Gum Pop will always be around and will always (mostly) be bad. Is Britney Spears any better or worse than Stacy Q? To be fair, there was good pop back then (Jody Watley, for example) just as there was bad.
That's an interesting concept...I think I'll measure the corellation coefficient of Talk Radio listnership and Crappy Modern Pop Music. I'm going to guess there is a strong inverse correlation.
If that isn't enough comedy for you, try reading some "User Reviews" on Rottentomatoes.com. Frankly, I don't understand the appeal of what "general public" thinks.
I'm not calling GnR "classic" because their tunes are still very much contemporary sounding (as opposed to truly classic rock like Zep, or Cream). For what it's worth, I see a growing trend of music moving back to the guitar oriented sounds of bands like GnR, which in my book, is a very good thing. Can you imagine the 20-somethings actually being able to play individual notes along the fretboard of a guitar as opposed to playing the same three power chords over and over again?
Foghat and Mountain are kinda one-hit wonder-ish, but you don't know Stevie Ray Vaughn or the Scorpions? What are you, like 8? ;-)
That's not to say new music sucks, but new POPULAR music does sucketh greatly. This isn't solely the blame of young people either, because my 35-year old ex-wife listens to Soulja CrankShite whateverthehell. She buys ALL of the top 10 iTunes songs religiously. There are many like her.
You think 80s metal is the best because it is some of the best music, regardless of when you were born (not counting hair-bands though...that's when rock jumped the shark).
We should have ditched CDs long ago and we should have a la carte style cable service, ordering only those channels we wish, but none of this has happened yet either. For that matter, cars really haven't evolved much in 50 years either. If only 5% of industry would meet my desire for progress I'd be happy, but unfortunately capitalism dominates, thus keeping us mired in mediocrity for decades.
Somebody is buying this crap though. Ahhhh, the joys of capitalism.
Music across all genres was better 15 years ago, just like your Salt N Peppa analogy proves! Seriously, check it out for yourselves. Write down all the genres you can think of, and they were ALL beter in 1990. Send me a list and I'll provide examples. I can't even stand rap or hip hop, but in comparison, that late 80s stuff was pretty damned good. But then again, that late 80s stuff actually had music laid down in the tracks.
I get the chance to instruct young people (18-24) for 16-week long classes a couple times a year, and I always bring up music debates for fun during our down times. With every class, good music that will stand the test of time falls on deaf ears. I often ask them, which song will still be listened to in 20 years, "Welcome to the Jungle" or "Insert Crappy One Hit Wonder Song Here"? Most of them actually think Fall Out Boy will have more playability in 20 years.