I really am more productive with Office 2007 than I was with Office 2000 and the documents that I produce look better and have elements that I didn't typically include in Office 2000 documents - such as sidebars and conditional formatting - because the mechanisms for introducing them have been so markedly improved in more recent versions of Microsoft Word.
Commodity products are a bad business to be in.
Big companies like Sony actually lose money on some of their products.
Everybody makes the same screws. And then the only competition is based on price. Not featureset. What was the last big innovation in screws - I think it was making them magnetic so that they'd attach to a screw driver.
Once you establish a commodity, innovation in such a sector drops along with margins. That's one of the reasons why we all have beige computer cases - in the short term it is more economical for a company to chrage $2 less on a computer case and be able to undercut their competitors.
There are all of about three companies in the industry that are actually innovating in that sector. And they're all accused of not supporting industry standards. "Apple doesn't have a VGA port!" But they do lead the industry with the iMac design that became a hit... and then a commodity.
You can't have it both ways. Standards or innovation.
Look at web design. When Microsoft and Netscape were creating web browsers, new and cool features were quickly being introduced. Now browsers have been reduced to a commodity - re-implementing poorly documented and designed W3C recommendations. And Innovation has died.
Sure, it can't be indexed by a search engine, but it's there to _illuminate_ the ideas stated in the text;
I don't know what you're talking about. Flash is indexed in search engines - theres no reason why it wouldn't be. Google has been indexing Flash pages for almost a year. As an example try doing any search with the filetype: handler set. For example Google this: "test filetype:swf"
He is making an emotional appeal. You're looking for a logical one. That's a fundamental disconnect.
The fundamental difference between your two viewpoints is one of optimism and pessimism. With the sheer wealth of data being generated today, it is a trivial task to find statistics which back up either point of view.
Some logical arguments that would oppose your viewpoint: - Current growth rates are unsustainable. 1. We'll inevitably encounter a point of diminishing returns, 2. Current growth rates are premised on the exploitation of the environment and can't be sustained for the next century. (Environmental debacles have been increasing in number and severity over the 20th century. As we see with Global Warming, because we lack conclusive proof about the cause of an environmental problem, we delay action until the problem grows in severity to the point that it is undeniable and the links to human activity undeniable.) The "digital economy" or "knowledge economy" is founded upon a resource-based economy, not a replacement for them. - Sub-Saharan Africa. It is not generally disputed that this region has a declining standard of living. There is much dispute over the cause - too much "globalization" (English sucks - "globalization", like "free" has too many connotations) or too little? - Absolute income is as relevant as percentage growth. On average, global per person income rises annually at 0.8%/year. However, most of the world's population lives on less than $2 a day. And the number of such people is not declining.
Here is a chart showing in real terms that over the most recent leg of globalization (from 1985) poverty has increased in real terms in the world http://www.ppionline.org/upload_graphics/ppi_bates _poverty.gif
My opinion: absolute statistics about poverty are mind numbing and are cited far too often. I have grown accustomed to them and usually skip them when reading.
I can gather hundreds of statistics to support my pessimistic point of view. You can gather many statistics to support an optimistic point of view.
It is my reading of history that many people have always held the present problems in their minds eye and have constantly and consistently been looking at fixing them. It is my fear that the "relax, everything is going according to plan view," irrespective of its accuracy, leads of complacency. Such complacency engenders a laziness in the next generations that doesn't adequately comprehend the vast struggles that prior generations had to undertake to maintain - and raise - standards of living. Because such increases aren't automatic. Democracy has been shown by history to lead to freedom as much as political gridlock.
Re:Not about Region coding or 'personal backups'
on
Sony vs Modchips
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· Score: 0
I agree that there's not much of a market for playing region-free products. However, there is is a market for disabling Macrovision. that's something that a lot of these chips do.
Again, this could be because people want to pirate movies. However, this is a common an desirable use of a Modchip.
The Canadian government subsidizes internet access in order to make it viable. That solution would simply be branded communist in the U.S., no doubt...
Re:Rather than whine about Mozilla...
on
Netscape 6.2
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· Score: 0
K-Meleon is a good browser to test pages on for Gecko compatibility. However, like Mozilla itself, it doesn't include all of the features that the three-year-old Internet Explorer does. Until it supports things like the Google toolbar, people like myself will view it as a novelty. And nothing more.
Fear- The timing of the announcement is no accident. Uncertainty- I for one am uncertain. Will X-Box games need to be "installed" (that would be death)Doubt- I don't think that this machine will effect Japanese PS2 sales. - Sony needs some competition. Nintendo certainly isn't doing anything. Last week: Sony launches PS2, Microsoft announces X-Box, Nintendo settles law suit about "Mario Party Gloves". Equality?
Nintendo had problems with the Famicom (NES) when it was first released in Japan. Those issues caused Nintendo to miss out on the entire Christmas season because the issues were serious enough that a full recall was needed.
Sony missed the Christmas '99 season (probably because of software development issues) but even with their delayed launch date, they can't keep up. Geesh!
It seems that as the cost of publishing becomes cheaper, people are becoming better informed. I recall studies which compare the political involvement of highly-connected people to those who do not use high-tech products at all. Needless to say, those who are highly connected were more involved. Even though that was more to do with the demographics of early adopters than any concequences of information exchange on the internet, I hope that the internet will be used for "good" in that we will not see a repeat of television (the domination of the medium by large corporations). Maybe that will create people who are more informed citizens. Then, a big maybe is that those citizens will be able to lobby against corporate might. I don't think it's out of the question. Am I any more likely to visit Shell.com than GreenPeace.org?
Slashdot Mirror
I really am more productive with Office 2007 than I was with Office 2000 and the documents that I produce look better and have elements that I didn't typically include in Office 2000 documents - such as sidebars and conditional formatting - because the mechanisms for introducing them have been so markedly improved in more recent versions of Microsoft Word.
Commodity products are a bad business to be in. Big companies like Sony actually lose money on some of their products. Everybody makes the same screws. And then the only competition is based on price. Not featureset. What was the last big innovation in screws - I think it was making them magnetic so that they'd attach to a screw driver. Once you establish a commodity, innovation in such a sector drops along with margins. That's one of the reasons why we all have beige computer cases - in the short term it is more economical for a company to chrage $2 less on a computer case and be able to undercut their competitors. There are all of about three companies in the industry that are actually innovating in that sector. And they're all accused of not supporting industry standards. "Apple doesn't have a VGA port!" But they do lead the industry with the iMac design that became a hit ... and then a commodity.
You can't have it both ways. Standards or innovation.
Look at web design. When Microsoft and Netscape were creating web browsers, new and cool features were quickly being introduced. Now browsers have been reduced to a commodity - re-implementing poorly documented and designed W3C recommendations. And Innovation has died.
He is making an emotional appeal. You're looking for a logical one. That's a fundamental disconnect.
s _poverty.gif
The fundamental difference between your two viewpoints is one of optimism and pessimism. With the sheer wealth of data being generated today, it is a trivial task to find statistics which back up either point of view.
Some logical arguments that would oppose your viewpoint:
- Current growth rates are unsustainable. 1. We'll inevitably encounter a point of diminishing returns, 2. Current growth rates are premised on the exploitation of the environment and can't be sustained for the next century. (Environmental debacles have been increasing in number and severity over the 20th century. As we see with Global Warming, because we lack conclusive proof about the cause of an environmental problem, we delay action until the problem grows in severity to the point that it is undeniable and the links to human activity undeniable.) The "digital economy" or "knowledge economy" is founded upon a resource-based economy, not a replacement for them.
- Sub-Saharan Africa. It is not generally disputed that this region has a declining standard of living. There is much dispute over the cause - too much "globalization" (English sucks - "globalization", like "free" has too many connotations) or too little?
- Absolute income is as relevant as percentage growth. On average, global per person income rises annually at 0.8%/year. However, most of the world's population lives on less than $2 a day. And the number of such people is not declining.
Here is a chart showing in real terms that over the most recent leg of globalization (from 1985) poverty has increased in real terms in the world http://www.ppionline.org/upload_graphics/ppi_bate
My opinion: absolute statistics about poverty are mind numbing and are cited far too often. I have grown accustomed to them and usually skip them when reading.
I can gather hundreds of statistics to support my pessimistic point of view. You can gather many statistics to support an optimistic point of view.
It is my reading of history that many people have always held the present problems in their minds eye and have constantly and consistently been looking at fixing them. It is my fear that the "relax, everything is going according to plan view," irrespective of its accuracy, leads of complacency. Such complacency engenders a laziness in the next generations that doesn't adequately comprehend the vast struggles that prior generations had to undertake to maintain - and raise - standards of living. Because such increases aren't automatic. Democracy has been shown by history to lead to freedom as much as political gridlock.
I agree that there's not much of a market for playing region-free products. However, there is is a market for disabling Macrovision. that's something that a lot of these chips do.
Again, this could be because people want to pirate movies. However, this is a common an desirable use of a Modchip.
The Canadian government subsidizes internet access in order to make it viable. That solution would simply be branded communist in the U.S., no doubt ...
K-Meleon is a good browser to test pages on for Gecko compatibility. However, like Mozilla itself, it doesn't include all of the features that the three-year-old Internet Explorer does. Until it supports things like the Google toolbar, people like myself will view it as a novelty. And nothing more.
boo! Worst slashdot joke ever! But, it's so bad, that it actually gave me a chuckle ... =)
I love BasinNet!!!
Please email me about the petition - where can I sign it?
Do you even run a web site? 3 - 4% of users on my site are still using 4.x on various platforms. Do you want to tell them all to go away?
Fear - The timing of the announcement is no accident. Uncertainty - I for one am uncertain. Will X-Box games need to be "installed" (that would be death) Doubt - I don't think that this machine will effect Japanese PS2 sales. - Sony needs some competition. Nintendo certainly isn't doing anything. Last week: Sony launches PS2, Microsoft announces X-Box, Nintendo settles law suit about "Mario Party Gloves". Equality?
Nintendo had problems with the Famicom (NES) when it was first released in Japan. Those issues caused Nintendo to miss out on the entire Christmas season because the issues were serious enough that a full recall was needed.
Sony missed the Christmas '99 season (probably because of software development issues) but even with their delayed launch date, they can't keep up. Geesh!
It seems that as the cost of publishing becomes cheaper, people are becoming better informed. I recall studies which compare the political involvement of highly-connected people to those who do not use high-tech products at all. Needless to say, those who are highly connected were more involved. Even though that was more to do with the demographics of early adopters than any concequences of information exchange on the internet, I hope that the internet will be used for "good" in that we will not see a repeat of television (the domination of the medium by large corporations). Maybe that will create people who are more informed citizens. Then, a big maybe is that those citizens will be able to lobby against corporate might. I don't think it's out of the question. Am I any more likely to visit Shell.com than GreenPeace.org?