back-pedal ? based upon what exactly ? I develop using MS tools - some of which I quite fond of. I sell my wares to clients who run MS architecture - but that doesn't mean for 1 second that I find many of the business decisions that MS have made in the last 20 years I've been in the industry absolutely morally, ethically, and in many cases legally bankrupt.
Given the sheer weight of your argument tho, let me pick up and run for the hills. I wouldn't dare question the reliability of "net statistics agencies" or claims like "Vista uptake was high and equal to MS class for sales of the OS". After all, you've had this lame argument 500 times. You must be right.
Let me tell you why I upgraded to Vista. My customers weren't able to remain with XP when upgrading their machines, and Microsoft support for XP was about to be dropped. You could say I was a quick adopter and am one of those "uptake" stats. What you can't say is that I willingly switched due to the "glorious new features" that came with Vista. It was a business decision based upon forced product obsolescence. Upgrade or die - thats the Microsoft way.
Instead of counting as an XP sale. It is instead counted as a Vista sale, and the marketing clowns at Microsoft get to beat their chests about how well the uptake of Vista was going (in stark contrast to the bad trade press no less). Nothing builds momentum like manufactured momentum...
Oh FFS! Will you people STOP injecting LOGIC into a situation where it has no place. Far too often these days I'm seeing people trying to put forward logical arguments when railing against illogical scenarios. Enough already... its a bloodbath that's sickening to watch!
I'm not saying that we've haven't made huge advances in any number of fields... I'm just making the point that, no matter what advances we've made, they 1) never meet the rate of advancement we predict will occur in the future and 2) are mostly unattainable for the masses in the short term, even if they do exist, or the cost-benefit analysis that people do when adopting pretty much anything, just isn't there and 3) despite the breakthrough, they just aren't as convenient or as life-changing as we thought they'd be (eg. voice controlled computers - they have their niche uses like answering and redirecting call for front-line support etc., but its not an all-pervasive technology - its more subtle than that).
As with your example, the all-electric car will only become truly pervasive if you can convince the guy who just wants to get from point A to point B, efficiently and in relative comfort, who isn't factoring the environment into his decision making, to buy one (OR via government mandated obsolescence of what we already use)
we're not using technology effectively in transport either, or business or effectively using transport to move us around efficiently. or effectively using alternative energy sources even though methods have been around for decades now. or effectively handling energy consumption, waste management, environmental management, protecting children from predators, dealing with alcohol and drug abuse...
My point ? No matter what you look at from 30 years ago - we haven't made the progress that we always believed we should have by now...
no offence, but where are YOU from ?
Its either a bar-b-que or a barbie in Oz and always has been...
If you've never heard the term "fire up the barbie.." then you've either never lived in Australia, or you have no friends.
BULLSHIT! The security guard may get fired for not doing his job - but that doesn't imply that he either "contributed to the theft" or was complicit in the crime. He simply failed to carry out the duty he was being paid for. The responsibility for the theft lies SOLELY with the THIEF!
He's a lawyer for a firm that will eat the NFL for lunch and crap in their cheerios.
Which is exactly why they won't sue THAT guy. Instead they'll sue the little pub or bar that put it on TV for the regulars.
The reason that there hasn't been a massive world-wide public backlash against copyright law, trademark law, patent law etc, is that MPAA/RIAA/NFL and all the other lawyered up content providers can pick and choose who they target.
They're not going after the big-time lawyer from the big law firm for hosting a Super Bowl party, or the Senator's son for sharing his mp3 collection with his dormitory mates - they're going after the people who can't afford the fight and know that any damages awarded will ruin them for life. What's worse, this is purely AN ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN, as the claimants will rarely, if ever, actually see any of the massive figures awarded to them.
Force these companies to sue for infringement for any and EVERY instance they become aware of, regardless of who the other party is, and see how fast the laws change.
diddums... I'm guessing Pam Anderson and Paris Hilton will be thinking the same thing 30-40 years from now when they're celebrating xmas with the great grand-kiddies.
If you think they aren't serious, check out the following recent story about a lucky Aussie who supposedly criticised the Thai Royal Family. I say lucky because, after much protest and legal fighting, he was deported after he'd been jailed for 6 years !
As soon as you said this (for argument's sake, let's say a 24" iMac.) your argument was blown.
For every "perfect solution" there will always be a competing product or a competing standard and they're not going to play nice. Its not even in the best interests of the electronics companies to provide a one size fits all solution (which is technically feasible now). They need pricing points and upgrade paths to continue generating profit.
They need built in redundancy to ensure an ongoing market. And most consumers (not all, but most) end up with a rag-tag mix of equipment and configurations, based on need and willingness to fork out cash.
Like LAN networks, noone has an identical system when it comes to media solutions in the home - and as a result, there will always be a market for tools that aid in bringing them all together.
The more this company (Telstra) is named and shamed the better. They have consistently engaged in predatory pricing practices in ISP markets since the day they decided to be an ISP rather than a simple carrier. They are the largest ISP in Aus., largely through MASSIVE marketing and advertising and misrepresentation of the their plans, and own 90% of the networking infrastructure (previously the government Telecom before being sold off)
200MB monthly limits with $150 per GB excess charges is disgraceful.
Yes, they have to adapt. They need an online presence. They need a different approach, to marketing and advertising.
But there are a few things that people seem to forget when making the argument that the internet will kill media as we know it.
1. Local news. Sorry, but unless a plane drops out of the sky, CNN isn't remotely interested in in Ballarat, Australia - nor do most CNN readers care about the local government elections, or which local VIP has just been arrested for DUI, or who won the district football on the weekend - but I do, and so does our local newspaper. While they don't have the circulations of the major world newspapers...the bulk of print news is still regionally based.
2. Local Advertising. The local plumber doesn't need to or want to advertise to the entire state, country or to the world writ large. He wants to target the people in his immediate area, and the larger newspapers, and TV, are cost prohibitive, and online sites (mostly) don't meet that need. Local businesses and small businesses need a centralised local vehicle to push their message.
2. Content. Someone, somewhere has to generate it. Someone has to follow up on leads and stories, and get the word out. Sure, once the word IS OUT, there is no limit to the number of places online where you can find out about it, but someone had to go out and get the story in the first place, check the facts, and filter it down to a piece that most people can digest. THIS is where newspapers must head if they want to survive. They need to be going out and getting the in-depth investigations and stories that their competitors don't have, and stop relying on regurgitating the same stories that everyone else has.
If a plane drops into the Hudson, or a bushfire kills hundreds in Australia, its covered.. by everyone.. and I can find information on it everywhere. Its the local impact or other local events IN ADDITION TO the major news items, that push me to select one news organisation over another, and one medium over another, for day to day consumption.
As long as people still want to sit down with a coffee to read through the week's news, local, national, international, and do the crosswords, read the comics etc., newspapers will be around. People enjoy sitting down and flicking through a paper at their leisure, and you can't do that online. Having said that, one does not preclude the other - they're different beasts.
It's really no different than ripping a CD to a mp3 and then loading it on your MP3 player.
Except, in Australia at least, copying a CD track to mp3 IS STILL ILLEGAL !
While the Aust. govt. is in the process of changing those laws, it hasn't happened yet.
Thats right...every single PC / IPod / mp3 in Australia is carting around technically illegal music, whether you legally purchased it or not. Currently you do not have the right to transfer a copyright work from one medium to another medium (in OZ... not the US)
The MAFIAA however, are extremely reluctant to enforce it, because they know it would lead to a protest that would see them lose much more than simple fair use.
I was watching an Australian late night music show (Rage - ABC) the other night and they had an interesting clip of a spokesman from the MAFIAA lamenting about the deluge of pirated music, while standing in front of supposedly 100s and 100s of copies, that was hitting the country from Asia and that, unless things changed, the music industry would be DEAD in a couple of years.
He then went on to wax lyrical about the quality of the copies and getting no value for money etc etc.
The laughable thing about this is that the clip was from the mid 1970'S and he was holding cassette tapes !!
Over 30 years ago, the music industry was facing the same death and mayhem from pirated music that they face today, and yet, they didn't die. Didn't go broke. Didn't get pirated out of existence. In fact - most of them thrived!
I'm not saying they don't have a legitimate issue, but for decades now, they've seriously overstated the threat.
Why bother ? "Journalists" already have access to Facebook and MySpace and they can even hit Wikipedia for a quote now and again. What more do they need to write a sensationalist op-ed ?
They don't even bother harrassing family members for photos anymore - they rip them straight from Facebook. All the pics, family links, likes and dislikes...
Bobby Young (pictured left) died tragically yesterday when...blah..blah..blah. The 8 year old university student, a deeply religious man and devout Jedi, was said to be in a complicated open relationship with his best friend David, and will be sadly missed by fiancee Kelly, and friends Garry, Fords4EVA and KnowWhenToHoldem...blah blah blah... Bobby leaves behind two daughters, Maddy, 4, and Kera,6, (pictured here holidaying in Hawaii in 2006)...
I don't get it either. Why anyone in the consumer space would want to use XP over Vista is beyond me at this point.
Pretty simple really. XP is stable and does everything most people "in consumer space" need it to do without having to learn new tricks. From a sys-admin point of view too - if it ain't broke don't TOUCH it.
Slashdot Mirror
back-pedal ? based upon what exactly ? I develop using MS tools - some of which I quite fond of. I sell my wares to clients who run MS architecture - but that doesn't mean for 1 second that I find many of the business decisions that MS have made in the last 20 years I've been in the industry absolutely morally, ethically, and in many cases legally bankrupt. Given the sheer weight of your argument tho, let me pick up and run for the hills. I wouldn't dare question the reliability of "net statistics agencies" or claims like "Vista uptake was high and equal to MS class for sales of the OS". After all, you've had this lame argument 500 times. You must be right. Let me tell you why I upgraded to Vista. My customers weren't able to remain with XP when upgrading their machines, and Microsoft support for XP was about to be dropped. You could say I was a quick adopter and am one of those "uptake" stats. What you can't say is that I willingly switched due to the "glorious new features" that came with Vista. It was a business decision based upon forced product obsolescence. Upgrade or die - thats the Microsoft way.
Instead of counting as an XP sale. It is instead counted as a Vista sale, and the marketing clowns at Microsoft get to beat their chests about how well the uptake of Vista was going (in stark contrast to the bad trade press no less). Nothing builds momentum like manufactured momentum...
isn't brushing your teeth simply an insurance policy against losing points (aka money) at a later date ?
Oh FFS! Will you people STOP injecting LOGIC into a situation where it has no place. Far too often these days I'm seeing people trying to put forward logical arguments when railing against illogical scenarios. Enough already... its a bloodbath that's sickening to watch!
My point ? No matter what you look at from 30 years ago - we haven't made the progress that we always believed we should have by now...
Clearly you forget how hard it was to cheaply and quickly access high (and low) quality porn back then.
nope... ;-)
In fact, you just made my point
I could get porn filmed on camera 30 years ago (admittedly not at the click of a button and not in HD, or free)... but its 2010 FFS!
Where's my customised XXX Holo-suite with my own personalised interactive [insert-you-fave-celeb-here] ???
I'm not saying that we've haven't made huge advances in any number of fields... I'm just making the point that, no matter what advances we've made, they 1) never meet the rate of advancement we predict will occur in the future and 2) are mostly unattainable for the masses in the short term, even if they do exist, or the cost-benefit analysis that people do when adopting pretty much anything, just isn't there and 3) despite the breakthrough, they just aren't as convenient or as life-changing as we thought they'd be (eg. voice controlled computers - they have their niche uses like answering and redirecting call for front-line support etc., but its not an all-pervasive technology - its more subtle than that).
As with your example, the all-electric car will only become truly pervasive if you can convince the guy who just wants to get from point A to point B, efficiently and in relative comfort, who isn't factoring the environment into his decision making, to buy one (OR via government mandated obsolescence of what we already use)
we're not using technology effectively in transport either, or business or effectively using transport to move us around efficiently. or effectively using alternative energy sources even though methods have been around for decades now. or effectively handling energy consumption, waste management, environmental management, protecting children from predators, dealing with alcohol and drug abuse...
My point ? No matter what you look at from 30 years ago - we haven't made the progress that we always believed we should have by now...
no offence, but where are YOU from ? Its either a bar-b-que or a barbie in Oz and always has been... If you've never heard the term "fire up the barbie.." then you've either never lived in Australia, or you have no friends.
Hey, why so negative!? I'm sure it can go further...
BULLSHIT! The security guard may get fired for not doing his job - but that doesn't imply that he either "contributed to the theft" or was complicit in the crime. He simply failed to carry out the duty he was being paid for. The responsibility for the theft lies SOLELY with the THIEF!
You are kidding me aren't you ?
The only thing guaranteed is that the Liberals (the ONLY alternative government) will push exactly the same agenda with exactly the same results!
Have you forgotten Helen Coonan seeks to censor the Web and Senator Richard Alston: Australia's Internet killer? both Ministers for Communications under the previous Liberal government ?
Stephen Conroy is a mis-guided tool, there is no doubt, but please don't try to push the point that there is a credible alternative.... there isn't.
AFACT would usually lie to the Full Court (of the FedCrt) and then to the High Court of Australia...
Which is exactly why they won't sue THAT guy. Instead they'll sue the little pub or bar that put it on TV for the regulars.
The reason that there hasn't been a massive world-wide public backlash against copyright law, trademark law, patent law etc, is that MPAA/RIAA/NFL and all the other lawyered up content providers can pick and choose who they target.
They're not going after the big-time lawyer from the big law firm for hosting a Super Bowl party, or the Senator's son for sharing his mp3 collection with his dormitory mates - they're going after the people who can't afford the fight and know that any damages awarded will ruin them for life. What's worse, this is purely AN ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN, as the claimants will rarely, if ever, actually see any of the massive figures awarded to them.
Force these companies to sue for infringement for any and EVERY instance they become aware of, regardless of who the other party is, and see how fast the laws change.
diddums... I'm guessing Pam Anderson and Paris Hilton will be thinking the same thing 30-40 years from now when they're celebrating xmas with the great grand-kiddies.
If you think they aren't serious, check out the following recent story about a lucky Aussie who supposedly criticised the Thai Royal Family. I say lucky because, after much protest and legal fighting, he was deported after he'd been jailed for 6 years !
http://www.theage.com.au/national/jailed-author-back-on-australian-soil-20090221-8dx7.html
Nope. Sorry - I can't see it.
As soon as you said this (for argument's sake, let's say a 24" iMac.) your argument was blown.
For every "perfect solution" there will always be a competing product or a competing standard and they're not going to play nice. Its not even in the best interests of the electronics companies to provide a one size fits all solution (which is technically feasible now). They need pricing points and upgrade paths to continue generating profit.
They need built in redundancy to ensure an ongoing market. And most consumers (not all, but most) end up with a rag-tag mix of equipment and configurations, based on need and willingness to fork out cash.
Like LAN networks, noone has an identical system when it comes to media solutions in the home - and as a result, there will always be a market for tools that aid in bringing them all together.
The more this company (Telstra) is named and shamed the better. They have consistently engaged in predatory pricing practices in ISP markets since the day they decided to be an ISP rather than a simple carrier. They are the largest ISP in Aus., largely through MASSIVE marketing and advertising and misrepresentation of the their plans, and own 90% of the networking infrastructure (previously the government Telecom before being sold off) 200MB monthly limits with $150 per GB excess charges is disgraceful.
Yes, they have to adapt. They need an online presence. They need a different approach, to marketing and advertising.
But there are a few things that people seem to forget when making the argument that the internet will kill media as we know it.
1. Local news. Sorry, but unless a plane drops out of the sky, CNN isn't remotely interested in in Ballarat, Australia - nor do most CNN readers care about the local government elections, or which local VIP has just been arrested for DUI, or who won the district football on the weekend - but I do, and so does our local newspaper.
While they don't have the circulations of the major world newspapers...the bulk of print news is still regionally based.
2. Local Advertising. The local plumber doesn't need to or want to advertise to the entire state, country or to the world writ large. He wants to target the people in his immediate area, and the larger newspapers, and TV, are cost prohibitive, and online sites (mostly) don't meet that need. Local businesses and small businesses need a
centralised local vehicle to push their message.
2. Content. Someone, somewhere has to generate it. Someone has to follow up on leads and stories, and get the word out. Sure, once the word IS OUT, there is no limit to the number of places online where you can find out about it, but someone had to go out and get the story in the first place, check the facts, and filter it down to a piece that most people can digest. THIS is where newspapers must head if they want to survive.
They need to be going out and getting the in-depth investigations and stories that their competitors don't have, and stop relying on regurgitating the same stories that everyone else has.
If a plane drops into the Hudson, or a bushfire kills hundreds in Australia, its covered.. by everyone.. and I can find information on it everywhere. Its the local impact or other local events IN ADDITION TO the major news items, that push me to select one news organisation over another, and one medium over another, for day to day consumption.
As long as people still want to sit down with a coffee to read through the week's news, local, national, international, and do the crosswords, read the comics etc., newspapers will be around. People enjoy sitting down and flicking through a paper at their leisure, and you can't do that online. Having said that, one does not preclude the other - they're different beasts.
It's really no different than ripping a CD to a mp3 and then loading it on your MP3 player.
Except, in Australia at least, copying a CD track to mp3 IS STILL ILLEGAL !
While the Aust. govt. is in the process of changing those laws, it hasn't happened yet.
Thats right...every single PC / IPod / mp3 in Australia is carting around technically
illegal music, whether you legally purchased it or not. Currently you do not have the
right to transfer a copyright work from one medium to another medium (in OZ... not the US)
The MAFIAA however, are extremely reluctant to enforce it, because they know it would lead
to a protest that would see them lose much more than simple fair use.
I was watching an Australian late night music show (Rage - ABC) the other night and they had an interesting clip of a spokesman from the MAFIAA lamenting about the deluge of pirated music, while standing in front of supposedly 100s and 100s of copies, that was hitting the country from Asia and that, unless things changed, the music industry would be DEAD in a couple of years.
He then went on to wax lyrical about the quality of the copies and getting no value for money etc etc.
The laughable thing about this is that the clip was from the mid 1970'S and he was holding cassette tapes !!
Over 30 years ago, the music industry was facing the same death and mayhem from pirated music that they face today, and yet, they didn't die. Didn't go broke. Didn't get pirated out of existence. In fact - most of them thrived!
I'm not saying they don't have a legitimate issue, but for decades now, they've seriously overstated the threat.
Sorry, but if your sales pitch to keep your job contains phrases like well reasoned reasons then you're already in the firing line, literally.
Why bother ? "Journalists" already have access to Facebook and MySpace and they can even hit Wikipedia for a quote now and again. What more do they need to write a sensationalist op-ed ?
They don't even bother harrassing family members for photos anymore - they rip them straight from Facebook. All the pics, family links, likes and dislikes...
Bobby Young (pictured left) died tragically yesterday when...blah..blah..blah. The 8 year old university student, a deeply religious man and devout Jedi, was said to be in a complicated open relationship with his best friend David, and will be sadly missed by fiancee Kelly, and friends Garry, Fords4EVA and KnowWhenToHoldem...blah blah blah... Bobby leaves behind two daughters, Maddy, 4, and Kera,6, (pictured here holidaying in Hawaii in 2006)...
In this particular case, a default judgement in their favour.
Really ? Because the alternative (to leave Howard in power for another 3 years) was THAT MUCH better ??Yeah Right!
Which is better?
The current government who is against mandatory detention, who ratified the Kyoto agreement and wants to spend $100M to censor the internet,
or the previous government who is FOR mandatory detention, refused to ratify Kyoto, and HAS ALREADY SPENT $100M trying to censor the internet ?
Democracy is about picking the lesser of two evils.
I don't get it either. Why anyone in the consumer space would want to use XP over Vista is beyond me at this point. Pretty simple really. XP is stable and does everything most people "in consumer space" need it to do without having to learn new tricks. From a sys-admin point of view too - if it ain't broke don't TOUCH it.