software. or even free software. i'm sure they use plenty of bsd license software throughout windows, office, etc.
what they don't like are the reciprosity requirements of the GNU Public License.
GPL effectively prevents microsoft for using their embrace and extend software strategy, and prevents them from keeping strategic portions of their software closed agains competitors.
given the popularity and solidity of linux and other gpl software, i'm sure microsoft would like to cherry pick their favorite bits for inclusion in windows, offie, iis, etc. but then there's that reciprosity requirement gumming up the works.
BILL: you mean in order to use all that linux goodness i have to open up all my proprietary windows standards?! no way!
unfortunately, the article ignores the price of the games. factor in the cost of the games, they arguably cost much more than the console.
in my opinion, the success of a game console hinges as much on the cost and availability of games as well as the console.
what i'd like to see is a development cost comparison of games for the different consoles and a comparison of the average retail cost of the games for the different consoles.
as i understand it, the reason why sony was able to break into game consoles was that the original playstation was not only competitive with sega and nintendo (remember that at that point, sony had virtually zero experience selling game computers) but was very simple and cheap to develop for. sony even offered a development platform for hobbyists. hobby programmers were responsible for a number of significant games on the original playstation (i think parrapa the rapper was one of these). paradoxically, sony, microsoft, and nintendo have been making a habit out of making it hard and expensive to develop console games so as to force developers to be exclusive to one or another platform.
perhaps, but i don't think jobs' own aesthetic sense would let him run a windows application run in a windows screen inside a mac os x window (a la virtual pc).
in aesthetic terms, the only elegant solution for the user would be to have a windows app run seamlessly alongside os x apps with minimal differences confined to things like menu arrangements.
i think the biggest challenge will not be implementing windows api but in figuring oout how to make applications that expect a windows resource registry work with os x applications packages.
i don't think poor movie ticket sales are the result of movies just being bad. there've had bad movies years before without the same drop in movie ticket sales.
competition with home entertainment might account for some, but guess what - dvd and ceedee sales are down too. piracy might account for these looses too, but even a movie pirate has to buy blank ceedees and dvds.
i think the problem is more fundamental. the economy is just not doing so well. incomes for the wealthiest people are growing, but incomes for ordinary working people are down and have not recovered. that means discretionary spending on small luxuries like the movies or music is cut back. you see the same effect across the economy. even walmart sales are stalled.
good question, i've been thinking about this for some time now.
let's say you want a good (or at least competent) sounding surround system. it makes sense that you'd want to treat each of the channels equally.
if you're making a 5.1 surround system and you put, say, 100 watts on each channel, then, assuming each 100 watt amplifier is class AB and will draw about 200 watts, you're setting yourself up for a peak demand of a thousand watts just for the regular speakers. add another 300 or 400 watts for the subwoofer amp and an extra 100 watts or so for other devices (pre-amp, dvd player, etc.) you can come close to overloading a 15 amp circuit.
granted, the liklihood that a surround system will demand this kind of power all at once is slim, yet it is a real risk.
solutions are to use smaller amplifiers, more efficient class t amplifiers, spread the load over more than one 15 amp circuit, install a special 20 amp circuit just for the surround system, or just use fewer channels.
i find this kind of proposed legislation amusing, particularly since i don't think the movie and record companies really understand what kind of curricula could result from a mandate like this.
clearly what hollywood wants is a class that will teach junior and senior high school students to be good little consumers who will buy movies and music from regular retailers without question. they want these kids to each buy their own deeveedees and ceedees and encourage their friends to buy the same and not share.
however, a good civics curricula on copyright will include an historical discussion of copyright - why it was created by the english parliament in the 15th and 16th centuries, what the constitution says about copyright and the legislation congress has passed over the past 200+ years. also, a list of important court cases about copyright ought to be discussed. a discussion of what is legal and what is not should be an essential discussion of copyright.
i think a class on the subject would be a good thing, especially considering how importat content and information have become in modern society.
of course, when the media industries figure out that having a public that is fully conversant with copyright law, its purposes and limitations, then the legislation in question will probably die a quick death. the media industry's arguments about copyright being a 'property right' are based on a misinterpretation of copyright law and many of the media industry's positions on copyright are built on the public not knowing what copyright is about or what it's really for.
much of what the media industry wants in copyright legislation is dependent on the public being confused about about copyright. anything that clarifies copyright for the public will work against the media industries goals.
i expect that just as apple maintained an x86 version of OSX during the powerpc years, they'll maintain a powerpc version of OSX going forward in the x86 years, if only to keep the operating system portable.
if, in the future, the powerpc architecture and it's manufacturers make a successful case for powerpc, apple is fully capable of switching back. in fact, i expect that apple will make sure its ready for any processor architecture that may become competitive with x86.
and i'm not talking about the texas attorney general versus sony.
rather i'm talking about sony's own attorneys being asleep at the wheel. in short, sony employs attorneys to protect its intellectual property from theft, but it is also supposed to have attorneys to protect it from making mistakes and incurring liabilities.
right now, i suspect there's an attorney within the sony organization who is quietly cursing the lawyers who passed approval on the drm scheme with no thought on what kinds of liabilities they could open sony up to. i suspect there is more than one law firm out there preparing to file class action papers against sony. the class after all potentially has thousands if not millions of people in it.
in my opinion, the best chance we have to squelch drm is not through fair use doctrine or some other proactive legislation but rather by making the media companies afraid to deploy drm out of fear of liability and being sued. in turn, i think that ultimately, "Big Media's" approach will be to get legislation that will shield it from liability.
perhaps, the best way to prevent draconian drm is to get legislation that actually strengthens user controlled security for desktop peecees. guarantee users' total control over their computers will ultimately force media and software companies to adopt more user friendly intellectual property rights schemes.
my favorite food product was the chef who figured out how to print flavors on edible paper. it reminded me of countless cartoons and the fine dining scene from "Brazil".
more to the point, drm makes a recording more expensive to produce since the media company has to pay an additional licensing fee for the drm technology.
the media industry doesn't just want us to use drm. they want us to pay for it too.
content providers are in a bit of a catch-22. if they mount their content to the internet for free, then they complain that search engines will make money from it while the content provider gets nothing.
however, the moment content is placed behind some sort of barrier, the search engines no longer find it and it loses much of its value. the ny times' web site is an excellent example. even though the ny times gives most of its content away for free, they still require registration for access. the registration erects a barrier between times' content and the search engines. have you ever seen a new york times article appear in google? user registration has probably resulted in as much or more of a loss of revenue for the new york times web site as they may have gained through their exclusivity.
would any care to speculate about how much the wall street journal could make from their content if it were freely available on-line versus what they make through subscriptions?
speaking of a not closed, locked down system, how popular would it be if you could increase the amount of space available for recorded teevee prograsm by just buying a firewire or usb-2 hard drive and plugging it into the main unit? right now, if you want to expand your Tivo storage you have to either buy another Tivo unit (and another Tivo subscription, bleah!) or hack together your own pvr or hack an exisitng Tivo machine (not a popular choice with the technically unaware).
oh, and here's an idea, pack a couple of game controllers with the Mac Mini. pvr, game console, dvd player, music player all in one with no need to hack together a software solution. it might not be the best at each individual function, but overall it could be a pretty compelling package.
one possible reason for the success of anime specialists like ADV is that they don't have very much competition for product. Big Media (TM) has, so far, ignored much of anime, choosing only to acquire kid friendly titles. when Big media companies have tried to bring in more adult fare, they've edited the life out of it short circuiting its success.
this leaves the market for anime to a few companies willing to experiment with alternative distribution and not afraid of competition from fans (such as fansubs, fandubs, etc.) they've even learned to use fan culture to generate interest and promote sales, something Big Media has a hard time doing.
i fear they day when a Big Media company recognizes the big profit margins available from anime and starts to buy anime up in a big way. a big Big Media company could outbid small outfits like ADV for the best material, threaten the fan culture with legal attacks, and ruin the animes they bring in with aggressive and insensitive editing.
if you want to see something that makes sopa operas look tame, try wagner's ring of the nibelung. it's got incest, rape, theft, murder, slavery, and fratricide. and that's just the first opera.
have the mythbusters ever expeienced outright hostility from people (quacks, pseudoscientists, and parapsychologists) who have a vested interest in the continued belief in busted myths and junk science?
i regularly read james randi's weekly web blog and he gets hostility all the time. of course, he reaches out to purposely debunk frauds who are actively tricking people and stealing money. but very often he catches hostility from those who desparately want to believe in psedoscience as well.
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nope, it was zeus' head. that's why athena is the goddess of wisdom.
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they probably were - probably going to make some hi definition dubs only to find the tapes were missing.
the kind of company that knows it has more of a future by restraining its greed rather than by indulging it.
software. or even free software. i'm sure they use plenty of bsd license software throughout windows, office, etc.
what they don't like are the reciprosity requirements of the GNU Public License.
GPL effectively prevents microsoft for using their embrace and extend software strategy, and prevents them from keeping strategic portions of their software closed agains competitors.
given the popularity and solidity of linux and other gpl software, i'm sure microsoft would like to cherry pick their favorite bits for inclusion in windows, offie, iis, etc. but then there's that reciprosity requirement gumming up the works.
BILL: you mean in order to use all that linux goodness i have to open up all my proprietary windows standards?! no way!
and thus linux and the gpl became the enemy.
unfortunately, the article ignores the price of the games. factor in the cost of the games, they arguably cost much more than the console.
in my opinion, the success of a game console hinges as much on the cost and availability of games as well as the console.
what i'd like to see is a development cost comparison of games for the different consoles and a comparison of the average retail cost of the games for the different consoles.
as i understand it, the reason why sony was able to break into game consoles was that the original playstation was not only competitive with sega and nintendo (remember that at that point, sony had virtually zero experience selling game computers) but was very simple and cheap to develop for. sony even offered a development platform for hobbyists. hobby programmers were responsible for a number of significant games on the original playstation (i think parrapa the rapper was one of these). paradoxically, sony, microsoft, and nintendo have been making a habit out of making it hard and expensive to develop console games so as to force developers to be exclusive to one or another platform.
perhaps, but i don't think jobs' own aesthetic sense would let him run a windows application run in a windows screen inside a mac os x window (a la virtual pc).
in aesthetic terms, the only elegant solution for the user would be to have a windows app run seamlessly alongside os x apps with minimal differences confined to things like menu arrangements.
i think the biggest challenge will not be implementing windows api but in figuring oout how to make applications that expect a windows resource registry work with os x applications packages.
still not as bad as circus peanuts.
i don't think poor movie ticket sales are the result of movies just being bad. there've had bad movies years before without the same drop in movie ticket sales.
competition with home entertainment might account for some, but guess what - dvd and ceedee sales are down too. piracy might account for these looses too, but even a movie pirate has to buy blank ceedees and dvds.
i think the problem is more fundamental. the economy is just not doing so well. incomes for the wealthiest people are growing, but incomes for ordinary working people are down and have not recovered. that means discretionary spending on small luxuries like the movies or music is cut back. you see the same effect across the economy. even walmart sales are stalled.
good question, i've been thinking about this for some time now.
let's say you want a good (or at least competent) sounding surround system. it makes sense that you'd want to treat each of the channels equally.
if you're making a 5.1 surround system and you put, say, 100 watts on each channel, then, assuming each 100 watt amplifier is class AB and will draw about 200 watts, you're setting yourself up for a peak demand of a thousand watts just for the regular speakers. add another 300 or 400 watts for the subwoofer amp and an extra 100 watts or so for other devices (pre-amp, dvd player, etc.) you can come close to overloading a 15 amp circuit.
granted, the liklihood that a surround system will demand this kind of power all at once is slim, yet it is a real risk.
solutions are to use smaller amplifiers, more efficient class t amplifiers, spread the load over more than one 15 amp circuit, install a special 20 amp circuit just for the surround system, or just use fewer channels.
i find this kind of proposed legislation amusing, particularly since i don't think the movie and record companies really understand what kind of curricula could result from a mandate like this.
clearly what hollywood wants is a class that will teach junior and senior high school students to be good little consumers who will buy movies and music from regular retailers without question. they want these kids to each buy their own deeveedees and ceedees and encourage their friends to buy the same and not share.
however, a good civics curricula on copyright will include an historical discussion of copyright - why it was created by the english parliament in the 15th and 16th centuries, what the constitution says about copyright and the legislation congress has passed over the past 200+ years. also, a list of important court cases about copyright ought to be discussed. a discussion of what is legal and what is not should be an essential discussion of copyright.
i think a class on the subject would be a good thing, especially considering how importat content and information have become in modern society.
of course, when the media industries figure out that having a public that is fully conversant with copyright law, its purposes and limitations, then the legislation in question will probably die a quick death. the media industry's arguments about copyright being a 'property right' are based on a misinterpretation of copyright law and many of the media industry's positions on copyright are built on the public not knowing what copyright is about or what it's really for.
much of what the media industry wants in copyright legislation is dependent on the public being confused about about copyright. anything that clarifies copyright for the public will work against the media industries goals.
i expect that just as apple maintained an x86 version of OSX during the powerpc years, they'll maintain a powerpc version of OSX going forward in the x86 years, if only to keep the operating system portable.
if, in the future, the powerpc architecture and it's manufacturers make a successful case for powerpc, apple is fully capable of switching back. in fact, i expect that apple will make sure its ready for any processor architecture that may become competitive with x86.
since www.wheresgeorge.com tracks bills according to zip code, you can enter apo and fps zip codes for bills overseas.
apparently a new fish dish at the supermodel restaurant.
did anybody ever hear of the "baby on board sniper"?
that's why they say "counterfeits are art's revenge on art collectors".
and i'm not talking about the texas attorney general versus sony.
rather i'm talking about sony's own attorneys being asleep at the wheel. in short, sony employs attorneys to protect its intellectual property from theft, but it is also supposed to have attorneys to protect it from making mistakes and incurring liabilities.
right now, i suspect there's an attorney within the sony organization who is quietly cursing the lawyers who passed approval on the drm scheme with no thought on what kinds of liabilities they could open sony up to. i suspect there is more than one law firm out there preparing to file class action papers against sony. the class after all potentially has thousands if not millions of people in it.
in my opinion, the best chance we have to squelch drm is not through fair use doctrine or some other proactive legislation but rather by making the media companies afraid to deploy drm out of fear of liability and being sued. in turn, i think that ultimately, "Big Media's" approach will be to get legislation that will shield it from liability.
perhaps, the best way to prevent draconian drm is to get legislation that actually strengthens user controlled security for desktop peecees. guarantee users' total control over their computers will ultimately force media and software companies to adopt more user friendly intellectual property rights schemes.
my favorite food product was the chef who figured out how to print flavors on edible paper. it reminded me of countless cartoons and the fine dining scene from "Brazil".
more to the point, drm makes a recording more expensive to produce since the media company has to pay an additional licensing fee for the drm technology.
the media industry doesn't just want us to use drm. they want us to pay for it too.
wanna bet that sony will figure out a way to charge the musicians for the recall and destruction of the "defective" discs?
tell me about it. my dog ran up a $1,000 cell phone bill just from text messaging his friends at obedience school.
content providers are in a bit of a catch-22. if they mount their content to the internet for free, then they complain that search engines will make money from it while the content provider gets nothing.
however, the moment content is placed behind some sort of barrier, the search engines no longer find it and it loses much of its value. the ny times' web site is an excellent example. even though the ny times gives most of its content away for free, they still require registration for access. the registration erects a barrier between times' content and the search engines. have you ever seen a new york times article appear in google? user registration has probably resulted in as much or more of a loss of revenue for the new york times web site as they may have gained through their exclusivity.
would any care to speculate about how much the wall street journal could make from their content if it were freely available on-line versus what they make through subscriptions?
speaking of a not closed, locked down system, how popular would it be if you could increase the amount of space available for recorded teevee prograsm by just buying a firewire or usb-2 hard drive and plugging it into the main unit? right now, if you want to expand your Tivo storage you have to either buy another Tivo unit (and another Tivo subscription, bleah!) or hack together your own pvr or hack an exisitng Tivo machine (not a popular choice with the technically unaware).
oh, and here's an idea, pack a couple of game controllers with the Mac Mini. pvr, game console, dvd player, music player all in one with no need to hack together a software solution. it might not be the best at each individual function, but overall it could be a pretty compelling package.
one possible reason for the success of anime specialists like ADV is that they don't have very much competition for product. Big Media (TM) has, so far, ignored much of anime, choosing only to acquire kid friendly titles. when Big media companies have tried to bring in more adult fare, they've edited the life out of it short circuiting its success.
this leaves the market for anime to a few companies willing to experiment with alternative distribution and not afraid of competition from fans (such as fansubs, fandubs, etc.) they've even learned to use fan culture to generate interest and promote sales, something Big Media has a hard time doing.
i fear they day when a Big Media company recognizes the big profit margins available from anime and starts to buy anime up in a big way. a big Big Media company could outbid small outfits like ADV for the best material, threaten the fan culture with legal attacks, and ruin the animes they bring in with aggressive and insensitive editing.
if you want to see something that makes sopa operas look tame, try wagner's ring of the nibelung. it's got incest, rape, theft, murder, slavery, and fratricide. and that's just the first opera.
have the mythbusters ever expeienced outright hostility from people (quacks, pseudoscientists, and parapsychologists) who have a vested interest in the continued belief in busted myths and junk science?
i regularly read james randi's weekly web blog and he gets hostility all the time. of course, he reaches out to purposely debunk frauds who are actively tricking people and stealing money. but very often he catches hostility from those who desparately want to believe in psedoscience as well.
nope, it was zeus' head. that's why athena is the goddess of wisdom.