...one of the main record companies had decided to stop CD production and switch to SACD/CD hybrids for all new titles. . . . Sony Music will soon open a hybrid SACD pressing plant somewhere in the US, which will allow SACD prices to fall to around $23 or even below.
This is nuts...sales are falling and they decide to raise prices? I can see audiophiles maybe going for these discs, but not the rest of us.
I'm guessing most folks here would agree with the sentiment expressed in the article that "radio sucks." I personally only listen to NPR and the local college station, which plays stuff you never hear anywhere else. If the mega-conglomerates in radio & recording want to argue about a situation that's largely of their own making, fine.
I can't say that I'm thrilled with the idea of having to take a quiz on advertisements, but I do like the idea of a more robust pay-per-view system. Right now we've basically got three types of channels-- the basic ones we pay for as a package and have to suffer through advertising with, the premium channels like HBO, and then pay-per-view. What I'd like to see is a finer gradation of pay-per-view, so that we might pay to watch certain channels/shows on a meter. This could even vary by show, so that some programs cost $0.05, while others might be $0.50, etc. This might be either a flat rate per show, or an hourly rate. The overall monthly rate we pay could drop, and we could be directly supporting the shows we want to watch. Some shows could even remain free, with or without advertising.
This kind of expanded system could bring more viewers to shows like The Sopranos, where folks might not want to pay the monthly fee to HBO, but might pay fifty cents to see that particular show. (And if you find yourself watching a lot of HBO, there becomes incentive to subscribe.) At the same time, it would keep people (like me) from feeling like they're pissing away money every month on 150+ channels they're never going to watch.
Ok, so artists & companies suspect they're losing money due to CD pirates. Leaving aside the question of whether you can prove that or not, why don't they look for new ways to make money not subject to pirating?
A suggestion: more touring, more live music. Sure, you can pirate a concert performance, but nothing compares with actually being there, and most people know that. I'll wager that folks who won't pay $18 for a CD would gladly pay that to see the same artist live.
I can't believe this is making headlines. On top of the fact that Office & other Microsoft products for the Mac make them money, if Gates & Co. (publicly) abandoned the Mac it would just give the anti-trust crew more ammo & possibly create more lawsuits.
Having said that, however, I would like to see Redmond pick up the pace a bit with respect to their OS X support. I can't even drag & drop text within Word without it crashing on me, and IE's nice enough but still feels like a port without any polish (especially compared to OmniWeb, which to be fair has it's own problems).
The article was a little thin, but it looks to me like we're dealing with the difference between "Windows" the brand and the windows that every current GUI interface uses. If the Lindows folks were arguing that their brand was based on a combination of "Linux" and "windows" (say, if they were developing yet another desktop interface for Linux) that's one thing, but if it's a combo of "Linux" and "Windows" that's something else.
Given that the big appeal of Lindows is supposed to be the ability to run both Linux and Windows software, I have a hard time believing that the generic sense of the term will apply here.
Not to disrespect Mac folks, but I bet the profit involved in putting out Ultradev 5 with dot-Net authoring will result in a lot more sales than Dreamweaver in native OSX
That may be true, but they've also got to worry about the potential of lost sales. At the moment I'm using Dreamweaver 3 in Classic mode, which works fine but as more and more apps run native it becomes increasingly painful to have to do that. If GoLive is native before Dreamweaver, I may well consider switching.
As a side note, it's not just OS X support that is lacking. Full OS X support still isn't here yet. I just upgraded to Freehand 10 and have been dismayed to learn that pressure-sensitivity for my Wacom tablet isn't supported yet with it. So it's back to Freehand 9 in Classic for that, or look to Illustrator, which I hear does support it.
I'd like to see some introductory books to programming oriented around Mac OS X, and in particular Applescript Studio. I hear the Developer Tools are being bundled with the new machines now, which means potentially a large audience of folks getting into this in the near future.
oh, and yes to dead tree books! I've got enough windows open when I'm working on the computer without having to deal with another one for the reference.
Rosen explained that the interests of recording artists are threatened by P2P technology. "This is an industry of advances, not royalties," she said. "A record company executive once said to me: 'If an artist of mine gets a royalty, I haven't done my job at negotiation time."
So in other words, record companies never have any intention of letting artists profit from record sales.
While I agree with JK here, I find it interesting that he's chosen to use "hypermedia" to describe the phenomemon. Here's the definition I get from OmniDictionary:
hypermedia
n : a multimedia system in which related items of information are connected and can be presented together [syn: hypermedia system, interactive multimedia, interactive multimedia system]
Note that this says nothing about immediacy, overload, spastic news cycles, etc. This is exactly the kind of fuzzy/distorted communication that gets us in trouble. It's just as wrong to describe the admittedly hyperactive news media as "hypermedia" as it would be to describe US Steel as "ironic".
Ok, I think The Register has already pointed it out with respect to ads touting no more BSODs, but it bears repeating here...Microsoft has apparently been reduced to a marketing pitch that boils down to this:
Boy, we used to suck. But we've fixed that all now, promise!
What's next, Ford featuring Explorers flying into ditches to tout the safety of their new MegaVehicle du jour?
The idea of human-centric computing makes sense, though it does have a familiar ring. Haven't we heard such promises before? Computers were supposed to have surpassed humans in cognitive thinking long before now.
First off, technical advances have nothing to do with "human-centric" computing, which has nothing to do with computing power. Rather, it focuses on having computers (or VCRs or PDAs or whatever) more easy to use.
Any interaction with a device is a two-way street-- we tell it what to do, and it responds in kind. The problem with so many systems in use today is that they are designed such that the human ends up doing most of the work in the interaction. We have to make adjustments to the machine rather than the machine accommodating us.
Until designers start making a real effort to create products that meet users more than halfway, there will continue to be resistance to them.
I'll buy the ADD stuff, but I don't know about playing video games to learn to cope with stress. I know more than one person who deals with tough spots in video games by pausing the game to strategize.
MS basically wanted to offer a VM based Java-like language, but was unable to add their own extensions to Java fit in with their new strategy (remember the lawsuit from Sun?)
'scuse? That's not the way I recall it working. MS didn't get in trouble with Sun for adding extensions to the language. They got in trouble because they didn't do a full implementation of the Java standard, and started monkeying around with the language on top of it. This business of "not being allowed to add extensions" is just more MS weaseling.I believe (and somebody please correct me if I'm wrong) that Apple, for example, has added some extensions to Java specific to the Mac, but has not gotten in trouble for it because they've got a complete Java implementation, and are adding to it...not starting with 95% & then going from there.
However, do we think the law could recognize a distinction between the types of links? I don't think so. The line is too finely drawn, and any rule would either be too broad, and thus have a dampening effect on the web, or would be too narrow, and easily circumvented.
I'm not so sure I agree with this. In fact, I would argue that most web sites have a certain number of "navigation" pages and "content" pages or files. "Navigation" pages are there mostly to get you from one place to another, and "content" pages are the meat of what you're after. For the most part these are easy to distinguish from each other, and I would think could be well-defined.
Of course, if sites had to link to navigation pages it would add another click or two to get where you're going, but I don't think it would have a huge impact on the web as a whole.
A PowerMac G4 + Final Cut Pro makes a nice package, although it might be a little more pricey than some other setups. We just recently got that & a Canon XL-1 for our video needs here. I haven't had a chance to do much elaborate with it yet, but have been very impressed so far.
Hard drive space is a tough question, though...we've got ~28GB devoted to our video partition, and that looks to be plenty for what we need.
Also, if you're looking to do internet stuff, you'll want to look into something like Media Cleaner Pro, which can do every kind of compression known to man, I think.
I think some of us here might be missing the point. While a lot of skins might be a little whacked-out, the only folks who are likely to use them are people who know what they're getting into in the first place. Any weirdness that follows is the user's own fault, & he can always switch it back.
However, the issue raised in SUCK about non-standard interfaces (Quicktime, most any web site) is hugely important. Folks get so used to seeing things in certain places, that changing them around can cause all kinds of problems. I see that all the time when someone in one of our workshops (I work in a university where we have a lot of faculty "click here, do that" workshops) who is normally a Windows user sits down at a Mac. They often can't figure out how to close windows, and assume that if the window goes away then the application must have also quit.
This is something I see as a potential problem for Mozilla/Netscape, unless they develop platform-specific skins for Windows, Mac, etc. Apps should always start out with the default behavior expected on a given system...from that point if the user wants to apply his own look & feel, more power to him. In the case of Netscape 6, I would even go so far as to recommend that they mimic Netscape 4.x to a great extent, to lessen the learning curve required by Joe Average User.
Who's to say that advertising has to continue as a source of revenue? We've already got pay-per-view and subscription services like HBO that don't rely on advertising. Pay-per-view isn't exactly a bastion of quality programming, but HBO puts out some good stuff.
With something like TiVo all of TV could potentially become pay-per-view. They've got the data on what you're watching (or at least recording...I assume tracking both wouldn't be difficult). It would be a short step from there to charge you specifically for the shows you watch.
Slashdot Mirror
...one of the main record companies had decided to stop CD production and switch to SACD/CD hybrids for all new titles. . . . Sony Music will soon open a hybrid SACD pressing plant somewhere in the US, which will allow SACD prices to fall to around $23 or even below.
This is nuts...sales are falling and they decide to raise prices? I can see audiophiles maybe going for these discs, but not the rest of us.
I'm guessing most folks here would agree with the sentiment expressed in the article that "radio sucks." I personally only listen to NPR and the local college station, which plays stuff you never hear anywhere else. If the mega-conglomerates in radio & recording want to argue about a situation that's largely of their own making, fine.
I can't say that I'm thrilled with the idea of having to take a quiz on advertisements, but I do like the idea of a more robust pay-per-view system. Right now we've basically got three types of channels-- the basic ones we pay for as a package and have to suffer through advertising with, the premium channels like HBO, and then pay-per-view. What I'd like to see is a finer gradation of pay-per-view, so that we might pay to watch certain channels/shows on a meter. This could even vary by show, so that some programs cost $0.05, while others might be $0.50, etc. This might be either a flat rate per show, or an hourly rate. The overall monthly rate we pay could drop, and we could be directly supporting the shows we want to watch. Some shows could even remain free, with or without advertising.
This kind of expanded system could bring more viewers to shows like The Sopranos, where folks might not want to pay the monthly fee to HBO, but might pay fifty cents to see that particular show. (And if you find yourself watching a lot of HBO, there becomes incentive to subscribe.) At the same time, it would keep people (like me) from feeling like they're pissing away money every month on 150+ channels they're never going to watch.
Ok, so artists & companies suspect they're losing money due to CD pirates. Leaving aside the question of whether you can prove that or not, why don't they look for new ways to make money not subject to pirating?
A suggestion: more touring, more live music. Sure, you can pirate a concert performance, but nothing compares with actually being there, and most people know that. I'll wager that folks who won't pay $18 for a CD would gladly pay that to see the same artist live.
I can't believe this is making headlines. On top of the fact that Office & other Microsoft products for the Mac make them money, if Gates & Co. (publicly) abandoned the Mac it would just give the anti-trust crew more ammo & possibly create more lawsuits.
Having said that, however, I would like to see Redmond pick up the pace a bit with respect to their OS X support. I can't even drag & drop text within Word without it crashing on me, and IE's nice enough but still feels like a port without any polish (especially compared to OmniWeb, which to be fair has it's own problems).
The article was a little thin, but it looks to me like we're dealing with the difference between "Windows" the brand and the windows that every current GUI interface uses. If the Lindows folks were arguing that their brand was based on a combination of "Linux" and "windows" (say, if they were developing yet another desktop interface for Linux) that's one thing, but if it's a combo of "Linux" and "Windows" that's something else.
Given that the big appeal of Lindows is supposed to be the ability to run both Linux and Windows software, I have a hard time believing that the generic sense of the term will apply here.
Not to disrespect Mac folks, but I bet the profit involved in putting out Ultradev 5 with dot-Net authoring will result in a lot more sales than Dreamweaver in native OSX
That may be true, but they've also got to worry about the potential of lost sales. At the moment I'm using Dreamweaver 3 in Classic mode, which works fine but as more and more apps run native it becomes increasingly painful to have to do that. If GoLive is native before Dreamweaver, I may well consider switching.
As a side note, it's not just OS X support that is lacking. Full OS X support still isn't here yet. I just upgraded to Freehand 10 and have been dismayed to learn that pressure-sensitivity for my Wacom tablet isn't supported yet with it. So it's back to Freehand 9 in Classic for that, or look to Illustrator, which I hear does support it.
I'd like to see some introductory books to programming oriented around Mac OS X, and in particular Applescript Studio. I hear the Developer Tools are being bundled with the new machines now, which means potentially a large audience of folks getting into this in the near future.
oh, and yes to dead tree books! I've got enough windows open when I'm working on the computer without having to deal with another one for the reference.
So in other words, record companies never have any intention of letting artists profit from record sales.
While I agree with JK here, I find it interesting that he's chosen to use "hypermedia" to describe the phenomemon. Here's the definition I get from OmniDictionary:
Note that this says nothing about immediacy, overload, spastic news cycles, etc. This is exactly the kind of fuzzy/distorted communication that gets us in trouble. It's just as wrong to describe the admittedly hyperactive news media as "hypermedia" as it would be to describe US Steel as "ironic".
Ok, I think The Register has already pointed it out with respect to ads touting no more BSODs, but it bears repeating here...Microsoft has apparently been reduced to a marketing pitch that boils down to this:
What's next, Ford featuring Explorers flying into ditches to tout the safety of their new MegaVehicle du jour?
Katz writes:
The idea of human-centric computing makes sense, though it does have a familiar ring. Haven't we heard such promises before? Computers were supposed to have surpassed humans in cognitive thinking long before now.
First off, technical advances have nothing to do with "human-centric" computing, which has nothing to do with computing power. Rather, it focuses on having computers (or VCRs or PDAs or whatever) more easy to use.
Any interaction with a device is a two-way street-- we tell it what to do, and it responds in kind. The problem with so many systems in use today is that they are designed such that the human ends up doing most of the work in the interaction. We have to make adjustments to the machine rather than the machine accommodating us.
Until designers start making a real effort to create products that meet users more than halfway, there will continue to be resistance to them.
I'll buy the ADD stuff, but I don't know about playing video games to learn to cope with stress. I know more than one person who deals with tough spots in video games by pausing the game to strategize.
Last I heard F-15s don't come with pause buttons.
MS basically wanted to offer a VM based Java-like language, but was unable to add their own extensions to Java fit in with their new strategy (remember the lawsuit from Sun?)
'scuse? That's not the way I recall it working. MS didn't get in trouble with Sun for adding extensions to the language. They got in trouble because they didn't do a full implementation of the Java standard, and started monkeying around with the language on top of it. This business of "not being allowed to add extensions" is just more MS weaseling.I believe (and somebody please correct me if I'm wrong) that Apple, for example, has added some extensions to Java specific to the Mac, but has not gotten in trouble for it because they've got a complete Java implementation, and are adding to it...not starting with 95% & then going from there.
However, do we think the law could recognize a distinction between the types of links? I don't think so. The line is too finely drawn, and any rule would either be too broad, and thus have a dampening effect on the web, or would be too narrow, and easily circumvented.
I'm not so sure I agree with this. In fact, I would argue that most web sites have a certain number of "navigation" pages and "content" pages or files. "Navigation" pages are there mostly to get you from one place to another, and "content" pages are the meat of what you're after. For the most part these are easy to distinguish from each other, and I would think could be well-defined.
Of course, if sites had to link to navigation pages it would add another click or two to get where you're going, but I don't think it would have a huge impact on the web as a whole.
A PowerMac G4 + Final Cut Pro makes a nice package, although it might be a little more pricey than some other setups. We just recently got that & a Canon XL-1 for our video needs here. I haven't had a chance to do much elaborate with it yet, but have been very impressed so far.
Hard drive space is a tough question, though...we've got ~28GB devoted to our video partition, and that looks to be plenty for what we need.
Also, if you're looking to do internet stuff, you'll want to look into something like Media Cleaner Pro, which can do every kind of compression known to man, I think.
I think some of us here might be missing the point. While a lot of skins might be a little whacked-out, the only folks who are likely to use them are people who know what they're getting into in the first place. Any weirdness that follows is the user's own fault, & he can always switch it back.
However, the issue raised in SUCK about non-standard interfaces (Quicktime, most any web site) is hugely important. Folks get so used to seeing things in certain places, that changing them around can cause all kinds of problems. I see that all the time when someone in one of our workshops (I work in a university where we have a lot of faculty "click here, do that" workshops) who is normally a Windows user sits down at a Mac. They often can't figure out how to close windows, and assume that if the window goes away then the application must have also quit.
This is something I see as a potential problem for Mozilla/Netscape, unless they develop platform-specific skins for Windows, Mac, etc. Apps should always start out with the default behavior expected on a given system...from that point if the user wants to apply his own look & feel, more power to him. In the case of Netscape 6, I would even go so far as to recommend that they mimic Netscape 4.x to a great extent, to lessen the learning curve required by Joe Average User.
For those of you who don't like the stub installer, there is a standalone version available:
/
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/support
re: qt for unix/linux, I would bet that we'll see it eventually, but probably not until OS X is under control.
Who's to say that advertising has to continue as a source of revenue? We've already got pay-per-view and subscription services like HBO that don't rely on advertising. Pay-per-view isn't exactly a bastion of quality programming, but HBO puts out some good stuff.
With something like TiVo all of TV could potentially become pay-per-view. They've got the data on what you're watching (or at least recording...I assume tracking both wouldn't be difficult). It would be a short step from there to charge you specifically for the shows you watch.