The 10-times rule is a rule-of-thumb theory that any new technology must be at least 10 times better than the technology it's intended to replace, in order to succeed. Actually, it must be perceived as 10 times better, since 'better' is such a subjective term.
There's many precedents, most notably CDs. CDs are 10x 'better' than vinyl (sound quality, production cost, resistance to scratching, size, etc) and easily replaced vinyl once the price of recorders came down. DVDs are 10 times better than pre-recorded video cassettes (production costs, quality, access time, size, etc).
Personally, I think Minidiscs are 10x better than tape (which they were intended to replace), but they haven't taken off so well.
However, are DVD-A/SACD 10 times 'better' than CDs? Audiophiles might think so, but I doubt regular joes will consider it worth the investment. Does it sound significantly better than CD? Does it offer many new features over CD? Then regular people won't buy SACD/DVD-A players.
What will happen is that the cost of add SACD/DVD-A to a regular CD player will come down, and it won't be such a big deal to buy a SACD/DVD-A equipped CD player. It may take a long time, but eventually CD will be phased out, and it'll be there in backwards compatibility mode only.
The Demand for vinyl from the DJ industry... shouldn't be slowing down too much
Turntablists will always need vinyl. But other types of DJ (house and techno especially, those that often don't use turntable tricks) may be moving to CD with the advent of better interfaces.
That system sounds pretty good. If we look ahead 5-10 years, it's conceivable that net connections would be as ubiquitous as phones, so it'd be feasible to require hardware to have a net connection. Sony have the clout to add such network features to their consumer products, and in the past their technologies have been successfully licensed to other consumer product manufacturers (CD, Minidisc, etc)
This system would mean some serious changes to the way people think about possessions. You don't 'own' a thing, you 'own' a right. You can't necessarily sell your 'possession' to anyone else.
The analog hole is not a problem either. Say the players can play "regular" content (like today's CDs/DVDs/MP3s) as well as digitally encrypted content. The player would only play InterTrust content (which it knows is safe) or normal content with no detectable watermark. This allows legitimate users to create and use their own stuff, but they can't transfer copyrighted content to their friends using the analog hole (which transfers it to the domain of "regular" content) because their friend's (InterTrust compatible) players won't play any "regular" content which contains a watermark.
If I'd downloaded Reign Of Fire before I went to see it at the cimema, I would probably have seen another movie instead. That way Hollywood would still get all its money....[snip]... so there is no money *lost* if that was the way it happened.
Hollywood does not have some giant bank account that all the studios use. Your money might still goes to "Hollywood" in general, but that's cold comfort to the movie studio that made the film you pirated.
C'mon guys, see the bigger picture! This is good news. Whether you believe they landed or not, you can learn a lot about science itself from these claims by the 'cranks'.
It can teach you insights into:
What 'scientific proof' really means (it's not a good idea to say something is something with 100% certainty) and how hard it is to dislocate it from human psychology.
How dangerous it can be to blindly believe so-called 'experts' (what about that guy at Bell Labs who falsified his work, they had to pull 6 patents!)
It's always good to have a disbeliever around. It can be frustrating sometimes (Darwinists are sick of Creationists like Jack Chick) but it keeps you on your toes and makes you question things you believe to be true.
Remember: Belief gets in the way of learning. The philosophy of science is something I believe that everyone should learn about, and scientists unwilling to study it should not call themselves scientists.
See Robert Anton Wilson's "Cosmic Trigger" series (esp. Cosmic Trigger III) for a really interesting read about this. (He's one of the guys who wrote Illuminatus, so you can trust him! Fnord!)
*Yes I know it should be SCEJ, but it isn't, okay?
Actually, there is an SCEJ. They're the Product Development side of Sony Computer Entertainment that makes games for PlayStation consoles.
I second your point about SCEI/A/E (and K for Korea, don't forget!) being separate companies. PlayStation game developers know by now that each SCE territory may have very different philosophies to its sister companies.
Sony is a huge entity. It employs over 190,000 people. It is not a 'hive mind' with a single direction or set of values, but most people probably think that it is, as it's more convenient to anthropomorphosise it. Generalised statements like "Sony wants this... Microsoft wants that..." ignores that these companies are comprised of thousands of individuals, not a single robotic policy maker.
Though the AIBO guys are probably working on one.:)
It annoys me to see people cite patriotism to justify their actions. It's another form of tribalism, the happy feeling of belonging to a successful group of people, whether that is a family, a college, a group of friends, or a country. Try living in a few different countries, you'll get a different perspective on patriotism.
To me, being patriotic means that you like your country's culture and landscape, and are proud of it. It does not mean you have to love that country's government.
It's easier to put into perspective if you consider the government to be just like any other company, one that just happens to direct the economy, defend the area from attacks, fix my roads and take my trash away. To me, it would feel strange to feel 'patriotic' towards a company instead of a country.
Well, I've used a few different 'companies' (governments), because over the course of my life, I've lived in 3 different countries. It's given me the perspective that my feelings for a particular country's culture and landscape have nothing to do with the group of people who manage that country.
There is already a good English version.
on
Sen To, X-Men 2
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· Score: 2, Insightful
[Warning: Otaku alert] In Japan, the DVD contains English subtitles. So anyone in Region 2 (Europe/Japan) can see it in its original form.
For me, the sound and accent of the voices is just as important as the visuals, so the dubbed version of Princess Mononoke was awful. When trying to recreate the atmosphere of medieval Japan, you should not use American valley-girl/dude accents. Dubbing can significantly detract from a film, and it certainly did in Princess Mononoke's case (Luckily the DVD release had the original soundtrack). Imagine how badly Amelie would have sounded if she spoke with an American accent (Not that I'm flaming Americans, any accent other than French would have been pretty bad).
Having said that, the dubbing on the trailer for Spirited Away actually sounded pretty good, and I don't think it'll detract from the experience.
As for movie itself - [Ferris Bueller paraphrase]: I love the flick. It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend it.
I was in a movie theatre watching Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and at a pivotal, very emotional point in the movie, everyone is totally quiet and completely immersed in this beautiful scene.
And then Flight of the Bumblebee started up.
Everyone cringed, because it was already muffled - it was in somebody's handbag, so the audience knew they'd have to suffer while the guilty party furiously dug around for it, and that it would get worse (i.e. LOUDER) when they took it out to shut it off.
They say it's not such a big problem, because a hacker could only either cheat in an online game, or perform a DoS attack on the user. "If someone hacks you, shrug shoulder's, hit reset. You've only lost time."
But the real problem is that eventually these consoles will also serve functions other than just gaming. Both Micros~1 and Sony want your living room for more than games, they want to provide other services such as movie/music downloads, general web surfing and online commerce.
That means that the HDD (standard in Xbox, optional in PS2) will contain potentially valuable information, such as content you've downloaded, or maybe your CC number you used to buy the extra content in the first place. So if hackers could get at that data, they're potentially ripping you off.
While this problem exists on PC too, consoles are an easier target because each one has exactly the same OS (non-upgradeable/non-patchable). If game Foo comes out with some vulnerability that allows hackers to access the contents of the HDD, then the game developer won't be able to send out a patch for Foo...
Another elevator story that Seamus probably doesn't want you to hear:
At GDC (Games Developers Conference) in San Jose a few weeks back, a few Sony Europe and Sony Japan guys were in an elevator. Seamus is standing quietly at the back, out of sight. One of the Sony Europe guys introduces himself to each of the Sony Japan guys in stilted Japanese. Seamus, who can speak Japanese pretty well, smugly leans over and proceeds to do the same, in even _more_ authentic Japanese. He goes round each person, and even introduces himself in Japanese to the Sony Europe guys (pretty much shaming out the Sony Europe guy who was only a beginner in Japanese)
He finally gets around to the last Sony Europe guy, and the guy, not knowing how to speak Japanese at all, replies with the only Japanese phrase he knows.
Seamus: [Looking puzzled] "What does that mean?"
The Japanese guys in the elevator are pissing themselves laughing.
Sony Europe guy: "Do you want to fight, monkeystyle?"
Seamus's smug face drops a mile, and he retreats into the back of the lift.
I remember doing some stupidly long hours hacking away at some code, the only one still at work after 3am, in an open plan office where everyone had SGI unix machines on their desktops.
It's a little bit spooky being totally alone on a floor in an office block as it is. Total silence except for the sound of my keypresses.
At around 5am, when my thought processes were dulled by fatigue, all the machines on the floor mysteriously suddenly started to whirr away noisily - at the same time. Then the tape drive in front of me spat out a tape at me. It totally freaked me out.
I was told the next day that it was the nightly coredump cleanup cronjob, and the tape spat out because the backup was complete.
And you ever wondered why they call server processes daemons and IMPs?
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There's many precedents, most notably CDs. CDs are 10x 'better' than vinyl (sound quality, production cost, resistance to scratching, size, etc) and easily replaced vinyl once the price of recorders came down. DVDs are 10 times better than pre-recorded video cassettes (production costs, quality, access time, size, etc).
Personally, I think Minidiscs are 10x better than tape (which they were intended to replace), but they haven't taken off so well.
However, are DVD-A/SACD 10 times 'better' than CDs? Audiophiles might think so, but I doubt regular joes will consider it worth the investment. Does it sound significantly better than CD? Does it offer many new features over CD? Then regular people won't buy SACD/DVD-A players.
What will happen is that the cost of add SACD/DVD-A to a regular CD player will come down, and it won't be such a big deal to buy a SACD/DVD-A equipped CD player. It may take a long time, but eventually CD will be phased out, and it'll be there in backwards compatibility mode only.
Turntablists will always need vinyl. But other types of DJ (house and techno especially, those that often don't use turntable tricks) may be moving to CD with the advent of better interfaces.
This system would mean some serious changes to the way people think about possessions. You don't 'own' a thing, you 'own' a right. You can't necessarily sell your 'possession' to anyone else.
The analog hole is not a problem either. Say the players can play "regular" content (like today's CDs/DVDs/MP3s) as well as digitally encrypted content. The player would only play InterTrust content (which it knows is safe) or normal content with no detectable watermark. This allows legitimate users to create and use their own stuff, but they can't transfer copyrighted content to their friends using the analog hole (which transfers it to the domain of "regular" content) because their friend's (InterTrust compatible) players won't play any "regular" content which contains a watermark.
Hollywood does not have some giant bank account that all the studios use. Your money might still goes to "Hollywood" in general, but that's cold comfort to the movie studio that made the film you pirated.
It can teach you insights into:
- What 'scientific proof' really means (it's not a good idea to say something is something with 100% certainty) and how hard it is to dislocate it from human psychology.
- How dangerous it can be to blindly believe so-called 'experts' (what about that guy at Bell Labs who falsified his work, they had to pull 6 patents!)
- How to describe things without defining their 'reality' for clearer thinking.
It's always good to have a disbeliever around. It can be frustrating sometimes (Darwinists are sick of Creationists like Jack Chick) but it keeps you on your toes and makes you question things you believe to be true.Remember: Belief gets in the way of learning. The philosophy of science is something I believe that everyone should learn about, and scientists unwilling to study it should not call themselves scientists.
See Robert Anton Wilson's "Cosmic Trigger" series (esp. Cosmic Trigger III) for a really interesting read about this. (He's one of the guys who wrote Illuminatus, so you can trust him! Fnord!)
That's why the British version is called Scrapheap Challenge and the American version is Junkyard Wars.
"Go on, have a war!" -- Chris Morris
Actually, there is an SCEJ. They're the Product Development side of Sony Computer Entertainment that makes games for PlayStation consoles.
I second your point about SCEI/A/E (and K for Korea, don't forget!) being separate companies. PlayStation game developers know by now that each SCE territory may have very different philosophies to its sister companies.
Sony is a huge entity. It employs over 190,000 people. It is not a 'hive mind' with a single direction or set of values, but most people probably think that it is, as it's more convenient to anthropomorphosise it. Generalised statements like "Sony wants this... Microsoft wants that..." ignores that these companies are comprised of thousands of individuals, not a single robotic policy maker.
Though the AIBO guys are probably working on one. :)
To me, being patriotic means that you like your country's culture and landscape, and are proud of it. It does not mean you have to love that country's government.
It's easier to put into perspective if you consider the government to be just like any other company, one that just happens to direct the economy, defend the area from attacks, fix my roads and take my trash away. To me, it would feel strange to feel 'patriotic' towards a company instead of a country.
Well, I've used a few different 'companies' (governments), because over the course of my life, I've lived in 3 different countries. It's given me the perspective that my feelings for a particular country's culture and landscape have nothing to do with the group of people who manage that country.
For me, the sound and accent of the voices is just as important as the visuals, so the dubbed version of Princess Mononoke was awful. When trying to recreate the atmosphere of medieval Japan, you should not use American valley-girl/dude accents. Dubbing can significantly detract from a film, and it certainly did in Princess Mononoke's case (Luckily the DVD release had the original soundtrack). Imagine how badly Amelie would have sounded if she spoke with an American accent (Not that I'm flaming Americans, any accent other than French would have been pretty bad).
Having said that, the dubbing on the trailer for Spirited Away actually sounded pretty good, and I don't think it'll detract from the experience. As for movie itself - [Ferris Bueller paraphrase]: I love the flick. It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend it.
And then Flight of the Bumblebee started up.
Everyone cringed, because it was already muffled - it was in somebody's handbag, so the audience knew they'd have to suffer while the guilty party furiously dug around for it, and that it would get worse (i.e. LOUDER) when they took it out to shut it off.
There was a deep gruff voice from the back:
"Let it ring. So I can find you."
It got shut off pretty quick.
They say it's not such a big problem, because a hacker could only either cheat in an online game, or perform a DoS attack on the user. "If someone hacks you, shrug shoulder's, hit reset. You've only lost time."
But the real problem is that eventually these consoles will also serve functions other than just gaming. Both Micros~1 and Sony want your living room for more than games, they want to provide other services such as movie/music downloads, general web surfing and online commerce.
That means that the HDD (standard in Xbox, optional in PS2) will contain potentially valuable information, such as content you've downloaded, or maybe your CC number you used to buy the extra content in the first place. So if hackers could get at that data, they're potentially ripping you off.
While this problem exists on PC too, consoles are an easier target because each one has exactly the same OS (non-upgradeable/non-patchable). If game Foo comes out with some vulnerability that allows hackers to access the contents of the HDD, then the game developer won't be able to send out a patch for Foo...
Yeah, I'd be worried.
and learn how to program.
:)
'Cos all the physics, biology, chemistry and engineering majors will become sysadmins once they find they can't get jobs.
Of the 7 electrical/mechanical engineers I knew in college, ALL of them have ended up as programmers and sysadmins.
Another elevator story that Seamus probably doesn't want you to hear:
At GDC (Games Developers Conference) in San Jose a few weeks back, a few Sony Europe and Sony Japan guys were in an elevator. Seamus is standing quietly at the back, out of sight. One of the Sony Europe guys introduces himself to each of the Sony Japan guys in stilted Japanese. Seamus, who can speak Japanese pretty well, smugly leans over and proceeds to do the same, in even _more_ authentic Japanese. He goes round each person, and even introduces himself in Japanese to the Sony Europe guys (pretty much shaming out the Sony Europe guy who was only a beginner in Japanese)
He finally gets around to the last Sony Europe guy, and the guy, not knowing how to speak Japanese at all, replies with the only Japanese phrase he knows.
Seamus: [Looking puzzled] "What does that mean?"
The Japanese guys in the elevator are pissing themselves laughing.
Sony Europe guy: "Do you want to fight, monkeystyle?"
Seamus's smug face drops a mile, and he retreats into the back of the lift.
I remember doing some stupidly long hours hacking away at some code, the only one still at work after 3am, in an open plan office where everyone had SGI unix machines on their desktops.
It's a little bit spooky being totally alone on a floor in an office block as it is. Total silence except for the sound of my keypresses.
At around 5am, when my thought processes were dulled by fatigue, all the machines on the floor mysteriously suddenly started to whirr away noisily - at the same time. Then the tape drive in front of me spat out a tape at me. It totally freaked me out.
I was told the next day that it was the nightly coredump cleanup cronjob, and the tape spat out because the backup was complete.
And you ever wondered why they call server processes daemons and IMPs?