It's not a case of "boss tightwad" or being "uninformed", it's a case of maximizing investment. We have a schedule to replace machines, and we need them to have a ten-year lifespan, regardless of what cool technology comes out. This upcoming replacement cycle will cost well over a hundred million dollars. We are a gigantic for-profit corporation, we make money and lots of it, but we can't afford to buy new gear just because Microsoft came out with.NET or because XML hit the scene.
Like anyone else, we buy what we can afford when the time comes, and then we have to live with that decision for some time. Our Microsoft reps don't seem to understand it, because they've moved beyond our hardware realm about five years ago and think we should buy new machines every three years just like they buy their desktops.
Something I've noticed that a disturbing number of people (including a large chunk of our internal technology group) fail to understand is that we are not a technology company. We are in a completely different business. We *need* technology to perform our tasks, but we are not "technology leaders", we're not in the information systems business, we're not a software house. We have some people who write software to solve our problems, but our problems are not software problems, they're business problems. This misconception leads to people thinking we should be on the cutting edge of everything. But what we require most is a stable environment so our employees can do the real task of servicing our customers.
Of course XML isnt a magical potion. It does however, allow those applications that people arent used to communicating together, to communicate. And yes, it uses compression that takes up memory. You obviously have some problem with that philosophy. After all, who needs more than 640K of RAM anyway?
No, XML can't do anything by itself. It doesn't allow apps to communicate any more or less than any other communications standard. You're still bound to schemas just as tightly as an ancient app was bound to the columns on the punch cards. Oh, boy, Visual Studio can get the schema via WSDL. While that is a great time-saver for VB.NET developers, it does so at the run-time expense of every single client -- forever.
Look, I already have Microsoft breathing down my director's neck saying "XML will unite your applications!.NET is all about the XML! Web Services! WSDL! Indigo! Team Studio 2005!" I also have tens of thousands of ancient client machines that are still stuck at 128MB with 233MHz processors and 1GB hard drives. I'm hoping we get half of them to at least 1GB RAM and 2.4GHz by 2007-2008, but that will depend on our corporate board handing over a really large sack o'money.
Like I said, I cant wait.
If you're going to be a "Rah, Rah, X-M-L! Rah-rah!" cheerleader, bring me the sack o'money so I don't have to wait, either. Upgrade my machines. Then you'll get some rah-rah out of me.
Maybe a parable will put it in perspective: at our vendor's request, we actually implemented their XML-based data layer on our current 128MB boxes for something other than a simple web request. Talk about a pointless exercise -- we knew from their design overview that it would suck, but we never imagined just how badly it could suck. The performance figures were concrete proof; the rah-rah project manager was sufficiently embarassed, and they ensured that my director won't even look at XML until at least the next decade. 128MB may be more than 640KB, but it's not enough for XML either, trust me.
Say, whatever happened to Motorola anyway? They used to make fantastic industrial radios -- indestructable, reliable, decent audio quality. And I've never had a Motorola pager die that didn't deserve it (being run over by a car is deserving.) But now, their cell phones have spotty quality, horsesh!t Bluetooth, stupid menuing systems held over from the 1980s, fragile-as-a-pretzel antennas, flimsy cases, and battery covers that have to be pressed closed in three places by a seeming accident of design.
This isn't even close to the same Motorola that makes police radios and industrial walkie talkies. It can't be. It's like a split personality. I just wish I'd remembered that before buying a RAZR.
# A signal transmitted to all user terminals in a service area, or the process.
keskus.hut.fi/opetus/s38118/s98/htyo/54/abbrev.sht ml
# Transmission to a number of receiving locations simultaneously.
www.isg-telecom.com/telco_glossary.htm
# Transferring learning content to many learners simultaneously, as in a satellite broadcast or an IP multicast. In an IP multicast, numerous learners can participate in a learning event that is broadcast over the network using the Internet Protocol from a single source.
https://fortress.wa.gov/dop/elearn/help/general-gl ossary.aspx
# Refers to signals intended for delivery on television, as well as network delivery to a wide audience.
www.brynmawr.edu/filmstudies/writing/glossary.html
# The sending of messages or video to many or all points simultaneously.
www.fortfrancesbroadband.ca/terms.htm
Notice how almost all of them refer to transmitting, and especially simultaneously.
A "podcast" is just an.MP3 put on a server. No broadcasting takes place. It is not "delivered". It's up to the audience to decide when to go and fetch the data. It is not synchronized, so it is not "simultaneous" either. Even the RSS "feed" (another misnomer) isn't broadcast. It's a blob of XML that clients go fetch every so often. When the client detects a change in the blob it may then signal a different client process to read the.MP3 data. There is no broadcasting of a podcast -- it's an ignorant marketing word that appeals to ignorant consumers.
Finally, if you're going to insult someone, check your spelling, numbnuts.
*NOW* they are going to concentrate on music phones. Unfortunately for them, that horse has already left the barn.
And look how well Motorola did with the ROKR. Let's hope that Nokia's smart enough to keep an eye on that product before rolling out their own clone-of-failure.
Please, feel free to loathe XML. Can you imagine the design sessions for it?
Boss: "OK, everyone, listen up. Memory sales are dead flat. We've got to figure out a way to really push the envelope and get people to buy more of our RAM chips. Come up with ideas, folks!"
Johnson: "What if we had everyone transmit data in a bloated format, and spin it so people think it's doing something magical?"
Adams: "Nobody would buy that. They're just computers, they can deal with any formats we can think up, they just have to have a program that parses them."
Johnson: "But we can tell people that 'other' computers can read this. Most people are used to applications that don't communicate, so they'll see this as their savior!"
Smith: "Never work. Bandwidth isn't there."
Johnson: "That's the beauty of this scheme! We'll have them put their data in this giant format, and then run even bigger programs to compress it before transmission and another to decompress it!!"
Buy more memory. It seems to be the rest of the industry's answer to resource hogging software. Look at all the bloatware out there: XML, JVMs,.NET, etc. The rest of the world is building for 1GB boxes, so who cares how efficient their code is anymore?
Coming from me, this is sarcasm, but it's a depressingly prevalent real attitude in the industry.
That part I don't really have a problem with. "iPod(TM)" has become a generic term for virtually any portable digital music player (excepting discmans and the like.) iPods are now the kleenex of the player world. At least it's a "correct" usage: you can download and play a podcast on an iPod.
But no matter how hard you try, you can't "broadcast" to an iPod. You can only put the media out there and hope your audience comes and gets it.
Umm, yeah, I suppose anyone with a body piercing or tattoo would be likely to go for this.
But I have a better idea. Those little fingerprint readers would be perfect for this. Y'know, like the ones used on the blackdog linux box or on the security mice. I mean you've got the remote in your hand, you're touching it with your fingertip, why not just read the finger that's holding the remote or pushing the button? No external hardware required.
Interesting parallels that can be drawn between his "mod him as a troll" statement and the clam-entologists propensity to sic attack lawyers on everyone who points out a flaw in their religion.
However, the sad fact is that you were trolled by this nutjob. You were drawn into an argument that you cannot win, because they themselves claim that factual truth does not matter to them. This position can be summed up nicely by one of their own bumper stickers:
God said it. I believe it. That settles it.
I don't think anyone could define 'willful ignorance' any better.
This got modded up solely because it says something bad about Windows.
Negative. This got modded up because it's true. SATA drivers are the only thing I've had to use a floppy for since installing Windows XP. The reason you had success is that you were installing a newer version of Windows (x64 edition is much newer) and it already included the SATA drivers in the distribution.
I remember the exact same situation was true trying to install SCSI drivers under Windows NT 4.0. We had to interrupt the installation process to insert a floppy to load the SCSI drivers. XP64 may even have a similar pause-point in its install.
XP was released in 2001. SATA wasn't available in the consumer world when these discs were cut. I haven't tried it with a current retail box copy of XP SP2 -- it's possible they've included updated SATA drivers in the latest shipped versions. Remember, people don't run out and buy a new copy of XP everytime one is released, or when they build a new box, or even upgrade an old one. They carry the old CDs and licenses forward to the new gear. It can't magically add drivers for new hardware to the old distro discs.
Actually, I think we'd all be better served if we just educated the RIAA. They'd be better off, too, because if they found the way to not make us all mad, perhaps they'd see sales return. But it simply may be too late for that.
I also don't believe educating people will help anything. Even after being educated about DRM, etc., most of the people I've talked to are "so what? As long as I can play my CDs, I don't care what they do."
I even got this reaction from a developer friend who then turned around and couldn't play his new System of a Down disc with Winamp. He said "yeah, some discs don't work in Winamp." He just accepted this! He fired up Windows Media Player and away he went. I eventually got him to be annoyed enough to uninstall Sunncomm's crapwarez DRM code, and magically his disc worked everywhere. It was quite a revelation to him, but it took way too much effort just to educate someone who's already a lot closer to understanding the technical parts of the problem than the average Joe.
However, this does not mean that people won't be willing to pay for music. They just won't both pay for music and be willing to be treated as a criminal for doing so.
Thank you, that is exactly what I was trying to express. The problem I had was trying to word more into it, but gave up when the ideas became too complex for a single statement.
Some offended by Sony's action will understand that this was a Sony / BMG problem, and will never purchase music from them again. Others will hear the RIAA chairman's statements exculpating Sony and recognize that DRM is an RIAA problem, and will no longer buy from RIAA member labels. But most people don't associate their favorite artists with specific labels. So most negative reactions will be more simplistic: "Oh, it's the record companies that are treating me like a criminal, so I will not buy any more music. I will just download everything. Period." They won't seek out indie labels or bands -- they still want their Aerosmith and Brittany Spears albums. But they are now unwilling to put up with the sh!t that comes with owning one, especially since P2P networks don't deliver the same problems.
Finally, some will blame all of Sony, not just the record label but also the electronics giant who is constantly selling DRM-encrusted hardware.
I'm writing in gross generalizations here. Obviously the most interested people are going to be the most precise in their reactions. But interested people make up less than 1% of the market. Traditional boycotts only have an effect when they dramatically involve financially significant sections of the customer base. What I've described above amounts to a defacto boycott that actually began a few years ago. What's most insidious is the RIAA has bemoaned this decline in sales as "evidence" of piracy, while the more honest answer is above: they have driven away their best customers by employing DRM and high-profile lawsuits. But because of BORE and P2P, these people will never return with their wallets until the industry is different.
Yeah, it's long been known as the BORE problem: Break Once, Run Everywhere. It's as old as copy-protection itself.
DRM in any form drives a certain percentage of consumers away from the product. Assuming demand is a constant, the more onerous the burden the fewer legitimate customers will put up with the restrictions, driving otherwise legitimate consumers to piracy just to obtain ease-of-use. It's common sense, and has been known since the Apple ][ days.
Cryptography ultimately cannot help the DRM makers, either. The decoding equipment must be by nature installed in a hostile environment (the end-users equipment.) And there is nothing that can be distributed that can't be reverse engineered. It may take specialized scientific lab equipment, but once it's broken, it's forever broken. It's BORE writ large.
In today's adversarial DRM / anti-DRM world, any DRM immediately inspires a certain segment of the population to defeat it. Some of them do so for profit: illicit reselling of satellite TV decoder cards, for example. Others do so for convenience: many choose to download media files for playing on their iPods instead of going through the hassle of ripping their own CDs or DVDs. The problem is that if you drive a legitimate paying consumer away even once and they discover the "free" world of media sharing, they're not likely to come back and spend money for another piece of legitimate media.
At which point did they claim to be scientists, or to even be following the scientific method? In the opening credits, the announcer specifically states that between them they have thirty years in the special effects business. Neither has claimed to hold a doctorate, and I've never even heard mention of a degree. When they do use the word "science", it's usually in a sarcastic sense, or as the punchline to a joke.
Yet you have inferred that because they sometimes follow methods that scientists use (double blind tests, control samples, statistical sampling, etc.) or that they occasionally wear white lab coats and play with test tubes that they are somehow a "form of... science"? I'd suggest not evaluating them so critically.
Slashdot Mirror
Like anyone else, we buy what we can afford when the time comes, and then we have to live with that decision for some time. Our Microsoft reps don't seem to understand it, because they've moved beyond our hardware realm about five years ago and think we should buy new machines every three years just like they buy their desktops.
Something I've noticed that a disturbing number of people (including a large chunk of our internal technology group) fail to understand is that we are not a technology company. We are in a completely different business. We *need* technology to perform our tasks, but we are not "technology leaders", we're not in the information systems business, we're not a software house. We have some people who write software to solve our problems, but our problems are not software problems, they're business problems. This misconception leads to people thinking we should be on the cutting edge of everything. But what we require most is a stable environment so our employees can do the real task of servicing our customers.
No, XML can't do anything by itself. It doesn't allow apps to communicate any more or less than any other communications standard. You're still bound to schemas just as tightly as an ancient app was bound to the columns on the punch cards. Oh, boy, Visual Studio can get the schema via WSDL. While that is a great time-saver for VB.NET developers, it does so at the run-time expense of every single client -- forever.
Look, I already have Microsoft breathing down my director's neck saying "XML will unite your applications! .NET is all about the XML! Web Services! WSDL! Indigo! Team Studio 2005!" I also have tens of thousands of ancient client machines that are still stuck at 128MB with 233MHz processors and 1GB hard drives. I'm hoping we get half of them to at least 1GB RAM and 2.4GHz by 2007-2008, but that will depend on our corporate board handing over a really large sack o'money.
Like I said, I cant wait.
If you're going to be a "Rah, Rah, X-M-L! Rah-rah!" cheerleader, bring me the sack o'money so I don't have to wait, either. Upgrade my machines. Then you'll get some rah-rah out of me.
Maybe a parable will put it in perspective: at our vendor's request, we actually implemented their XML-based data layer on our current 128MB boxes for something other than a simple web request. Talk about a pointless exercise -- we knew from their design overview that it would suck, but we never imagined just how badly it could suck. The performance figures were concrete proof; the rah-rah project manager was sufficiently embarassed, and they ensured that my director won't even look at XML until at least the next decade. 128MB may be more than 640KB, but it's not enough for XML either, trust me.
Hmm. I must have missed the other one then. Do you have a link?
This isn't even close to the same Motorola that makes police radios and industrial walkie talkies. It can't be. It's like a split personality. I just wish I'd remembered that before buying a RAZR.
Here, I'll paste you the top few definitions from google:
# A signal transmitted to all user terminals in a service area, or the process.t ml
keskus.hut.fi/opetus/s38118/s98/htyo/54/abbrev.sh
# Transmission to a number of receiving locations simultaneously.
www.isg-telecom.com/telco_glossary.htm
# Transferring learning content to many learners simultaneously, as in a satellite broadcast or an IP multicast. In an IP multicast, numerous learners can participate in a learning event that is broadcast over the network using the Internet Protocol from a single source.l ossary.aspx
https://fortress.wa.gov/dop/elearn/help/general-g
# Refers to signals intended for delivery on television, as well as network delivery to a wide audience.l
www.brynmawr.edu/filmstudies/writing/glossary.htm
# The sending of messages or video to many or all points simultaneously.
www.fortfrancesbroadband.ca/terms.htm
Notice how almost all of them refer to transmitting, and especially simultaneously.
A "podcast" is just an .MP3 put on a server. No broadcasting takes place. It is not "delivered". It's up to the audience to decide when to go and fetch the data. It is not synchronized, so it is not "simultaneous" either. Even the RSS "feed" (another misnomer) isn't broadcast. It's a blob of XML that clients go fetch every so often. When the client detects a change in the blob it may then signal a different client process to read the .MP3 data. There is no broadcasting of a podcast -- it's an ignorant marketing word that appeals to ignorant consumers.
Finally, if you're going to insult someone, check your spelling, numbnuts.
You call it a leak. They call it a cache. Semantics, really. :-)
And look how well Motorola did with the ROKR. Let's hope that Nokia's smart enough to keep an eye on that product before rolling out their own clone-of-failure.
Boss: "OK, everyone, listen up. Memory sales are dead flat. We've got to figure out a way to really push the envelope and get people to buy more of our RAM chips. Come up with ideas, folks!"
Johnson: "What if we had everyone transmit data in a bloated format, and spin it so people think it's doing something magical?"
Adams: "Nobody would buy that. They're just computers, they can deal with any formats we can think up, they just have to have a program that parses them."
Johnson: "But we can tell people that 'other' computers can read this. Most people are used to applications that don't communicate, so they'll see this as their savior!"
Smith: "Never work. Bandwidth isn't there."
Johnson: "That's the beauty of this scheme! We'll have them put their data in this giant format, and then run even bigger programs to compress it before transmission and another to decompress it!!"
Boss: "Brilliant! Bonuses all around!!"
Coming from me, this is sarcasm, but it's a depressingly prevalent real attitude in the industry.
But no matter how hard you try, you can't "broadcast" to an iPod. You can only put the media out there and hope your audience comes and gets it.
Stupid tin-foil hats turned out to be worthless after all.
I'm trying to figure out if this means you're an expert or if we shouldn't exactly trust your judgement on this one ...
Why the hell do they call them pod"casts"? There is no "casting" involved -- it's a pull model, and always has been.
But I have a better idea. Those little fingerprint readers would be perfect for this. Y'know, like the ones used on the blackdog linux box or on the security mice. I mean you've got the remote in your hand, you're touching it with your fingertip, why not just read the finger that's holding the remote or pushing the button? No external hardware required.
Screw 'em, I think I'll patent this.
If I paid $250 for a friggin' remote, you can bet I'd be crawling on my hands and knees looking for it.
Thanks, I was just going to ask this. I'm hoping it was just poorly worded, because OOo has a ton of projects in the development pipeline.
However, the sad fact is that you were trolled by this nutjob. You were drawn into an argument that you cannot win, because they themselves claim that factual truth does not matter to them. This position can be summed up nicely by one of their own bumper stickers:
I don't think anyone could define 'willful ignorance' any better.
Negative. This got modded up because it's true. SATA drivers are the only thing I've had to use a floppy for since installing Windows XP. The reason you had success is that you were installing a newer version of Windows (x64 edition is much newer) and it already included the SATA drivers in the distribution.
I remember the exact same situation was true trying to install SCSI drivers under Windows NT 4.0. We had to interrupt the installation process to insert a floppy to load the SCSI drivers. XP64 may even have a similar pause-point in its install.
XP was released in 2001. SATA wasn't available in the consumer world when these discs were cut. I haven't tried it with a current retail box copy of XP SP2 -- it's possible they've included updated SATA drivers in the latest shipped versions. Remember, people don't run out and buy a new copy of XP everytime one is released, or when they build a new box, or even upgrade an old one. They carry the old CDs and licenses forward to the new gear. It can't magically add drivers for new hardware to the old distro discs.
I also don't believe educating people will help anything. Even after being educated about DRM, etc., most of the people I've talked to are "so what? As long as I can play my CDs, I don't care what they do."
I even got this reaction from a developer friend who then turned around and couldn't play his new System of a Down disc with Winamp. He said "yeah, some discs don't work in Winamp." He just accepted this! He fired up Windows Media Player and away he went. I eventually got him to be annoyed enough to uninstall Sunncomm's crapwarez DRM code, and magically his disc worked everywhere. It was quite a revelation to him, but it took way too much effort just to educate someone who's already a lot closer to understanding the technical parts of the problem than the average Joe.
Thank you, that is exactly what I was trying to express. The problem I had was trying to word more into it, but gave up when the ideas became too complex for a single statement.
Some offended by Sony's action will understand that this was a Sony / BMG problem, and will never purchase music from them again. Others will hear the RIAA chairman's statements exculpating Sony and recognize that DRM is an RIAA problem, and will no longer buy from RIAA member labels. But most people don't associate their favorite artists with specific labels. So most negative reactions will be more simplistic: "Oh, it's the record companies that are treating me like a criminal, so I will not buy any more music. I will just download everything. Period." They won't seek out indie labels or bands -- they still want their Aerosmith and Brittany Spears albums. But they are now unwilling to put up with the sh!t that comes with owning one, especially since P2P networks don't deliver the same problems.
Finally, some will blame all of Sony, not just the record label but also the electronics giant who is constantly selling DRM-encrusted hardware.
I'm writing in gross generalizations here. Obviously the most interested people are going to be the most precise in their reactions. But interested people make up less than 1% of the market. Traditional boycotts only have an effect when they dramatically involve financially significant sections of the customer base. What I've described above amounts to a defacto boycott that actually began a few years ago. What's most insidious is the RIAA has bemoaned this decline in sales as "evidence" of piracy, while the more honest answer is above: they have driven away their best customers by employing DRM and high-profile lawsuits. But because of BORE and P2P, these people will never return with their wallets until the industry is different.
DRM in any form drives a certain percentage of consumers away from the product. Assuming demand is a constant, the more onerous the burden the fewer legitimate customers will put up with the restrictions, driving otherwise legitimate consumers to piracy just to obtain ease-of-use. It's common sense, and has been known since the Apple ][ days.
Cryptography ultimately cannot help the DRM makers, either. The decoding equipment must be by nature installed in a hostile environment (the end-users equipment.) And there is nothing that can be distributed that can't be reverse engineered. It may take specialized scientific lab equipment, but once it's broken, it's forever broken. It's BORE writ large.
In today's adversarial DRM / anti-DRM world, any DRM immediately inspires a certain segment of the population to defeat it. Some of them do so for profit: illicit reselling of satellite TV decoder cards, for example. Others do so for convenience: many choose to download media files for playing on their iPods instead of going through the hassle of ripping their own CDs or DVDs. The problem is that if you drive a legitimate paying consumer away even once and they discover the "free" world of media sharing, they're not likely to come back and spend money for another piece of legitimate media.
I wonder who told Gartner about the tape thing?
Telling us that we can use tape to defeat the DRM violates the DMCA. Gartner should be hearing the arrival of the black helicopters within the hour.
(I was originally going to recommend a ReplayTV as the solution, but couldn't pass up the obvious pun. Apparently it wasn't as obvious as I thought.)
Yet you have inferred that because they sometimes follow methods that scientists use (double blind tests, control samples, statistical sampling, etc.) or that they occasionally wear white lab coats and play with test tubes that they are somehow a "form of ... science"? I'd suggest not evaluating them so critically.