I'm dying to read this book: Faster by James Glieck. (~$20) I heard him on NPR discussing his reasoning behind writing it. He really made me think about how technology and our accelerated lifesytles affect our lives. If my family/friends are reading this, you know what to do...
Gates claims that his business is "not like owning a newspaper". He adds: "Someone who owns a paper can pick up the phone to the editor and say 'run headlines I like'.
"What we do is create tools like a word processor that lets people express their ideas and we're not at all involved in how they choose to use it.
Hmm, but Gates/M$ is in the content business in a big way. What about sidewalk.com, slate, MSNBC and countless other venues owned, directly or indirectly, by BG/M$ which can be used to shape the media. Heck, M$/sidwalk.com even purchased the most widely read local alternative weekly in my area (Minneapolis/StPaul) and effectively put the alternative-to-the-alternative weekly out of business. I can't go to any vaguely interesting restaurant in my area without seeing a plaque on the wall stating the restaurant is sidewalk.com endorsed. This troubles me.
Not to stray too far from the topic, but this also reminds me of another example of corporate media manipulation in my area. There used to be a kid's radio station called Radio Ahhs that, in my opinion, was quite educational and was more along the lines of public television in it's feel. A couple of years ago Disney came to town and started a competing station, Radio Disney, which was able to use it's marketing/monetary might to squish the financially tenuous Radio Ahhs. Radio Disney now spews mostly, if not all, Disney-produced content and Disney-related commercials. Disney now owns more than half of the popular FM stations here, as well.
I'd be willing to bet that when asked similar questions by the BBC interviewer, Michael Eisner would say something like "We're not in the newspaper business, our company makes theme parks and animated movies."
"...in fact, less than 20% of programmers are still programming after age 40."
Is this really because of burnout, or because most people move up the ladder and away from programming? The latter has been the case for many people I know.
This site made me laugh hard. My favorite quote: Our expert craftsmen form a uniquely specialized team that brings you the finest in custom wooden computing.
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I'm dying to read this book: Faster by James Glieck. (~$20) I heard him on NPR discussing his reasoning behind writing it. He really made me think about how technology and our accelerated lifesytles affect our lives. If my family/friends are reading this, you know what to do...
Gates claims that his business is "not like owning a newspaper". He adds: "Someone who owns a paper can pick up the phone to the editor and say 'run headlines I like'.
"What we do is create tools like a word processor that lets people express their ideas and we're not at all involved in how they choose to use it.
Hmm, but Gates/M$ is in the content business in a big way. What about sidewalk.com, slate, MSNBC and countless other venues owned, directly or indirectly, by BG/M$ which can be used to shape the media. Heck, M$/sidwalk.com even purchased the most widely read local alternative weekly in my area (Minneapolis/StPaul) and effectively put the alternative-to-the-alternative weekly out of business. I can't go to any vaguely interesting restaurant in my area without seeing a plaque on the wall stating the restaurant is sidewalk.com endorsed. This troubles me.
Not to stray too far from the topic, but this also reminds me of another example of corporate media manipulation in my area. There used to be a kid's radio station called Radio Ahhs that, in my opinion, was quite educational and was more along the lines of public television in it's feel. A couple of years ago Disney came to town and started a competing station, Radio Disney, which was able to use it's marketing/monetary might to squish the financially tenuous Radio Ahhs. Radio Disney now spews mostly, if not all, Disney-produced content and Disney-related commercials. Disney now owns more than half of the popular FM stations here, as well.
I'd be willing to bet that when asked similar questions by the BBC interviewer, Michael Eisner would say something like "We're not in the newspaper business, our company makes theme parks and animated movies."
"...in fact, less than 20% of programmers are still programming after age 40."
Is this really because of burnout, or because most people move up the ladder and away from programming? The latter has been the case for many people I know.
This article appeared in Linux Journal last year, it's a little thin on tech, but does talk about how Digital Domain made use of Linux for rendering.
This site made me laugh hard. My favorite quote: Our expert craftsmen form a uniquely specialized team that brings you the finest in custom wooden computing.