Here's one thing the record industry hates about this. It breaks the bundling business model of selling 2-3 (arguably) good songs with 7-8 bad songs.
Say you listen to the radio, and in the course of a month hear 5 songs by different artists that you just can't live without. Presuming you have disposable entertainment income, you're going to spend $100 for 5 CDs that month.
With micropayments, now you're spending.50 for each single, for a total of $2.50. That's 1/40th the revenue to the record companies.
Sure we can all come up with a million business models for e-music, but ultimately they all break the bundling that the record companies have managed to pull off for decades (or at least since album per-unit sales overcame 45 sales). What other industry (well, besides maybe cable TV) can you bundle 7-8 crappy pieces of a product with 2-3 highly desired pieces, and sell all 10 as a bundle?
Learn from this: in 20 years from right now, what advice do you think you would want to go back and give to your "now" (current age) self? "Stop buying so much stuff." "Get married already." "Start saving money for the future!" "Stop smoking." "Eat better." "Get some exercise." "Sell your Microsoft stock!"
Is there advice that you get from your elders now that you're ignoring because it sounds suspiciously lame?
...Timeline's position is that Microsoft is not a law firm, thus customers who relied on Microsoft's assertion that everything was OK failed to cover their own butts properly...
Wow, so should I hire a patent lawyer to research the relevent patents of every single piece of software I purchase? That to me seems like an unfair burden placed on the consumer (note I'm not making a distinction between a business or non-business consumer).
When the Telcos received their subsidies (not to mention their exemption from Antitrust lawsuits), the government made it clear that it would reserve the right to regulate those lines.
What about the equipment and lines that have been put in place since then? Maybe a few trunks here and there and some antique pre-ESS equipment is partially paid for with tax-dollars, but the phone companies have had to install all new, multi-million dollar switches, D-Slams, remote terminals, fiber, etc.. to support DSL. That stuff isn't being paid for with public money.
I can't imagine that the initial spirit of the regulation was, in return for some cash, to regulate all future industries and products involving the phone companies, regardless of what that technology does.
Eh, cheaper food because of subsidies is an illusion. The money doesn't come from nowhere. you pay the government to pay for those subsidies in the form of taxes.
Yeah, the problem is though that the government subsidized the creation of Bell's infrastructure in the first place.
Just because the government handed out some money to someone, does that give everyone else the right to share their assets? The government subsidizes farmers, but if I wander onto a farm and pick a few apples, I'll get arrested for theft. Or a better example, I wouldn't be able to walk onto the farm and plant a few sq. yards of my own crop. Or at least I shouldn't be able to.
Well, I think it's official now; the letter X has been overused. First, we had X11 and all the things named after that, then Window XP and OS X. Now Xserve?
well, just wait until the next major version of Max OS, or OS/XI. Then you could have XIServe and XIRaid.
Of course in a few decades there's going to be the problem of what to call OS/XXX. Maybe by then the porn industry will own the world, and this might work in Apple's favor..
We don't actually make anything of any value anymore. We are a nation of lawyers and marketing types. All we need now is an army of telephone sanitizers and we'll be all set.
This drive for increased pornography consumption has inspired such innovations as the light bulb (for reading porn), the telephone (for listening to porn), and of course the cotton gin (for making more tube socks).
Thank you for making me laugh for the first time today.
No, but then again, its not like we have (or want) pure capitalism. Pure capitalism would be NO government aid. No major tax cuts, no negative net taxes paid back to corporations. No corporations being handed publically funded projects (aka the phone lines, the railways etc).
Be careful not to blame all corporations for taking hand-outs. If polititian gives $x to company A, company B has to take it as well, otherwise they are at a disadvantage. Blame the polititian and company A.
Good luck. I heard the RIAA shut down the entire electronics industry siting the DMCA. Only federally licensed manufacturers are allowed to make hardware and software
Let's say a company wants to track the behavior of teens wearing Calvin Klein jeans. They put RFIDs in every pair of pants, then detectors in every store in every mall. The problem with this is, from Calvin Klein's point of view, it also opens themselves up to competitors gathering marketing info on CK customers. Nobody is going to spend millions of dollars to gather data to hopefully gain a competitive edge, only to have the competition have access to that same data.
I probably didn't word it carefully enough. What I mean is you, or more accurately, your avatar, leaving the realm you're playing in, into an outside common area. Fundamental designs in the server and protocols would disallow an avatar to wander into any world that it doesn't belong. But what it would do is allow all avatars from all different types of worlds to mingle.
What I'm thinking is some lowest-common denominator protocol and character representation that all online multiplayer realms could build upon, but of course each realm (or, the programmers of the game software) would be free to augment or extend those protocols and avatar definition data within their own worlds. Think of it in terms of object-oriented programming: all massively multiplayer systems could adhere to a common base class of character, defining look and feel, then subclass that character for the unique features and functions of the realm which that character belongs.
Strange interactions would take place as well, as avatars (or more to the point, people) from both the social (like The Sims) and the rpg worlds mix.
As new massively multiplayer worlds are emerging, we're going to see the worlds begin to resemble the cellphone industry, in that similar but incompabile technology will prevent (intentionally or not) users from crossing from one rhelm to another. The way individual manufacturers feel (be it games or cellphones), anything that cooperates with a compeditor would make it easier for that person to switch.
It would be nice if early on, the multiplayer industry members got together and agreed tho make their worlds and technology compatible, allowing one single account to which individual game charges are applied. This would a) reduce the cost of companies running their own billing sections, and b) allow a person to switch to another game without having to establish yet another account.
But most importantly, this would open the way to having an Ether -- a plcae outside all of the game rhelms where characters of all sorts could interact (imagine a Sim talking to a Stromtrooper while an Ultima Online player rode by on a horse!). THIS social in-between area would be the start of the Metaverse.
Check out Postfix or Qmail for decent replacements to Sendmail...
Agreed. The book I'd like to see is "Migrating to qmail from sendmail." (or even "How to Convince Your Boss to Adopt QMail and Stop Throwing Hardware at Sendmail."
I've had to deal with as a systems architect at my job is keeping programmers from committing feature creep. More often I found that the root cause of creep is programmers that wanted to be liked and loved by everyone, and rather than focus on making a program or system lean and mean, they would rather please every user.
Slashdot Mirror
I thought you guys (people living in the USA) could buy radar detectors to scan for speed traps, but some guy sells mod-chips for Xbox...
That's because cops haven't had the sense to pool their money into legislative bribes.
Shit, I oughta patent that business plan quick.
WHY YOU THROW CHIP!?!
...micro-payments...
.50 for each single, for a total of $2.50. That's 1/40th the revenue to the record companies.
Here's one thing the record industry hates about this. It breaks the bundling business model of selling 2-3 (arguably) good songs with 7-8 bad songs.
Say you listen to the radio, and in the course of a month hear 5 songs by different artists that you just can't live without. Presuming you have disposable entertainment income, you're going to spend $100 for 5 CDs that month.
With micropayments, now you're spending
Sure we can all come up with a million business models for e-music, but ultimately they all break the bundling that the record companies have managed to pull off for decades (or at least since album per-unit sales overcame 45 sales). What other industry (well, besides maybe cable TV) can you bundle 7-8 crappy pieces of a product with 2-3 highly desired pieces, and sell all 10 as a bundle?
Learn from this: in 20 years from right now, what advice do you think you would want to go back and give to your "now" (current age) self? "Stop buying so much stuff." "Get married already." "Start saving money for the future!" "Stop smoking." "Eat better." "Get some exercise." "Sell your Microsoft stock!"
Is there advice that you get from your elders now that you're ignoring because it sounds suspiciously lame?
...Timeline's position is that Microsoft is not a law firm, thus customers who relied on Microsoft's assertion that everything was OK failed to cover their own butts properly...
Wow, so should I hire a patent lawyer to research the relevent patents of every single piece of software I purchase? That to me seems like an unfair burden placed on the consumer (note I'm not making a distinction between a business or non-business consumer).
When the Telcos received their subsidies (not to mention their exemption from Antitrust lawsuits), the government made it clear that it would reserve the right to regulate those lines.
What about the equipment and lines that have been put in place since then? Maybe a few trunks here and there and some antique pre-ESS equipment is partially paid for with tax-dollars, but the phone companies have had to install all new, multi-million dollar switches, D-Slams, remote terminals, fiber, etc.. to support DSL. That stuff isn't being paid for with public money.
I can't imagine that the initial spirit of the regulation was, in return for some cash, to regulate all future industries and products involving the phone companies, regardless of what that technology does.
Eh, cheaper food because of subsidies is an illusion. The money doesn't come from nowhere. you pay the government to pay for those subsidies in the form of taxes.
Yeah, the problem is though that the government subsidized the creation of Bell's infrastructure in the first place.
Just because the government handed out some money to someone, does that give everyone else the right to share their assets? The government subsidizes farmers, but if I wander onto a farm and pick a few apples, I'll get arrested for theft. Or a better example, I wouldn't be able to walk onto the farm and plant a few sq. yards of my own crop. Or at least I shouldn't be able to.
Well, I think it's official now; the letter X has been overused. First, we had X11 and all the things named after that, then Window XP and OS X. Now Xserve?
well, just wait until the next major version of Max OS, or OS/XI. Then you could have XIServe and XIRaid.
Of course in a few decades there's going to be the problem of what to call OS/XXX. Maybe by then the porn industry will own the world, and this might work in Apple's favor..
I wonder how large a no-fly zone would be required to protect a space elevator from terrorists.
We don't actually make anything of any value anymore. We are a nation of lawyers and marketing types. All we need now is an army of telephone sanitizers and we'll be all set.
We do, but they're all imigrants in our company.
How many people still use Ximian's desktop?
A lot of Solaris users (including myself) that don't want to spend days downloading and compiling dependencies for Gnome.
This story is utter alarmist crap.
Hey, don't knock alarmist crap. It's a real cash cow for some people!
Yeah, she's stepping down to run against Steve Jobs for President of the US
This drive for increased pornography consumption has inspired such innovations as the light bulb (for reading porn), the telephone (for listening to porn), and of course the cotton gin (for making more tube socks).
Thank you for making me laugh for the first time today.
No, but then again, its not like we have (or want) pure capitalism. Pure capitalism would be NO government aid. No major tax cuts, no negative net taxes paid back to corporations. No corporations being handed publically funded projects (aka the phone lines, the railways etc).
Be careful not to blame all corporations for taking hand-outs. If polititian gives $x to company A, company B has to take it as well, otherwise they are at a disadvantage. Blame the polititian and company A.
Totally fucking awesome. I want one!
Good luck. I heard the RIAA shut down the entire electronics industry siting the DMCA. Only federally licensed manufacturers are allowed to make hardware and software
Cmon, ya jokers... It's a freakin' garage door opener, not an eight-ball of heroin...
Yeah, I'm surprised they didn't invoke the political buzzword 'terrorism' in the doc as well..
"xii. In 1996 so-and-so committed intellectual property terrorism by infringing on.."
Let's say a company wants to track the behavior of teens wearing Calvin Klein jeans. They put RFIDs in every pair of pants, then detectors in every store in every mall. The problem with this is, from Calvin Klein's point of view, it also opens themselves up to competitors gathering marketing info on CK customers. Nobody is going to spend millions of dollars to gather data to hopefully gain a competitive edge, only to have the competition have access to that same data.
I probably didn't word it carefully enough. What I mean is you, or more accurately, your avatar, leaving the realm you're playing in, into an outside common area. Fundamental designs in the server and protocols would disallow an avatar to wander into any world that it doesn't belong. But what it would do is allow all avatars from all different types of worlds to mingle.
What I'm thinking is some lowest-common denominator protocol and character representation that all online multiplayer realms could build upon, but of course each realm (or, the programmers of the game software) would be free to augment or extend those protocols and avatar definition data within their own worlds. Think of it in terms of object-oriented programming: all massively multiplayer systems could adhere to a common base class of character, defining look and feel, then subclass that character for the unique features and functions of the realm which that character belongs.
Strange interactions would take place as well, as avatars (or more to the point, people) from both the social (like The Sims) and the rpg worlds mix.
As new massively multiplayer worlds are emerging, we're going to see the worlds begin to resemble the cellphone industry, in that similar but incompabile technology will prevent (intentionally or not) users from crossing from one rhelm to another. The way individual manufacturers feel (be it games or cellphones), anything that cooperates with a compeditor would make it easier for that person to switch.
It would be nice if early on, the multiplayer industry members got together and agreed tho make their worlds and technology compatible, allowing one single account to which individual game charges are applied. This would a) reduce the cost of companies running their own billing sections, and b) allow a person to switch to another game without having to establish yet another account.
But most importantly, this would open the way to having an Ether -- a plcae outside all of the game rhelms where characters of all sorts could interact (imagine a Sim talking to a Stromtrooper while an Ultima Online player rode by on a horse!). THIS social in-between area would be the start of the Metaverse.
Too bad you're anonymous. If I knew who you were I'd hire you!
Check out Postfix or Qmail for decent replacements to Sendmail...
Agreed. The book I'd like to see is "Migrating to qmail from sendmail." (or even "How to Convince Your Boss to Adopt QMail and Stop Throwing Hardware at Sendmail."
I've had to deal with as a systems architect at my job is keeping programmers from committing feature creep. More often I found that the root cause of creep is programmers that wanted to be liked and loved by everyone, and rather than focus on making a program or system lean and mean, they would rather please every user.
Yeah, awake and hanging upside-down in the closet like a bat! :)