The reason that public broadcasting (NPR, PBS, etc) charges for shows is simple:
1) It takes real money to create their programming. 2) It takes real money to distribute their programming. And yes, it is rather expensive to distribute video over the web, at least it is if you have something everyone wants to see. 3) It takes real money to maintain their broadcast facilities. 4) They have to raise that money somehow. 5) Like a lot of traditional media organizations, they haven't yet figured out how to embrace Internet distribution and still get paid what they need to get paid to keep producing their existing programs and develop new ones.
If you have a simple solution to their problems, I'm sure they will be happy to hear about it. Let me know too, please.
Disney has been sliding for years, not only creatively, but as a succesful business. Yet Michael Eisner, who once did the company real good, manages to hang on to the top job. No sign he is about to loose it either, given that their board is in his pocket, now more than ever.
It is my hope that they continue to rot away for another 10 years or so as punishment for their singular role in the obscene length of copyright terms in the US. My happy ending is that they get bought out by some indonesian media magnate who got his start hawking bootlegged disney fair to australian tourists and that he dusts off their trademarks for use in a line of interactive pornography.
it will be interesting to see if, in 10 years, this is going to be a compelling industry to enter.
we'll assume you are smart though. a smart person with a broad perspective will probably be able to find a decent job in this industry for the forseeable future.
Hopefully you are planning on leaving medicine with your loans payed off and some substantial assets (home paid for, a good nest-egg). If you are already over those humps, then flat or sinking IT salaries won't hurt you like its hurting some of the people in this industry now.
Don't forget too, one of the key ways that Ford's competitors in the early days of the auto industry won sales was by offering a choice of colors when Ford was still offering "any color [you] want, as long as its black."
Microsoft is doing this because there is already a Java based implementation of many of the key infrastructure services needed to create a large-scale RFID-based supply-chain management system. As a result, all the early trials are going to Sun/IBM.
This isn't something MS would want to loose out on. RFID-enabled supply chains are expected to generate 4-10x more tracking data. That could be a lot of SQL-Enterprise licenses, for just one example.
Software has extremely low marginal costs, so $1M might even be a bit generous.
$1B in software donated to the UN probably includes a whole bunch of licnceses and a much smaller number of physical media kits, which themselves probably don't cost more than $20-30 (assuming they still ship SQL with a bunch of manuals). There are the costs of support however
Given that the marginal cost of commericial software is so small, one could argue that $1M is rather generous. Afterall, the cost of a CD is less than a buck, a few bucks for the manuals in the box, a few bucks for warehousing, shipping and logistics. And the marginal cost of a software LICENSE is going to be even smaller, a slip of paper, a record in a database -- and you can be pretty sure that MS didn't distribute $1b in shrinkwraped software.
Thanks, but this isn't quite what I have in mind. In a filesystem like WAFL or NetApp, the filesystem can basically keep track of deltas in the filesystem. If a file is changed or deleted, rather than freeing or overwriting the changed blocks, the filesystem preserves them, leaving them linked to the file in the snapshotted version of the file-system, and provisioning new blocks for the current version.
Snapshots are created relatively quickly (seconds), and are relatively compact, because copies are only made of the changed files/blocks, so the overhead of snapshots is only a fraction of the total storage.
This method of taking snapshots can be used to facilitate consistent database backups, since the database just has to pause briefly for the snapshot to be made, and then then the backup can run against the snapshot.
It also can be used to provide users with quick and easy access to old versions of files. The snapshots can be mounted as part of the directory structure, allowing users to recover files on their own wich makes things easier for both user and IT department.
If I understood radmind properly, it works at a higher level, and so looses a lot of efficiency. Snapshots take longer to create, and may require more storage resources to maintain. Not necessarily a bad thing for its intended purpose, which seems to be managaing a number of systems and keeping them in a consistent (yet easily updated/modified) state.
What I really want to know is whether OS X server can do filesystem snapshots (a la NetApp, Win2k3 storage server, Veritas-FS, etc), and if not, when are they going to support this feature.
yeah, because a company in the computer industry, with a name or URL that sounds just like "microsoft" is only remotely related to Microsoft's trademark.
I would hope and assume that positives are reviewed by a human before the student is accused of cheating, especially given that someone is supposed to be reading their essay anyway to grade it.
The economics of the situation are a little different with Spam.
The OS that became WindowsNT (and eventually win2k and XP) was in development before Windows really took off with 3.x. So I'm not sure its fair to call it a rewrite of 3.1. What ended up happening is that they decided to capitalize on the success of 3.x and adopted its version number, its UI, and much of its API (at least as far as GUI code went.
Microsoft isn't stupid. They know that the biggest return on investment comes from code they didn't have to write, so they use as much of their old code as possible, trying to focus their efforts on writing new code that brings new features.
In the process, some subsystems are replaced or superceeded. The old APIs typically stand though, but they may become a sort of translation layer on top of a new API, rather than maintaining the entire replaced subsystem for compatibility.
Taking the example of longhorn, two major changes come to mind. 1) The are making major changes to their graphics layer, which should enable things like standard 3d ui elements, multiple video overlays, improved text rendering and layout. 2) The are grafting SQL Server and NTFS together to enable much richer use of file-metadata, and on top of that, they are layering a lot of standardized schemas for representing various information (like workflow status, contact information, etc) which should improve datasharing between applications, as well as the users search/retrieval experience.
Probably the biggest driver of outright rewrites though is going to be security concerns. Microsoft continues to retool the OS to fix all its security falws.
Microsoft's main aim is to limit your choices to Microsoft products, prefereably the more expensive ones, and stuff will only work as advertized if you've bought the latest version of everything. They don't want you to have choice.
They twist the arms of businesses into paying for MS software every year, removing the discretion of forgoing upgrades (and all the costs involved) in favor of more forward thinking IT purchases.
AAC the audio encoding algorithm & file format doesn't belong to apple, it was created by fraunhofer (of MP3 fame) or was it dolby, and is part of the MPEG4 suite of technologies.
When you start talking about DRMed ACC, you are talking about FairPlay, which is appearantly Apple's DRM scheme.
Don't forget either, these days, if your buy a CD, the retailer gets 1/3, the distributor gets 1/3 and the label gets 1/3 (and the artist gets squat!).
Apple's iTMS represents 2/3rds of that value chain, and yet they are getting only a few percent of the revenue? Something is going to have to give, clearly.
Contrary to popular understanding, LED's aren't particularly efficient when compaired to incandecent lights.
A high-efficiency white LED puts out something like 15-20 lumens/watt. A good halogen bulb puts out ~15 lumens/watt.
LED's seem impressively bright because they throw all their light in a fairly narrow beam.
I believe that florescent lights are more efficient that LEDs, though that will likely change. Appearantly their will be white LEDs in production with effiencies reaching 60 lumens/watt by 2005.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, but seing as how this was an iPod hooked to a mac, this was surely a FireWire disk , so it is news
!
The reason that public broadcasting (NPR, PBS, etc) charges for shows is simple:
1) It takes real money to create their programming.
2) It takes real money to distribute their programming. And yes, it is rather expensive to distribute video over the web, at least it is if you have something everyone wants to see.
3) It takes real money to maintain their broadcast facilities.
4) They have to raise that money somehow.
5) Like a lot of traditional media organizations, they haven't yet figured out how to embrace Internet distribution and still get paid what they need to get paid to keep producing their existing programs and develop new ones.
If you have a simple solution to their problems, I'm sure they will be happy to hear about it. Let me know too, please.
dude, its easily twice as ugly as any of those generic MP3s out there, probably a whole power of 10 uglier than the ipod
Oh yea, because Bill Gates was the first person to use that tactic.
Disney has been sliding for years, not only creatively, but as a succesful business. Yet Michael Eisner, who once did the company real good, manages to hang on to the top job. No sign he is about to loose it either, given that their board is in his pocket, now more than ever.
It is my hope that they continue to rot away for another 10 years or so as punishment for their singular role in the obscene length of copyright terms in the US. My happy ending is that they get bought out by some indonesian media magnate who got his start hawking bootlegged disney fair to australian tourists and that he dusts off their trademarks for use in a line of interactive pornography.
it will be interesting to see if, in 10 years, this is going to be a compelling industry to enter.
we'll assume you are smart though. a smart person with a broad perspective will probably be able to find a decent job in this industry for the forseeable future.
Hopefully you are planning on leaving medicine with your loans payed off and some substantial assets (home paid for, a good nest-egg). If you are already over those humps, then flat or sinking IT salaries won't hurt you like its hurting some of the people in this industry now.
Don't forget too, one of the key ways that Ford's competitors in the early days of the auto industry won sales was by offering a choice of colors when Ford was still offering "any color [you] want, as long as its black."
Microsoft is doing this because there is already a Java based implementation of many of the key infrastructure services needed to create a large-scale RFID-based supply-chain management system. As a result, all the early trials are going to Sun/IBM.
This isn't something MS would want to loose out on. RFID-enabled supply chains are expected to generate 4-10x more tracking data. That could be a lot of SQL-Enterprise licenses, for just one example.
Too be fair, not all security updates require a reboot.
What do you do about disaster recovery?
Software has extremely low marginal costs, so $1M might even be a bit generous.
$1B in software donated to the UN probably includes a whole bunch of licnceses and a much smaller number of physical media kits, which themselves probably don't cost more than $20-30 (assuming they still ship SQL with a bunch of manuals). There are the costs of support however
Given that the marginal cost of commericial software is so small, one could argue that $1M is rather generous. Afterall, the cost of a CD is less than a buck, a few bucks for the manuals in the box, a few bucks for warehousing, shipping and logistics. And the marginal cost of a software LICENSE is going to be even smaller, a slip of paper, a record in a database -- and you can be pretty sure that MS didn't distribute $1b in shrinkwraped software.
Thanks, but this isn't quite what I have in mind. In a filesystem like WAFL or NetApp, the filesystem can basically keep track of deltas in the filesystem. If a file is changed or deleted, rather than freeing or overwriting the changed blocks, the filesystem preserves them, leaving them linked to the file in the snapshotted version of the file-system, and provisioning new blocks for the current version.
Snapshots are created relatively quickly (seconds), and are relatively compact, because copies are only made of the changed files/blocks, so the overhead of snapshots is only a fraction of the total storage.
This method of taking snapshots can be used to facilitate consistent database backups, since the database just has to pause briefly for the snapshot to be made, and then then the backup can run against the snapshot.
It also can be used to provide users with quick and easy access to old versions of files. The snapshots can be mounted as part of the directory structure, allowing users to recover files on their own wich makes things easier for both user and IT department.
If I understood radmind properly, it works at a higher level, and so looses a lot of efficiency. Snapshots take longer to create, and may require more storage resources to maintain. Not necessarily a bad thing for its intended purpose, which seems to be managaing a number of systems and keeping them in a consistent (yet easily updated/modified) state.
Good point about absolutes, but I think my objection still holds.
Lets say an average album sells for $15 now on CD.
The label gets $5 of that now and have to take their profit out of that.
An album sells for $10 on iTMS, yet it sounds like the record company is getting >$5 of that.
What I really want to know is whether OS X server can do filesystem snapshots (a la NetApp, Win2k3 storage server, Veritas-FS, etc), and if not, when are they going to support this feature.
yeah, because a company in the computer industry, with a name or URL that sounds just like "microsoft" is only remotely related to Microsoft's trademark.
I would hope and assume that positives are reviewed by a human before the student is accused of cheating, especially given that someone is supposed to be reading their essay anyway to grade it.
The economics of the situation are a little different with Spam.
Among other things, WinXP represents the merging of the Win 9X/ME codebase with the WinNT/2K code base. (something originally slated for Win2k).
Given that, its not suprising that XP wins the compatibility prize.
The OS that became WindowsNT (and eventually win2k and XP) was in development before Windows really took off with 3.x. So I'm not sure its fair to call it a rewrite of 3.1. What ended up happening is that they decided to capitalize on the success of 3.x and adopted its version number, its UI, and much of its API (at least as far as GUI code went.
Microsoft isn't stupid. They know that the biggest return on investment comes from code they didn't have to write, so they use as much of their old code as possible, trying to focus their efforts on writing new code that brings new features.
In the process, some subsystems are replaced or superceeded. The old APIs typically stand though, but they may become a sort of translation layer on top of a new API, rather than maintaining the entire replaced subsystem for compatibility.
Taking the example of longhorn, two major changes come to mind. 1) The are making major changes to their graphics layer, which should enable things like standard 3d ui elements, multiple video overlays, improved text rendering and layout. 2) The are grafting SQL Server and NTFS together to enable much richer use of file-metadata, and on top of that, they are layering a lot of standardized schemas for representing various information (like workflow status, contact information, etc) which should improve datasharing between applications, as well as the users search/retrieval experience.
Probably the biggest driver of outright rewrites though is going to be security concerns. Microsoft continues to retool the OS to fix all its security falws.
Huh?
Microsoft's main aim is to limit your choices to Microsoft products, prefereably the more expensive ones, and stuff will only work as advertized if you've bought the latest version of everything. They don't want you to have choice.
They twist the arms of businesses into paying for MS software every year, removing the discretion of forgoing upgrades (and all the costs involved) in favor of more forward thinking IT purchases.
You think they treat consumers any better?
In the early days of the MP3 format, there were no entrenched competitors for compressed digital audio formats.
Not really the same situation, is it?
AAC the audio encoding algorithm & file format doesn't belong to apple, it was created by fraunhofer (of MP3 fame) or was it dolby, and is part of the MPEG4 suite of technologies.
When you start talking about DRMed ACC, you are talking about FairPlay, which is appearantly Apple's DRM scheme.
Yes!!!!!
Don't forget either, these days, if your buy a CD, the retailer gets 1/3, the distributor gets 1/3 and the label gets 1/3 (and the artist gets squat!).
Apple's iTMS represents 2/3rds of that value chain, and yet they are getting only a few percent of the revenue? Something is going to have to give, clearly.
Contrary to popular understanding, LED's aren't particularly efficient when compaired to incandecent lights.
A high-efficiency white LED puts out something like 15-20 lumens/watt. A good halogen bulb puts out ~15 lumens/watt.
LED's seem impressively bright because they throw all their light in a fairly narrow beam.
I believe that florescent lights are more efficient that LEDs, though that will likely change. Appearantly their will be white LEDs in production with effiencies reaching 60 lumens/watt by 2005.
Perhaps WMAs default to variable bitrate?