Or is it the 30-80 Wh/kg? And the long recharge times. And the cold weather performance. (specifically: the lack thereof)
But hey: NiMH's cheap, right? Which probably explains why so many hybrids have NiMH battery packs. (Toyota Prius, Saturn Aura, etc)
So I'm not sure how you can intimate that Chevron is suppressing NiMH technology in cars, when it's already there in all the applications that don't rely solely upon the battery pack. (i.e. hybrids)
Most of the places I work with already have varying schedules. Summer schedules, holiday schedules, weekend hours, time-zone changes in general, holidays, international holidays, etc.
Somehow, I manage just fine without projecting my schedule onto a nation with the stroke of a pen.
To qualify as 'new MTV' it would have to retain its self-important focus on a brand that can be sold to the people who listen to pop music. MTV hasn't had anything to do with music itself since... well... forever. New music in particular is largely unnecessary for MTV to function. Hell, they do better the further they lag behind new music.
GPP's Suggestion: convey schedule information to your customers. (something you do anyway) DST: convey information to everyone and patch a big pile of systems, many legacy, following obscure regional rules.
Which one's easier again?
Sure, some businesses might not follow a federal hours change, but guess what? They don't right now. Some businesses still open at 9am. Many open at 8am. Would it really be that big a deal if some of them decided to open at 7am during the summer? If you do business with them, you know their operating hours. It's pretty straightforward.
The only benefit to jacking with clocks is making sure everyone participates. But since we can see that the 'Energy Savings' are entirely theoretical, it isn't much of a justification.
I'd support the GPP's suggestion for the simple fact that it doesn't involve legislators arbitrarily deciding to jack with clocks and doesn't require patching the infrastructure when they change their minds.
Just look at Steam, iTunes or XBOX Live. They're all growing by leaps and bounds, and all sucking up gobs of bandwidth.
Download 2 games a month from steam? Yeah, you'll be over 5gb. Probably over 10. Download a few demos and tv shows and maybe rent a movie from xbox live? Well over 10. Hell, one HD movie rental is going to run you around 6gb.
Besides, how many 'pirates' are actually using residential internet connections? If they're at all worthy of the label, they'll at least have their own t1, by hook or by crook.
It just turns out that the majority of the world would rather see movies if they include those actors. So, the actors actually are worth that much.
A movie 'starring' George Clooney is going to make (at least) $50m more than a movie 'starring' Steve Buscemi. It's that simple. So why shouldn't George be able to demand a cut of that profit? The alternative is that some rich guys behind the scenes (who already make as much, or more than, the guy who puts butts in seats) make even more money. How is that a preferable outcome?
Your overarching point is correct: most movies cost too much compared to what people would like to pay for them. And the industry is definitely suffering under this correction.
But why you want to bury that point under slander on those who have the audacity to demand wages commensurate with their market worth is beyond me.
You can do the same thing with a computer, a PDA, a smartphone, a laptop, a UMPC, an internet tablet, a blank CD, a blank external HDD, etc. The exchange of bits is already happening and you're not going to capture market share by making it less convenient.
You think geeks getting together at lan parties aren't swapping mp3s? You think professionals aren't swapping media at conferences and starbucks via laptop and smartphone? You think kids in college don't have ridiculously permissive settings on their mp3 shares? You think anyone who wants to isn't already ripping their CD collection and sharing external drives, preloading friends' iPods, or just passing around DVDs of mp3s? Some people are even suffering through blue-tooth file transfers.
All of that is far safer and more effective than tromping around p2p networks. All of that is happening.
The content providers simply have no say in the matter: It's happening. Maybe it takes someone like Creative or iRiver to make it more user-friendly, someone who doesn't care about getting the RIAA's blessing on their hardware. But once the cat's out of the bag, everyone's going to need it. and Microsoft's going to be further behind. If they're serious, they need to do it first.
And I doubt Microsoft is trying to make money off selling music. They're just trying to get their foot in the door so they have a chunk of the consumer handheld platform market. Who cares about just trafficking the RIAA's increasingly questionable investment in music? Much better to be the guy deriving license fees from everyone who wants their devices and software to play nice with your platform.
As smart phones get smarter, and mix more with PDA/UMPC/laptop functionality, PCs are going to become largely irrelevant. If you can record and post a video to youTube, share and view arbitrary data, send txts and emails, browse the web, read ebooks, play games - all without a laptop or a desktop PC... Windows loses. Microsoft loses.
They need a piece of that market. In the short term, because it's about the only area left that has room for Microsoft to grow. In the long term, because it's the only area that will keep Microsoft from shrinking.
If MS doesn't get serious about portable truly personal computing, they're going to have a bigger problem on their hands than the failure of the Zune.
Seriously, that's it. There are some details involved, so I'll be more specific:
add wireless shopping over wifi. allow wireless transfer of any data file. (music/pics/vids/arbitrary data) don't add DRM to media that didn't start with it. (seriously: how dumb was that?) allow wireless syncing and reverse syncing. (moving tunes from the Zune to the PC) allow the playback of wireless media that isn't done copying (just buffer it up and let it rip). allow wireless transfers in the background. (while listening to something else, while doing something else, etc)
Do that, and you actually deliver an experience that the iPod doesn't. The experience the Zune promised but failed at so horribly that it might as well not exist.
oh and it'd be nice if the Zune would mount as a generic USB volume, so it could be used to ferry about and wirelessly share arbitrary data files.
It appears to me that Microsoft sees the writing on the wall - Blu-ray is going to win the format wars
It appears to me that Microsoft is acknowledging the format wars are stillborn. Their support for HD-DVD was just about defusing the PS3 anyway, not defeating Blu-Ray. MS already has their license fees secured, regardless of how the little-plastic disc formats fare.
The media victory Microsoft is after, is digital delivery.
Why invest in an HD-DVD player when 720p looks darn good?
That's probably why they didn't bother putting HD-DVD into the Elite.
Microsoft only backed HD-DVD to oppose the PS3. They don't really care about either little-plastic-disc format. They want to dominate the digital distribution channel.
But they should've been advertising this as a limited edition. It blunts the bad reaction when you realize MS is just charging the more-money-than-sense crowd $80 for black.
whether nubby buttons are better than touch-buttons for txt-ing/email is to be determined, but for dialing? who needs buttons? Voice dialing on my last two phones was more than up to the task.
The necessary interface for a cellphone is now pretty much just a speaker, a mic, and a button. (send/end/power)
That's the extent of my bluetooth-enabled car's interface - and it works far better than one-handed dialing by a long shot. Particularly if you're actually doing anything (like driving).
If they can get optional text-to-speech for sending/receiving sms and email -- well, you can see where this is going. The keypad is an old interface that isn't going to make sense for much longer.
If Apple released a video iPod with all the iPhone features, except the phone, who in the hell would buy the iPhone?
I don't know anyone who's excited about the iPhone as a phone. Most of the interest is in a PMP/PDA featureset that might finally have a good interface.
Throw in a 60/80gb hdd and you could probably add $100 to the price without anyone batting an eye.
That's one reason to believe portable computers (as in really portable, PDA and down) will never develop to the point where they are used for apps requiring complex input.
Sure they will. They just won't be recognizable as PDAs.
The display will be provided by a wireless wearable. The interface will be provided by a thought-mapping beanie, sewn into the inside of a hat, wig, etc.
The computer itself will be roughly the size of a pack of cigarettes for most. As things would naturally get smaller, i'd imagine this will just add more capability in the same form factor. It stands to replace quite a bit of the average user's computing experience.
Hopefully there's a healthy eco-system of hardware and multiple devices will work together as an ad-hoc cluster: it'd be pretty darn handy if you just needed to grab different glasses to add video recording capability, an extra 'block' for more storage or processing power, etc.
Considering everything above are largely 'solved' technologies, it's really just a matter of manufacturing progress . I'd be surprised if the bleeding-edge users aren't there by 2012, and everyone else by 2020.
So I won't be all that excited about your 'pearl in the skull' device in 2080.;)
At this point, youTube definitely doesn't depend on Viacom content.
But the problem with your broader argument is that the most popular youTube clips are predominantly not-legally posted. Just stroll through the most-viewed clips every now and again and tally up home-made vs capped videos.
Sure, Viacom is the free-preview of video broadcasters following the RIAA's road to nowhere - but in the interim youTube really is deriving quite a bit of its value from not-legally-posted videos.
There's no real -stigma-, It's just expensive
on
The Sci-Fi Movie Stigma
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Ignore the scifi angle, and compare something like Dark City to Memento. Both were really good mysteries, both did 'meh' business. Guess which one cost more to make and therefore, made the studios more dough?
The only real 'stigma' against SciFi/Fantasy is that it's expensive. As a general rule, the bigger your budget, the more the studios insist on playing it safe. They aim at the big audiences more likely to earn back the investment and dial down anything challenging/quirky/contentious/etc.
The natural target? The 18-25 action/adventure crowd.
Why should a studio spend the extra money doing a SciFi mystery, if they cost more and gross about as much as a contemporary mystery? Similarly for a drama, comedy, horror, etc.
While I agree that aliens aren't going to master interstellar flight, just to crash on Earth - I also don't think they're going to plow into our own atmosphere willy-nilly without sending probes in or running earth's gravity through their systems to ensure they have the proper equipment to land safely.
Interestingly, if they were sending in probes, it wouldn't be at all surprising if several of them failed. So we see that the question of: "would little green men crash?" is too narrow. Stepping back, the question becomes: "would anything built by little green men crash?".
Clearly, this is more plausible, and pretty close to likely if little green men were indeed observing us, and launching probes with any regularity.
The EU is 'standing up' to Microsoft the way the UN 'stands up' to the problems in the middle east and Africa. Which is to say: they've issued several strongly worded complaints.
Calling the bully a bully and saying that you're going to stand up to him is great and all. But that's not quite the same as actually standing up.
If all you're looking for is strongly worded complaints and empty fines which effect no change, then the US has done its part.
Without access in dorms, you would just get your lazy bum ass to an area bar and blow off last-minute paper writing altogether. The awesome social side benefit of this is bonding with other people in the same situation. Only the motivated ones would be in the lab anyway --stressing out and melting down-- which would make even trying to work there insufferable.
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Their Zune 2.0 still has the worthless wifi 'functionality' and puts DRM on mp3s? Yes?
I fail to see where they learned anything from the Zune debacle.
Learning from their mistakes would look more like this.
Is Chevron really the problem?
Or is it the 30-80 Wh/kg?
And the long recharge times.
And the cold weather performance. (specifically: the lack thereof)
But hey: NiMH's cheap, right?
Which probably explains why so many hybrids have NiMH battery packs. (Toyota Prius, Saturn Aura, etc)
So I'm not sure how you can intimate that Chevron is suppressing NiMH technology in cars, when it's already there in all the applications that don't rely solely upon the battery pack. (i.e. hybrids)
Probably the same thing we did about the US import duties on steel.
We'll bitch and kvetch and stall. And eventually we'll give up if they're at all serious about it.
Most of the places I work with already have varying schedules.
Summer schedules, holiday schedules, weekend hours, time-zone changes in general, holidays, international holidays, etc.
Somehow, I manage just fine without projecting my schedule onto a nation with the stroke of a pen.
No, that would be the current YouTube.
... well... forever. New music in particular is largely unnecessary for MTV to function. Hell, they do better the further they lag behind new music.
To qualify as 'new MTV' it would have to retain its self-important focus on a brand that can be sold to the people who listen to pop music. MTV hasn't had anything to do with music itself since
How is it a larger pain in the ass?
GPP's Suggestion: convey schedule information to your customers. (something you do anyway)
DST: convey information to everyone and patch a big pile of systems, many legacy, following obscure regional rules.
Which one's easier again?
Sure, some businesses might not follow a federal hours change, but guess what? They don't right now. Some businesses still open at 9am. Many open at 8am. Would it really be that big a deal if some of them decided to open at 7am during the summer? If you do business with them, you know their operating hours. It's pretty straightforward.
The only benefit to jacking with clocks is making sure everyone participates. But since we can see that the 'Energy Savings' are entirely theoretical, it isn't much of a justification.
I'd support the GPP's suggestion for the simple fact that it doesn't involve legislators arbitrarily deciding to jack with clocks and doesn't require patching the infrastructure when they change their minds.
Likely sooner than later.
Just look at Steam, iTunes or XBOX Live.
They're all growing by leaps and bounds, and all sucking up gobs of bandwidth.
Download 2 games a month from steam? Yeah, you'll be over 5gb. Probably over 10.
Download a few demos and tv shows and maybe rent a movie from xbox live? Well over 10.
Hell, one HD movie rental is going to run you around 6gb.
Besides, how many 'pirates' are actually using residential internet connections?
If they're at all worthy of the label, they'll at least have their own t1, by hook or by crook.
They don't have to pay those actors.
It just turns out that the majority of the world would rather see movies if they include those actors.
So, the actors actually are worth that much.
A movie 'starring' George Clooney is going to make (at least) $50m more than a movie 'starring' Steve Buscemi. It's that simple. So why shouldn't George be able to demand a cut of that profit? The alternative is that some rich guys behind the scenes (who already make as much, or more than, the guy who puts butts in seats) make even more money. How is that a preferable outcome?
Your overarching point is correct: most movies cost too much compared to what people would like to pay for them. And the industry is definitely suffering under this correction.
But why you want to bury that point under slander on those who have the audacity to demand wages commensurate with their market worth is beyond me.
You can do the same thing with a computer, a PDA, a smartphone, a laptop, a UMPC, an internet tablet, a blank CD, a blank external HDD, etc. The exchange of bits is already happening and you're not going to capture market share by making it less convenient.
You think geeks getting together at lan parties aren't swapping mp3s? You think professionals aren't swapping media at conferences and starbucks via laptop and smartphone? You think kids in college don't have ridiculously permissive settings on their mp3 shares? You think anyone who wants to isn't already ripping their CD collection and sharing external drives, preloading friends' iPods, or just passing around DVDs of mp3s? Some people are even suffering through blue-tooth file transfers.
All of that is far safer and more effective than tromping around p2p networks. All of that is happening.
The content providers simply have no say in the matter: It's happening.
Maybe it takes someone like Creative or iRiver to make it more user-friendly, someone who doesn't care about getting the RIAA's blessing on their hardware. But once the cat's out of the bag, everyone's going to need it. and Microsoft's going to be further behind. If they're serious, they need to do it first.
And I doubt Microsoft is trying to make money off selling music. They're just trying to get their foot in the door so they have a chunk of the consumer handheld platform market. Who cares about just trafficking the RIAA's increasingly questionable investment in music? Much better to be the guy deriving license fees from everyone who wants their devices and software to play nice with your platform.
As smart phones get smarter, and mix more with PDA/UMPC/laptop functionality, PCs are going to become largely irrelevant. If you can record and post a video to youTube, share and view arbitrary data, send txts and emails, browse the web, read ebooks, play games - all without a laptop or a desktop PC... Windows loses. Microsoft loses.
They need a piece of that market. In the short term, because it's about the only area left that has room for Microsoft to grow. In the long term, because it's the only area that will keep Microsoft from shrinking.
If MS doesn't get serious about portable truly personal computing, they're going to have a bigger problem on their hands than the failure of the Zune.
1. fix the wireless.
Seriously, that's it.
There are some details involved, so I'll be more specific:
add wireless shopping over wifi.
allow wireless transfer of any data file. (music/pics/vids/arbitrary data)
don't add DRM to media that didn't start with it. (seriously: how dumb was that?)
allow wireless syncing and reverse syncing. (moving tunes from the Zune to the PC)
allow the playback of wireless media that isn't done copying (just buffer it up and let it rip).
allow wireless transfers in the background. (while listening to something else, while doing something else, etc)
Do that, and you actually deliver an experience that the iPod doesn't.
The experience the Zune promised but failed at so horribly that it might as well not exist.
oh and it'd be nice if the Zune would mount as a generic USB volume, so it could be used to ferry about and wirelessly share arbitrary data files.
It appears to me that Microsoft is acknowledging the format wars are stillborn. Their support for HD-DVD was just about defusing the PS3 anyway, not defeating Blu-Ray. MS already has their license fees secured, regardless of how the little-plastic disc formats fare.
The media victory Microsoft is after, is digital delivery.
That's probably why they didn't bother putting HD-DVD into the Elite.
Microsoft only backed HD-DVD to oppose the PS3.
They don't really care about either little-plastic-disc format.
They want to dominate the digital distribution channel.
I'd be surprised if it even takes 6 months.
But they should've been advertising this as a limited edition.
It blunts the bad reaction when you realize MS is just charging the more-money-than-sense crowd $80 for black.
Lucky thing they got the CCTV network in place just before that jump in crime. ;)
Why should that matter?
... and crime keeps happening at the exact same rate it ever did.
If the crime keeps happening at the same rate, how can you possibly justify the expense of the system?
Suppose the cameras and the prosecution bear out 100% capture and conviction rate
What have the cameras bought you in terms of security, if you're still just as likely to be mugged walking down the street?
whether nubby buttons are better than touch-buttons for txt-ing/email is to be determined, but for dialing?
who needs buttons? Voice dialing on my last two phones was more than up to the task.
The necessary interface for a cellphone is now pretty much just a speaker, a mic, and a button. (send/end/power)
That's the extent of my bluetooth-enabled car's interface - and it works far better than one-handed dialing by a long shot. Particularly if you're actually doing anything (like driving).
If they can get optional text-to-speech for sending/receiving sms and email -- well, you can see where this is going.
The keypad is an old interface that isn't going to make sense for much longer.
If Apple released a video iPod with all the iPhone features, except the phone, who in the hell would buy the iPhone?
I don't know anyone who's excited about the iPhone as a phone.
Most of the interest is in a PMP/PDA featureset that might finally have a good interface.
Throw in a 60/80gb hdd and you could probably add $100 to the price without anyone batting an eye.
Sure they will. They just won't be recognizable as PDAs.
The display will be provided by a wireless wearable.
The interface will be provided by a thought-mapping beanie, sewn into the inside of a hat, wig, etc.
The computer itself will be roughly the size of a pack of cigarettes for most. As things would naturally get smaller, i'd imagine this will just add more capability in the same form factor. It stands to replace quite a bit of the average user's computing experience.
Hopefully there's a healthy eco-system of hardware and multiple devices will work together as an ad-hoc cluster: it'd be pretty darn handy if you just needed to grab different glasses to add video recording capability, an extra 'block' for more storage or processing power, etc.
Considering everything above are largely 'solved' technologies, it's really just a matter of manufacturing progress . I'd be surprised if the bleeding-edge users aren't there by 2012, and everyone else by 2020.
So I won't be all that excited about your 'pearl in the skull' device in 2080.
At this point, youTube definitely doesn't depend on Viacom content.
But the problem with your broader argument is that the most popular youTube clips are predominantly not-legally posted. Just stroll through the most-viewed clips every now and again and tally up home-made vs capped videos.
Sure, Viacom is the free-preview of video broadcasters following the RIAA's road to nowhere - but in the interim youTube really is deriving quite a bit of its value from not-legally-posted videos.
Ignore the scifi angle, and compare something like Dark City to Memento.
Both were really good mysteries, both did 'meh' business. Guess which one cost more to make and therefore, made the studios more dough?
The only real 'stigma' against SciFi/Fantasy is that it's expensive. As a general rule, the bigger your budget, the more the studios insist on playing it safe. They aim at the big audiences more likely to earn back the investment and dial down anything challenging/quirky/contentious/etc.
The natural target? The 18-25 action/adventure crowd.
Why should a studio spend the extra money doing a SciFi mystery, if they cost more and gross about as much as a contemporary mystery? Similarly for a drama, comedy, horror, etc.
While I agree that aliens aren't going to master interstellar flight, just to crash on Earth - I also don't think they're going to plow into our own atmosphere willy-nilly without sending probes in or running earth's gravity through their systems to ensure they have the proper equipment to land safely.
Interestingly, if they were sending in probes, it wouldn't be at all surprising if several of them failed.
So we see that the question of: "would little green men crash?" is too narrow. Stepping back, the question becomes: "would anything built by little green men crash?".
Clearly, this is more plausible, and pretty close to likely if little green men were indeed observing us, and launching probes with any regularity.
The EU is 'standing up' to Microsoft the way the UN 'stands up' to the problems in the middle east and Africa.
Which is to say: they've issued several strongly worded complaints.
Calling the bully a bully and saying that you're going to stand up to him is great and all.
But that's not quite the same as actually standing up.
If all you're looking for is strongly worded complaints and empty fines which effect no change, then the US has done its part.
Near as I can tell, they started doing that about 10 years ago...
Without access in dorms, you would just get your lazy bum ass to an area bar and blow off last-minute paper writing altogether. The awesome social side benefit of this is bonding with other people in the same situation. Only the motivated ones would be in the lab anyway --stressing out and melting down-- which would make even trying to work there insufferable.
It's a new medium, a young medium. It's not the one they're used to, and they don't understand it.
So they demean it.
We can see a perfect analogue to this mess in the way theatre types viewed films when they were young.
Then, like now, most examples from the newer medium weren't really 'Art'.
But it was inextricably capable of Art and examples did exist.
Given time, this will also go away.