People come here to read the latest News for Nerds(tm) and there shouldn't be an issue with who is providing the news, unless of course there is abuse taking place.
That, I think is exactly what the concern is. Is there indeed abuse taking place that lines the pockets of Roland and perhaps Zonk by using the traffic that Slashdot can provide though links?
I know that it is a Slashdot controversy, but can anyone tell me here whether or not the Slashdot editors have addressed just why it is that so many of Roland Piquepaille's articles get posted, particularly by Zonk? Does he really submit that many articles to Slashdot? I know that there have been a number of instances where some Slashdot users have submitted articles only to have them rejected and later accepted after submission by Roland Piquepaille... So, what gives?
Sounds like a driver's license, minus the biometrics.
Hardly. This is so much more in that it will access a common database that is available everywhere in the nation to any law enforcement official that requests your information or ID and additionally makes that information available to private security companies and other companies that contract with the federal government. There are also a number of other problems associated with this legislation in that it was attached to an appropriations bill and has gone through very little oversight. Lots of folks actually have no idea of what is actually contained in this legislation or who was involved in its creation.
At the very minimum, there is now the possibility of the federal government tracking the movement and ID of any US citizen at any time and preempts judicial involvement in the process.
This is likely to implement the Real ID act which essentially amounts to a federally unfunded mandated ID card to travel on an airplane, open a bank account or participate in almost any way with any federal institution or service.
The thing about this ID card is what kind of information will be encoded in it. At a very minimum, name, DOB, sex, ID number, image and address, but also additional information that will likely be included are biometrics with some folks even proposing genetic sequences. However, a major problem with these cards is the inclusion of machine readable technologies included in them that has the very real possibility of making ID theft easier. Additionally, the RealID act requires people to have a physical address. i.e. NO post office boxes unless you are a judge or government agent.
What is your science called? Nobody says "I'm a space scientist," they say "astrophysicist" (or whatever else their specialty is).
Then you must not have spent much time around scientists who are trying to make what they do intellectually available to those who may not "know" their particular discipline. I suppose I could call myself a neuroscientist who specializes in vision, or a retinal neurophysiologist, or a neuroophthalmologic scientist or......, but you get the point I hope. My saying "vision scientist" to this community of physicists, chemists, programmers, IT folks, high school students etc.... communicates effectively what it is that I do much more so than a descriptor that only tells my colleagues what it is that I do.
Calling youself a "vision scientest" puts up red flags for me, and makes me wonder if you're really credible or if you're an 18 year old undergrad internet wanker.
Click on the links and you may get an education.......or not, depending upon how smart you are.:-P
If you really were a "vision scientest" you would know that having a huge single paragraph is incredibly hard to read.
You have never read a science textbook, have you? Sometimes you just have to be willing to work......just.....a.....little.....bit......harde r to understand science. And yes, that does mean reading paragraphs comprised of more than three sentences. Besides, any grammarian would tell you that paragraphs are often organized around concepts and concept grouping as opposed to simply making things easier to read.
If not for your.edu email address I'd think you were a 14 year old.
A 14 year old professor........Hey, if I were 14, that would make me pretty damned accomplished as you would have figured out if you were not too lazy to actually click on the link. As it stands, I cannot honestly say that I could have accomplished what I have by 14. I needed 34 years to do that.
Especially when you said "trust me." I don't know you from Adam, why should I trust you?
Thanks for the correction. Somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind that makes more sense than the Buckaroo source, but it has been YEARS since i saw both movies. Slashdot is simply one of the most authoritative resources for all of geekdom and that is what I love about it. There is always someone here that will know the answer to even the most esoteric geeky fact.
To quote Buckaroo Banzai: "Back off man.....I'm a scientist".
Seriously though, perhaps this is your goal, but I am not sure one should aspire to be a "whiz" with the ladies. Perhaps another descriptor would be more appropriate?:-)
Trust me, I am a vision scientist. People are pretty visually oriented and the vast majority of them when presented with images on the Internet, generally do not pay much attention to text content. (I've done a few experiments with content on my blog here.) When presented with a task however, or when looking for information, people will read through text to find out what bit of information they are looking for. And generally, people can decide pretty quickly if the information they are looking for is present. The problems with video blogging are manifold: First, people will not sit through a video blogging episode when they are looking for a specific piece of information. Next, video is not yet conveniently "searchable" or indexable. Next, as opposed to information configured for audio interpretation, usually materials presented for video are poorly prepared for acoustic interpretation and are poorly organized and fragmented. A simple example of this is trying to extract the days news by exclusively listening to the following content and not watching it on television 1) NPR 2) BBC news on television 3) CBS news on television and 4) Fox news on television. You will find that generally, NPR presents the information the best for acoustic followed by BBC, CBS with Fox on the bottom.
Perhaps I am a little slow on the uptake, but I just realized that we are all simple pawns in the evil scheme of the Slashdot editors. We submit articles for publication on Slashdot, the editors screw with our submission to get all of us all fired about how crummy the editing is, or how stupid we think the submitters are or merely to pontificate on how smart we think we happen to be. But here is the deal.....it all drives traffic. Sometimes I feel so stupid......why did I not see this before?:-)
The title is somewhat misleading as it should be noted that mitochondrial DNA is not genomic DNA from a cells nucleus. It is a much smaller genome from the mitochondrion that evolutionarily is thought to be descended from bacteria and is much easier to sequence from a total work perspective. Although the information that can be extracted from the analysis of mitochondrial DNA can be more informative as to lineage and evolutionary cladistics.
the base's Gamma Irradiation Facility was paralysed when a cylinder containing cobalt-60 became lodged in one of the lab's air-pressure tubes,
Yikes! Cobalt-60 is almost as bad as it gets. Cobalt 60 radiation dosages are almost twice as bad as the actual dosage of radiation one would get from the fallout of an actual atomic device which sort of begs the question of what they are doing with it? Are they modeling fallout? Or are they experimenting with dirty bombs? Lining the inside of atomic devices with heavy metals and other elements is a way to create much more radioactive bombs that have long lasting radiation effects.
Although there *are* civilian applications such as medical therapy devices....
The canister, about the size of a salt cellar, was jammed against a seesaw-shaped switch inside the tube that was stuck in the wrong orientation.
OK, so this sounds like bad design just waiting for someone to screw up and reveal the design flaw.
Wow...... thanks? I guess you can chalk it up to my using the brand name on this Slashdot post instead of my usual reference to most cola products as "sodas". When I go to get a Coke, it is usually referenced by going for a soda.
Although, it's nice to know that Coca-Cola marketing folks spend time on Slashdot.;-)
Appropriate post for someone named Boost I suppose.
Seriously though, I don't know that I want to mix two of my favorite beverages. I like my Coca-Cola (diet original).....and I looooove my coffee, Kona in particular. Sure, I'll give it a go, but I am not so sure I want to mix the two.....
Hey there......Don't be an ass as there is no call for that kind of comment.
So you are suggesting that anyone who is being maliciously slandered on the web should get into a pissing match with his attacker?
Hardly. I am talking about engagement.
Wouldn't it be better to disallow anonymous edits so that contributions can be traced to the author?
I completely agree with you here. I would much rather prefer to have a documented system with authoritative authors.
Serious Wikipedia contributors would have nothing to fear. Wikipedia obviously has a great deal of promise. But it suffers from the fact that many contributors are not authoritative sources.
Actually, that is not entirely true. I have edited a number of articles in biology and neuroscience, particularly in areas of my expertise and have had them completely butchered by knuckleheads or anonymous editors that do not know what they are saying. So, I understand the problems. However, if there were some sort of ranking system by which authors/editors could be somehow accredited within fields they are expert in, the Wikipedia would gain much more credibility. In practice, it could be as simple as participants in historical events, subject matter experts and professionals in their fields could submit their resume to a board of directors that would then assign a rank or credibility scale to them that would assign weight to their articles/edits.
So, he is missing the point of a Wiki. If he is so upset, why does he not log on and edit the article? I am sure that his edits would be most welcome by a large percentage of the Wikipublic. Yo John Seigenthaler, become a part of the process. Don't bitch about it.
There are actually a number of simple implementations that I have been absolutely surprised to not see in the US. For instance, in other places I have traveled around the world, dual flush toilets with "light" and "heavy" flush modes are available everywhere except in the most undeveloped third world countries. However, here in the US, particularly in water restricted areas you see standard high-flow toilets. Granted many "low flow" toilets such as the ones available in many areas of California are not so great if you have a fruit/vegetable intensive diet, but for some reason the toilets available in the US simply don't have the "power" that other more advanced designs have elsewhere in the world and I am not talking about the advanced technology toilets that they have in Japan either. Those are actually kinda scary because of all their automation and such, but simple things like pressure assist can make for very effective low water use designs.
Why is it that the US, one of the most advanced countries in the world cannot get their $#!^ together, pun intended:-) when it comes to plumbing issues that most of the rest of the world seems to have solved years ago?
Pathetic. I am much more willing to give my business to those companies that can take a stand. Furthermore, as a professor in the biosciences, I am especially troubled by stories like this. Perhaps even more disturbing is that this does not appear to be a news item covered in the mainstream US media. I had to learn about this first from Slashdot, the Sydney Morning Herald, The Telegraph and The Register, thanks to ~rbochan.
Arguably, much of our current understanding of biology and bioscience (development of drugs and antibiotics, medicine etc...etc...etc...) and many things that may surprise you are due to a fundamental understanding of biology. Try future developments in body armor, engineering, acoustics, propulsion and search algorithms on for size. All of those disparate fields have been influenced and guided by cross-polination from bioscience and ignoring or even worse, rejecting a scientific understanding of the world will only hold us back.
It is particularly ironic because one of the missions of the American Museum of Natural History is education of those very same individuals and corporations who are benefitting from decades of science education in the United States.
Religious extremism come in many flavors folks, and if we are not careful, we are going to lose our edge. Remember, this country is only a couple hundred years old. Those societies that have embraced education and science historically are those societies that survive.
What "new channel" for media access does it provide that isn't provided by every cheap computer already out there across the nation? It's yet another computer device - BFD. Your dramatization about it is as laughable as the originators.
Bah, I guess I have been trolled, but I will do my best to make this productive. It is perhaps different because a number of folks still do not have their computers in the "living room" space. Computers, even cheap ones are still in other places in the house, while game consoles are still commonly found connected to the television in the "living room". Remember, it is not necessarily what geeks use/do, but what the masses will do and how they interact with products. Many geeks said for years "Awww shucks, game consoles will never be that popular because my PC plays games so much better". The economics have shown otherwise.
Ouch! Zing! You're good, and that burned me good. Wait, no it didn't.
It was not about zinging you. Rather it was about responding to your initial insult by attempting to educate you as to what the issues may be. As a professor I consider that my role. (education that is) But perhaps I should have known better than to try and do something productive in the games section of Slashdot.
And yes, it's a trite, overused saying that the originator is cashing in on at every opportunity, and all of the hanger-ons are repeating like some sort of mantra (when really it's a ridiculous simplification that's often, quite simply, wrong. 99.9% of xbox360 owners will never use it to express the "long tail" advantage).
Arguably, the originator of the concept (Chris Anderson), should have some degree of authority in utilizing the concept as he sees fit. After all, it was Chris who wrote the article on the Xbox 360. I simply linked to it. and as to your numbers.... even if you are correct and 99% of Xbox users never use it for a Long Tail media advantage, that is still 1% of Xbox users who might. And if Microsoft is correct, they are planning on selling approximately 5 Million Xbox 360s in the first year. That makes for 50,000 potential consumers in the first year that might adopt it as a platform. Also, you should recognize that in its first year, the iPod only sold about 350,000 units and I don't think anyone would say the iPod has not helped to create "Long Tail" markets for music and now video.
what in the world does that have to do with the "long tail" (sorry - Long Tail)?
Use just a little bit of imagination.......... No? Try a little bit harder.......... Still nothing? Here, let me help you. Using the Xbox as a media center makes possible lots of new channels for media access that are currently unavailable with present distribution methods. What if you are interested in documentaries that are not available in your local Blockbuster movie store? What if you wanted old Dr. Who episodes at 1:30am? Where are you going to find them? Hey, how about this one? Let's say you are a film student and you need some obscure movie like the 300 Steps to do some fact checking prior to a term paper being due and it is late on a Sunday night? Where are you going to get that movie? Huh? This is where The Long Tail economic models start to step in. If you have access to a device that can tie into some distribution network, then you can have access to more obscure titles. However, from an economic perspective, this is a movie that is really making the owner no substantial money unless it can be distributed. So, even though there is not enough of a demand to put it on Blockbuster Video store shelves, it can continue to make money given an appropriate distribution medium.
I realize that it's one of the overused and oversold catch phrases of the day, but really it just makes it sound dumb.
Chris Anderson has helped popularize the concept of the Long Tail by coining the phrase back in 2004. I sent you to the source with my link. Perhaps reading available information and studying a bit of statistics before you post will help you to understand a bit more than you currently appear to.
Slashdot Mirror
People come here to read the latest News for Nerds(tm) and there shouldn't be an issue with who is providing the news, unless of course there is abuse taking place.
That, I think is exactly what the concern is. Is there indeed abuse taking place that lines the pockets of Roland and perhaps Zonk by using the traffic that Slashdot can provide though links?
you didn't know the /. & Zonk were both part of the Illumaniti?
:-)
Naw, they can't be because I don't see them on our rolls......
I know that it is a Slashdot controversy, but can anyone tell me here whether or not the Slashdot editors have addressed just why it is that so many of Roland Piquepaille's articles get posted, particularly by Zonk? Does he really submit that many articles to Slashdot? I know that there have been a number of instances where some Slashdot users have submitted articles only to have them rejected and later accepted after submission by Roland Piquepaille... So, what gives?
What about the homeless?
This is a major problem with this legislation as they are likely to become non-persons.
Sounds like a driver's license, minus the biometrics.
Hardly. This is so much more in that it will access a common database that is available everywhere in the nation to any law enforcement official that requests your information or ID and additionally makes that information available to private security companies and other companies that contract with the federal government. There are also a number of other problems associated with this legislation in that it was attached to an appropriations bill and has gone through very little oversight. Lots of folks actually have no idea of what is actually contained in this legislation or who was involved in its creation.
At the very minimum, there is now the possibility of the federal government tracking the movement and ID of any US citizen at any time and preempts judicial involvement in the process.
This is likely to implement the Real ID act which essentially amounts to a federally unfunded mandated ID card to travel on an airplane, open a bank account or participate in almost any way with any federal institution or service.
The thing about this ID card is what kind of information will be encoded in it. At a very minimum, name, DOB, sex, ID number, image and address, but also additional information that will likely be included are biometrics with some folks even proposing genetic sequences. However, a major problem with these cards is the inclusion of machine readable technologies included in them that has the very real possibility of making ID theft easier. Additionally, the RealID act requires people to have a physical address. i.e. NO post office boxes unless you are a judge or government agent.
What is your science called? Nobody says "I'm a space scientist," they say "astrophysicist" (or whatever else their specialty is).
:-P
e r to understand science. And yes, that does mean reading paragraphs comprised of more than three sentences. Besides, any grammarian would tell you that paragraphs are often organized around concepts and concept grouping as opposed to simply making things easier to read.
.edu email address I'd think you were a 14 year old.
:-)
Then you must not have spent much time around scientists who are trying to make what they do intellectually available to those who may not "know" their particular discipline. I suppose I could call myself a neuroscientist who specializes in vision, or a retinal neurophysiologist, or a neuroophthalmologic scientist or......, but you get the point I hope. My saying "vision scientist" to this community of physicists, chemists, programmers, IT folks, high school students etc.... communicates effectively what it is that I do much more so than a descriptor that only tells my colleagues what it is that I do.
Calling youself a "vision scientest" puts up red flags for me, and makes me wonder if you're really credible or if you're an 18 year old undergrad internet wanker.
Click on the links and you may get an education.......or not, depending upon how smart you are.
If you really were a "vision scientest" you would know that having a huge single paragraph is incredibly hard to read.
You have never read a science textbook, have you? Sometimes you just have to be willing to work......just.....a.....little.....bit......hard
If not for your
A 14 year old professor........Hey, if I were 14, that would make me pretty damned accomplished as you would have figured out if you were not too lazy to actually click on the link. As it stands, I cannot honestly say that I could have accomplished what I have by 14. I needed 34 years to do that.
Especially when you said "trust me." I don't know you from Adam, why should I trust you?
Because, I am BWJones.
Thanks for the correction. Somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind that makes more sense than the Buckaroo source, but it has been YEARS since i saw both movies. Slashdot is simply one of the most authoritative resources for all of geekdom and that is what I love about it. There is always someone here that will know the answer to even the most esoteric geeky fact.
You must be a whiz with the ladies.
:-)
To quote Buckaroo Banzai: "Back off man.....I'm a scientist".
Seriously though, perhaps this is your goal, but I am not sure one should aspire to be a "whiz" with the ladies. Perhaps another descriptor would be more appropriate?
Trust me, I am a vision scientist. People are pretty visually oriented and the vast majority of them when presented with images on the Internet, generally do not pay much attention to text content. (I've done a few experiments with content on my blog here.) When presented with a task however, or when looking for information, people will read through text to find out what bit of information they are looking for. And generally, people can decide pretty quickly if the information they are looking for is present. The problems with video blogging are manifold: First, people will not sit through a video blogging episode when they are looking for a specific piece of information. Next, video is not yet conveniently "searchable" or indexable. Next, as opposed to information configured for audio interpretation, usually materials presented for video are poorly prepared for acoustic interpretation and are poorly organized and fragmented. A simple example of this is trying to extract the days news by exclusively listening to the following content and not watching it on television 1) NPR 2) BBC news on television 3) CBS news on television and 4) Fox news on television. You will find that generally, NPR presents the information the best for acoustic followed by BBC, CBS with Fox on the bottom.
Does having fun make ANY job more enjoyable?.................. *yes*.
Perhaps I am a little slow on the uptake, but I just realized that we are all simple pawns in the evil scheme of the Slashdot editors. We submit articles for publication on Slashdot, the editors screw with our submission to get all of us all fired about how crummy the editing is, or how stupid we think the submitters are or merely to pontificate on how smart we think we happen to be. But here is the deal.....it all drives traffic . Sometimes I feel so stupid......why did I not see this before? :-)
The title is somewhat misleading as it should be noted that mitochondrial DNA is not genomic DNA from a cells nucleus. It is a much smaller genome from the mitochondrion that evolutionarily is thought to be descended from bacteria and is much easier to sequence from a total work perspective. Although the information that can be extracted from the analysis of mitochondrial DNA can be more informative as to lineage and evolutionary cladistics.
Come on folks, this is junior high biology.....
the base's Gamma Irradiation Facility was paralysed when a cylinder containing cobalt-60 became lodged in one of the lab's air-pressure tubes,
Yikes! Cobalt-60 is almost as bad as it gets. Cobalt 60 radiation dosages are almost twice as bad as the actual dosage of radiation one would get from the fallout of an actual atomic device which sort of begs the question of what they are doing with it? Are they modeling fallout? Or are they experimenting with dirty bombs? Lining the inside of atomic devices with heavy metals and other elements is a way to create much more radioactive bombs that have long lasting radiation effects.
Although there *are* civilian applications such as medical therapy devices....
The canister, about the size of a salt cellar, was jammed against a seesaw-shaped switch inside the tube that was stuck in the wrong orientation.
OK, so this sounds like bad design just waiting for someone to screw up and reveal the design flaw.
Wow...... thanks? I guess you can chalk it up to my using the brand name on this Slashdot post instead of my usual reference to most cola products as "sodas". When I go to get a Coke, it is usually referenced by going for a soda.
;-)
Although, it's nice to know that Coca-Cola marketing folks spend time on Slashdot.
Appropriate post for someone named Boost I suppose.
Seriously though, I don't know that I want to mix two of my favorite beverages. I like my Coca-Cola (diet original).....and I looooove my coffee, Kona in particular. Sure, I'll give it a go, but I am not so sure I want to mix the two.....
The standard nitwit response, ...
Hey there......Don't be an ass as there is no call for that kind of comment.
So you are suggesting that anyone who is being maliciously slandered on the web should get into a pissing match with his attacker?
Hardly. I am talking about engagement.
Wouldn't it be better to disallow anonymous edits so that contributions can be traced to the author?
I completely agree with you here. I would much rather prefer to have a documented system with authoritative authors.
Serious Wikipedia contributors would have nothing to fear. Wikipedia obviously has a great deal of promise. But it suffers from the fact that many contributors are not authoritative sources.
Actually, that is not entirely true. I have edited a number of articles in biology and neuroscience, particularly in areas of my expertise and have had them completely butchered by knuckleheads or anonymous editors that do not know what they are saying. So, I understand the problems. However, if there were some sort of ranking system by which authors/editors could be somehow accredited within fields they are expert in, the Wikipedia would gain much more credibility. In practice, it could be as simple as participants in historical events, subject matter experts and professionals in their fields could submit their resume to a board of directors that would then assign a rank or credibility scale to them that would assign weight to their articles/edits.
So, he is missing the point of a Wiki. If he is so upset, why does he not log on and edit the article? I am sure that his edits would be most welcome by a large percentage of the Wikipublic. Yo John Seigenthaler, become a part of the process. Don't bitch about it.
There are actually a number of simple implementations that I have been absolutely surprised to not see in the US. For instance, in other places I have traveled around the world, dual flush toilets with "light" and "heavy" flush modes are available everywhere except in the most undeveloped third world countries. However, here in the US, particularly in water restricted areas you see standard high-flow toilets. Granted many "low flow" toilets such as the ones available in many areas of California are not so great if you have a fruit/vegetable intensive diet, but for some reason the toilets available in the US simply don't have the "power" that other more advanced designs have elsewhere in the world and I am not talking about the advanced technology toilets that they have in Japan either. Those are actually kinda scary because of all their automation and such, but simple things like pressure assist can make for very effective low water use designs.
:-) when it comes to plumbing issues that most of the rest of the world seems to have solved years ago?
Why is it that the US, one of the most advanced countries in the world cannot get their $#!^ together, pun intended
Thanks dude! It's nice to know that not everyone on Slashdot is a raving critic and that some folks actually appreciate what is sometimes said.
The Illuminati
:-)
daniil, you......simply........rock.
Pathetic. I am much more willing to give my business to those companies that can take a stand. Furthermore, as a professor in the biosciences, I am especially troubled by stories like this. Perhaps even more disturbing is that this does not appear to be a news item covered in the mainstream US media. I had to learn about this first from Slashdot, the Sydney Morning Herald, The Telegraph and The Register, thanks to ~rbochan.
Arguably, much of our current understanding of biology and bioscience (development of drugs and antibiotics, medicine etc...etc...etc...) and many things that may surprise you are due to a fundamental understanding of biology. Try future developments in body armor, engineering, acoustics, propulsion and search algorithms on for size. All of those disparate fields have been influenced and guided by cross-polination from bioscience and ignoring or even worse, rejecting a scientific understanding of the world will only hold us back.
It is particularly ironic because one of the missions of the American Museum of Natural History is education of those very same individuals and corporations who are benefitting from decades of science education in the United States.
Religious extremism come in many flavors folks, and if we are not careful, we are going to lose our edge. Remember, this country is only a couple hundred years old. Those societies that have embraced education and science historically are those societies that survive.
What "new channel" for media access does it provide that isn't provided by every cheap computer already out there across the nation? It's yet another computer device - BFD. Your dramatization about it is as laughable as the originators.
Bah, I guess I have been trolled, but I will do my best to make this productive. It is perhaps different because a number of folks still do not have their computers in the "living room" space. Computers, even cheap ones are still in other places in the house, while game consoles are still commonly found connected to the television in the "living room". Remember, it is not necessarily what geeks use/do, but what the masses will do and how they interact with products. Many geeks said for years "Awww shucks, game consoles will never be that popular because my PC plays games so much better". The economics have shown otherwise.
Ouch! Zing! You're good, and that burned me good. Wait, no it didn't.
It was not about zinging you. Rather it was about responding to your initial insult by attempting to educate you as to what the issues may be. As a professor I consider that my role. (education that is) But perhaps I should have known better than to try and do something productive in the games section of Slashdot.
And yes, it's a trite, overused saying that the originator is cashing in on at every opportunity, and all of the hanger-ons are repeating like some sort of mantra (when really it's a ridiculous simplification that's often, quite simply, wrong. 99.9% of xbox360 owners will never use it to express the "long tail" advantage).
Arguably, the originator of the concept (Chris Anderson), should have some degree of authority in utilizing the concept as he sees fit. After all, it was Chris who wrote the article on the Xbox 360. I simply linked to it. and as to your numbers.... even if you are correct and 99% of Xbox users never use it for a Long Tail media advantage, that is still 1% of Xbox users who might. And if Microsoft is correct, they are planning on selling approximately 5 Million Xbox 360s in the first year. That makes for 50,000 potential consumers in the first year that might adopt it as a platform. Also, you should recognize that in its first year, the iPod only sold about 350,000 units and I don't think anyone would say the iPod has not helped to create "Long Tail" markets for music and now video.
So he's interest in it as a media extender....
Yes.
what in the world does that have to do with the "long tail" (sorry - Long Tail)?
Use just a little bit of imagination.......... No? Try a little bit harder.......... Still nothing? Here, let me help you. Using the Xbox as a media center makes possible lots of new channels for media access that are currently unavailable with present distribution methods. What if you are interested in documentaries that are not available in your local Blockbuster movie store? What if you wanted old Dr. Who episodes at 1:30am? Where are you going to find them? Hey, how about this one? Let's say you are a film student and you need some obscure movie like the 300 Steps to do some fact checking prior to a term paper being due and it is late on a Sunday night? Where are you going to get that movie? Huh? This is where The Long Tail economic models start to step in. If you have access to a device that can tie into some distribution network, then you can have access to more obscure titles. However, from an economic perspective, this is a movie that is really making the owner no substantial money unless it can be distributed. So, even though there is not enough of a demand to put it on Blockbuster Video store shelves, it can continue to make money given an appropriate distribution medium.
I realize that it's one of the overused and oversold catch phrases of the day, but really it just makes it sound dumb.
Chris Anderson has helped popularize the concept of the Long Tail by coining the phrase back in 2004. I sent you to the source with my link. Perhaps reading available information and studying a bit of statistics before you post will help you to understand a bit more than you currently appear to.
Chris Anderson also got one early and is interested in the Xboox 360 from a Long Tail perspective as a media center.