I also find funny the resentment of the union workers in the machine rooms, electricians or whatnot. These people get a lot of IT people's scorn more
than anyone. You can't get a cable pulled after 5PM! How lazy!
I find funny the willingness of pro-unionists to defend this sort of ossified, antiquated, anti-consumer work rule that makes unionized companies slower, less responsive, and less likely to succeed.
Why doesn't the labor movement focus on higher skills and quality work as the benefit of union workers, and not so much on preserving antiquated practices that no rational businessperson would agree to today? After all, we (the consumers should get what we pay for.
Maybe it's because union labor == bad service? Think public transit, airlines, telcos, public schools, etc.
These days far more people are unwitting and angry consumers of unionized labor than unionized themselves. Certainly that's true in the tech sector. So perhaps that's where the hostility comes from.
why do people generally rip CDs in the first place? Some do it to transfer them onto portable devices, although integrated encoding
software is generally bundled with the devices. But most people rip CDs to share with their friends.
Also to play tunes in a jukebox fashion rather than one CD at a time. After I got Apple's iTunes, I quickly filled up >1G of my hard drive because of this feature. Now of course I share that folder on Napster, but even once Napster's dead and gone this will still be useful.
Having to jump through any hoops at all to move this to another computer, hardware device, etc. is simply unacceptable, so I won't switch!
It's clear that MS is pushing WMA hard - you can see it in the increasing support of WMA by player makers like Creative. But I still fail to see why users will choose something that's more user-hostile when they don't have to.
Even after Napster's toast (and it's clearly toast) the adoption of MP3 as a standard won't slow down. Users will keep sharing via tools like Gnutella; people will keep rip-mix-burning onto CDs. WMA won't let you do this, so it won't be as useful, and people won't use it.
Well, at least I won't, and I would bet there are about 20 million others like me who are pretty damn satisfied with MP3 and, in the words of an old cigarette ad, would rather fight than switch.
Upon further reading and reflection, it seems to me that MS would be collossally stupid to push this. MP3 is a huge "killer app" for PCs today - it's one of the few things pushing users to upgrade their PCs and internet connections. Actively making this experience less useful would seem to further reduce sales at a time that people seem less and less interested in upgrading.
Read the WSJ article, emphasis and comments added:
Under Microsoft's new restrictions -- which prevent its built-in software from recording MP3 files at fidelity rates higher than 56 kilobits per second -- MP3 music "sounds like somebody in a phone booth underwater," says P.J. McNealy, an analyst who researches Internet audio issues for Gartner Inc. in Stamford, Conn.
(Existing versions of Microsoft's audio software don't allow consumers to record music as MP3 files of any quality.)
[And so nobody uses them!]
The new restrictions in Windows XP won't prevent other vendors' software applications from recording MP3 music at a higher fidelity, but early testers of beta versions of Windows XP already complain that the most popular MP3 recording applications -- which compete with Microsoft's format -- don't seem to function properly
[Maybe because MS is using its typical anticompetitive dirty tricks?]
apparently because of changes Microsoft made to how data are written on CD-ROMs under Windows XP. Microsoft says that while other software vendors' products may not be "optimized" to run with Windows XP, those products should run acceptably with the operating system.
Whoever at MS thinks Joe User will stick to 56kbp is smoking crack. Everyone will simply use Winamp or one of the hundreds of other MP3 tools. If MS wants to make sure nobody uses its software, this is a great way to do it!
(Compare Apple, whose excellent iTunes is user-friendly and MP3 only.)
So we had Win95,98,ME versus NT,2000. Did that kill Micros**t?
No, but I would argue that it's hurt them. The fragmentation caused user confusion, higher support costs, and less user adoption.
Example: I'm using Win 98. Do I upgrade to Me or 2K? Or do nothing? The latter choice wins because of my laziness and the complexity of upgrade issues (will my XYZ work on this vs. that? will I have more crashes? etc). Result: Microsoft loses revenue. So they are, in my view, leaving money on the table by tolerating fragmentation.
Many slashdotters don't like business people. Why?..
Because they perceive, correctly in part, that business people make decisions without regard to the customer and/or the technical merits. I read/. in part to avoid making such dumb decisions! (And because the trolls are amusing.)
On this thread, I am very sympathetic to Linux and wish it the best of luck. It's really this lack of standardization, and the resulting (perceived) lack of application support, that prevents me from making it my desktop of choice. I suspect there are millions more like me out there.
He totally missd the questions - or, in his words:
[his] arguments are red herrings thrown to distract the debate from the real issues. The real issue is not standards or technical compatibility with specific pieces of binary-only software....
Actually, the real issue IS standards, as anyone who's followed the rise of Windows and the web should know. Standard APIs and operating environment -> more developers, more customers, positive feedback loop. Fragmentation -> confused customers, confused developers, fewer customers, fewer developers.
Imagine the internet before the www became the most popular application. You needed a whole book just to understand the six different applications (ftp, telnet, archie, veronica, gopher, news) that people commonly used to publish stuff. No wonder nobody used it until Mosaic was invented!
We're in a similar place with Linux now. KDE vs. GNOME is something that Joe User doesn't understand IN ANY WAY. Not until there's a common, standard operating environment (obviously with other alternatives out there) will the positive feedback loop described above really take off. Until then, bye-bye Linux on the desktop.
Which makes me wonder: why don't execs like this spend more time trying to drive standardization OF SOME KIND instead of just bitching about Microsoft?
I liked the cat that came with Windows... cute anyway. But I would have liked a "Don't ask me again" in every case, as I still get it asking the same damn questions when (for example) saving an Excel document...
Well, the Apple-History guy didn't seem to have a problem:
4/10/01 I have managed to survive the "slashdot effect". With nearly 20,000 unique visitors, and over 2 million individual file requests, yesterday saw the heaviest traffic this site has ever had. The site got as many hits as it did in all of March. A big thanks to everyone who was kind enough to register yesterday!"
Well, I remember that many years ago Apple ran a ad called "Baked Apple" about a guy whose Apple II computer was melted in a fire - and still worked! Maybe Novell could run something similar here.
North Carolina gets pretty darn hot in the summer. (IANANCBIAAV: I am not a North Carolinian but I am a Virginian - it only gets hotter as you go south)
Getting slammed with negative publicity because you're sending out cease-and-desist letters like a bunch of idiots,
which makes your customers think of your stupidity whenever they see your commercial: $millions more.
Most consumers don't read Slashdot or rec.humor.funny, so they wouldn't know about this. Plus I would venture a guess that Joe TV Fan wouldn't know a cease-and-desist letter if it hit him in the face.
That doesn't make MasterCard any less stupid, of course. But negative publicity is harder to come by among the general public than among the 400K or so slashdot fans.
Well, this might be a relevant precedent if/. decided to go after spammers and/or crapflooders by legal means, instead of just by bitchslapping their accounts and blocking their IPs.
However I would doubt that this is necessary at this point, as I find moderation perfectly sufficient to keep them out of users' hair.
(Not trying to start a moderation good/bad thread... just noting that/. seems to do better in this regard.)
Slashdot Mirror
I find funny the willingness of pro-unionists to defend this sort of ossified, antiquated, anti-consumer work rule that makes unionized companies slower, less responsive, and less likely to succeed.
Why doesn't the labor movement focus on higher skills and quality work as the benefit of union workers, and not so much on preserving antiquated practices that no rational businessperson would agree to today? After all, we (the consumers should get what we pay for.
These days far more people are unwitting and angry consumers of unionized labor than unionized themselves. Certainly that's true in the tech sector. So perhaps that's where the hostility comes from.
You can now own a full-featured community Web site for under $50,000. Start the process right now by taking our simple 3-click survey.
Well, I know somewhere you can download one for free! Or you can pay $39.95/mo if you want it hosted.
from the here-come-the-black-helicopters dept.
Ya think?
on the mute button. Gawd, those were awful ads.
Also to play tunes in a jukebox fashion rather than one CD at a time. After I got Apple's iTunes, I quickly filled up >1G of my hard drive because of this feature. Now of course I share that folder on Napster, but even once Napster's dead and gone this will still be useful.
Having to jump through any hoops at all to move this to another computer, hardware device, etc. is simply unacceptable, so I won't switch!
Even after Napster's toast (and it's clearly toast) the adoption of MP3 as a standard won't slow down. Users will keep sharing via tools like Gnutella; people will keep rip-mix-burning onto CDs. WMA won't let you do this, so it won't be as useful, and people won't use it.
Well, at least I won't, and I would bet there are about 20 million others like me who are pretty damn satisfied with MP3 and, in the words of an old cigarette ad, would rather fight than switch.
If I had MS stock, I'd sell it now.
But instead they'll just think Windows Media Player sucks. (So what else is new?!)
Read the WSJ article, emphasis and comments added:
Under Microsoft's new restrictions -- which prevent its built-in software from recording MP3 files at fidelity rates higher than 56 kilobits per second -- MP3 music "sounds like somebody in a phone booth underwater," says P.J. McNealy, an analyst who researches Internet audio issues for Gartner Inc. in Stamford, Conn.
(Existing versions of Microsoft's audio software don't allow consumers to record music as MP3 files of any quality.)
[And so nobody uses them!]
The new restrictions in Windows XP won't prevent other vendors' software applications from recording MP3 music at a higher fidelity, but early testers of beta versions of Windows XP already complain that the most popular MP3 recording applications -- which compete with Microsoft's format -- don't seem to function properly
[Maybe because MS is using its typical anticompetitive dirty tricks?]
apparently because of changes Microsoft made to how data are written on CD-ROMs under Windows XP. Microsoft says that while other software vendors' products may not be "optimized" to run with Windows XP, those products should run acceptably with the operating system.
Whoever at MS thinks Joe User will stick to 56kbp is smoking crack. Everyone will simply use Winamp or one of the hundreds of other MP3 tools. If MS wants to make sure nobody uses its software, this is a great way to do it!
(Compare Apple, whose excellent iTunes is user-friendly and MP3 only.)
Why? Used desktops on eBay will just get cheaper as all those dot-coms go bankrupt!
No, but I would argue that it's hurt them. The fragmentation caused user confusion, higher support costs, and less user adoption.
Example: I'm using Win 98. Do I upgrade to Me or 2K? Or do nothing? The latter choice wins because of my laziness and the complexity of upgrade issues (will my XYZ work on this vs. that? will I have more crashes? etc). Result: Microsoft loses revenue. So they are, in my view, leaving money on the table by tolerating fragmentation.
Ditto Linux.
Because they perceive, correctly in part, that business people make decisions without regard to the customer and/or the technical merits. I read /. in part to avoid making such dumb decisions! (And because the trolls are amusing.)
On this thread, I am very sympathetic to Linux and wish it the best of luck. It's really this lack of standardization, and the resulting (perceived) lack of application support, that prevents me from making it my desktop of choice. I suspect there are millions more like me out there.
Do you have the Linux Today link?
[his] arguments are red herrings thrown to distract the debate from the real issues. The real issue is not standards or technical compatibility with specific pieces of binary-only software....
Actually, the real issue IS standards, as anyone who's followed the rise of Windows and the web should know. Standard APIs and operating environment -> more developers, more customers, positive feedback loop. Fragmentation -> confused customers, confused developers, fewer customers, fewer developers.
Imagine the internet before the www became the most popular application. You needed a whole book just to understand the six different applications (ftp, telnet, archie, veronica, gopher, news) that people commonly used to publish stuff. No wonder nobody used it until Mosaic was invented!
We're in a similar place with Linux now. KDE vs. GNOME is something that Joe User doesn't understand IN ANY WAY. Not until there's a common, standard operating environment (obviously with other alternatives out there) will the positive feedback loop described above really take off. Until then, bye-bye Linux on the desktop.
Which makes me wonder: why don't execs like this spend more time trying to drive standardization OF SOME KIND instead of just bitching about Microsoft?
Good point. Perhaps the "Bye-bye Clippy" bit is FUD to distract the public from the reg server?!
Well, yes. She's a prudish idiot.
I liked the cat that came with Windows... cute anyway. But I would have liked a "Don't ask me again" in every case, as I still get it asking the same damn questions when (for example) saving an Excel document...
is here.
So don't buy it.
4/10/01 I have managed to survive the "slashdot effect". With nearly 20,000 unique visitors, and over 2 million individual file requests, yesterday saw the heaviest traffic this site has ever had. The site got as many hits as it did in all of March. A big thanks to everyone who was kind enough to register yesterday!"
BTW, nice comment title.
Well, I remember that many years ago Apple ran a ad called "Baked Apple" about a guy whose Apple II computer was melted in a fire - and still worked! Maybe Novell could run something similar here.
North Carolina gets pretty darn hot in the summer. (IANANCBIAAV: I am not a North Carolinian but I am a Virginian - it only gets hotter as you go south)
Most consumers don't read Slashdot or rec.humor.funny, so they wouldn't know about this. Plus I would venture a guess that Joe TV Fan wouldn't know a cease-and-desist letter if it hit him in the face.
That doesn't make MasterCard any less stupid, of course. But negative publicity is harder to come by among the general public than among the 400K or so slashdot fans.
Well, I found it funny, but then again I enjoy the better /. trolls!
However I would doubt that this is necessary at this point, as I find moderation perfectly sufficient to keep them out of users' hair.
(Not trying to start a moderation good/bad thread... just noting that /. seems to do better in this regard.)