Noooo..... if AOL goes, so too does my cheap $7 dialup access (which I use in hotels) (and work to skirt around the filtering). I guess I could switch to Netzero but it costs twice as much.
I don't know why, but lesser-powered devices often outsell higher-powered devices. IBM's PC and AT outsold the Mac (by about 20 times) and Amiga (about double) during the Eighties, even though it only had 4 colors and went "beep" instead of producing music.
With just one exception, the #1 gaming console was Not the most-advanced in graphics or sound - Atari VCS, Nintendo ES, PS1, PS2, Wii were all inferior to the competition. (The 16-bit SNES was more-or-less equal to the 68000 Genesis.)
So it does not surprise me one bit that the iPad, although less capable, is still the #1 seller in its genre.
"Force" and "free" don't belong together. I think it would be better to describe it as a Monopoly (comcast, verizon, et al) that has abused its powers over the customers, and therefore the government has stepped in to regulate the corporate tyrant. It's not ideal nor is it free, but it works.
>>>Now the major players believe that neutrality is no longer in their business interests.
Since when? Have there been sites you could not access? I haven't noticed ANY change in how my ISP acts now, or five years ago, or even back in the beginning (1993).
Actually now that I think about it, the ISP were more closed at the beginning (the internet was walled off or limited), and have moved towards *more* openness not less.
No. The "free" in free market actually refers to the right of the customer to exercise his/her Pro-choice decision of which company they want to deal with (or not).
For example I chose to exercise my freedom to boycott Comcast TV when they raised their prices from $30 to $70/month and give my money to hulu.com instead.
>>>>>to charge 10c/GB since those users exceeded the 250GB cap, and are straining the infrastructure, using more electricity, slowing-down service for other users, et cetera. Just my humble opinion. >> > Will this outbreak of common sense continue on/.?
Nope.
C64_love has already been modded down and as a result, has negative karma and can't post anymore (dropped from 25 to 2 posts/day). Free speech on slashdot? Nah it's more like egypt - obey the masters or be crushed
>>>>>to charge 10c/GB since those users exceeded the 250GB cap, and are straining the infrastructure, using more electricity, slowing-down service for other users, et cetera. Just my humble opinion. > > Will this outbreak of common sense continue on/.?
Nope. C64_love has already been modded down and as a result, has negative karma and can't post anymore (dropped from 25 to 2 posts/day). Free speech on slashdot? Nah it's more like egypt.
BTW tiered pricing (rather than unlimited) saves me a bundle on my cellphone. Instead of paying ~$50/month or ~$700 a year on an unlimited plan, I have a metered plan that costs me $0.00 per month. Sweet.
>>>they're calling the thing you are bookmarking an app, no the bookmark itself.
Wow. I didn't realize my Chrome bookmark to playboy.com was an app/program/application. Neat. (Point: The terminology "app" is misused in this context.)
>>>the price wouldn't have been in the mass market middle class affordable $1,500 range when the graphical web browser was introduced.
Completely disagree.
If the PC had failed and still been carrying a $5000 pricepoint, then when the web browser was introduced in 1993, people would have bought the $500-to-1000 Atari STs or Commodore Amigas or Apple Macintoshes instead. i.e. The web browser boom would have still happened, just on a different non-PC platform.
No. The "free" actually refers to the right of the customer to exercise his/her Pro-choice decision of which company they want to deal with (or not). For example I chose to exercise my freedom to boycott Comcast TV when they raised their prices from $30 to $70/month and give my money to hulu.com instead.
THIS decision is about what employees can or can not post on the company's facebook page. Employees are expected, while on the clock, to present a positive image of the man paying them cash.
Nintendo consoles have always trended towards younger audiences, and probably ~50% of Wii owners are kids or teens who don't have permission to get online.
I think Wii is actually the best to have online, since it has all those classic Nintendo, Super Nintendo, and N64 games. Also Sega Master System and Genesis and Commodore 64 games. It's a sweet deal. (IMHO)
The internet allows infinite duplication at almost no cost. People know this and are demanding that they can get their goods for free, or almost-free. Sony/Capcom will have to learn to fund themselves via other methods (Chapter 6 - Why Gaming is Free in China) or become irrelevant.
>>>the 250GB/month person probably only costs the ISP $5 more
Where did you get that number? I suspect it's a lot more than that, since the higher bit rate causes servers to fail faster, therefore requiring laborers to come-out and fix the problem.
And of course it also requires laying an additional cable, because all the neighbors of the 250GB person are complaining they can't access the web, and therefore that's Another additional labor cost (to dig-up the ground and/or snake wire through the sewer). ----- Plus let's not forget electricity to run the server 250 times more often than the 1GB email-reading Grandma, plus air conditioning to keep it cool, and so on.
Bottom Line - 250GB versus 1GB person is a lot more than a $5 additional cost to the company. Of course... I welcome you to prove me wrong.
Yeah I was specifically talking-about the "smartphones" that are basically handheld computers with internet hookups, not standard phones. Sorry for not being more specific.
As for the time, I think it's further away than 2011. Laptops sold over 300 million units last year, while smartphones logged less than 200 million.
Not really. I mean yes businesses bought computer, but that's just a small market compared to today's world where virtually every home has a computer:
- According to arstechnica data, the number of computers sold prior to 1993 is less than 10% of the total sold to date. The sudden "boom" after that year was caused by the Web Browser and people's desire to use one.
As it turned-out the "killer app", the program that made computers attractive to billions of people so they'd run-out and buy one, was the Web Browser. Specially NCSA's Mosaic for PC, mac, and amiga. (Later Mozilla Netscape and MS Explorer.)
Prior to the Home Web browser (pre-93) most people saw no need to get one. Now it's almost reached the point where you can't live without one.
And of course as computers became more "needed" they also started shrinking. The laptop surpassed the desktop in sales a few years ago, and I suspect the cellphone will eclipse the laptop pretty soon.
Yeah it does seem nitpicking to criticize Apple, but the last sentence about Google has a good point - They are calling their website bookmarks "apps" when they are not in fact applications.
Aside- -Having grown-up with Commodore GEOS and Workbench, I call programs "tools", directories "drawers", and the terminal a "CLI".
"The Bombay High Court" ruling is about equivalent to the Georgia Supreme Court saying Creationism is a valid science discipline, or the France High Court declaring french to be the only language allowed to be spoken.
Yes it's a surprising decision, but likely to be overturned by India's "supreme court" later on. Saner heads usually prevail at the national/ union/ federal level.
I often wonder how much longer magazines like Asimovs or Analog can last. They still charge $36 a year, even if you order the e-edition. I like the content but if they are not going to give me a rebate, then I might as well order the Paper version (which I can resell later on ebay for ~$10).
I also wonder if Books are doomed. I see amazon is selling The Golden Age of Science Fiction (50 Short Stories + 7 novels), volumes 1-10 for $2 each. Why pay full price for the physical books when I can get the same content downloaded to my Kindle or PC for about the same cost as a 2 candybars?
Why pay for things I can get for free online? Bits cost almost nothing. Instead: Rupert should be looking for new ways to pay his laborers, like collecting user data and selling it, like google does rather than charging for a newspaper.
Slashdot Mirror
Well let's see - Dialup is $6.99 times 12 == ~$84.
Tethering is $35 (clear) times 12 plus tax == ~$450.
And for what purpose? Just to read email and facebook? I appreciate the suggestion but don't think it's worth paying almost 400 dollars more.
Noooo..... if AOL goes, so too does my cheap $7 dialup access (which I use in hotels) (and work to skirt around the filtering). I guess I could switch to Netzero but it costs twice as much.
I don't know why, but lesser-powered devices often outsell higher-powered devices. IBM's PC and AT outsold the Mac (by about 20 times) and Amiga (about double) during the Eighties, even though it only had 4 colors and went "beep" instead of producing music.
With just one exception, the #1 gaming console was Not the most-advanced in graphics or sound - Atari VCS, Nintendo ES, PS1, PS2, Wii were all inferior to the competition. (The 16-bit SNES was more-or-less equal to the 68000 Genesis.)
So it does not surprise me one bit that the iPad, although less capable, is still the #1 seller in its genre.
>>>forcing to be free and unbiased.
Ironic.
"Force" and "free" don't belong together. I think it would be better to describe it as a Monopoly (comcast, verizon, et al) that has abused its powers over the customers, and therefore the government has stepped in to regulate the corporate tyrant. It's not ideal nor is it free, but it works.
An electronic Bulletin Board System. Uses the existing phone lines.
Usenet or Fidonet BBS - same thing but on a worldwide scale.
>>>Now the major players believe that neutrality is no longer in their business interests.
Since when? Have there been sites you could not access? I haven't noticed ANY change in how my ISP acts now, or five years ago, or even back in the beginning (1993).
Actually now that I think about it, the ISP were more closed at the beginning (the internet was walled off or limited), and have moved towards *more* openness not less.
No. The "free" in free market actually refers to the right of the customer to exercise his/her Pro-choice decision of which company they want to deal with (or not).
For example I chose to exercise my freedom to boycott Comcast TV when they raised their prices from $30 to $70/month and give my money to hulu.com instead.
I don't see how a company can monitor my home or phone internet & postings, if they have not installed software on those machines? Hmmm.
I guess I just need to use anonymous IDs from now on (or at least until the government makes that illegal).
>>>>>to charge 10c/GB since those users exceeded the 250GB cap, and are straining the infrastructure, using more electricity, slowing-down service for other users, et cetera. Just my humble opinion. /.?
>>
> Will this outbreak of common sense continue on
Nope.
C64_love has already been modded down and as a result, has negative karma and can't post anymore (dropped from 25 to 2 posts/day). Free speech on slashdot? Nah it's more like egypt - obey the masters or be crushed
>>>>>to charge 10c/GB since those users exceeded the 250GB cap, and are straining the infrastructure, using more electricity, slowing-down service for other users, et cetera. Just my humble opinion. /.?
>
> Will this outbreak of common sense continue on
Nope. C64_love has already been modded down and as a result, has negative karma and can't post anymore (dropped from 25 to 2 posts/day). Free speech on slashdot? Nah it's more like egypt.
BTW tiered pricing (rather than unlimited) saves me a bundle on my cellphone. Instead of paying ~$50/month or ~$700 a year on an unlimited plan, I have a metered plan that costs me $0.00 per month. Sweet.
My corporate blacklist keeps growing:
ADD:
State Farm
Farmers Insurance
REMOVE:
Google (under new management)
I don't see how a company can monitor my home or phone internet & postings, if they have not installed software on those machines? Hmmm.
I guess I just need to use anonymous IDs from now on (or at least until the government makes that illegal).
>>>they're calling the thing you are bookmarking an app, no the bookmark itself.
Wow. I didn't realize my Chrome bookmark to playboy.com was an app/program/application. Neat. (Point: The terminology "app" is misused in this context.)
>>>the price wouldn't have been in the mass market middle class affordable $1,500 range when the graphical web browser was introduced.
Completely disagree.
If the PC had failed and still been carrying a $5000 pricepoint, then when the web browser was introduced in 1993, people would have bought the $500-to-1000 Atari STs or Commodore Amigas or Apple Macintoshes instead. i.e. The web browser boom would have still happened, just on a different non-PC platform.
No. The "free" actually refers to the right of the customer to exercise his/her Pro-choice decision of which company they want to deal with (or not). For example I chose to exercise my freedom to boycott Comcast TV when they raised their prices from $30 to $70/month and give my money to hulu.com instead.
THIS decision is about what employees can or can not post on the company's facebook page. Employees are expected, while on the clock, to present a positive image of the man paying them cash.
Nintendo consoles have always trended towards younger audiences, and probably ~50% of Wii owners are kids or teens who don't have permission to get online.
I think Wii is actually the best to have online, since it has all those classic Nintendo, Super Nintendo, and N64 games. Also Sega Master System and Genesis and Commodore 64 games. It's a sweet deal. (IMHO)
Sony needs to read this book:
- FREE - The Radical Price is the Future http://www.audible.com/pd?productID=BK_AVEN_000001
The internet allows infinite duplication at almost no cost. People know this and are demanding that they can get their goods for free, or almost-free. Sony/Capcom will have to learn to fund themselves via other methods (Chapter 6 - Why Gaming is Free in China) or become irrelevant.
>>>the 250GB/month person probably only costs the ISP $5 more
Where did you get that number? I suspect it's a lot more than that, since the higher bit rate causes servers to fail faster, therefore requiring laborers to come-out and fix the problem.
And of course it also requires laying an additional cable, because all the neighbors of the 250GB person are complaining they can't access the web, and therefore that's Another additional labor cost (to dig-up the ground and/or snake wire through the sewer). ----- Plus let's not forget electricity to run the server 250 times more often than the 1GB email-reading Grandma, plus air conditioning to keep it cool, and so on.
Bottom Line - 250GB versus 1GB person is a lot more than a $5 additional cost to the company. Of course... I welcome you to prove me wrong.
Yeah I was specifically talking-about the "smartphones" that are basically handheld computers with internet hookups, not standard phones. Sorry for not being more specific.
As for the time, I think it's further away than 2011. Laptops sold over 300 million units last year, while smartphones logged less than 200 million.
Not really. I mean yes businesses bought computer, but that's just a small market compared to today's world where virtually every home has a computer:
- According to arstechnica data, the number of computers sold prior to 1993 is less than 10% of the total sold to date. The sudden "boom" after that year was caused by the Web Browser and people's desire to use one.
As it turned-out the "killer app", the program that made computers attractive to billions of people so they'd run-out and buy one, was the Web Browser. Specially NCSA's Mosaic for PC, mac, and amiga. (Later Mozilla Netscape and MS Explorer.)
Prior to the Home Web browser (pre-93) most people saw no need to get one. Now it's almost reached the point where you can't live without one.
And of course as computers became more "needed" they also started shrinking. The laptop surpassed the desktop in sales a few years ago, and I suspect the cellphone will eclipse the laptop pretty soon.
Yeah it does seem nitpicking to criticize Apple, but the last sentence about Google has a good point - They are calling their website bookmarks "apps" when they are not in fact applications.
Aside-
-Having grown-up with Commodore GEOS and Workbench, I call programs "tools", directories "drawers", and the terminal a "CLI".
"The Bombay High Court" ruling is about equivalent to the Georgia Supreme Court saying Creationism is a valid science discipline, or the France High Court declaring french to be the only language allowed to be spoken.
Yes it's a surprising decision, but likely to be overturned by India's "supreme court" later on. Saner heads usually prevail at the national/ union/ federal level.
I often wonder how much longer magazines like Asimovs or Analog can last. They still charge $36 a year, even if you order the e-edition. I like the content but if they are not going to give me a rebate, then I might as well order the Paper version (which I can resell later on ebay for ~$10).
I also wonder if Books are doomed. I see amazon is selling The Golden Age of Science Fiction (50 Short Stories + 7 novels), volumes 1-10 for $2 each. Why pay full price for the physical books when I can get the same content downloaded to my Kindle or PC for about the same cost as a 2 candybars?
In briefer terms:
Why pay for things I can get for free online? Bits cost almost nothing. Instead: Rupert should be looking for new ways to pay his laborers, like collecting user data and selling it, like google does rather than charging for a newspaper.