I am of two minds on this. I agree, but then it occurred to be that many people fork out $50 or more per month just to watch 100+ TV channels.
So why not fork out money to access 100K+ music files?
Maybe it is a perception thing. We are used to owning music (vinyl, tape, CD), but we are not really used to owning what's on TV. Just a hypothsis. Stomp on me if you don't agree.
While I agree with the author that the gaming industry appear to have reached a plateau, I do not agree with his prediction of the industry's death. A large part of his argument revolves around novelty. The novelty has worn off, nobody's going to buy something that doesn't seem bigger or better.
But just because I plateau has been reached doesn't mean the genre is dying. He is missing the fact that to each new generation, video games will be a novelty. When a newborn of today discovers video games, it will be a complete novelty. There is a first time for everything. This is why I hear 11 year olds laughing at jokes that I first found funny 25 years ago. Yeah, I don't find them funny anymore, but the kids of today do because they haven't heard them before.
So the video game "Blow Up Everybody 2015" will sell jsut fine. It might play just like Halflife, and *I* might find it boring. But the kids of 2015 will think it rocks.
You are kind of asking the wrong people. I, like most of the people here, work in a technical position. Technology *is* my job. Advances in technology have led to advances in the technology I create in my job, but the level of stress remains the same. It is not the technology that is making my job stressful but the job itself, because jobs are sometimes stressful (a fact of life). The line between the technology I am creating and the technology I use to create technology is a blurry one.
You should be posting this question to a discussion group for lawyers or teachers or some other profession that is a consumer of technology but not a creator of technology.
That's the only reason I can think of for why they would be going public. When you are public, one of the big rules is get as much money as you can when you have the chance. Right when you cross over to break-even is that chance. Before break-even is silly (we've been through that bubble and are not buying it anymore) and if you leave it too long you might dip below break-even again which would tarnish your image (from the investment point of view).
In my opinion, going public is both the best and the worst thing that can happen to a company, from the employee perspective. I've worked for a private company, a public company, and a private company that went public. In a public company you can make a lot of money off your stock options (assuming you have some). But the atmosphere in a private company is much more agreeable, with the lines of communications much more open. When my last company went public, it was like a door slammed and all information about how the company was doing, and what potential customers we were talking to, disappeared. We essentially woke up after the party, feeling rich, and realized nobody would talk to us anymore.
I can't believe it has taken Lego this long to figure out that their appeal was in the generic "little plastic building block" and not focussed movie-tie-in sets that left nothing to the imagination. For years they've had people screaming at them saying "What the f*** are you doing to the perfect toy". Literally, I have not ever come across one of those new fangled no-imagination Lego sets without also coming across an adult being nostalgic about the good ol' generic little plastic building block days.
Why does Cliff repeatedly use the word "infamous" (a synonym of "notorious") to describe nifty things, like a supercomputer. He did it earlier today with the article about the Internet Archive.
Maybe he's using the Three Amigos definition of the word...
If they are disallowing special characters in passwords for fear of a SQL injection attack, then they are implementing poor security. Passwords should *never* be stored in cleartext in a database. Only a hash of the password (with salt) should be stored.
I've never really understood the whole "wedding photographer" thing. At my wedding, every single guest had a camera. My wife and I asked if people could send us copies of their best photos from our wedding, which is no big thing because most people would do that anyway. It cost next to nothing, and the photos are much more personal than you would get from a professional photographer.
Sharks around the world are joining in a class action lawsuit against dolphins. The action claims that all dolphins species are guilty "evoluntionary copyright" in that they have developed flippers, fins, and a streamlined body for the purpose of moving quickly through water.
"Look at them, they aren't even fish!", pronounced the class action spokesfish, Bruce. "Dolphins breath air and give live birth. They should grow legs and go back to where they came from."
A member of the defendent species, Flipper, posting in a dolphin oriented message board, has stated "Squeeee, Squeeee, Thfffftp!". This does not make any sense, but then none of the other dolphin posts made any sense either.
I wonder where the Netherlands sits in this survey. They have a population density higher than Japan and approaching that of South Korea. Unfortunately, they were not mentioned in the article.
You tripped over the same puzzle that had you stuck (for a while) in Myst: sound. The sound of the sea creature that is linked to a sound that you stumble across elsewhere, which gives you part of a key. Repeat 4 or 5 times with different creatures to get the whole key that allows you to finish the game.
What made it really hard was that this puzzle was distributed over the entire world.
Not about romance? The entire basis of the story is romance, though you have to read the Appendix A to find this out. The reason Aragorn battles Mordor and regains the throne of Gondor was so that he was worthy to be the husband of Arwen. Elrond told Aragorn that he would accept no less than the King of Gondor and Arnor for his daughter.
The whole hobbit and ring thing is just a side story to the tale of Aragron and Arwen.
By my definition, "bad office politics" occurs when you spend more of your time working to solve problems coming from inside the company than working to towards what the company actually does for its business. The problem is pretty universal. I've dealt with insane policies and nasty politics in both small and large companies.
The best place to be is a small to medium sized *growing* company. In a growing company, you get to be the one who defines the policies. Things are changing so fast that people are open to new ideas, so you generally get to do the type of work you like best.
Avoid the small company that has been around and small for years. Such companies are often run by a clique of "founders" who like things done exactly they way *they* want and will not listen to any other suggestions (even if the survival of the company is at stake). A stagnant company has the worst politics.
I've been there and done that twice in my career. The circumstances were slightly different. The companies were not in deep doo-doo, but there was a well defined lack of respect towards the development team/department.
In neither case was the mass exodus (ME) planned, in the sitting around and plotting sense. It just happened. In both cases, the ME was preceded by a spontaneous, manager-led, group bitch session, where all the disgruntled employees got together and described what was unsatisfactory about their jobs. The complaints were summarized and sent up the ladder. If your place of employment has reached the spontaneous bitch session stage, expect a ME to follow.
Here are some interesting results from the MEs I have experienced.
In both cases, I found immediate re-employment.
In the first ME (in which a full one-quarter of the company's employees jumped ship), a number of the ex-employees (myself not included) formed their own competing company, and promptly got sued by the old employer. Today, almost a decade later, the case is still before the courts. I expect the eventual loser will be forced out of business.
Stupid legal actions aside (see previous point), in neither case was the company that was a victim of the ME mortally wounded. Each has recovered nicely.
In the first ME, many employees in the affected department that showed loyalty and did not quit were fired within a year.
In the second ME, many employees in the affected department that showed loyalty and did not quit were offered enormous raises.
I do not regret leaving either company.
If you leave a company in an ME, expect to never be welcome back to that company as an employee ever again. This can have unforseen side-effects. In the second ME there was an employee who left the company close to the same time who were not really part of the ME. However he was *perceived* to be part of the ME, and when he tried to return to the company a couple of years later he was told he was not welcome.
I believe the opposite. If societies acted as a group, probably very few stupid decisions would be made. But societies don't act as groups. The members of societies act as individuals.
It comes down to greed and human nature. Most people are extremely selfish and hypocritical, and this is be basis of most "stupid" decisions.
We, as a species, are polluting our planet. Take a poll and you will probably find that a majority of people believe the SUVs create a lot of pollution. Yet, everybody and their dog wants one. A majority of people probably think that the world is or is becoming over-populated. Yet we, continue to crank out children at an enourmous rate.
As a group, we recognize problems and can even see solutions. But as individuals we are not willing to do anything about it.
My parents just do not get it. They are worse than most, I think.
You have to explain to your parents how to cut & paste? I have to explain to my parent what cut & paste is.
Last time somebody emailed my dad some photos, he couldn't view them. I tried to get him to save the attachments to a file and view them with his browser. He didn't know what a browser was. I eventually had him forward me the message, I uploaded the pictures to my website, and sent him an email with links. He *does* know how to click on a link to open a browser. I think. Last time I checked my web site stats, the pictures had not been viewed.
I once had to explain to my parents how to resize a window. That included pointing the mouse at the corner of the window, clicking and holding the left mouse button, moving the mouse to get the desired window size, *and* releasing the left button. That last step eluded them.
My mom once looked at my XML.com t-shirt and said "What a funny sized shirt you are wearing. Extra-Medium-Large!".
Slashdot Mirror
I am of two minds on this. I agree, but then it occurred to be that many people fork out $50 or more per month just to watch 100+ TV channels.
So why not fork out money to access 100K+ music files?
Maybe it is a perception thing. We are used to owning music (vinyl, tape, CD), but we are not really used to owning what's on TV. Just a hypothsis. Stomp on me if you don't agree.
While I agree with the author that the gaming industry appear to have reached a plateau, I do not agree with his prediction of the industry's death. A large part of his argument revolves around novelty. The novelty has worn off, nobody's going to buy something that doesn't seem bigger or better.
But just because I plateau has been reached doesn't mean the genre is dying. He is missing the fact that to each new generation, video games will be a novelty. When a newborn of today discovers video games, it will be a complete novelty. There is a first time for everything. This is why I hear 11 year olds laughing at jokes that I first found funny 25 years ago. Yeah, I don't find them funny anymore, but the kids of today do because they haven't heard them before.
So the video game "Blow Up Everybody 2015" will sell jsut fine. It might play just like Halflife, and *I* might find it boring. But the kids of 2015 will think it rocks.
You are kind of asking the wrong people. I, like most of the people here, work in a technical position. Technology *is* my job. Advances in technology have led to advances in the technology I create in my job, but the level of stress remains the same. It is not the technology that is making my job stressful but the job itself, because jobs are sometimes stressful (a fact of life). The line between the technology I am creating and the technology I use to create technology is a blurry one.
You should be posting this question to a discussion group for lawyers or teachers or some other profession that is a consumer of technology but not a creator of technology.
It's not not Kerry going after them for libel. It's the photographers, and they are trying to protect their copyright.
You admitted it! Now the CRIA is going to go after /. to get your identity...
That's the only reason I can think of for why they would be going public. When you are public, one of the big rules is get as much money as you can when you have the chance. Right when you cross over to break-even is that chance. Before break-even is silly (we've been through that bubble and are not buying it anymore) and if you leave it too long you might dip below break-even again which would tarnish your image (from the investment point of view).
In my opinion, going public is both the best and the worst thing that can happen to a company, from the employee perspective. I've worked for a private company, a public company, and a private company that went public. In a public company you can make a lot of money off your stock options (assuming you have some). But the atmosphere in a private company is much more agreeable, with the lines of communications much more open. When my last company went public, it was like a door slammed and all information about how the company was doing, and what potential customers we were talking to, disappeared. We essentially woke up after the party, feeling rich, and realized nobody would talk to us anymore.
I can't believe it has taken Lego this long to figure out that their appeal was in the generic "little plastic building block" and not focussed movie-tie-in sets that left nothing to the imagination. For years they've had people screaming at them saying "What the f*** are you doing to the perfect toy". Literally, I have not ever come across one of those new fangled no-imagination Lego sets without also coming across an adult being nostalgic about the good ol' generic little plastic building block days.
Why does Cliff repeatedly use the word "infamous" (a synonym of "notorious") to describe nifty things, like a supercomputer. He did it earlier today with the article about the Internet Archive.
Maybe he's using the Three Amigos definition of the word...
Google as a verb has been mentioned by my mother. THAT is my barometer!
Glass cleaner? What are you talking about? A Windex is a brand of wind direction indicator for sailboats.
If they are disallowing special characters in passwords for fear of a SQL injection attack, then they are implementing poor security. Passwords should *never* be stored in cleartext in a database. Only a hash of the password (with salt) should be stored.
I've never really understood the whole "wedding photographer" thing. At my wedding, every single guest had a camera. My wife and I asked if people could send us copies of their best photos from our wedding, which is no big thing because most people would do that anyway. It cost next to nothing, and the photos are much more personal than you would get from a professional photographer.
To paraphrase a little
...
Dear Rusty,
Blah blah blah
Do it or it your ass!
Best Regards
Paul
It's like watching two Englishmen having a civilized cup of tea while trading insults.
Sharks around the world are joining in a class action lawsuit against dolphins. The action claims that all dolphins species are guilty "evoluntionary copyright" in that they have developed flippers, fins, and a streamlined body for the purpose of moving quickly through water.
"Look at them, they aren't even fish!", pronounced the class action spokesfish, Bruce. "Dolphins breath air and give live birth. They should grow legs and go back to where they came from."
A member of the defendent species, Flipper, posting in a dolphin oriented message board, has stated "Squeeee, Squeeee, Thfffftp!". This does not make any sense, but then none of the other dolphin posts made any sense either.
I wonder where the Netherlands sits in this survey. They have a population density higher than Japan and approaching that of South Korea. Unfortunately, they were not mentioned in the article.
How is this different from server systems currently offered from the likes of companies such as RSA and Entrust?
They are shifting the complexity from the client to the server, which is good. But it has been done before.
You tripped over the same puzzle that had you stuck (for a while) in Myst: sound. The sound of the sea creature that is linked to a sound that you stumble across elsewhere, which gives you part of a key. Repeat 4 or 5 times with different creatures to get the whole key that allows you to finish the game.
What made it really hard was that this puzzle was distributed over the entire world.
Not about romance? The entire basis of the story is romance, though you have to read the Appendix A to find this out. The reason Aragorn battles Mordor and regains the throne of Gondor was so that he was worthy to be the husband of Arwen. Elrond told Aragorn that he would accept no less than the King of Gondor and Arnor for his daughter.
The whole hobbit and ring thing is just a side story to the tale of Aragron and Arwen.
I found this article by Jonatham Rauch in The Atlantic to be a big "aha" for me.
My name is Khendron, and... I am an introvert <applause>
By my definition, "bad office politics" occurs when you spend more of your time working to solve problems coming from inside the company than working to towards what the company actually does for its business. The problem is pretty universal. I've dealt with insane policies and nasty politics in both small and large companies.
The best place to be is a small to medium sized *growing* company. In a growing company, you get to be the one who defines the policies. Things are changing so fast that people are open to new ideas, so you generally get to do the type of work you like best.
Avoid the small company that has been around and small for years. Such companies are often run by a clique of "founders" who like things done exactly they way *they* want and will not listen to any other suggestions (even if the survival of the company is at stake). A stagnant company has the worst politics.
In neither case was the mass exodus (ME) planned, in the sitting around and plotting sense. It just happened. In both cases, the ME was preceded by a spontaneous, manager-led, group bitch session, where all the disgruntled employees got together and described what was unsatisfactory about their jobs. The complaints were summarized and sent up the ladder. If your place of employment has reached the spontaneous bitch session stage, expect a ME to follow.
Here are some interesting results from the MEs I have experienced.
I believe the opposite. If societies acted as a group, probably very few stupid decisions would be made. But societies don't act as groups. The members of societies act as individuals.
It comes down to greed and human nature. Most people are extremely selfish and hypocritical, and this is be basis of most "stupid" decisions.
We, as a species, are polluting our planet. Take a poll and you will probably find that a majority of people believe the SUVs create a lot of pollution. Yet, everybody and their dog wants one. A majority of people probably think that the world is or is becoming over-populated. Yet we, continue to crank out children at an enourmous rate.
As a group, we recognize problems and can even see solutions. But as individuals we are not willing to do anything about it.
Thank you thank you thank you for that link. I always remember loving the music as a kid, but couldn't actually remember the music.
:-)
That brought it all flooding back.
My parents just do not get it. They are worse than most, I think.
You have to explain to your parents how to cut & paste? I have to explain to my parent what cut & paste is.
Last time somebody emailed my dad some photos, he couldn't view them. I tried to get him to save the attachments to a file and view them with his browser. He didn't know what a browser was. I eventually had him forward me the message, I uploaded the pictures to my website, and sent him an email with links. He *does* know how to click on a link to open a browser. I think. Last time I checked my web site stats, the pictures had not been viewed.
I once had to explain to my parents how to resize a window. That included pointing the mouse at the corner of the window, clicking and holding the left mouse button, moving the mouse to get the desired window size, *and* releasing the left button. That last step eluded them.
My mom once looked at my XML.com t-shirt and said "What a funny sized shirt you are wearing. Extra-Medium-Large!".
I'm sure it would be reported twice.