First, ask yourself, do you want to control the entire process, or do you just want to develop a game? Basically, those who are good at creating games are usually bad at marketing and selling it, just as most artists are bad at marketing themselves.
You can either subcontract out this side, work with a gaming company, or do it yourself.
If you subcontract out, you need people who have taken video games to market, have established connections with distribution channels, and understand your basic vision. You also need the capital to do this.
If you work with a gaming company, you either will get locked into a contract that has low rewards unless you meet certain shipping quantities or net sales (not gross). This may be a good idea if it's your first try, but if you've only got one game in you, this is not a good idea.
If you do it yourself, you will quickly find that contacts with distribution, marketing, production, and all that will matter far more than the quality or playability of your game.
Isn't this a good argument for why smart cards won't happen?
I didn't say they wouldn't happen. Look at Europe, where people use them more than here. But they use them in less all-inclusive ways, more anonymous, where they can trust that their private records are private, as opposed to here in the US, where our private records belong to the corporations.
While Balmer is using FUD in his carefully chosen phrasing that implies, but does not state, that Linux is a cancer in terms of the GPL enforcement, he has reason to do so.
The main problem right now is the entire business world isn't buying MSFT spin on why they should buy Office XP. Most are being forced to "upgrade" to Office 2000 and Windows 2000, or lose product support, but the move to Office XP and Windows XP locks them into a never-ending product "upgrade" cycle dictated by MSFT.
So Balmer is faced with a product launch that's already fizzled. You could tell, just by talking to people in line at the Seattle International Film Fest who had helped with tech and promo at the product launch in NYC - the business public isn't buying it.
Why? Because they don't need to. Part of this is that we've shot them down on why you need Windows XP for servers, when a Linux box will do the job at half the price, and more reliably, with better TPC for your database or file ops.
[caveat - I own both MSFT and RHAT shares]
Their server growth is dead; the xBox is doomed to be a third runner in a tech world where first place wins the big bucks, second place wins some bucks, and anything lower than that loses its shirt. All they have is the PC franchise, and people just aren't buying the latest and greatest.
And why aren't we buying new PCs? Because what we have works, and we care more about other things. The market has matured and Intel can't even sell its P4 chips at the upper end, cause the consumer doesn't care. Nor does business.
Dang, so they've gone with the glowing jelly plants, but we can still grab the patent on glowing peanut butter plants that grow on Mars!
Just think, now all we have to is name the first astronaut to Mars with some good names like Calvin or maybe Hobbes and send them off to put tiger traps on Mars.
We'll need some bread that can survive the round trip of course, or maybe we can outfit the spacecraft with an easy bake oven...
Think about it. James Martin says "we are on the cusp of a discontinuous leap in what computers can do and that the changes coming, properly guided, will lead us all to a land of milk and honey".
But, who will guide them? Look at the images shown in the article, for example:
1. The messy jumble of cash, keys, and credit cards will be distilled into a single smart card that can be carried in a pocket.
Implication: A robber will gain full and total access to every aspect of your life, ruining it in one fell swoop, and police/government forces in many nations will destroy their opponents just as easily. And this will happen, because human's have both good and evil impulses.
2. A TV will choose programs the viewer enjoys. Better yet, commercials that annoy will not be repeated
Implication: Who chooses? Will we control it? Will the TV rat on you? Will you be jailed due to what you watch (they subpeona your book purchases in the US, after all). 1984, anyone?
3. Cars will report good driving so that insurance rates drop
Implication: Cars will report bad driving. Rich people will buy cars that expunge thier bad driving, poor people will have their cars turn them in and go to jail. Those with money and power make the rules, as anyone in France can tell you. And a rich person can hire (and have jailed) a chauffeur.
4. A house will sense the mood of its owner: The coffee machine will kick in when it's needed.
And, when you have a brownout, it will mess up the files and go back to the factory settings. Or it will listen in to your morning gripings and save them to the FBI/SS file kept on you.
For that matter, a truly representative ICANN would do it's business in Chinese or some language other than English.
Seriously, though, ICANN was created by a few folks back before most country codes were even used, and may have outgrown itself. Supposedly the UN should usurp it's power, but then it will become even more political, and we'll soon have China revoking all Taiwanese registrations, and other such actions.
So, be careful what you ask for, you may get it. And you won't be happy with the replacement either...
In news today, Bill Gates, upon hearing RMS reply promptly said "Oh!" and vanished in a puff of smoke. The smoke, of course, was blue, tinged with streaks of red.
In related news, all multinational corporations trying to extend and embrace their software and hardware patents and copyrights promptly decided to throw in the towel, and relinquish all rights to the public good.
As a result, previous estimates of GDP growth for the world have been quintupled for the forthcoming year, due to the increase in useful knowledge for the world's citizenry.
Refusing to comment at press time are holders of patents for biological innovations in gene therapy.
Think about it. If all we need IDs for are so we can get medical care, why not a smart card medical ID? Then outlaw any and all people from using our Driver's License Number (except for car rental agencies and employers who have us drive, and outlaw them sharing it) and our Social Security Number (except for our employer and the IRS, and outlaw them sharing it).
And why should my cell phone or PDA rat on me to the movie theater? They don't need to know it's me that wants to know about movies, they just need to know that someone who likes french films, romantic comedies, and SciFi with a plot is nearby, not "who" I am.
Take back the American right to privacy! We're in a Privacy Arms Race with the EU, and we're losing, just like when the corporations bought Pearl Harbor TM (R) (C)...
The problem is that we have less privacy. And we expect it.
But, until the day that the Net is flooded with all the personal data, financial transactions, investments, love letters, and downloaded naughty pix that each and every member of the US Supreme Court, the White House, the US Senate, and the US Congress is broadcast to the entire world, noone will do anything about it.
Unless someone does the same thing to all the CEOs and other executives - I believe, as a direct shareholder, that I have the right and the duty to monitor both workplace and home actions of all my employees, and that means the CEOs, the Board of Directors, the Presidents, the Vice-Presidents. And their spouses, mistresses, children, and golf buddies. And they should be published on the open market, in all their lurid details.
So launch.com uses a personalized stream. The question one would ask is: who is doing the selection? If it's the channel output (the "radio station") that does it, in the same box, then they have a point. If it's adjusting it at the server level (the equivalent of having a car radio that "skips" songs you say you never want), then RIAA is out of it's mind.
Luckily for RIAA, the administration will enforce it's unreasonable claims, or the judge who makes the decision will be assigned to Arkansas. They only care about money, and how much they can rip off from the consumer.
You're confusing marketing behaviours. My latest corporate stuff from AOL/TW (which I have some shares I bought cheap after meltdown), indicates that AOL/TW intends to leverage Mozilla on the "free disk" path, not on the pre-installs.
By agreeing to be IE on pre-install, they get good icon placement. This doesn't prevent them from offering a "free upgrade" to Mozilla, nor does it prevent them from shipping tons of AOL disks with Mozilla to offer "superior performance and ease of use".
It's not an either/or kind of thing - it's marketing. Have at thee, marketeer!
I can see it now, a kid will rent one of these babies, maybe a T-rex model, and hack it to kill off his classmates.
They're killing machines, those dinosaur robots... and you can just say it's for a science project if they have one of those "no tolerance" weapons searches.
What a load of FUD. Compaq have been able to INCREASE the price of the iPaq, and demand still outstrips supply.
Well, as a shareholder of MSFT, RHAT, and PALM, you would think I would agree with you.
But I don't. My point is that MSFT makes money mostly on investments in other companies, not the OS. PocketPC is a drop in the bucket - but they aren't doing well, as they're not gaining sufficient market share. They don't have to win, but they do have to come second place, as in tech the winner gets most of the spoils and the second place gets some, and everyone else loses.
That said, CPQ (Compaq) is doing pretty well, but that's mostly server growth, which everyone forgets, not the iPaq side.
Business and tech are relentless - prices of consumer electronics normally drop quite fast, unless you can keep locking in upgrades with feature creep.
And, there's even a non-registration version of the story to be found here.
Somehow I doubt Janeway'll order a pizza tonight, since it's the series finale, but maybe if she does a dream sequence, she can order lots of branded food.
Where to email AOL/TW investor questions
on
AOL And The GPL
·
· Score: 3
The correct email address for AOL/TW shareholder concerns is: AOLTimeWarnerIR@aol.com in case you wanted to write a letter about this.
I already did...
Re:Why MSFT is going to lose with PocketPC
on
Agenda, Not Hidden
·
· Score: 1
Oh, in case anyone noticed MSFT's spin - they said they had 26 percent of the over $350 priced PDA devices. In other words, they're being slaughtered on the low end, where the market's moving.
And they refuse to talk about whether or not it's even profitable for them - which means it most certainly is not.
Translation: even MSFT is forced to admit they're losing rapidly.
Why MSFT is going to lose with PocketPC
on
Agenda, Not Hidden
·
· Score: 2
Basically, MSFT is only at a 16 percent market share, at a time when they were projected to have a 40 to 60 percent market share. And, as anyone knows, prices of PDAs are dropping, as are most consumer electronics. So, with the increasing cost per PocketPC being the OS, they are obviously dead, dead, dead.
Now, if anyone tells you that the Linux versions aren't doing well, remember that the whole PDA segment is going through problems. Basically, those who wanted PDAs, bought them. And those who have them, see little reason to "upgrade" when it works just fine, thank you very much. Like me - I bought mine to keep track of movies I see at film festivals and political and community events I'm showing up at, and it does that very well (Palm V). Why would I upgrade? I'll wait till they come out with a wristwatch/cell/MP3/radio/PDA first and the price drops below $100.
And, just a point about the metrics, but are we talking "boxen sold with OS included by mass market producer" stats (Windows wins) or "boxen created this year and boxen sold without OS and boxen sold with OS". Cause I've got lots of boxen, but they probably only counted the ones I bought with OS installed. And they don't count the ones I download and don't pay someone to use. And they don't count the computers my brother makes from parts.
Oh, you actually believed those stats? Who was providing them, and why?
BBC late to party, realizes Bush was bought for $
on
Congress@Work
·
· Score: 4
Well. I mean, did it take them that long to figure it out? This has been an open secret since the primary...
And, actually, what he's doing is putting in his downpayment for his relection campaign in 2004, which will start collecting money by year-end. So, it's not like he sold out 5 billion in subsidies for 50 million, he's looking for at least 250 million, as those dividend checks come in to the shareholders.
However, luckily for us, all his attempts to sell out our privacy rights are for nought, cause the Europeans are successfully taking on US multinationals one by one and forcing them to adopt their data privacy rights.
Yes, sure The Tick will be live action, but has that ever stopped anyone? Of course not!
So, when the opening credits of Futurama start running and you see a blue figure leaping from building to building, you'll know The Terror That Has No Sequel, Episode Zero!
The EU, as I've been saying, is not waiting for the US to get it's act together and respect privacy rights. They know they're right, that we on the Net need data and personal privacy, and if big business and the US government (aka Big Business' Little Brother) can't grok that, too bad.
How can a $500 fine be assessed against an off shore entity? Honestly abot 90% of my or more is open relay spam. Most of it comes from somewhere in Korea, China, or Taiwan (no offense guys). What's to stop these mass mailers from going overseas for their bulk mailing?
One's existence elsewhere has nothing to do with US enforcement. We have the power, we have the nukes, we have the marines, we have the ships, we have the airplanes (ok, so two are down), and we have the Net.
I can see it now:
Join the Marines! The Few, The Proud, The Anti-Spam! We hack more foreign spam servers before breakfast than most people will see in their lifetimes!
Think about it... what if you had to take a course that you would never use in your life afterwards. Wouldn't it make sense to just borrow the tested code, instead of reinventing the wheel?
After all, it's what all good coders do when we use object oriented code, templates, and base our new code on previous working code.
Note that I don't cheat and personally think cheaters (which is probably the majority) should all get caught and bounced out of class, but just thought I'd point out we're (geeks) some of the worst offenders, especially us open source dudes.
Slashdot Mirror
First, ask yourself, do you want to control the entire process, or do you just want to develop a game? Basically, those who are good at creating games are usually bad at marketing and selling it, just as most artists are bad at marketing themselves.
You can either subcontract out this side, work with a gaming company, or do it yourself.
If you subcontract out, you need people who have taken video games to market, have established connections with distribution channels, and understand your basic vision. You also need the capital to do this.
If you work with a gaming company, you either will get locked into a contract that has low rewards unless you meet certain shipping quantities or net sales (not gross). This may be a good idea if it's your first try, but if you've only got one game in you, this is not a good idea.
If you do it yourself, you will quickly find that contacts with distribution, marketing, production, and all that will matter far more than the quality or playability of your game.
Isn't this a good argument for why smart cards won't happen?
I didn't say they wouldn't happen. Look at Europe, where people use them more than here. But they use them in less all-inclusive ways, more anonymous, where they can trust that their private records are private, as opposed to here in the US, where our private records belong to the corporations.
While Balmer is using FUD in his carefully chosen phrasing that implies, but does not state, that Linux is a cancer in terms of the GPL enforcement, he has reason to do so.
The main problem right now is the entire business world isn't buying MSFT spin on why they should buy Office XP. Most are being forced to "upgrade" to Office 2000 and Windows 2000, or lose product support, but the move to Office XP and Windows XP locks them into a never-ending product "upgrade" cycle dictated by MSFT.
So Balmer is faced with a product launch that's already fizzled. You could tell, just by talking to people in line at the Seattle International Film Fest who had helped with tech and promo at the product launch in NYC - the business public isn't buying it.
Why? Because they don't need to. Part of this is that we've shot them down on why you need Windows XP for servers, when a Linux box will do the job at half the price, and more reliably, with better TPC for your database or file ops.
[caveat - I own both MSFT and RHAT shares]
Their server growth is dead; the xBox is doomed to be a third runner in a tech world where first place wins the big bucks, second place wins some bucks, and anything lower than that loses its shirt. All they have is the PC franchise, and people just aren't buying the latest and greatest.
And why aren't we buying new PCs? Because what we have works, and we care more about other things. The market has matured and Intel can't even sell its P4 chips at the upper end, cause the consumer doesn't care. Nor does business.
Dang, so they've gone with the glowing jelly plants, but we can still grab the patent on glowing peanut butter plants that grow on Mars!
...
Just think, now all we have to is name the first astronaut to Mars with some good names like Calvin or maybe Hobbes and send them off to put tiger traps on Mars.
We'll need some bread that can survive the round trip of course, or maybe we can outfit the spacecraft with an easy bake oven
Or, for that matter, Bill Gates visions ...
...
Think about it. James Martin says "we are on the cusp of a discontinuous leap in what computers can do and that the changes coming, properly guided, will lead us all to a land of milk and honey".
But, who will guide them? Look at the images shown in the article, for example:
1. The messy jumble of cash, keys, and credit cards will be distilled into a single smart card that can be carried in a pocket.
Implication: A robber will gain full and total access to every aspect of your life, ruining it in one fell swoop, and police/government forces in many nations will destroy their opponents just as easily. And this will happen, because human's have both good and evil impulses.
2. A TV will choose programs the viewer enjoys. Better yet, commercials that annoy will not be repeated
Implication: Who chooses? Will we control it? Will the TV rat on you? Will you be jailed due to what you watch (they subpeona your book purchases in the US, after all). 1984, anyone?
3. Cars will report good driving so that insurance rates drop
Implication: Cars will report bad driving. Rich people will buy cars that expunge thier bad driving, poor people will have their cars turn them in and go to jail. Those with money and power make the rules, as anyone in France can tell you. And a rich person can hire (and have jailed) a chauffeur.
4. A house will sense the mood of its owner: The coffee machine will kick in when it's needed.
And, when you have a brownout, it will mess up the files and go back to the factory settings. Or it will listen in to your morning gripings and save them to the FBI/SS file kept on you.
Be careful what you ask for - you may get it
For that matter, a truly representative ICANN would do it's business in Chinese or some language other than English.
...
Seriously, though, ICANN was created by a few folks back before most country codes were even used, and may have outgrown itself. Supposedly the UN should usurp it's power, but then it will become even more political, and we'll soon have China revoking all Taiwanese registrations, and other such actions.
So, be careful what you ask for, you may get it. And you won't be happy with the replacement either
In news today, Bill Gates, upon hearing RMS reply promptly said "Oh!" and vanished in a puff of smoke. The smoke, of course, was blue, tinged with streaks of red.
In related news, all multinational corporations trying to extend and embrace their software and hardware patents and copyrights promptly decided to throw in the towel, and relinquish all rights to the public good.
As a result, previous estimates of GDP growth for the world have been quintupled for the forthcoming year, due to the increase in useful knowledge for the world's citizenry.
Refusing to comment at press time are holders of patents for biological innovations in gene therapy.
(c) 2001 All Of The Above (TM)
Think about it. If all we need IDs for are so we can get medical care, why not a smart card medical ID? Then outlaw any and all people from using our Driver's License Number (except for car rental agencies and employers who have us drive, and outlaw them sharing it) and our Social Security Number (except for our employer and the IRS, and outlaw them sharing it).
...
And why should my cell phone or PDA rat on me to the movie theater? They don't need to know it's me that wants to know about movies, they just need to know that someone who likes french films, romantic comedies, and SciFi with a plot is nearby, not "who" I am.
Take back the American right to privacy! We're in a Privacy Arms Race with the EU, and we're losing, just like when the corporations bought Pearl Harbor TM (R) (C)
The problem is that we have less privacy. And we expect it.
...
But, until the day that the Net is flooded with all the personal data, financial transactions, investments, love letters, and downloaded naughty pix that each and every member of the US Supreme Court, the White House, the US Senate, and the US Congress is broadcast to the entire world, noone will do anything about it.
Unless someone does the same thing to all the CEOs and other executives - I believe, as a direct shareholder, that I have the right and the duty to monitor both workplace and home actions of all my employees, and that means the CEOs, the Board of Directors, the Presidents, the Vice-Presidents. And their spouses, mistresses, children, and golf buddies. And they should be published on the open market, in all their lurid details.
... then we'll see change
I just use my breath to move my cursor and my tongue to click.
...
On the other hand, not that I can use it, maybe that makes me stand out (sit out?) even more
And the speech recognition does it all in a burst, so that's probably real recognizable
[note - no electrons were harmed in the making of this post]
So launch.com uses a personalized stream. The question one would ask is: who is doing the selection? If it's the channel output (the "radio station") that does it, in the same box, then they have a point. If it's adjusting it at the server level (the equivalent of having a car radio that "skips" songs you say you never want), then RIAA is out of it's mind.
Luckily for RIAA, the administration will enforce it's unreasonable claims, or the judge who makes the decision will be assigned to Arkansas. They only care about money, and how much they can rip off from the consumer.
You're confusing marketing behaviours. My latest corporate stuff from AOL/TW (which I have some shares I bought cheap after meltdown), indicates that AOL/TW intends to leverage Mozilla on the "free disk" path, not on the pre-installs.
By agreeing to be IE on pre-install, they get good icon placement. This doesn't prevent them from offering a "free upgrade" to Mozilla, nor does it prevent them from shipping tons of AOL disks with Mozilla to offer "superior performance and ease of use".
It's not an either/or kind of thing - it's marketing. Have at thee, marketeer!
Hmm, $2000 to rent ...
... and you can just say it's for a science project if they have one of those "no tolerance" weapons searches.
...
I can see it now, a kid will rent one of these babies, maybe a T-rex model, and hack it to kill off his classmates.
They're killing machines, those dinosaur robots
By the time they figure it out
What a load of FUD. Compaq have been able to INCREASE the price of the iPaq, and demand still outstrips supply.
Well, as a shareholder of MSFT, RHAT, and PALM, you would think I would agree with you.
But I don't. My point is that MSFT makes money mostly on investments in other companies, not the OS. PocketPC is a drop in the bucket - but they aren't doing well, as they're not gaining sufficient market share. They don't have to win, but they do have to come second place, as in tech the winner gets most of the spoils and the second place gets some, and everyone else loses.
That said, CPQ (Compaq) is doing pretty well, but that's mostly server growth, which everyone forgets, not the iPaq side.
Business and tech are relentless - prices of consumer electronics normally drop quite fast, unless you can keep locking in upgrades with feature creep.
And, there's even a non-registration version of the story to be found here.
Somehow I doubt Janeway'll order a pizza tonight, since it's the series finale, but maybe if she does a dream sequence, she can order lots of branded food.
The correct email address for AOL/TW shareholder concerns is: AOLTimeWarnerIR@aol.com in case you wanted to write a letter about this.
...
I already did
Oh, in case anyone noticed MSFT's spin - they said they had 26 percent of the over $350 priced PDA devices. In other words, they're being slaughtered on the low end, where the market's moving.
And they refuse to talk about whether or not it's even profitable for them - which means it most certainly is not.
Translation: even MSFT is forced to admit they're losing rapidly.
Basically, MSFT is only at a 16 percent market share, at a time when they were projected to have a 40 to 60 percent market share. And, as anyone knows, prices of PDAs are dropping, as are most consumer electronics. So, with the increasing cost per PocketPC being the OS, they are obviously dead, dead, dead.
Now, if anyone tells you that the Linux versions aren't doing well, remember that the whole PDA segment is going through problems. Basically, those who wanted PDAs, bought them. And those who have them, see little reason to "upgrade" when it works just fine, thank you very much. Like me - I bought mine to keep track of movies I see at film festivals and political and community events I'm showing up at, and it does that very well (Palm V). Why would I upgrade? I'll wait till they come out with a wristwatch/cell/MP3/radio/PDA first and the price drops below $100.
Cause they're making money on it.
And, just a point about the metrics, but are we talking "boxen sold with OS included by mass market producer" stats (Windows wins) or "boxen created this year and boxen sold without OS and boxen sold with OS". Cause I've got lots of boxen, but they probably only counted the ones I bought with OS installed. And they don't count the ones I download and don't pay someone to use. And they don't count the computers my brother makes from parts.
Oh, you actually believed those stats? Who was providing them, and why?
Well. I mean, did it take them that long to figure it out? This has been an open secret since the primary ...
And, actually, what he's doing is putting in his downpayment for his relection campaign in 2004, which will start collecting money by year-end. So, it's not like he sold out 5 billion in subsidies for 50 million, he's looking for at least 250 million, as those dividend checks come in to the shareholders.
However, luckily for us, all his attempts to sell out our privacy rights are for nought, cause the Europeans are successfully taking on US multinationals one by one and forcing them to adopt their data privacy rights.
Yes, sure The Tick will be live action, but has that ever stopped anyone? Of course not!
So, when the opening credits of Futurama start running and you see a blue figure leaping from building to building, you'll know The Terror That Has No Sequel, Episode Zero!
Seriously, it's in tons of business articles.
The EU, as I've been saying, is not waiting for the US to get it's act together and respect privacy rights. They know they're right, that we on the Net need data and personal privacy, and if big business and the US government (aka Big Business' Little Brother) can't grok that, too bad.
Give me opt-in or give me death!
They wanted to wait till they could charge him with sending spam under federal laws and make it a really serious offense.
...
Seriously, I may be against capital punishment, but I think life imprisonment for forged header spamsters is reasonable.
Or we cut off their fingers, one for each spam sent. Then their toes. Then their nose. Then tattoo them with "Spam Dog" in bright blue ink.
After that, we marry them off to the Bush daughters
How can a $500 fine be assessed against an off shore entity? Honestly abot 90% of my or more is open relay spam. Most of it comes from somewhere in Korea, China, or Taiwan (no offense guys). What's to stop these mass mailers from going overseas for their bulk mailing?
One's existence elsewhere has nothing to do with US enforcement. We have the power, we have the nukes, we have the marines, we have the ships, we have the airplanes (ok, so two are down), and we have the Net.
I can see it now:
Join the Marines! The Few, The Proud, The Anti-Spam! We hack more foreign spam servers before breakfast than most people will see in their lifetimes!
Seriously, isn't this efficient use of resources?
... what if you had to take a course that you would never use in your life afterwards. Wouldn't it make sense to just borrow the tested code, instead of reinventing the wheel?
Think about it
After all, it's what all good coders do when we use object oriented code, templates, and base our new code on previous working code.
Note that I don't cheat and personally think cheaters (which is probably the majority) should all get caught and bounced out of class, but just thought I'd point out we're (geeks) some of the worst offenders, especially us open source dudes.