And no Kindle books. Or e-Ink display. Or Whispernet connectivity. Or in fact any features of the Kindle except for being thin and having a screen that can show text.
Why not think of it as an ultra-thin web appliance instead? The two are not even close to each other in function or design.
Weird. As a tech support guy, I feel much the same way about my users.
I know they're not all incompetent twits. I know they're not stupid.
I think they just end up looking that way because they're enmeshed in a complicated system bound by schizophrenic notions of accountability, expertise, method, and result.
I work as IT support in the health care industry, for what it's worth.
Most of our nurses are competent, dedicated people who are very good at their jobs: caring for patients, following medical orders, and keeping records about visits. They are awesome people.
They are not, however, able to use a computer by and large. And that's a real shame, because the computer is one of the most vital and prevalent tools that they are called upon to use every day. They've just built their skills up elsewhere, and computer literacy is still working its way into the medical curriculum, albeit slowly.
While our nurses spend years getting trained to do medical work, they get almost no acclimation to using the kinds of record keeping applications they're required to use in the field. It's a damn shame. They know just enough to turn the thing on and push exactly the indicated buttons in exactly the indicated order to. Anything outside those parameters means driving off the edge of the map and into a terrifying, unknown world.
All this is to say: I'm willing to bet that most of the nurses in that room had no trouble at all when the computers went down. It meant going back to paper notes for their patient visits, which a lot of them may actually prefer. Their biggest problem was probably finding the right forms, or running out of sheets of paper to use in the meantime.
The data entry folks, of course, probably had multiple heart attacks all day long. At least they were near the emergency room... if only they could be admitted.
Because in your case, you're talking about an object with a definite monetary worth: a gift certificate for an amount, or a pile of money with set value.
Market value on the Internet is a much more squirrely proposition. Outright purchases are one thing, but "gifts" become a whole different beast. There's plenty on the Internet that's made available for free, but does the same job as priced alternatives. Which one is the real cost? What does it mean to give something to somebody without actually losing the thing you gave?
Hell, market value at *all* is a squirrely thing. There's not an authoritative "MARKET" out there that sets the prices. The value is determined at the moment a customer and a vendor agree to so business for a price. If that decision doesn't happen, or happens too much, either of the participants is welcome to adjust the perceived value accordingly. What's worth X to one may be worth Y to another. Who do you believe has the "right" price?
And what's really being exchanged on the Internet? In your cases, somebody lost $10,000 and someone else got the same amount -- that's a transfer. On the Internet, you don't really lose anything when you give it out. You have an effectively infinite supply once an item is created. What does that do to the supply/demand curve?
And... how is the state going to know that an exchange took place? I suppose that's what this law seeks to address, but I'm disturbed at the implications to the integrity of the network and the relationship of the citizen to the state itself.
If you're willing to wait for a few years anyway, and you're committed to running on mid-spec hardware, may I suggest GOG.com for your Good Old Gaming needs? The games are mature in years, sure. They're also sold cheaply, stripped of DRM with the publisher's blessings, supported by the community, and come with lots of extras.
Disclaimer: I'm an affiliate. An eager, appreciative, supportive affiliate. I really want these guys to be the model for how games are sold.
(Disclaimer: I'm a GOG.com affiliate via the LongTailGamer website.)
GOG.com is whip-smart awesome with doubleplus-good on top. The key is that they do nothing *but* older games... games that are quality, that they expect will still sell after a a few years because they really are good enough at the price point.
No DRM, no copy protection, no stupid lookups for serial numbers or codes or manual keywords. No upgrading your computer, no new RAM, not new processor, no Crysis-type benchmarks, no lamentation over not having a sweet enough video card.
Nothing but pure, wonderful game mainlined straight into my hungry, hungry brain. Well, that and the boatload of extras they throw in, like soundtracks and such.
It costs me literally spare change to load up every month. Even if your computer is 5 years old, every game on GOG will run like a dream.
I love GOG.com and the games the provde. outstanding business model, very long tail, done precisely right.
This episode shows that pirates get to the game before your average consumer can touch it, meaning that there's a break in the production pipeline inside EA.
Their problem is their employees, contractors and distributors, not their customers.
Put another way: EA's biggest problem is EA. And all the DRM in the world (or none of it, for that matter) can change that.
I just googled "N800 bluetooth phone internet" and came up with a few good links for pairing with an AT&T Tilt and a Sony Erikson. It looks like any device that supports BT DUN will give you what you're looking for.
The N800 sports a 2.26 kernel anyway, so if nothing else, roll your own modules and share out the results. Maemo.org is a great community for this kind of support.
From the summary: "I wonder how good the now-cheap Nokia 810 is as an e-book reader."
I have an N800, which is very close in specs. It's okay as an e-book reader, but nothing to write home about. I'm using FBReader.
As a general purpose internet laptop killer, it's awesome, though. Especially if you couple it with a bluetooth keyboard. I've written novels on it, VNCed, SSHed, played some games, diagnose networks, listened to podcasts, and even played Ur-Quan Masters on it.
I barely touch my laptop anymore unless I need something that genuinely calls for a larger screen, like a spreadsheet or balancing my checkbook. The fun stuff, I leave to the N800.
A bit off-topic: I applaud Craigslist, but I noticed this article is arguably more about McMaster than it is about Craigslist.
The bias is not hostile or obvious, as one might expect from stereotyped hostile reporting source, which is not to say that the SJ Business Journal is such. Mostly it is an imbalance in coverage styles and content.
Most paragraphs describe what McMaster did, what he thinks, what he has to say, etc. He is often quoted with his reactions to the suit. His position is explained in detail.
Craigslist, on the other hand, gets comparatively little verbiage in its own words. Craigslist's reaction to McMaster's assertions are stated in broad terms, without McMaster's sense of specificity and precision.
The reader is left with a good idea of McMaster's position and less of Craigslist's. This is a great article for students of propaganda studies to cite when looking for media bias in the news, either deliberate or incidental.
And yet, he continues to be a successful writer and sought after futurist.
People pay money for his stuff. There's a market for Cory's works and thoughts. He's good at making it happen.
I'd say Cory is a capitalist's vindication -- he positions his stuff to build wealth from it, and doesn't rely on government intervention to do it. He uses his own methods and madness, and it works in the market he plays in.
Or -- and this is just me here -- we could try encouraging a way of doing business that *doesn't* screw *anybody.* The basis of trade is mutual profit, as in, both parties get more out of the trade than they lost. Each has what the other wants. Quid pro quo.
People are too ready to tear others down to get what they want. It's time to adopt the mindset of building each other up: the businesses and the customers alike. Things work better that way.
You can call me a dreamer. But I'm not the only one.
"'You buy Microsoft software, and you buy it once and for all, the cost that we tell you is the total cost for ownership.'"
And then Microsoft stops supporting the product, changes the formats the products uses, and makes prior formats erratic or impossible to implement. It's a good thing you'll enjoy your purchase of brand new software, because you'll be doing it again and again and again.
Or, you can go the Open Source route, which is continually and freely developed, usually for free-as-in-beer, and respects its own history. And if development stops, it's usually because some better Open Source project forked off or replaced it.
Better as in "it performs a better job," not better as in "we'd better release a new version to keep our market share."
Re:Sophistry To Kill First Sale Doctrine
on
Why Bother With DRM?
·
· Score: 2, Funny
I have found 190 truly marvelous proof comments of this sentence, which this comment is too narrow to contain.
DRM, the First Week, and Gaming on the Long Tail
on
Why Bother With DRM?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I never buy a game in the first month, let along the first week of a release. Mostly, I'm waiting for the quality of the game to become apparent after some play in the real world, and also I don't like the bleeding-edge prices of new releases.
Avoiding weird DRM is another benefit.
After a few days or weeks, the real effects of whatever cockamamie DRM scheme the publishers crowbarred onto the game become apparent.
After a few weeks or months, applications like Alcohol 120 will adapt so that I can be assured of making backups.
After a few months to a year, the price starts to dip into my admittedly modest range. By then, I know whether I can keep the game for myself if the company goes out of business, whether I'm facing potential hassle in making my own backups, and whether the game is worth it in the first place.
After a few years, the game may re-release with digital distributors under no-DRM agreements geared toward truly enthusiastic gaming communities. Witness GOG.com.
Gaming on the long tail rules -- provided you're not desperate to get hopped up on the Newest, Shiniest Thing.
Secondly, don't use social networking at home with information or pictures that could identify you at least to the public.
That's not. It defeats the purpose of, you know, engaging with the society through networking: how you have an identity and you identify as part of the group? Socially?
If you want to talk about things without retribution, you need to do it anonymously or without your real name.
Sure. But anonymity is a precious commodity, and very hard to come by these days. The point of social networking sites is to encourage openness and communication.
One should not have to adopt the tactics of the (literally) secret society in one's spare time. Your approach reminds me of Agent Smith asking Mr. Anderson what good a phone call will do him.
Al Capone, the notorious gangster at whose feet practically all of organized crime in the 1920's was lain, was indicted for the one crime they could effectively make stick...
Income tax evasion.
Not murder or extortion or any other crime that you'd associate with Capone. Tax evasion. With that conviction in the bag, they threw the book at him.
The poster's company's Social Networking agreement seems to be prep for the same kind of action. For whatever reason they might *want* to fire him, or penalize him, or just overlook him for a benefit, they can set him up for failure to comply with a confounding, overly-broad rule that he signed his intention to obey.
It streamlines the bureaucratic process for them, because all they need is *one* reason.
Every time HR asks me to generate a report on the surfing habits of an employee, I know exactly where it's going, and sure enough, I'm deactivating accounts soon afterward.
People don't *really* get fired for surfing the net. It's just easier to make the case that way.
Slashdot Mirror
Check out the iLead ebook reader. Expensive, but exactly fits what you're asking for. I'm saving up for one myself.
And no Kindle books.
Or e-Ink display.
Or Whispernet connectivity.
Or in fact any features of the Kindle except for being thin and having a screen that can show text.
Why not think of it as an ultra-thin web appliance instead? The two are not even close to each other in function or design.
Weird. As a tech support guy, I feel much the same way about my users.
I know they're not all incompetent twits. I know they're not stupid.
I think they just end up looking that way because they're enmeshed in a complicated system bound by schizophrenic notions of accountability, expertise, method, and result.
I work as IT support in the health care industry, for what it's worth.
Most of our nurses are competent, dedicated people who are very good at their jobs: caring for patients, following medical orders, and keeping records about visits. They are awesome people.
They are not, however, able to use a computer by and large. And that's a real shame, because the computer is one of the most vital and prevalent tools that they are called upon to use every day. They've just built their skills up elsewhere, and computer literacy is still working its way into the medical curriculum, albeit slowly.
While our nurses spend years getting trained to do medical work, they get almost no acclimation to using the kinds of record keeping applications they're required to use in the field. It's a damn shame. They know just enough to turn the thing on and push exactly the indicated buttons in exactly the indicated order to. Anything outside those parameters means driving off the edge of the map and into a terrifying, unknown world.
All this is to say: I'm willing to bet that most of the nurses in that room had no trouble at all when the computers went down. It meant going back to paper notes for their patient visits, which a lot of them may actually prefer. Their biggest problem was probably finding the right forms, or running out of sheets of paper to use in the meantime.
The data entry folks, of course, probably had multiple heart attacks all day long. At least they were near the emergency room ... if only they could be admitted.
Because in your case, you're talking about an object with a definite monetary worth: a gift certificate for an amount, or a pile of money with set value.
Market value on the Internet is a much more squirrely proposition. Outright purchases are one thing, but "gifts" become a whole different beast. There's plenty on the Internet that's made available for free, but does the same job as priced alternatives. Which one is the real cost? What does it mean to give something to somebody without actually losing the thing you gave?
Hell, market value at *all* is a squirrely thing. There's not an authoritative "MARKET" out there that sets the prices. The value is determined at the moment a customer and a vendor agree to so business for a price. If that decision doesn't happen, or happens too much, either of the participants is welcome to adjust the perceived value accordingly. What's worth X to one may be worth Y to another. Who do you believe has the "right" price?
And what's really being exchanged on the Internet? In your cases, somebody lost $10,000 and someone else got the same amount -- that's a transfer. On the Internet, you don't really lose anything when you give it out. You have an effectively infinite supply once an item is created. What does that do to the supply/demand curve?
And ... how is the state going to know that an exchange took place? I suppose that's what this law seeks to address, but I'm disturbed at the implications to the integrity of the network and the relationship of the citizen to the state itself.
"Computer software is not a digital good."
Hell, in most cases it's barely a digital okay. I consider myself lucky to find a digital I can live with it.
Oh ... never midn. Yowch.
http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,658913/Stalker-Clear-Sky-Exclusive-DX9-vs-DX10-screenshots/News/
I've got Stalker CS on my DX9 XP install. I'd like to see some comparisons to get an idea of what DX10 can do for a game like that.
Dude, that wasn't a PS. That was practically a P on its own merits.
Not an FP, but a P none the less. A troll P, at that.
Troll's pee!
(Sorry ... long day.)
If you're willing to wait for a few years anyway, and you're committed to running on mid-spec hardware, may I suggest GOG.com for your Good Old Gaming needs? The games are mature in years, sure. They're also sold cheaply, stripped of DRM with the publisher's blessings, supported by the community, and come with lots of extras.
Disclaimer: I'm an affiliate. An eager, appreciative, supportive affiliate. I really want these guys to be the model for how games are sold.
(Disclaimer: I'm a GOG.com affiliate via the LongTailGamer website.)
GOG.com is whip-smart awesome with doubleplus-good on top. The key is that they do nothing *but* older games... games that are quality, that they expect will still sell after a a few years because they really are good enough at the price point.
No DRM, no copy protection, no stupid lookups for serial numbers or codes or manual keywords. No upgrading your computer, no new RAM, not new processor, no Crysis-type benchmarks, no lamentation over not having a sweet enough video card.
Nothing but pure, wonderful game mainlined straight into my hungry, hungry brain. Well, that and the boatload of extras they throw in, like soundtracks and such.
It costs me literally spare change to load up every month. Even if your computer is 5 years old, every game on GOG will run like a dream.
I love GOG.com and the games the provde. outstanding business model, very long tail, done precisely right.
This episode shows that pirates get to the game before your average consumer can touch it, meaning that there's a break in the production pipeline inside EA.
Their problem is their employees, contractors and distributors, not their customers.
Put another way: EA's biggest problem is EA. And all the DRM in the world (or none of it, for that matter) can change that.
I just googled "N800 bluetooth phone internet" and came up with a few good links for pairing with an AT&T Tilt and a Sony Erikson. It looks like any device that supports BT DUN will give you what you're looking for.
The N800 sports a 2.26 kernel anyway, so if nothing else, roll your own modules and share out the results. Maemo.org is a great community for this kind of support.
Yeah, I wrote 'em. Never said I published them. Anyway, I think I have more cred than an AC. ;)
The objective was to show that the device can handle a useful workload. Word processing seemed like a good example.
From the summary: "I wonder how good the now-cheap Nokia 810 is as an e-book reader."
I have an N800, which is very close in specs. It's okay as an e-book reader, but nothing to write home about. I'm using FBReader.
As a general purpose internet laptop killer, it's awesome, though. Especially if you couple it with a bluetooth keyboard. I've written novels on it, VNCed, SSHed, played some games, diagnose networks, listened to podcasts, and even played Ur-Quan Masters on it.
I barely touch my laptop anymore unless I need something that genuinely calls for a larger screen, like a spreadsheet or balancing my checkbook. The fun stuff, I leave to the N800.
Cheers for putting that up. Primary sources are the best references .. one wonders why the cited article above doesn't do the same legwork you did.
A bit off-topic: I applaud Craigslist, but I noticed this article is arguably more about McMaster than it is about Craigslist.
The bias is not hostile or obvious, as one might expect from stereotyped hostile reporting source, which is not to say that the SJ Business Journal is such. Mostly it is an imbalance in coverage styles and content.
Most paragraphs describe what McMaster did, what he thinks, what he has to say, etc. He is often quoted with his reactions to the suit. His position is explained in detail.
Craigslist, on the other hand, gets comparatively little verbiage in its own words. Craigslist's reaction to McMaster's assertions are stated in broad terms, without McMaster's sense of specificity and precision.
The reader is left with a good idea of McMaster's position and less of Craigslist's. This is a great article for students of propaganda studies to cite when looking for media bias in the news, either deliberate or incidental.
Just a note.
And yet, he continues to be a successful writer and sought after futurist.
People pay money for his stuff. There's a market for Cory's works and thoughts. He's good at making it happen.
I'd say Cory is a capitalist's vindication -- he positions his stuff to build wealth from it, and doesn't rely on government intervention to do it. He uses his own methods and madness, and it works in the market he plays in.
Or -- and this is just me here -- we could try encouraging a way of doing business that *doesn't* screw *anybody.* The basis of trade is mutual profit, as in, both parties get more out of the trade than they lost. Each has what the other wants. Quid pro quo.
People are too ready to tear others down to get what they want. It's time to adopt the mindset of building each other up: the businesses and the customers alike. Things work better that way.
You can call me a dreamer. But I'm not the only one.
"'You buy Microsoft software, and you buy it once and for all, the cost that we tell you is the total cost for ownership.'"
And then Microsoft stops supporting the product, changes the formats the products uses, and makes prior formats erratic or impossible to implement. It's a good thing you'll enjoy your purchase of brand new software, because you'll be doing it again and again and again.
Or, you can go the Open Source route, which is continually and freely developed, usually for free-as-in-beer, and respects its own history. And if development stops, it's usually because some better Open Source project forked off or replaced it.
Better as in "it performs a better job," not better as in "we'd better release a new version to keep our market share."
I have found 190 truly marvelous proof comments of this sentence, which this comment is too narrow to contain.
I never buy a game in the first month, let along the first week of a release. Mostly, I'm waiting for the quality of the game to become apparent after some play in the real world, and also I don't like the bleeding-edge prices of new releases.
Avoiding weird DRM is another benefit.
After a few days or weeks, the real effects of whatever cockamamie DRM scheme the publishers crowbarred onto the game become apparent.
After a few weeks or months, applications like Alcohol 120 will adapt so that I can be assured of making backups.
After a few months to a year, the price starts to dip into my admittedly modest range. By then, I know whether I can keep the game for myself if the company goes out of business, whether I'm facing potential hassle in making my own backups, and whether the game is worth it in the first place.
After a few years, the game may re-release with digital distributors under no-DRM agreements geared toward truly enthusiastic gaming communities. Witness GOG.com.
Gaming on the long tail rules -- provided you're not desperate to get hopped up on the Newest, Shiniest Thing.
You win this round, Scrameustache. You win this round ...
That's reasonable.
That's not. It defeats the purpose of, you know, engaging with the society through networking: how you have an identity and you identify as part of the group? Socially?
Sure. But anonymity is a precious commodity, and very hard to come by these days. The point of social networking sites is to encourage openness and communication.
One should not have to adopt the tactics of the (literally) secret society in one's spare time. Your approach reminds me of Agent Smith asking Mr. Anderson what good a phone call will do him.
Al Capone, the notorious gangster at whose feet practically all of organized crime in the 1920's was lain, was indicted for the one crime they could effectively make stick ...
Income tax evasion.
Not murder or extortion or any other crime that you'd associate with Capone. Tax evasion. With that conviction in the bag, they threw the book at him.
The poster's company's Social Networking agreement seems to be prep for the same kind of action. For whatever reason they might *want* to fire him, or penalize him, or just overlook him for a benefit, they can set him up for failure to comply with a confounding, overly-broad rule that he signed his intention to obey.
It streamlines the bureaucratic process for them, because all they need is *one* reason.
Every time HR asks me to generate a report on the surfing habits of an employee, I know exactly where it's going, and sure enough, I'm deactivating accounts soon afterward.
People don't *really* get fired for surfing the net. It's just easier to make the case that way.