There is also no purpose to it. Every single post ever made to usenet has already been harvested by spammers, so what's the issue with making them public?
The issue is Barriers to Switch.
Well, if you make them public the email message can be forwarded to another email group system without any loss of content. So, if you want to migrate your group from, say, GoogleGroups to NewSuperGroups all you would need to do is signup GROUPNAME@NewSuperGroups.com and everybody would be there already. Plus, it would be easier to harvest and transfer the email archive to do same transfer. I havent used GoogleGroups, but with YahooGroups, at least, none of the above would work. So were stuck in it, as a group.
Oh, come on, I admit it is an effective flamebait... can't... resist... posting... reply... arg...
From the article: Berger expressed reservations about remote control hunting, but noted that humans have always adopted new technologies to hunt.
Technologies like: Barbed Wire Fenced Grazing Grounds and Slaughter Houses! He as a texan should know. This web enabled Slaughter house cannot be more efficient than the real thing.
Notice I didn't mention using machine guns to hunt !
I have my own observations about roaches: in apartment buildings they usually live/breed in the elevator shaft, or the garbage disposal system. Dark, warm, and generally dirty enough to feed them. In urban houses, they find their way from the sewer system.
Now, three questions: 1) How will the "Terminator Roach" deal with the vertical dimension (the shaft) and with water and human dejects (the sewer) ?
2) How will a little robot, entering into those breeding grounds and coming out with a bunch of his "friends", help me get rid of cockroaches ? It's like, "Hi, I'm back, I look who I brought: This is Joe, this Ramon, this Betsy, this is Dotty and these are their 252 cousins !"
3) Who did such a bad job with pest control for those guys, that made their research goals what they are ? (don't tell me it's a stepping stone to making robot-chickens)
Why is this site so hell bent on destroying america?
Why don't you get the point ? This is not about "wanting to destroy America", this about pointing out that what America's power is based on may be, in reality, very fragile.
Think about it, what is it that makes (the United States of) America so unique, in economic terms ? What is it that makes a nation not implode under the greatest public deficits and trade deficits in the world ? The "production" of Treasury Bills (=debt) for central banks around the world is the answer.
Now, how can that be compared with oil, soy beans, iron ore, cars, computers and clothes ?
This is not to say that the US does not produce its fair share of oil, soy beans, iron ore, cars, computers, etc. It is just that it is not balancing out, not by a large margin.
Nobody wants to destroy (the United States of) America. Hmmm... ok some people, mostly in the middle east, do. But the average foreign slashdotter is a western guy/girl and does not want to see America destroyed. I don't. I do however, wonder how it all is going to end... because it does not seem to be sustainable. Not with the 200 Billion dollar hunting expeditions, at least.
The alarm is installed in your car, and can detect when someone breaks in and makes a direct connection to start the engine. At this point the car uses a mobile network to relay the fact that it is being hijacked, and sends off its GPS coordinates. This information triggers a loud buzzer in a control room full of trained operators with computer monitors. The operators generally run away from the room screaming, at this point. Anyway, once the signal is sent, the alarm takes over control. First thing it does is it cuts the gas to the engine. Then it starts to flash headlights and taillights. Then it turns the car so it is now riding on two of the side wheels, just before it goes for a tailspin which infalibly lands the car upside down. Alarm locks all doors. Then gas tank gets ignited, often with a flashy explosion, and thief burns, screaming, inside the stolen car.
They claim that one thief will never hit you again.
As someone living in one of the largest cities in the world (São Paulo, Brazil), in an eight-floor apartment and with recently bought sound insulating windows, my only concern is: How much noise do these creatures produce ? I don't want anyone flying under my window at 3am in the morning and waking me up.
Now, small blimps with eletric motors, that would be OK.
Very interesting point. I had the same doubt in mind: Did they not remember the quantitities were different, or did they remember but simply considered them equal (enough) ?
The same song: listen at a time of their choice, it's on their tab. But if you say when, you must pay.
Labels are never selling songs -- they are selling a time-shifting function to your radio tuner, at the price of US$ 1 per time-shifted tune. And this is a hefty price for a function that can be had for zero (per tune) marginal cost, in a number of different digital and analog equipments.
Thanks for taking the time to reply. I replied so much later because/. didn't like the proxy set-up I had at work. I saved the txt, and decided post it from home to let you know what I had in mind (obviously by then everyone else was not keeping track).
I'm not sure why this has provoked your ire.
Sorry for the emotion built in -- condescension, ire and all the rest. Your original post did stir me, though. The two main reasons why (in retrospect) were: (1) Belittling of some corporate virtues (sales) in favor of other corporate virtures (R&D). (2) Over simplification leading to a false idea of deterministic outcome (HP vs Dell, only time will tell which will win).
You are obviously smart, and I don't want to offend you nor waste your time in a flame war. But, still, I will finish this post saying that, IMHO, the point of view you expressed, see quote below, is unsupported by any piece of research I know, and incompatible with the model of innovation cycles described in Christensen's book.
(...) the historical trend is pretty clear: innovators innovate, do well until someone figures out how to do it cheaper, then scramble as the market shifts in favor of cost-leaders. (at which point they innovate again, according to your defense of HP).
I disagree with you. (I've also got an MBA, as well and I'm an EE -- does that seriously matter to you ?)
I believe your analysis is shallow and hangs on generalizations which are simply wrong. Your comment amounts to what you classify as standard-answer-number-two: (2. That's stupid and shortsighted. ) I thought you were setting yourself up to do better than that.
Let me point out what I think is faulty with your reasoning.
In the short run, the copycats will always eat the innovator's lunch.
In the short run, the copycats will not have moved. They are, after all, still trying to comprehend what they will try to copy (can't copy indiscriminately, there are too many bad ideas out there, too).
In the medium run, however, assuming the copy cat already jumped in the game, they may or may not surpass the innovator. There are examples of innovators keeping the lead, as there are of them losing the lead.
Think Caterpillar.
Think Rank Xerox.
Think, even, HP in the InkJet printer business (still leading).
(...) when the copycats are still ramping up, their quality is poor. Thus, in the old days you would hear, "Spend the money for the HP -- brand X is cheap but sucks." You don't usually hear that, anymore, regarding printers. Sucks for HP.
You assume that the experience curve only benefits quality. Wrong. It also benefits production costs! That means, the first one to launch can also count on developing techniques, processes and scale to keep leading in costs. Will they do it ? Maybe not -- bad management can ruin a company anytime -- but they do have a sustainable advantage.
But here's the kicker: when the Next Big Thing comes around, who will it come from? Dell or HP? Yep, HP.
Wrong. It will probably come from neither ! It so turns out that R&D spending decisions are usually taken into a context which favors perfecting existing technologies, and advancing them to meet existing client needs (see Innovator's Dillema, which makes this absolutely clear). Not even HP or IBM are free from this dynamics Try to read Christensen's book. The next breakthrough, disruptive tech will more likely come from an outsider.
It's the same thing with IBM. IBM has been a leader in nearly every single office productivity market they've competed in for, what, like 50 years?
You have a lot of respect for IBM. But the innovation you admire was not helping, in fact it almost destroyed IBM. The company we love came very, very close to disappearing in the beginning of the 1990s. In 1993 an outsider was hired to lead it out of the red, and made it rethink its "innovation is king" practices. Among other things, Gerstner made it focus on selling, selling, selling. Just like Dell ! A quote from the linked cnet article:
(IBM) also was losing market share in a number of key areas. In 1994, for instance, Compaq Computer, the first company to successfully clone the IBM PC, dethroned Big Blue as the world's largest PC maker. Part of the problem lay in the corporate culture, according to various sources. IBM prided itself on innovation and had long allowed executives and employees fairly free rein. "Think," after all, was the company's motto. IBM employees strove for the new, and often disdained using technology from outside sources.
I think it has been long ago since the concept "art" was something that people could take without questioning. In fact, it is so much open for questioning as to make it virtually meaningless. If the term "art" has no meaning then this discussion, interesting as it may be, has no point.
I have a personal story too. One day I went to have lunch in a museum. Some of the exhibition rooms were open, so I walked inside. Oops, I thought, this must be being worked on, because all I can see is *strings*, just a few here, a few there, tied from the floor to a wall, or from a wall to the ceiling. Nothing, nothing else. So I walk through another room, same thing. Another room, same thing. I noticed that the security guards were having a kick out of my expression, and then I got it. *That* was the exhibit. Strings. Tied to the walls. That was *art*. Why ?
Then you come and tell me: Videogame makers have a point: making money. Well, then look no further! Here is videogame art. On the other hand, who is it that works (at anything) *only* for money ?
And whenever I am in a restaurant having lunch and the waiter comes up asking about the drinks I say "Diet Coke, Lemon and Ice". I do not really care about the taste differences between Diet Coke, Regular Coke, Diet Pepsi, etc. I do not even have a strong preference for coke/pepsi style drinks over lemon soda, tea, or anything else. It it just that I do not want to think about it. So I just go on and on with the same choice to the same question, every time.
Of course there's also the story that Einstein's suits were all the same, because he didn't want to spend any creative energy thinking about what to wear.
E-reader, uh ? I had never seen one of these. In fact, had never heard about them. So, to save you some time, this is what I found after looking for some info:
Olympus Optical Co., Ltd. provides the "Dot Code Technology" used by the e-Reader to read data embedded on each e-Reader card. Each card can hold up to two code strips. A long bar holds 2.2 kilobytes of information and a short bar holds 1.4 kilobytes. The memory configuration in the e-Reader is 64Mb mask ROM and 1Mb flash memory. The scanned information transforms into a digital display on the Game Boy Advanced screen.
More in this site. Frankly, it looks too large a device, and the info stored (4 kB) too little. Its price is cheap (US$ 39), but probably not so much for the young kids which would be interested. I would discard it as destined to fail if I didn't know the tremendous attraction that card trading games have for kids (see Magic The Gathering, Yu Gi Oh and Pokemon).
but would be fabulous as a feature built into Mozilla or Opera
Well, I think this would be a great feature for one of these PDAs that have 802.11b -- the small screens could use creative, alternative ways to browse the web.
If we are going to reach back in time for original ideas, I suggest leaving the ones that were not practical and grabing the ones that did have an impact. Leave Jet Packs, take the great Zeppelin air ships.
The Zeppelin-type ships got a bad reputation for (1) being associated with preWWII Germany (you know, the Castle Wolfenstein bad guys) and (2) getting burned down in an unfortunate accident in the US. Well fact (1) can be forgiven, I bet, after 60+ years and fact (2) should be put into context: the ship burned because Germany did not have access to the a non flammable gas alternative at the time (today it is not a problem).
It has now been forgotten, but the Empire State Building's top floor (where tourists go) was built, at the time, to be a docking point for the Zeppelin right in the middle of Manhattan. They even tried docking it there, but strong winds made them give it up... and never try again. But it makes me wonder, with all the microprocessor power we have today, modern sensors and actuators, and good software, couldn't it be tried again ? How would it do to public transportation ? Cargo transportation ? Leisure cruises ?
The JoyDress is integrated with flexible vibrapads that vibrate by programmed impulses from a thin, user-controlled command pad (...)
Baby, I can hack into your dress, and program impulses to make you feel like you've never felt before. I can make it vibrate and give you sensations you never thought possible -- pleasure you only dreamed about. Do you know what it means to be a woman ? Do you know just how many "multiple" means -- and how far I can lead you ? Come on now, naughty, open up that telnet connection...
If you want music, buy it! If it's not valuable to you, don't.
No, don't buy it ! If you want music, get it through the most convenient, cheapest way you can ! If it's not valuable to you, don't bother.
Now that I gave a reply in the same tone of your post, let me rumble a bit.
Here at/. it gets interesting when people discuss, explain their position. Saying "the answer is 23!" does not say anything about what you think the question is, or what the logic behind "23" is. You could shout "buy!" and I could shout "don't!" all day, and nothing useful would come out.
How about bringing us all more about what you think. For instance I would like to remind you that laws should reflect the best interests of society. They are generally very, very arbitrary in their content.
Music was historically freely available -- those who liked it, listened to it, those who had talent, repeated what they listened to. After thousands of years of Music being free, and some (how many?) hundred years of copyright law, I would say it is fair to ask: "It the copyright way of treating musical works really the correct one ?". If so, why ?
Music is, at its core, a comunal event. It was alway played to be listened. The player needs the listener as much as the listener needs the player. Why should the listeners pay the player, and not the player pay the listeners ? The answer is, because the extra-hyped, created celebrities, super publicized top performers are few in number, and many groups of people would like to have the same performers coming over to play, so an auction effect raises stakes and pays them a lot.
BUT is this fair to equally talented, not so famous bands ? No it isn't. Is the star creation system, through major labels, an optimal allocator of musical talent -- I do not believe so. So why not let the labels starve, and stop feeding the star system, so that each one starts looking around for local talent, which will not be as expensive ?
I would rather have a new world than risk a world in which I need to pay for each time I press play on my music jukebox. One Microsoft is enough, already.
Sorry for the long post. It's late at night and I decided to throw my 25 cents in.
PDAs that Play MP3 and have digital cameras. Digital photo cameras that shoot video. Cell phones that have PDAs. MP3 players that play video. Laptops getting smaller -- sometimes loosing their keyboard (as tablets). Emulators, emulators, bringing the best from the past. Which you get for free as abandonware. Everything connected to high speed wireless data -- Bluetooth, 802.11g. Huge, enormous hard disks becoming ever so small. World becoming portable and inexpensive. Gadgets doing more and more and more for you.
Now, can someone please COME UP WITH BETTER BATTERIES ???
Somebody playing a futuristic version of "SimCity" may be laying down the roads that someone playing a driving game is racing on. Meanwhile, that driver gets carjacked from someone playing a version of GTA. The challenge to make it all work together is enormous... but the possibilities are endless... and the concept of a game will be closer to real-life than anything anyone's ever seen outside of the real thing.
I wish this caused people to stop paying MS for upgrades ahead of time. So that upgrades would not be a given for a percentage of the user base. So that the remaining percentage of the user base did not feel compelled to upgrade as well, in order to keep file_features compatibility with upgraded base. So that people might have a chance to look at what new comes out and ask themselves: is this even worth upgrading ?
Then maybe increasingly bloated software does not keep us upgrading and throwing away computers so much. Then OS developers will have a fixed target to catch up. Then MS will no longer be this "bigger-than-life" company. Then developers may dream of contributing to the world, instead of only to a profit making machine's bottomline.
Patents expire. Good things reach the Public Domain. Combustion engines and electric lamps, penicilin and frozen dinners get produced by lots of companies. Why should companies such as MS, Oracle, Siebel, etc. expect to have a perpetual hold of a specific market through an infinite number of releases ? Why should any institution other than governments charge taxes ?
I agree with your point. Creativity is not dead. It is simply that the market is flooded with sequels and repetition of successful formulas, and the creative outbursts sometimes do not get noticed. I would add to your list of (relatively) recent, creative games:
Dreamcast's Seaman - completely original in story, narrative and even gameplay/interface
Jet Grind Radio - maybe its originality is the fusion of several game genres, but it did feel fresh, and hard to compare to anything. Very good game.
But, in any case, my feeling is that at a certain point creativity will have to stop manifesting in game mechanics, and will start manifesting in game genres/story, etc. Just like books are always books, and yet some are terrific in the creative department.
Slashdot Mirror
There is also no purpose to it. Every single post ever made to usenet has already been harvested by spammers, so what's the issue with making them public?
The issue is Barriers to Switch.
Well, if you make them public the email message can be forwarded to another email group system without any loss of content. So, if you want to migrate your group from, say, GoogleGroups to NewSuperGroups all you would need to do is signup GROUPNAME@NewSuperGroups.com and everybody would be there already. Plus, it would be easier to harvest and transfer the email archive to do same transfer. I havent used GoogleGroups, but with YahooGroups, at least, none of the above would work. So were stuck in it, as a group.
Or should it be, mod this whole idea "Flamebait".
Oh, come on, I admit it is an effective flamebait... can't... resist... posting... reply... arg...
From the article:
Berger expressed reservations about remote control hunting, but noted that humans have always adopted new technologies to hunt.
Technologies like: Barbed Wire Fenced Grazing Grounds and Slaughter Houses! He as a texan should know. This web enabled Slaughter house cannot be more efficient than the real thing.
Notice I didn't mention using machine guns to hunt !
I have my own observations about roaches: in apartment buildings they usually live/breed in the elevator shaft, or the garbage disposal system. Dark, warm, and generally dirty enough to feed them. In urban houses, they find their way from the sewer system.
Now, three questions:
1) How will the "Terminator Roach" deal with the vertical dimension (the shaft) and with water and human dejects (the sewer) ?
2) How will a little robot, entering into those breeding grounds and coming out with a bunch of his "friends", help me get rid of cockroaches ? It's like, "Hi, I'm back, I look who I brought: This is Joe, this Ramon, this Betsy, this is Dotty and these are their 252 cousins !"
3) Who did such a bad job with pest control for those guys, that made their research goals what they are ? (don't tell me it's a stepping stone to making robot-chickens)
Why is this site so hell bent on destroying america?
Why don't you get the point ? This is not about "wanting to destroy America", this about pointing out that what America's power is based on may be, in reality, very fragile.
Think about it, what is it that makes (the United States of) America so unique, in economic terms ? What is it that makes a nation not implode under the greatest public deficits and trade deficits in the world ? The "production" of Treasury Bills (=debt) for central banks around the world is the answer.
Now, how can that be compared with oil, soy beans, iron ore, cars, computers and clothes ?
This is not to say that the US does not produce its fair share of oil, soy beans, iron ore, cars, computers, etc. It is just that it is not balancing out, not by a large margin.
Nobody wants to destroy (the United States of) America. Hmmm... ok some people, mostly in the middle east, do. But the average foreign slashdotter is a western guy/girl and does not want to see America destroyed. I don't. I do however, wonder how it all is going to end... because it does not seem to be sustainable. Not with the 200 Billion dollar hunting expeditions, at least.
Did you see the ads? This is how it works.
The alarm is installed in your car, and can detect when someone breaks in and makes a direct connection to start the engine. At this point the car uses a mobile network to relay the fact that it is being hijacked, and sends off its GPS coordinates. This information triggers a loud buzzer in a control room full of trained operators with computer monitors. The operators generally run away from the room screaming, at this point. Anyway, once the signal is sent, the alarm takes over control. First thing it does is it cuts the gas to the engine. Then it starts to flash headlights and taillights. Then it turns the car so it is now riding on two of the side wheels, just before it goes for a tailspin which infalibly lands the car upside down. Alarm locks all doors. Then gas tank gets ignited, often with a flashy explosion, and thief burns, screaming, inside the stolen car.
They claim that one thief will never hit you again.
As someone living in one of the largest cities in the world (São Paulo, Brazil), in an eight-floor apartment and with recently bought sound insulating windows, my only concern is: How much noise do these creatures produce ? I don't want anyone flying under my window at 3am in the morning and waking me up.
Now, small blimps with eletric motors, that would be OK.
Very interesting point. I had the same doubt in mind: Did they not remember the quantitities were different, or did they remember but simply considered them equal (enough) ?
The same song: listen at a time of their choice, it's on their tab. But if you say when, you must pay.
Labels are never selling songs -- they are selling a time-shifting function to your radio tuner, at the price of US$ 1 per time-shifted tune. And this is a hefty price for a function that can be had for zero (per tune) marginal cost, in a number of different digital and analog equipments.
Give me the patience that I need
h ttp://w ww3.yahoo.com/
To keep my piece of mind,
And with life's cares, I hope, Dear God,
Some happiness to find.
Let me google but for today,
Not worrying 'bout Ads ahead,
For I have trust that You will see
Gator and friends, all of them dead
Give me the courage to face the web's trials
And not from adware or spyware run,
Let me keep this thought in mind,
"My will, not Yahoo's, be done."
Oh I miss the yahoo I knew.
http://web.archive.org/web/19970201021647/
Thanks for taking the time to reply. I replied so much later because /. didn't like the proxy set-up I had at work. I saved the txt, and decided post it from home to let you know what I had in mind (obviously by then everyone else was not keeping track).
I'm not sure why this has provoked your ire.
Sorry for the emotion built in -- condescension, ire and all the rest. Your original post did stir me, though. The two main reasons why (in retrospect) were: (1) Belittling of some corporate virtues (sales) in favor of other corporate virtures (R&D). (2) Over simplification leading to a false idea of deterministic outcome (HP vs Dell, only time will tell which will win).
You are obviously smart, and I don't want to offend you nor waste your time in a flame war. But, still, I will finish this post saying that, IMHO, the point of view you expressed, see quote below, is unsupported by any piece of research I know, and incompatible with the model of innovation cycles described in Christensen's book.
(...) the historical trend is pretty clear: innovators innovate, do well until someone figures out how to do it cheaper, then scramble as the market shifts in favor of cost-leaders. (at which point they innovate again, according to your defense of HP).
I believe your analysis is shallow and hangs on generalizations which are simply wrong. Your comment amounts to what you classify as standard-answer-number-two: (2. That's stupid and shortsighted. ) I thought you were setting yourself up to do better than that.
Let me point out what I think is faulty with your reasoning.
In the short run, the copycats will always eat the innovator's lunch.
In the short run, the copycats will not have moved. They are, after all, still trying to comprehend what they will try to copy (can't copy indiscriminately, there are too many bad ideas out there, too).
In the medium run, however, assuming the copy cat already jumped in the game, they may or may not surpass the innovator. There are examples of innovators keeping the lead, as there are of them losing the lead.
Think Caterpillar.
Think Rank Xerox.
Think, even, HP in the InkJet printer business (still leading).
(...) when the copycats are still ramping up, their quality is poor. Thus, in the old days you would hear, "Spend the money for the HP -- brand X is cheap but sucks." You don't usually hear that, anymore, regarding printers. Sucks for HP.
You assume that the experience curve only benefits quality. Wrong. It also benefits production costs! That means, the first one to launch can also count on developing techniques, processes and scale to keep leading in costs. Will they do it ? Maybe not -- bad management can ruin a company anytime -- but they do have a sustainable advantage.
But here's the kicker: when the Next Big Thing comes around, who will it come from? Dell or HP? Yep, HP.
Wrong. It will probably come from neither ! It so turns out that R&D spending decisions are usually taken into a context which favors perfecting existing technologies, and advancing them to meet existing client needs (see Innovator's Dillema, which makes this absolutely clear). Not even HP or IBM are free from this dynamics Try to read Christensen's book. The next breakthrough, disruptive tech will more likely come from an outsider.
It's the same thing with IBM. IBM has been a leader in nearly every single office productivity market they've competed in for, what, like 50 years?
You have a lot of respect for IBM. But the innovation you admire was not helping, in fact it almost destroyed IBM. The company we love came very, very close to disappearing in the beginning of the 1990s. In 1993 an outsider was hired to lead it out of the red, and made it rethink its "innovation is king" practices. Among other things, Gerstner made it focus on selling, selling, selling. Just like Dell ! A quote from the linked cnet article:
And, by the way, according to Gerstner, IBM's savior himself, the technology which saved IBM was nothing created inhouse.
I think you don't know much about IBM's recent history, let alone the last 50 years.
(...) and the copycats got caught in a mass extinction. It's evolution on a corporate scale, baby.
Poor copyc
Ukraine: Does the radiation make your HD lose data ?
Now, how about some from around South America (if you can get it):
Brazil: Do you get stray bullets in your PC ?
Colombia: Do you get white dust in your PC ?
Guyana: Do the jungle snakes try to eat your PC's mouse ? Do the monkeys let you type ?
Cuba: Is the internet considered counter-revolutionary ?
Paraguay: Are your pentiums made by Intel ?
Uruguay: Do you call Argentina for tech support ?
Argentina: Does the local version of Quicken let you differentiate dollars and pesos ?
Venezuela: Does plastic surgery change the user experience ?
Bolivia: Do you use your PC to play ocean sailing simulations ?
Chile: Is the abundance of copper slowing down the deployment of fiber optics ?
Peru: Do you think american processors exceed, or do you think the japanese run faster ?
Ecuador: Do men let women use computers after they do their Llama breeding chores ?
I think it has been long ago since the concept "art" was something that people could take without questioning. In fact, it is so much open for questioning as to make it virtually meaningless. If the term "art" has no meaning then this discussion, interesting as it may be, has no point.
I have a personal story too. One day I went to have lunch in a museum. Some of the exhibition rooms were open, so I walked inside. Oops, I thought, this must be being worked on, because all I can see is *strings*, just a few here, a few there, tied from the floor to a wall, or from a wall to the ceiling. Nothing, nothing else. So I walk through another room, same thing. Another room, same thing. I noticed that the security guards were having a kick out of my expression, and then I got it. *That* was the exhibit. Strings. Tied to the walls. That was *art*. Why ?
Perhaps the whole reason for it being art was its pointlessness. Sort of like the guy who painted an iceberg red, or wrapped a building in cloth. What is the point ?
Then you come and tell me: Videogame makers have a point: making money. Well, then look no further! Here is videogame art. On the other hand, who is it that works (at anything) *only* for money ?
And whenever I am in a restaurant having lunch and the waiter comes up asking about the drinks I say "Diet Coke, Lemon and Ice". I do not really care about the taste differences between Diet Coke, Regular Coke, Diet Pepsi, etc. I do not even have a strong preference for coke/pepsi style drinks over lemon soda, tea, or anything else. It it just that I do not want to think about it. So I just go on and on with the same choice to the same question, every time.
Of course there's also the story that Einstein's suits were all the same, because he didn't want to spend any creative energy thinking about what to wear.
More in this site. Frankly, it looks too large a device, and the info stored (4 kB) too little. Its price is cheap (US$ 39), but probably not so much for the young kids which would be interested. I would discard it as destined to fail if I didn't know the tremendous attraction that card trading games have for kids (see Magic The Gathering, Yu Gi Oh and Pokemon).
but would be fabulous as a feature built into Mozilla or Opera
Well, I think this would be a great feature for one of these PDAs that have 802.11b -- the small screens could use creative, alternative ways to browse the web.
If we are going to reach back in time for original ideas, I suggest leaving the ones that were not practical and grabing the ones that did have an impact. Leave Jet Packs, take the great Zeppelin air ships.
The Zeppelin-type ships got a bad reputation for (1) being associated with preWWII Germany (you know, the Castle Wolfenstein bad guys) and (2) getting burned down in an unfortunate accident in the US. Well fact (1) can be forgiven, I bet, after 60+ years and fact (2) should be put into context: the ship burned because Germany did not have access to the a non flammable gas alternative at the time (today it is not a problem).
And, behold, it *is* coming back. Brought to you by Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik, who else.
It has now been forgotten, but the Empire State Building's top floor (where tourists go) was built, at the time, to be a docking point for the Zeppelin right in the middle of Manhattan. They even tried docking it there, but strong winds made them give it up... and never try again. But it makes me wonder, with all the microprocessor power we have today, modern sensors and actuators, and good software, couldn't it be tried again ? How would it do to public transportation ? Cargo transportation ? Leisure cruises ?
No, don't tell me about yet another fast train.
The JoyDress is integrated with flexible vibrapads that vibrate by programmed impulses from a thin, user-controlled command pad (...)
Baby, I can hack into your dress, and program impulses to make you feel like you've never felt before. I can make it vibrate and give you sensations you never thought possible -- pleasure you only dreamed about. Do you know what it means to be a woman ? Do you know just how many "multiple" means -- and how far I can lead you ? Come on now, naughty, open up that telnet connection...
I might consider (...) getting a console when and if they have direct output to HDTV (if they already do, please let me know
Then see games supporting 16:9 screen format and higher (HDTV) resolutions here: HDTVArcade
Basically the HDTV games are in the XBox platform, while progressive scan (480p) are also in the Cube and the PS2.
You can visually check what HDTV does to a game in this comparison. Still not a computer CRT, but quite improved compared to your old 19".
Seeing is believing:
Rexx going strong.
That AC is overrated.
/. it gets interesting when people discuss, explain their position. Saying "the answer is 23!" does not say anything about what you think the question is, or what the logic behind "23" is. You could shout "buy!" and I could shout "don't!" all day, and nothing useful would come out.
If you want music, buy it! If it's not valuable to you, don't.
No, don't buy it ! If you want music, get it through the most convenient, cheapest way you can ! If it's not valuable to you, don't bother.
Now that I gave a reply in the same tone of your post, let me rumble a bit.
Here at
How about bringing us all more about what you think. For instance I would like to remind you that laws should reflect the best interests of society. They are generally very, very arbitrary in their content.
Music was historically freely available -- those who liked it, listened to it, those who had talent, repeated what they listened to. After thousands of years of Music being free, and some (how many?) hundred years of copyright law, I would say it is fair to ask: "It the copyright way of treating musical works really the correct one ?". If so, why ?
Music is, at its core, a comunal event. It was alway played to be listened. The player needs the listener as much as the listener needs the player. Why should the listeners pay the player, and not the player pay the listeners ? The answer is, because the extra-hyped, created celebrities, super publicized top performers are few in number, and many groups of people would like to have the same performers coming over to play, so an auction effect raises stakes and pays them a lot.
BUT is this fair to equally talented, not so famous bands ? No it isn't. Is the star creation system, through major labels, an optimal allocator of musical talent -- I do not believe so. So why not let the labels starve, and stop feeding the star system, so that each one starts looking around for local talent, which will not be as expensive ?
I would rather have a new world than risk a world in which I need to pay for each time I press play on my music jukebox. One Microsoft is enough, already.
Sorry for the long post. It's late at night and I decided to throw my 25 cents in.
PDAs that Play MP3 and have digital cameras. Digital photo cameras that shoot video. Cell phones that have PDAs. MP3 players that play video. Laptops getting smaller -- sometimes loosing their keyboard (as tablets). Emulators, emulators, bringing the best from the past. Which you get for free as abandonware. Everything connected to high speed wireless data -- Bluetooth, 802.11g. Huge, enormous hard disks becoming ever so small. World becoming portable and inexpensive. Gadgets doing more and more and more for you.
Now, can someone please
COME UP WITH BETTER BATTERIES ???
Somebody playing a futuristic version of "SimCity" may be laying down the roads that someone playing a driving game is racing on. Meanwhile, that driver gets carjacked from someone playing a version of GTA. The challenge to make it all work together is enormous ... but the possibilities are endless ... and the concept of a game will be closer to real-life than anything anyone's ever seen outside of the real thing.
What is... the matrix ?
I wish this caused people to stop paying MS for upgrades ahead of time. So that upgrades would not be a given for a percentage of the user base. So that the remaining percentage of the user base did not feel compelled to upgrade as well, in order to keep file_features compatibility with upgraded base. So that people might have a chance to look at what new comes out and ask themselves: is this even worth upgrading ?
Then maybe increasingly bloated software does not keep us upgrading and throwing away computers so much. Then OS developers will have a fixed target to catch up. Then MS will no longer be this "bigger-than-life" company. Then developers may dream of contributing to the world, instead of only to a profit making machine's bottomline.
Patents expire. Good things reach the Public Domain. Combustion engines and electric lamps, penicilin and frozen dinners get produced by lots of companies. Why should companies such as MS, Oracle, Siebel, etc. expect to have a perpetual hold of a specific market through an infinite number of releases ? Why should any institution other than governments charge taxes ?
I agree with your point. Creativity is not dead. It is simply that the market is flooded with sequels and repetition of successful formulas, and the creative outbursts sometimes do not get noticed. I would add to your list of (relatively) recent, creative games:
Dreamcast's Seaman - completely original in story, narrative and even gameplay/interface
Jet Grind Radio - maybe its originality is the fusion of several game genres, but it did feel fresh, and hard to compare to anything. Very good game.
But, in any case, my feeling is that at a certain point creativity will have to stop manifesting in game mechanics, and will start manifesting in game genres/story, etc. Just like books are always books, and yet some are terrific in the creative department.