Yes, they may be overpaying ONLY if we determine that advertising is effecting consumers 9.1% less. I doubt that 9.1% less viewings will equal 9.1% less sales and brand awareness.
Do I really need to go through the plethora of reasons? I don't have the energy for that right now.
In my case, anything smaller than a CD can easily be lost. Think about how easy it will be to lose a fingernail size music album? Just because we CAN make it smaller, doesn't mean we should. Granted, a little smaller would be nice but that is TOO SMALL.
Other examples I can think of are compact keyboards, playstation controllers, many consumer digital cameras, etc.
ThinkSecret just reported on the unusually high amount of bad press CNET has been giving to Apple. In general, there seems to be a theory that the bad press is organized:
http://www.thinksecret.com/news/tsnotes7.html
C'mon, there may be 5 reasons to not buy an iPod, some of which are very obscure and unimportant. However, there are a LOT more reasons to buy. Clearly, with a 50%+ marketshare of all mp3 players, Apple is owning the competition on this. People are afraid of Apple owning anything. Hence, CNET's crap-fest of reactionary pseudo-news.
They stated there are no announcements to be made at this time, the same as many other companies who have accidently let the cat out of the bag on Apple's behalf have. It will happen.
I think you got hooked on the last scene in the first movie and can't se past it-- as if the next 2 movies were somehow supposed to be focused around it. The plot evolves to become what it is.. More depth is unravelled as you go.
Neo doesn't die.
He is carried off into the machine world after he completes his quest. He is motionless after a battle, just like the second movie. Granted, Trinity is dead as dead can be. The Orcale and the last refugee give an homage to Neo with the sunset at the end, but that doesn't mean he's dead. The Oracle answers he guardian's question quite accurately: "no, I didn't see any of this... I had hope."
Overall, this was a great movie. I have some questions that I want answered, but it did a good job answering most of them. For example, the Oracle and the Architect are cordial adversaries, and Agent Smith and Neo a ying/yang brothers, whose mother is the Oracle. The reason why the movie changes focus from the people in the Matrix to the peopel in Zion is clear to me. More insight as to WHY Neo was found is unravelled and you realize this is a fight between the architect and the oracle, which are representations of order and chaos as created by the machines.
The movie is deep. Just because it changes direction does not mean that was not intended in the first place. It may take a turn or two that I disagree with, but overall it leaves me wanting one more movie... the one where the people are freed from the Matrix and Neo leads them to the promised land. Judging by the end of this
... on how much longer the internet and open information exchange is around? I'm willing to bet stupid patents on obvious PROCESSES will be the end of the internet as we know it.
Greed. It's NOT good. Do the world a favor, and don't listen to your lawyer for moral advice. Just because you CAN get away with something obviously seedy like this, doesn't mean you should.
Perhaps the submitter of this story should try "sometimes beats the G5, and when it does, it's by a small margin." Only one benchmark had the G5 being "trounced," IMHO.
Did he read the article? I did. Looks like the PC trolls are upset that the G5 can handle it's own and need to fuel the constant war of words. I'll bite. But for god's sake, get rid of such a grossly innacurate headline. It's not even close to reality and the poster has to know it.
Okay, any given app can give one platform or another an edge. But let's look at some hard facts about the 4 apps they chose to run, shall we?
1) Premiere 6. This program is used by thr minority of video editors on the mac platform for GOOD reason... it's TROUNCED by Final Cut Pro 4's performance.
2) Photoshop. I'll give this one a fair shake as the Mac and PC are equally mediocre. Thankfully, there are plugins for the G5 on this, so if the PC wins, I'll give it the nod fair and square... but wins by less than a 10% margin.
3) Word. Written by Microsoft. Do I need to elaborate? I didn't think so. Does anyone really believe this is a good performer on the Mac's side? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
4) Quake 3. A poor indicator for modern gaming performance... especially since a sustained FPS of over 50 frames a second is not noticable to a human eye. Even then, the PC is winning by roughly 20%. I'll give them the nod, but I would have liked to have seen something running on those Radeon 9800's that uses per-pixel shading.
Overall, it looks like the PC is slightly faster and I'll give it the nod. I don't think it will last, however. Prepare for the 3.0 Ghz G5 by next June. I think IBM will be able to play well as industry leader. I'm glad that the Mac is running neck and neck these days, as my OS has really always been the deciding factor in efficiency for me... speed just helps me with my 3D modelling.:-)
Okay, we could all wait and see what MS will come out with in 2006 with Longhorn... and I hope that they come out with something that doesn't look and feel like every other feature bloated OS they've crammed down the Wintel world's throat in the past 20 years. I'm not holding my breath.
In the meantime, you can enjoy Panther, OS X 10.3 later this month. Given Apple's once-a-year OS release schedule thus far, you can expect 2 more OS revisions BEFORE Longhorn is out. OS X 10.4 and 10.5, and _probably_ OS X 10.6 will be done by then.
I have to believe that shorter, more controlled releases are better than huge pent-up demand that may fall short. Granted, this is by no means a switcher's guarantee YET, but 3 major shots at Wintel in the meantime can mean major inroads for Apple.
Just think of Apple's potential and it's staggering. Granted, nothing is guaranteed, but when you have single digit percentage sales you have a lot of growth potential. At 5 to 8%, depending on the market, even 10% to 16% is DOUBLE sales. I like Apple's future, and my mid-teen stock shares are looking mighty good right now.:-)
"The customer did something wrong" is NEVER a reasonable excuse for a problem in a UI. If the customer did something wrong, it's YOUR fault for making it possible for the customer to do whatever it was he did wrong.
Oh, I don't know about that kind of extreme. I would say there is a threshold for your audience. You can only hope to get it right for the vast majority of people. Some people are unqualified for tasks. While UI design is certainly about getting it right as much as possible, you're always going to have someone make a mistake that is so asinine that changing it to work for that individual is going to hose the other 99%.
I'm not talking simplicity, I'm talking about the echelon of people who need "hot" put on a coffe mug, or a label to clearly state that the CD tray is not a cup holder. Those kinds of people.
Boy, I sure am glad all the potential information in the article was overshadowed by the the jack-ass comments of the poster.
I realize Slashdot has to give a little liberty, but can't the poster's personal (incorrect) opinions about the article be left out? I don't care. I doubt anyone does. All it does is make people like me write about his comments and not the article... and I'm about the 500th today to do so.
"She says that in ten years, 20% of our clothes will incorporate some kind of electronic components."
To me, that seems like an unbelievably mediocre statement. Considering how logarithmic the expansion of other technologies have been, in much short time frames.
I suppose if you put it in context(ile) you'll see that the garmet industry is painfully slow to adapt to new manufacturing techniques. This is mostly due to the nearly slave labor they employ.
rant -- Does anyone wonder where all the clothing assembly lines are with the machines that make cloths just like a car in Detroit? Oh, wait, they don't exist. It's just a bunch of starving 13 year old chinese working with dealy chemicals so that, when they die at age 32 of lead poisoning their children can immigrate to a safer country. Now they get to sew in cheaply made electronics, too! -- rant
Most of us are NOT justifying theft. We're boycotting the purchase of CD's that, at any point, passed through RIAA's greedy hands. I buy my music online to protest through the iTunes Music Store. Granted, I'm sure the RIAA get's something, but my voice is heard on digital distribution.
People who justify theft are lashing out in anger, just like the RIAA. I don't think most smart people condone this. I know many, but I'd hope a society of theives is not what we are heading towards. By not purchasing music I am indeed hurting the artist. They will either find a new profession or complain to the RIAA. If our protests are heard we will have artists making MORE money on the dollar than they do now.
Okay, what she did was illegal. Anyone that tries to spin it another way is blinded by their disgust of the RIAA. I, like the vast majority of you, hate them too. However, ignorance of the law is not a defense. This is how our legal system, as antiquated as it can be in situations like copyright law, is designed.
On the other hand, just because it was legal to persue this girl doesn't mean it's moral. It's wrong. Anyone that has a heart should be able to see mitigating cirumstances were potentially at play. While I do not know the details I think it's safe to say that the mother had no idea what he daughter was doing was wrong. Most children of that age, unless they are techno-geeks, do not know that it's illegal. To COMPOUND THIS PROBLEM, Kazaa got paid $30 by these people, which they erroneously misinterpreted as being payment for unlimited commecial downloads. So what are we left with here? My bullet-point list::-)
1) The RIAA has their head so far up their a$$ they haven't seen the sunshine of humanity in 3 years.
2) What the 12 year old did was, in fact, illegal.
3) Ignorance of the law is not a defence.
4) The letter of the law and the practical application are, unfortunately, up to bastard lawyers. I'm not condeming all lawyers, only the 80% that are rat bastards.:-)
5) The RIAA will lose their battle because they are defending an antiquated business model. They will go the way of the dinosaur or evolve. My guess is this is the first chapter in their PR laden death.
6) Charging someone $2k for damages when it's obvious it's bad PR does NOTHING for your image or your cause. It actually damages it. They spend much more than $2k hunting this person down.
7) All they had to do was say they had legal ground to do this and SCARE THEM. They didn't have to take it that extra step and actually sue. Not in this case. Use judgement. It's that little voice you hear called your concious and the less you listen to it the more you chuck your karma out the door.
8) What the hell role does Kazaa play in all of this? Is it possible to seek damages on them? It's obvious people are getting the wrong impression from Kazaa.
Personal attacks rearely help you position. Aside from highly iased "facts" and lack of ANY shred of evidence, I'd like to thank you for invalidating everything you said by sounding like a looney.
Is it me, or did that article sound more like an obituary than anything else?
Perhaps the wording was more than conincidental concerning Sun's future. It's never good when the founder decides to leave. That usually means that game is over.
You have some great points. I think Apple is looking for mind-share, not dollars and cents. The more synonymous Apple is with hip culture, the more likely people will consider Macs as their new machine.
How the OS license on those go? I know with OS X you can get unlimited clients with each Xserve but I'm not sure how a cluster purchase works.
If you seriously think about it, the OS cost is far beyond the hardware cost at time... especially on the Wintel side of things. It's an honest question, not a critcism.:-)
Honestly, how on earth will they let a fuel based laptop on a plane? Is it any safer than a chemical battery? Maybe both are just ticking time-bombs but it seems to me that bringing something on a plane that could be used in an explosive would be bad. Does anyone know if the type of fuel used in these batteries are explosive? Are they comparable to chemical batteries or more explosive?
What good is a 10 hour battery if you can't use on that flight to Hong Kong?
... to shudder every time I hear "DRM." It seems as though the DRM they speak of is overly complex and unltimately no more reliable than a password protected.zip or home directory. The ill side effects are severe.
Is MS _trying_ to make everyone hate them at this point? I seriously can't believe most of the stuff they do now. It's as blatant as the rail-road robber barons.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, they may be overpaying ONLY if we determine that advertising is effecting consumers 9.1% less. I doubt that 9.1% less viewings will equal 9.1% less sales and brand awareness.
Do I really need to go through the plethora of reasons? I don't have the energy for that right now.
It's an obscenely offensive term. I wondered why it hadn't been removed a long time ago.
In my case, anything smaller than a CD can easily be lost. Think about how easy it will be to lose a fingernail size music album? Just because we CAN make it smaller, doesn't mean we should. Granted, a little smaller would be nice but that is TOO SMALL.
Other examples I can think of are compact keyboards, playstation controllers, many consumer digital cameras, etc.
ThinkSecret just reported on the unusually high amount of bad press CNET has been giving to Apple. In general, there seems to be a theory that the bad press is organized:
http://www.thinksecret.com/news/tsnotes7.html
C'mon, there may be 5 reasons to not buy an iPod, some of which are very obscure and unimportant. However, there are a LOT more reasons to buy. Clearly, with a 50%+ marketshare of all mp3 players, Apple is owning the competition on this. People are afraid of Apple owning anything. Hence, CNET's crap-fest of reactionary pseudo-news.
Actually, it's true.
They stated there are no announcements to be made at this time, the same as many other companies who have accidently let the cat out of the bag on Apple's behalf have. It will happen.
I think you got hooked on the last scene in the first movie and can't se past it-- as if the next 2 movies were somehow supposed to be focused around it. The plot evolves to become what it is.. More depth is unravelled as you go.
Neo doesn't die.
He is carried off into the machine world after he completes his quest. He is motionless after a battle, just like the second movie. Granted, Trinity is dead as dead can be. The Orcale and the last refugee give an homage to Neo with the sunset at the end, but that doesn't mean he's dead. The Oracle answers he guardian's question quite accurately: "no, I didn't see any of this... I had hope."
Overall, this was a great movie. I have some questions that I want answered, but it did a good job answering most of them. For example, the Oracle and the Architect are cordial adversaries, and Agent Smith and Neo a ying/yang brothers, whose mother is the Oracle. The reason why the movie changes focus from the people in the Matrix to the peopel in Zion is clear to me. More insight as to WHY Neo was found is unravelled and you realize this is a fight between the architect and the oracle, which are representations of order and chaos as created by the machines.
The movie is deep. Just because it changes direction does not mean that was not intended in the first place. It may take a turn or two that I disagree with, but overall it leaves me wanting one more movie... the one where the people are freed from the Matrix and Neo leads them to the promised land. Judging by the end of this
I guess I see it as 3 options:
1) You can stay late and patch it now.
2) You can not patch it, and lose a lot of customers and exponentially more time.
3) Get a Mac.
... on how much longer the internet and open information exchange is around? I'm willing to bet stupid patents on obvious PROCESSES will be the end of the internet as we know it.
Greed. It's NOT good. Do the world a favor, and don't listen to your lawyer for moral advice. Just because you CAN get away with something obviously seedy like this, doesn't mean you should.
Um. "trounced?"
Perhaps the submitter of this story should try "sometimes beats the G5, and when it does, it's by a small margin." Only one benchmark had the G5 being "trounced," IMHO.
Did he read the article? I did. Looks like the PC trolls are upset that the G5 can handle it's own and need to fuel the constant war of words. I'll bite. But for god's sake, get rid of such a grossly innacurate headline. It's not even close to reality and the poster has to know it.
Okay, any given app can give one platform or another an edge. But let's look at some hard facts about the 4 apps they chose to run, shall we?
:-)
1) Premiere 6. This program is used by thr minority of video editors on the mac platform for GOOD reason... it's TROUNCED by Final Cut Pro 4's performance.
2) Photoshop. I'll give this one a fair shake as the Mac and PC are equally mediocre. Thankfully, there are plugins for the G5 on this, so if the PC wins, I'll give it the nod fair and square... but wins by less than a 10% margin.
3) Word. Written by Microsoft. Do I need to elaborate? I didn't think so. Does anyone really believe this is a good performer on the Mac's side? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
4) Quake 3. A poor indicator for modern gaming performance... especially since a sustained FPS of over 50 frames a second is not noticable to a human eye. Even then, the PC is winning by roughly 20%. I'll give them the nod, but I would have liked to have seen something running on those Radeon 9800's that uses per-pixel shading.
Overall, it looks like the PC is slightly faster and I'll give it the nod. I don't think it will last, however. Prepare for the 3.0 Ghz G5 by next June. I think IBM will be able to play well as industry leader. I'm glad that the Mac is running neck and neck these days, as my OS has really always been the deciding factor in efficiency for me... speed just helps me with my 3D modelling.
Okay, we could all wait and see what MS will come out with in 2006 with Longhorn... and I hope that they come out with something that doesn't look and feel like every other feature bloated OS they've crammed down the Wintel world's throat in the past 20 years. I'm not holding my breath.
:-)
In the meantime, you can enjoy Panther, OS X 10.3 later this month. Given Apple's once-a-year OS release schedule thus far, you can expect 2 more OS revisions BEFORE Longhorn is out. OS X 10.4 and 10.5, and _probably_ OS X 10.6 will be done by then.
I have to believe that shorter, more controlled releases are better than huge pent-up demand that may fall short. Granted, this is by no means a switcher's guarantee YET, but 3 major shots at Wintel in the meantime can mean major inroads for Apple.
Just think of Apple's potential and it's staggering. Granted, nothing is guaranteed, but when you have single digit percentage sales you have a lot of growth potential. At 5 to 8%, depending on the market, even 10% to 16% is DOUBLE sales. I like Apple's future, and my mid-teen stock shares are looking mighty good right now.
"The customer did something wrong" is NEVER a reasonable excuse for a problem in a UI. If the customer did something wrong, it's YOUR fault for making it possible for the customer to do whatever it was he did wrong.
Oh, I don't know about that kind of extreme. I would say there is a threshold for your audience. You can only hope to get it right for the vast majority of people. Some people are unqualified for tasks. While UI design is certainly about getting it right as much as possible, you're always going to have someone make a mistake that is so asinine that changing it to work for that individual is going to hose the other 99%.
I'm not talking simplicity, I'm talking about the echelon of people who need "hot" put on a coffe mug, or a label to clearly state that the CD tray is not a cup holder. Those kinds of people.
Boy, I sure am glad all the potential information in the article was overshadowed by the the jack-ass comments of the poster.
I realize Slashdot has to give a little liberty, but can't the poster's personal (incorrect) opinions about the article be left out? I don't care. I doubt anyone does. All it does is make people like me write about his comments and not the article... and I'm about the 500th today to do so.
Someone woke up with a case of the grumpies.
"She says that in ten years, 20% of our clothes will incorporate some kind of electronic components."
To me, that seems like an unbelievably mediocre statement. Considering how logarithmic the expansion of other technologies have been, in much short time frames.
I suppose if you put it in context(ile) you'll see that the garmet industry is painfully slow to adapt to new manufacturing techniques. This is mostly due to the nearly slave labor they employ.
rant --
Does anyone wonder where all the clothing assembly lines are with the machines that make cloths just like a car in Detroit? Oh, wait, they don't exist. It's just a bunch of starving 13 year old chinese working with dealy chemicals so that, when they die at age 32 of lead poisoning their children can immigrate to a safer country. Now they get to sew in cheaply made electronics, too!
-- rant
Most of us are NOT justifying theft. We're boycotting the purchase of CD's that, at any point, passed through RIAA's greedy hands. I buy my music online to protest through the iTunes Music Store. Granted, I'm sure the RIAA get's something, but my voice is heard on digital distribution.
People who justify theft are lashing out in anger, just like the RIAA. I don't think most smart people condone this. I know many, but I'd hope a society of theives is not what we are heading towards. By not purchasing music I am indeed hurting the artist. They will either find a new profession or complain to the RIAA. If our protests are heard we will have artists making MORE money on the dollar than they do now.
Okay, what she did was illegal. Anyone that tries to spin it another way is blinded by their disgust of the RIAA. I, like the vast majority of you, hate them too. However, ignorance of the law is not a defense. This is how our legal system, as antiquated as it can be in situations like copyright law, is designed.
:-)
:-)
On the other hand, just because it was legal to persue this girl doesn't mean it's moral. It's wrong. Anyone that has a heart should be able to see mitigating cirumstances were potentially at play. While I do not know the details I think it's safe to say that the mother had no idea what he daughter was doing was wrong. Most children of that age, unless they are techno-geeks, do not know that it's illegal. To COMPOUND THIS PROBLEM, Kazaa got paid $30 by these people, which they erroneously misinterpreted as being payment for unlimited commecial downloads. So what are we left with here? My bullet-point list:
1) The RIAA has their head so far up their a$$ they haven't seen the sunshine of humanity in 3 years.
2) What the 12 year old did was, in fact, illegal.
3) Ignorance of the law is not a defence.
4) The letter of the law and the practical application are, unfortunately, up to bastard lawyers. I'm not condeming all lawyers, only the 80% that are rat bastards.
5) The RIAA will lose their battle because they are defending an antiquated business model. They will go the way of the dinosaur or evolve. My guess is this is the first chapter in their PR laden death.
6) Charging someone $2k for damages when it's obvious it's bad PR does NOTHING for your image or your cause. It actually damages it. They spend much more than $2k hunting this person down.
7) All they had to do was say they had legal ground to do this and SCARE THEM. They didn't have to take it that extra step and actually sue. Not in this case. Use judgement. It's that little voice you hear called your concious and the less you listen to it the more you chuck your karma out the door.
8) What the hell role does Kazaa play in all of this? Is it possible to seek damages on them? It's obvious people are getting the wrong impression from Kazaa.
Personal attacks rearely help you position. Aside from highly iased "facts" and lack of ANY shred of evidence, I'd like to thank you for invalidating everything you said by sounding like a looney.
Is it me, or did that article sound more like an obituary than anything else?
Perhaps the wording was more than conincidental concerning Sun's future. It's never good when the founder decides to leave. That usually means that game is over.
Lysol. Kills 99% of airborne bacteria. Now with patented Dura-kill for those tough to reach batteries.
You have some great points. I think Apple is looking for mind-share, not dollars and cents. The more synonymous Apple is with hip culture, the more likely people will consider Macs as their new machine.
How the OS license on those go? I know with OS X you can get unlimited clients with each Xserve but I'm not sure how a cluster purchase works.
:-)
If you seriously think about it, the OS cost is far beyond the hardware cost at time... especially on the Wintel side of things. It's an honest question, not a critcism.
Apparently the PHD's at Virginia Tech disagree with you 5.2 million ($) times. Or 1,100 times, depending on your view of the world...
Honestly, how on earth will they let a fuel based laptop on a plane? Is it any safer than a chemical battery? Maybe both are just ticking time-bombs but it seems to me that bringing something on a plane that could be used in an explosive would be bad. Does anyone know if the type of fuel used in these batteries are explosive? Are they comparable to chemical batteries or more explosive?
What good is a 10 hour battery if you can't use on that flight to Hong Kong?
... to shudder every time I hear "DRM." It seems as though the DRM they speak of is overly complex and unltimately no more reliable than a password protected .zip or home directory. The ill side effects are severe.
Is MS _trying_ to make everyone hate them at this point? I seriously can't believe most of the stuff they do now. It's as blatant as the rail-road robber barons.