For all of you interested in other older technology similarities with modern one, espcially focused on Telecomunication, there is a great book "The Victorian Internet" by Tom Standage which talks about how comunications technology (AKA Telegraph) in the 1800's changed life and how the media gave so much popularity and coverage, but at the end, a second wave of technology (AKA Telephone) sent the elder to the dark room.
What will do the same with the Internet? Right now, the Net rules, millions are/were invested on it and there is a fancy aura around it (not only B2B2C startups, but also P2P, etc.)... but, how long will it last? Will we see it coming?
Well, actually the problem in California is that they deregulated the state-owned energy production facilities, but oblied the new entrants to offer service at regulated prices, causing the companies to almost bankrupt...
OK... let's tame the huge Telco's with regulation in order to make them do what the consumer want. Regulate the Telcos to invest heavily in new technology and obly them to offer a great consumer service, all while keeping the consumer prices low...
Then a California's Energy Crisis occurs in nationwide Telecommunication industry...
I am not saying that the idea is bad... actually, I will support it if we had really, really great regulators on our legislative chambers. But I do not think that regulators know enough of any industry they try to regulate; therefore, market dinamics either destroy the company or the consumer.
Re:Ok, Dvorak is a spank but...
on
Calling Out TiVo
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· Score: 1
Will all TV channels be "premium" in the future? Will the networks mix the advertisements & the programming together (ie. even more gratituous product placements..say one every 1.5 minutes?
Do you remember "The Truman Show"? That TV-satiric movie film featuring Jim Carrey? Because they didn't have commercial breaks, all the marketing was implicit in the background and in the acting.,,
Do you remember this Sly Stallone-Sandra Bullock futuristic movie with an Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" style? All the music was just commercial ads with good rythm which made people sing it along just as today's Top 10...
Subsequently, if even Hollywood has some suggestions of what other ads can be placed IN content (not BETWEEN content), Media Companies are already in their way to ideate new ways of marketing revenue. Don't worry Mr. Dvrk... marketing will remain among us, for better or for worse.
Or you can look really, really close to other guy pupil and see the reflex of your hat on his eye...
Or you could said a color in a lenguage that the aliens do not dominate like Girly-Interior-Designish: "My hat is pale red aquamarine fucsia with some turqoise tones over a dark grassy gray turning into brown after the reflex of a violet sunrise under the influence of a orange moon"...
Well, if you do NOT want ads in your PS/NES/Xbox/etc games and that is the way the industry is going, you can still do the same as with TV... just shut it down!!
You want to get away from real life? Read a book...
You want to have fun with your friends? Practice a sport...
You want to whine whine whine about the subject? Just keep your actual life style...
Did anyone else notice that bad guy #1 only spent 2 hours at his girlfriend's place for dinner? Not much time...
Wouldn't it be because he is supposed to be a great hacker-geek who also has a girlfriend, something NOT seen in real life?
In real world, Mr. Hacker would be having dinner with his old granny, tops...
So? What do you propose then? Conmuting and public transport also pollutes...
Shall we all go back to horses? Oh, no! They crap all the way around and they eat grass that has to be grown in areas which used to be forests.
Shall we all take a scooter/bike/skates and walk to work? Oh, no! A worker in the outskirts of the city will take between 1 to 5 hours in order to go to his/her job downtown just 15 miles away.
So, what to do, what to do? Maybe we all should leave large cities and live in small towns like our grand-grandfathers did. But then, what will happen with all the progress develeped in the last century? Forget TV, internet, refrigeration, warming, cooling and laundry machines?
I do NOT think so. We (humanity) have already altered our environment and our society, therefore, we should find a way to live in armony with our surroundings and maybe electric cars are a part of a solution. Not all the solution, just a part. Recycling, Reducing, Reusing, etc. also help, but it has to become a global effort.
It is really easy to bitch about damns/gas/coal/oil, when surfing on the net on a nice office with central cooling...
If all this patent-legal-blah-blah-blah keeps going in the same direction, what's next?
Will Exxon patent "convenience stores" and ask all mom-and-dad stores to pay for being an small store close to the suburbs?
"This 1-click is mine" Amazon's position is just another show of the mono/oligopolistic ideology that is becoming stronger in occidental business sense. Sometime I think that I should be surprised that in the US there are lawyers who follow this crap, but then I remember about the "Warning! Our Hot Coffee is Hot" policy from McDonald's...
Middle 90's: Command&Conquer and 5 years of ripoffs (not on game consoles, but still games)
And yes... we need something new... It was amazing/intriging to see all the noise about Pitfall a couple of weeks ago. That is a simple and funny game which still cautivates gameplayers...
MP3.com attempt to charge for the storage of your already-paid-for music is not going to work. The box is open, and a more creative solution that just being an e-harddisk should be done if they want to attract users.
I belive more in the Napster attempt to make money besides advertising. Legal and profitable peer-to-peer music sharing can be done in an easy way:
1.- Person A adquires a legal CD and register his own copy on MyMusic.com for FREE (or whatever site you want it to be)
2.- Person B pays MyMusic.com a small fee (let's say the US$5/mo that is belive Napster would charge)
3.- Mr. B can temporarily download Mr. A legal.mp3 in order to listen if he likes or not the CD
4.- MyMusic pays some fee (an small fraction of the fee paid by Mr. B) to the CD's MusicHouse who published it.
5.- After some time, let's say 2 weeks, the mp3 downloaded by Mr. B stops working
6.- If Mr. B liked the CD, then he/she/it buys it and pays the MusicHouse. If Mr. B dislike the CD, he/she/it does not.
In this way, Mr. B is not paying for something that doesn't want, but at same time the MusicHouse is earning some revenue from the music sharing
The final question would be if $5/mo for downloading ~100 songs will seem attractive for the MusicHouse (5 cents/song); which I believe they will because 5cents is better than nothing.
And, if Mr. B only wants to listen to the today-popular-tomorrow-forgotten music (let's say KidRock, Britney or Eminem), Mr. B is getting a good deal for just $5...
The idea sounds good, but I do not see a $60-per-year option as a valid option... It still is cheaper to click BlockAddres in your Yahoo! account or make a rule in your Outlook
The bionic hand is not really such a huge advance in BioTech. I don't want to sound rude, but this is nothing more that just an small advance in a huge medical effort.
Since the 70's, some robotic extremities have been engineered. I remember watching mechanical Legs and Arms have been on "Believe it or not" since the 80's, just that those where less developed and attractive to the eye.
I would suggest that this advance is not really a huge step in medicine, but just the normal advance of the HighTech practice which is manufacturing all kind stuff even smaller.
This bionic hand is to old protesis what a Palm VII is to an Commodore 64 with modem... it is nothing more that the same principle with some extra time of technological advance...
Slashdot Mirror
For all of you interested in other older technology similarities with modern one, espcially focused on Telecomunication, there is a great book "The Victorian Internet" by Tom Standage which talks about how comunications technology (AKA Telegraph) in the 1800's changed life and how the media gave so much popularity and coverage, but at the end, a second wave of technology (AKA Telephone) sent the elder to the dark room.
What will do the same with the Internet? Right now, the Net rules, millions are/were invested on it and there is a fancy aura around it (not only B2B2C startups, but also P2P, etc.)... but, how long will it last? Will we see it coming?
Well, actually the problem in California is that they deregulated the state-owned energy production facilities, but oblied the new entrants to offer service at regulated prices, causing the companies to almost bankrupt...
OK... let's tame the huge Telco's with regulation in order to make them do what the consumer want. Regulate the Telcos to invest heavily in new technology and obly them to offer a great consumer service, all while keeping the consumer prices low...
Then a California's Energy Crisis occurs in nationwide Telecommunication industry...
I am not saying that the idea is bad... actually, I will support it if we had really, really great regulators on our legislative chambers. But I do not think that regulators know enough of any industry they try to regulate; therefore, market dinamics either destroy the company or the consumer.
Will all TV channels be "premium" in the future? Will the networks mix the advertisements & the programming together (ie. even more gratituous product placements..say one every 1.5 minutes?
Do you remember "The Truman Show"? That TV-satiric movie film featuring Jim Carrey? Because they didn't have commercial breaks, all the marketing was implicit in the background and in the acting.,,
Do you remember this Sly Stallone-Sandra Bullock futuristic movie with an Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" style? All the music was just commercial ads with good rythm which made people sing it along just as today's Top 10...
Subsequently, if even Hollywood has some suggestions of what other ads can be placed IN content (not BETWEEN content), Media Companies are already in their way to ideate new ways of marketing revenue. Don't worry Mr. Dvrk... marketing will remain among us, for better or for worse.
Or you can look really, really close to other guy pupil and see the reflex of your hat on his eye...
Or you could said a color in a lenguage that the aliens do not dominate like Girly-Interior-Designish: "My hat is pale red aquamarine fucsia with some turqoise tones over a dark grassy gray turning into brown after the reflex of a violet sunrise under the influence of a orange moon"...
Well, if you do NOT want ads in your PS/NES/Xbox/etc games and that is the way the industry is going, you can still do the same as with TV... just shut it down!!
You want to get away from real life? Read a book...
You want to have fun with your friends? Practice a sport...
You want to whine whine whine about the subject? Just keep your actual life style...
Did anyone else notice that bad guy #1 only spent 2 hours at his girlfriend's place for dinner? Not much time...
Wouldn't it be because he is supposed to be a great hacker-geek who also has a girlfriend, something NOT seen in real life?
In real world, Mr. Hacker would be having dinner with his old granny, tops...
So? What do you propose then? Conmuting and public transport also pollutes...
Shall we all go back to horses? Oh, no! They crap all the way around and they eat grass that has to be grown in areas which used to be forests.
Shall we all take a scooter/bike/skates and walk to work? Oh, no! A worker in the outskirts of the city will take between 1 to 5 hours in order to go to his/her job downtown just 15 miles away.
So, what to do, what to do? Maybe we all should leave large cities and live in small towns like our grand-grandfathers did. But then, what will happen with all the progress develeped in the last century? Forget TV, internet, refrigeration, warming, cooling and laundry machines?
I do NOT think so. We (humanity) have already altered our environment and our society, therefore, we should find a way to live in armony with our surroundings and maybe electric cars are a part of a solution. Not all the solution, just a part. Recycling, Reducing, Reusing, etc. also help, but it has to become a global effort.
It is really easy to bitch about damns/gas/coal/oil, when surfing on the net on a nice office with central cooling...
If all this patent-legal-blah-blah-blah keeps going in the same direction, what's next?
Will Exxon patent "convenience stores" and ask all mom-and-dad stores to pay for being an small store close to the suburbs?
"This 1-click is mine" Amazon's position is just another show of the mono/oligopolistic ideology that is becoming stronger in occidental business sense. Sometime I think that I should be surprised that in the US there are lawyers who follow this crap, but then I remember about the "Warning! Our Hot Coffee is Hot" policy from McDonald's...
IMHO, you are missing:
Middle 90's: Command&Conquer and 5 years of ripoffs (not on game consoles, but still games)
And yes... we need something new... It was amazing/intriging to see all the noise about Pitfall a couple of weeks ago. That is a simple and funny game which still cautivates gameplayers...
... you cannot just close it.
.mp3 in order to listen if he likes or not the CD
MP3.com attempt to charge for the storage of your already-paid-for music is not going to work. The box is open, and a more creative solution that just being an e-harddisk should be done if they want to attract users.
I belive more in the Napster attempt to make money besides advertising. Legal and profitable peer-to-peer music sharing can be done in an easy way:
1.- Person A adquires a legal CD and register his own copy on MyMusic.com for FREE (or whatever site you want it to be)
2.- Person B pays MyMusic.com a small fee (let's say the US$5/mo that is belive Napster would charge)
3.- Mr. B can temporarily download Mr. A legal
4.- MyMusic pays some fee (an small fraction of the fee paid by Mr. B) to the CD's MusicHouse who published it.
5.- After some time, let's say 2 weeks, the mp3 downloaded by Mr. B stops working
6.- If Mr. B liked the CD, then he/she/it buys it and pays the MusicHouse. If Mr. B dislike the CD, he/she/it does not.
In this way, Mr. B is not paying for something that doesn't want, but at same time the MusicHouse is earning some revenue from the music sharing
The final question would be if $5/mo for downloading ~100 songs will seem attractive for the MusicHouse (5 cents/song); which I believe they will because 5cents is better than nothing.
And, if Mr. B only wants to listen to the today-popular-tomorrow-forgotten music (let's say KidRock, Britney or Eminem), Mr. B is getting a good deal for just $5...
And when are the SmallSoldiers coming up?
My little brother needs some action besides PS2!!
The idea sounds good, but I do not see a $60-per-year option as a valid option...
It still is cheaper to click BlockAddres in your Yahoo! account or make a rule in your Outlook
The bionic hand is not really such a huge advance in BioTech. I don't want to sound rude, but this is nothing more that just an small advance in a huge medical effort. Since the 70's, some robotic extremities have been engineered. I remember watching mechanical Legs and Arms have been on "Believe it or not" since the 80's, just that those where less developed and attractive to the eye. I would suggest that this advance is not really a huge step in medicine, but just the normal advance of the HighTech practice which is manufacturing all kind stuff even smaller. This bionic hand is to old protesis what a Palm VII is to an Commodore 64 with modem... it is nothing more that the same principle with some extra time of technological advance...