You're not really missing anything, but the Board does have a role in a hostile bid. Much of that role depends on the votong rights assigned to various share classes that have been issued over the years, and I'm no expert there (I only own a few shares). Generally-speaking, it's incumbant on the Board to provide fair analysis and opinion to the shareholders on any takeover bid (hostile or not). By law, the job of any Board is to serve the interests and rights of the shareholders.
FWIW... I agree with you that Eisner must go. I do not believe, however, that Disney needs any merger to survive. Disney is very vertically-integrated in that it produces content, distributes content, manages spin-off licensing, etc. Furthermore, they are sitting on tons of cash. Comcast just doesn't offer any capabilities that Disney does not already have.
You can still get the Disney stock certs suitable for framing. Each of my kids has one and they are quite attractive pieces of artwork. Check out www.oneshare.com if you're interested.
P.S. As a shareholder, you also get Disney's annual report - which is always and interesting read. AND.... you get to vote out Mr. Eisner!
The AOL-TimeWarner allegory is an apt one. Comcast believes that with their pipes and Disney's content, magic will happen. This, of course, is crap. Consider that:
(a) Disney has no issues distributing content and making money, thank you very much.
(b) Disney-owned ABC (which distributes Disney content) is, ummmm, sucking....
Content distribution is pretty easy these days, I think. The real money is actually having something compelling that people want to watch, play, hear, etc. I cannot see any long-term up-side for Disney in any merger like this.
I am getting a very bad feeling about Deus Ex 2 as well. Everything I have read (which is quite a bit lately) suggests that the game is, indeed, dumbed down. Complaints I've heard include annoying HUD, the universal ammo concept, bad AI, and short missions. OTOH, I have read a few reviews that say the atmosphere of the game is very much in line with DX 1 (part of my love for the game I think was 'atmosphere').
Interestingly, I read one post somewhere that outlines.ini file tweaks to fix some of the complaints.
Of course, all of this is based on playing the demo - which I've yet to download myself. Demos are notoriously bad - buggy beta code oftentimes. My opinion so far... DX 2 is very much aimed at capturing some dollars in the console market and the gameplay has been altered accordingly. That said, I'm pretty sure I will buy the PC version for myself. So I guess Warren wins on all counts....
All I'm saying is that the Gamerankings number is not reflective of a game's popularity with the Gamers out there - which is the ultimate arbiter of a game's goodness. I hate Tetris, for example, but there's no denying that it has been a popular game (concept).
Whatever my opinion of a game is, it's just my own opinion. I played Halo and it held my attention enough to finish, but I expected more from Halo based on the XBox hype. You say that the game was 'magic' on the console, and I have to believe it.
As for why the PC gamers are dissing Halo, I can't say - but I have to believe there's some of that ol' PC vs. console bigotry in there. I play PC and console games, so I think I'm pretty non-biased. Halo for PC was just a let-down for me and I would not recommend it too much based on my own experiences. It could sell a million copies and I'd still have the same opinion. Others will disagree and the market will ultimately decide.
Sorry, but the gamerankings number doesn't mean jack-shit. It's not reflective of player opinions, just an amalgam of mags and newspapers. Not very scientific at all.
I finished Halo for PC and I can safely say it's nothing special at all. Nice to look and efficient game design for sure. But it's basically just a 'run around and shoot aliens and flip some switches' kinda game.
I have never played the XBox version, so maybe it's much better. But really, if this game is/was the killer app for XBox I will never buy that particular console.
Like I say... Halo was a nice little time-waster, but it's not even close to the league of Deus Ex and the like.
I'm an enterprise architect for a large multi-national bank. This is only relevant to give context that we are a typical giant corporation. We've recently been in planning mode to replace approx 25,000 OS/2 desktops and a few thousand OS/2 servers used in our retail branch locations.
The choice, obviously, was Windows or Linux. Each choice has distinct risk - Windows is a lot of money and loss of upgrade control (financial/logistical risk) and Linux still has an unclear future in some contexts (strategic risk). Of course, they both have their benefits which we all know about.
So why did we choose Windows even though it costs more money (licensing, new hardware, etc.)? Two fundamental reasons:
lack of shrinkwrapped software. Not a huge problem for our retail locations, but more of an optical problem for senior mgmt.
lack of standardized GUI!!
Make no mistake, the GUI issue is a big one for big Corps. It speaks to a perceived lack of standardized builds, support, etc. for Linux. Big companies (and home users) typically don't need or want a lot of choice. We don't need or want to worry about dealing with Corp XYZ Linux. What is great for the geek hobbyist is not so great for the rest of us who just need computers to help us 'do stuff'.
I'm not being too articulate here, but Linux on the desktop will continue to stagnate while esoteric arguments over 'choice' and 'Windows Users Are Dumb' drag on and on. The Linux community, as a whole, has got to understand who the users are and what the users need. Sometimes, standardization - i.e. lack of choice - is good.
Number one: The inevitable stories (showing up on Fark) of amusing and scary exo-skeleton-gone-wrong stories.
Number two: The inevitable hack that will enable Geeks to fully participate in a social activity called "dancing".
Disney has used a (sorta) similar technology in their DisneyWorld (Disney Studios) show called 'Fantasmic'. Rather than generating fog and the air-stream to keep it in line, the Disney approach sprays a wall of fine mist from the ground up. Film and laser animation are then projected onto this curtain. I don't have any good idea of the size of curtain they produce, but it seems huge - i.e. two of these curtains are used for an audience of approx. 10,000 people.
The software industry is, indeed, in a slump. However, they are the masters of their own fortunes. Consider: 15, even 10, years ago the industry was pretty healthy. At that time the platforms we all had to consider were in a much narrower spectrum of (practical) choices than exists today.
In a long-ago land, large companies ran Big Iron and green screens and it was pretty damn easy to buy software packages and get them into production. The biggest worry was the amount of customization needed to make the stuff 'fit' your specific business processes, etc.
Nowadays.... We have *nix, Windows, MVS, etc. running on all manner of hardware. We have middleware out the wazoo. So when we go to the street to buy a software package, it's a decent bet that the vendor may drive you to a new platform in your shop. Complexity, cost, etc. increases - and that's even before you have to deal with customization, integration into security infrastructre, etc.
All in all... the software industry gave us many of these platforms, so now they are dealing with it. Pushing industry standards for 'stuff' is the only way the industry will ever find its legs again, and I'm not very confident that this will industry will come back to good health any time soon. In the meantime, let's talk about a new licensing plan, shall we?
....right...You won't see Sun 10K or IBM zSeries on that list, cause they're in a different league. For many organizations, the TPC.org class of processors is more than fine. For large organizations with larger TP needs, these platforms are not enough for backend processing.
Ummm.... I've been doing enterprise-scale development for many years and can tell you that "platform" is, indeed, something we think and worry about often. Here's the platform gap between.NET and J2EE.
I'm no homer for J2EE (just another tool), but it can run on many different platforms all the way up Big Iron (IBM zSeries or perhaps Sun 10000 series)..NET runs on puny Intel-like servers. For a company that worries about scale (like the bank I work for), I would much rather manage J2EE running on a Parallel Sysplex environment than sheparding a growing cluster of Windows servers.
A few other points:
J2EE is not a lot more expensive when you look at all-in cost for development, platform, admin, etc.
we build lots of lots of lots of real world apps (10 million customer bank with Web, Wireless, full branch, call center)with J2EE and, no, we do not use proprietary server APIs.
Maybe I've been watching too many X-Files re-runs, but I seem to recall that ECMA funding was drying up a few years back. It was MS that came to the rescue with a few bucks to keep ECMA afloat. Lo and behold, MS starts submitting (partial) specs to ECMA to lend an air of respectability to their tech.
Don't get me wrong, SUN could be trying harder with Java standards, but they have tried in the past (albeit to have their cake and eat it too). In the end, Java is not real proprietary now is it? Lots of folks use it, the API is expansive, and it's stabilized quite a bit compared to the early days before Java 1.1.
That said, I'll take Java and the involvement from big players like IBM and Oracle vs. the MS-only perspective propped up by ECMA (whose track record is not spectacular).
My post was not very complete, and you have my apologies. My meaning was that HTTP compression, efficient link mgmt, and cache mgmt are availabile in modern browsers.
No doubt that Propel have taken these capabilities and raised them to another level to achieve it 5X improvement goals.
However, there are limitations that I do not believe you can get around, including:
rich content (e.g. images) are not very compressible
sometimes you need the HTTP server to participate in performance-enhancing scenarios (e.g. HTTP compression)
there is a point where no further performance gains can be had on a conventional (i.e. NOT Gigabit-Ethernet) network for Web content because of the application 'turns' that are required to fully render a page.
I'm not trying to diss Propel, because I'm sure it does offer improvements. But ultimately there are limits.
I've been battling Web performance in my companies's internal network (1300 sites nation-wide) for awhile now. All of the techniques Propel uses - cache mgmt, compression, persistent connections - have been used by us with varying degrees of success.
Others have waxed eloquent here on what these tactics can do for performance. In general, no one should expect (or believe!) that WWW surfing will get a whole lot faster for these users of enhanced dial-up.
In fact, the Propel tech is, for the most part, already available in modern browsers. The problem is that ISPs are not in control of their users' end-points (i.e. what browser they are using). Consequently, they mandate the Propel tech as a way to ensure all their users are at a sufficient level of browing capability.
Say what you want about Canadians...
on
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·
· Score: 2, Informative
...but their war coverage is not too bad. Check out:
Interesting perspective... However, those swelling ranks of.NET developers are typically just Windows developers moving on to the 'next big idea' from MS (as OLE begat Activex which begat DNA which begat.NET which begat ???).
I do not believe that.NET is adding too much to the current Windows developer-base. Were I to be developing Windows apps today in ASP or an old release of VB, then.NET would look pretty attractive to me in terms of functionality uplifts, etc.
However, if I'm a developer working in Java or something else, there's no compelling reason I've seen to move on to.NET (this has been my personal experience).
IMHO, the biggest threats to Linux survival are the lack of standard desktop GUI, a lack of 3rd-party apps, a lack of 3rd-party support (getting better here), and the lack of consumer configs (Lindows is a total brain-cramp).
Patterns are way too overused for my tastes. They speak to structures and themes rather than methodology. As well, they are not too useful in framing up a users requirements. Rather, they present a design lingua franca for programmers. So, while they are interesting to think about, patterns (to me) are much more of a rear-window view of design.
My comments were tongue-in-cheek, of course. If guys want to subscribe to this service/community/whatever, more power to them.
But, c'mon, have you read the website? It's mob-rule driven by thought police and a narrow definition of morality and pornography. If you have a porn addiction so serious that you're willing to participate in NetAccountability, I think your problems might be serious enough to get real help. Guys who want to be better husbands/Dads/citizens should not begin the process by delegating their own responsibilities to a piece of software. To do so seems to imply that they are not serious about being accountable (but would rather have someone/something else do the heavy lifting for them).
.... Donald Sutherland (or something that looks just like him) spots you on the street and points an accusing finger at you punctuated by his unhuman screeching noise....
Perhaps the participants in this wrong-headed scheme could get uniforms or something. Maybe some kind of shirt. Brown. That's it's - brown shirts. And armbands, too!!
But seriously, this has to one of the stupidest ideas I've heard in awhile. It smacks of those Promise Keepers guys.
Great... MS has discovered versioning and makes a big announcement. But what is really going on here is that MS is trying to design their way out of a more fundamental design problem that has plagued Windows since Day One. That is, they allow system-level software (DLLs) to co-mingle with software others have written. How many Windows shrink-wrap products have taken advantage of this feature by modifying base Windows DLLs, tripping the light fantastic over system-level directories, etc.??
OS/2 - as an example only - had a much better scheme where o/s stuff lived in its own space and the stuff you built/bought lived in its own space (and never the twain shall meet). On top of that, they implemented the idea of a LIBPATH env variable so that you could set the path OS/2 would take when looking for DLLs. Consequently, screwups were minimized, versioning was not an issue, built/bought software could be maintained easily, and (wait for it...) you could upgrade the o/s without blowing away all your apps!
This has been a pretty fine magazine; albeit a bit hit-and-miss at times. Where Wired and its ilk focused on being the People magazine for a tech generation, Shift found a voice in showing the practical effects of technology on how most of us live. It's a damn shame....
Slashdot Mirror
You're not really missing anything, but the Board does have a role in a hostile bid. Much of that role depends on the votong rights assigned to various share classes that have been issued over the years, and I'm no expert there (I only own a few shares). Generally-speaking, it's incumbant on the Board to provide fair analysis and opinion to the shareholders on any takeover bid (hostile or not). By law, the job of any Board is to serve the interests and rights of the shareholders. FWIW... I agree with you that Eisner must go. I do not believe, however, that Disney needs any merger to survive. Disney is very vertically-integrated in that it produces content, distributes content, manages spin-off licensing, etc. Furthermore, they are sitting on tons of cash. Comcast just doesn't offer any capabilities that Disney does not already have.
You can still get the Disney stock certs suitable for framing. Each of my kids has one and they are quite attractive pieces of artwork. Check out www.oneshare.com if you're interested. P.S. As a shareholder, you also get Disney's annual report - which is always and interesting read. AND.... you get to vote out Mr. Eisner!
The AOL-TimeWarner allegory is an apt one. Comcast believes that with their pipes and Disney's content, magic will happen. This, of course, is crap. Consider that: (a) Disney has no issues distributing content and making money, thank you very much. (b) Disney-owned ABC (which distributes Disney content) is, ummmm, sucking.... Content distribution is pretty easy these days, I think. The real money is actually having something compelling that people want to watch, play, hear, etc. I cannot see any long-term up-side for Disney in any merger like this.
I am getting a very bad feeling about Deus Ex 2 as well. Everything I have read (which is quite a bit lately) suggests that the game is, indeed, dumbed down. Complaints I've heard include annoying HUD, the universal ammo concept, bad AI, and short missions. OTOH, I have read a few reviews that say the atmosphere of the game is very much in line with DX 1 (part of my love for the game I think was 'atmosphere'). Interestingly, I read one post somewhere that outlines .ini file tweaks to fix some of the complaints.
Of course, all of this is based on playing the demo - which I've yet to download myself. Demos are notoriously bad - buggy beta code oftentimes. My opinion so far... DX 2 is very much aimed at capturing some dollars in the console market and the gameplay has been altered accordingly. That said, I'm pretty sure I will buy the PC version for myself. So I guess Warren wins on all counts....
All I'm saying is that the Gamerankings number is not reflective of a game's popularity with the Gamers out there - which is the ultimate arbiter of a game's goodness. I hate Tetris, for example, but there's no denying that it has been a popular game (concept). Whatever my opinion of a game is, it's just my own opinion. I played Halo and it held my attention enough to finish, but I expected more from Halo based on the XBox hype. You say that the game was 'magic' on the console, and I have to believe it. As for why the PC gamers are dissing Halo, I can't say - but I have to believe there's some of that ol' PC vs. console bigotry in there. I play PC and console games, so I think I'm pretty non-biased. Halo for PC was just a let-down for me and I would not recommend it too much based on my own experiences. It could sell a million copies and I'd still have the same opinion. Others will disagree and the market will ultimately decide.
Sorry, but the gamerankings number doesn't mean jack-shit. It's not reflective of player opinions, just an amalgam of mags and newspapers. Not very scientific at all. I finished Halo for PC and I can safely say it's nothing special at all. Nice to look and efficient game design for sure. But it's basically just a 'run around and shoot aliens and flip some switches' kinda game. I have never played the XBox version, so maybe it's much better. But really, if this game is/was the killer app for XBox I will never buy that particular console. Like I say... Halo was a nice little time-waster, but it's not even close to the league of Deus Ex and the like.
- lack of shrinkwrapped software. Not a huge problem for our retail locations, but more of an optical problem for senior mgmt.
- lack of standardized GUI!!
Make no mistake, the GUI issue is a big one for big Corps. It speaks to a perceived lack of standardized builds, support, etc. for Linux. Big companies (and home users) typically don't need or want a lot of choice. We don't need or want to worry about dealing with Corp XYZ Linux. What is great for the geek hobbyist is not so great for the rest of us who just need computers to help us 'do stuff'. I'm not being too articulate here, but Linux on the desktop will continue to stagnate while esoteric arguments over 'choice' and 'Windows Users Are Dumb' drag on and on. The Linux community, as a whole, has got to understand who the users are and what the users need. Sometimes, standardization - i.e. lack of choice - is good.Number one: The inevitable stories (showing up on Fark) of amusing and scary exo-skeleton-gone-wrong stories. Number two: The inevitable hack that will enable Geeks to fully participate in a social activity called "dancing".
Disney has used a (sorta) similar technology in their DisneyWorld (Disney Studios) show called 'Fantasmic'. Rather than generating fog and the air-stream to keep it in line, the Disney approach sprays a wall of fine mist from the ground up. Film and laser animation are then projected onto this curtain. I don't have any good idea of the size of curtain they produce, but it seems huge - i.e. two of these curtains are used for an audience of approx. 10,000 people.
In a long-ago land, large companies ran Big Iron and green screens and it was pretty damn easy to buy software packages and get them into production. The biggest worry was the amount of customization needed to make the stuff 'fit' your specific business processes, etc.
Nowadays.... We have *nix, Windows, MVS, etc. running on all manner of hardware. We have middleware out the wazoo. So when we go to the street to buy a software package, it's a decent bet that the vendor may drive you to a new platform in your shop. Complexity, cost, etc. increases - and that's even before you have to deal with customization, integration into security infrastructre, etc.
All in all... the software industry gave us many of these platforms, so now they are dealing with it. Pushing industry standards for 'stuff' is the only way the industry will ever find its legs again, and I'm not very confident that this will industry will come back to good health any time soon. In the meantime, let's talk about a new licensing plan, shall we?
....right...You won't see Sun 10K or IBM zSeries on that list, cause they're in a different league. For many organizations, the TPC.org class of processors is more than fine. For large organizations with larger TP needs, these platforms are not enough for backend processing.
I'm no homer for J2EE (just another tool), but it can run on many different platforms all the way up Big Iron (IBM zSeries or perhaps Sun 10000 series). .NET runs on puny Intel-like servers. For a company that worries about scale (like the bank I work for), I would much rather manage J2EE running on a Parallel Sysplex environment than sheparding a growing cluster of Windows servers.
A few other points:
Don't get me wrong, SUN could be trying harder with Java standards, but they have tried in the past (albeit to have their cake and eat it too). In the end, Java is not real proprietary now is it? Lots of folks use it, the API is expansive, and it's stabilized quite a bit compared to the early days before Java 1.1.
That said, I'll take Java and the involvement from big players like IBM and Oracle vs. the MS-only perspective propped up by ECMA (whose track record is not spectacular).
No doubt that Propel have taken these capabilities and raised them to another level to achieve it 5X improvement goals.
However, there are limitations that I do not believe you can get around, including:
I'm not trying to diss Propel, because I'm sure it does offer improvements. But ultimately there are limits.
Others have waxed eloquent here on what these tactics can do for performance. In general, no one should expect (or believe!) that WWW surfing will get a whole lot faster for these users of enhanced dial-up.
In fact, the Propel tech is, for the most part, already available in modern browsers. The problem is that ISPs are not in control of their users' end-points (i.e. what browser they are using). Consequently, they mandate the Propel tech as a way to ensure all their users are at a sufficient level of browing capability.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/iraq/
http://www.canada.com/national/features/iraq/
http://iraq.ctv.ca/
Pretty well balanced sites IMHO.
I do not believe that .NET is adding too much to the current Windows developer-base. Were I to be developing Windows apps today in ASP or an old release of VB, then .NET would look pretty attractive to me in terms of functionality uplifts, etc.
However, if I'm a developer working in Java or something else, there's no compelling reason I've seen to move on to .NET (this has been my personal experience).
IMHO, the biggest threats to Linux survival are the lack of standard desktop GUI, a lack of 3rd-party apps, a lack of 3rd-party support (getting better here), and the lack of consumer configs (Lindows is a total brain-cramp).
Patterns are way too overused for my tastes. They speak to structures and themes rather than methodology. As well, they are not too useful in framing up a users requirements. Rather, they present a design lingua franca for programmers. So, while they are interesting to think about, patterns (to me) are much more of a rear-window view of design.
But, c'mon, have you read the website? It's mob-rule driven by thought police and a narrow definition of morality and pornography. If you have a porn addiction so serious that you're willing to participate in NetAccountability, I think your problems might be serious enough to get real help. Guys who want to be better husbands/Dads/citizens should not begin the process by delegating their own responsibilities to a piece of software. To do so seems to imply that they are not serious about being accountable (but would rather have someone/something else do the heavy lifting for them).
Regardless, my apologies if I offended anyone.
Perhaps the participants in this wrong-headed scheme could get uniforms or something. Maybe some kind of shirt. Brown. That's it's - brown shirts. And armbands, too!!
But seriously, this has to one of the stupidest ideas I've heard in awhile. It smacks of those Promise Keepers guys.
*shivers*
...on my trusty ol' Timex Sincliar with its mind-numbing 20K of (expansion) memory. And don't even try to get me started the friggin' keyboard....
OS/2 - as an example only - had a much better scheme where o/s stuff lived in its own space and the stuff you built/bought lived in its own space (and never the twain shall meet). On top of that, they implemented the idea of a LIBPATH env variable so that you could set the path OS/2 would take when looking for DLLs. Consequently, screwups were minimized, versioning was not an issue, built/bought software could be maintained easily, and (wait for it...) you could upgrade the o/s without blowing away all your apps!
Can't wait to hear what MS 'discovers' next!
Don't wait until you're too old. Take chances. Dream big. Do stuff. Don't be 'safe'.
This has been a pretty fine magazine; albeit a bit hit-and-miss at times. Where Wired and its ilk focused on being the People magazine for a tech generation, Shift found a voice in showing the practical effects of technology on how most of us live. It's a damn shame....