Yes, I know Sony released the Music Clip, that's why I brought up the MP3 example. This device employs very intrusive measures in an attempt to prevent the copying of CDs. See a MusicClip review for more info.
My point (which is demonstrated by the example) is that because Sony is so diversified through multiple industries and service sectors and because it's so focused on domination, it acts in ways it's competitors would not. In this case a smaller competitor producing an digital music player would solely concentrate on producing the best player it could that directly reflects the consumer's desires. Conversely Sony will produce a player that ensures that it's music division isn't threatened.
Finally, it is my understanding that the Music Clip doesn't play MP3's, the desktop software will however transparently translate an MP3 into it's own proprietary format, a process which degrades the audio quality. There appears to be some debate on this matter however.
Also please keep in mind that this is just one example, run a Slashdot search on Sony for many more.
I'm certainly not a corporate basher, I don't believe in the multinational boogie man. However Sony is different from most corporations for two reasons;
Sony isn't run like any other multinational corporation. While most conglomerates operate and finance (essentially govern) a number of child companies Sony operates as a single entity. Sony's goal isn't to provide maximum returns to shareholders. Sony's goal is to win the world. Sony isn't just a brand, it's an entity, this makes it unique.
Sony's enormously diversified, It's trying to provide everything to everyone. This means that it won't do any one thing as another company in that particular industry would. For example; Sony won't release an MP3 player because that could conceivably hurt it's music division. This shows how Sony's interest is not the consumer's interest.
Sony has proven time and again that they contrary to the people's interest. The term "Business is war" is a universal Japanese philosophy, the problem is that Sony takes the consumer hostage.
I'm all for dissing multinationals who stomp on an innovative new comer. But in this case what iCrave is doing is clearly illegal. Everyone know that you can't redistribute copyrighted material without permission. What the heck did they expect to happen?
Maybe they figured they'd broadcast for a short time to boost hits, then drop it when the lawyers begin to take notice.
The only reason he registered the domain name was to put Microsoft into an embarassing situation (he only beat them to registering it by a couple of minutes). Now he's just draggin it on and on... Get over it pal, it may have been mildly amusing at first, now it's just pathetic. You're 15 minutes are up, let it go.
Does this guy really think that 2000 new years is the most important moment in his life? What a looser! Watching the millenium roll by made me realise that it's really completely meaningless. The important moments are the ones you make, those personal events in your life that come together to build the person that you are.
Frankly the author isn't very bright, Sony is one of the largest consumer electronics manufacturers in the world (if not the largest). Sony has a market cap of $111 Billion (yes folks that's even bigger than Red Hat:). It's so big that it's considered the barometer of the Japanese stock market (largely due to Sony's recent performance, Japan is considered to have climbed out of it's recession).
Saying that Sony is absolutely dependent on the success of a game console is ridiculous. The idea that this split is related the PS2's release is preposterous.
Most likely it was a little inside joke. Which unfortunatly got seen by too many people who thought it was real and it had to be removed (if you look now it says 2000).
A real snake applies force on the bumps and imperfections of the surface it's moving on. Except for sidewinders and large constrictors, most snakes can't progress at all on perfectly flat surfaces. They have to brace themselves in a couple different places then strategically apply shearing forces on these braces to move forward. Fortunatly for these snakes flat surfaces are extremely rare in nature (ice is the only one that comes to mind, and if a snake's on that it's got bigger problems).
The only snakes that can move by gripping with their scales are the large constrictors. This is because those snakes are so big that for them there are more relatively flat surfaces than for smaller snakes.
This is really just an exercise in compact mechanical design and precision machining. It doesn't come anywhere close really simulating a snake. These 'mechanical snakes' move simply by orienting a long track of wheels in such a way that sheering forces are induced that propel the body forward.
The resulting effect is something that only looks like a snake, but doesn't replicate any of the complex but subtle perceptions/decisions and movements required by real snakes. I'd be far more impressed if the snake instead moved by sliding it's body (not it's wheels) through a set of bumps. Such a machine could travel almost anywhere in the real world.
It's simply three large laptop screens placed close to each other within the same case. It'd be really crappy to work with, imagine doing 2/3rds of you're work with your neck crooked to the side. Plus of course the 2 panel intersect points would be unusable (i.e. you'd have to make sure your apps didn't overlap them). Finally, I don't think they've even managed to get it working yet. The photos they show are pure BS, in one of them the guy is pretending their's a keyboard under his fingers (check out the one with the red car picture to see what I mean).
Yes... that's obvious. My point is that public shareholders suffered the price drop of those shares as opposed to Cowpland. That makes the public shareholders the victim of insider trading. Catfish?
The bottom line is that more Corel stock was in public hands as a result of Cowpland selling. Meaning that public stockholders lost the money that Cowpland didn't. Clearly the victim is the public shareholder.
I recently bought a Sony portable CD player. I know Sony is a souless machine with no morals and no humanity, but I bought it anyway. I didn't really think about it, it was just the easiest way to fullfill my immediate desires. And now I feel like shit.
He may have written things in a fanciful light but it looks to be based in fact. All you have to do is surf to eBay and run a search on the user feedback for fish8. It's hilarious! This guy really knows how to hype pure crap! Check out his writup for the Depp match boxes.
As a magazine columnist it isn't surprising that he'd interview celebrities.
Last time Rob posted stats, Slashdot was getting 1 million hits a month. eBay gets 1 million hits an HOUR. There is no "Slashdot Effect" in the world of eBay. I'm sure any eBay sys-admins reading your post are chuckling quietly to themselves.
... and that's the point. It's a perfectly natural aspect of human development allowing for maximum diversity among the same species (i.e. by killing of certain parts of the brain and allowing others to take their place you can have high heterogeneity from a common blueprint). If it wasn't for biological tricks like this we'd all still be in dank caves.
It is overly beneficial for a species to have certain members that excel in some areas at the expense of other areas. By sacrificing some capacities others are enhanced (though likely not to the degree of the loss), thereby making a specialized individual that provides new functionality to the group. Most of us have seen the advantages of a largely heterogeneous population, any Total Annihilation fans out there?
They have little affection/connection (patriotism?) to the company.
They always have something on the side, working for you is just paying some bills.
Conflicts of interest often arise, since their next job will probably be with one of your closest competitors (or again, their side project may become a future competitor).
It's hard to get a real team feeling between contractors and salary employees.
Often contractors arn't the best at their field (I've run into some real stinkers), they just want to make the most money. The true nerds are hard at work making someone else rich (Alan Cox -> Bob Young).
Sometimes open sourcer's forget that the entire world doesn't behave like they do. I'm pretty sure Amiga won't be too happy that an early exploratory meeting with a potential supplier has been broadcast to the world. Possibly sacrificing Amiga's competitive advantage by illuminating their position and strategy.
Oops, it wasn't published in Wired after all. I don't know how I got it into my head that it was. Well I guess I can go back to knowing that Wired sucks...
Wow, it's really rare that I see an article that so closely mirrors my own opinion (and to find such an article in the journalistic wasteland that is Wired is INCREDIBLE). It's time people realize most Hackers (or Crackers, whatever, I couldn't care less) aren't rebellious heroes. They're middle class kids with WAY too much time, and WAY too little self-esteem, imagination, and intelligence.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, I know Sony released the Music Clip, that's why I brought up the MP3 example. This device employs very intrusive measures in an attempt to prevent the copying of CDs. See a MusicClip review for more info.
My point (which is demonstrated by the example) is that because Sony is so diversified through multiple industries and service sectors and because it's so focused on domination, it acts in ways it's competitors would not. In this case a smaller competitor producing an digital music player would solely concentrate on producing the best player it could that directly reflects the consumer's desires. Conversely Sony will produce a player that ensures that it's music division isn't threatened.
Finally, it is my understanding that the Music Clip doesn't play MP3's, the desktop software will however transparently translate an MP3 into it's own proprietary format, a process which degrades the audio quality. There appears to be some debate on this matter however.
Also please keep in mind that this is just one example, run a Slashdot search on Sony for many more.
I'm certainly not a corporate basher, I don't believe in the multinational boogie man. However Sony is different from most corporations for two reasons;
Sony isn't run like any other multinational corporation. While most conglomerates operate and finance (essentially govern) a number of child companies Sony operates as a single entity. Sony's goal isn't to provide maximum returns to shareholders. Sony's goal is to win the world. Sony isn't just a brand, it's an entity, this makes it unique.
Sony's enormously diversified, It's trying to provide everything to everyone. This means that it won't do any one thing as another company in that particular industry would. For example; Sony won't release an MP3 player because that could conceivably hurt it's music division. This shows how Sony's interest is not the consumer's interest.
Sony has proven time and again that they contrary to the people's interest. The term "Business is war" is a universal Japanese philosophy, the problem is that Sony takes the consumer hostage.
I'm all for dissing multinationals who stomp on an innovative new comer. But in this case what iCrave is doing is clearly illegal. Everyone know that you can't redistribute copyrighted material without permission. What the heck did they expect to happen?
Maybe they figured they'd broadcast for a short time to boost hits, then drop it when the lawyers begin to take notice.
Anyway, it's not very ethical in my opinion.
If it really is oxidation that degrades it, all you'd need to do is spray-paint the disc with a clearcoat before first using it.
This goes to say that I assume they arn't stupid enough to require oxidation, or maybe they are...
The only reason he registered the domain name was to put Microsoft into an embarassing situation (he only beat them to registering it by a couple of minutes). Now he's just draggin it on and on... Get over it pal, it may have been mildly amusing at first, now it's just pathetic. You're 15 minutes are up, let it go.
Does this guy really think that 2000 new years is the most important moment in his life? What a looser! Watching the millenium roll by made me realise that it's really completely meaningless. The important moments are the ones you make, those personal events in your life that come together to build the person that you are.
Frankly the author isn't very bright, Sony is one of the largest consumer electronics manufacturers in the world (if not the largest). Sony has a market cap of $111 Billion (yes folks that's even bigger than Red Hat :). It's so big that it's considered the barometer of the Japanese stock market (largely due to Sony's recent performance, Japan is considered to have climbed out of it's recession).
Saying that Sony is absolutely dependent on the success of a game console is ridiculous. The idea that this split is related the PS2's release is preposterous.
Most likely it was a little inside joke. Which unfortunatly got seen by too many people who thought it was real and it had to be removed (if you look now it says 2000).
A real snake applies force on the bumps and imperfections of the surface it's moving on. Except for sidewinders and large constrictors, most snakes can't progress at all on perfectly flat surfaces. They have to brace themselves in a couple different places then strategically apply shearing forces on these braces to move forward. Fortunatly for these snakes flat surfaces are extremely rare in nature (ice is the only one that comes to mind, and if a snake's on that it's got bigger problems).
The only snakes that can move by gripping with their scales are the large constrictors. This is because those snakes are so big that for them there are more relatively flat surfaces than for smaller snakes.
This is really just an exercise in compact mechanical design and precision machining. It doesn't come anywhere close really simulating a snake. These 'mechanical snakes' move simply by orienting a long track of wheels in such a way that sheering forces are induced that propel the body forward.
The resulting effect is something that only looks like a snake, but doesn't replicate any of the complex but subtle perceptions/decisions and movements required by real snakes. I'd be far more impressed if the snake instead moved by sliding it's body (not it's wheels) through a set of bumps. Such a machine could travel almost anywhere in the real world.
It's simply three large laptop screens placed close to each other within the same case. It'd be really crappy to work with, imagine doing 2/3rds of you're work with your neck crooked to the side. Plus of course the 2 panel intersect points would be unusable (i.e. you'd have to make sure your apps didn't overlap them). Finally, I don't think they've even managed to get it working yet. The photos they show are pure BS, in one of them the guy is pretending their's a keyboard under his fingers (check out the one with the red car picture to see what I mean).
Yes... that's obvious. My point is that public shareholders suffered the price drop of those shares as opposed to Cowpland. That makes the public shareholders the victim of insider trading. Catfish?
The bottom line is that more Corel stock was in public hands as a result of Cowpland selling. Meaning that public stockholders lost the money that Cowpland didn't. Clearly the victim is the public shareholder.
I recently bought a Sony portable CD player. I know Sony is a souless machine with no morals and no humanity, but I bought it anyway. I didn't really think about it, it was just the easiest way to fullfill my immediate desires. And now I feel like shit.
He may have written things in a fanciful light but it looks to be based in fact. All you have to do is surf to eBay and run a search on the user feedback for fish8. It's hilarious! This guy really knows how to hype pure crap! Check out his writup for the Depp match boxes.
As a magazine columnist it isn't surprising that he'd interview celebrities.
Last time Rob posted stats, Slashdot was getting 1 million hits a month. eBay gets 1 million hits an HOUR. There is no "Slashdot Effect" in the world of eBay. I'm sure any eBay sys-admins reading your post are chuckling quietly to themselves.
Jim Henson really is dead.
... and that's the point. It's a perfectly natural aspect of human development allowing for maximum diversity among the same species (i.e. by killing of certain parts of the brain and allowing others to take their place you can have high heterogeneity from a common blueprint). If it wasn't for biological tricks like this we'd all still be in dank caves.
It is overly beneficial for a species to have certain members that excel in some areas at the expense of other areas. By sacrificing some capacities others are enhanced (though likely not to the degree of the loss), thereby making a specialized individual that provides new functionality to the group. Most of us have seen the advantages of a largely heterogeneous population, any Total Annihilation fans out there?
Sometimes open sourcer's forget that the entire world doesn't behave like they do. I'm pretty sure Amiga won't be too happy that an early exploratory meeting with a potential supplier has been broadcast to the world. Possibly sacrificing Amiga's competitive advantage by illuminating their position and strategy.
There _is_ a place and time for discretion.
Oops, it wasn't published in Wired after all. I don't know how I got it into my head that it was. Well I guess I can go back to knowing that Wired sucks...
Wow, it's really rare that I see an article that so closely mirrors my own opinion (and to find such an article in the journalistic wasteland that is Wired is INCREDIBLE). It's time people realize most Hackers (or Crackers, whatever, I couldn't care less) aren't rebellious heroes. They're middle class kids with WAY too much time, and WAY too little self-esteem, imagination, and intelligence.
It would be illegal to do it without a warrant, just like tapping a phone.