I think this service is great. The.99 impulse buy price sounds like a "magic number" to me.
If I was Steve-o Jobbs, I'd allow and motivate people to use the Apple stores (or other stores, Best Buy, Circuit City, Ratty Shack, etc.) to access this service. Wouldn't it be great for the non-tech-savvy does-not-have-a-broadband-connection is-afraid-to-install-new-software customer to go into a store (with a nice fat broadband connection), pick the songs they want and walk out with a custom CD hot off the burner?
Of course, there might be snags (they wouldn't want the file you bought to be accessible by another anonymous walk in customer), but it's probably easy to work around.
People here seem stuck on the fallacy of price having to do with cost.
There was a very enlightening article being commented on some site, which one was it... Oh, yeah this one;-).
Here's a snippet: "Monroe tells a pricing story that shows how even the simplest situation can confound accepted wisdom about prices. "A company is making two versions of the same product," says Monroe. "One has a little more gold and foil on it, but they're essentially the same. One is $14.95; the other is $18.95." Not surprisingly, the $14.95 item is selling better. It's also the lower-profit product.
"Then a competitor comes in with a third product. Again, it's essentially the same thing, but a fancier version. And it's much higher priced: $34.95."
For our original company, asks Monroe, "what becomes the best-seller? Why, the $18.95 version, of course."""
The gist is, price has nothing to do with cost (other, of course, that you don't want to lose money in the long run). Pricing is whatever will maximize your profit, either by selling more at a lower price, less at a higher price, charging different prices for different customers, selling at a loss now to acquire customers who will pay more later (DVDs for a penny each anyone?), or whatever you can get away with.
IMHO, LCD prices are high because people are buying. I still stick with my 19" CRT. Although I'd like to reclaim the desk space, energy savings, etc., I'm not gonna shell out big bucks for overpriced, lower refresh rate, lower resolution LCDs. Moreover, while other people do, the prices won't come down that much.
Modern society allows people with disfunctions or disabilites (like this guy) to (sometimes) not only function but also thrive.
No offense to anyone, I'm just trying to be analytical, but I guess many people who would've probably died -- or at least have been at a big disadvantage -- from their disabilities now are able to live a happy, productive life, mate, breed and (in some cases) pass their disabilities on. I myself have asthma and often depend on medicine to breathe, and both my siblings have other problems, so maybe all of us would have been dead, or maybe have a very hard time mating and breeding (now hold on... is this why geeks have a hard time getting laid?;-)
So I ask, what is this causing to the human race and its genetic pool? Are we becoming physically and maybe even mentally weaker?
OTOH, who knows the parameters for what is actually best? Maybe it would be good if we all were shorter, fatter and dumber. Or taller, thinner, weaker, smarter, geekier, wear glasses, who knows?
I'm no expert, but I'd think it's still probably cheaper to pay and get the patent and prevent the lawsuits than having to prove your prior art in court. Probably one single instance of preventing it covers more than the cost of getting the patent.
I might be naive to think of Google as one of the last remaining non-evil powers out there, but maybe the reason they are doing this is not to profit from it, but to protect themselves... Say someone ends up patenting something similar enough to Google's techniques and that they end up suing them, Google will have the patent in hand to argue. Having this patent for starters will probably prevent this from ever happening (and save them the money from - yuck - legal expenses) so good for them!
If someone starts a fund for supporting folks being sued, I'd pitch in. This whole litigious mindset makes me sick. Big corporations think they can win just because they throw more money at it than the common folk, they don't care about being fair or who's actually braking the law. It'd be great to turn this around...
This is another argument in favor of extra-terrestrial life. IMHO, it is very likely there's life out there. However, it could be so radically different than ours that not only it would be pretty much impossible for "us" to communicate with "them", but also we wouldn't even recognize each other as life!
"Houston, we are landing on big rock number one, as planned... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... contact." (Days later) "Ok, Houston, we are ready to depart. Our tests show no signs of life. We are coming back." (One hundred years later) "Ouch! Mom, I think something just scratched my back." (Two hundres years later) "Hmm, I don't see anything. You've probably just imagined it. Come on dear, it's time for your nap. I'll wake you up in 360 millenia, when dinner is ready."
Psychohistory laws in Asimov's books only applied to a large enough group of people, in the case of the Galactic Empire many billion (I don't remember how many, but many times the current population of earth). I tend to agree with that, they're not gonna get consistent results looking at just a couple of million people, and not even a random enough sample at that. (I've just re-read for the some of the Foundation books)
Anyhow, you can make statistic say whatever you want to say, as long as you examine the "right" data...
Ok... next you'll say an apple falls because of the law of gravity, right? IMO, Wrong. The apple just falls. We use a model called "the law of gravity" to represent its fall. This "law" does not even hold true for everything (e.g. at the levels quantum mechanics deals with).
I think we've all been brainwashed by our current society to think that whatever scientists come up with must be true (even if there are contradictions). All scientists do is propose models that satisfy certain (limited) conditions and help predict some behaviors consistenlty. The causality, however, is nothing but a model that helps us understand the model. It has nothing to do with reality.
Of course, I might be wrong and stupid. But who isn't?;-)
I wonder if the heat could be converted back to electricity, sorta like the Regenerative Braking of the Toyota Prius.
It would be really nice to cool things and at the same time use (some of) that energy.
Of course, that whole idea isn't new -- see Robert A. Heinlein's Shipstones from "Friday"...
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I think this service is great. The .99 impulse buy price sounds like a "magic number" to me.
If I was Steve-o Jobbs, I'd allow and motivate people to use the Apple stores (or other stores, Best Buy, Circuit City, Ratty Shack, etc.) to access this service. Wouldn't it be great for the non-tech-savvy does-not-have-a-broadband-connection is-afraid-to-install-new-software customer to go into a store (with a nice fat broadband connection), pick the songs they want and walk out with a custom CD hot off the burner?
Of course, there might be snags (they wouldn't want the file you bought to be accessible by another anonymous walk in customer), but it's probably easy to work around.
Kudos to Apple anyway.
Just click on the page numbers at the bottom and go to lower ranked pages.
.
I also don't see what's the problem with using -this and -that to filter out the results. You can't expect a computer program to read your mind.
The great thing is, if you don't wan't the vanilla results, the tool allows you to get them, like this or like this
If that's not enough, there's even a Google API for tweaking the way google works. Some information on this and more is in this book.
I say Google is still efficient, and flexible enough.
People here seem stuck on the fallacy of price having to do with cost.
;-).
There was a very enlightening article being commented on some site, which one was it... Oh, yeah this one
Here's a snippet:
"Monroe tells a pricing story that shows how even the simplest situation can confound accepted wisdom about prices. "A company is making two versions of the same product," says Monroe. "One has a little more gold and foil on it, but they're essentially the same. One is $14.95; the other is $18.95." Not surprisingly, the $14.95 item is selling better. It's also the lower-profit product.
"Then a competitor comes in with a third product. Again, it's essentially the same thing, but a fancier version. And it's much higher priced: $34.95."
For our original company, asks Monroe, "what becomes the best-seller? Why, the $18.95 version, of course."""
The gist is, price has nothing to do with cost (other, of course, that you don't want to lose money in the long run). Pricing is whatever will maximize your profit, either by selling more at a lower price, less at a higher price, charging different prices for different customers, selling at a loss now to acquire customers who will pay more later (DVDs for a penny each anyone?), or whatever you can get away with.
IMHO, LCD prices are high because people are buying. I still stick with my 19" CRT. Although I'd like to reclaim the desk space, energy savings, etc., I'm not gonna shell out big bucks for overpriced, lower refresh rate, lower resolution LCDs. Moreover, while other people do, the prices won't come down that much.
So why do astronomers always compare the size of meteors to Volkswagen bugs?
/. posts tend to end with witty or sarcastic questions?
So why is it
Modern society allows people with disfunctions or disabilites (like this guy) to (sometimes) not only function but also thrive.
;-)
No offense to anyone, I'm just trying to be analytical, but I guess many people who would've probably died -- or at least have been at a big disadvantage -- from their disabilities now are able to live a happy, productive life, mate, breed and (in some cases) pass their disabilities on. I myself have asthma and often depend on medicine to breathe, and both my siblings have other problems, so maybe all of us would have been dead, or maybe have a very hard time mating and breeding (now hold on... is this why geeks have a hard time getting laid?
So I ask, what is this causing to the human race and its genetic pool? Are we becoming physically and maybe even mentally weaker?
OTOH, who knows the parameters for what is actually best? Maybe it would be good if we all were shorter, fatter and dumber. Or taller, thinner, weaker, smarter, geekier, wear glasses, who knows?
I was just yesterday talking to some friends about Earthships.
Packed dirt not only offers thermal mass to help with heating and cooling costs, but also might be "hypo-allergenic".
I'm no expert, but I'd think it's still probably cheaper to pay and get the patent and prevent the lawsuits than having to prove your prior art in court. Probably one single instance of preventing it covers more than the cost of getting the patent.
I might be naive to think of Google as one of the last remaining non-evil powers out there, but maybe the reason they are doing this is not to profit from it, but to protect themselves... Say someone ends up patenting something similar enough to Google's techniques and that they end up suing them, Google will have the patent in hand to argue. Having this patent for starters will probably prevent this from ever happening (and save them the money from - yuck - legal expenses) so good for them!
If someone starts a fund for supporting folks being sued, I'd pitch in. This whole litigious mindset makes me sick. Big corporations think they can win just because they throw more money at it than the common folk, they don't care about being fair or who's actually braking the law. It'd be great to turn this around...
This is another argument in favor of extra-terrestrial life. IMHO, it is very likely there's life out there. However, it could be so radically different than ours that not only it would be pretty much impossible for "us" to communicate with "them", but also we wouldn't even recognize each other as life!
"Houston, we are landing on big rock number one, as planned... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... contact."
(Days later)
"Ok, Houston, we are ready to depart. Our tests show no signs of life. We are coming back."
(One hundred years later)
"Ouch! Mom, I think something just scratched my back."
(Two hundres years later)
"Hmm, I don't see anything. You've probably just imagined it. Come on dear, it's time for your nap. I'll wake you up in 360 millenia, when dinner is ready."
Psychohistory laws in Asimov's books only applied to a large enough group of people, in the case of the Galactic Empire many billion (I don't remember how many, but many times the current population of earth). I tend to agree with that, they're not gonna get consistent results looking at just a couple of million people, and not even a random enough sample at that. (I've just re-read for the some of the Foundation books)
Anyhow, you can make statistic say whatever you want to say, as long as you examine the "right" data...
Somehow my email address got into an Italian spam list. I'm receiving a lot of Italian spam now.
I also receive a lot of spam from Brazil...
Ok... next you'll say an apple falls because of the law of gravity, right? IMO, Wrong. The apple just falls. We use a model called "the law of gravity" to represent its fall. This "law" does not even hold true for everything (e.g. at the levels quantum mechanics deals with).
;-)
I think we've all been brainwashed by our current society to think that whatever scientists come up with must be true (even if there are contradictions). All scientists do is propose models that satisfy certain (limited) conditions and help predict some behaviors consistenlty. The causality, however, is nothing but a model that helps us understand the model. It has nothing to do with reality.
Of course, I might be wrong and stupid. But who isn't?
I wonder if the heat could be converted back to electricity, sorta like the Regenerative Braking of the Toyota Prius. It would be really nice to cool things and at the same time use (some of) that energy. Of course, that whole idea isn't new -- see Robert A. Heinlein's Shipstones from "Friday"...