Sony has realised the importance of making sure there is good content for a gadget like this.
Translation: Sony has realised that to appease the god named Shareholder, they will have to plug this device as the consumer interface to a long and lucrative supply chain, reaching back to publishers (but not to authors: there it's the same as music: either you're one of very few stars, or you do it for love, and only love).
In 2004 it launched a similar device [...] which failed to take off due to [price and] the restrictions it imposed on readers.
Ooh, the sweet smell of insight./hey, does this one come with a rootkit, too?
... so maybe they can clone him. And set him up... in orbit around something.
But seriously - how do they test his DNA? "Yup. It's DNA alright!". Do they compare it to a vial of authentic Copernican spit they acquired on 5th avenue? Do they round up his offspring and run a poll? (or should I just RTFA and shuddup?)
A thought: AFAIR, Apple issued their stuff in the following sequence: - iTunes - the iPod - iTMS - the video iPod
The iPod had to stand on its own merits, iTunes being the only bonus in comparison with other MP3 players - and at the time, that was a big unknown. The video iPod, however, looks to me like an attempt at a stong argument to get users to use iTMS more - but it doesn't have to stand on its own merits. There will be plenty of people saying "I'd get an Archos XYZ - if only it were supported by iTunes / iTMS". It's just not the same killer device the original iPod was. Once they get a real-estate-filling OLED display, fine, but until then it's a disappointingly un-Apple-like compromise.
Come to think of it, it would impact the dating scene some...
(holds up handheld scanner) BZZZT! (starts channeling Frank N. Furter) What charming UNderwear you have!
... well no. All the scanner would really have to do is pop up a total.
ca-CHING$$... this person is wearing clothes valued at U$ 975.-, is carrying U$ 231.- in cash, and three major credit cards... all valid... with a purchase of baby food last week... WARNING! NEGATIVE DATING MATERIAL! BAIL OUT! NEGATIVE DATING MATERIAL!
Looking at the way the **AA are carpet-bombing all and sundry with outree requests in support of their business model - in the hope that the odd one will stick - once RFID tech is used widly, I foresee a future where first major brands, then other retailers and law enforcement will be making similar requests, more or less "because it's technically possible".
=> EULA when you buy a Ralph Lauren shirt, making it illegal to disable the tag? => Extra tax if you nuke your trash before putting it by the roadside? ("WallMart has a right to know!") => Automatic searches at the airport when a scan of your luggage turns results that deviate from the norm? => A new "coming of age" rutual, whereby you have your mandatory kiddy-goes-to-school tag removed when you turn 18 21?
Ok, I was wondering why they didn't have the price somewhere on the web page. Clicky-look-see the order form, and you find out: they're serious when they say it's targeted at development shops, at three kilobucks.
/ah, darn. waited long enough for a reasonable ebook, can wait some more...
I'm sure this has been said better, somewhere else, but I just haven't read it yet: one of the great memes of the age is getting rich quickly. Hence the subject, "rock star". Maybe there are people out there who create the zen way, "create to create", but I guess that a large majority has more dollar signs than stars in their eyes when they fire up that amp / movie camera / what-have-you. If you make it into the "class A" celebrities, you've got it made: you've got the fuck-you cash, and the freedom that goes along with it.
Question: why are all the "new" rock stars still signed up with the big lables, in this day and age? They're signing away 90+% of the proceeds, and essentially all creative control. Answer: because 10-% of the large pie is still bigger than 90% of the small pie, and the big lables still define the term "rock star".
However: if fewer people figured that they can invest a large effort at one time, then re-sell the issue of that effort ten million times at $1 a pop, then this SanDisk invention would be moot. But it's more people, rather then fewer, so the invention is anything but moot.
"Apple's iPod" is only a "debacle" for Microsoft beacuse they decided to make it one. If they concentrated on making good software that plays well with other children, rather than defining each actual innovation in the wider marketplace as a threat to their core competencies - or rather, redefining their core competencies to include any actual innovation as it turns up in the wider marketplace - they might be a "mature" company in two senses of the word.
mmmmhyeah. But how about you want the change the $Inbox to show emails categorised by the first letter of the sender's last name? Or the first two letters? Or first categorised by the year and month, then by the first letter of the last name? Or with a separate category for mails flagged as "important", or "encrypted"? Or any other parameter?
And what about if you want to make this change for all users - or only a selection of users? Or you want your users to be able to select from a list of possibilities?
It's all as hard as the switch you described, no harder. The only problem is that you probably have *too many* choices - but once you're in there... weeee!
so I've never used any of mySQL, postGres, et al... but if I ever do, mySQL will be somewhere towards the bottom of the list now - not predominantly because SCO sucks, which they do, but because of the question of sustainability. If SCO sticks to their track record, mySQL will be facing a very large bill somewhere down the line, for some arcane reason, presented by SCO, and it may well break their collective necks.
My favourite quote: "Man's religion and metaphysics are the voices of his glands" (in turn a quote within the story).
More to the point: behavioural changes caused by parasites are more likely to become part of the "common understanding" of a whole culture, the invisible backgroud radiation, as it were - and less that of individuals freaking out a la "body snatchers".
The really successful parasites, that is.
To take it to an extreme, you could argue that the factoid presented by Blue Stone [(582566) on 2005.09.03 23:44 (#13473066)] above might be connected with religious rituals, more specifically those of Christening or "rebirth" in Christianity. Why did you decide to immerse yourself in water? "It's just a ritual", "God told me to do it", or "actually, my desires are being influenced by parasites in my brain" - who can honestly tell the difference, from the inside?
N.b.: this only becomes really scary if the parasites infect only part of a population. As long as we're all on the same high, "weeeee" is the word.
This problem can't be so hard. "The state" has to either:
- produce or commission its own breathalysers and / or blood alcohol testers, or
- get hold of and keep on standby expert witnesses who can answer the questions in sufficient detail to convince a judge and / or jury.
The fact that neither can be fulfilled at the moment, and that it was (well, predictably) a defendent who had to point the weakness in the current state of affairs is neither here nor there: If "we the people" want to put someone in the slammer, we have to be able to tell them why we are doing so, and if we set up things so badly that we can't, they should indeed go free.
Who's to blame? Probably some mid-level bureaucop who rubbed his/her hands in glee when the saleperson showed them the single button and all the blinkenlights, and signed the purchase order for three dozen units without booting his/her brain. Sic transit gloria mundi. Not that it can't be fixed, tho.
What can be said in their defense is that at least they had the decency to put the two paragraphs on different documents, even if each document is a maximum 2 pages long. So considering the MS lawyers were performing "constrained writing" (I mean hey, they're trying to bind minors into a legal contract, so they have to keep it simple), they achieved a maximum of educational value in a very small package.
To wit: I predict that the winner and the two runners-up will regret having signed the contract, and will thus learn a valuable lession. The lession is: if you made the movie for money, then you have just been screwed over, because you signed away your money-making rights. If you made your movie for art, then you have just been screwed over, because you signed away your distribution rights. And, especially in the latter case, you would have been leaps better off with an OSS / creative commons sort of thing.
And that, I call a very valuable lession.
/Thank you Microsoft! May I have another one, please?! *tHwAcK*
In the materialistic interpretation, humans are nothing other than machines designed to procreate their own blueprint. And the genes have no motivation - procreation is just what they do. Where's the ghost in the machine? If anywhere, it's in the total being more than the sum of the parts. And there's no reason a robot couldn't do that, too.... at some point... when it's a couple of orders of magnitude more complex and faster that it is now.
And if anyone says "soul" I shall let them know that my robot has a perfectly good plastic one I made him out of a gummi bear.
... this is why we need closed-source, encrypted, tamper-proof, proprietary protocols. If any yahoo can look it up or just sniff the network, this is what we get: upset applecarts. Onward DRM! Onward TCPA! Onward Microsoft!
/this patriotic stuff always chokes me up.
(this message brought to you by the masochistic consumers association of America, aka "tie me down, beat me hard, and steal my wallet")
Slashdot Mirror
... is what the individual would have gotten from being hauled into the slammer so fast - had it been an individual who performed what Sony did.
/sure it's been said, bears saying again
Sony has realised the importance of making sure there is good content for a gadget like this.
/hey, does this one come with a rootkit, too?
Translation: Sony has realised that to appease the god named Shareholder, they will have to plug this device as the consumer interface to a long and lucrative supply chain, reaching back to publishers (but not to authors: there it's the same as music: either you're one of very few stars, or you do it for love, and only love).
In 2004 it launched a similar device [...] which failed to take off due to [price and] the restrictions it imposed on readers.
Ooh, the sweet smell of insight.
... so maybe they can clone him. And set him up ... in orbit around something.
But seriously - how do they test his DNA? "Yup. It's DNA alright!". Do they compare it to a vial of authentic Copernican spit they acquired on 5th avenue? Do they round up his offspring and run a poll? (or should I just RTFA and shuddup?)
Yeah, I can see the technical side of the issue.
A thought: AFAIR, Apple issued their stuff in the following sequence:
- iTunes
- the iPod
- iTMS
- the video iPod
The iPod had to stand on its own merits, iTunes being the only bonus in comparison with other MP3 players - and at the time, that was a big unknown.
The video iPod, however, looks to me like an attempt at a stong argument to get users to use iTMS more - but it doesn't have to stand on its own merits. There will be plenty of people saying "I'd get an Archos XYZ - if only it were supported by iTunes / iTMS".
It's just not the same killer device the original iPod was. Once they get a real-estate-filling OLED display, fine, but until then it's a disappointingly un-Apple-like compromise.
No worries, the missionary urge will kick in.
If fundies (of any ilk) can squeeze, say, the bible through their own personal reality check, aliens won't be e prob.
If all else fails, it's a test. The lord is testing us. He's big on that.
On a music iPod you only need the screen for navigating. On a video iPod the screen is used to watch stuff.
Can anybody tell me why 60% of the device's front-side real estate is white plastic?
Damn. Every time I aim for "maximum cynicism / paranoia", someone comes along and trumps me :)
Come to think of it, it would impact the dating scene some ...
... this person is wearing clothes valued at U$ 975.-, is carrying U$ 231.- in cash, and three major credit cards ... all valid ... with a purchase of baby food last week ... WARNING! NEGATIVE DATING MATERIAL! BAIL OUT! NEGATIVE DATING MATERIAL!
(holds up handheld scanner) BZZZT!
(starts channeling Frank N. Furter) What charming UNderwear you have!
... well no. All the scanner would really have to do is pop up a total.
ca-CHING$$
Looking at the way the **AA are carpet-bombing all and sundry with outree requests in support of their business model - in the hope that the odd one will stick - once RFID tech is used widly, I foresee a future where first major brands, then other retailers and law enforcement will be making similar requests, more or less "because it's technically possible".
=> EULA when you buy a Ralph Lauren shirt, making it illegal to disable the tag?
=> Extra tax if you nuke your trash before putting it by the roadside? ("WallMart has a right to know!")
=> Automatic searches at the airport when a scan of your luggage turns results that deviate from the norm?
=> A new "coming of age" rutual, whereby you have your mandatory kiddy-goes-to-school tag removed when you turn 18 21?
The Register has the same story, with a different spin.
To me, looks like the US might not have a whole lot of choice in the matter, in the end.
[...] Two or three hundred years ago, you could read every book ever written.
... but dude ... This went on in the 200's B. C., and it is interesting to note that there were already so many works in existence that obtaining a copy of each would have been an impossible undertaking even then. Even just in English around the early 18th century you would have been in trouble.
I agree with your main point
Ok, I was wondering why they didn't have the price somewhere on the web page. Clicky-look-see the order form, and you find out: they're serious when they say it's targeted at development shops, at three kilobucks.
...
/ah, darn. waited long enough for a reasonable ebook, can wait some more
I'm sure this has been said better, somewhere else, but I just haven't read it yet: one of the great memes of the age is getting rich quickly. Hence the subject, "rock star". Maybe there are people out there who create the zen way, "create to create", but I guess that a large majority has more dollar signs than stars in their eyes when they fire up that amp / movie camera / what-have-you. If you make it into the "class A" celebrities, you've got it made: you've got the fuck-you cash, and the freedom that goes along with it.
Question: why are all the "new" rock stars still signed up with the big lables, in this day and age? They're signing away 90+% of the proceeds, and essentially all creative control. Answer: because 10-% of the large pie is still bigger than 90% of the small pie, and the big lables still define the term "rock star".
However: if fewer people figured that they can invest a large effort at one time, then re-sell the issue of that effort ten million times at $1 a pop, then this SanDisk invention would be moot. But it's more people, rather then fewer, so the invention is anything but moot.
/hello. my name is chris, and I'm a wage slave.
"Apple's iPod" is only a "debacle" for Microsoft beacuse they decided to make it one. If they concentrated on making good software that plays well with other children, rather than defining each actual innovation in the wider marketplace as a threat to their core competencies - or rather, redefining their core competencies to include any actual innovation as it turns up in the wider marketplace - they might be a "mature" company in two senses of the word.
... but I fear my team of trained Maxwell's demons would go on strike
mmmmhyeah. But how about you want the change the $Inbox to show emails categorised by the first letter of the sender's last name? Or the first two letters? Or first categorised by the year and month, then by the first letter of the last name? Or with a separate category for mails flagged as "important", or "encrypted"? Or any other parameter?
... weeee!
And what about if you want to make this change for all users - or only a selection of users? Or you want your users to be able to select from a list of possibilities?
It's all as hard as the switch you described, no harder. The only problem is that you probably have *too many* choices - but once you're in there
/yah, written from deep within an IBM shop
so I've never used any of mySQL, postGres, et al ... but if I ever do, mySQL will be somewhere towards the bottom of the list now - not predominantly because SCO sucks, which they do, but because of the question of sustainability. If SCO sticks to their track record, mySQL will be facing a very large bill somewhere down the line, for some arcane reason, presented by SCO, and it may well break their collective necks.
The Screwfly Solution
My favourite quote: "Man's religion and metaphysics are the voices of his glands" (in turn a quote within the story).
More to the point: behavioural changes caused by parasites are more likely to become part of the "common understanding" of a whole culture, the invisible backgroud radiation, as it were - and less that of individuals freaking out a la "body snatchers".
The really successful parasites, that is.
To take it to an extreme, you could argue that the factoid presented by Blue Stone [(582566) on 2005.09.03 23:44 (#13473066)] above might be connected with religious rituals, more specifically those of Christening or "rebirth" in Christianity. Why did you decide to immerse yourself in water? "It's just a ritual", "God told me to do it", or "actually, my desires are being influenced by parasites in my brain" - who can honestly tell the difference, from the inside?
N.b.: this only becomes really scary if the parasites infect only part of a population. As long as we're all on the same high, "weeeee" is the word.
/doffs tin-foil hat
... or, he could dropped McDonalds, BurgerKing, Whitecastle, whoever, a line ...
..."
"Listen - you want to place an ad bang in the middle of fuddruckers-dot-com? Let's talk
... for they've just just run out of gum.
On the other hand, they come with a off-switch too, nowadays.
This problem can't be so hard. "The state" has to either:
- produce or commission its own breathalysers and / or blood alcohol testers, or
- get hold of and keep on standby expert witnesses who can answer the questions in sufficient detail to convince a judge and / or jury.
The fact that neither can be fulfilled at the moment, and that it was (well, predictably) a defendent who had to point the weakness in the current state of affairs is neither here nor there: If "we the people" want to put someone in the slammer, we have to be able to tell them why we are doing so, and if we set up things so badly that we can't, they should indeed go free.
Who's to blame? Probably some mid-level bureaucop who rubbed his/her hands in glee when the saleperson showed them the single button and all the blinkenlights, and signed the purchase order for three dozen units without booting his/her brain.
Sic transit gloria mundi. Not that it can't be fixed, tho.
Yes (me too), that's what jumped at me as well.
What can be said in their defense is that at least they had the decency to put the two paragraphs on different documents, even if each document is a maximum 2 pages long. So considering the MS lawyers were performing "constrained writing" (I mean hey, they're trying to bind minors into a legal contract, so they have to keep it simple), they achieved a maximum of educational value in a very small package.
To wit: I predict that the winner and the two runners-up will regret having signed the contract, and will thus learn a valuable lession. The lession is: if you made the movie for money, then you have just been screwed over, because you signed away your money-making rights. If you made your movie for art, then you have just been screwed over, because you signed away your distribution rights. And, especially in the latter case, you would have been leaps better off with an OSS / creative commons sort of thing.
And that, I call a very valuable lession.
/Thank you Microsoft! May I have another one, please?! *tHwAcK*
Yeah - it's all crude oil at the beginning, and CO2 + H2O and the end. Yummy.
Well hello world to that.
... at some point ... when it's a couple of orders of magnitude more complex and faster that it is now.
In the materialistic interpretation, humans are nothing other than machines designed to procreate their own blueprint. And the genes have no motivation - procreation is just what they do. Where's the ghost in the machine? If anywhere, it's in the total being more than the sum of the parts. And there's no reason a robot couldn't do that, too.
And if anyone says "soul" I shall let them know that my robot has a perfectly good plastic one I made him out of a gummi bear.
... this is why we need closed-source, encrypted, tamper-proof, proprietary protocols. If any yahoo can look it up or just sniff the network, this is what we get: upset applecarts. Onward DRM! Onward TCPA! Onward Microsoft!
/this patriotic stuff always chokes me up.
(this message brought to you by the masochistic consumers association of America, aka "tie me down, beat me hard, and steal my wallet")