Um, you're completely off base here. First of all ie6 browser share is at 18-19%. The subsequent releases (ie7-8) make up the other part of that 62%. Even if we can take it as fact that in 2001 ie6 was 95% of browser share (which we cannot--it was probably ie5 or some sort), then what you're talking about that internet explorer usage has declined 72% in the past eight years, and I would submit that this is significant evidence of the preference of the vast majority of people to Firefox. Considering that a great number of corporations, including the United States federal government still are using ie6, considering that IExplore is the default install on 95% of personal computers, and considering that in order to use firefox you have to 1. connect to the internet 2. know the name of the browser 3. "google" or "get firefox" it and 4. keep changing it back to the default browser every time IEx changes the user back to defaulting to its own, I'd say that firefox isn't the browser that should be worried. Trending at this rate, IE will be a niche browser in the next decade. Although I do tend to like ie8 more than 7 or 6, for me Firefox is MORE compatible with the majority of my websites, including my online banking. Plus I can't stand the fact that they bother me with their "accelerators" crap. I prefer to install my "accelerators" when I needed, not all your pre-loaded crap when I first start up my browser--and I'd wager that most average users feel the same way.
14th AmendmentSection 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Yeah- States are far less restricted than the Federal government . . .
Yes, you're right. As a symbolic gesture, they should offer the free download in a window that closely approximates the time that the service was unavailable for Live's users.
Besides automobile driving, there is not one of those activities that both immediately and irrevocably put the health and well being of the non-participant at risk.
You don't believe years and years of peer reviewed science? Second-hand smoke has been proven to be harmful to everyone involved.
The difference between astronauts, rock climbers, explorers, extreme sports folks etc. and smokers is obviously apparent. Each of those activities plainly demonstrate the risk and even go as far as exaggerating their own risk to those who are unfamiliar with them as to discourage casual dalliance into the aforementioned activity. Each of those activities have publicly presented evidence of the harm that can come to a competent person who participates in those risky activities. Not so with smoking. It's exactly the opposite. The cigarette companies not only failed to disclose the real risks of smoking for decades, they intentionally lied about it, conducted resarch that proved that their product was fatal and then hid the research from the public, from investigators and from the government.
So yeah. In this case the government is strangely doing something positive: they are assisting private citizens to be duly informed of a risk that they were lied to about for decades. They are actually working to undo the harm that a private entity wrought on Americans. That means that they are actually doing their job for once. The strange thing about cigarettes is that no matter how much you tax them, people still buy as much as they used to.
I think you miss the point of the post. There is no law against purchasers of products holding out to get 'more for their money'. Sony and their potential customers are in a game of chicken so to speak. So I'm interested in the fact that Sony, instead of trying to produce more value in their product has instead taken out what a great number of the potential customers see as essential and not taking a loss on what many people don't see as essential but sony sees as critical. Like I said. They claim the blue-ray is very expensive. That's fine. I believe that. Just don't expect me to pay for your R&D and marketing at the expense of a feature that I find more valuable.
People bitched like all hell when the PS3 cost $500/$600 USD - so Sony goes and tries to make it cheaper to produce so that they can pass some of the savings to the customer - and what do people still do? They still bitch just as much if not more than before.
People were upset because they felt that they were not getting the appropriate value or 'utility' for a set of features at a certain price point. Sony didn't listen. They thought that it was about the price. It's not. I spend six hundred dollars on a lot of things. Just not a video game console. Once you take out the features, you're introducing a new comparison. Now you're comparing a new set of features at a new price point. This is a different set of data to work with, for which Sony introduced a whole new set of unpredictable data. The sane thing to do was to either up the features at the same price point (another controller, another game a killer game) as an option or keep the features the same at a reduced price point. That way people can actually see their value or utility increase with a reference point that stays the same.
The problem that makes the PS3 expensive isn't the BC. It's the blueray player. It's unreasonable that Sony would require it's customers to pay for its own R&D and marketing costs and then take out other features just so it won't lose money on its money pit that is the blueray device on the PS3.
It needs to take a lesson from the 360. The 360 introduced more features at the same price point while at the same time adding features at a reduced price point for its older models.
Now one can argue until the cows come home whether there was actually added value in the HDMI and the 120 gb hard drive for the elite. The answer remains fixed to how the change was perceived. The 360 change was perceived as either "meh" or "positive". Whereas the PS3 change has been perceived as a ripoff. This is par for the course for Sony in this generation's video game console wars.
Well, that's the beauty of open source, right? We can all say "Screw this guy" and take his code and make it better.
Wrong. Open source has nothing to do with *taking* someone else's code. The principle is that the software is built by collaboration, taking a little from column "A" and a little from column "B", to build your project. Because you use a variety of sources and collaborators, a great part of your work is "non original". Now this isn't a perfect way of doing things: you get people who contribute far more than their equal share and others who leech off of those massive contributors. But no, I'm no more taking "his" code when I fork something than if I were to "take" words from Webster when I use "his" dictionary to write my post.
Let's get beyond the fact of bricking. This response is wrong on so many levels. There was no contractural obligation to sign up with ATT. I can buy a million Iphones and simply use them as expensive Ipods. That's my choice. No one was obligated to buy the AT&T service (of course most did, because it brought intended value to the purchase). ATT can't sue anyone for anything if they never signed up for a plan with them. To say so speaks volumes to how much Apple and AT&T's PR progam has fooled you into thinking you're somehow morally and legally obligated to purchase both the phone AND the plan.
In addition, it's completely legal to unlock your phone under the DCMA to use on other carriers. It's one of the few exceptions allowed to 'consumers'. Now I don't have an Iphone so I don't really have a dog in this fight. I don't really care if some random guy's phone gets bricked or not. Do I think it's a dumb move? Yes. Do I think apple is completely justified in protecting it's revenue stream? Yes. You can bet the AT&T and Apple's legal department are very carefully looking at just how much effort Apple puts into ensuring their two year exclusivity agreement remains exclusive. You can also bet the other carriers around the world with whom Apple has a contract are looking at the results of Apple's efforts to squash cell phone freedom. These are completely different issues that you shouldn't confuse. I just wanted to let you know that you are completely wrong about contractural obligations. Do you think those guys from "Does It Blend" are liable to AT&T for blending their Ipod without purchasing a cell phone contract?
It's called a neighborhood watch. Neighborhood watches are effective if 1. people watch for suspicious activity 2. when suspicious activity is noted, authorities are called to take care of business.
My computer, my property. I give you limited permission to put your platform on it. That's my choice. I can limit as much or as little as I want on my own property. That's it. No argument. I can even like Windows and still limit it as much as I want. Mine. Mine. Mine. Possession is 9/10 of the law. The more we give other entities the right to walk on our property, the more they'll call it theirs by custom.
You're being facetious. I'm not going to get into the legal qualifications about whom the NDA is binding. AMD invited journalists to review their products. They were chosen for the virtue of them being journalists. And then basically told them that they could not act as journalists, but more as an extension of their corporate marketing department. That NDA basically put all editorial control into AMD's hands. My contention is that there are two laws battling here, the right of the corporation to bind someone with agreements and the right of unfettered information, which we most of the time refer to as freedom of speech. The journalist did the right thing- he refused to participate and he revealed the inappropriate behavior of one of our corporate citizens.
Re:another example
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AMD NDA Scandal
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I'm going to reply to you and to the ones below you who don't think this is a freedom of speech issue because the federal government isn't doing it.
Just like a person can be sued for wrongful imprisonment, another person can be sued for slander, individuals can sue private entities who infringe on their rights. They may (or may not) be able to make a federal case out of it, but that doesn't mean there aren't protections against these things. Governments (ideally) do two things: protect me from you, and protect me from themselves.
Now, lets get on with this journalist's problem. His problem wasn't with the NDA in itself. The problem that any work that he produced that mentioned the Barcelona product line had to be approved by AMD itself, and at the end of five years, all of his own work that was related to Barcelona had to be returned to AMD. If you don't see how that's objectionable, you deserve to be deceived. That little part gives AMD the right to edit and refuse any report on the Barcelona line. Barcelona chips are just two Athlon XPs duct-taped together? Guess what. If you signed that NDA, AMD has the right to control that information. Barcelona chips are hot enough to roast a full pig? Sorry, you signed the NDA and we have the right to review your work for inaccuracies. So this is an issue of freedom of the press. Not freedom from the tyranny of the government, but freedom from the tyranny of those who would bind us by legal contracts, ignoring social contract that they diminish by continuing to think that their corporate identities supersede the rights guaranteed to all humans by virtue of being born.
AMD needs to let the journalists print what they print and let their chips stand on their own merits. Anything less than that and you have to consider that what AMD spews out aren't facts about their product, but carefully crafted advertisements.
The problem has never been whether AT&T and Apple have a great service and product. The problem has been that up until now, people have not had the choice to chose another carrier if they wanted the iPhone.
they would much rather pay
This clause implies some kind of choice in the matter. Locked phones remove choice. This is not a problem with just the iPhone and AT&T. This is a problem with the entire U.S. cellular service industry. The ability to unlock phones is only the first step. The faster that people unlock their phones, the faster that the cell phone industry will realize that selling *subsidized phones is a dead end.
*I always chuckle at the phrase subsidized. You can be assured that the cell phone companies aren't paying the cost. You're paying it in higher phonebills and cancellation fees. Almost every phone they claim as subsidized is paid for in the end by a cancellation charge or a guaranteed income stream from a lengthy contract and upsells from locked-in content. The ironic part is the unlocked price is inflated past the price of the penalty fee so sometimes it's cheaper to get the phone, pay the 200 dollar penalty and then remove the restrictions.
I'm afraid free in this sense doesn't mean what you think it means in either of it's meanings.
In this case, one word cannot completely convey the meaning of what is offered in the GPL, but free is its close approximate.
When someone offers something for free they usually place limits on how much freedom you have with it because human nature tends to take as much as permitted. So that means that even though you are "free to modify and use the code in any way" you are not free to make it "non-free". Which is essentially what you're asking everyone to do when you take the work of a community, freely given, and then put restrictions on it so that no one else can use it the way you use it. You want to do that, develop all the calls and api yourself. Call it anything you want. Or select a license that is more attune with your philosophy. There are plenty out there that are significantly less free.
I too, love the taste of a good steak well cooked with the flavor of charcoal. I often find myself NOT going to steak restaurants because of their complete inability to cook a proper hunk of meat. It is always too well seasoned and cooked too thouroughly.
But in my quiet moments, when I think no one is paying attention, I often ponder what wicked pre-historic cheffery predisposed mankind to prefer half-burnt/half-raw slabs of meat? And am I a slave to this tribal preference?
Management skills and technology skills are independent. Don't think that the best manager will be your best coder. Don't even think that your manager will be your average coder. Make sure that your manager has a fundamental idea of how your organization works: your manager will need to understand the reason for regulations and apply them consistently. Your manager will need to be able to work across several working groups at once and understand how to manage his or her superiors as well as manage his or her subordinates. That means tactfully explaining to higher management why this or that project will take more time, less time, or why is not viable. That also means making sure that the team performs well. Consistency helps to make teams successful, but management will be looking at end results. The manager has to understand that most likely the enterprise wants to make money, or at least reduce costs (in case your hypothetical company is a not-for-profit or a government type organization that derives income from taxes or donations). Finally, ask around. Ask around from peers, supervisors, subordinates, and the prospective manager as well. Make sure you know about that person's reputation, and if you'll be able to rely on him or her. You're looking for someone who can spot trends easily, come up with a solution framework and motivate his or her team to implement that solution with good communication with you and other higher management.
You need to tailor your questions to your organization so that you can ask your management candidate specific scenarios about real business practices and then ask him or her 'how would you solve/implement this'?
You'll get a quick idea how well your managers stack up to each other once you develop a way to determine how well your employees work in your specific organization.
Remember: sometimes a manager has to be a jerk. sometimes a manager has to be the heavy. Don't look for the nicest person. You HAVE to be the bad guy once in a while. A good manager is one who lays down the bad news and then still can motivate the team to perform well.
This is not professional advice. You want extensive advice? Call a consultant.
From what I can tell, the only things I see people marking it down for are either subjective (don't like the color, doesn't work with iTunes) or unique features which don't work as well as they could (wifi
Let me tackle this one. People buy an Ipod for the same reason that they buy anything. Subjective reasons. You really can't be objective about discretionary expenses. No one needs an Ipod. So to be entirely objective, no one would be buying one. The subjective reason that I buy an Ipod over other items has to be due to universiality. I can use my ipod in my car, on my stereo and on my computer with very little trouble and a wide range of products to chose from. Call that being a market leader that everyone tries to sell to. I don't have a 'Zune Dock' in my car.
if I could live in a world entirely free of iTunes I'd be a happier person
I'm not sure this really helps your argument. Zune and Ipods are just different sides of the same coin. Locked into Itunes, or Napster/Urge/Real I'm not sure what the difference is. If you're like the majority of people, the device is a place where you store content *you already have*. I've purchased about 20 usd from itunes, all impluse purchases or purchases for parties where I couldn't just obtain a song from a store for that just right ambiance. Semantically, Itunes and Zune music outlets are the same. I buy my mp3s loose and free from eMusic.
The WiFi was the killer here and makes Microsoft's clamors for freedom from DRM disingenous for me. It encrypts your 'free range' music and ropes it into a format so you can't squeeze (squirt?) your music freely, but only for limited playbacks and limited duration. There is no online purchase capabilities and no extra features that the WiFi angle is just aching to take advantage of. Don't ask me to hack it myself. I want those features out the box. I don't have the inclination to waste my time 'hacking' a product that should 'just work' for me the way I want it. If it doesn't work the way I want it, I won't buy it.
Would I consider buying a Zune? Yes, if it had the features that I wanted. As of now, it's more or less an 'also ran' that doesn't present a significant enough deviation from the Ipod-type device to merit jumping ship. WOuld a larger capacity move me to jump? No, my 30 gig ipod hasn't filled up yet. I don't think an extra 50 would help me that much.
The Zune as it stands deserves to be mocked. It's a joke and a half hearted attempt to topple the king of digital music. If you're going to take on a leader in its own field, you better come with all your dogs fighting. As it stands, the Zune is a five year old idea wrapped up in a five year old design. Give me a reason to switch and I will.
Your knowledge is essential for different reasons that you think. Think of the past and the next several generations of IT workers as a solid framework upon which we will build our future.
What do I mean by this?
The problem is that computing is not pervasive and ubiquitous enough to become an afterthought, although the world is coming around to wondering why in the world do we have hordes of men and women serving as flesh and blood scripts, functions, and system calls. If you really think about IT functions, there isn't one thing that could be functionally handled by some kind of robot--from security to network setup, everything is becoming more automated and easily managed by higher level processes. Most of our work can be outsourced to still developing countries because the framework that exists now allows for some pretty sophisticated work to be done by low level employees.
We sit around and bemoan that work (that is several levels below our technical advancement) is being sent elsewhere and then we fiddle around with our computers and write scripts for our own machines which should be developing efficient subroutines itself.
IT is there to facilitate productivity and as long as it's not transparent and as much an afterthought as the sidewalks we walk on, then it eats into productivity.
Imagine an entire generation of intelligent, logical thinking, imaginative men and women devoting themselves to scientific, mathematical, artistic and social pursuits--allowed to do so because there is no such thing as rebooting or installing programs or upgrading hardware (in any real sense that we know of now). Once our engineers get beyond making the best security device or a more efficient kernel and actual using computers to do work (rather than be the work itself) we'll see an explosion of productivity that we haven't seen since--well, since the turn of the 20th century.
But yeah. You're right. Knowledge of the basics and good IT make current businesses more productive and so more profitable. But it doesn't make humans or even society more productive. IT is still at the functional equivalent of the telegraph as far as usage of technology goes.
Thank you both for your mature and balanced comments regarding Affirmative Action. At risk of appearing off-topic (though I think this would fall into the realm of the original discussion [at least peripherally]), I must state that you both have valid points but fail to see the true nature of the affirmative action beast.
It is a concept that has great intentions, but is so poorly implemented that there seems to be little use for it but to enrich a few individual African-Americans' lives.
I say this because I am an African American who is moderately successful and have NOT benefited from AA, but am still stigmatized by it nonetheless.
I (as many of you) am to my peers, gifted, seemingly grasping complex concepts with ease. This, however does not prevent ignorant pricks from muttering under their breath that I have achieved my success through some government project, as if the government could grant intelligence as it grants money.
I would submit that the problem is that the government is still catching up from its failure to prevent society's abuses of thirty to forty years ago. My mother, now in her late fifties, lived her youth with the scourge of segregation-my grandfather served in a newly integrated military. I remember movies of my youth where it was offensive to much of the audience to see blacks kissing, much less an inter-racial kiss. Ever wonder why in most of your movies the black hero always makes out with a Latina or Asian? Black on white action, for the most part is still fringe material.
Things are definitely better. I'm not going to lie to you. But I still feel tension when I walk into certain stores for whom I do not seem to be likely clientèle. I still get pulled over for 'looking suspicious' by well meaning police officers who are keeping 'me' safe. I still get beef from some of my black friends who claim that I speak too cultured to really 'be black', and I still cringe when I hear my non-black friends make off color jokes about black stereotypes and include me in them. Not because I think they do it intentionally or with malice, but because of the sub contextual realities of inequality such jibes represent.
What we don't want to address (as African Americans) is that these small freedoms that we should enjoy by right of being citizens of the U.S.A. we usually have to kill a bit of ourselves in order to do so. When, after our sacrifice we still feel non-accepted, it hurts deeply. That is what this gentleman and others do not want to confront, is that after all these years, racism still gets to us on a personal level. It can destroy the self esteem of many people of color, and it is a psychological barrier that I feel most African-Americans cannot get over. Lashing out in anger, calling ourselves niggers, self hate by black on black crime, rampant drug abuse, misogyny, and worst of all white worship (wanting to be 'white' because white equals successful) plague us on a devastating level. Good schools and good parents are only part of a solution. Affirmative Action is basically just a band-aid covering up old wounds, fighting the previous war, so to speak, which seems to be endemic of all of U.S.A's confrontations. Affirmative action can only enhance a few African-Americans' lives in the end, and that will be its failure. It might prove more of a problem than a solution in that it is not a forward looking solution, but a retro-acting salve to already existing inequalities.
So, back to the original topic--do I think that videogames are inherently racist? No. I do not. In fact, I feel that gamers, as a whole are some of the most accepting and open folks around. Somewhere that I can compete on a level playing field with those whom I feel (for the most part) are my peers in intellect and society. Do I feel that it's too simple for us to say that these stereotypes do not hurt folks on some level or another? Yes, it is too simple. It is a complex problem to which I feel no shame in saying that I ca
Our researchers worked diligently and professionally to produce the best analysis they could. They gave the relevant data, including the brand names associated with the data, to our PR AND MARKETING department. After careful review, management at the company found that revealing the names of the companies would bring unintended consequences to Google and it's investors, hence the report was returned to PR AND MARKETING where the brand names were redacted. Marketing informed the resarchers of the changes and then prepared the paper to be released to the public.
Not really. I've been (attempting) building MythTV boxes for several years now. I've tried Knoppmyth, vanilla debian, redhat, gentoo, ubuntu, none work for me. KnoppMyth is just my last straw and the one I tried to use because I figured (incorrectly) a mythfill --manual might have better luck on a system that claims functionality out the gate. Don't get me wrong, I've never purchased windows and I use Ubuntu and OSX at home. I am a long time proponent of Open Source software (and even have a soft spot for RMS' total software freedom). I watch TV on my computer without the PVR capabilites right now. I watch YouTube clips from my self-modded XBox. All these things worked for me with a little bit of effort on my part. MythTV is a beast. There's no one here who will tell you otherwise. I like the idea of MythTV, I will probably build a box in the future. But what we're talking about now is the idea of something that will work for me by plugging it in and turning it on. MythTV is NOT that.
Ah, yes. I'm sorry. I meant that I couldn't achieve that with a flick of my remote. See, it's TV, like I said. If I have to do more than a few button clicks, I'd rather not do it. BTW, I was aware of Mythfill --manual settings. I even tried to use it. Sorry, it didn't work. I'm no slouch when it comes to the command line, either. I built mythtv from the command line, so it should tell you something that I gave up at the point of getting my channels set up manually.
BTW. No one is blaming the developers for not adding features. I've in fact, never asked for features. But don't expect me to wait for the developers just to have a product I can use.
I hear you. But MythTV is a pain to setup. FOSS and all, but if I can't get grabber info reliably outside of the U.S., then I'm not interested. I set up a MythTV (went with knoppmyth) and then went to actually download settings from my cable, to find out they don't have XML grabber in my country. Don't even think about 'Zap2It'. So because I didn't have grabber info, it wouldn't allow me to watch tv?!? No option to enter the channels in manually, huh? No, MythTV is still just a myth. I don't watch my cable TV as it is. If apple and google can offer the tv shows (and they do) and interactive data on a three hundred dollar box that works with me pressing the 'on' button, with RSS feeds replacing XML grabbers for show listings and recordings, then THAT is the Mythical convergence I'm looking for. And no, don't tell me that MythTV is just not mature yet and to wait. This is TV, not heart surgery. I don't have the inclination to wait for features that have been implemented on my TV for the past 25 years.
Will we now have to worry about laptop use on the Interstate?
Yes, because the first application I think of when I think of riding in the car is a surfing the web on a laptop. This is a step further in a persistent connection to caches of information on the road. We're pretty much limited by GPS, commercial radio, cellular and CB communications. Let's get out of thinking that a computer is something you sit at and type. Multiple devices can take advantage of a persistent connection on the road. A networked car computer will either enhance or replace already existing information channels (like the ones I previously mentioned). And supply a few more; think of automated driving and distancing through wireless arrays. Traffic systems that can 'predict' with greater accuracy when cars need the lights changed or the railroad crossing sign lifted. Anyway, Yeah, people will use it to download iTunes (is that a bad thing), but let's get beyond the old man sitting at the terminal inputing text at a keyboard. That is SO twentieth century.
I was in the same position as you were several years ago. I might have been very successful. Except for several things. Poor marketing. I was weak in my marketing. I don't want to tell you that I didn't go out and talk to people. I told everyone I knew. The problem was that I didn't market effectively. I didn't target the appropriate audience. Start up a limited liability company. The name is self explanatory. Your assets are protected if you do something really stupid. If the company fails, it doesn't nesecarily mean that you fail. I started as a DBA (doing business as). It was a hassle at the end of the year doing taxes and separating the neat gadgets I purchased for myself and the tools I needed for my business. A friend of mine gave me some advice after I explained my failed business to him. He is a highly intelligent and successful businessman. He told me that my problem was that I had the employee mentality. What that meant was that I was still the employee although I was the manager, the owner of the business, I still acted like the employee. I didn't manage my resouces well. I stayed long at client's offices and homes because I wanted to 'do my best'. While that might have been well intentioned, what really happened was that I looked incompetent to the lay-person, fumbling around for hours fixing their problems.
Invest, invest, invest. Be professional. Have a separate office for your business. Don't play there (too much). Your office isn't a playground, it's a place to do work. If you have your 360 on your desk, you'll play your 360. If you start best practices now, you won't need to instill them later into future employees.
Get an account with a distributor to sell products. That being said, don't sell products retail. If you sell products retail, you'll lose money. You can't compete with Dell and CompUSA. Sell your services. THey're already paid for, and it cost dollars a day to replenish them. Your brain is your greatest asset in a service economy. Use the products as added value and to 'up-sell' IF you can be an effective salesperson. Say you charge more to offer local services with great service. Don't cut into our profit by selling goods below cost.
Research! Know your clientelle. Know your price range before you set it. Don't set it too high, but NEVER sell it too low.
I've got lots more info, but not more time. Good luck. YOu can make it successful if you want to. By the way. You've done a good job recognizing what your competitors do not offer. Find out what your competitors offer that makes them successful.
Yes, set up the Dungeon master table far away... preferably in the dungeon. Require a separate entrance and a dress code. Cheetos food coloring must be washed off the mouth area before you attempt to engage in social interaction with female surface dwellers. No shouting "Excelsior!" no comments like 'she just turned you down with 9999 hit points direct damage!'
If you want to lose money, make a common area for all gamers in one place. Let's face it. Gamers occupy serveral differnt rungs on the food chain. Putting sports gamers and Magic gamers in the same place is like putting Preying Mantises and Spiders in a jar to see who will win. Entertaining, but utterly valueless.
The trick is to understand what you're doing. Are you trying to turn a profit? Or are you trying to do what you love? Doing what you love and turning a profit are almost always mutually exclusive. If you want to turn a profit, that's easy. Lots of marketing (in the thousands--tens of thousands if you have it); Let EVERYONE know. Parents. Grandparents. Kids who can't push buttons yet. EVERYONE. A quality location and good atmosphere (which includes design, food and service). Analyze it before you get into it with different price scenarios for profit (gas prices, electricity prices, what is your salary--do servers work off of tips plus a small wage, management is trustworthy). Plan to sell in a few years. Give away prizes. Have tournaments.
If you're doing it because you love it, why do you care if you turn a profit? Do just a little bit of leg work and you might get lucky. What you're really opening is a restaurant that happens to cater to a gaming clientelle. Give it a shot.
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Um, you're completely off base here. First of all ie6 browser share is at 18-19%. The subsequent releases (ie7-8) make up the other part of that 62%. Even if we can take it as fact that in 2001 ie6 was 95% of browser share (which we cannot--it was probably ie5 or some sort), then what you're talking about that internet explorer usage has declined 72% in the past eight years, and I would submit that this is significant evidence of the preference of the vast majority of people to Firefox. Considering that a great number of corporations, including the United States federal government still are using ie6, considering that IExplore is the default install on 95% of personal computers, and considering that in order to use firefox you have to 1. connect to the internet 2. know the name of the browser 3. "google" or "get firefox" it and 4. keep changing it back to the default browser every time IEx changes the user back to defaulting to its own, I'd say that firefox isn't the browser that should be worried. Trending at this rate, IE will be a niche browser in the next decade. Although I do tend to like ie8 more than 7 or 6, for me Firefox is MORE compatible with the majority of my websites, including my online banking. Plus I can't stand the fact that they bother me with their "accelerators" crap. I prefer to install my "accelerators" when I needed, not all your pre-loaded crap when I first start up my browser--and I'd wager that most average users feel the same way.
Sir, I do believe you're trolling.
14th Amendment Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Yeah- States are far less restricted than the Federal government . . .
Yes, you're right. As a symbolic gesture, they should offer the free download in a window that closely approximates the time that the service was unavailable for Live's users.
Are you listening, Major Nelson?
I'll take this one.
Besides automobile driving, there is not one of those activities that both immediately and irrevocably put the health and well being of the non-participant at risk.
You don't believe years and years of peer reviewed science? Second-hand smoke has been proven to be harmful to everyone involved.
The difference between astronauts, rock climbers, explorers, extreme sports folks etc. and smokers is obviously apparent. Each of those activities plainly demonstrate the risk and even go as far as exaggerating their own risk to those who are unfamiliar with them as to discourage casual dalliance into the aforementioned activity. Each of those activities have publicly presented evidence of the harm that can come to a competent person who participates in those risky activities. Not so with smoking. It's exactly the opposite. The cigarette companies not only failed to disclose the real risks of smoking for decades, they intentionally lied about it, conducted resarch that proved that their product was fatal and then hid the research from the public, from investigators and from the government.
So yeah. In this case the government is strangely doing something positive: they are assisting private citizens to be duly informed of a risk that they were lied to about for decades. They are actually working to undo the harm that a private entity wrought on Americans. That means that they are actually doing their job for once. The strange thing about cigarettes is that no matter how much you tax them, people still buy as much as they used to.
Battery's running out on my laptop. Discuss.
I think you miss the point of the post. There is no law against purchasers of products holding out to get 'more for their money'. Sony and their potential customers are in a game of chicken so to speak. So I'm interested in the fact that Sony, instead of trying to produce more value in their product has instead taken out what a great number of the potential customers see as essential and not taking a loss on what many people don't see as essential but sony sees as critical. Like I said. They claim the blue-ray is very expensive. That's fine. I believe that. Just don't expect me to pay for your R&D and marketing at the expense of a feature that I find more valuable.
I don't see why its such a big deal.
You're obviously not price sensitive to the PS3.
People bitched like all hell when the PS3 cost $500/$600 USD - so Sony goes and tries to make it cheaper to produce so that they can pass some of the savings to the customer - and what do people still do? They still bitch just as much if not more than before.
People were upset because they felt that they were not getting the appropriate value or 'utility' for a set of features at a certain price point. Sony didn't listen. They thought that it was about the price. It's not. I spend six hundred dollars on a lot of things. Just not a video game console. Once you take out the features, you're introducing a new comparison. Now you're comparing a new set of features at a new price point. This is a different set of data to work with, for which Sony introduced a whole new set of unpredictable data. The sane thing to do was to either up the features at the same price point (another controller, another game a killer game) as an option or keep the features the same at a reduced price point. That way people can actually see their value or utility increase with a reference point that stays the same.
The problem that makes the PS3 expensive isn't the BC. It's the blueray player. It's unreasonable that Sony would require it's customers to pay for its own R&D and marketing costs and then take out other features just so it won't lose money on its money pit that is the blueray device on the PS3.
It needs to take a lesson from the 360. The 360 introduced more features at the same price point while at the same time adding features at a reduced price point for its older models.
Now one can argue until the cows come home whether there was actually added value in the HDMI and the 120 gb hard drive for the elite. The answer remains fixed to how the change was perceived. The 360 change was perceived as either "meh" or "positive". Whereas the PS3 change has been perceived as a ripoff. This is par for the course for Sony in this generation's video game console wars.
Well, that's the beauty of open source, right? We can all say "Screw this guy" and take his code and make it better.
Wrong. Open source has nothing to do with *taking* someone else's code. The principle is that the software is built by collaboration, taking a little from column "A" and a little from column "B", to build your project. Because you use a variety of sources and collaborators, a great part of your work is "non original". Now this isn't a perfect way of doing things: you get people who contribute far more than their equal share and others who leech off of those massive contributors. But no, I'm no more taking "his" code when I fork something than if I were to "take" words from Webster when I use "his" dictionary to write my post.
Let's get beyond the fact of bricking. This response is wrong on so many levels. There was no contractural obligation to sign up with ATT. I can buy a million Iphones and simply use them as expensive Ipods. That's my choice. No one was obligated to buy the AT&T service (of course most did, because it brought intended value to the purchase). ATT can't sue anyone for anything if they never signed up for a plan with them. To say so speaks volumes to how much Apple and AT&T's PR progam has fooled you into thinking you're somehow morally and legally obligated to purchase both the phone AND the plan.
In addition, it's completely legal to unlock your phone under the DCMA to use on other carriers. It's one of the few exceptions allowed to 'consumers'. Now I don't have an Iphone so I don't really have a dog in this fight. I don't really care if some random guy's phone gets bricked or not. Do I think it's a dumb move? Yes. Do I think apple is completely justified in protecting it's revenue stream? Yes. You can bet the AT&T and Apple's legal department are very carefully looking at just how much effort Apple puts into ensuring their two year exclusivity agreement remains exclusive. You can also bet the other carriers around the world with whom Apple has a contract are looking at the results of Apple's efforts to squash cell phone freedom. These are completely different issues that you shouldn't confuse. I just wanted to let you know that you are completely wrong about contractural obligations. Do you think those guys from "Does It Blend" are liable to AT&T for blending their Ipod without purchasing a cell phone contract?
"Just a bunch of people bitching for no reason"
It's called a neighborhood watch. Neighborhood watches are effective if 1. people watch for suspicious activity 2. when suspicious activity is noted, authorities are called to take care of business.
My computer, my property. I give you limited permission to put your platform on it. That's my choice. I can limit as much or as little as I want on my own property. That's it. No argument. I can even like Windows and still limit it as much as I want. Mine. Mine. Mine. Possession is 9/10 of the law. The more we give other entities the right to walk on our property, the more they'll call it theirs by custom.
You're being facetious. I'm not going to get into the legal qualifications about whom the NDA is binding. AMD invited journalists to review their products. They were chosen for the virtue of them being journalists. And then basically told them that they could not act as journalists, but more as an extension of their corporate marketing department. That NDA basically put all editorial control into AMD's hands. My contention is that there are two laws battling here, the right of the corporation to bind someone with agreements and the right of unfettered information, which we most of the time refer to as freedom of speech. The journalist did the right thing- he refused to participate and he revealed the inappropriate behavior of one of our corporate citizens.
I'm going to reply to you and to the ones below you who don't think this is a freedom of speech issue because the federal government isn't doing it.
Just like a person can be sued for wrongful imprisonment, another person can be sued for slander, individuals can sue private entities who infringe on their rights. They may (or may not) be able to make a federal case out of it, but that doesn't mean there aren't protections against these things. Governments (ideally) do two things: protect me from you, and protect me from themselves.
Now, lets get on with this journalist's problem. His problem wasn't with the NDA in itself. The problem that any work that he produced that mentioned the Barcelona product line had to be approved by AMD itself, and at the end of five years, all of his own work that was related to Barcelona had to be returned to AMD. If you don't see how that's objectionable, you deserve to be deceived. That little part gives AMD the right to edit and refuse any report on the Barcelona line. Barcelona chips are just two Athlon XPs duct-taped together? Guess what. If you signed that NDA, AMD has the right to control that information. Barcelona chips are hot enough to roast a full pig? Sorry, you signed the NDA and we have the right to review your work for inaccuracies. So this is an issue of freedom of the press. Not freedom from the tyranny of the government, but freedom from the tyranny of those who would bind us by legal contracts, ignoring social contract that they diminish by continuing to think that their corporate identities supersede the rights guaranteed to all humans by virtue of being born.
AMD needs to let the journalists print what they print and let their chips stand on their own merits. Anything less than that and you have to consider that what AMD spews out aren't facts about their product, but carefully crafted advertisements.
The problem has never been whether AT&T and Apple have a great service and product. The problem has been that up until now, people have not had the choice to chose another carrier if they wanted the iPhone.
they would much rather pay
This clause implies some kind of choice in the matter. Locked phones remove choice. This is not a problem with just the iPhone and AT&T. This is a problem with the entire U.S. cellular service industry. The ability to unlock phones is only the first step. The faster that people unlock their phones, the faster that the cell phone industry will realize that selling *subsidized phones is a dead end.
*I always chuckle at the phrase subsidized. You can be assured that the cell phone companies aren't paying the cost. You're paying it in higher phonebills and cancellation fees. Almost every phone they claim as subsidized is paid for in the end by a cancellation charge or a guaranteed income stream from a lengthy contract and upsells from locked-in content. The ironic part is the unlocked price is inflated past the price of the penalty fee so sometimes it's cheaper to get the phone, pay the 200 dollar penalty and then remove the restrictions.
I'm afraid free in this sense doesn't mean what you think it means in either of it's meanings.
In this case, one word cannot completely convey the meaning of what is offered in the GPL, but free is its close approximate.
When someone offers something for free they usually place limits on how much freedom you have with it because human nature tends to take as much as permitted. So that means that even though you are "free to modify and use the code in any way" you are not free to make it "non-free". Which is essentially what you're asking everyone to do when you take the work of a community, freely given, and then put restrictions on it so that no one else can use it the way you use it. You want to do that, develop all the calls and api yourself. Call it anything you want. Or select a license that is more attune with your philosophy. There are plenty out there that are significantly less free.
I too, love the taste of a good steak well cooked with the flavor of charcoal. I often find myself NOT going to steak restaurants because of their complete inability to cook a proper hunk of meat. It is always too well seasoned and cooked too thouroughly.
But in my quiet moments, when I think no one is paying attention, I often ponder what wicked pre-historic cheffery predisposed
mankind to prefer half-burnt/half-raw slabs of meat? And am I a slave to this tribal preference?
Management skills and technology skills are independent. Don't think that the best manager will be your best coder. Don't even think that your manager will be your average coder. Make sure that your manager has a fundamental idea of how your organization works: your manager will need to understand the reason for regulations and apply them consistently. Your manager will need to be able to work across several working groups at once and understand how to manage his or her superiors as well as manage his or her subordinates. That means tactfully explaining to higher management why this or that project will take more time, less time, or why is not viable. That also means making sure that the team performs well. Consistency helps to make teams successful, but management will be looking at end results. The manager has to understand that most likely the enterprise wants to make money, or at least reduce costs (in case your hypothetical company is a not-for-profit or a government type organization that derives income from taxes or donations). Finally, ask around. Ask around from peers, supervisors, subordinates, and the prospective manager as well. Make sure you know about that person's reputation, and if you'll be able to rely on him or her. You're looking for someone who can spot trends easily, come up with a solution framework and motivate his or her team to implement that solution with good communication with you and other higher management.
You need to tailor your questions to your organization so that you can ask your management candidate specific scenarios about real business practices and then ask him or her 'how would you solve/implement this'?
You'll get a quick idea how well your managers stack up to each other once you develop a way to determine how well your employees work in your specific organization.
Remember: sometimes a manager has to be a jerk. sometimes a manager has to be the heavy. Don't look for the nicest person. You HAVE to be the bad guy once in a while. A good manager is one who lays down the bad news and then still can motivate the team to perform well.
This is not professional advice. You want extensive advice? Call a consultant.
From what I can tell, the only things I see people marking it down for are either subjective (don't like the color, doesn't work with iTunes) or unique features which don't work as well as they could (wifi
Let me tackle this one. People buy an Ipod for the same reason that they buy anything. Subjective reasons. You really can't be objective about discretionary expenses. No one needs an Ipod. So to be entirely objective, no one would be buying one. The subjective reason that I buy an Ipod over other items has to be due to universiality. I can use my ipod in my car, on my stereo and on my computer with very little trouble and a wide range of products to chose from. Call that being a market leader that everyone tries to sell to. I don't have a 'Zune Dock' in my car.
if I could live in a world entirely free of iTunes I'd be a happier person
I'm not sure this really helps your argument. Zune and Ipods are just different sides of the same coin. Locked into Itunes, or Napster/Urge/Real I'm not sure what the difference is. If you're like the majority of people, the device is a place where you store content *you already have*. I've purchased about 20 usd from itunes, all impluse purchases or purchases for parties where I couldn't just obtain a song from a store for that just right ambiance. Semantically, Itunes and Zune music outlets are the same. I buy my mp3s loose and free from eMusic.
The WiFi was the killer here and makes Microsoft's clamors for freedom from DRM disingenous for me. It encrypts your 'free range' music and ropes it into a format so you can't squeeze (squirt?) your music freely, but only for limited playbacks and limited duration. There is no online purchase capabilities and no extra features that the WiFi angle is just aching to take advantage of. Don't ask me to hack it myself. I want those features out the box. I don't have the inclination to waste my time 'hacking' a product that should 'just work' for me the way I want it. If it doesn't work the way I want it, I won't buy it.
Would I consider buying a Zune? Yes, if it had the features that I wanted. As of now, it's more or less an 'also ran' that doesn't present a significant enough deviation from the Ipod-type device to merit jumping ship. WOuld a larger capacity move me to jump? No, my 30 gig ipod hasn't filled up yet. I don't think an extra 50 would help me that much.
The Zune as it stands deserves to be mocked. It's a joke and a half hearted attempt to topple the king of digital music. If you're going to take on a leader in its own field, you better come with all your dogs fighting. As it stands, the Zune is a five year old idea wrapped up in a five year old design. Give me a reason to switch and I will.
You're right and you're wrong.
Your knowledge is essential for different reasons that you think. Think of the past and the next several generations of IT workers as a solid framework upon which we will build our future.
What do I mean by this?
The problem is that computing is not pervasive and ubiquitous enough to become an afterthought, although the world is coming around to wondering why in the world do we have hordes of men and women serving as flesh and blood scripts, functions, and system calls. If you really think about IT functions, there isn't one thing that could be functionally handled by some kind of robot--from security to network setup, everything is becoming more automated and easily managed by higher level processes. Most of our work can be outsourced to still developing countries because the framework that exists now allows for some pretty sophisticated work to be done by low level employees.
We sit around and bemoan that work (that is several levels below our technical advancement) is being sent elsewhere and then we fiddle around with our computers and write scripts for our own machines which should be developing efficient subroutines itself.
IT is there to facilitate productivity and as long as it's not transparent and as much an afterthought as the sidewalks we walk on, then it eats into productivity.
Imagine an entire generation of intelligent, logical thinking, imaginative men and women devoting themselves to scientific, mathematical, artistic and social pursuits--allowed to do so because there is no such thing as rebooting or installing programs or upgrading hardware (in any real sense that we know of now). Once our engineers get beyond making the best security device or a more efficient kernel and actual using computers to do work (rather than be the work itself) we'll see an explosion of productivity that we haven't seen since--well, since the turn of the 20th century.
But yeah. You're right. Knowledge of the basics and good IT make current businesses more productive and so more profitable. But it doesn't make humans or even society more productive. IT is still at the functional equivalent of the telegraph as far as usage of technology goes.
Dear Mr. AC and TomHandy,
Thank you both for your mature and balanced comments regarding Affirmative Action. At risk of appearing off-topic (though I think this would fall into the realm of the original discussion [at least peripherally]), I must state that you both have valid points but fail to see the true nature of the affirmative action beast.
It is a concept that has great intentions, but is so poorly implemented that there seems to be little use for it but to enrich a few individual African-Americans' lives.
I say this because I am an African American who is moderately successful and have NOT benefited from AA, but am still stigmatized by it nonetheless.
I (as many of you) am to my peers, gifted, seemingly grasping complex concepts with ease. This, however does not prevent ignorant pricks from muttering under their breath that I have achieved my success through some government project, as if the government could grant intelligence as it grants money.
I would submit that the problem is that the government is still catching up from its failure to prevent society's abuses of thirty to forty years ago. My mother, now in her late fifties, lived her youth with the scourge of segregation-my grandfather served in a newly integrated military. I remember movies of my youth where it was offensive to much of the audience to see blacks kissing, much less an inter-racial kiss. Ever wonder why in most of your movies the black hero always makes out with a Latina or Asian? Black on white action, for the most part is still fringe material.
Things are definitely better. I'm not going to lie to you. But I still feel tension when I walk into certain stores for whom I do not seem to be likely clientèle. I still get pulled over for 'looking suspicious' by well meaning police officers who are keeping 'me' safe. I still get beef from some of my black friends who claim that I speak too cultured to really 'be black', and I still cringe when I hear my non-black friends make off color jokes about black stereotypes and include me in them. Not because I think they do it intentionally or with malice, but because of the sub contextual realities of inequality such jibes represent.
What we don't want to address (as African Americans) is that these small freedoms that we should enjoy by right of being citizens of the U.S.A. we usually have to kill a bit of ourselves in order to do so. When, after our sacrifice we still feel non-accepted, it hurts deeply. That is what this gentleman and others do not want to confront, is that after all these years, racism still gets to us on a personal level. It can destroy the self esteem of many people of color, and it is a psychological barrier that I feel most African-Americans cannot get over. Lashing out in anger, calling ourselves niggers, self hate by black on black crime, rampant drug abuse, misogyny, and worst of all white worship (wanting to be 'white' because white equals successful) plague us on a devastating level. Good schools and good parents are only part of a solution. Affirmative Action is basically just a band-aid covering up old wounds, fighting the previous war, so to speak, which seems to be endemic of all of U.S.A's confrontations. Affirmative action can only enhance a few African-Americans' lives in the end, and that will be its failure. It might prove more of a problem than a solution in that it is not a forward looking solution, but a retro-acting salve to already existing inequalities.
So, back to the original topic--do I think that videogames are inherently racist? No. I do not. In fact, I feel that gamers, as a whole are some of the most accepting and open folks around. Somewhere that I can compete on a level playing field with those whom I feel (for the most part) are my peers in intellect and society. Do I feel that it's too simple for us to say that these stereotypes do not hurt folks on some level or another? Yes, it is too simple. It is a complex problem to which I feel no shame in saying that I ca
The most likely translation:
Our researchers worked diligently and professionally to produce the best analysis they could. They gave the relevant data, including the brand names associated with the data, to our PR AND MARKETING department. After careful review, management at the company found that revealing the names of the companies would bring unintended consequences to Google and it's investors, hence the report was returned to PR AND MARKETING where the brand names were redacted. Marketing informed the resarchers of the changes and then prepared the paper to be released to the public.
You're just full of contradictions today
Not really. I've been (attempting) building MythTV boxes for several years now. I've tried Knoppmyth, vanilla debian, redhat, gentoo, ubuntu, none work for me. KnoppMyth is just my last straw and the one I tried to use because I figured (incorrectly) a mythfill --manual might have better luck on a system that claims functionality out the gate. Don't get me wrong, I've never purchased windows and I use Ubuntu and OSX at home. I am a long time proponent of Open Source software (and even have a soft spot for RMS' total software freedom). I watch TV on my computer without the PVR capabilites right now. I watch YouTube clips from my self-modded XBox. All these things worked for me with a little bit of effort on my part. MythTV is a beast. There's no one here who will tell you otherwise. I like the idea of MythTV, I will probably build a box in the future. But what we're talking about now is the idea of something that will work for me by plugging it in and turning it on. MythTV is NOT that.
Ah, yes. I'm sorry. I meant that I couldn't achieve that with a flick of my remote. See, it's TV, like I said. If I have to do more than a few button clicks, I'd rather not do it. BTW, I was aware of Mythfill --manual settings. I even tried to use it. Sorry, it didn't work. I'm no slouch when it comes to the command line, either. I built mythtv from the command line, so it should tell you something that I gave up at the point of getting my channels set up manually.
BTW. No one is blaming the developers for not adding features. I've in fact, never asked for features. But don't expect me to wait for the developers just to have a product I can use.
I hear you. But MythTV is a pain to setup. FOSS and all, but if I can't get grabber info reliably outside of the U.S., then I'm not interested. I set up a MythTV (went with knoppmyth) and then went to actually download settings from my cable, to find out they don't have XML grabber in my country. Don't even think about 'Zap2It'. So because I didn't have grabber info, it wouldn't allow me to watch tv?!? No option to enter the channels in manually, huh? No, MythTV is still just a myth. I don't watch my cable TV as it is. If apple and google can offer the tv shows (and they do) and interactive data on a three hundred dollar box that works with me pressing the 'on' button, with RSS feeds replacing XML grabbers for show listings and recordings, then THAT is the Mythical convergence I'm looking for. And no, don't tell me that MythTV is just not mature yet and to wait. This is TV, not heart surgery. I don't have the inclination to wait for features that have been implemented on my TV for the past 25 years.
Will we now have to worry about laptop use on the Interstate?
Yes, because the first application I think of when I think of riding in the car is a surfing the web on a laptop. This is a step further in a persistent connection to caches of information on the road. We're pretty much limited by GPS, commercial radio, cellular and CB communications. Let's get out of thinking that a computer is something you sit at and type. Multiple devices can take advantage of a persistent connection on the road. A networked car computer will either enhance or replace already existing information channels (like the ones I previously mentioned). And supply a few more; think of automated driving and distancing through wireless arrays. Traffic systems that can 'predict' with greater accuracy when cars need the lights changed or the railroad crossing sign lifted. Anyway, Yeah, people will use it to download iTunes (is that a bad thing), but let's get beyond the old man sitting at the terminal inputing text at a keyboard. That is SO twentieth century.
I was in the same position as you were several years ago. I might have been very successful. Except for several things. Poor marketing. I was weak in my marketing. I don't want to tell you that I didn't go out and talk to people. I told everyone I knew. The problem was that I didn't market effectively. I didn't target the appropriate audience. Start up a limited liability company. The name is self explanatory. Your assets are protected if you do something really stupid. If the company fails, it doesn't nesecarily mean that you fail. I started as a DBA (doing business as). It was a hassle at the end of the year doing taxes and separating the neat gadgets I purchased for myself and the tools I needed for my business.
A friend of mine gave me some advice after I explained my failed business to him. He is a highly intelligent and successful businessman. He told me that my problem was that I had the employee mentality. What that meant was that I was still the employee although I was the manager, the owner of the business, I still acted like the employee. I didn't manage my resouces well. I stayed long at client's offices and homes because I wanted to 'do my best'. While that might have been well intentioned, what really happened was that I looked incompetent to the lay-person, fumbling around for hours fixing their problems.
Invest, invest, invest. Be professional. Have a separate office for your business. Don't play there (too much). Your office isn't a playground, it's a place to do work. If you have your 360 on your desk, you'll play your 360. If you start best practices now, you won't need to instill them later into future employees.
Get an account with a distributor to sell products. That being said, don't sell products retail. If you sell products retail, you'll lose money. You can't compete with Dell and CompUSA. Sell your services. THey're already paid for, and it cost dollars a day to replenish them. Your brain is your greatest asset in a service economy. Use the products as added value and to 'up-sell' IF you can be an effective salesperson. Say you charge more to offer local services with great service. Don't cut into our profit by selling goods below cost.
Research! Know your clientelle. Know your price range before you set it. Don't set it too high, but NEVER sell it too low.
I've got lots more info, but not more time. Good luck. YOu can make it successful if you want to. By the way. You've done a good job recognizing what your competitors do not offer. Find out what your competitors offer that makes them successful.
Yes, set up the Dungeon master table far away... preferably in the dungeon. Require a separate entrance and a dress code. Cheetos food coloring must be washed off the mouth area before you attempt to engage in social interaction with female surface dwellers. No shouting "Excelsior!" no comments like 'she just turned you down with 9999 hit points direct damage!'
If you want to lose money, make a common area for all gamers in one place. Let's face it. Gamers occupy serveral differnt rungs on the food chain. Putting sports gamers and Magic gamers in the same place is like putting Preying Mantises and Spiders in a jar to see who will win. Entertaining, but utterly valueless.
The trick is to understand what you're doing. Are you trying to turn a profit? Or are you trying to do what you love? Doing what you love and turning a profit are almost always mutually exclusive. If you want to turn a profit, that's easy. Lots of marketing (in the thousands--tens of thousands if you have it); Let EVERYONE know. Parents. Grandparents. Kids who can't push buttons yet. EVERYONE. A quality location and good atmosphere (which includes design, food and service). Analyze it before you get into it with different price scenarios for profit (gas prices, electricity prices, what is your salary--do servers work off of tips plus a small wage, management is trustworthy). Plan to sell in a few years. Give away prizes. Have tournaments.
If you're doing it because you love it, why do you care if you turn a profit? Do just a little bit of leg work and you might get lucky. What you're really opening is a restaurant that happens to cater to a gaming clientelle. Give it a shot.