I have worked on many projects which have failed due to a shortfall in uptake. The sites themselves were excellent, and beloved by their userbase - but the userbase just wasn't big enough.
Running the risk of a granny egg sucking session, here are some observations of things which HELP a site.
Novel Material / Early News
If your site can be first with the news, or provide good novel content which is interesting / useful enough for people to print / bookmark you have a good chance of being referenced. This is a key FREE way to spread the word.
Forums
Wether/. style, live CHAT style, or some hideous mix as we did recently these are the key to any site working. Even one that is not there specifically to allow interchange - enable it and you give the site a sense of place - of commonality - of community. It's fluffy - but it works!
Hard Copies
It sounds stupid - but the sites we built early on, which had a paper newsletter (usually quarterly) asociated with them have done well. People seem to repond to the paper mail and visit the site. Coincide the paper issue with a new feature / big story and you multiply the effect.
Email
Give people a reminder email every couple of weeks - its not spam - they signed up for it. Say something in the email - not just 'visit us'.
Recommend a Friend
Give people an easy way to forward links to the site, and to every individual item within the site straight from the page. We know they can do this easily without a 'recommend a friend' button - but they really do work. Up to 50% of new members are coming from this on some sites.
Stats
Show people how many people are using the site - make people visible, through forums or other mechanisms. If you see a site thats obviously been updated TODAY and has a bunch of visitors your more likely to take it seriously.
And some stuff you would THINK would work but in my experience doesn't.
Directories
Niche directories sound great. Operate a definitive list of great sources of information for people to access. Hope they start using you as their own bookmarks for this topic.
On the whole our feedback shows most people are happy with google, AV, etc... for 90% of links, so don't need this kind of thing. These are costly to maintain well, and of little benefit.
Too many options
A mature site can cope with tonnes of options to switch this off, that on, remove images, add a reminder service etc... But again, we find that this stuff just puts people off if its there before an established community.
Client confidentiality, DPA, etc.. stops me citing the examples - sorry.
...somewhere deep down I'd REALLY like to see the olympics competed between genetically modified super steroid dope mungeous uber athletes.
The 7s 100m, the 2 minute mile, a marathon in... no time. Swimming without having to breath, with great big flat feet hinged at the ankle like flippers.
REALLY tall dudes playing basketball. Chicks with HUGE asses doing speed skating.
Here in the UK c4 shows Futurama at about 6pm on seemingly random weeknights - and sometimes earlier!
I've probably only seen about 6 episodes ever because of this. I know I could tape it, but I'm not that organised, and anyway, I probably don't care enough to bother!
If it was on later, anywhere between 7:30 and midnight, it would get a bigger audience. Unfortunately, those hours are reserved for chick programming like Allie McBeal, Make over shows, and soaps!
I think it goes out first on Sky or e4 at a better time but because I've got a posh old house I'm not allowed a minidish because I have an evil neighbour who puts in planning objections... bitch! And the Monkey signal is too weak on my street.
To an extent console releases have always relied on the 'oh my god - its sold out everywhere - it must be the most popular thing on the planet!' story to hype themselves.
Its refreshing to see Nintendo take the other tack- and talk about actual numbers.
I could release a new console, I'd call it Kylie ("just going to play with Kylie a couple of hours"), and issue a 'oh my god...' press release having sold ONE. I'm sure in a lot of territories the PS2 DIDN'T actually sell out for very long, but the common perception is that it was unavailable for MONTHS worldwide. I had no trouble buying mine!
The excellent Mark Thomas Product, a show on c4 in the UK had a pop at "the Data Protection Act and in particular its sections covering Closed Circuit Television".
Essentially, in the UK, if a CCTV camera records your image you just have to write to the owner of the camera with a £10 cheque asking for a copy of all information they hold on you. By law under the DPA they have to provide you with a copy. If they don't they can go to jail.
He went into a McDonalds with a troup of tumblers and jugglers and asked for a copy of the tape. He went a bunch of other places aswell, get him on video, very funny!
Lots of info starting here, at his own FAQ, and if you get hooked check out google directory for stacks of links.
VCRs were supposed to be the end of movie theatres
In fact, VCR IMPROVED attendance at movie theatres overall. It widened the scope for the movies, bringing a wholenew audience in. I'm not a huge movies fan, but watching crappy VHS copies just kind of makes you want to go to the BIG SCREEN and soak the thing in. It improved the possibility of getting a small film funded because the direct to video revenue stream was viable.
What broadcasters need to do is produce better BROADCAST television, so we find some benefit from watching live / watching through their hardware. Other than sporting events I cannot think of an example of a TV show I'd pay extra to watch 'live'
OR they need to find a different charging mechanism than subscription / advertising.
Actually. All TeeVee should be funded like the BBC. The BBC is great!
As it works out a 747 is rather Enviormentally friendly
I'm sorry, but this is untrue urban legend nonsense that rears its head whenever people think the green movement is trying to take away their right to fly.
A single transatlantic flight is equivalent to 5 years of the average British commute by car (35 minutes a day in each direction). And that is the 'per person' figure.
Then you factor in the ozone depletion, the various other high atmosphere problems high altitude jets cause, and the fact that those car journey we are comparing to are many times more polluting than bus/train commuting.
747s are NOT environmentally friendly.
If you want references try these:
http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/tools/ghg_calc. ht ml
http://www.ans.neep.wisc.edu/~eic/personal.impac t. html
http://www.rides.org/main/environmentalcalculato r. htm
http://www.flightsciences.com/environ.htm
http://www.climatechangesolutions.com/english/in di viduals/resources/default.htm
http://ottawa2000.commuterchallenge.net/pollutio n. phtml
Agreed. This isn't a one shop solution. I walk to the toilet, I cycle to work, I drive to visit my parents, I fly to the Med for a holiday.
That an environmentally preferable solution is available for short haul should be a good thing. That we have to stick with 747s for long haul may just be a law of physics.
Many small planes on short flights means a lot more overhead
WRONG. Long haul flights are no nore efficient overall than regional flights of under 1000 miles which would, probably, be within the range I refered to.
In the UK it is cheaper to fly the length of the country than to take a coach / train because the overheads of flight are so low. These are normally relatively small aircraft.
Jigsaws won't work, its too simple a problem (no teamwork required, no changing scenarios in real time), but I agree that something other than Soccer could be a better test of the bots.
Personally I think SKIING would be an excellent test of bots. And it would enable bot builders to justify funding for trips to the alps every now and again.
Ever changing scenario, quick responses, weight balancing, gates to get through in difficult visual conditions. Different disciplines - Jumping, Downhill, Boarding etc...
Admitedly balance element would be a limit at the moment - but given time this could be hugely entertaining stuff to watch when they lose their footing!
With Fuel Cells you boil down to a trade off between the efficiency and cost of the fuel.
Plain old hydrocarbons are cheapish, easy to handle, and not overly dangerous in a 'leak' situation.
But they require hyper advanced self cleaning fuel cells that wear out quickly.
Pure methanol is expensive (purification always costs), easy to handle, and not overly dangerous in a leak situation.
It works in cheaper, more reliable, longer lasting and lighter fuel cells.
Hydrogen is expensive, difficult to handle, and pretty damn dangerous stuff in ANY situation.
It works best with fuel cells, pretty much optimal.
A fuel cell that can handle ANY carbon rich material, and takes O2 from the atmosphere would be the holy grail. You could use argicultural by products to produce methonal, dig up oil, LPG, any burnable liquid essentially.
A rethink on the air network strategy to produce lighter, smaller, more efficient aircraft which possibly fly a bit slower and take shorter 'hops' would bring Fuel Cell flight closer.
This would be a worthwhile trade off for a more environmentally sound and sustainable flight infrastructure.
Boeing and Airbus both seem committed to increasing the size of aircraft overall. Maybe its time for a serious rethink?
As a businessman, what perspective do you have on Gnome anyway?
I take exception to this assertion that 'businessmen' cannot understand Free Software.
Not all business is run purely for profit. My own company operates to provide a good quality of life for myself and my employees. We charge a decent rate for our work, and my employees take home market rate salaries. I take home a below market rate salary, because everyone else that does my job would pay each employee 10% less and double their own salary. No one is getting rich - everyone is doing pretty well. My business is NOT run for profit.
I seriously believe in Free Software. I believe that my commercial background gives me valuable insights into the drives behind software users that could be used by ANY Free Software organisation to better target their wares.
This is true of a growing underclass of 'businesspeople'. You can't group all businesspeople together with generalisations with any more justification than you can with geeks, gays, glaswegians, gorillas or goths.
One thing business people tend to have in common is a clear defenition of their goals, and of their strategy for achieving them. I believe THIS is the missing link in many FS projects, which is why I hope the Gnome Board DOES have hard nosed business attitudes which can be applied to the Gnome goals.
OK rant over! Businessmen are not all evil. Stop believing Dilbert!!!
If September shows anything, its that there is no such thing as 'their problem'. The west is seriously playing around with states like Libya, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Iraq... making peoples lives worse.
It doesn't matter exactly how, wether its blocking software, blocking drugs, blocking imports of food in times of drought. What matters is that its wrong and to get upset about blocking the rich of these countries from accessing a few websites is petty and norrow sighted.
/. users are, we all assume, above average intelligence and reasonably well informed. From the typical response to this type of post you seriously doubt it.
This gets me thinking about the DV revolution. I can walk into any electronics hop and buy all the kit I need to make a movie for about £3000, not a hell of a lot of money.
I can walk out and make my own movie with some friends. The resulting movie can be truly great. It wont have the effects of the Matrix, or the babes (unless I happen to know some talented 'ass' - which I don't) but it can be great. Ideas make movies. It can be great. It could make it to a film festival, do a small run in small cinemas / video screens and get a small release on video.
I can also gather a bunch of people together and write a snow boarding game. Unless it brings something new to the genre then it'll just be mediocre or crap. It can look pretty through good design, it can play well through refined physics, it can be good. It'd take years. It _could_ be good. At a push.
But I could make a movie in a couple of months with no money just using my spare time - it'd be a short most likely - but it _could_ quite easily be cool.
Can a game in an established style ever be worth £30 when on the same shelf as something that cost literally millions to develop and is supremely polished?
Most people would agree a movie is a movie is a movie - some are bargain priced on video/DVD - but on the whole they cost the same.
Games, on the other hand, are different. If Tux Racer is justifiably likened to a mini game in FFVII how can it be justified in charging £30?
I used to write games on my old Ataris - they were shit, but we enjoyed playing them (racing platformers mainly - now THERE is a dead genre to resurrect). We enjoyed them because we could dick about with them and speed characters up, slow them down, turn gravity upside down etc... the games themselves were painfully mediocre - actually it was all the same game at various points on its evolution.
I always thought jeff minters games were kinda cruddy - they were small, the graphics were small - but I loved playing them and always paid double the shareware fee because I enjoyed the idea of feeding camels. Thats the territory I see TuxRacer inhabiting, not the boxed £30 games shelf.
Even in the UK the implicit trust of the US has long gone. Cashmere, Bananas, and a host of other seemingly petty trade rows which have involved very senior politicians on both sides of the pond have shown the US to be vastly more protective of its markets than the UK / EU.
To depend solely on a US owned GPS system for such a huge, and growing, list of services, often relating to national security, is shortsighted.
However. The EU should not build a competing product. The US should hand control of the GPS system over to the UN lock stock and barrel. That way the world has a reliable GPS system that cannot be switched off by a grumpy state at some point in the future.
GPS is becoming too important to leave it in the hands of someone else. Either its everyones toy, or EVERYONE needs their own. With the cost of a GPS system being prohibitive to all but the richest nations I think the UN option is best.
The only reason that remains significant is that Fuel Cells still, generaly, require much cleaner fuels than turbines.
Any contaminants can reduce the efficiency of a fuel cell significantly, whereas only a significant build up of 'sticky' contamination will effect a turbine significantly.
Nice thought! On a quick run through of people I know - those who have to work harder, were saddled with disfigurements, excessive boogers, being too short, when at school have all turned out to be pretty cool (with one exception who we wont go into as he's a dick) and the guys that had tonnes of cash, chicks and NES games are all... I dunno where they are as they all have their heads shoved too far up their PHBs ass and only come out from time to time to discuss how much tax their car allowance costs them!
Another truth exposed by/.!
I recently joined an angel organisation to publicise my business in an attempt to raise funds. The information provided to the organisation is supposed to be secret, and only available to members of the organisation via a paper newsletter which was reproduced in the secure area of the organisations website.
A couple of months down the line a couple of search engines, when asked about 'mycompanyname' were giving the newsletter entry in the top 5.
Alongside my details were those of several other companies. Essentially laying out the essence of the respective business plans.
How did this happen? The site was put together with FP2000, and the 'secure' area was simply those files in the/secure directory.
I had no cause to view the website prior to this. The site has been fixed on my advice. How did this come about? No one in the organisation knew what security meant. They were told that/secure WAS!
It didn't do any damage to myself, but a few of the other companies could have suffered if their plans were found. Its not googles job to do anything about this, its the webmasters. But a word of warning - before you agree for your info to appear on a website ask about the security measures. They mey well be crap!
My poor little laptop can hardy display them without scrolling! And scrolling to read a whole ad is a bit much.
About time/. had ads that size, I'd buy a whole load more thinkgeek shit if the ads were 140x800!
Re:That's been the trend in recent years
on
Virtual Astronomy
·
· Score: 2
Its not just in astronomy, or even Science that the data gathering is streaking ahead of the data analysis.
In business VAST amounts of information is now routinely being gathered. In most cases nothing useful is being done with it. One of the things we do for clients is identify the data that can be usefully REPORTED, rather than gathered.
That way you only gather data that you will be getting value from, reducing the gathering effort and cost dramatically.
If all scientific data were to be treated similarly - i.e. gather as you need - more resource could be put into the analysis as less is put into gathering. Data for its own sake is fine if you have unlimited resource. Most of us don't - not even Nasa during wartime.
I never fail to be amazed at how petty some of you guys can be.
/. has turned into a news repeater. It rarely posts novel information, normally just opinion on some article elsewhere.
Judged on this basis, this was a _good_ article, because it refered to an interesting article. Most of the stories are simply items on bbc.co.uk or yet another build announce. Dull.
Your reponse just shows that its not just/. that 'tends to be a little slow';-)
This is a good article. Theres a depth there, which means I want to read part two. Its probably the third or fourth thing Ive read on/. this year that I can say that about.
Slashdot Mirror
I have worked on many projects which have failed due to a shortfall in uptake. The sites themselves were excellent, and beloved by their userbase - but the userbase just wasn't big enough.
/. style, live CHAT style, or some hideous mix as we did recently these are the key to any site working. Even one that is not there specifically to allow interchange - enable it and you give the site a sense of place - of commonality - of community. It's fluffy - but it works!
Running the risk of a granny egg sucking session, here are some observations of things which HELP a site.
Novel Material / Early News
If your site can be first with the news, or provide good novel content which is interesting / useful enough for people to print / bookmark you have a good chance of being referenced. This is a key FREE way to spread the word.
Forums
Wether
Hard Copies
It sounds stupid - but the sites we built early on, which had a paper newsletter (usually quarterly) asociated with them have done well. People seem to repond to the paper mail and visit the site. Coincide the paper issue with a new feature / big story and you multiply the effect.
Email
Give people a reminder email every couple of weeks - its not spam - they signed up for it. Say something in the email - not just 'visit us'.
Recommend a Friend
Give people an easy way to forward links to the site, and to every individual item within the site straight from the page. We know they can do this easily without a 'recommend a friend' button - but they really do work. Up to 50% of new members are coming from this on some sites.
Stats
Show people how many people are using the site - make people visible, through forums or other mechanisms. If you see a site thats obviously been updated TODAY and has a bunch of visitors your more likely to take it seriously.
And some stuff you would THINK would work but in my experience doesn't.
Directories
Niche directories sound great. Operate a definitive list of great sources of information for people to access. Hope they start using you as their own bookmarks for this topic.
On the whole our feedback shows most people are happy with google, AV, etc... for 90% of links, so don't need this kind of thing. These are costly to maintain well, and of little benefit.
Too many options
A mature site can cope with tonnes of options to switch this off, that on, remove images, add a reminder service etc... But again, we find that this stuff just puts people off if its there before an established community.
Client confidentiality, DPA, etc.. stops me citing the examples - sorry.
"i>If one believes that humans are different from animals in that we contain a spirit and an awareness of God...
Which we don't! I wanna be crossed with a kangeroo! I'd be KungFu movie gold!
Is this a step forward for mankind, or a step backward?
No - it's a big jump in the air!
Of course MASS PRODUCTION couldn't be expected to reduce the cost within 2 or 3 years or anything?
ANY new technology is prohibitively expensive during its release year - unless its washing powder!
...somewhere deep down I'd REALLY like to see the olympics competed between genetically modified super steroid dope mungeous uber athletes.
The 7s 100m, the 2 minute mile, a marathon in... no time. Swimming without having to breath, with great big flat feet hinged at the ankle like flippers.
REALLY tall dudes playing basketball. Chicks with HUGE asses doing speed skating.
Roll on 2012!
Here in the UK c4 shows Futurama at about 6pm on seemingly random weeknights - and sometimes earlier!
I've probably only seen about 6 episodes ever because of this. I know I could tape it, but I'm not that organised, and anyway, I probably don't care enough to bother!
If it was on later, anywhere between 7:30 and midnight, it would get a bigger audience. Unfortunately, those hours are reserved for chick programming like Allie McBeal, Make over shows, and soaps!
I think it goes out first on Sky or e4 at a better time but because I've got a posh old house I'm not allowed a minidish because I have an evil neighbour who puts in planning objections... bitch! And the Monkey signal is too weak on my street.
To an extent console releases have always relied on the 'oh my god - its sold out everywhere - it must be the most popular thing on the planet!' story to hype themselves.
Its refreshing to see Nintendo take the other tack- and talk about actual numbers.
I could release a new console, I'd call it Kylie ("just going to play with Kylie a couple of hours"), and issue a 'oh my god...' press release having sold ONE. I'm sure in a lot of territories the PS2 DIDN'T actually sell out for very long, but the common perception is that it was unavailable for MONTHS worldwide. I had no trouble buying mine!
The excellent Mark Thomas Product, a show on c4 in the UK had a pop at "the Data Protection Act and in particular its sections covering Closed Circuit Television".
Essentially, in the UK, if a CCTV camera records your image you just have to write to the owner of the camera with a £10 cheque asking for a copy of all information they hold on you. By law under the DPA they have to provide you with a copy. If they don't they can go to jail.
He went into a McDonalds with a troup of tumblers and jugglers and asked for a copy of the tape. He went a bunch of other places aswell, get him on video, very funny!
Lots of info starting here, at his own FAQ, and if you get hooked check out google directory for stacks of links.
This is trigger happy TV for the broadsheet reader!
VCRs were supposed to be the end of movie theatres
In fact, VCR IMPROVED attendance at movie theatres overall. It widened the scope for the movies, bringing a wholenew audience in. I'm not a huge movies fan, but watching crappy VHS copies just kind of makes you want to go to the BIG SCREEN and soak the thing in. It improved the possibility of getting a small film funded because the direct to video revenue stream was viable.
What broadcasters need to do is produce better BROADCAST television, so we find some benefit from watching live / watching through their hardware. Other than sporting events I cannot think of an example of a TV show I'd pay extra to watch 'live'
OR they need to find a different charging mechanism than subscription / advertising.
Actually. All TeeVee should be funded like the BBC. The BBC is great!
I'd agree with this wholeheartedly, from the other side of the fence.
At the moment, with Xbox and GameCube just out we're seeing a glut of good console posts. But these will dry up because people will get sick of them.
A new catagory would allow the stories to continue for those of us who want them.
As it works out a 747 is rather Enviormentally friendly
. ht ml
c t. html
o r. htm
n di viduals/resources/default.htm
o n. phtml
I'm sorry, but this is untrue urban legend nonsense that rears its head whenever people think the green movement is trying to take away their right to fly.
A single transatlantic flight is equivalent to 5 years of the average British commute by car (35 minutes a day in each direction). And that is the 'per person' figure.
Then you factor in the ozone depletion, the various other high atmosphere problems high altitude jets cause, and the fact that those car journey we are comparing to are many times more polluting than bus/train commuting.
747s are NOT environmentally friendly.
If you want references try these:
http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/tools/ghg_calc
http://www.ans.neep.wisc.edu/~eic/personal.impa
http://www.rides.org/main/environmentalcalculat
http://www.flightsciences.com/environ.htm
http://www.climatechangesolutions.com/english/i
http://ottawa2000.commuterchallenge.net/polluti
Agreed. This isn't a one shop solution. I walk to the toilet, I cycle to work, I drive to visit my parents, I fly to the Med for a holiday.
That an environmentally preferable solution is available for short haul should be a good thing. That we have to stick with 747s for long haul may just be a law of physics.
Many small planes on short flights means a lot more overhead
WRONG. Long haul flights are no nore efficient overall than regional flights of under 1000 miles which would, probably, be within the range I refered to.
In the UK it is cheaper to fly the length of the country than to take a coach / train because the overheads of flight are so low. These are normally relatively small aircraft.
Jigsaws won't work, its too simple a problem (no teamwork required, no changing scenarios in real time), but I agree that something other than Soccer could be a better test of the bots.
Personally I think SKIING would be an excellent test of bots. And it would enable bot builders to justify funding for trips to the alps every now and again.
Ever changing scenario, quick responses, weight balancing, gates to get through in difficult visual conditions. Different disciplines - Jumping, Downhill, Boarding etc...
Admitedly balance element would be a limit at the moment - but given time this could be hugely entertaining stuff to watch when they lose their footing!
With Fuel Cells you boil down to a trade off between the efficiency and cost of the fuel.
Plain old hydrocarbons are cheapish, easy to handle, and not overly dangerous in a 'leak' situation.
But they require hyper advanced self cleaning fuel cells that wear out quickly.
Pure methanol is expensive (purification always costs), easy to handle, and not overly dangerous in a leak situation.
It works in cheaper, more reliable, longer lasting and lighter fuel cells.
Hydrogen is expensive, difficult to handle, and pretty damn dangerous stuff in ANY situation.
It works best with fuel cells, pretty much optimal.
A fuel cell that can handle ANY carbon rich material, and takes O2 from the atmosphere would be the holy grail. You could use argicultural by products to produce methonal, dig up oil, LPG, any burnable liquid essentially.
A rethink on the air network strategy to produce lighter, smaller, more efficient aircraft which possibly fly a bit slower and take shorter 'hops' would bring Fuel Cell flight closer.
This would be a worthwhile trade off for a more environmentally sound and sustainable flight infrastructure.
Boeing and Airbus both seem committed to increasing the size of aircraft overall. Maybe its time for a serious rethink?
As a businessman, what perspective do you have on Gnome anyway?
I take exception to this assertion that 'businessmen' cannot understand Free Software.
Not all business is run purely for profit. My own company operates to provide a good quality of life for myself and my employees. We charge a decent rate for our work, and my employees take home market rate salaries. I take home a below market rate salary, because everyone else that does my job would pay each employee 10% less and double their own salary. No one is getting rich - everyone is doing pretty well. My business is NOT run for profit.
I seriously believe in Free Software. I believe that my commercial background gives me valuable insights into the drives behind software users that could be used by ANY Free Software organisation to better target their wares.
This is true of a growing underclass of 'businesspeople'. You can't group all businesspeople together with generalisations with any more justification than you can with geeks, gays, glaswegians, gorillas or goths.
One thing business people tend to have in common is a clear defenition of their goals, and of their strategy for achieving them. I believe THIS is the missing link in many FS projects, which is why I hope the Gnome Board DOES have hard nosed business attitudes which can be applied to the Gnome goals.
OK rant over! Businessmen are not all evil. Stop believing Dilbert!!!
Zigaktly!
If September shows anything, its that there is no such thing as 'their problem'. The west is seriously playing around with states like Libya, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Iraq... making peoples lives worse.
It doesn't matter exactly how, wether its blocking software, blocking drugs, blocking imports of food in times of drought. What matters is that its wrong and to get upset about blocking the rich of these countries from accessing a few websites is petty and norrow sighted.
/. users are, we all assume, above average intelligence and reasonably well informed. From the typical response to this type of post you seriously doubt it.
This gets me thinking about the DV revolution. I can walk into any electronics hop and buy all the kit I need to make a movie for about £3000, not a hell of a lot of money.
I can walk out and make my own movie with some friends. The resulting movie can be truly great. It wont have the effects of the Matrix, or the babes (unless I happen to know some talented 'ass' - which I don't) but it can be great. Ideas make movies. It can be great. It could make it to a film festival, do a small run in small cinemas / video screens and get a small release on video.
I can also gather a bunch of people together and write a snow boarding game. Unless it brings something new to the genre then it'll just be mediocre or crap. It can look pretty through good design, it can play well through refined physics, it can be good. It'd take years. It _could_ be good. At a push.
But I could make a movie in a couple of months with no money just using my spare time - it'd be a short most likely - but it _could_ quite easily be cool.
Can a game in an established style ever be worth £30 when on the same shelf as something that cost literally millions to develop and is supremely polished?
Most people would agree a movie is a movie is a movie - some are bargain priced on video/DVD - but on the whole they cost the same.
Games, on the other hand, are different. If Tux Racer is justifiably likened to a mini game in FFVII how can it be justified in charging £30?
I used to write games on my old Ataris - they were shit, but we enjoyed playing them (racing platformers mainly - now THERE is a dead genre to resurrect). We enjoyed them because we could dick about with them and speed characters up, slow them down, turn gravity upside down etc... the games themselves were painfully mediocre - actually it was all the same game at various points on its evolution.
I always thought jeff minters games were kinda cruddy - they were small, the graphics were small - but I loved playing them and always paid double the shareware fee because I enjoyed the idea of feeding camels. Thats the territory I see TuxRacer inhabiting, not the boxed £30 games shelf.
Even in the UK the implicit trust of the US has long gone. Cashmere, Bananas, and a host of other seemingly petty trade rows which have involved very senior politicians on both sides of the pond have shown the US to be vastly more protective of its markets than the UK / EU.
To depend solely on a US owned GPS system for such a huge, and growing, list of services, often relating to national security, is shortsighted.
However. The EU should not build a competing product. The US should hand control of the GPS system over to the UN lock stock and barrel. That way the world has a reliable GPS system that cannot be switched off by a grumpy state at some point in the future.
GPS is becoming too important to leave it in the hands of someone else. Either its everyones toy, or EVERYONE needs their own. With the cost of a GPS system being prohibitive to all but the richest nations I think the UN option is best.
It'll never happen though.
The only reason that remains significant is that Fuel Cells still, generaly, require much cleaner fuels than turbines.
Any contaminants can reduce the efficiency of a fuel cell significantly, whereas only a significant build up of 'sticky' contamination will effect a turbine significantly.
Nice thought! On a quick run through of people I know - those who have to work harder, were saddled with disfigurements, excessive boogers, being too short, when at school have all turned out to be pretty cool (with one exception who we wont go into as he's a dick) and the guys that had tonnes of cash, chicks and NES games are all... I dunno where they are as they all have their heads shoved too far up their PHBs ass and only come out from time to time to discuss how much tax their car allowance costs them! /.!
Another truth exposed by
I recently joined an angel organisation to publicise my business in an attempt to raise funds. The information provided to the organisation is supposed to be secret, and only available to members of the organisation via a paper newsletter which was reproduced in the secure area of the organisations website.
/secure directory.
/secure WAS!
A couple of months down the line a couple of search engines, when asked about 'mycompanyname' were giving the newsletter entry in the top 5.
Alongside my details were those of several other companies. Essentially laying out the essence of the respective business plans.
How did this happen? The site was put together with FP2000, and the 'secure' area was simply those files in the
I had no cause to view the website prior to this. The site has been fixed on my advice. How did this come about? No one in the organisation knew what security meant. They were told that
It didn't do any damage to myself, but a few of the other companies could have suffered if their plans were found. Its not googles job to do anything about this, its the webmasters. But a word of warning - before you agree for your info to appear on a website ask about the security measures. They mey well be crap!
What about those hefty ads! 140x800! 13K!
/. had ads that size, I'd buy a whole load more thinkgeek shit if the ads were 140x800!
My poor little laptop can hardy display them without scrolling! And scrolling to read a whole ad is a bit much.
About time
Its not just in astronomy, or even Science that the data gathering is streaking ahead of the data analysis.
In business VAST amounts of information is now routinely being gathered. In most cases nothing useful is being done with it. One of the things we do for clients is identify the data that can be usefully REPORTED, rather than gathered.
That way you only gather data that you will be getting value from, reducing the gathering effort and cost dramatically.
If all scientific data were to be treated similarly - i.e. gather as you need - more resource could be put into the analysis as less is put into gathering. Data for its own sake is fine if you have unlimited resource. Most of us don't - not even Nasa during wartime.
I never fail to be amazed at how petty some of you guys can be.
/. that 'tends to be a little slow' ;-)
/. has turned into a news repeater. It rarely posts novel information, normally just opinion on some article elsewhere.
Judged on this basis, this was a _good_ article, because it refered to an interesting article. Most of the stories are simply items on bbc.co.uk or yet another build announce. Dull.
Your reponse just shows that its not just
This is a good article. Theres a depth there, which means I want to read part two. Its probably the third or fourth thing Ive read on /. this year that I can say that about.
;-)
Standards are rising