Would you rather have rich monopolies teaming up against the user (in effect) or some spam from ATI (still struggling I might add -- nVidia has a LARGE market share)?
nVidia Isn't Appearing So Virtuous Anymore...
on
Dell Partners with Square
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Heh. I remember back when nVidia support was in the minority and 3dfx was 'the' graphics card chip. nVidia didn't use any sick tactics back then: their business practice was clean. It seems that has changed; though I suppose Intel was that way once, too.
It's a lesson in monopoly. You keep a company at bay, balanced by another and they BOTH behave and keep prices down. You leave one alone, and prices go up, service goes down, and the customer gets screwed.
I can only hope ATI does well with the latest Radeon Pro (quite highly rated from what I've seen). I'm disgusted with nVidia. This kind of business practice makes me think I should never buy an nVidia card again. Some areas only playable if you buy a ridiculously expensive card? It's incredible what capitalism gives us, just incredible.
Well, that is certainly a valid point, but one has to realize that it's all about cause and effect.
That may be the effect, but MS is not going to sweat until Linux becomes a big threat in the Home-Consumer and Basic-Business markets. It takes the things I've been talking about to get to that status and it's only there that MS will be forced to change their business practices which will, indeed, help everyone.
MS has an easy time; they feel no real competition. Sure some users go to Linux, some to Mac OS, but SO many people associate "Windows" and "Computer" that it will take a lot more than an article and a little more pressure to make MS actually change Windows (and their business practicies along with it).
I am quite aware of the latest developments in Linux, and I think they're great. Linux is definitely coming around as a solid 'average-user' platform, but I'm only saying it's not quite there yet.
As for Linux in the office...well, no matter how much better it is than Windows, it does involve new training (this is simply a fact Linux != Windows [thank god]) and it involves a general distruption of work while people get everything newly set up and such: in other words, it's a BIG hassle (and it would cost money and time for training and different tech-support people, often times). Now I can't think of much that will change this, but it is something to remember when thinking that Linux should be adopted by the business market.
Yes, supporting Linux only makes it more user-friendly, but to get the support there in the first place, it has to pass a certain invisible barrier into the world of not just user-friendliness, but into a world where the target audience knows about Linux, can obtain it, and realizes that they can use it for their purposes.
I re-read the article and I think I was indeed rather harsh on the Times, this kind of press is generally quite good for the Linux community as the more people who know about Linux and what it can do, the more support Linux will get, and the more user-friendly it will get! Talk about cause and effect.
It is also important (in my opinion) to remember that it's not just about whether or not a good GUI version of Linux can do everything Windows can, but a lot of it is dumbing down the interface (or giving that option, preferably as a defalt) and a good deal is making it feel, at least in some ways, like Windows, so they don't have to re-learn to use an OS.
The other important concern is that, despite what anyone may say about the install process, until Dell, Gateway, and the major PC builders start offering to put Linux on their machines instead of Windows (fat chance), Linux just wont get 'avearge home user' support. The install may be easy, but most people dont wont to bother with that and likely dont know how. It still involves booting from a disk, and so on. It's cake to a techie but something a lot of people do not really want to do.
Finally, Linux just doesn't get enough press (another reason I take back how harsh I was on this article). Not enough people know of its virtues and not enough people know that it can do for them just about everything Windows can with a lot of other benefits.
Give Linux some more exposure, allow major-brand computers to come with it (or a new, reasonably priced brand), and perhaps make the interface a bit more like Windows, or even easier, and I suspect a good deal of people will flock to it.
I've not come here to bash Linux in any way shape or form, but...
There is no doubt that Linux supports the cause of breaking the MS monopoly (a good thing, whether or not MS itself is bad..that's not a debate I'm about to start). It's good for the industry, it is definitely a nice operating system for servers, programmers, and sophisticated computer users.
But Linux (in my opinion, at any rate) is NOT appropriate for the consumer as the articticle claims. The average American (and probably European too, but I can't say) consumer can run word, e-mail, the web, e-mail, and probably a few games. They are blissful on Windows, have no desire to switch over and dont really know about (nor do they care about) the Windows vs. *nix vs. whatever.
Until Linux comes to a level of user-friendliness much more advanced than it's at now, Linux is not going to enter the general consumer market. The programs are not what people are familliar to, it's not supported by ISPs and a lot of technical help groups, the installation is still complicated (we're talking about people who generally have neither the ability nor desire to so much as reinstall Windows), and neither the CLI (obviously) nor the major interfaces (Gnome, KDE, etc.) are really as user friendly and simple to use as Windows.
I generally like the NYT, but I wish they'd put a little more general thought into some issues.
This might have been mentioned before, but I thought I'd throw in my opinion.
The RIAA, despite how the Slashdot community portrays it, is really there to support record industries and [perhaps] their artists. Now, we can get off on as many capitalistic rants as we want (I share some anti-capitalism views), but the fact is, we live in a capitalist society (which DOES give us a lot of freedom) and companies need and want to make more money. The RIAA is simply trying to give recording artists and [more specifically] record labels their money back.
We might say 'whats the difference between x billion dollars and x-2 billion dollars' but this can account for jobs lost, lower salaries, whatnot. By downloading pirated music, (I'm not saying this is necessarily evil) you dont 'get back' at the CEOs of the recording industry, you 'get back' at the lower-paid workers by cutting their salaries and causing them to lose their jobs.
Now despite all that, I think this is definitely a step in the right direction. No matter what, people are going to pirate music the way it is now, and if the record industry can use this fact to give 'free samples' out to everyone and then offer an incentive to buy the CD itself (such as what Bon Jovi is offering here) then everyone from the CEOs to the lower-paid workers to the consumer benefits.
Instead of hating the RIAA, we should do our best to support initiatives like this one and change the recording industry (and everything about it) for the better.
Re:Interesting...Private Media's Stock Soared
on
The Porn Of Napster
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· Score: 1
But I believe you're missing the point. There is no doubt that IDT videos are being circulated in a variety of ways that don't generate to profit for the couple involved, but when one undertakes such a low-expense operation, there is very little cost to cut out of income to get a net product.
In other words, after the costs of running a site and the time consumed in making the videos (+ the one time camcorder expense) EVERYTHING is profit. That is one of the things that makes the porn industry so profitable: it can be done by just about anyone (with a bit of starting funds and some women)
Interesting...Private Media's Stock Soared
on
The Porn Of Napster
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Anyone notice that in the article it mentions a 2.41 stock value and the quote at the foot of the article mentions a ~22% gain (.55)? It's no surprise I suppose considering that the porn industry is a multi-billion dollar one, but still kind of astounding. Another half million for Napster if they accept..
I cant imagine anyone but a complete and total sucker using this. Is there some...uplifting quality? I've never particurally liked Yahoo!'s business tactics, seeing as they often involved trying to steal privacy rights and the like, but this is ridiculous. Who do they honestly think will pay for this?
Interesting.
I have, occationally, showed levels of immaturity, there is no denying that. The question is, for the person claiming maturity - are they mature the majority of the time?
I have friends at school who think I am a uber l33t hax0r just because I showed them how to use ping or annonymous email. A 2 year-old could figure those out given enough time.
Also, at my school, the closest most get to hacking is learning Visual Basic (its required). Then they think they can go make a program that says hello world, so they must be hackers. Of course, afterwords they go download tools from a site and bother people with port-scans (they dont know what to do with the results, usually).
Anyway, no reason to preach to the followers. In final responce to the last reply (allright, perhaps a defense), you're very often right, but I think maturity is not whether or not you have burts of immaturity (everyone does in their teens, its almost automatic), but rather how often you are actually mature.
Being 16 myself (though rather mature for my age, like many TRUE geeks), I can say that I see this as often as any of you and it is unquestionably annoying and bothersome, but these 16-year-olds on power trips in tribes servers or acting as script kiddies win-nuking ICQ users are harmless.
They're either so immature or so ignorant that the worst damage they'll cause is to annoy those who are more mature than themselves, and to attempt to impress those who are as immature as, again, themselves (a theme here?)
I will note that playing Counter-Strike, I've been in clans run by 15-year-olds. They're miserable. The admin is on a power trip, kicking anyone with superior skill, and controlling the clan as his subjects (in case you didn't notice, CS isn't a game of kings and their subjects...)
Saying that they will harm the internet is like saying that your going to kill me with a squirt gun. They most annoying of their kind, the script kiddies, do not even understand through what port win-nuke works, much less any of the code behind it. They will never cause any damage, never really hack a system, never start a worm, never create a virus, etc, etc.
Certainly, most of this can be attributed to so called "media hysteria", as we see all kinds of messages about "our children" (since the famous school shootings) and it raises suspician that children may be causing these problems on the internet.
The people causing trouble on the 'net are not the 15-year-old script kiddies, but the older, more mature and intelligent "hackers" writing worms and virii. They are the people that are the risk, if any really are.
My only other criticism is that mass generalizations are often made about people of my age group (roughly 16). While, I would be the first to step up and say they are mostly true, there are some of us who are mature enough to realize the true value of the internet and those subjects accociated with it, to know that it is foolish to attept any worthless acts (such as win-nuke, the example I am oh-so-ever fond of)
In summary, blaming the problems with the internet on 15-year-olds is naieve and ignorant. The threat originates from a far more mature and intelligent crowd (same wording, so sue me). The crowd spoken of in the article are the type of people who think using an SMTP server to send annonymous email is "hacking"
Slashdot Mirror
Would you rather have rich monopolies teaming up against the user (in effect) or some spam from ATI (still struggling I might add -- nVidia has a LARGE market share)?
Heh. I remember back when nVidia support was in the minority and 3dfx was 'the' graphics card chip. nVidia didn't use any sick tactics back then: their business practice was clean. It seems that has changed; though I suppose Intel was that way once, too.
It's a lesson in monopoly. You keep a company at bay, balanced by another and they BOTH behave and keep prices down. You leave one alone, and prices go up, service goes down, and the customer gets screwed.
I can only hope ATI does well with the latest Radeon Pro (quite highly rated from what I've seen). I'm disgusted with nVidia. This kind of business practice makes me think I should never buy an nVidia card again. Some areas only playable if you buy a ridiculously expensive card? It's incredible what capitalism gives us, just incredible.
Well, that is certainly a valid point, but one has to realize that it's all about cause and effect.
That may be the effect, but MS is not going to sweat until Linux becomes a big threat in the Home-Consumer and Basic-Business markets. It takes the things I've been talking about to get to that status and it's only there that MS will be forced to change their business practices which will, indeed, help everyone.
MS has an easy time; they feel no real competition. Sure some users go to Linux, some to Mac OS, but SO many people associate "Windows" and "Computer" that it will take a lot more than an article and a little more pressure to make MS actually change Windows (and their business practicies along with it).
Perhaps I shouldn't have been so harsh.
I am quite aware of the latest developments in Linux, and I think they're great. Linux is definitely coming around as a solid 'average-user' platform, but I'm only saying it's not quite there yet.
As for Linux in the office...well, no matter how much better it is than Windows, it does involve new training (this is simply a fact Linux != Windows [thank god]) and it involves a general distruption of work while people get everything newly set up and such: in other words, it's a BIG hassle (and it would cost money and time for training and different tech-support people, often times). Now I can't think of much that will change this, but it is something to remember when thinking that Linux should be adopted by the business market.
Yes, supporting Linux only makes it more user-friendly, but to get the support there in the first place, it has to pass a certain invisible barrier into the world of not just user-friendliness, but into a world where the target audience knows about Linux, can obtain it, and realizes that they can use it for their purposes.
I re-read the article and I think I was indeed rather harsh on the Times, this kind of press is generally quite good for the Linux community as the more people who know about Linux and what it can do, the more support Linux will get, and the more user-friendly it will get! Talk about cause and effect.
It is also important (in my opinion) to remember that it's not just about whether or not a good GUI version of Linux can do everything Windows can, but a lot of it is dumbing down the interface (or giving that option, preferably as a defalt) and a good deal is making it feel, at least in some ways, like Windows, so they don't have to re-learn to use an OS.
The other important concern is that, despite what anyone may say about the install process, until Dell, Gateway, and the major PC builders start offering to put Linux on their machines instead of Windows (fat chance), Linux just wont get 'avearge home user' support. The install may be easy, but most people dont wont to bother with that and likely dont know how. It still involves booting from a disk, and so on. It's cake to a techie but something a lot of people do not really want to do.
Finally, Linux just doesn't get enough press (another reason I take back how harsh I was on this article). Not enough people know of its virtues and not enough people know that it can do for them just about everything Windows can with a lot of other benefits.
Give Linux some more exposure, allow major-brand computers to come with it (or a new, reasonably priced brand), and perhaps make the interface a bit more like Windows, or even easier, and I suspect a good deal of people will flock to it.
But thats just my opinion, I could be wrong...
I've not come here to bash Linux in any way shape or form, but...
There is no doubt that Linux supports the cause of breaking the MS monopoly (a good thing, whether or not MS itself is bad..that's not a debate I'm about to start). It's good for the industry, it is definitely a nice operating system for servers, programmers, and sophisticated computer users.
But Linux (in my opinion, at any rate) is NOT appropriate for the consumer as the articticle claims. The average American (and probably European too, but I can't say) consumer can run word, e-mail, the web, e-mail, and probably a few games. They are blissful on Windows, have no desire to switch over and dont really know about (nor do they care about) the Windows vs. *nix vs. whatever.
Until Linux comes to a level of user-friendliness much more advanced than it's at now, Linux is not going to enter the general consumer market. The programs are not what people are familliar to, it's not supported by ISPs and a lot of technical help groups, the installation is still complicated (we're talking about people who generally have neither the ability nor desire to so much as reinstall Windows), and neither the CLI (obviously) nor the major interfaces (Gnome, KDE, etc.) are really as user friendly and simple to use as Windows.
I generally like the NYT, but I wish they'd put a little more general thought into some issues.
This might have been mentioned before, but I thought I'd throw in my opinion.
The RIAA, despite how the Slashdot community portrays it, is really there to support record industries and [perhaps] their artists. Now, we can get off on as many capitalistic rants as we want (I share some anti-capitalism views), but the fact is, we live in a capitalist society (which DOES give us a lot of freedom) and companies need and want to make more money. The RIAA is simply trying to give recording artists and [more specifically] record labels their money back.
We might say 'whats the difference between x billion dollars and x-2 billion dollars' but this can account for jobs lost, lower salaries, whatnot. By downloading pirated music, (I'm not saying this is necessarily evil) you dont 'get back' at the CEOs of the recording industry, you 'get back' at the lower-paid workers by cutting their salaries and causing them to lose their jobs.
Now despite all that, I think this is definitely a step in the right direction. No matter what, people are going to pirate music the way it is now, and if the record industry can use this fact to give 'free samples' out to everyone and then offer an incentive to buy the CD itself (such as what Bon Jovi is offering here) then everyone from the CEOs to the lower-paid workers to the consumer benefits.
Instead of hating the RIAA, we should do our best to support initiatives like this one and change the recording industry (and everything about it) for the better.
But I believe you're missing the point. There is no doubt that IDT videos are being circulated in a variety of ways that don't generate to profit for the couple involved, but when one undertakes such a low-expense operation, there is very little cost to cut out of income to get a net product.
In other words, after the costs of running a site and the time consumed in making the videos (+ the one time camcorder expense) EVERYTHING is profit. That is one of the things that makes the porn industry so profitable: it can be done by just about anyone (with a bit of starting funds and some women)
Anyone notice that in the article it mentions a 2.41 stock value and the quote at the foot of the article mentions a ~22% gain (.55)? It's no surprise I suppose considering that the porn industry is a multi-billion dollar one, but still kind of astounding. Another half million for Napster if they accept..
I cant imagine anyone but a complete and total sucker using this. Is there some...uplifting quality? I've never particurally liked Yahoo!'s business tactics, seeing as they often involved trying to steal privacy rights and the like, but this is ridiculous. Who do they honestly think will pay for this?
Interesting. I have, occationally, showed levels of immaturity, there is no denying that. The question is, for the person claiming maturity - are they mature the majority of the time?
I have friends at school who think I am a uber l33t hax0r just because I showed them how to use ping or annonymous email. A 2 year-old could figure those out given enough time.
Also, at my school, the closest most get to hacking is learning Visual Basic (its required). Then they think they can go make a program that says hello world, so they must be hackers. Of course, afterwords they go download tools from a site and bother people with port-scans (they dont know what to do with the results, usually).
Anyway, no reason to preach to the followers. In final responce to the last reply (allright, perhaps a defense), you're very often right, but I think maturity is not whether or not you have burts of immaturity (everyone does in their teens, its almost automatic), but rather how often you are actually mature.
Being 16 myself (though rather mature for my age, like many TRUE geeks), I can say that I see this as often as any of you and it is unquestionably annoying and bothersome, but these 16-year-olds on power trips in tribes servers or acting as script kiddies win-nuking ICQ users are harmless. They're either so immature or so ignorant that the worst damage they'll cause is to annoy those who are more mature than themselves, and to attempt to impress those who are as immature as, again, themselves (a theme here?) I will note that playing Counter-Strike, I've been in clans run by 15-year-olds. They're miserable. The admin is on a power trip, kicking anyone with superior skill, and controlling the clan as his subjects (in case you didn't notice, CS isn't a game of kings and their subjects...) Saying that they will harm the internet is like saying that your going to kill me with a squirt gun. They most annoying of their kind, the script kiddies, do not even understand through what port win-nuke works, much less any of the code behind it. They will never cause any damage, never really hack a system, never start a worm, never create a virus, etc, etc. Certainly, most of this can be attributed to so called "media hysteria", as we see all kinds of messages about "our children" (since the famous school shootings) and it raises suspician that children may be causing these problems on the internet. The people causing trouble on the 'net are not the 15-year-old script kiddies, but the older, more mature and intelligent "hackers" writing worms and virii. They are the people that are the risk, if any really are. My only other criticism is that mass generalizations are often made about people of my age group (roughly 16). While, I would be the first to step up and say they are mostly true, there are some of us who are mature enough to realize the true value of the internet and those subjects accociated with it, to know that it is foolish to attept any worthless acts (such as win-nuke, the example I am oh-so-ever fond of) In summary, blaming the problems with the internet on 15-year-olds is naieve and ignorant. The threat originates from a far more mature and intelligent crowd (same wording, so sue me). The crowd spoken of in the article are the type of people who think using an SMTP server to send annonymous email is "hacking"