Christ, throwing out a technical term to these people is like dangling a fake steak in front of a dog. He wants it, thinks he needs it, but when he gets it, he discovers he has no idea what it is at all.
These are people I've had to explain the concept of the megabyte to.
I work in a design office where most people use Mac OS 10.2. I swear to God, now matter how many times I show people virus stats, or point them to articles about Macs and viruses, the SECOND there is something wonky going on, they call scream that they have a virus.
The iPod is the best in terms of it's sheer marketing power. OK, so it wont play OGG, it's a little expensive, but it's also in the to 5 gizmos that every high school kid wanted this year.
Maybe the features are not the absolute best, but it's design, ease of use, and marketing have been top-notch. Whenever I show my old Rio 600 to people, I frequently have to say "it's like a iPod"
iPod has become synonymous with mp3 player as Walkman became to portable tape player
Except for the fact that a lot of good indie labels and songs are on iTunes now as well.
I highly doubt they are going to be kind enough to give away just ANY free download. I'm sure they are already entered talks with various record labels about which bands will get pushed. I'll get you are going to wind up with about 200-500 different offerings to choose from through the McD's promotion.
However if they Do let me take and old song that I want when I buy a value meal, I could see myself eating there more often, even though the food tastes like masking tape.
How are artists going to become popular now? Will giant rock concerts become a thing of the past because no one group will have such a large listening base?
Damn good point... in the past months I've come to realize more and more that something might be really dumb, but if there is a market for it, it will be created.
I don't know if creating a technology like this is "evil" or "bad"... on the one hand, you are creating a product that someone with 2 can see right though, but on the other hand, you can make a ton of money in a way that's still more legitimate than spamming.
There was a teacher at my college that was a member of the academy, and every Oscar season he would show all the nominees back to back in the school's screening room. He'd start showing them at 7 or so and we would not be done until like, 4 or later.
Could this be the next step for Apple? It would make sense to me. A $500 to $700 device that looks good, is linked to your Mac and iTMS account, and looks really, really cool. I give it a year to six months.
'm curious to see what will happen if Apple can get those iPod costs down - cheaper hard drives and such. If they can get the production down to $100 an iPod, and have a range ($100 for 5 Gig, $500 for 40 Gig, etc), they will make a killing in the MP3 player market.
I don't know if the want to bring the price down... at least not yet. Remember, Apple has never, ever stated that they are a computer company for those on a budget. Apple likes to charge a lot for their stuff.
I'm sure BMW could sell cars for way less than they do, but that would destroy their image, an eventually, their business.
I think the iPods work in the same way. Apple is not going to make them cheaper just because they can.
It depends on how well they market it... I know a surprising number of people over 60 who pay their $20 a month to use email to look at their grandkids and not much else. It's really all that a lot of people can handle, or want to.
Now, if AOL can really, really make this look appealing and EASY, it might work. But a lot of those grannies had a hard enough time learning outlook, let alone trying to switch their service to save some money.
I just don't see it working... too little, too late.
If not stuck coding on one machine, at least a closed network, with no internet access. How hard can it be to have a closed network for all coding purposes? Sure, it's a pain when it comes to email and other internet needs, but in a situation like this, I think it makes sense to keep all code off-line.
This is only good for "Air Heads" who move their laptop while it's on.
Don't forget about iPods and other new portable media devices that use hard drives! This could vastly improve performance on them.
I've not seen enough to make me think it's a serious problem, but I have seen a few iPods that have serious hard drive failures that I can't fix, even with low-level formatting. It seems to me a lot of those errors are just because of people moving around too much with an iPod.
I've only used one character-altering engine so far, but I've been very impressed what just a few sliders and other choices can do. The character I have made looks quite a bit like me, and it took under five minutes.
Combine this with the engine for HL2 or Doom3, and suddenly you can create a movie with a custom cast... put Dustin Hoffman in a movie with Humphry Bogart and Angelina Jolie... creating their characters takes under 15 minutes. To do it the old fashioned way took weeks.
Machinama is going to really benefit from such options. I give it another 10 years or so, and creating a hollywood quality CGI sequence will be as easy to do as photoshopping yourself next to Bill Clinton on Mars.
The next question is where does Hollywood go then? What if I could make Toy Story at home in an afternoon? How are they going to "wow" us then?
I understand where you are coming from, but think about what Microsoft software runs- nuclear power plants, railroad systems, banks and God knows what else.
Let's say a railroad system goes down (like the one in Maryland that went down because of SoBig) because of a hole in some MS code. I don't think it's MS's sole responsibility, BUT they do play a large part in the failure.
I think of it like this- if someone writes a book or flier that is to be seen by thousands of people, and there is a typo or error that causes confusion, it might not be the authors fault, but he or she SHOULD have taken caution to check for typos. The author is not at fault, but should take some responsibility for the mishap.
i'm not sure if kids need Palms or not- but the the HELL are we going to have a standardized computer education course in the US?
SO many people sit in front of computers all day long, but we are not educated about them! Anybody that graduates high school should know what a Megabyte is and how a computer works (to some degree).
I'm pretty sure most people would have a need to know about the Internet more than they need to know about different forms of Algae.
Some possible solutions are mentioned, such as "effective player-matching services", but what can and should be done to make playing online a delight?
It's actually hard to believe there is not a good system in place for ranking... it would make the games fun, too, assuming you didn't have assholes joining lower ranks to clean up on the n00bs.
I'm an OK FPS player. At my college, I was one of the better people on campus, and could routinely trounce everyone I know (it's way more satisfying to frag someone you know from down the hall) but when I went online, I sucked horribly.
These games are NOT fun when you are loosing constantly. I've quit games out of frustration before because I'll spend 30 minutes just getting killed before I can even grab a descent weapon. In fact, I rarely, if ever, play games like this anymore.
A ranking system would get me back into them, but only if it's built in. I've become a casual gamer, and it's not worth it to me to have to set up a 3rd party program to play ranked games. I want it to be a standard part of the game, automatic.
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Just tell that it is BSD dying!
Christ, throwing out a technical term to these people is like dangling a fake steak in front of a dog. He wants it, thinks he needs it, but when he gets it, he discovers he has no idea what it is at all.
These are people I've had to explain the concept of the megabyte to.
I work in a design office where most people use Mac OS 10.2. I swear to God, now matter how many times I show people virus stats, or point them to articles about Macs and viruses, the SECOND there is something wonky going on, they call scream that they have a virus.
The iPod is the best in terms of it's sheer marketing power. OK, so it wont play OGG, it's a little expensive, but it's also in the to 5 gizmos that every high school kid wanted this year.
Maybe the features are not the absolute best, but it's design, ease of use, and marketing have been top-notch. Whenever I show my old Rio 600 to people, I frequently have to say "it's like a iPod"
iPod has become synonymous with mp3 player as Walkman became to portable tape player
Except for the fact that a lot of good indie labels and songs are on iTunes now as well.
I highly doubt they are going to be kind enough to give away just ANY free download. I'm sure they are already entered talks with various record labels about which bands will get pushed. I'll get you are going to wind up with about 200-500 different offerings to choose from through the McD's promotion.
However if they Do let me take and old song that I want when I buy a value meal, I could see myself eating there more often, even though the food tastes like masking tape.
It's not like women in porn are all that real these days anyway, between injections, implants, airbrushing, lighting, posing...
They are "indie" in the sense that there are few car chases, and have plot, characters, and descent dialog.
Next thing? Every story about SCO is just them trying to prove they have a massive wang...
Speak for yourself.
Damn- that puts some stuff in perspective... 800 MB per person is really not that much... just over one CD per person on the planet.
I personally burned over 500 CDs last year, filled a couple of hard drives, and sent God knows how much email...
I think this goes to show what a wealthy little world we computer people live in.
How are artists going to become popular now? Will giant rock concerts become a thing of the past because no one group will have such a large listening base?
Egg Freckles?
"You are not our target audience."
Damn good point... in the past months I've come to realize more and more that something might be really dumb, but if there is a market for it, it will be created.
I don't know if creating a technology like this is "evil" or "bad"... on the one hand, you are creating a product that someone with 2 can see right though, but on the other hand, you can make a ton of money in a way that's still more legitimate than spamming.
There was a teacher at my college that was a member of the academy, and every Oscar season he would show all the nominees back to back in the school's screening room. He'd start showing them at 7 or so and we would not be done until like, 4 or later.
Man, I miss college.
Could this be the next step for Apple? It would make sense to me. A $500 to $700 device that looks good, is linked to your Mac and iTMS account, and looks really, really cool. I give it a year to six months.
'm curious to see what will happen if Apple can get those iPod costs down - cheaper hard drives and such. If they can get the production down to $100 an iPod, and have a range ($100 for 5 Gig, $500 for 40 Gig, etc), they will make a killing in the MP3 player market.
I don't know if the want to bring the price down... at least not yet. Remember, Apple has never, ever stated that they are a computer company for those on a budget. Apple likes to charge a lot for their stuff.
I'm sure BMW could sell cars for way less than they do, but that would destroy their image, an eventually, their business.
I think the iPods work in the same way. Apple is not going to make them cheaper just because they can.
Customer: You need a specific ISP?
more like:
Customer: My Netscape can't download your server? Do I need more RAMs?
It depends on how well they market it... I know a surprising number of people over 60 who pay their $20 a month to use email to look at their grandkids and not much else. It's really all that a lot of people can handle, or want to.
Now, if AOL can really, really make this look appealing and EASY, it might work. But a lot of those grannies had a hard enough time learning outlook, let alone trying to switch their service to save some money.
I just don't see it working... too little, too late.
Step 1: Create pointless product everyone can see right trough
Step 2:
Step 3: Profit!
If not stuck coding on one machine, at least a closed network, with no internet access. How hard can it be to have a closed network for all coding purposes? Sure, it's a pain when it comes to email and other internet needs, but in a situation like this, I think it makes sense to keep all code off-line.
However, I am not a security expert.
This is only good for "Air Heads" who move their laptop while it's on.
Don't forget about iPods and other new portable media devices that use hard drives! This could vastly improve performance on them.
I've not seen enough to make me think it's a serious problem, but I have seen a few iPods that have serious hard drive failures that I can't fix, even with low-level formatting. It seems to me a lot of those errors are just because of people moving around too much with an iPod.
I've only used one character-altering engine so far, but I've been very impressed what just a few sliders and other choices can do. The character I have made looks quite a bit like me, and it took under five minutes.
Combine this with the engine for HL2 or Doom3, and suddenly you can create a movie with a custom cast... put Dustin Hoffman in a movie with Humphry Bogart and Angelina Jolie... creating their characters takes under 15 minutes. To do it the old fashioned way took weeks.
Machinama is going to really benefit from such options. I give it another 10 years or so, and creating a hollywood quality CGI sequence will be as easy to do as photoshopping yourself next to Bill Clinton on Mars.
The next question is where does Hollywood go then? What if I could make Toy Story at home in an afternoon? How are they going to "wow" us then?
I understand where you are coming from, but think about what Microsoft software runs- nuclear power plants, railroad systems, banks and God knows what else.
Let's say a railroad system goes down (like the one in Maryland that went down because of SoBig) because of a hole in some MS code. I don't think it's MS's sole responsibility, BUT they do play a large part in the failure.
I think of it like this- if someone writes a book or flier that is to be seen by thousands of people, and there is a typo or error that causes confusion, it might not be the authors fault, but he or she SHOULD have taken caution to check for typos. The author is not at fault, but should take some responsibility for the mishap.
i'm not sure if kids need Palms or not- but the the HELL are we going to have a standardized computer education course in the US?
SO many people sit in front of computers all day long, but we are not educated about them! Anybody that graduates high school should know what a Megabyte is and how a computer works (to some degree).
I'm pretty sure most people would have a need to know about the Internet more than they need to know about different forms of Algae.
Sorry to any Algae lovers out there.
My favorite mac prank is taking a screenshot of the desktop and setting it as the wallpaper. Gets 'em every time.
Of course, since I'm the only one in my office with tech knowledge, I have to fix it back...
Some possible solutions are mentioned, such as "effective player-matching services", but what can and should be done to make playing online a delight?
It's actually hard to believe there is not a good system in place for ranking... it would make the games fun, too, assuming you didn't have assholes joining lower ranks to clean up on the n00bs.
I'm an OK FPS player. At my college, I was one of the better people on campus, and could routinely trounce everyone I know (it's way more satisfying to frag someone you know from down the hall) but when I went online, I sucked horribly.
These games are NOT fun when you are loosing constantly. I've quit games out of frustration before because I'll spend 30 minutes just getting killed before I can even grab a descent weapon. In fact, I rarely, if ever, play games like this anymore.
A ranking system would get me back into them, but only if it's built in. I've become a casual gamer, and it's not worth it to me to have to set up a 3rd party program to play ranked games. I want it to be a standard part of the game, automatic.
It could make things really, really fun this way.
Or, I'll just play Uru.