Lost sales? If I borrow the book from the library, chances are I wouldn't have bought it in the first place.
You might also not have ever encountered the book you borrowed!
libraries are great discovery mechanisms... that's why we still have STACKS and don't all just sit at the CPU pinpointing exactly what we want.
Of course! The point is, to the end reader they are free! (right, i know, taxes or some other funding provides the resources for the library)...
The author and publishers that are fearful of people pirating their books are irrationally afraid of ebooks and not afraid enough of libraries, based on their viewpoints.
Another point - It's just not sexy or good PR to tell the libraries to take the books out of circulation.;) It is good buzz to yell at Amazon.
Essentially Google Books is attempting to be what I suggest. I think Google Books will eventually succeed and authors / publishers will get a cut of revenue from advertising and/or subscriptions.
The folks that are trying to kill of digital distribution or cripple it will never win with books. Never in the history of mankind has trying to limit distribution succeeded. The only way to make money in content is to give people BETTER ways to get at content - higher fidelity experiences (movie theaters) OR easier and easier access (itunes, pandora, magnatunes).
One last point that I didn't want to get mixed up in... people generally pay for GREAT content. It's the produces of SWILL that complain the most about piracy. The only way bad content can make money long term is by bait and switch, forced distribution... The business of bad content isn't content, it's arbitrage. Piracy really hurts arbitrage and that's what people are complaining about. Again, go back to my examples of LOTR, Bible, add to those Charles Dickens, Plato, etc. etc. these books are STILL routinely top sellers even though you can EASILY get ecopies, print copies and what not for free.
Gosh... books have been free to read for a very long time. It's called a library. So if authors and publishers are worried about piracy of books why don't they cut libraries off? Gimme a break.
There are many ways to use the digital mediums ease of distribution to make money/protect artistic ownership.
Publishers should consider giving away a very basic digital version of a book, could even make it time sensitive. It would be very cool and very useful to have a world wide public library. Perhaps that seems unreasonable to police... but the reality is people can get whatever written material they want without buying it from a Borders store... and that isn't because of "ebooks". been this way for a very long time.
The great books will be purchased by enough people to make money (my gosh, how many copies of LOTR, the Bible, etc. does everyone own... and those books are very easy to get for free!)
C'mon, that's not why we haven't written the next generation web apps.
a) there's been no business model for browser based apps up until now (heck, even now there really isn't one other than a big company can buy you...)
b) broadband usage is finally a large enough set of users to justify building these apps
c) the entire toolchain wasn't in place (dev tools, REST, native XML output, js libraries)
I still don't think the js engine speed itself contributed much at all to the glacial development of next gen web apps.
and I agree with others that if we could get away from Flex, Silverlight and all these other non standard, none open, need an expensive dev kit to product methods, we'd all be better off.
This whole "who's fastest" is just like the chip wars. No real user understands this jive. Worse, just like the CPU, the speed of the JS engine is usually not the limiting factor in the User Experience. Design, Function, Server Response, Ad Calls... those all typically are what retard the user experience.
If you work for clients like I do, we have to prepare for LCD not the slashdot guy who installs things in pre-release phases.
Who Cares?!
Let's keep putting it together
We have:
1) http://85.255.210.131/ -> yes (ripe.net register)
2) neohenryford is the contact address
3) 34w4wa
4) ford company quote from TDD test...
5) 1-18-08.com (registered by tucows...)
6) sticky falling bricks of truth
I just emailed the neohenryford@hotmail in case there is a clue.
and I don't care if this is a gimmick. it's fun.
I would want the best trained, most open minded, most passionate person working on me. Number of surgeries is not a qualifier in of itself.
The young vs. old or sr. vs. jr argument is so tired. I've worked as a developer and product manager in several companies and on many projects and I find that age and length of career has no correlation to the quality of work coming from techies. In fact, I've found just as many ill-prepared older techies as younger ones.
To me, it comes down to whether people are interested in the problems they are working on. Generally most problems will require anyone to train and learn.
Yeah, it's like when I learned to fry chicken from the founder of Chicken Plus in Miami.
You just can't get the same experience from a 2nd gen teacher.
It's actually one of the better topics as of late, in my opinion. I believe this because we all read about all the great coding and innovation (or anti trust or privacy issues) out there and we never get around to discussing the basic building blocks of all this technology. That is, it's good to talk about why we all hang on slashdot... cause we like coding or building tech. It's good for the coding soul to hear others with the same struggles.
I have the same "problem". I spend more time getting ready to attack a project, than working through it. I had the same problem studying math at college. However, I came to realize that sometimes the preparation and the time wasting is a benefit as your mind is often working on the problem while you distract your senses.
There's no magic formula or anything. I think the key is in the condensed periods of really furious coding/problem solving. It can't work any other way. I've rarely seen a mathematical proof fall out of a nice schedule of "proofing" sessions. It's all about the gushing when the time is right.
Same with code. Trick is to be ready, willing and able when it strikes.
On the other hand, sometimes you procrastinate because you have the wrong project. If the project stinks, isn't coming together, you don't feel it, whatever... best to spend time moving to another project than brute forcing your way through it.
I agree with you, it is apples to oranges. And so are many of the arguments on this thread comparing the purpose of the Integrated Chipset to the purpose of hardcore gamers.
I simply was working within that argument and showing that hardcore gaming/computing is not mutually exclusive to integrated hardware.
There are many arguments in this thread about "gamers won't by this because of this and that and this..."
Guess what? We all bought these integrated systems, it's called a ps2, gamecube, or xbox.
So it's slightly different under the hood but the idea is the same. And you know what, as a gamer I appreciate the simplicity of consoles.
There will always be hardcore enthusiasts who will buy the big, bad, best stuff. That's a certain market. However, as an electronics manufacturer with a payroll you've got to follow the bell curve and shoot for the group within the bell, right?
I think the more products that speak to the whole range of computer users and gamers is a good thing.
Oh yeah, better integrated chips mean I won't always get stuck with the sh*tty 11mb shared card in that crappy dell l800 when purchasing gets cheap on the next upgrade.
I totally second or third or fourth this thread.
If you are good and can find the right context, you can find business.
I run a company that produces handheld software for profiling players in niche sports like racquetball and volleyball.
There's no shortage of money if you find the right area.
What else do we expect from wealthy people seeking meaning and excitement nowadays?
Haven't all the great philanthropic quests been completed by Bill Gates?
Re:Cash cow if they pull it off
on
Fahrenheit
·
· Score: 1
I agree. It is encouraging to see new ideas, even if the seem a little off.
Even if this is a failure, it may spawn other smaller advances in video gaming and television.
Oh, and Flash isn't really the devil as some may think. It's just another way to present information. If the information does not come across it's bad, but plenty of designers and developers screw up simply HTML as well.
Am I the only one that still thinks software is going to be browser based? (that is, who cares about all the efforts to stuff stand alone packages on this or that platform)
Take a look at all of the current popular "productivity" suites. Most of the biggest, best, and newest features include heavy integration with a browser engine, HTML/XML parser, and native file support for Internet documents. The conclusion to draw is that the productivity suites are just pumped up browser shells. Don't get me wrong, there are a few things the browser can't do that these productivity suites can but I don't know if they do enough to warrant a $75-300 software package.
There are a lot of holes in my view but I'm certain the development community can fill them in eventually.
This relates to the current article because all of the discussion about beating MS Office and coding this and that for MacOS. I suggest these efforts may just be a smokescreen for the real innovation in desktop productivity which have to do with cool browsers.
If most people don't even give a rats ass about it, then, no, it's not worth it. However, I've found that most people DO CARE - at least once they find out what's happening. Therein lies the problem. People who read slashdot and other like sources know what's happening because we are active participants in finding unbiased information. The general population does not have this information because the mainstream sources of information do not report on this. Why? Because the media is controlled by powerful people who rely on these businesses that infringe on our rights. The wider spread of this information will go along way. Education is almost always the key.
I do not have the answers. This discussion is helpful in figuring them out though.
As a community that cares about this, I think we can make definitive commitments to not support the building up of technologies that help people destroy our civil liberties. A Union of Techies committed to technologists might not be a bad idea. Although instead of it being a union of people devoted to destroying companies and creating chaos, it should be more of a think tank. A union of people who come up with alternative technologies and business models that will help companies make money without completely disregarding the rights of citizens.
This would force some serious discussion. Imagine a group that doesn't COMPETE with big business but instead wants to help big business accomplish big things ethically and profitably.
This is a bit hopeful, but it's got a chance if people cared enough.
As for a more imediate solution, I don't have one. Small steps add up, that much I do know.
Hmmm... I do appreciate your frankness. My viewpoint is not a matter of ignorance or stupidity but one of frustration.
Your right in some respects, the individual bargaining power era is over, if it ever existed in the first place. However, that wasn't exactly my argument. Instead, I suggested as a TECHNICAL COMMUNITY why do WE continue to PERPETUATE practices we don't agree with? Furthermore, we all understand that paying the bills is sometimes more important than righting the wrongs of corporations, yet our dialogues on Slashdot, in the breakroom, at the bars, and in our living rooms suggest that we care deeply about protecting our civil liberties. If we care so deeply, why do we enable the corporations we work for, build technology for, and buy services from to abuse this technology and our supposedly "down" economy by selling our information?
The "dot com rush is over"/"we're all commidities" is not a good reason to avoid ACTION, it's merely an excuse. And, you're right, techies are a dime a dozen -- well, at least, the ones that hole up and pretend that they are victims and not volunteers.
This is a reply to this comment as a bunch of the other ones.
I imagine many of the slashdotters (and many techie non-slashdotters) out there work at these Bells and all these other companies engaging in these violations of civil liberties. Wouldn't the first place to initiate change be within the corporate walls? For all of you who work at companies selling information and using technology to facilitate the exchange, why not stand up and refuse to comply with corporate wishes until the issues of civil liberties are brought up and resolved? Of course, that may mean your job, but there are lots of jobs out there and lots of ways to make money without infringing on others privacy.
These "selling of information" activities cannot happen if there aren't people willing to build the technology to let the sales, marketing and boardrooms do whatever they want to make money. With all the news lately about corporate crooks, I'd think eventually the people that work at these companies would realize they do have power to change things. It's a matter of courage.
There's no way we can expect most lawmakers and CEOs to change what's happening (even though they should change it!). They are already protected from civil liberty violations. They have goons working to protect what they do and how they do it. Writing them/counting on them may help but in the end most of them have no idea what's involved with all the new technology and new culture surrounding that technology -- and certainly they won't be able to adjust the laws based on a few angry customers.
I guess the crux of my point is that there are a lot of techies out there enabling these activities. The RIAA must have techies working for them, so do the Bells, and so did Enron, on and on. Why did these techies build this stuff that let this happen? If you are one of the techies at these companies, speak up and tell us your reasoning why you build and maintain solutions that let people so easily violate our civil rights?
Maybe someone has come up with this thought before...
With all these convergence boxes/devices has anyone put in any thought about what happens when one breaks? I mean, if I invest in one device for everything and it breaks/hangs/crashes I'm SOL for everything I use the box for. I'd hate to lose TV, music, DVDs, gaming and web all at once...
I tend to like many devices with specific purposes. That also seems to keep the stability up reasonably well.
Slashdot Mirror
Lost sales? If I borrow the book from the library, chances are I wouldn't have bought it in the first place.
You might also not have ever encountered the book you borrowed! libraries are great discovery mechanisms... that's why we still have STACKS and don't all just sit at the CPU pinpointing exactly what we want.
Of course! The point is, to the end reader they are free! (right, i know, taxes or some other funding provides the resources for the library)...
The author and publishers that are fearful of people pirating their books are irrationally afraid of ebooks and not afraid enough of libraries, based on their viewpoints.
Another point - It's just not sexy or good PR to tell the libraries to take the books out of circulation. ;) It is good buzz to yell at Amazon.
Essentially Google Books is attempting to be what I suggest. I think Google Books will eventually succeed and authors / publishers will get a cut of revenue from advertising and/or subscriptions.
The folks that are trying to kill of digital distribution or cripple it will never win with books. Never in the history of mankind has trying to limit distribution succeeded. The only way to make money in content is to give people BETTER ways to get at content - higher fidelity experiences (movie theaters) OR easier and easier access (itunes, pandora, magnatunes).
One last point that I didn't want to get mixed up in... people generally pay for GREAT content. It's the produces of SWILL that complain the most about piracy. The only way bad content can make money long term is by bait and switch, forced distribution... The business of bad content isn't content, it's arbitrage. Piracy really hurts arbitrage and that's what people are complaining about. Again, go back to my examples of LOTR, Bible, add to those Charles Dickens, Plato, etc. etc. these books are STILL routinely top sellers even though you can EASILY get ecopies, print copies and what not for free.
Gosh... books have been free to read for a very long time. It's called a library. So if authors and publishers are worried about piracy of books why don't they cut libraries off? Gimme a break. There are many ways to use the digital mediums ease of distribution to make money/protect artistic ownership. Publishers should consider giving away a very basic digital version of a book, could even make it time sensitive. It would be very cool and very useful to have a world wide public library. Perhaps that seems unreasonable to police... but the reality is people can get whatever written material they want without buying it from a Borders store... and that isn't because of "ebooks". been this way for a very long time. The great books will be purchased by enough people to make money (my gosh, how many copies of LOTR, the Bible, etc. does everyone own... and those books are very easy to get for free!)
C'mon, that's not why we haven't written the next generation web apps. a) there's been no business model for browser based apps up until now (heck, even now there really isn't one other than a big company can buy you...) b) broadband usage is finally a large enough set of users to justify building these apps c) the entire toolchain wasn't in place (dev tools, REST, native XML output, js libraries) I still don't think the js engine speed itself contributed much at all to the glacial development of next gen web apps. and I agree with others that if we could get away from Flex, Silverlight and all these other non standard, none open, need an expensive dev kit to product methods, we'd all be better off.
This whole "who's fastest" is just like the chip wars. No real user understands this jive. Worse, just like the CPU, the speed of the JS engine is usually not the limiting factor in the User Experience. Design, Function, Server Response, Ad Calls... those all typically are what retard the user experience. If you work for clients like I do, we have to prepare for LCD not the slashdot guy who installs things in pre-release phases. Who Cares?!
More:
Charles Buxton Going was an engineering wiz.
Henry Ford released the Model T in 1908. can't find a specific mention of that date
85.255.210.131 is just the address of tinyurl.com, so i'm not sure that's even a clue
but it is
http://groups.google.com/group/wanted-master-software-engineers
that's the tinyurl.com/34w4wa
Let's keep putting it together We have: 1) http://85.255.210.131/ -> yes (ripe.net register) 2) neohenryford is the contact address 3) 34w4wa 4) ford company quote from TDD test... 5) 1-18-08.com (registered by tucows...) 6) sticky falling bricks of truth I just emailed the neohenryford@hotmail in case there is a clue. and I don't care if this is a gimmick. it's fun.
This is the IP we are looking for 85.255.210.131 255 comes from 512 being the year Flavian II was replaced (=>) by Servius
/*
([Dollar,Daily Universal Register] % 100).([Flavian II => Severus] / 2 - 1).([Sherman Anti-Trust,Van Gogh] / 9).([Tycho Brahe,Stellar] / 12)
*/
that's at the top of the main css file. the other js files don't help...
I would want the best trained, most open minded, most passionate person working on me. Number of surgeries is not a qualifier in of itself. The young vs. old or sr. vs. jr argument is so tired. I've worked as a developer and product manager in several companies and on many projects and I find that age and length of career has no correlation to the quality of work coming from techies. In fact, I've found just as many ill-prepared older techies as younger ones. To me, it comes down to whether people are interested in the problems they are working on. Generally most problems will require anyone to train and learn.
Yeah, it's like when I learned to fry chicken from the founder of Chicken Plus in Miami. You just can't get the same experience from a 2nd gen teacher.
It's actually one of the better topics as of late, in my opinion. I believe this because we all read about all the great coding and innovation (or anti trust or privacy issues) out there and we never get around to discussing the basic building blocks of all this technology. That is, it's good to talk about why we all hang on slashdot... cause we like coding or building tech. It's good for the coding soul to hear others with the same struggles.
I have the same "problem". I spend more time getting ready to attack a project, than working through it. I had the same problem studying math at college. However, I came to realize that sometimes the preparation and the time wasting is a benefit as your mind is often working on the problem while you distract your senses.
There's no magic formula or anything. I think the key is in the condensed periods of really furious coding/problem solving. It can't work any other way. I've rarely seen a mathematical proof fall out of a nice schedule of "proofing" sessions. It's all about the gushing when the time is right.
Same with code. Trick is to be ready, willing and able when it strikes.
On the other hand, sometimes you procrastinate because you have the wrong project. If the project stinks, isn't coming together, you don't feel it, whatever... best to spend time moving to another project than brute forcing your way through it.
Could there be a correlation between high average gaming age and the Generation X financial problems refered to in an earlier topic today????
.com jobs so I could support my addiction to gaming well into my 50s!
There is for me. I got a bunch of
I agree with you, it is apples to oranges. And so are many of the arguments on this thread comparing the purpose of the Integrated Chipset to the purpose of hardcore gamers.
I simply was working within that argument and showing that hardcore gaming/computing is not mutually exclusive to integrated hardware.
There are many arguments in this thread about "gamers won't by this because of this and that and this..."
Guess what? We all bought these integrated systems, it's called a ps2, gamecube, or xbox.
So it's slightly different under the hood but the idea is the same. And you know what, as a gamer I appreciate the simplicity of consoles.
There will always be hardcore enthusiasts who will buy the big, bad, best stuff. That's a certain market. However, as an electronics manufacturer with a payroll you've got to follow the bell curve and shoot for the group within the bell, right?
I think the more products that speak to the whole range of computer users and gamers is a good thing.
Oh yeah, better integrated chips mean I won't always get stuck with the sh*tty 11mb shared card in that crappy dell l800 when purchasing gets cheap on the next upgrade.
I totally second or third or fourth this thread. If you are good and can find the right context, you can find business. I run a company that produces handheld software for profiling players in niche sports like racquetball and volleyball. There's no shortage of money if you find the right area.
What else do we expect from wealthy people seeking meaning and excitement nowadays?
Haven't all the great philanthropic quests been completed by Bill Gates?
I agree. It is encouraging to see new ideas, even if the seem a little off.
Even if this is a failure, it may spawn other smaller advances in video gaming and television.
Oh, and Flash isn't really the devil as some may think. It's just another way to present information. If the information does not come across it's bad, but plenty of designers and developers screw up simply HTML as well.
Am I the only one that still thinks software is going to be browser based? (that is, who cares about all the efforts to stuff stand alone packages on this or that platform)
Take a look at all of the current popular "productivity" suites. Most of the biggest, best, and newest features include heavy integration with a browser engine, HTML/XML parser, and native file support for Internet documents. The conclusion to draw is that the productivity suites are just pumped up browser shells. Don't get me wrong, there are a few things the browser can't do that these productivity suites can but I don't know if they do enough to warrant a $75-300 software package.
There are a lot of holes in my view but I'm certain the development community can fill them in eventually.
This relates to the current article because all of the discussion about beating MS Office and coding this and that for MacOS. I suggest these efforts may just be a smokescreen for the real innovation in desktop productivity which have to do with cool browsers.
Fair question.
If most people don't even give a rats ass about it, then, no, it's not worth it. However, I've found that most people DO CARE - at least once they find out what's happening. Therein lies the problem. People who read slashdot and other like sources know what's happening because we are active participants in finding unbiased information. The general population does not have this information because the mainstream sources of information do not report on this. Why? Because the media is controlled by powerful people who rely on these businesses that infringe on our rights. The wider spread of this information will go along way. Education is almost always the key.
I do not have the answers. This discussion is helpful in figuring them out though.
As a community that cares about this, I think we can make definitive commitments to not support the building up of technologies that help people destroy our civil liberties. A Union of Techies committed to technologists might not be a bad idea. Although instead of it being a union of people devoted to destroying companies and creating chaos, it should be more of a think tank. A union of people who come up with alternative technologies and business models that will help companies make money without completely disregarding the rights of citizens.
This would force some serious discussion. Imagine a group that doesn't COMPETE with big business but instead wants to help big business accomplish big things ethically and profitably.
This is a bit hopeful, but it's got a chance if people cared enough.
As for a more imediate solution, I don't have one. Small steps add up, that much I do know.
Yeah, I agree.
This thing may hold 3 movies but I'm not sure it could crank through all that Flash.
Is not that approach contradictory to the point behind one's rebellion in the first place?
Distributing someone's information shouldn't be used as a way to stop others from distributing others' information.
This is probably that same reason the world struggles for peace by fighting wars...
Hmmm... I do appreciate your frankness. My viewpoint is not a matter of ignorance or stupidity but one of frustration.
Your right in some respects, the individual bargaining power era is over, if it ever existed in the first place. However, that wasn't exactly my argument. Instead, I suggested as a TECHNICAL COMMUNITY why do WE continue to PERPETUATE practices we don't agree with? Furthermore, we all understand that paying the bills is sometimes more important than righting the wrongs of corporations, yet our dialogues on Slashdot, in the breakroom, at the bars, and in our living rooms suggest that we care deeply about protecting our civil liberties. If we care so deeply, why do we enable the corporations we work for, build technology for, and buy services from to abuse this technology and our supposedly "down" economy by selling our information?
The "dot com rush is over"/"we're all commidities" is not a good reason to avoid ACTION, it's merely an excuse. And, you're right, techies are a dime a dozen -- well, at least, the ones that hole up and pretend that they are victims and not volunteers.
This is a reply to this comment as a bunch of the other ones.
I imagine many of the slashdotters (and many techie non-slashdotters) out there work at these Bells and all these other companies engaging in these violations of civil liberties. Wouldn't the first place to initiate change be within the corporate walls? For all of you who work at companies selling information and using technology to facilitate the exchange, why not stand up and refuse to comply with corporate wishes until the issues of civil liberties are brought up and resolved? Of course, that may mean your job, but there are lots of jobs out there and lots of ways to make money without infringing on others privacy.
These "selling of information" activities cannot happen if there aren't people willing to build the technology to let the sales, marketing and boardrooms do whatever they want to make money. With all the news lately about corporate crooks, I'd think eventually the people that work at these companies would realize they do have power to change things. It's a matter of courage.
There's no way we can expect most lawmakers and CEOs to change what's happening (even though they should change it!). They are already protected from civil liberty violations. They have goons working to protect what they do and how they do it. Writing them/counting on them may help but in the end most of them have no idea what's involved with all the new technology and new culture surrounding that technology -- and certainly they won't be able to adjust the laws based on a few angry customers.
I guess the crux of my point is that there are a lot of techies out there enabling these activities. The RIAA must have techies working for them, so do the Bells, and so did Enron, on and on. Why did these techies build this stuff that let this happen? If you are one of the techies at these companies, speak up and tell us your reasoning why you build and maintain solutions that let people so easily violate our civil rights?
Maybe someone has come up with this thought before...
With all these convergence boxes/devices has anyone put in any thought about what happens when one breaks? I mean, if I invest in one device for everything and it breaks/hangs/crashes I'm SOL for everything I use the box for. I'd hate to lose TV, music, DVDs, gaming and web all at once...
I tend to like many devices with specific purposes. That also seems to keep the stability up reasonably well.
Does anyone else agree?