That's an interesting alternative to satellite radio. Both require new equipment, both have very high quality. Satellite radio has little or no advertising, but you do have to pay a monthly subscription fee.
Seems like the money buys more from a Republican administration. Under Clinton, the Justice department vigorously pursued the Microsoft anti-trust case. Under George W. Bush, the Justice department opted for a weak and ineffective settlement.
Microsoft gave $16M in political contributions in the last four years. Obviously it didn't go to waste. Time Magazine also has a good (although a little dated) article on the size and scope of Microsoft's intense lobbying effort since the antitrust trial started.
It's absurd to say that Amazon.com can't succeed because of shipping and customer service costs.
Amazon.com's business is identical to that of a mail order company. Take Land's End as an example. The company takes in orders from phone and the web, ships the orders out, and handles customer service by phone and e-mail. While e-commerce companies avoid the high costs of printing and mailing catalogs, the costs of the software and hardware systems to run the web site are similar. E-commerce is nothing new. It's not a scheme. It's not doomed from the start. It's identical to the well established mail order business.
It seems to me that Daisey is overdramatizing his brief stay at Amazon to try to increase the sales of his book. His creditability is damaged by his admission of morally questionable actions, including calling themselves to improve efficiency numbers, stealing, and pretending to be a supervisor. Daisey describes himself as lazy, dishonest, and disloyal. While he tries to smear everyone else at Amazon as equally pathetic, perhaps it's just him.
During the height of the dot.com boom, Amazon could do no wrong. After the crash, Amazon can do nothing right. The truth is somewhere in the middle.
The publisher, Shrapnel Games, has a few other interesting titles. Particularly good is Space Empires IV, a Reach for the Stars or Masters of Orion II-like galactic conquest strategy game. There's a good review of it on GameSpot.
$16M in political contributions [Common Cause] by Microsoft in the last four years obviously didn't go to waste. Time Magazine and the BBC also have good (although a little dated) articles on the size and scope of Microsoft's intense lobbying effort since the antitrust trial started.
You can already get 130 hours (basic quality, about equal to VHS) on a TiVo easily by just adding an 80G drive to a 30 hour TiVo. See the TiVo Hack FAQ.
130 hours an incredible amount of TV. You can sit and watch TV for every waking hour (16 hours/day) for over 8 days with a 130 hour TiVo. Switch to the high quality setting and you can still store 10 full length movies permanently on your TiVo and still have enough room left over to watch TV every waking hour for three days. Even on the highest quality setting, a 130 hour TiVo records 40 hours of TV, enough even for the most dedicated of couch potatoes. How much more do you need?
Associate programs can provide a small source of funds. If you can merchandise books, etc. related to your content, you can pull in a fair amount of cash. Amazon.com's associates program pays 15% of the sale price of books bought immediately after coming from your site. B&N.com and others also have associate programs.
If you're talking about needing a few hundred dollars a month in income to pay for the cost of operating the site and you have a good amount of traffic, it might be a good option.
Still, the original point is valid. Let's assume 100k unique musical works. The music industry stands to gain 100k * $100k or $10B from suing Napster. Of course, they couldn't collect this amount, but they could drive Napster out of business and put the fear of God (or at least lawyers) in any other company that tried to produce or host similar software.
Ideally, the music industry would investigate a way to cooperate with Napster, mp3.com, and other methods of digital distribution. Micropayments seems like an obvious answer. So far, they seem like they're just trying to kill what they don't understand.
Space Empires IV
is
very highly reviewed
by
Gamespot. I've really enjoyed it. I have to say that I found MOO II to have a clutzy and slow UI, but Space Empires IV is simple, clean, and offers the same or better empire building, complex research trees, and diplomacy features of MOO II.
You can only order it online, I believe, but you're supporting a small independent game publisher, Shrapnel Games, by doing so. It's an amazingly good game for shareware.
Slashdot Mirror
That's an interesting alternative to satellite radio. Both require new equipment, both have very high quality. Satellite radio has little or no advertising, but you do have to pay a monthly subscription fee.
Six cups of coffee per day? They probably lose weight from vibrating uncontrollably.
Tom's Hardware has an interesting recent article on this chip too. Lots of benchmarks.
Memigo is very cool. Findory News is worth seeing too. Both are interesting examples of a personalized news site.
An excellent book for new technical project managers is Steve McConnell's Rapid Development. I'd recommend it highly. Easy read, excellent advice.
Seems like the money buys more from a Republican administration. Under Clinton, the Justice department vigorously pursued the Microsoft anti-trust case. Under George W. Bush, the Justice department opted for a weak and ineffective settlement.
Microsoft gave $16M in political contributions in the last four years. Obviously it didn't go to waste. Time Magazine also has a good (although a little dated) article on the size and scope of Microsoft's intense lobbying effort since the antitrust trial started.
It's absurd to say that Amazon.com can't succeed because of shipping and customer service costs.
Amazon.com's business is identical to that of a mail order company. Take Land's End as an example. The company takes in orders from phone and the web, ships the orders out, and handles customer service by phone and e-mail. While e-commerce companies avoid the high costs of printing and mailing catalogs, the costs of the software and hardware systems to run the web site are similar. E-commerce is nothing new. It's not a scheme. It's not doomed from the start. It's identical to the well established mail order business.
It seems to me that Daisey is overdramatizing his brief stay at Amazon to try to increase the sales of his book. His creditability is damaged by his admission of morally questionable actions, including calling themselves to improve efficiency numbers, stealing, and pretending to be a supervisor. Daisey describes himself as lazy, dishonest, and disloyal. While he tries to smear everyone else at Amazon as equally pathetic, perhaps it's just him.
During the height of the dot.com boom, Amazon could do no wrong. After the crash, Amazon can do nothing right. The truth is somewhere in the middle.
The publisher, Shrapnel Games, has a few other interesting titles. Particularly good is Space Empires IV, a Reach for the Stars or Masters of Orion II-like galactic conquest strategy game. There's a good review of it on GameSpot.
$16M in political contributions [Common Cause] by Microsoft in the last four years obviously didn't go to waste. Time Magazine and the BBC also have good (although a little dated) articles on the size and scope of Microsoft's intense lobbying effort since the antitrust trial started.
130 hours an incredible amount of TV. You can sit and watch TV for every waking hour (16 hours/day) for over 8 days with a 130 hour TiVo. Switch to the high quality setting and you can still store 10 full length movies permanently on your TiVo and still have enough room left over to watch TV every waking hour for three days. Even on the highest quality setting, a 130 hour TiVo records 40 hours of TV, enough even for the most dedicated of couch potatoes. How much more do you need?
Associate programs can provide a small source of funds. If you can merchandise books, etc. related to your content, you can pull in a fair amount of cash. Amazon.com's associates program pays 15% of the sale price of books bought immediately after coming from your site. B&N.com and others also have associate programs.
If you're talking about needing a few hundred dollars a month in income to pay for the cost of operating the site and you have a good amount of traffic, it might be a good option.
Still, the original point is valid. Let's assume 100k unique musical works. The music industry stands to gain 100k * $100k or $10B from suing Napster. Of course, they couldn't collect this amount, but they could drive Napster out of business and put the fear of God (or at least lawyers) in any other company that tried to produce or host similar software.
Ideally, the music industry would investigate a way to cooperate with Napster, mp3.com, and other methods of digital distribution. Micropayments seems like an obvious answer. So far, they seem like they're just trying to kill what they don't understand.
There's an interesting discussion of the SAT on the show Think Tank on PBS. The transcript is available.
You can only order it online, I believe, but you're supporting a small independent game publisher, Shrapnel Games, by doing so. It's an amazingly good game for shareware.