I think the quote (although badly written) was saying that Nintendo was speculating that their motivation might be something other than profit.
Although whatever their motivation (beating the other guys to market, driving the competition out of business, etc), it ultimately comes down to profit.
Nice try, but I don't think you can simply write off Internet Explorer's performance to secret ties to the OS.
Tell me what Internet Explorer is doing that Firefox could not do.
The fact that IE leverages a lot of Windows services is a feature of IE that Firefox chose not to implement (for portability reasons). So Firefox takes longer to start up.
This isn't because Microsoft is cheating; its because it's not a cross-platform browser. -- http://www.stevex.org/longtail
I use NewsGator for most of my reading, but for some reason Slashdot just isn't the same in an aggregator. And some sites (like CNN) don't have RSS feeds (or didn't until recently, I think they do now?)
I just checked the database - I've clicked the Slashdot link 5663 times. Ouch.
Problem was I was using a connection per session, and never had that many sessions.. changed it to cache the connection, so maybe it'll last longer now.
What's just slightly unique about it (or was in 1999) is it lets you specify a timeout for sites you add, and sites whose timeout has expired are shown in bold.
So when I bring up Firefox, I right-click on the links that are bold (to open them all in tabs), read 'em, and I'm back to work. The various timeouts mean I spend less time looking at sites that I just looked at 5 minutes ago.. (yes, I used to do that. And you probably do too, don't you?)
I put together this site a while ago that tracks blog postings (for all major services that ping blo.gs), tries to parse out nouns, and then displays the top 100 nouns encountered in the last hour scaled by frequency.
Larger companies generally have more process and more overhead, but they also have more people who are in it for the long haul, and thus aren't working overtime every day.
There's always periods where you need to put in time, but in a small company those are the norm; in a big company (I'm talking 10k or more people here) it's more normal to work something close to a regular work day.
I joined about two years ago that had just completed the transition from everyone having their own copy of the source, to using CVS.
Funny thing is, some of the developers missed the old ways, and would occasionally slip back into old habits. A customer would have a problem, and one of the developers make a copy of the entire source tree, fix the problem, build it, send it to the customer, and that'd be it.
People would send modules to other people to merge with their copy...
It seems bizarre but it happens.
Also I wonder if the stat isn't skewed by the number of solo developers working on small projects... You don't really need revision control until your project reaches a certain size. Not a big size mind you - if you've spent a week on a project it's probably big enough to merit cvs - but I think a lot of projects are smaller than that.
I'm trying to help with the "blogs that nobody reads" situation with my site, The Long Tail
Unfortunately my data provider (http://ping.blo.gs), who has streaming interface to blog updates (telnet ping.blo.gs 9999) isn't providing any data at the moment so the updates are a little out of date..
Massively distributing content without making the publisher pay for distribution is a problem that's been solved a few times now - by Usenet, and by IRC for example. Adapting one of the existing solutions to solve syndication wouldn't be that tough.
But, the folks involved with RSS / Atom are "wire protocols should be xml" types who like the idea of using an XML-RPC call too much to give it up easily.
It's too bad, since it doesn't really need to be death to a site to have too many people subscribe. If I post an article on Usenet, 100 million people could read it tomorrow and it wouldn't cost me a cent. There are some problems with it, but problems that could have been solved in a lot less work than what it's going to take to fix syndication now.
If you're doing it to advocate Ogg Vorbis then rock on. If you're doing it because you want people to listen to your stuff, then maybe you should consider that the audience is used to mp3 streaming and already has the tools to do that, and offer them an mp3 feed in addition.
We need a way to make RSS scale, the sooner the better before the mainstream browsers make it easy for a hundred million people to subscribe to a popular feed. Distributing feeds around using something like NNTP so that users can poll a server near them and let the new items propagate out to closer servers, rather than every user polling the source.
They can track what you clicked on. If most people who search for "dog food" end up clicking on the "Alpo" link, then perhaps that link will gravitate towards the top. That's a good way to figure out which links are more interesting to users, although it does leave some potential for abuse. Guess we'll see how it plays out.
The bummer about it is that if MSN is slow, every single search result link you get back is going to be slow because they all redirect through MSN.
RSS is being used as a way to broadcast a notification that something has changed. You post a new article to a site, and all the people who have subscribed to your RSS feed get notified.
But RSS is a polling mechanism.
I'd much rather see something like the IRC protocol or NNTP used, where the publisher posts one message and it propagages through a network of servers to everyone interested. The way it is now, if a million people subscribe to your RSS feed, that's a million aggregators polling every 15 minutes. Ouch.
Microsoft and the free software developers are doing essentially the same thing - but the free software developers are doing it and giving the results away for free.
These inventions worked not because of ideological gain; they worked because they made people money.
If the assembly workers were assembling cars in their spare time because they liked assembling cars, there wouldn't be any robots..:)
I use the Logitech cordless keyboard (it seems to have the smallest footprint), and a standard Microsoft optical cordless mouse. The optical cordless mouse works great on the arm of the couch.
And, one you get to know your way around the software you're using, you usually don't need the mouse anyway.
I can't buy a car without a stereo either. Does this mean the car manufacturers are engaging in monopolistic practices, forcing their crappy car stereos down your throat?
If you don't like the product that's being offered, don't buy it. If enough people don't buy it, they'll change the product to be something that you will buy. That's how the market works.
I have a T616 phone from Sony Ericcson and to email a picture to my blog is literally 13 steps. (here is a camphone image from the T616, that's in it's 'high resolution').
People typically use a single service to post their pictures to, so make sure being able to send an image to an entry in your phone book is EASY.
Slashdot Mirror
I had a Nokia 3650 that crashed on me every few days.
I think the quote (although badly written) was saying that Nintendo was speculating that their motivation might be something other than profit.
Although whatever their motivation (beating the other guys to market, driving the competition out of business, etc), it ultimately comes down to profit.
Nice try, but I don't think you can simply write off Internet Explorer's performance to secret ties to the OS.
Tell me what Internet Explorer is doing that Firefox could not do.
The fact that IE leverages a lot of Windows services is a feature of IE that Firefox chose not to implement (for portability reasons). So Firefox takes longer to start up.
This isn't because Microsoft is cheating; its because it's not a cross-platform browser.
--
http://www.stevex.org/longtail
I use NewsGator for most of my reading, but for some reason Slashdot just isn't the same in an aggregator. And some sites (like CNN) don't have RSS feeds (or didn't until recently, I think they do now?)
I just checked the database - I've clicked the Slashdot link 5663 times. Ouch.
I did this in 1999.. it's survived till now. :)
Problem was I was using a connection per session, and never had that many sessions.. changed it to cache the connection, so maybe it'll last longer now.
I had this bad habit of checking a bunch of websites constantly.. so a few years ago I set up a little bookmark site that I use as my homepage.
http://www.stevex.org/linky
What's just slightly unique about it (or was in 1999) is it lets you specify a timeout for sites you add, and sites whose timeout has expired are shown in bold.
So when I bring up Firefox, I right-click on the links that are bold (to open them all in tabs), read 'em, and I'm back to work. The various timeouts mean I spend less time looking at sites that I just looked at 5 minutes ago.. (yes, I used to do that. And you probably do too, don't you?)
A blog is no different than a personal website; folks have had those since the dawn of the web.
Read your employment agreement; if you're still not sure talk to your HR folks. Better safe than sorry.
Google and God are usually fighting for prominence; I see God is winning at the moment.
I put together this site a while ago that tracks blog postings (for all major services that ping blo.gs), tries to parse out nouns, and then displays the top 100 nouns encountered in the last hour scaled by frequency.
Google is almost always a big one.
http://www.stevex.org/longtail/hottopics.aspx
Larger companies generally have more process and more overhead, but they also have more people who are in it for the long haul, and thus aren't working overtime every day.
There's always periods where you need to put in time, but in a small company those are the norm; in a big company (I'm talking 10k or more people here) it's more normal to work something close to a regular work day.
Think IBM, government, HP, Kodak..
--
http://www.stevex.org/longtail
I joined about two years ago that had just completed the transition from everyone having their own copy of the source, to using CVS.
Funny thing is, some of the developers missed the old ways, and would occasionally slip back into old habits. A customer would have a problem, and one of the developers make a copy of the entire source tree, fix the problem, build it, send it to the customer, and that'd be it.
People would send modules to other people to merge with their copy...
It seems bizarre but it happens.
Also I wonder if the stat isn't skewed by the number of solo developers working on small projects... You don't really need revision control until your project reaches a certain size. Not a big size mind you - if you've spent a week on a project it's probably big enough to merit cvs - but I think a lot of projects are smaller than that.
--
http://www.stevex.org/longtail
Here's some of my experiences buying an LCD monitor. If you're not picky, it's easy to buy one; if you're picky, well, it's not so easy.
Looks like the streaming data is back; the site is a lot more interesting now that new items are coming in.
Unfortunately my data provider (http://ping.blo.gs), who has streaming interface to blog updates (telnet ping.blo.gs 9999) isn't providing any data at the moment so the updates are a little out of date..
But, the folks involved with RSS / Atom are "wire protocols should be xml" types who like the idea of using an XML-RPC call too much to give it up easily.
It's too bad, since it doesn't really need to be death to a site to have too many people subscribe. If I post an article on Usenet, 100 million people could read it tomorrow and it wouldn't cost me a cent. There are some problems with it, but problems that could have been solved in a lot less work than what it's going to take to fix syndication now.
Here is some more of my ranting about this.
If you're doing it to advocate Ogg Vorbis then rock on. If you're doing it because you want people to listen to your stuff, then maybe you should consider that the audience is used to mp3 streaming and already has the tools to do that, and offer them an mp3 feed in addition.
Because it's cool to replace everything with XML.
Read this for some more thoughts on this..
Notice that the results you get back aren't direct links to the results, but rather links that redirect through an MSN page?
c om /blog/archives/entries/eating_your_own_dog_food.ic f&&DI=3865&IG=fabd4034971140859b1edb6c16e17093&POS =1&CM=WDU&CE=1
For example:
http://g.msn.com/9SE/1?http://today.icantfocus.
This means a few things:
They can track what you clicked on. If most people who search for "dog food" end up clicking on the "Alpo" link, then perhaps that link will gravitate towards the top. That's a good way to figure out which links are more interesting to users, although it does leave some potential for abuse. Guess we'll see how it plays out.
The bummer about it is that if MSN is slow, every single search result link you get back is going to be slow because they all redirect through MSN.
RSS is being used as a way to broadcast a notification that something has changed. You post a new article to a site, and all the people who have subscribed to your RSS feed get notified.
But RSS is a polling mechanism.
I'd much rather see something like the IRC protocol or NNTP used, where the publisher posts one message and it propagages through a network of servers to everyone interested. The way it is now, if a million people subscribe to your RSS feed, that's a million aggregators polling every 15 minutes. Ouch.
That's not really a good analogy.
:)
Microsoft and the free software developers are doing essentially the same thing - but the free software developers are doing it and giving the results away for free.
These inventions worked not because of ideological gain; they worked because they made people money.
If the assembly workers were assembling cars in their spare time because they liked assembling cars, there wouldn't be any robots..
- Steve
I use the Logitech cordless keyboard (it seems to have the smallest footprint), and a standard Microsoft optical cordless mouse. The optical cordless mouse works great on the arm of the couch.
And, one you get to know your way around the software you're using, you usually don't need the mouse anyway.
I can't buy a car without a stereo either. Does this mean the car manufacturers are engaging in monopolistic practices, forcing their crappy car stereos down your throat?
If you don't like the product that's being offered, don't buy it. If enough people don't buy it, they'll change the product to be something that you will buy. That's how the market works.
- Steve
People typically use a single service to post their pictures to, so make sure being able to send an image to an entry in your phone book is EASY.
If I'm playing a game and someone sends me an instant message, I can pause the game and talk to them if I like..
If I receive an email, I can check on it and maybe respond if it warrants it.
Turning my PC into a console takes away my ability to do this stuff.