"Are you serious? Are you so naive that you think this guy is motivated by a thorough understanding of issues, as opposed to money, power, vanity and appeasing select corporate benefactors that lead to his eventual reelection?
Keep that idealism of yours tucked away. Someone's going to drag it into the street and beat it over the head with a Pringles can full of cement."
You know what? Your response spurred an epiphany in me. You're right! I'm going to start making a habit of staying home, eating cheetos and watching Seinfeld re-runs. Screw the community, screw my neighbours, screw asking my government representatives any questions, screw getting involved with anything that doesn't involve laughing at others' misfortune. That's the easiest and best way to avoid being disappointed with life.
So, yes, we all know this guy doesn't know what he's talking about, ha ha ha, but has anyone bothered to write a calm, reasonable letter explaining to him how the internet really works, or told him why it took so long for him to receive his "internet"? How about picking up the phone and calling his office and offering a bit of help?
Yes, it's fun to laugh at this garbage, but if all we do is laugh then nothing in government ever has a chance to improve. Individuals can make a difference.
"1) Shiver Metimbers made a clear indication, with full intention to deceive, that if the mark sent goods there was potential for financial gain. Degrees of audacity are irrelevant.
Would be legal in a police operation."
Making believe that Shiver Metimbers is a police officer and he is engaged in a sting operation, which illegal activity is Officer Metimbers' woodcarving scheme aimed at drawing the mark into committing?
"And if he was a cop this would be a perfectly valid sting operaton."
How would this be a legitimate sting operation? Shiver Metimbers is engaging in "teaching lessons" or getting revenge. This is not an attempt to entrap a mark into performing an illegal act to provide evidence for legal action; he is encouraging the mark to waste his time and money (and make a fool of himself) chasing a financial reward which doesn't exist.
1) Shiver Metimbers made a clear indication, with full intention to deceive, that if the mark sent goods there was potential for financial gain. Degrees of audacity are irrelevant.
2) Shiver Metimbers did take material goods, instead of cash. Both have value. The mark's salary claims are irrelevant.
3) Shiver Metimbers lied about being someone he isn't and he lied about a company which doesn't exist. So both of them are liars; that does not vindicate the lying of Shiver Metimbers.
4) I don't know why anyone would defend Shiver Metimbers either. I am more interested in retaining a respectable level of morality, for example resisting the use of torture even when the bad guys use it, and resisting the suspension of civil liberties in times of adversity, even when the bad guys don't respect such things. You can't claim to be on the moral high ground if you're behaving no better than the bad guys.
"if you properly RTA you would learn that this all came about after the fake "Derek Trotter, Director; Trotters Fine Arts" replied to a standard 419 scam letter with something like "Sorry I'm too busy giving out $100K art scholarships right now to help but do get any artist friends you might have to contact me".
Two days later the same scammer replied back under a different name claiming to have read about the non-existant "Trotters Fine Arts" on the internet and was interested in applying for a scholarship. From there it was game on, the scammer paid an artist to produce the works thinking some naive western art dealer would in turn pay huge money to foster the scammers non-existant artistic talent. He also ended up paying the freight costs to ship the pieces as well."
So Shiver Metimbers (a fake identity) created another fake identity and suggested there was money available (bait) and the Nigerian guy spends real money to hopefully receive some of this fake money from the fake guy (the mark takes the bait), and you somehow claim that this explanation clarifies the upright morality of this action? If anything, you have helped clarify how dubious Shiver Metimbers' lesson about greed is.
Such surveillance of law enforcement officials could be used as a tool for terrorism. It is necessary to provide our law enforcement agencies the protection of legislation preventing the videotaping, photographing, recording, note-taking or remembering of any police activity, so that any information that might be useful to terrorists can be denied to those who wish to attack America and the freedoms we hold dear.
"Given that the credits read "Design by..." I suspect this is exactly what they're going to do. They could have made it a bit more obvious, though."
If their intention is to have someone else design it, then why did they design it already? You don't sit down and do a piece of work poorly and then ask a professional to tidy it up for publication. They have gone through 90% of the marketing and design process without any professional input. No matter what the field, most professionals would turn down such a job.
Many people are submitting alternates on the google page, but those will fail too. Does OpenOffice have any leadership? The leaders need to lead; some things can't be done by committee, especially not an internet-sized committee. The leaders need to start from scratch, working with a professional, and go through the entire process to develop proper materials. They'd probably end up getting better results for their money too.
Deciding "We're going to place an ad in this newspaper" and then coming up with an ad is getting priorities messed up. They need to decide what their goals are, then a pro could help them determine which avenue to take, and develop appropriate graphic communications for the task. With a budget of $10,000, there are a lot of marketing options besides running one ad in one newspaper in one city....and don't use students. Yes, I was a student once too, but as people have mentioned in other posts, students don't know much, and they aren't professionals yet. I'm certain a reputable design/marketing company would be willing to take this on as pro bono work. Students would be better off getting intern/placement positions with real agencies or studios and learning the right way to get things done, rather than mucking with projects which are over their heads and learning through large-scale trial and error.
Here is some professional advice for the OpenOffice people: get a professional to create your ads. Really. You are wasting your money if you do not. The proposed ad has many negative qualities and looks amateurish; it can only harm your efforts.
I have not looked at the Google group discussion on this yet (it was taking forever and a day to open), but opening up something like design of advertising to an online, anonymous committee with a potential size of infinity+1 is inviting disaster, and is probably going to keep many potential professionals with pro bono work in mind from coming forward.
Something like this needs a small team of people who know what they're doing, with good leadership.
I'll start with some disclaimers: I don't own a Macbook Pro, I don't engineer portable computers, and I have only ever owned one portable computer in my life, a 12" Powerbook 867.
A previous Macfixit article, "MacBook Special Report: Excessive heat: Usage notes, cooling pads and more" (which is now in the subscription-only archives) mentioned MacBook temps getting to and over 67C
I own a first generation 12" Powerbook, the machine which was the previous Apple whipping-boy for overheating issues. I never experienced the warping/twisting frame problem 12" Powerbooks suffered, which was blamed on heat. My personal experience has been that use of the machine at a temperature over 59C at the CPU can cause the Combo drive to cease functioning and kernal panics related to the internal modem. The hottest I ever saw my 12" Powerbook get was 63C, when burning a series of CDs with the computer placed on a bed. I used the app Temperature Monitor to identify these problems and prevent recurrances.
If it's now considered normal for MacBooks to reach 67C and higher at the CPU, then quite frankly I'm not surprised that there are hardware issues, and I wonder how surprised the engineers at Apple are.
Is there anyone reading with the brains/training to confidently/accurately answer some questions please?
"These are Rubik's cubes of the form 3d, with the original popular puzzle being 33. We label the puzzles like this because they are a d-dimensional cube broken into 3d smaller pieces or "cubies" of the same dimension. For example, the 3D cube has 33 or 27 total 3-dimensional cubies."
Does adding cubies really mean adding a dimension, or does it mean simply making a more complicated 3D puzzle and giving it a fancy name? (Behold: the Fifth Dimension! Amaze Your Friends!)
I noticed in the 4D model that elements disappear and reappear with each move. What's up with that? What do the green cubes represent? Where are the pieces which disappear supposed to be going, and why can't we see the changes being made to this set of cubies? Is the invisible set a cheat on the part of the designers?
I have not played with the 5D version, and so have no questions about that one.
Committee designs are bad because they lack vision... A poll would choose one option from couple of finalists that each would have its own wonderful vision
Vision should not come from the designers, but from the leaders who are supplying the designers with their brief. If each design has its own vision, then there is a serious problem. Vision and goals come from leadership. Vision does not come from voting. If each design offers a different means of communicating the leader's vision as spelled out in the brief, then the leader is best suited to decide which design meets their goals and represents his/her vision most accurately.
Besides those textbook facts, a poll assumes the general population possesses an understanding of such things as: what is truly good as opposed to what is fashionable; UI design; typography; colour theory; and does the general population have good taste?
Use the right tool for the job. Use the right person for the job. Having a vote is inviting hundreds of thousands of unqualified people to contribute to a project for which they don't share vision nor goals. That is a recipe for disaster.
saying the design is "poor" is a purely subjective
No, saying the design is poor is taking the things you mentioned into consideration, such as the form and function, and determining that the design performs poorly in both cases; therefore, the design is poor. It's not subjective - UI has been studied out the wazoo, and colour theory too. This is only Slashdot - I'm not going to submit a rationale.
I'm a bit surprised someone would say the second design is good from a colour theory standpoint. It is pasty green and white (and weak white type on the pasty green - ugh!), with paler green, almost invisible grey and more white for accent. At least the first beefed up the green and threw in black and meaningful shades of grey to provide some differentiation, and therefore provide elements to focus on (levels of importance).
I wonder how slashdot looks to the many men with colourblindness? Grey grey grey and grey - perfect!
I also wonder if any usability studies were done with these entries. I don't really care (it's only Slashdot), but I'm curious.
Putting a re-design to a vote of Slashdot readers would be the ultimate example of design-by-committee, and would therefore result in the ultimate in useless, unreadable, un-navigable websites.
In my opinion, the second place entry is miles away from the first place, and quick frankly, rather poor. There is little contrast - everything just kinda blends into one... one blegh. It certainly looks as if it were designed by an engineer, not by a graphic/UI person - perhaps engineers like to look at the website equivalent of pudding all day.
If that was second place, I dread seeing those further down the line.
The redesign chosen is definitely an improvement over the current look.
Micro$oft didn't make it until the second post, but DRM is at #1, right where it belongs.
Welcome to the new Slashdot, full of readers who (supposedly) make their living by using their heads and coming up with creative ideas (writing software, for example, or coming up with an idea for new software, for another example), yet resent any suggestion that creative ideas are not free for everyone to use and share as they see fit....but then also resent the idea of hiring someone in India to write software, because everyone knows that US programmers are better and deserve their higher salaries... but just don't attempt to do anything to stop the piracy which affects software company's bottom line and their ability to pay American programmers...
It's a beautiful circle, like a serpent eating its tail:)
When I read the opening blurb the first things I thought of were the weather and the geography. I have lived in the Bay Area, and quite simply it is a beautiful place to be, and the weather is as close to perfect as can be found. Not a day went by that I didn't appreciate how nice a place it was to be, even in my first apartment in San Francisco, in the super-crappy category.
This being Slashdot, I suppose I wasn't too surprised that the opening blurb said "While the people are an important part to the Silicon Valley experience, they are only part of the requirement. What local characteristics must also be present, even if Silicon Valley is to be duplicated on a smaller scale?" and almost every post moderated up discussed the people (after the predictable DRM comments, of course).
It wasn't until almost right at the bottom that I saw a comment moderated up which mentioned weather (and restaurants). People want to be somewhere nice. Until San Antonio and Ottawa and Cambridge and Vancouver and Seattle and wherever else these other tech areas are start up their weather machines and bulldozers and make some changes, companies trhere are going to have a harder time drawing the employees they want than those in California.
Don't forget: a huge proportion of people in California aren't from California. These employees are drawn from outside, and it takes more than money to pull people in (usually). Perhaps the people writing the comments and moderating them for this thread either haven't been to California and so can't appreciate its physical qualities, or they are nerds who, even if they are in California, keep the blinds drawn and don't go out in the sunlight.
At the root of it all, the comparison addressed the idea that people and corporations who make profit from selling something as trivial and inconsequential as live entertainment are called leeches, while those who make a profit selling the things we need to live are called businessmen.
Some addressing of priorities is needed here. Profits are a part of life. Get used to it. You need live entertainment as much as you need an assault rifle for hunting or a Hummer for commuting to work every day. A lot of people want that stuff, and they pay what the market allows for such premium products.
Assault rifles, Hummers and live entertainment are expensive. A lot of people need to get over it.
"If Aldi's raises the price of milk by a dime*, you go to Win Dixie and shop there instead."
Yes, and you still buy from a company marking up a product by a large margin, buying a product which a number of middle-men have taken a piece of - aren't they still ripping you off even though it's a dime cheaper? Although you have a choice between Corp A or Corp B, you're still buying into the same business model which decides the price of milk for you. This is considered a rip-off when applied to tickets for live entertainment. The monopoly is irrelevant - we are discussing business model!
Thank you for proving my point.
Who is offering the option of bidding for milk? That would be real competition. Then we would know what milk is really worth!
If adding costs and mark-up to tickets is a rip-off, and if putting them up for auction so the market can determine the price is a rip-off, then what isn't a rip-off?
Please supply a realistic option for revolutionising the ticket-selling industry, because it seems the real world is anxiously waiting for it.
"The market will gladly show that only the rich should have any chance at anything worthy of doing. It's good to know that my children will likely never be able to afford to see a live show."
Yes, at the dozens of major concerts any major city hosts in a year, with the hundreds of thousands of seats available, yes, only the super-wealthy will be able to attend - caviar will be served in the nosebleed seats. I won't mention the hundreds of smaller shows and concerts which are happening each night of the year, because I'm assuming your children only want to see the biggest and most popular performances, which is as it should be.
" Shit seen the price of a freaking BASEBALL or HOCKEY game lately? And they're just about to skyrocket?"
Have you seen the type of people going to baseball and hockey games? If they're rich, I don't want to know who their tailor is. Prices will only skyrocket if these legions of Johnny-lunchpails decide they want to spend more, in which case they are creating their own misery (oh wait, that last sentence wasn't sarcasm - oops!)
"Free market capitalizm is going to do us in in the end. How long do we figure until 95% of the worlds wealth has migrated into the hands of.01% of the population of the world?"
Maybe if you spent less money on hockey and baseball tickets, and invested your cash a bit more wisely, you'd be rich too and then you could stomp on the little guys. It's great fun, y'know! Much more fun than watching a stupid baseball game.
"It makes me feel great to know that this is purely because the Artist needs to be compensated more."
Yes, again. As has been pointed out on slashdot dozens of times previously, being a performer means automatic wealth, because we all know how huge the profits are from every show every band ever plays. Might I suggest buying your children a piano and some music lessons? Becoming a performer, um, I mean an Artist, seems to be a no-brainer investment and an easy path to instant wealth! By the time they are grown, they will only have to perform in front of massive crowds of wealthy people, and not have to deal with poor people. Sweet!
I wrote: "what are the differences between supermarkets, US mobile telephone service providers, or auto manufacturers? Their products/services have mostly superficial differences, and they all follow the same business model."
When I should have written:...and they all follow the same business model within their respective industries.
Slashdot Mirror
"Are you serious? Are you so naive that you think this guy is motivated by a thorough understanding of issues, as opposed to money, power, vanity and appeasing select corporate benefactors that lead to his eventual reelection?
Keep that idealism of yours tucked away. Someone's going to drag it into the street and beat it over the head with a Pringles can full of cement."
You know what? Your response spurred an epiphany in me. You're right! I'm going to start making a habit of staying home, eating cheetos and watching Seinfeld re-runs. Screw the community, screw my neighbours, screw asking my government representatives any questions, screw getting involved with anything that doesn't involve laughing at others' misfortune. That's the easiest and best way to avoid being disappointed with life.
Thanks!
So, yes, we all know this guy doesn't know what he's talking about, ha ha ha, but has anyone bothered to write a calm, reasonable letter explaining to him how the internet really works, or told him why it took so long for him to receive his "internet"? How about picking up the phone and calling his office and offering a bit of help?
Yes, it's fun to laugh at this garbage, but if all we do is laugh then nothing in government ever has a chance to improve. Individuals can make a difference.
"1) Shiver Metimbers made a clear indication, with full intention to deceive, that if the mark sent goods there was potential for financial gain. Degrees of audacity are irrelevant.
Would be legal in a police operation."
Making believe that Shiver Metimbers is a police officer and he is engaged in a sting operation, which illegal activity is Officer Metimbers' woodcarving scheme aimed at drawing the mark into committing?
"And if he was a cop this would be a perfectly valid sting operaton."
How would this be a legitimate sting operation? Shiver Metimbers is engaging in "teaching lessons" or getting revenge. This is not an attempt to entrap a mark into performing an illegal act to provide evidence for legal action; he is encouraging the mark to waste his time and money (and make a fool of himself) chasing a financial reward which doesn't exist.
1) Shiver Metimbers made a clear indication, with full intention to deceive, that if the mark sent goods there was potential for financial gain. Degrees of audacity are irrelevant.
2) Shiver Metimbers did take material goods, instead of cash. Both have value. The mark's salary claims are irrelevant.
3) Shiver Metimbers lied about being someone he isn't and he lied about a company which doesn't exist. So both of them are liars; that does not vindicate the lying of Shiver Metimbers.
4) I don't know why anyone would defend Shiver Metimbers either. I am more interested in retaining a respectable level of morality, for example resisting the use of torture even when the bad guys use it, and resisting the suspension of civil liberties in times of adversity, even when the bad guys don't respect such things. You can't claim to be on the moral high ground if you're behaving no better than the bad guys.
"if you properly RTA you would learn that this all came about after the fake "Derek Trotter, Director; Trotters Fine Arts" replied to a standard 419 scam letter with something like "Sorry I'm too busy giving out $100K art scholarships right now to help but do get any artist friends you might have to contact me".
Two days later the same scammer replied back under a different name claiming to have read about the non-existant "Trotters Fine Arts" on the internet and was interested in applying for a scholarship. From there it was game on, the scammer paid an artist to produce the works thinking some naive western art dealer would in turn pay huge money to foster the scammers non-existant artistic talent. He also ended up paying the freight costs to ship the pieces as well."
So Shiver Metimbers (a fake identity) created another fake identity and suggested there was money available (bait) and the Nigerian guy spends real money to hopefully receive some of this fake money from the fake guy (the mark takes the bait), and you somehow claim that this explanation clarifies the upright morality of this action? If anything, you have helped clarify how dubious Shiver Metimbers' lesson about greed is.
Such surveillance of law enforcement officials could be used as a tool for terrorism. It is necessary to provide our law enforcement agencies the protection of legislation preventing the videotaping, photographing, recording, note-taking or remembering of any police activity, so that any information that might be useful to terrorists can be denied to those who wish to attack America and the freedoms we hold dear.
God Bless America!
...and in other news, over fifty unnamed companies are being investigated in some manner for possibly doing something like what Apple might have done.
Back to you, Ted...
"Given that the credits read "Design by ..." I suspect this is exactly what they're going to do. They could have made it a bit more obvious, though."
...and don't use students. Yes, I was a student once too, but as people have mentioned in other posts, students don't know much, and they aren't professionals yet. I'm certain a reputable design/marketing company would be willing to take this on as pro bono work. Students would be better off getting intern/placement positions with real agencies or studios and learning the right way to get things done, rather than mucking with projects which are over their heads and learning through large-scale trial and error.
If their intention is to have someone else design it, then why did they design it already? You don't sit down and do a piece of work poorly and then ask a professional to tidy it up for publication. They have gone through 90% of the marketing and design process without any professional input. No matter what the field, most professionals would turn down such a job.
Many people are submitting alternates on the google page, but those will fail too. Does OpenOffice have any leadership? The leaders need to lead; some things can't be done by committee, especially not an internet-sized committee. The leaders need to start from scratch, working with a professional, and go through the entire process to develop proper materials. They'd probably end up getting better results for their money too.
Deciding "We're going to place an ad in this newspaper" and then coming up with an ad is getting priorities messed up. They need to decide what their goals are, then a pro could help them determine which avenue to take, and develop appropriate graphic communications for the task. With a budget of $10,000, there are a lot of marketing options besides running one ad in one newspaper in one city.
Here is some professional advice for the OpenOffice people: get a professional to create your ads. Really. You are wasting your money if you do not. The proposed ad has many negative qualities and looks amateurish; it can only harm your efforts.
I have not looked at the Google group discussion on this yet (it was taking forever and a day to open), but opening up something like design of advertising to an online, anonymous committee with a potential size of infinity+1 is inviting disaster, and is probably going to keep many potential professionals with pro bono work in mind from coming forward.
Something like this needs a small team of people who know what they're doing, with good leadership.
"I, for one, welcome our hurricane-simulating, house-destroying, Linux-running overlords."
You mean Canadians?
Wow - that's great news! I'd phone my friends to tell them, but I swallowed my mobile phone again.
I'll start with some disclaimers: I don't own a Macbook Pro, I don't engineer portable computers, and I have only ever owned one portable computer in my life, a 12" Powerbook 867.
A previous Macfixit article, "MacBook Special Report: Excessive heat: Usage notes, cooling pads and more" (which is now in the subscription-only archives) mentioned MacBook temps getting to and over 67C
I own a first generation 12" Powerbook, the machine which was the previous Apple whipping-boy for overheating issues. I never experienced the warping/twisting frame problem 12" Powerbooks suffered, which was blamed on heat. My personal experience has been that use of the machine at a temperature over 59C at the CPU can cause the Combo drive to cease functioning and kernal panics related to the internal modem. The hottest I ever saw my 12" Powerbook get was 63C, when burning a series of CDs with the computer placed on a bed. I used the app Temperature Monitor to identify these problems and prevent recurrances.
If it's now considered normal for MacBooks to reach 67C and higher at the CPU, then quite frankly I'm not surprised that there are hardware issues, and I wonder how surprised the engineers at Apple are.
Everyone should know by now that the standard unit of measurement for length (and/or area) is the American football field (AFF).
pi = 3
Is there anyone reading with the brains/training to confidently/accurately answer some questions please?
"These are Rubik's cubes of the form 3d, with the original popular puzzle being 33. We label the puzzles like this because they are a d-dimensional cube broken into 3d smaller pieces or "cubies" of the same dimension. For example, the 3D cube has 33 or 27 total 3-dimensional cubies."
Does adding cubies really mean adding a dimension, or does it mean simply making a more complicated 3D puzzle and giving it a fancy name? (Behold: the Fifth Dimension! Amaze Your Friends!)
I noticed in the 4D model that elements disappear and reappear with each move. What's up with that? What do the green cubes represent? Where are the pieces which disappear supposed to be going, and why can't we see the changes being made to this set of cubies? Is the invisible set a cheat on the part of the designers?
I have not played with the 5D version, and so have no questions about that one.
So wrong that is hurts.
I must use your opener against you.
Committee designs are bad because they lack vision...
A poll would choose one option from couple of finalists that each would have its own wonderful vision
Vision should not come from the designers, but from the leaders who are supplying the designers with their brief. If each design has its own vision, then there is a serious problem. Vision and goals come from leadership. Vision does not come from voting. If each design offers a different means of communicating the leader's vision as spelled out in the brief, then the leader is best suited to decide which design meets their goals and represents his/her vision most accurately.
Besides those textbook facts, a poll assumes the general population possesses an understanding of such things as: what is truly good as opposed to what is fashionable; UI design; typography; colour theory; and does the general population have good taste?
Use the right tool for the job. Use the right person for the job. Having a vote is inviting hundreds of thousands of unqualified people to contribute to a project for which they don't share vision nor goals. That is a recipe for disaster.
saying the design is "poor" is a purely subjective
No, saying the design is poor is taking the things you mentioned into consideration, such as the form and function, and determining that the design performs poorly in both cases; therefore, the design is poor. It's not subjective - UI has been studied out the wazoo, and colour theory too. This is only Slashdot - I'm not going to submit a rationale.
I'm a bit surprised someone would say the second design is good from a colour theory standpoint. It is pasty green and white (and weak white type on the pasty green - ugh!), with paler green, almost invisible grey and more white for accent. At least the first beefed up the green and threw in black and meaningful shades of grey to provide some differentiation, and therefore provide elements to focus on (levels of importance).
I wonder how slashdot looks to the many men with colourblindness? Grey grey grey and grey - perfect!
I also wonder if any usability studies were done with these entries. I don't really care (it's only Slashdot), but I'm curious.
Putting a re-design to a vote of Slashdot readers would be the ultimate example of design-by-committee, and would therefore result in the ultimate in useless, unreadable, un-navigable websites.
In my opinion, the second place entry is miles away from the first place, and quick frankly, rather poor. There is little contrast - everything just kinda blends into one... one blegh. It certainly looks as if it were designed by an engineer, not by a graphic/UI person - perhaps engineers like to look at the website equivalent of pudding all day.
If that was second place, I dread seeing those further down the line.
The redesign chosen is definitely an improvement over the current look.
You must understand; times change.
...but then also resent the idea of hiring someone in India to write software, because everyone knows that US programmers are better and deserve their higher salaries... but just don't attempt to do anything to stop the piracy which affects software company's bottom line and their ability to pay American programmers...
:)
Micro$oft didn't make it until the second post, but DRM is at #1, right where it belongs.
Welcome to the new Slashdot, full of readers who (supposedly) make their living by using their heads and coming up with creative ideas (writing software, for example, or coming up with an idea for new software, for another example), yet resent any suggestion that creative ideas are not free for everyone to use and share as they see fit.
It's a beautiful circle, like a serpent eating its tail
When I read the opening blurb the first things I thought of were the weather and the geography. I have lived in the Bay Area, and quite simply it is a beautiful place to be, and the weather is as close to perfect as can be found. Not a day went by that I didn't appreciate how nice a place it was to be, even in my first apartment in San Francisco, in the super-crappy category.
This being Slashdot, I suppose I wasn't too surprised that the opening blurb said "While the people are an important part to the Silicon Valley experience, they are only part of the requirement. What local characteristics must also be present, even if Silicon Valley is to be duplicated on a smaller scale?" and almost every post moderated up discussed the people (after the predictable DRM comments, of course).
It wasn't until almost right at the bottom that I saw a comment moderated up which mentioned weather (and restaurants). People want to be somewhere nice. Until San Antonio and Ottawa and Cambridge and Vancouver and Seattle and wherever else these other tech areas are start up their weather machines and bulldozers and make some changes, companies trhere are going to have a harder time drawing the employees they want than those in California.
Don't forget: a huge proportion of people in California aren't from California. These employees are drawn from outside, and it takes more than money to pull people in (usually). Perhaps the people writing the comments and moderating them for this thread either haven't been to California and so can't appreciate its physical qualities, or they are nerds who, even if they are in California, keep the blinds drawn and don't go out in the sunlight.
At the root of it all, the comparison addressed the idea that people and corporations who make profit from selling something as trivial and inconsequential as live entertainment are called leeches, while those who make a profit selling the things we need to live are called businessmen.
Some addressing of priorities is needed here. Profits are a part of life. Get used to it. You need live entertainment as much as you need an assault rifle for hunting or a Hummer for commuting to work every day. A lot of people want that stuff, and they pay what the market allows for such premium products.
Assault rifles, Hummers and live entertainment are expensive. A lot of people need to get over it.
"If Aldi's raises the price of milk by a dime*, you go to Win Dixie and shop there instead."
Yes, and you still buy from a company marking up a product by a large margin, buying a product which a number of middle-men have taken a piece of - aren't they still ripping you off even though it's a dime cheaper? Although you have a choice between Corp A or Corp B, you're still buying into the same business model which decides the price of milk for you. This is considered a rip-off when applied to tickets for live entertainment. The monopoly is irrelevant - we are discussing business model!
Thank you for proving my point.
Who is offering the option of bidding for milk? That would be real competition. Then we would know what milk is really worth!
If adding costs and mark-up to tickets is a rip-off, and if putting them up for auction so the market can determine the price is a rip-off, then what isn't a rip-off?
Please supply a realistic option for revolutionising the ticket-selling industry, because it seems the real world is anxiously waiting for it.
If I may apply a touch of sarcasm...
.01% of the population of the world?"
"The market will gladly show that only the rich should have any chance at anything worthy of doing. It's good to know that my children will likely never be able to afford to see a live show."
Yes, at the dozens of major concerts any major city hosts in a year, with the hundreds of thousands of seats available, yes, only the super-wealthy will be able to attend - caviar will be served in the nosebleed seats. I won't mention the hundreds of smaller shows and concerts which are happening each night of the year, because I'm assuming your children only want to see the biggest and most popular performances, which is as it should be.
" Shit seen the price of a freaking BASEBALL or HOCKEY game lately? And they're just about to skyrocket?"
Have you seen the type of people going to baseball and hockey games? If they're rich, I don't want to know who their tailor is. Prices will only skyrocket if these legions of Johnny-lunchpails decide they want to spend more, in which case they are creating their own misery (oh wait, that last sentence wasn't sarcasm - oops!)
"Free market capitalizm is going to do us in in the end. How long do we figure until 95% of the worlds wealth has migrated into the hands of
Maybe if you spent less money on hockey and baseball tickets, and invested your cash a bit more wisely, you'd be rich too and then you could stomp on the little guys. It's great fun, y'know! Much more fun than watching a stupid baseball game.
"It makes me feel great to know that this is purely because the Artist needs to be compensated more."
Yes, again. As has been pointed out on slashdot dozens of times previously, being a performer means automatic wealth, because we all know how huge the profits are from every show every band ever plays. Might I suggest buying your children a piano and some music lessons? Becoming a performer, um, I mean an Artist, seems to be a no-brainer investment and an easy path to instant wealth! By the time they are grown, they will only have to perform in front of massive crowds of wealthy people, and not have to deal with poor people. Sweet!
I wrote: "what are the differences between supermarkets, US mobile telephone service providers, or auto manufacturers? Their products/services have mostly superficial differences, and they all follow the same business model."
...and they all follow the same business model within their respective industries.
When I should have written: