Given the standard of what ITV produces* this isn't surprising. I can't think of a single show that ITV managed to export before Downton Abbey.
What are you talking about? The company "ITV plc" (which has only existed since 2004) or the ITV network?
Remember that "ITV" was originally- and still is- the collective name given to the network of (once independent) regional franchisees for the main commercial TV station.
It was only after the franchisees were allowed to merge- starting in the 90s- that the two largest remaining companies merged to become "ITV plc" in 2004. Before that, there wasn't an ITV company, just a bunch of separate companies that generally cooperated. And there are still two companies (STV and UTV) that are on the ITV network but not part of "ITV plc".
So, yeah, there were plenty of "ITV" shows exported before 2004, but those were made by various different companies.
The article does claim that he was on the BBC- albeit even then not exclusively- in his early career, but moved to Thames in the late 60s. Still, this is another example of how Americans(?) always assume that British Television = BBC.
Since his move occurred just before BBC1 and ITV started colour transmissions, it's safe to say that any "Benny Hill Shows" in colour weren't made by the BBC.
Keurig lost a $120 sale and a continuous sale of K-Cups because they choose to screw me and the rest of the consumers. They lost out with me.
I'm pretty sure companies don't care about a single lost sale, and even a low number of lost sales to geeks caused by DRM et al (if they're aware of it) will be considered a minor tradeoff against the monetary benefit of being able to lock in and (profitably) screw over the large number of people who *will* still be buying it anyway.
(This is the same situation as with the PSP et al being locked down and a couple of geeks saying "you lost a sale". Big deal, they lost a sale to people who probably weren't going to buy lots of games (where they make the most profit) and retained the ability to milk the remaining 99.5% of people who were still going to buy it for lots more money).
The best way to hit them where it hurts is to spread the word about how lousy and hostile to the user Keurig's machines are, preferably in terms that the ordinary user will understand (i.e. you *can't* use generic pods, you *will* have to pay more because Keurig want your money, and if you can't get the official Keurig ones, tough).
Ultimately, giving them an abstract lecture about DRM will probably turn them off, explaining *why* this particular example of DRM is lousy for them is a preferential backdoor in propaganda terms. (Though I wouldn't shove the term DRM down their throats).
Yeah, we still have Spectrum fanboys on Slashdot claiming people in the UK bought them instead of 2600's/NES's because you could do homework on them because it was a "computer".
I said most people used them for games; that, as the other guy said, still leaves a small but significant percentage who *did* end up programming them. It's just that a lot more of them were basically bought for games playing. And I think the "word processing" thing is a bit of a strawman; the Spectrum never had a reputation as a home office or business machine anyway.
The VCS/2600 was around for five years before the Spectrum. Some people here did own it; it just wasn't as ubiquitous.I don't know when it launched in the UK, but I'm assuming that a combination of the fact it (as an imported machine and going by the rule of thumb) was probably more expensive here than in the US along with the fact that people in the UK had lower rates of income (and hence disposable income) to spend on a still relatively expensive machine contributed to most people not buying one- regardless of whether the Spectrum was out or not.
As for the original NES, yes, though it wasn't a flop here, it wasn't remotely as dominant as it was (apparently) in the US. It's known that- until well into the 90s- Nintendo didn't really take Europe that seriously or push as hard there. The Mastertronic-distributed Sega Master System outsold the NES here- possibly because Mastertronic was a UK company and more in tune with the UK market. Even so, the UK market remained far more home computer driven than the US until the Mega Drive/SNES started selling in large numbers circa 1992. Oddly, *their* cartridges weren't easily pirated, unlike Amiga games (which lost ground to the 16-bit consoles around this time); yet the consoles weren't so much better than the Amiga that they would have beaten it if piratability of games was the only factor.
The ZX81 didn't last as long, more because it had limitations compared to the Speccy.
All that is true, and I'm aware of it, but it misses the point. The point wasn't why the ZX81 didn't last long- that, of course, was because it was superseded.
The point I was making was why the Spectrum *did* last so much longer despite also being eclipsed in purely technical terms. That, as I mentioned, was because it was the first machine "good enough" for arcade games and "good enough" for its existing software base to have value. The mid-80s point circa the Amstrad buyout, when "serious" support started to fade was (I'm guessing) the point at which the non-gaming hobbyist/enthusiast market moved on to more advanced machines, and the point at which it probably would have faded if it was being purchased for the same reasons as the ZX81. It didn't- it lasted well the early 90s, i.e. past the start of the Mega Drive era!
Also, the original unexpanded ZX81 had a full 1KB; still a tiny amount by most standards, but not the almost unusable 256 bytes (i.e. "1/4k") that you suggest. The Atari VCS/2600 had an even tinier 128 bytes (plus one line of screen memory), but that was a much older machine and intended to run programs stored on external ROM, so the RAM there was "only" needed for keeping track of scoring players, etc. Still an incredibly small amount, though.
Some of the emulators even allowed you to load directly from tape with a simple interface.
As far as I'm aware, the Vega *is* effectively just a cheap ARM-based computer running an emulator anyway (as opposed to a logic-level reimplementation of the original circuitry like the C64 Direct to TV was), supplied in a parodically cut-down mockery of the original Spectrum keyboard.
If I was a Spectrum fanatic, I'd want something that was either a "true" reimplementation of the original Spectrum and/or something that looked and could be used like the original Spectrum- possibly with additional features or connectivity, but retaining the original features.
This is- in some respects- better than Elite's "relaunch" of the ZX Spectrum (reported as such in many places) as a Bluetooth keyboard (i.e. they designed a Bluetooth keyboard that approximates the old Spectrum case and works with some crappy proprietary Android app). But that's a pretty low bar... the Vega is still just an emulator in a nostalgia-exploiting case that won't properly replicate the experience anyway, so why bother? I've no doubt it'll still sell, though.
The thing that made the Sinclairs popular was that you could actually program them yourself. Not the games.
That may have been true of the ZX80 and ZX81 (since those weren't ideal for games anyway).
However, while the Spectrum may undoubtedly have attracted hobbyists in its early days, I suspect that long-term the vast majority were sold for playing games on (regardless of what schoolkids told their parents to get them to buy one!). Yeah, some of those kids did write games on them... most of them probably didn't!
The reason is almost certainly that the Spectrum was the first really cheap home computer on the UK market to feature high-resolution graphics (*), colour and "sound" (**) sufficient to render acceptably realistic approximations of early-80s arcade games.
It's obvious that the Spectrum- having got there first- benefitted from the "network effect" (***) I assume this is why- despite countless "me too" competitors released in the wake of the Spectrum's success- almost none gained significant market share, even when they may arguably have had better specs, or been cheaper. (****)
The Spectrum's established software base and continued support meant it continued to be popular for gaming for years, even when its limitations (e.g. "attribute clash", 8-colour palette, lack of hardware scrolling or sprites) became more obvious when trying to replicate newer arcade games with more detailed background graphics et al.
As I said earlier, I've no doubt that a significant number of early adopters were "serious" hobbyists, and it would still been a major success with them alone. However, it probably wouldn't have lasted as long; it's clear that they'd started to move on by the mid-80s as the Spectrum was superseded technically and the "never mind the limitations, check out the massive amount of very cheap games" younger gaming market remained.
To back this up, it's worth noting that after Amstrad bought out Sinclair's existing computer line in 1986, their marketing was almost entirely gaming-focused. It's also notable that by this point almost all the Spectrum magazines concentrated on games.
That's probably why the mainly-hobbyist ZX81 (for all its influence) had a much shorter lifespan- only around three years- yet the Spectrum continued to be sold for a decade until 1992(!!), by which point the Mega Drive (AKA Genesis) was quite popular.
(*) "High resolution" by the standards of the time, i.e. 256 x 192, as opposed to (e.g.) the ZX81's 64 x 48 character-based graphics
(**) Albeit via the very limited single-channel "beeper"
(***) i.e. people rushed out to buy the Spectrum, so many games were written for it, so many people more bought it because it had the most games, so more games were written for it... etc.
(****) Other 8-bits, such as the Commodore 64, BBC Micro and later Amstrad CPC enjoyed success in the UK, but those were aimed at distinctly different (higher) price points and market segments
This is oft-quoted as fact, but I've seen it disputed often enough that I wouldn't take it at face value.
From as early as 1996, this thread commented that:-
Um, my family was the first on the block, getting a Sony Betamax in September, 1977, and porn films were readily available as quickly in Beta as in VHS (faster actually, because at the start of sales/rental of
pre-recorded video, there were far more Beta titles available than VHS). Trust me. I was a horny little 12 year old at just about the time they became available. I know.
Even if Sony prohibited porn from being copied in their own commercial duplications facilities (which, I assume, would have had much- if not most- of the capacity in the early days), this doesn't mean the lack of commercial porn would have been the reason for Beta's failure.
Maybe Betamax *did* fail because of a lack of porn. But I suspect the shorter running time in the early machines would have been a bigger problem.
Let's be honest, from what I've heard the picture quality was a *bit* better, and yeah, the cassettes were a bit smaller than the annoying bulky VHS ones. But if they couldn't record more than an hour, then that's a severe limitation for timeshifting films, longer dramas and sports games.
I know the story's meant to be that people went for quantity over quality with VHS, but if the improved quality meant it wasn't actually useful for a lot of what most people wanted then IMHO, it's a perfectly reasonable decision that doesn't make you a philistine. Video recorders were a means to an end, and I'm sure a lot of people knew Beta was better quality but preferred to be able to record a whole film and went for VHS.
There's also the Beta licensing/manufacturing issue, but this wasn't really meant as a "*why* VHS beat Beta" post. Point is that the "porn won the war for VHS" thing probably took the (supposed) lack of porn on Beta, assumed it *was* the reason Beta failed and the argument gained currency because it was "obvious" and catchy... not because it had been proven.
We played our video games with ONE JOYSTICK and ONE RED BUTTON!
You had a joystick *and* a button? Luxury! I used to *dream* of having a joystick. I only had a disconnected joystick cable and I'd control it by making the connections with my tongue.
And the button wire was missing. And I didn't have any games. Or a computer.
But you know, I were happy in those days, even though I was poor.
(FWIW, I was still using that type of one-button Atari-format joystick on my Amiga until the mid-90s when the Amiga died altogether as a mainstream format and I was losing interest in games anyway. That was probably the point at which the "classic" one-button 9-pin Atari stick died(?); I don't count the Mega Drive/Genesis controller, as that had three buttons even though it used the 9-pin Atari connector and was sort-of-compatible).
Seriously, a DSLR sensor is 35mm because the film it replaced is 35mm.
Mostly wrong. Only high-end professional-oriented DSLRs have 35mm-sized sensors, the majority use smaller APS-C sized sensors or something in that ballpark.
Even with Slashdot's slightly hyperbolic headline, the summary correctly reports the planet as having been "detected" rather then "discovered", and clarifies that this was "only" an already-discovered exoplanet (as does the original article).
If that was your implied criticism, then, it's not valid.
If you understood this, but your point was that "detecting" an already-known exo-planet was pointless because it's alredy been done... even though the person involved did it with equipment orders of magnitude cheaper and lower-end than that originally used by NASA less than a decade back, and which few of us would have assumed possible, which *is* the point here... then Slashdot probably isn't the place for you.
reminds me of coverage of deals Walmart entered into with many suppliers in its history where they become the vast majority of some vendors products then finds a cheaper source and leaves them screwed over from expansion costs with no place to sell their new manufacturing capacity.
Coincidentally, this is broadly similar to something I already mentioned elsewhere in this thread!
Historical records in many countries are written in cursive, and not just English wring ones. Only a complete idiot would want to sever children from their past.
There's a difference between being able to read cursive (i.e. "joined up" in Commonwealth English) handwriting and actually being able to write it yourself. Besides which, even *my* joined-up handwriting isn't the same style as some of the more elaborate "copperplate" styles favoured in the past.
And while we're talking about it, the headline "Finland dumps handwriting"- which the original story used and Slashdot copied- is misleading anyway. From the article itself, it's joined-up writing that's being dumped, not writing altogether. The latter would be far more serious- IMHO kids should learn to write, but joined-up? Well, it makes me slightly uncomfortable to think of ditching it, but then *I* remember how little I actually write these days. (*) As long as they can at least write half-competently, that's the main thing.
FWIW, I certainly think that kids should be being taught basic typing skills, and if you're going to explicitly teach it anyway, it makes sense to go with touch typing. I'd been using computers for around 15 years before I learned to touch type in the late 90s, and that only happened because I explicitly learned to do so. I'd got pretty good at "hunt and peck" (**), but I would never have picked up touch typing skills from that alone.
I used Mavis Beacon, and to be honest, it didn't take *that* long to become good enough that I switched completely to touch-typing. I'm pretty sure that most kids could pick it up as fast, so it shouldn't waste too much schooltime anyway, even if typing (say) became obsolete in fifteen years time.
"Texting" skills, OTOH... stupid waste of time. Smacks of a slightly out-of-touch and conservative middle-aged person having belatedly caught up with this new "texting" fad and mistaking it for an important skill. Even if old-style (numeric keypad) texting needed a bit of practice to learn, it's not something that kids needed to be- or should have been- taught. More importantly, that typing style is being quickly rendered obsolete by the move to smartphones that use virtual QWERTY keyboards instead.
(*) And how rubbish it is often when I do- mainly because the speed of typing has made me impatient with writing speed- even though rushing it doesn't speed things up that much. If I actually make an effort to write, I'm still as neat as I ever was.
(**) My classmates were quite impressed with my typing speed, but this was back in the late 80s/early 90s when computers hadn't permeated everyday life as much, and most domestic use by non-geeks was for games or very basic use that didn't need much typing skill. (I was a geek, of course!)
" Either they were utterly, *utterly* struck blind or there is something strange and dubious going on. "
Or they were led on by Apple and a bit naive. They probably over-extended themselves trying to please Apple on the implied promise of a large contract.
That's essentially what I was implying by the first of those two options.
Eventually they dropped Disney when it was realized the bragging rights were not worth the abuse.
The problem is that- depending upon the contract- the smaller company being screwed over is now in a position where they *can't* pull out of the contract because their large customer has them over a barrel. They've expanded and/or dedicated significant resources to supplying and pleasing that customer they thought would be a cash cow- possibly dropping other markets- and if the large company was to terminate the contract as threatened, they'd then have a massive production operation to fund with no-one to buy the end result.
It's either that quick death, or the slow death of having your margins ruthlessly squeezed beyond a sustainable point.
From another letter in the comments section of that article (from "Mugs"):-
I was once stuck on a train with a colleague ranting about a similar contract. The contract was in the 40s between Woolworth and his grandfather who ran a broom factory. Woolies started off with a small order, gradually increased until they took all the output then drove the price down until the factory went bust.
This was behaviour I was already familiar with relating to Wal-Mart, but it shows you it happened even back then. You can bet your life that in every case, the large customer knew exactly how this was going to play out in advance.
Why on earth would you have a problem with scotland getting their energy from renevables?
He didn't say that anywhere. His problem was solely about whether particular energy uses had been included or not, and whether those *should* count towards the claim made.
You're entitled to agree or disagree with him on that- and I'm not saying I entirely agree- but he didn't say anything about being opposed to Scotland getting its energy from renewables, and it's pretty unreasonable to put words in his mouth on that count.
it would take an extremely good businessman to [terminate] at that point, most would already be counting the money Apple would make them. But if a deal is wrong you need to walk away. They're hardly the first company to fail because they made a bad decision to take on a contract they weren't ready for.
[The usual form of the contract is that companies agree] to build whatever to [the agreed] standard and by that time. Excellent. If we do so then you have to either take them and pay for them or if you don't take them you've still got to pay for them. If we don't make them to standard or in time then here's the damages we'll pay. But if we hit the spot then you're committed to pay for them.
But here's what it actually did sign up to:
Those agreements, said Daniel Squiller, GTAT's chief operating officer, were almost entirely one-sided. By the time Cupertino's lawyers were done, he said, GTAT was presented with an deal that, among other terms, required it to: commit to producing millions of units of sapphire, even though Apple was not obligated to buy any of them.
Something the author describes as "sheer lunacy". Either they were utterly, *utterly* struck blind or there is something strange and dubious going on. Oddly, the "struck blind" explanation isn't as improbable going by a comment in the letters section (from "Edwin"):-
The sexiness of having Apple (or some other A-list brand) as a major customer is extremely seductive to many 'executives'. Not only because it's great advertising, but the bolstering of the supplier's individual executive ego.
I thought the Raspberry Pis were meant to be named after BBC Micro models. We got the Model B and Model A (the latter of which mimicked the Model A BBC Micro in being less popular than the Model B), then the Model B+, which mimicked the short-lived improvement to the original BBC B.
There was never a BBC Micro Model A+, though. The next one in the series should be a Raspberry Pi Master Series, with numeric keypad.;-)
Netflix made 71m off of the 'there's no money to be made slinging content' game
Netflix is a content producer, in addition to a content slinger.
Not when they first started.
What the article states is "No one makes money selling media for consumption anymore [..] The media market is now so efficient that all profit is completely sucked out of the equation by the time you get to the consumption delivery system" (my emphasis).
Netflix started a long time ago, and even their streaming offering began quite a number of years back now. Things have moved on a lot since then.
Not saying I necessarily agree with the article's claim myself, just pointing out that since it *is* clearly referring to the present-day situation, Netflix's circumstances a number of years back aren't a valid counter-example to that.
Slashdot Mirror
Given the standard of what ITV produces* this isn't surprising. I can't think of a single show that ITV managed to export before Downton Abbey.
What are you talking about? The company "ITV plc" (which has only existed since 2004) or the ITV network?
Remember that "ITV" was originally- and still is- the collective name given to the network of (once independent) regional franchisees for the main commercial TV station.
It was only after the franchisees were allowed to merge- starting in the 90s- that the two largest remaining companies merged to become "ITV plc" in 2004. Before that, there wasn't an ITV company, just a bunch of separate companies that generally cooperated. And there are still two companies (STV and UTV) that are on the ITV network but not part of "ITV plc".
So, yeah, there were plenty of "ITV" shows exported before 2004, but those were made by various different companies.
Will a giant white ball chase you down?
Not unless they license that show, since it was made by ATV/ITC for the ITV network, not the BBC. (*)
;-)
Unless, of course, I misunderstood you, and you were referring to a bizarre episode of It's a Knockout.
(*) Ditto this post regarding the "all British TV programmes were made by the BBC" fallacy Americans and others seem to hold.
The article does claim that he was on the BBC- albeit even then not exclusively- in his early career, but moved to Thames in the late 60s. Still, this is another example of how Americans(?) always assume that British Television = BBC.
Since his move occurred just before BBC1 and ITV started colour transmissions, it's safe to say that any "Benny Hill Shows" in colour weren't made by the BBC.
"RED DWARF"... "make it so"?!
:-)
Subtle troll is subtle.
Keurig lost a $120 sale and a continuous sale of K-Cups because they choose to screw me and the rest of the consumers. They lost out with me.
I'm pretty sure companies don't care about a single lost sale, and even a low number of lost sales to geeks caused by DRM et al (if they're aware of it) will be considered a minor tradeoff against the monetary benefit of being able to lock in and (profitably) screw over the large number of people who *will* still be buying it anyway.
(This is the same situation as with the PSP et al being locked down and a couple of geeks saying "you lost a sale". Big deal, they lost a sale to people who probably weren't going to buy lots of games (where they make the most profit) and retained the ability to milk the remaining 99.5% of people who were still going to buy it for lots more money).
The best way to hit them where it hurts is to spread the word about how lousy and hostile to the user Keurig's machines are, preferably in terms that the ordinary user will understand (i.e. you *can't* use generic pods, you *will* have to pay more because Keurig want your money, and if you can't get the official Keurig ones, tough).
Ultimately, giving them an abstract lecture about DRM will probably turn them off, explaining *why* this particular example of DRM is lousy for them is a preferential backdoor in propaganda terms. (Though I wouldn't shove the term DRM down their throats).
Yeah, we still have Spectrum fanboys on Slashdot claiming people in the UK bought them instead of 2600's/NES's because you could do homework on them because it was a "computer".
I said most people used them for games; that, as the other guy said, still leaves a small but significant percentage who *did* end up programming them. It's just that a lot more of them were basically bought for games playing. And I think the "word processing" thing is a bit of a strawman; the Spectrum never had a reputation as a home office or business machine anyway.
The VCS/2600 was around for five years before the Spectrum. Some people here did own it; it just wasn't as ubiquitous.I don't know when it launched in the UK, but I'm assuming that a combination of the fact it (as an imported machine and going by the rule of thumb) was probably more expensive here than in the US along with the fact that people in the UK had lower rates of income (and hence disposable income) to spend on a still relatively expensive machine contributed to most people not buying one- regardless of whether the Spectrum was out or not.
As for the original NES, yes, though it wasn't a flop here, it wasn't remotely as dominant as it was (apparently) in the US. It's known that- until well into the 90s- Nintendo didn't really take Europe that seriously or push as hard there. The Mastertronic-distributed Sega Master System outsold the NES here- possibly because Mastertronic was a UK company and more in tune with the UK market. Even so, the UK market remained far more home computer driven than the US until the Mega Drive/SNES started selling in large numbers circa 1992. Oddly, *their* cartridges weren't easily pirated, unlike Amiga games (which lost ground to the 16-bit consoles around this time); yet the consoles weren't so much better than the Amiga that they would have beaten it if piratability of games was the only factor.
The ZX81 didn't last as long, more because it had limitations compared to the Speccy.
All that is true, and I'm aware of it, but it misses the point. The point wasn't why the ZX81 didn't last long- that, of course, was because it was superseded.
The point I was making was why the Spectrum *did* last so much longer despite also being eclipsed in purely technical terms. That, as I mentioned, was because it was the first machine "good enough" for arcade games and "good enough" for its existing software base to have value. The mid-80s point circa the Amstrad buyout, when "serious" support started to fade was (I'm guessing) the point at which the non-gaming hobbyist/enthusiast market moved on to more advanced machines, and the point at which it probably would have faded if it was being purchased for the same reasons as the ZX81. It didn't- it lasted well the early 90s, i.e. past the start of the Mega Drive era!
Also, the original unexpanded ZX81 had a full 1KB; still a tiny amount by most standards, but not the almost unusable 256 bytes (i.e. "1/4k") that you suggest. The Atari VCS/2600 had an even tinier 128 bytes (plus one line of screen memory), but that was a much older machine and intended to run programs stored on external ROM, so the RAM there was "only" needed for keeping track of scoring players, etc. Still an incredibly small amount, though.
Some of the emulators even allowed you to load directly from tape with a simple interface.
As far as I'm aware, the Vega *is* effectively just a cheap ARM-based computer running an emulator anyway (as opposed to a logic-level reimplementation of the original circuitry like the C64 Direct to TV was), supplied in a parodically cut-down mockery of the original Spectrum keyboard.
If I was a Spectrum fanatic, I'd want something that was either a "true" reimplementation of the original Spectrum and/or something that looked and could be used like the original Spectrum- possibly with additional features or connectivity, but retaining the original features.
This is- in some respects- better than Elite's "relaunch" of the ZX Spectrum (reported as such in many places) as a Bluetooth keyboard (i.e. they designed a Bluetooth keyboard that approximates the old Spectrum case and works with some crappy proprietary Android app). But that's a pretty low bar... the Vega is still just an emulator in a nostalgia-exploiting case that won't properly replicate the experience anyway, so why bother? I've no doubt it'll still sell, though.
The thing that made the Sinclairs popular was that you could actually program them yourself. Not the games.
That may have been true of the ZX80 and ZX81 (since those weren't ideal for games anyway).
However, while the Spectrum may undoubtedly have attracted hobbyists in its early days, I suspect that long-term the vast majority were sold for playing games on (regardless of what schoolkids told their parents to get them to buy one!). Yeah, some of those kids did write games on them... most of them probably didn't!
The reason is almost certainly that the Spectrum was the first really cheap home computer on the UK market to feature high-resolution graphics (*), colour and "sound" (**) sufficient to render acceptably realistic approximations of early-80s arcade games.
It's obvious that the Spectrum- having got there first- benefitted from the "network effect" (***) I assume this is why- despite countless "me too" competitors released in the wake of the Spectrum's success- almost none gained significant market share, even when they may arguably have had better specs, or been cheaper. (****)
The Spectrum's established software base and continued support meant it continued to be popular for gaming for years, even when its limitations (e.g. "attribute clash", 8-colour palette, lack of hardware scrolling or sprites) became more obvious when trying to replicate newer arcade games with more detailed background graphics et al.
As I said earlier, I've no doubt that a significant number of early adopters were "serious" hobbyists, and it would still been a major success with them alone. However, it probably wouldn't have lasted as long; it's clear that they'd started to move on by the mid-80s as the Spectrum was superseded technically and the "never mind the limitations, check out the massive amount of very cheap games" younger gaming market remained.
To back this up, it's worth noting that after Amstrad bought out Sinclair's existing computer line in 1986, their marketing was almost entirely gaming-focused. It's also notable that by this point almost all the Spectrum magazines concentrated on games.
That's probably why the mainly-hobbyist ZX81 (for all its influence) had a much shorter lifespan- only around three years- yet the Spectrum continued to be sold for a decade until 1992(!!), by which point the Mega Drive (AKA Genesis) was quite popular.
(*) "High resolution" by the standards of the time, i.e. 256 x 192, as opposed to (e.g.) the ZX81's 64 x 48 character-based graphics
(**) Albeit via the very limited single-channel "beeper"
(***) i.e. people rushed out to buy the Spectrum, so many games were written for it, so many people more bought it because it had the most games, so more games were written for it... etc.
(****) Other 8-bits, such as the Commodore 64, BBC Micro and later Amstrad CPC enjoyed success in the UK, but those were aimed at distinctly different (higher) price points and market segments
[VHS] won because of p0rn
This is oft-quoted as fact, but I've seen it disputed often enough that I wouldn't take it at face value. From as early as 1996, this thread commented that:-
Um, my family was the first on the block, getting a Sony Betamax in September, 1977, and porn films were readily available as quickly in Beta as in VHS (faster actually, because at the start of sales/rental of pre-recorded video, there were far more Beta titles available than VHS). Trust me. I was a horny little 12 year old at just about the time they became available. I know.
Even if Sony prohibited porn from being copied in their own commercial duplications facilities (which, I assume, would have had much- if not most- of the capacity in the early days), this doesn't mean the lack of commercial porn would have been the reason for Beta's failure.
Maybe Betamax *did* fail because of a lack of porn. But I suspect the shorter running time in the early machines would have been a bigger problem.
Let's be honest, from what I've heard the picture quality was a *bit* better, and yeah, the cassettes were a bit smaller than the annoying bulky VHS ones. But if they couldn't record more than an hour, then that's a severe limitation for timeshifting films, longer dramas and sports games.
I know the story's meant to be that people went for quantity over quality with VHS, but if the improved quality meant it wasn't actually useful for a lot of what most people wanted then IMHO, it's a perfectly reasonable decision that doesn't make you a philistine. Video recorders were a means to an end, and I'm sure a lot of people knew Beta was better quality but preferred to be able to record a whole film and went for VHS.
There's also the Beta licensing/manufacturing issue, but this wasn't really meant as a "*why* VHS beat Beta" post. Point is that the "porn won the war for VHS" thing probably took the (supposed) lack of porn on Beta, assumed it *was* the reason Beta failed and the argument gained currency because it was "obvious" and catchy... not because it had been proven.
How are they earning a profit? If the apps are free, where do they get the money?
Volume!
$0.0000000000 x 8,000,000,000 (inflated population of the world) = 0
Whoosh!
We played our video games with ONE JOYSTICK and ONE RED BUTTON!
You had a joystick *and* a button? Luxury! I used to *dream* of having a joystick. I only had a disconnected joystick cable and I'd control it by making the connections with my tongue.
And the button wire was missing. And I didn't have any games. Or a computer.
But you know, I were happy in those days, even though I was poor.
(FWIW, I was still using that type of one-button Atari-format joystick on my Amiga until the mid-90s when the Amiga died altogether as a mainstream format and I was losing interest in games anyway. That was probably the point at which the "classic" one-button 9-pin Atari stick died(?); I don't count the Mega Drive/Genesis controller, as that had three buttons even though it used the 9-pin Atari connector and was sort-of-compatible).
Seriously, a DSLR sensor is 35mm because the film it replaced is 35mm.
Mostly wrong. Only high-end professional-oriented DSLRs have 35mm-sized sensors, the majority use smaller APS-C sized sensors or something in that ballpark.
Even with Slashdot's slightly hyperbolic headline, the summary correctly reports the planet as having been "detected" rather then "discovered", and clarifies that this was "only" an already-discovered exoplanet (as does the original article).
If that was your implied criticism, then, it's not valid.
If you understood this, but your point was that "detecting" an already-known exo-planet was pointless because it's alredy been done... even though the person involved did it with equipment orders of magnitude cheaper and lower-end than that originally used by NASA less than a decade back, and which few of us would have assumed possible, which *is* the point here... then Slashdot probably isn't the place for you.
reminds me of coverage of deals Walmart entered into with many suppliers in its history where they become the vast majority of some vendors products then finds a cheaper source and leaves them screwed over from expansion costs with no place to sell their new manufacturing capacity.
Coincidentally, this is broadly similar to something I already mentioned elsewhere in this thread!
A lot of historical documents are written in Olde English or Saxxon
Wasn't that a popular diagonally-scrolling shooter in the Early Middle Ages?
Historical records in many countries are written in cursive, and not just English wring ones. Only a complete idiot would want to sever children from their past.
There's a difference between being able to read cursive (i.e. "joined up" in Commonwealth English) handwriting and actually being able to write it yourself. Besides which, even *my* joined-up handwriting isn't the same style as some of the more elaborate "copperplate" styles favoured in the past.
And while we're talking about it, the headline "Finland dumps handwriting"- which the original story used and Slashdot copied- is misleading anyway. From the article itself, it's joined-up writing that's being dumped, not writing altogether. The latter would be far more serious- IMHO kids should learn to write, but joined-up? Well, it makes me slightly uncomfortable to think of ditching it, but then *I* remember how little I actually write these days. (*) As long as they can at least write half-competently, that's the main thing.
FWIW, I certainly think that kids should be being taught basic typing skills, and if you're going to explicitly teach it anyway, it makes sense to go with touch typing. I'd been using computers for around 15 years before I learned to touch type in the late 90s, and that only happened because I explicitly learned to do so. I'd got pretty good at "hunt and peck" (**), but I would never have picked up touch typing skills from that alone.
I used Mavis Beacon, and to be honest, it didn't take *that* long to become good enough that I switched completely to touch-typing. I'm pretty sure that most kids could pick it up as fast, so it shouldn't waste too much schooltime anyway, even if typing (say) became obsolete in fifteen years time.
"Texting" skills, OTOH... stupid waste of time. Smacks of a slightly out-of-touch and conservative middle-aged person having belatedly caught up with this new "texting" fad and mistaking it for an important skill. Even if old-style (numeric keypad) texting needed a bit of practice to learn, it's not something that kids needed to be- or should have been- taught. More importantly, that typing style is being quickly rendered obsolete by the move to smartphones that use virtual QWERTY keyboards instead.
(*) And how rubbish it is often when I do- mainly because the speed of typing has made me impatient with writing speed- even though rushing it doesn't speed things up that much. If I actually make an effort to write, I'm still as neat as I ever was.
(**) My classmates were quite impressed with my typing speed, but this was back in the late 80s/early 90s when computers hadn't permeated everyday life as much, and most domestic use by non-geeks was for games or very basic use that didn't need much typing skill. (I was a geek, of course!)
" Either they were utterly, *utterly* struck blind or there is something strange and dubious going on. "
Or they were led on by Apple and a bit naive. They probably over-extended themselves trying to please Apple on the implied promise of a large contract.
That's essentially what I was implying by the first of those two options.
Eventually they dropped Disney when it was realized the bragging rights were not worth the abuse.
The problem is that- depending upon the contract- the smaller company being screwed over is now in a position where they *can't* pull out of the contract because their large customer has them over a barrel. They've expanded and/or dedicated significant resources to supplying and pleasing that customer they thought would be a cash cow- possibly dropping other markets- and if the large company was to terminate the contract as threatened, they'd then have a massive production operation to fund with no-one to buy the end result.
It's either that quick death, or the slow death of having your margins ruthlessly squeezed beyond a sustainable point.
From another letter in the comments section of that article (from "Mugs"):-
I was once stuck on a train with a colleague ranting about a similar contract. The contract was in the 40s between Woolworth and his grandfather who ran a broom factory. Woolies started off with a small order, gradually increased until they took all the output then drove the price down until the factory went bust.
This was behaviour I was already familiar with relating to Wal-Mart, but it shows you it happened even back then. You can bet your life that in every case, the large customer knew exactly how this was going to play out in advance.
See this:- The Wal-Mart you don't know
And this:- The Man Who Said "No" to Wal-Mart
Why on earth would you have a problem with scotland getting their energy from renevables?
He didn't say that anywhere. His problem was solely about whether particular energy uses had been included or not, and whether those *should* count towards the claim made.
You're entitled to agree or disagree with him on that- and I'm not saying I entirely agree- but he didn't say anything about being opposed to Scotland getting its energy from renewables, and it's pretty unreasonable to put words in his mouth on that count.
it would take an extremely good businessman to [terminate] at that point, most would already be counting the money Apple would make them. But if a deal is wrong you need to walk away. They're hardly the first company to fail because they made a bad decision to take on a contract they weren't ready for.
The Register ran an opinion piece when the details on this story were first appearing a couple of weeks back. It noted an almost unbelievable point others have commented on elsewhere in this thread:-
[The usual form of the contract is that companies agree] to build whatever to [the agreed] standard and by that time. Excellent. If we do so then you have to either take them and pay for them or if you don't take them you've still got to pay for them. If we don't make them to standard or in time then here's the damages we'll pay. But if we hit the spot then you're committed to pay for them.
But here's what it actually did sign up to:
Those agreements, said Daniel Squiller, GTAT's chief operating officer, were almost entirely one-sided. By the time Cupertino's lawyers were done, he said, GTAT was presented with an deal that, among other terms, required it to: commit to producing millions of units of sapphire, even though Apple was not obligated to buy any of them.
Something the author describes as "sheer lunacy". Either they were utterly, *utterly* struck blind or there is something strange and dubious going on. Oddly, the "struck blind" explanation isn't as improbable going by a comment in the letters section (from "Edwin"):-
The sexiness of having Apple (or some other A-list brand) as a major customer is extremely seductive to many 'executives'. Not only because it's great advertising, but the bolstering of the supplier's individual executive ego.
Let's see you sell them games as "free of any sexy", "does not contain sexy", or the R rated "may contain traces of sexy".
Why does this make me imagine the voice of the teenage son Steve from "American Dad"?
Also, obligatory paraphrasing here:-
Sexism = Sexy these days
Ian Publisher: Sweden is gonna give the game an "R" rating... because they have decided that it is sexist.
Nigel G Amergate: Well, so what? What's wrong with bein' sexy? I mean there's no...
Ian Publisher: Sex-IST!
As every INTELLIGENT person knows, diamonds are only semi-precious stones
Have you ever tried to sell a diamond? (from 1982, but still relevant today), and The diamond myth,
I thought the Raspberry Pis were meant to be named after BBC Micro models. We got the Model B and Model A (the latter of which mimicked the Model A BBC Micro in being less popular than the Model B), then the Model B+, which mimicked the short-lived improvement to the original BBC B.
;-)
There was never a BBC Micro Model A+, though. The next one in the series should be a Raspberry Pi Master Series, with numeric keypad.
Netflix made 71m off of the 'there's no money to be made slinging content' game
Netflix is a content producer, in addition to a content slinger.
Not when they first started.
What the article states is "No one makes money selling media for consumption anymore [..] The media market is now so efficient that all profit is completely sucked out of the equation by the time you get to the consumption delivery system" (my emphasis).
Netflix started a long time ago, and even their streaming offering began quite a number of years back now. Things have moved on a lot since then.
Not saying I necessarily agree with the article's claim myself, just pointing out that since it *is* clearly referring to the present-day situation, Netflix's circumstances a number of years back aren't a valid counter-example to that.