Never mind his density -- the fact that I'm being lectured on "evolving language" by a guy who still uses emoticons will be a source of fascination for me the entire day...
The entire industry is shifting AWAY from linear, "TONIGHT AT EIGHT PM/ SEVEN CENTRAL!!" linear, in-your-quaint-lil-living-room networks and over to multi-screen VOD offerings. PVR devices have killed "time" and tablets and mobile devices are in the process of destroying "space" as considerations for cable programmers. No kind of content -- not The Naked Ladies with Chainsaws Channel, certainly not The Quality Science Fiction Channel, could possibly influence the launch of a premium linear network in today's fractured, VOD, multi-screen, cord-cutting environment.
Turning the Living Room into a video conference room is what will get the grandparents to buy an Xbox, similar to the way photo-sharing through e-mail got The Folks online to begin with.
Come for the remote grandkid interaction, stay for the streaming music and video...
The answer is "Religious Fanatics." Your question was, "Who else believed that the end of days was going to occur within the span of their natural life?"
The Cult of Global Warming is to the early part of the 21st Century as The Church was to the Middle Ages. Zealots seeking converts, indulgences available for the right price, End Times forecast less than a generation away unless the sinners repent, a high priesthood -- the Old Time Religion's got nothing on this new one.
Could it get any worse than astro-turfing for InfoWorld? Probably not. Maybe if it became common knowledge that InfoWorld actually pays Slashdot for placing his astro-turf slashvertisements...?
Google announces Google Voice, noting that it will be archiving and auto-transcribing subscribers phonecalls.
"But don't worry," Google Voice Product Evangelist Boris Badinov said at the press conference announcing the service's launch. "We promise full interoperability with Google Docs, GMail, Android, and the NSA. Also, the artist who does the daily search engine doodle has promised to come up with a really cool, shiny logo."
And around the world, geeks sign up in droves, many noting that they didn't even realize they needed this, but if Google sez it will be shiny, they'd better get on board with it quickly.
Apple is in the business of selling hardware and software. Theirs is a Business-to-Consumer model.
Google is in the business of selling you. Theirs is a Business-to-Business model, like the fisherman who puts a free worm on his hook, catches the fish, and sells it to market. Unfortunately for the fish, it never questioned why a free worm was just sort of dangling there in the water.
Google provides free software, e-books, search engines, etc., as its bait. And based upon your slavish fanboi gushing, you've fallen for it hook, line, and sinker...
People don't pursue a PhD because they want to "provide water to a growing population." They can go to Mexico and dig wells to accomplish that (as some college friends of mine did). No one's delaying their release into the workplace to get a PhD so that they can make a better contribution to "the world," period.
People pursue a PhD so that they can stay in academia, where they are comfortable and proficient, and make as much money in academia as an academic can. Since academic institutions profit directly from the milling of PhD degrees, you'll get no argument from them on the topic.
All gamers eventually grow older, will they develop discerning tastes?
They sure will. As gamers grow older, they will realize that deeper, better stories are to be found in media other than video games, and that if things like plot, dialogue and characterization are what they crave, they'll need to pick up a book.
They'll always be the videogamer who will justify his jones by noting Patrick Stewart's or Clive Barker's or Orson Scott Card's participation in one videogame project or another, and of course the developers will pander to that, but let's not get carried away here.
This is not to say that videogames are not art. They are very much art. They are their own art. Perhaps as the industry matures and becomes more self-assured, games can become more game-like and stop trying to pretend they're (really, really cheesy) fantasy/sf novels.
It still boggles my mind that so many game developers pay so much attention to "story." It is like the producer of an opera worrying himself over whether his cast looks athletic enough.
Now, I'm sure there may be some people who refuse to buy an opera ticket because the performers aren't good-looking, just as I'm sure there may be some game players who fret over whether their new game will have a good "plot," but it is madness for the producers of either form of entertainment to be concerned about these confused consumers, just as it would be wrong for lipstick manufacturers to spend time and money making their product stick on a pig.
The Multi-Player experience is what provides the gaming console experience with value and makes it "sticky." A player buys the latest $60 game because the people he hangs with online -- his guild, his clan, platoon, his whatever -- are buying it and want to "move on" to the next shared experience. It's a proposition that works for the developer, the online service, and the player.
But the solo-only game? I have not purchased a solo-only game at full price, within the first months of its launch, since the debut of the original Xbox. It'll be less than half-price within a year if it reviews well, and under $15 and bundled with a second game if it does not. I can wait. Not being in high school and needing to brag that I "beat" a game in a weekend, there is zero value to me in owning a solo game when it first comes out.
Add to this the idle-time-wasters of inexpensive and addictive arcade games like Angry Birds, Plants versus Zombies, etc., I mean... geez... there's still only 24 hours in a day, last time I checked...
I wonder if you'll be able to./configure, make, make install programs written on this small computer?
It's a phone, dear. If I wanted to./configure, make, make install programs, I'd build a small computer and run Linux on it.
...oh, wait, I already did that, over fifteen years ago. Then I got over myself and moved on.
EVERYTHING is or contains a computer today. When a company manufactures a phone and advertises it gives a user the ability to do Linux-y things, it's just their way of trying to get the "geek" buy. Kind of like how, when they make a pink "Hello Kitty" case for it, they are bidding for the tween girl buy. It's all just Marketing; don't let yourself be a victim of it.
People want a phone to make and receive phonecalls, text, answer e-mail, and play Angry Birds. They also want to be made to feel special and part of some elite cadre as well - that's where the Linux-ness and Hello Kitty bits come into it.
Too bad the folks at Droid didn't realize until too late that they could have captured the same "geek" buzz -- and more of it -- more inexpensively by just shipping a bunch of phones with "limited edition" Bobba Fett cases.
"Hey y'all, don't you wish you could be white washing this here picket fence? I gotta great job, betcha you wish you could be spending the afternoon white washing this here fence, you suckers..."
Seriously, Sergei (and you, too, Arianna. Especially You!) people work for you, you pay them. This Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney "Hey, kids, let's put on a show in my grandma's barn, we can call it 'User Generated Content!'" shit has gone about as far as it can and should go.
The world was always coming to an end, the Apocalypse was just around the corner, you were a sinner, you needed to change your ways, but buy some indulgences and we'll let you off the hook. Hurry, sign here, The End is Near.
Nowadays, The Roman Catholic Church is out of the Apocalypse & Indulgences business, so the Church of Global Warming has risen to fill the void. Same threats and labels (replace "heretic" with "denier"), same hucksterism (replace "indulgences" with "carbon credits"), same promotion of despair-in-the-face-of-overwhelming-forces (replace "God" with "Science!!"), same hypocrisy by the movement's leaders (replace the avarice and power abuse of various archbishops and cardinals with the jet-set lifestyle of Al Gore and his rockstar acolytes).
Sorry, Ye Faithful, I don't need to be a student of "climatology" to know how this ends. I'm already a student of history, and we've been through this all before...
Yeah, I know, Noble Open Source coders are supposed to be above the cosmetic issues and petty concerns of Man's World, but when you are looking for credibility amongst designers, illustrators, photographers and other arts professionals, would it really hurt -- would you really lose so much integrity -- to slap this thing with a flashier moniker than "G.I.M.P."?
And if not, why GIMP? Why not just go for the gold in the shoot-your-own-snarky-foot Olympics, call it TARD or DOUCHE or FLACCID? I'm sure who ever came up with "GNU Image Manipulation Program" could just as easily reverse-engineer an acronym for HOMO or DICKLESS...
Wife has a Nook. I have a Kindle. We are each inseparable from these devices, which are each currently filled with easily a two-year backlog of books waiting to be read. If you distribute a book, and there is no electronic version of it available, it's gonna have to be the Word of God newly etched on tablets for either of us to even consider buying it.
What about the people who thinks that the current copyright laws are immoral and should not be accepted as a form of civil protest?
Yeah, that's what I think of when I think of copyright violators: "Courageous Freedom Fighters."
Like the people who demonstrate in Egypt
Here's the difference: The protestors in Egypt bravely marched in the streets, staring down heavily armed soldiers. Copyright violators cower in their parents' basements, staring down bags of Doritos.
Slashdot is filled to the brim with people who take the time to create an alias and then list their homepage on their profile, which of course, is displayed in a link on the same line as their alias in the post they just made.
I click on those homepages whenever I read something really stupid or ridiculous or inflammatory or completely polar opposite my perspective. Which is to say, I click on them A LOT. I am amazed at how many of these "homepages" are links to commerce sites, or sites advertising some kind of service.
"Why," I inevitably ask myself, "would I ever buy anything from you, you knucklehead, you?"
It's like the guy who walks into a business meeting with a potential new client, someone he's never met before, wearing a big "I Love Obama!" button on his jacket. Or an equally large "Palin/Romney '12" button. Sure, you appreciate their passion -- maybe... if you agree with their POV -- but you immediately question their common sense, maturity, and business acumen.
Creator Strategy #1: Give people more of what they have demonstrated they want. Reality TV Show Model 7B, Over-Loud Snarky-Catch-Phraseful Hero Summer Popcorn Movie 6A, or the latest Honor Harrington book. It amuses me, you make it, I buy it, you get paid and feed your family. Repeat. It's called "The Entertainment Business," and Joss Whedon is secretly laughing at all of you who are writing deep existential doctoral theses about Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Creator Strategy #2: Come up with something Entirely Brand New That Has Never Been Tried, convince a studio or publisher to invest millions into it, and hope to God someone besides you wants it. It's called "Art," it requires those dicey things "Risk" and "Vision," and lots of perfectly lovely and talented people who practice it are eating their one daily meal of ramen noodles as I write this. If they're lucky, their art catches on, it gets assimilated into The Entertainment Business, and the creator can kick back in preparation for becoming rich and laughing at the nerds earnestly considering writing deep existential doctoral theses about their game/movie/book/new Pez flavor.
We wanna know what The Midnight Avenger has to say! And what about Captain L33t Hxx00rz? Hey, fire me an e when Pixel Grrrl weighs in with an opinion, 'kay? "Night Breed"? Get serious! And what happened to The Crimson Unix, he retire already?
The "/. crowd" that you refer to has long since moved on. The current stable of users and contributors are primarily Wired readers and other "gadgeteer" types. Just don't tell that to the advertisers, who are being sold on the (now quaint) notion that the readership is comprised of IT Industry decision-makers.
Unfortunately, for every "gifted Masters student" writing in Wikipedia there are three angry fourteen-year-olds focused like lasers on advancing some social agenda or another.
Slashdot Mirror
Never mind his density -- the fact that I'm being lectured on "evolving language" by a guy who still uses emoticons will be a source of fascination for me the entire day...
The entire industry is shifting AWAY from linear, "TONIGHT AT EIGHT PM/ SEVEN CENTRAL!!" linear, in-your-quaint-lil-living-room networks and over to multi-screen VOD offerings. PVR devices have killed "time" and tablets and mobile devices are in the process of destroying "space" as considerations for cable programmers. No kind of content -- not The Naked Ladies with Chainsaws Channel, certainly not The Quality Science Fiction Channel, could possibly influence the launch of a premium linear network in today's fractured, VOD, multi-screen, cord-cutting environment.
Turning the Living Room into a video conference room is what will get the grandparents to buy an Xbox, similar to the way photo-sharing through e-mail got The Folks online to begin with.
Come for the remote grandkid interaction, stay for the streaming music and video...
The answer is "Religious Fanatics." Your question was, "Who else believed that the end of days was going to occur within the span of their natural life?"
The Cult of Global Warming is to the early part of the 21st Century as The Church was to the Middle Ages. Zealots seeking converts, indulgences available for the right price, End Times forecast less than a generation away unless the sinners repent, a high priesthood -- the Old Time Religion's got nothing on this new one.
Could it get any worse than astro-turfing for InfoWorld? Probably not. Maybe if it became common knowledge that InfoWorld actually pays Slashdot for placing his astro-turf slashvertisements...?
Google announces Google Voice, noting that it will be archiving and auto-transcribing subscribers phonecalls.
"But don't worry," Google Voice Product Evangelist Boris Badinov said at the press conference announcing the service's launch. "We promise full interoperability with Google Docs, GMail, Android, and the NSA. Also, the artist who does the daily search engine doodle has promised to come up with a really cool, shiny logo."
And around the world, geeks sign up in droves, many noting that they didn't even realize they needed this, but if Google sez it will be shiny, they'd better get on board with it quickly.
The problem with morality is that it is a subjective term.
No. No, it's not.
Apple is in the business of selling hardware and software. Theirs is a Business-to-Consumer model.
Google is in the business of selling you. Theirs is a Business-to-Business model, like the fisherman who puts a free worm on his hook, catches the fish, and sells it to market. Unfortunately for the fish, it never questioned why a free worm was just sort of dangling there in the water.
Google provides free software, e-books, search engines, etc., as its bait. And based upon your slavish fanboi gushing, you've fallen for it hook, line, and sinker...
Eliminate the bullshit Ph.D's in... philosophy.
Thank you for that. I haven't done a coffee spit-take on slashdot in a long time...
People don't pursue a PhD because they want to "provide water to a growing population." They can go to Mexico and dig wells to accomplish that (as some college friends of mine did). No one's delaying their release into the workplace to get a PhD so that they can make a better contribution to "the world," period.
People pursue a PhD so that they can stay in academia, where they are comfortable and proficient, and make as much money in academia as an academic can. Since academic institutions profit directly from the milling of PhD degrees, you'll get no argument from them on the topic.
All gamers eventually grow older, will they develop discerning tastes?
They sure will. As gamers grow older, they will realize that deeper, better stories are to be found in media other than video games, and that if things like plot, dialogue and characterization are what they crave, they'll need to pick up a book.
They'll always be the videogamer who will justify his jones by noting Patrick Stewart's or Clive Barker's or Orson Scott Card's participation in one videogame project or another, and of course the developers will pander to that, but let's not get carried away here.
This is not to say that videogames are not art. They are very much art. They are their own art. Perhaps as the industry matures and becomes more self-assured, games can become more game-like and stop trying to pretend they're (really, really cheesy) fantasy/sf novels.
It still boggles my mind that so many game developers pay so much attention to "story." It is like the producer of an opera worrying himself over whether his cast looks athletic enough.
Now, I'm sure there may be some people who refuse to buy an opera ticket because the performers aren't good-looking, just as I'm sure there may be some game players who fret over whether their new game will have a good "plot," but it is madness for the producers of either form of entertainment to be concerned about these confused consumers, just as it would be wrong for lipstick manufacturers to spend time and money making their product stick on a pig.
The Multi-Player experience is what provides the gaming console experience with value and makes it "sticky." A player buys the latest $60 game because the people he hangs with online -- his guild, his clan, platoon, his whatever -- are buying it and want to "move on" to the next shared experience. It's a proposition that works for the developer, the online service, and the player.
But the solo-only game? I have not purchased a solo-only game at full price, within the first months of its launch, since the debut of the original Xbox. It'll be less than half-price within a year if it reviews well, and under $15 and bundled with a second game if it does not. I can wait. Not being in high school and needing to brag that I "beat" a game in a weekend, there is zero value to me in owning a solo game when it first comes out.
Add to this the idle-time-wasters of inexpensive and addictive arcade games like Angry Birds, Plants versus Zombies, etc., I mean... geez... there's still only 24 hours in a day, last time I checked...
Why is that?
I wonder if you'll be able to ./configure, make, make install programs written on this small computer?
It's a phone, dear. If I wanted to ./configure, make, make install programs, I'd build a small computer and run Linux on it.
EVERYTHING is or contains a computer today. When a company manufactures a phone and advertises it gives a user the ability to do Linux-y things, it's just their way of trying to get the "geek" buy. Kind of like how, when they make a pink "Hello Kitty" case for it, they are bidding for the tween girl buy. It's all just Marketing; don't let yourself be a victim of it.
People want a phone to make and receive phonecalls, text, answer e-mail, and play Angry Birds. They also want to be made to feel special and part of some elite cadre as well - that's where the Linux-ness and Hello Kitty bits come into it.
Too bad the folks at Droid didn't realize until too late that they could have captured the same "geek" buzz -- and more of it -- more inexpensively by just shipping a bunch of phones with "limited edition" Bobba Fett cases.
(apologies to Rush...)
"Hey y'all, don't you wish you could be white washing this here picket fence? I gotta great job, betcha you wish you could be spending the afternoon white washing this here fence, you suckers..."
Seriously, Sergei (and you, too, Arianna. Especially You!) people work for you, you pay them. This Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney "Hey, kids, let's put on a show in my grandma's barn, we can call it 'User Generated Content!'" shit has gone about as far as it can and should go.
The world was always coming to an end, the Apocalypse was just around the corner, you were a sinner, you needed to change your ways, but buy some indulgences and we'll let you off the hook. Hurry, sign here, The End is Near.
Nowadays, The Roman Catholic Church is out of the Apocalypse & Indulgences business, so the Church of Global Warming has risen to fill the void. Same threats and labels (replace "heretic" with "denier"), same hucksterism (replace "indulgences" with "carbon credits"), same promotion of despair-in-the-face-of-overwhelming-forces (replace "God" with "Science!!"), same hypocrisy by the movement's leaders (replace the avarice and power abuse of various archbishops and cardinals with the jet-set lifestyle of Al Gore and his rockstar acolytes).
Sorry, Ye Faithful, I don't need to be a student of "climatology" to know how this ends. I'm already a student of history, and we've been through this all before...
Yeah, I know, Noble Open Source coders are supposed to be above the cosmetic issues and petty concerns of Man's World, but when you are looking for credibility amongst designers, illustrators, photographers and other arts professionals, would it really hurt -- would you really lose so much integrity -- to slap this thing with a flashier moniker than "G.I.M.P."?
And if not, why GIMP? Why not just go for the gold in the shoot-your-own-snarky-foot Olympics, call it TARD or DOUCHE or FLACCID? I'm sure who ever came up with "GNU Image Manipulation Program" could just as easily reverse-engineer an acronym for HOMO or DICKLESS...
Wife has a Nook. I have a Kindle. We are each inseparable from these devices, which are each currently filled with easily a two-year backlog of books waiting to be read. If you distribute a book, and there is no electronic version of it available, it's gonna have to be the Word of God newly etched on tablets for either of us to even consider buying it.
What about the people who thinks that the current copyright laws are immoral and should not be accepted as a form of civil protest?
Yeah, that's what I think of when I think of copyright violators: "Courageous Freedom Fighters."
Like the people who demonstrate in Egypt
Here's the difference: The protestors in Egypt bravely marched in the streets, staring down heavily armed soldiers. Copyright violators cower in their parents' basements, staring down bags of Doritos.
Slashdot is filled to the brim with people who take the time to create an alias and then list their homepage on their profile, which of course, is displayed in a link on the same line as their alias in the post they just made.
I click on those homepages whenever I read something really stupid or ridiculous or inflammatory or completely polar opposite my perspective. Which is to say, I click on them A LOT. I am amazed at how many of these "homepages" are links to commerce sites, or sites advertising some kind of service.
"Why," I inevitably ask myself, "would I ever buy anything from you, you knucklehead, you?"
It's like the guy who walks into a business meeting with a potential new client, someone he's never met before, wearing a big "I Love Obama!" button on his jacket. Or an equally large "Palin/Romney '12" button. Sure, you appreciate their passion -- maybe... if you agree with their POV -- but you immediately question their common sense, maturity, and business acumen.
Creator Strategy #1: Give people more of what they have demonstrated they want. Reality TV Show Model 7B, Over-Loud Snarky-Catch-Phraseful Hero Summer Popcorn Movie 6A, or the latest Honor Harrington book. It amuses me, you make it, I buy it, you get paid and feed your family. Repeat. It's called "The Entertainment Business," and Joss Whedon is secretly laughing at all of you who are writing deep existential doctoral theses about Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Creator Strategy #2: Come up with something Entirely Brand New That Has Never Been Tried, convince a studio or publisher to invest millions into it, and hope to God someone besides you wants it. It's called "Art," it requires those dicey things "Risk" and "Vision," and lots of perfectly lovely and talented people who practice it are eating their one daily meal of ramen noodles as I write this. If they're lucky, their art catches on, it gets assimilated into The Entertainment Business, and the creator can kick back in preparation for becoming rich and laughing at the nerds earnestly considering writing deep existential doctoral theses about their game/movie/book/new Pez flavor.
We wanna know what The Midnight Avenger has to say! And what about Captain L33t Hxx00rz? Hey, fire me an e when Pixel Grrrl weighs in with an opinion, 'kay? "Night Breed"? Get serious! And what happened to The Crimson Unix, he retire already?
sheesh...
The "/. crowd" that you refer to has long since moved on. The current stable of users and contributors are primarily Wired readers and other "gadgeteer" types. Just don't tell that to the advertisers, who are being sold on the (now quaint) notion that the readership is comprised of IT Industry decision-makers.
Unfortunately, for every "gifted Masters student" writing in Wikipedia there are three angry fourteen-year-olds focused like lasers on advancing some social agenda or another.