I would like to add that it's hard to compare the pace of innovation between then and now. Every industry is innovating faster now than they did previously, and it's not because of deregulation of the industry. It's just because as technology gets more advanced, more and more innovation will happen at a faster rate, also, as the industry becomes more widespread, and important to businesses, these pressures will push innovation to happen quicker.
And the reason that the new grad is required to do so many years of non-union work is because it would cost the school twice as much if the teacher was part of the union. I know people who work for union companies and they are classified as "temporary, part time" employees, even though they have been working 30+ hours a week for more than 5 years at the same company. This is to get around the union pay rates. The unions have set the salaries and benefits so high, that the organization will do everything it can to stop an employee from reaching their union status. The unions don't fight for those employees, because it is an old boys club, and they don't care unless you're actually part of the union.
It is my opinion that unions have lost their purpose. Back before we had labour laws, employers could push unsafe working conditions on people, withhold pay, and fire them without severance. These kinds of things don't happen any more, or when they do, there's legal actions that can be taken against the company. The only thing unions currently accomplish is to set the salaries too high, and make it impossible to fire anybody, even when they do a bad job. Look at any unionized organization and you will see evidence of this. I haven't seen a union that doesn't abuse it's position.
Personally I've stopped going to theatres except for things that I know are going to be really good. Not stuff that they tell me is good, but stuff that I know I want to watch. It's not worth $12 for 2 hours of entertainment as it is, why would I want to spend that unless I know that I'm going to be entertained. I'd rather just spend $5 for the rental (which is still pretty steep), and have me and all my friends be able to see it.
Maybe we haven't set up a proper receiver yet. Just as with SETI, you could detect our signals from the moon, or any other extraterrestrial location, but just because nobody is looking doesn't mean the messages aren't there. With SETI we're assuming that the signals are there, we just have to point our antennas at the right spot.
Not, they are actually still quite bad. At least compared to most of the DVD rip stuff that you'll often find. And besides, if it's telesync, then it's being done from the project room (at least proper telesync is) in which case, they probably have the manager's permission, and it isn't covered by this law.
MS doesn't have to open up their code. Just their protocols and APIs. If you don't know how that's different from opening up the code, then you aren't qualified to comment on the subject.
I don't see how camcordering a movie really has any effect on the sales of movie tickets or DVDs of the film. Has anybody actually seen one of these camcordered movies? The quality is terrible. If the MPAA think that this is competing with their product, then they better come up with a new product. Also, wouldn't this already be considered illegal under current copyright laws? Do you really need a specific law against using camcorders to record stuff in theatres? Especially in a way that allows it to be done if the manager of the theatre says it's alright?
I know people in Canada who make it a point to bring cameras and such to sporting events and concerts. They don't mind if you take pictures. Sporting events usually tell you not to use the flash, which is fine anyway, because firstly, the lighting is usually sufficient, and secondly, you are usually way to far from the action for the flash to make and difference. The last concert I was at there was a guy who brought his camera to a Slayer concert. And he was in the pit with it. Guy didn't use his wrist strap. Anyway, he ended up losing it, and amazingly someone picked it up and the camera made it's way back to him and was functioning, despite the fact that it spent more than 10 minutes on the floor of the pit.
How does good equate to beating a game in 6-14 hours. I guess it's nice if you plan on renting it, but if I spend $60 on a game, and only get 6 hours of play out of it, I'd be quite mad. However, with most of the games I've tried on the Wii, they've lasted much more than 6 hours, and probably more than 36 hours. Maybe other people like to spend $60 on a game that they only play for 15 hours, but I don't think that's worth it.
Maybe they could put an LCD Display on the front on the router that can display the default password. The default password is randomly generated when it it plugged in for the first time. It can be regenerated by pushing some button on the router. 1 hour after the first connection has been made, the password stops displaying. I'm not sure what the best solution is, and I realize that it should still be possible to create an open access point for those that wish, but I think they should make it a lot harder for the average joe to do that.
I hope you don't regret it when the cops come knocking on your door because somebody has been using your wireless connection to do something illegal like trading child porn. Maybe you wouldn't get convicted because they won't find any other evidence, but I'm sure it would be a major inconvenience. Why risk it? I know you're just trying to be a good Samaritan, but I pay for my internet, and expect that my neighbors would do the same.
Here's my question. When are router manufacturers going to start requiring people to use WPA security? I got a Wii a couple weeks ago, and used the wireless part of my wireless router for the first time. Setup of WPA was very easy. I also found about 5 other open networks that I could have connected my Wii to. I find it amazing that people are leaving their connections open when setting up a secure connection is so easy.
The biggest problem with Metadata is that nobody wants to take the time to enter the data. The programs are there. It can be done, but nobody wants to spend as much time managing the metadata as they do doing the things that the pictures are depicting. Maybe if you had a camera with built in GPS, you could know where every picture was taken. But then again, you'd probably want some of that info stripped before it was uploaded to flickr and others, because you don't want everyone knowing exactly where every picture was taken.
Check out Red Kawa for using your Wii as a media centre. It has an flv converter, so you can transcode things ahead of time if you don't have enough CPU power to do it in real time. Also, it can convert to motion JPEG so you can play movies in the photo channel off an SD card (although I haven't tried this functionality yet).
You said "most expensive place". What does that mean. Every shop I've seen in my city sells it for exactly the same price which is exactly the same as the MSRP. I didn't think there was much pricing competition on consoles, but maybe that's just the way things are in Canada.
I'm in Ottawa. There is still a major shortage of Wiis here. And Accessories too. When I got my Wii, I picked up Wiiplay with the controller (although they had just controllers in stock), but was unable to get a second nunchuck. The store clerks reaction was something like, "I swear we had them in stock 5 minutes ago". It was easy enough to find the second nunchuck at Walmart the next day. I completely believe you that there's 10+ machines sitting on the shelves though. I think that some places just have different demand for the products, and they don't really spread them around to where there is the most demand. For instance, if each store is allowed to order 10 per week, then they will only get 10, regardless of whether or not they will sell out of them in 10 minutes, or 5 days. I'm not sure if this is the way it is, but it might make sense as to why one store as 10 sitting on the shelf, and the other store is continually out of stock.
I did the same thing. I didn't quite go to the store every day, but I made sure to check every time I was near a store (about once a week). I managed to pick one up a few weeks ago. It's definitely not something you can walk into a store and buy on any day, but they are out there, and believe me, it's worth it. The Wii is awesome.
I just discovered Red Kawa. Which has a combination video/music/whatever server that you can access via the Wii Opera Browser. They also have video converter that converts the videos to flash (flv) so you can watch them in the browser. The video quality isn't that great, but it gets the job done. There's also converters for motion jpeg which I imagine would allow you to play videos from the SD slot, although I haven't had the time to try this out yet. I've tried orb which is another app that does the same thing, but goes through some third party server to view the media lists (I think the content is still direct stream). But I found that converting on the fly was too slow and the video produced was of much lower quality. Anyway, I also read that the Wii is getting a USB Mass Storage Driver. So if that's true, then I think that the media capabilities will be limitless. All it needs after that is H.264 support.
I didn't say that companies were exempt from being stupid. I think it would be nice if companies started doing this kind of thing, although in a more secure way. It would be nice if my bank would send me PGP Encrypted and signed emails with my statements so that I didn't have to get a paper statement in the mail every month. I don't know why banks don't do thinks like this to make their customers more knowledgable, and try to show them that email can be a safe way of transmitting information. Once PGP goes mainstream, and people start accepting only signed email from people they enter in their address list, we'll be that much closer to completely eliminating spam.
Legislation through the organizations that handle domain registrations. This doesn't need to be dealt with at a criminal or government level. This is something that the internet can deal with on it's own, without incorporating the help of people in governments who don't understand the technology.
I don't think we have problem with spam or scammers that we can fix with legislation. Firstly, with spam, I have seen more than 2 spam messages per day in my inbox for a long time. This is through using GMail's filtering as well as SpamAssassin. Filtering out spam can get pretty far on just software, or at least a lot further than you'd get through legislation. Telling people not to send spam (especially when it's only illegal in certain countries) wouldn't get people to stop sending it. Also with scammers, it's a problem with education of the users, not with legislation. If people are stupid enough to type their bank password into some third party site because of an email they got, then they need to be educated about why that is such a bad idea.
This isn't about whether or not photoshop costs too much, or whether or not he'll be using photoshop 99% of the time. I just find that people who don't have a good grasp of the concepts and basics aren't very good at coming up with solutions when the tools change, like when you get the next version of photoshop, or maybe decide to go with a different tool like Corel Painter. Some people only know 1 tool very well, which is good for some tasks, but can't adapt to different situations.
Slashdot Mirror
I would like to add that it's hard to compare the pace of innovation between then and now. Every industry is innovating faster now than they did previously, and it's not because of deregulation of the industry. It's just because as technology gets more advanced, more and more innovation will happen at a faster rate, also, as the industry becomes more widespread, and important to businesses, these pressures will push innovation to happen quicker.
And the reason that the new grad is required to do so many years of non-union work is because it would cost the school twice as much if the teacher was part of the union. I know people who work for union companies and they are classified as "temporary, part time" employees, even though they have been working 30+ hours a week for more than 5 years at the same company. This is to get around the union pay rates. The unions have set the salaries and benefits so high, that the organization will do everything it can to stop an employee from reaching their union status. The unions don't fight for those employees, because it is an old boys club, and they don't care unless you're actually part of the union.
It is my opinion that unions have lost their purpose. Back before we had labour laws, employers could push unsafe working conditions on people, withhold pay, and fire them without severance. These kinds of things don't happen any more, or when they do, there's legal actions that can be taken against the company. The only thing unions currently accomplish is to set the salaries too high, and make it impossible to fire anybody, even when they do a bad job. Look at any unionized organization and you will see evidence of this. I haven't seen a union that doesn't abuse it's position.
Personally I've stopped going to theatres except for things that I know are going to be really good. Not stuff that they tell me is good, but stuff that I know I want to watch. It's not worth $12 for 2 hours of entertainment as it is, why would I want to spend that unless I know that I'm going to be entertained. I'd rather just spend $5 for the rental (which is still pretty steep), and have me and all my friends be able to see it.
Maybe we haven't set up a proper receiver yet. Just as with SETI, you could detect our signals from the moon, or any other extraterrestrial location, but just because nobody is looking doesn't mean the messages aren't there. With SETI we're assuming that the signals are there, we just have to point our antennas at the right spot.
Not, they are actually still quite bad. At least compared to most of the DVD rip stuff that you'll often find. And besides, if it's telesync, then it's being done from the project room (at least proper telesync is) in which case, they probably have the manager's permission, and it isn't covered by this law.
MS doesn't have to open up their code. Just their protocols and APIs. If you don't know how that's different from opening up the code, then you aren't qualified to comment on the subject.
I don't see how camcordering a movie really has any effect on the sales of movie tickets or DVDs of the film. Has anybody actually seen one of these camcordered movies? The quality is terrible. If the MPAA think that this is competing with their product, then they better come up with a new product. Also, wouldn't this already be considered illegal under current copyright laws? Do you really need a specific law against using camcorders to record stuff in theatres? Especially in a way that allows it to be done if the manager of the theatre says it's alright?
I know people in Canada who make it a point to bring cameras and such to sporting events and concerts. They don't mind if you take pictures. Sporting events usually tell you not to use the flash, which is fine anyway, because firstly, the lighting is usually sufficient, and secondly, you are usually way to far from the action for the flash to make and difference. The last concert I was at there was a guy who brought his camera to a Slayer concert. And he was in the pit with it. Guy didn't use his wrist strap. Anyway, he ended up losing it, and amazingly someone picked it up and the camera made it's way back to him and was functioning, despite the fact that it spent more than 10 minutes on the floor of the pit.
How does good equate to beating a game in 6-14 hours. I guess it's nice if you plan on renting it, but if I spend $60 on a game, and only get 6 hours of play out of it, I'd be quite mad. However, with most of the games I've tried on the Wii, they've lasted much more than 6 hours, and probably more than 36 hours. Maybe other people like to spend $60 on a game that they only play for 15 hours, but I don't think that's worth it.
Maybe they could put an LCD Display on the front on the router that can display the default password. The default password is randomly generated when it it plugged in for the first time. It can be regenerated by pushing some button on the router. 1 hour after the first connection has been made, the password stops displaying. I'm not sure what the best solution is, and I realize that it should still be possible to create an open access point for those that wish, but I think they should make it a lot harder for the average joe to do that.
I hope you don't regret it when the cops come knocking on your door because somebody has been using your wireless connection to do something illegal like trading child porn. Maybe you wouldn't get convicted because they won't find any other evidence, but I'm sure it would be a major inconvenience. Why risk it? I know you're just trying to be a good Samaritan, but I pay for my internet, and expect that my neighbors would do the same.
My trick for the phones is to use the 980 MHz phones. More than enough range for an apartment, and there's very little interference.
Here's my question. When are router manufacturers going to start requiring people to use WPA security? I got a Wii a couple weeks ago, and used the wireless part of my wireless router for the first time. Setup of WPA was very easy. I also found about 5 other open networks that I could have connected my Wii to. I find it amazing that people are leaving their connections open when setting up a secure connection is so easy.
The biggest problem with Metadata is that nobody wants to take the time to enter the data. The programs are there. It can be done, but nobody wants to spend as much time managing the metadata as they do doing the things that the pictures are depicting. Maybe if you had a camera with built in GPS, you could know where every picture was taken. But then again, you'd probably want some of that info stripped before it was uploaded to flickr and others, because you don't want everyone knowing exactly where every picture was taken.
Check out Red Kawa for using your Wii as a media centre. It has an flv converter, so you can transcode things ahead of time if you don't have enough CPU power to do it in real time. Also, it can convert to motion JPEG so you can play movies in the photo channel off an SD card (although I haven't tried this functionality yet).
You said "most expensive place". What does that mean. Every shop I've seen in my city sells it for exactly the same price which is exactly the same as the MSRP. I didn't think there was much pricing competition on consoles, but maybe that's just the way things are in Canada.
I'm in Ottawa. There is still a major shortage of Wiis here. And Accessories too. When I got my Wii, I picked up Wiiplay with the controller (although they had just controllers in stock), but was unable to get a second nunchuck. The store clerks reaction was something like, "I swear we had them in stock 5 minutes ago". It was easy enough to find the second nunchuck at Walmart the next day. I completely believe you that there's 10+ machines sitting on the shelves though. I think that some places just have different demand for the products, and they don't really spread them around to where there is the most demand. For instance, if each store is allowed to order 10 per week, then they will only get 10, regardless of whether or not they will sell out of them in 10 minutes, or 5 days. I'm not sure if this is the way it is, but it might make sense as to why one store as 10 sitting on the shelf, and the other store is continually out of stock.
I did the same thing. I didn't quite go to the store every day, but I made sure to check every time I was near a store (about once a week). I managed to pick one up a few weeks ago. It's definitely not something you can walk into a store and buy on any day, but they are out there, and believe me, it's worth it. The Wii is awesome.
I just discovered Red Kawa. Which has a combination video/music/whatever server that you can access via the Wii Opera Browser. They also have video converter that converts the videos to flash (flv) so you can watch them in the browser. The video quality isn't that great, but it gets the job done. There's also converters for motion jpeg which I imagine would allow you to play videos from the SD slot, although I haven't had the time to try this out yet. I've tried orb which is another app that does the same thing, but goes through some third party server to view the media lists (I think the content is still direct stream). But I found that converting on the fly was too slow and the video produced was of much lower quality. Anyway, I also read that the Wii is getting a USB Mass Storage Driver. So if that's true, then I think that the media capabilities will be limitless. All it needs after that is H.264 support.
I didn't say that companies were exempt from being stupid. I think it would be nice if companies started doing this kind of thing, although in a more secure way. It would be nice if my bank would send me PGP Encrypted and signed emails with my statements so that I didn't have to get a paper statement in the mail every month. I don't know why banks don't do thinks like this to make their customers more knowledgable, and try to show them that email can be a safe way of transmitting information. Once PGP goes mainstream, and people start accepting only signed email from people they enter in their address list, we'll be that much closer to completely eliminating spam.
Legislation through the organizations that handle domain registrations. This doesn't need to be dealt with at a criminal or government level. This is something that the internet can deal with on it's own, without incorporating the help of people in governments who don't understand the technology.
I don't think we have problem with spam or scammers that we can fix with legislation. Firstly, with spam, I have seen more than 2 spam messages per day in my inbox for a long time. This is through using GMail's filtering as well as SpamAssassin. Filtering out spam can get pretty far on just software, or at least a lot further than you'd get through legislation. Telling people not to send spam (especially when it's only illegal in certain countries) wouldn't get people to stop sending it. Also with scammers, it's a problem with education of the users, not with legislation. If people are stupid enough to type their bank password into some third party site because of an email they got, then they need to be educated about why that is such a bad idea.
This isn't about whether or not photoshop costs too much, or whether or not he'll be using photoshop 99% of the time. I just find that people who don't have a good grasp of the concepts and basics aren't very good at coming up with solutions when the tools change, like when you get the next version of photoshop, or maybe decide to go with a different tool like Corel Painter. Some people only know 1 tool very well, which is good for some tasks, but can't adapt to different situations.