> I see. You believe that politically inflamatory and misleading news items are ok because they might otherwise be boring.
I understand your frustration, but that's not really what he said. He said that if you want to be a professional writer, you must write to your audience, or look for some other line of work. As far as I can see, that is an accurate statement. Writing meant for the great unwashed public (news in particular) appears to be written to inflame, not illuminate. It's not his fault that this is so.
News outlets could decide to give the real facts rather than what will make people fearful or send them out demonstrating, but unless every news source does it at the same time, the source that remains purile and hyperbolic and downright fake will continue to have a commercial advantage. This has been so ever since news became a profit center.
The cost (being unrepairable) is too great. This is why I still have a gen 3 ipod, which is relatively easy to service, and why I abandoned Apple as a platform to run the adobe suite (necessary for my job) a few years ago. I kept my G4 going for long after Apple wanted me to pay an exorbitant price for a shiny new replacement, but when it came time for a bump in performance (mostly an increase in memory), I went back to Windows, in a PC I assembled myself, (using an enclosure I happened to have sitting around from 2001) because I just couldn't buy into the wasteful, disposable, glassy-eyed trendy, Apple culture. Mind you, I hate Windows, and I have serious problems with their business model, but it runs the Adobe suite, and that's the main point -- it's not the hardware or the OS, but what it does that's important. Similarly, my Gen 3 ipod still plays music just fine.
If that's the cost of owning a newer Apple device -- all potted and unrepairable, meant to be thrown away when the next incremental improvement becomes available -- then I'll pass, thanks. But as always, your mileage may vary, and that's fine. If you want to line up in the rain to waste money on replacements that only represent tiny improvements, I won't stand in your way.
To carry this further, you can imagine Apple devices eventually be offered in those impossible-to-open hard molded plastic shells hanging up near the checkout counter. If the device is MEANT to be a throw-away, doesn't that just SCREAM "commodity"? Can Apple have it both ways? Boutique business model with disposable products? I'm thinking, not for long.
Apple is selling you a platform; and ideology. The hardware is merely a vessel to carry and express it. The fact the hardware is throw-away is inconsequential to the aforementioned core philosophy that Apple espouses to the market. For example, the "cloud" represents the method now.
Maybe I'm too old for this. That in no way works for me.
> When was the last time you upgraded a mechanical watch?
False argument, as you should know. I've *repaired* (not "upgraded") a mechanical watch many times. I have a pocket watch my wife gifted me when we were married 21 years ago, and I've replaced the *battery* in it countless times. You can't even replace the battery, the *battery* fer chrissake, in a modern Apple laptop. I still have my grandfather's pocket watch, with a genuine Radium dial, which has been in the shop an unknown number of times in the last 70 years, and it still keeps good time. (Although it's getting hard to find a watchmaker who will go near it...) It's not a matter of "upgrades". It's not a matter of having "the latest and greatest". You entirely miss the point. It's about the device you have, right now, doing the job just fine, and wanting it to *keep* doing that job.
Watches tell time. Newer watches are going to do what, tell time in a different way?? New ipods, are going to, like, what, make the music sound DIFFERENT?
Disposables like batteries and stress points like connectors (and wind stems) should be replaceable, and people should want to replace them instead of throwing out the device, *if*, mind you, the device is in any way decent. This is the dichotomy -- if the device is truly innovative, one should want to keep it. If it's meant to be thrown away after a few months, how innovative could it have been? You can't have it both ways.
> Apple has in fact turned into the exact kind of company they used to claim they railed against. The cookie cutter mass produced, locked down, conformity based ideal that the old '1984' ad was railing against. Their job culture was most likely always like that, but especially with all the new 'segregated temp employee' churn machines it has only gotten worse.
Exactly. That's it in a nutshell. We have met the enemy and he is us.
To carry this further, you can imagine Apple devices eventually be offered in those impossible-to-open hard molded plastic shells hanging up near the checkout counter. If the device is MEANT to be a throw-away, doesn't that just SCREAM "commodity"? Can Apple have it both ways? Boutique business model with disposable products? I'm thinking, not for long.
I have a Gen 3 (firewire, not usb) that I've repaired twice (replaced battery and headphone jack) and I'm about to repair for a third time (another battery and a hard drive). It does what I need, holds a massive amount of music, and I find the interface quicker and more intuitive than my daughter's Touch.
Could it be that Apple is having its "Windows XP" moment? That the Classic design was good enough that people just didn't see the reason to upgrade? (And doesn't this run counter to the Apple culture of "abandon your gadget when the next incremental improvement comes out"?)
> Emails also indicate that they are working with Comcast (which owns Universal) on some form of traffic inspection to find copyright infringements as they happen.
Yet another reason not to do business with Comcast. As if we needed one.
Hollywood in comparison to the top tier US tech companies is tiny in terms of revenue and profit. If the techs got together and purchased the studios, they could make it go away.
it continues... "oh, and side note, totally unrelated. We're starting our own music and movie studio side companies. Entities which will pay most of the profit/royalties directly to the artists, set designers and general people who actually worked on the production. You wouldn't know any artists which would be interested in that would you"
...and that has the potential to do the most damage to Hollywood, I think. Hollywood's entire business model is built around the truism that to be successful in the music and movie industry requires massive physical resources managed by huge corporations with huge numbers of connections. New entertainment business models are arising that don't involve Hollywood at all. Hollywood still controls a huge amount of money, but you can see which way things are heading, and it appears to be away from giant monolithic entertainment providers.
And of course, they'll blame it on pirates, and not that they failed to move with the times.
Yah, I really do. It's a condition of remaining married, I'm told. Wife's extended family were rabid Ford fans. I was allowed to also own a Harley, because Ford doesn't make a motorcycle.
Now the ultimate insult. Ford acknowledges that their system was... poor. They announce a much-better version (they hope). And it is NOT AVAILABLE to those of us who have put up with the one they had.
Come on. QNX runs on nearly anything. Are they seriously unable to upgrade the existing hardware? Really?
If enough owners told Ford that their next car would be a GM unless they got Microsoft the hell out of their consoles, Ford might do something. Especially if it made the news.
It might need something as simple as a youtube rant going viral. Stinks I know, but that's how things work these days.
> Well that settles it then! QNX is total crap. > That's why over 50% of the cars rolling off the assembly line today come with it installed.
Enh.... I'm on your side, really, but I have to point out that this is not a strong argument. Over 50% of cars rolling off the assembly line also have airbags that explode and imbed shrapnel in your face. So, usage is not necessarily a good test of quality.
Yes. It's viewed by the less astute as something magical, apparently because the salespeople told them so.
I'm in a country with fairly solid overseas internet connections, and it pretty much sucks for us. I keep getting reports of users losing connection with important resources. I tell them I can't really help you. Ask the cloud.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Eaten by a grue is the least of his worries. The father's more likely to get a visit by Child Protection Services.
You know, I remember about, oh, two decades ago, discussions on misc.kids (this thing called Usenet... never mind, just go with it) wherein multiple parents (I assume they were parents...) were arguing, seriously, that TV-free households amounted to child abuse, because the children wouldn't be able to properly relate to children from households that allowed TV privileges.
And so, it's with some amusement that I hear now that requiring kids to play video games is tantamount to child abuse.
...which just goes to show, I guess, that any argument, for and against, can be made to sound ridiculous if taken to extremes.
The headline says "dad makes his kid play through all video game history..." I personally took that to mean "you want to play a video game? Play this one. When you've mastered it, if you want to play a video game, play that one" and so on, which is different from whisssh-CRACK "Go right! Right you little bastard!" whissssh-CRACK "Left you twit! There, you lost level nine you worthless piece of garbage. Hold out your hands!" WHACK WHACK WHACK.
Ok, so maybe I haven't spent enough quality time with TFA and the overproduced marketing blurb from Accenture that it was quoting, or maybe I'm the stupid that everyone is with, but it seems like the real meat of the article wasn't there. The whole thing reads like a deep fried twinkie.
So what does "billions of losses" mean in this context? It's certainly more money than my beer budget, or what I'm likely to ever win on the Powerball, but what is it as a percentage of the total revenue of the electricity producing industry? How much of this is a "reduction in the increase" caused by increased demand (due to factors like more electric cars, population increase, new particle accelerators, and other factors).
Does the author make an actual verifiable point, or is this another examples of "there's been a 10% increase in piano related deaths. Panic!" I can't really tell.
Slashdot Mirror
> I see. You believe that politically inflamatory and misleading news items are ok because they might otherwise be boring.
I understand your frustration, but that's not really what he said. He said that if you want to be a professional writer, you must write to your audience, or look for some other line of work. As far as I can see, that is an accurate statement. Writing meant for the great unwashed public (news in particular) appears to be written to inflame, not illuminate. It's not his fault that this is so.
News outlets could decide to give the real facts rather than what will make people fearful or send them out demonstrating, but unless every news source does it at the same time, the source that remains purile and hyperbolic and downright fake will continue to have a commercial advantage. This has been so ever since news became a profit center.
A true fan refers to him as "The Doctor", not "Doctor Who". It serves to irritate non-fans.
I'm really sorry. Excuse me.
What? I blamed it on the dog. Sorry, boy.
First step: Don't tell them you're a liberal arts major.
Go with "microbiology major who hasn't been in school for awhile".
Isn't anyone concerned that similar things were said about Indy 4 before it was released?
> It is part of the cost of owning the device
The cost (being unrepairable) is too great. This is why I still have a gen 3 ipod, which is relatively easy to service, and why I abandoned Apple as a platform to run the adobe suite (necessary for my job) a few years ago. I kept my G4 going for long after Apple wanted me to pay an exorbitant price for a shiny new replacement, but when it came time for a bump in performance (mostly an increase in memory), I went back to Windows, in a PC I assembled myself, (using an enclosure I happened to have sitting around from 2001) because I just couldn't buy into the wasteful, disposable, glassy-eyed trendy, Apple culture. Mind you, I hate Windows, and I have serious problems with their business model, but it runs the Adobe suite, and that's the main point -- it's not the hardware or the OS, but what it does that's important. Similarly, my Gen 3 ipod still plays music just fine.
If that's the cost of owning a newer Apple device -- all potted and unrepairable, meant to be thrown away when the next incremental improvement becomes available -- then I'll pass, thanks. But as always, your mileage may vary, and that's fine. If you want to line up in the rain to waste money on replacements that only represent tiny improvements, I won't stand in your way.
Apple is selling you a platform; and ideology. The hardware is merely a vessel to carry and express it. The fact the hardware is throw-away is inconsequential to the aforementioned core philosophy that Apple espouses to the market. For example, the "cloud" represents the method now.
Maybe I'm too old for this. That in no way works for me.
> When was the last time you upgraded a mechanical watch?
False argument, as you should know. I've *repaired* (not "upgraded") a mechanical watch many times. I have a pocket watch my wife gifted me when we were married 21 years ago, and I've replaced the *battery* in it countless times. You can't even replace the battery, the *battery* fer chrissake, in a modern Apple laptop. I still have my grandfather's pocket watch, with a genuine Radium dial, which has been in the shop an unknown number of times in the last 70 years, and it still keeps good time. (Although it's getting hard to find a watchmaker who will go near it...) It's not a matter of "upgrades". It's not a matter of having "the latest and greatest". You entirely miss the point. It's about the device you have, right now, doing the job just fine, and wanting it to *keep* doing that job.
Watches tell time. Newer watches are going to do what, tell time in a different way?? New ipods, are going to, like, what, make the music sound DIFFERENT?
Disposables like batteries and stress points like connectors (and wind stems) should be replaceable, and people should want to replace them instead of throwing out the device, *if*, mind you, the device is in any way decent. This is the dichotomy -- if the device is truly innovative, one should want to keep it. If it's meant to be thrown away after a few months, how innovative could it have been? You can't have it both ways.
> Apple has in fact turned into the exact kind of company they used to claim they railed against. The cookie cutter mass produced, locked down, conformity based ideal that the old '1984' ad was railing against. Their job culture was most likely always like that, but especially with all the new 'segregated temp employee' churn machines it has only gotten worse.
Exactly. That's it in a nutshell. We have met the enemy and he is us.
To carry this further, you can imagine Apple devices eventually be offered in those impossible-to-open hard molded plastic shells hanging up near the checkout counter. If the device is MEANT to be a throw-away, doesn't that just SCREAM "commodity"? Can Apple have it both ways? Boutique business model with disposable products? I'm thinking, not for long.
I have a Gen 3 (firewire, not usb) that I've repaired twice (replaced battery and headphone jack) and I'm about to repair for a third time (another battery and a hard drive). It does what I need, holds a massive amount of music, and I find the interface quicker and more intuitive than my daughter's Touch.
Could it be that Apple is having its "Windows XP" moment? That the Classic design was good enough that people just didn't see the reason to upgrade? (And doesn't this run counter to the Apple culture of "abandon your gadget when the next incremental improvement comes out"?)
Yeah, I think Hollywood has even made movies about it...
> Emails also indicate that they are working with Comcast (which owns Universal) on some form of traffic inspection to find copyright infringements as they happen.
Yet another reason not to do business with Comcast. As if we needed one.
Hollywood in comparison to the top tier US tech companies is tiny in terms of revenue and profit. If the techs got together and purchased the studios, they could make it go away.
Purchase and *open source* the studios....
it continues... "oh, and side note, totally unrelated. We're starting our own music and movie studio side companies.
Entities which will pay most of the profit/royalties directly to the artists, set designers and general people who actually worked on the production. You wouldn't know any artists which would be interested in that would you"
And of course, they'll blame it on pirates, and not that they failed to move with the times.
You don't *have* to only buy Ford you know.
Yah, I really do. It's a condition of remaining married, I'm told. Wife's extended family were rabid Ford fans. I was allowed to also own a Harley, because Ford doesn't make a motorcycle.
Now the ultimate insult. Ford acknowledges that their system was... poor. They announce a much-better version (they hope).
And it is NOT AVAILABLE to those of us who have put up with the one they had.
Come on. QNX runs on nearly anything. Are they seriously unable to upgrade the existing hardware? Really?
If enough owners told Ford that their next car would be a GM unless they got Microsoft the hell out of their consoles, Ford might do something. Especially if it made the news.
It might need something as simple as a youtube rant going viral. Stinks I know, but that's how things work these days.
Here I thought I'd have to hang onto my 2003 Ford for the rest of my life, rather than buy a vehicle controlled by Microsoft products. What a relief.
> Well that settles it then! QNX is total crap.
> That's why over 50% of the cars rolling off the assembly line today come with it installed.
Enh.... I'm on your side, really, but I have to point out that this is not a strong argument. Over 50% of cars rolling off the assembly line also have airbags that explode and imbed shrapnel in your face. So, usage is not necessarily a good test of quality.
Yes. It's viewed by the less astute as something magical, apparently because the salespeople told them so.
I'm in a country with fairly solid overseas internet connections, and it pretty much sucks for us. I keep getting reports of users losing connection with important resources. I tell them I can't really help you. Ask the cloud.
Anyone who is a geek and/or privacy advocate never believed it.
Good point.
Unfortunately, I suspect that anyone who is not a geek or privacy advocate still believes it.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Eaten by a grue is the least of his worries. The father's more likely to get a visit by Child Protection Services.
You know, I remember about, oh, two decades ago, discussions on misc.kids (this thing called Usenet... never mind, just go with it) wherein multiple parents (I assume they were parents...) were arguing, seriously, that TV-free households amounted to child abuse, because the children wouldn't be able to properly relate to children from households that allowed TV privileges.
And so, it's with some amusement that I hear now that requiring kids to play video games is tantamount to child abuse.
The headline says "dad makes his kid play through all video game history..." I personally took that to mean "you want to play a video game? Play this one. When you've mastered it, if you want to play a video game, play that one" and so on, which is different from whisssh-CRACK "Go right! Right you little bastard!" whissssh-CRACK "Left you twit! There, you lost level nine you worthless piece of garbage. Hold out your hands!" WHACK WHACK WHACK.
Long live the sun god!
He sure is a fun god!
Ra! Ra! Ra!
Yeah, that's like threatening to work harder.
Ok, so maybe I haven't spent enough quality time with TFA and the overproduced marketing blurb from Accenture that it was quoting, or maybe I'm the stupid that everyone is with, but it seems like the real meat of the article wasn't there. The whole thing reads like a deep fried twinkie.
So what does "billions of losses" mean in this context? It's certainly more money than my beer budget, or what I'm likely to ever win on the Powerball, but what is it as a percentage of the total revenue of the electricity producing industry? How much of this is a "reduction in the increase" caused by increased demand (due to factors like more electric cars, population increase, new particle accelerators, and other factors).
Does the author make an actual verifiable point, or is this another examples of "there's been a 10% increase in piano related deaths. Panic!" I can't really tell.