I remember reading that the 360 and Vista share similar software in the graphics system. In other words, MS was going to a "write once, play everywhere (that's from MS)" architecture so developers wouldn't have to do a lot of converting. It sounds like this is fallout from that, not some evil marketing plot to make people buy Vista to play a game.
Sony's wholesale price of $23.45 for Blu-ray discs is 56 percent more than the $14.99 it costs to buy a new DVD of Hitch from BestBuy.com. A Terminator DVD is available for $9.99.
DVDs have been around since 1996 in Japan and 1997 in the US (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD/). Though I can't find the prices at which DVDs were originally released I'm sure most were more than $10. Note that Sony is not giving a suggested retail price. The company is letting the market determine that.
I don't think the guy is a typical consumer
on
Songbird Flies Today
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· Score: 1
Maybe I'm closer to being a typical consumer than he is, as I use Yahoo Music Unlimited and I'm very happy with it. I disagree with some of the things he stated.
Services like iTunes -- where everybody has to shop from the same store -- are like walled garden online services back in the early days.
How many people search using only Google? If the store has everything I want, great! One stop shopping. Now my store (Yahoo Music) doesn't have everything I want - it lacks the Beatles. Songbird won't help...at least legally. The only way for me to get the Beatles legally is to pop a CD in and rip it.
All of the popular media players out there have pretty much the same feature set on the desktop... they all do pretty much the same thing these days. Rip, mix, burn, play, organize playlists.
That's because 95% of the people only want to do those things. I think it's great that Songbird is going to innovate and be open...who knows what will come of it? Just don't expect the openness to be a killer feature that will attract "the masses".
Why wouldn't you buy your bluegrass in one place and your trance music in another?... Even if you could buy all your music in one place, like Wal-Mart, would you want to?
Apparently the answer is yes. You don't see a lot of butchers and bakers around anymore, do you? That's because people like getting all their stuff in one place. Think Amazon.com. If one store has all my bluegrass and all my trance, then great.
The interface looks a lot like Yahoo Music's as well (or maybe iTunes...I'm not that familiar with it)
I've used NB for years (7 or so) and I'm very happy with the new version, at least what I've seen in beta. Of course, I don't touch many of the features as I have no need but for day to day Java development it's great. That's the nice thing about Java (and other languages to be sure)...it doesn't matter what you use to write the code, just as long as the code gets written (speaking as the lone NB on Windows user in an Eclipse on Linux shop).
I am working for an organization committed to upholding the belief in particular freedoms, I would hope it is not that organization which would bar me from employment for excercizing those beliefs.
If you hold the belief the organization employing you (US government) is evil and you wish it gone, well, I don't think you can reasonably expect to remain employed there. It's one thing to think, "Man, I hate George Bush. I can't wait until Hillary Clinton is president" but it's another to wish for an unlawful revolution (the legal ones being elections).
It's not illegal in a right to work state. There are clearly defined conditions which make termination illegal.
This guy's case is different, as he's paid to be an advocate for people and companies which are opposed to the values of an organization he leads. I don't think Microsoft would take lightly an employee moonlighting at Google. It's called conflict of interest.
This is not like the examples you give. Being a cop is not at odds with being a democrat. In general, politcal beliefs are not relevant to a government employee's job. The exceptions I can think of would be appointed staffs (like the president's) and in the field I'm in, which requires a security clearance (though I'm a contractor, not a government employee). If someone holding a TS clearance also starts espousing the views of anarchy or al qaeda, well, the clearance would probably go...and with it, the job.
I'm president of the local chapter of NORML. I was fired from my job as a DEA agent...can you believe that? I didn't take the job to be subversive, but rather to learn about the very thing I oppose...just from the other side.
Anyone know where I can publish an article on this grave injustice?
In case you missed it, let me clue you in. Suites are dead. People want lean applications with user-selected add-ons. Funky cutesy names are out...they lingered on a bit after the dot com bust (along with e- and i- names) but descriptive branding is the order of the day. "Microsoft Office" "Mozilla Internet Suite" "Apple Music Player". Oops...Jobs is going to kill me for leaking the last one...
But how will an acquisition of a gaming company lead to more network hardware sales? That's like an oil company buying a theme park with the idea that people driving to the park need gas, so gas sales will rise. There are other hardware providers, just as there are other oil companies.
More homes are going to broadband and the demand for bandwidth will only increase. I don't believe that by buying a networked game manufacturer they will increase the demand for connectivity, above the increase that would otherwise occur. In other words, the demand for broadband, if Cisco sells Nintendo hardware, will not increase above what it would be if Nintendo sells Nintendo hardware. In fact, I'd expect it to be less as selling gaming hardware is outside Cisco's core competency.
It would make more sense for Cisco to buy a broadband ISP or two, then they can guarantee the ISPs will use Cisco hardware. Now, if Cisco wants to sell more home networking components one might be able to argue for such an acquisition. It doesn't seem like a very cost effective way to increase sales on a highly-competitive, probably low-margin product though.
Is Google about to release this as an alternative to Windows?
No, it's an alternative to OS X. No, wait, Solaris. DOS? Pen and paper?. In other news, McDonald's is experimenting with adding another slice of cheese to the cheeseburger. Are they about to release this as an alternative to the chicken sandwich?
The question is not "will this be an alternative to Windows" but rather "how will this affect the push towards a Linux desktop?" Will it further fragment the efforts or will it provide needed standardization? After all, standardization is a big part of why Windows remains successful. Windows provides a common platform upon which other things can be done. The amount of time looking for libs or recompiling or choosing between competing shells is minimized. If Google can build concensus and momentum then we're all better off (and I write this as someone who prefers Windows). If they come out with something too different or they can't build a backing then the adoption of Linux on the desktop will suffer.
Personally, I don't think they're interested in the desktop so much as they'd like to have something to support apps run on the server. Why install Open Office when you can click this icon and run Google's office right off their server?
Thanks for blowing it for the Chinese...putting a link to some backwater news site on the front page of Slashdot.
On a more serious note, couldn't people who are not in China put up a little proxy to return Google results? For example, I have a domain hosting a few pages. Could I put a little script to take a query entered at my site and return results obtained from Google?
There is no way for the money to get back to the artist. This plan only benefits the labels. Perhaps they can survey the P2P networks and get a sample of what's being searched for, then pay the artists accordingly. This will ensure the popular artists get the money while those with fewer fans get the shaft. At least by getting DRMed music, in theory the provider can accurately track whose music is being downloaded and thus compensate the artists.
a) If you like the challenge of configuring, securing, and running a server, do it yourself.
b) If you just need to use a server and you get what you want...security, access, uptime...somewhere else for free (or at a reasonable cost), then let someone else do it.
I made this point in another comment. This document is for guidance, not implementation. It's a high-level (hence Rumsfeld's signature) strategic look, not a tactical plan. You're not going to find, "we should do this, and here's how to do it."
1. I don't see where the article says the government is "surprised" by anything. In fact, it's a planning document, not a report, so there are no revelations. Since it was declassified only 3 years after it was written it's clearly not an important document.
2. Having been in the military for many years, I'm not surprised that the document does not contain specifics. It's a strategic overview (and pretty high level since Rumsfeld signed off on it). The details are left to those who handle the implementation (at the tactical level).
3. You needed some document to tell you this? Telegraph wires were tapped or cut back in the day. Radio jamming has been around for as long as there's been radio. VOA has been around for nearly 70 years. The surprise here is that you are surprised the Internet is of interest as well.
The document's authors acknowledge that American news media should not unwittingly broadcast military propaganda. "Specific boundaries should be established," they write.
...man, was I wrong. I screwed up that day. I was in college, and we were hanging around our ROTC lounge. The liftoff was being shown on TV (broadcast, not cable) and some cadets were watching. I said, "bah, another shuttle launch, big deal" and left the room and went outside. This is why I'm not buying the guy's point that nobody watched it live. It was definitely on live. I saw the preparations for launch and left during the countdown.
A short while later one of the other cadets was wandering off by himself in the courtyard. A professor came up to me and asked what was bothering the cadet. At this point I didn't know of the accident, so I flippantly replied, "The shuttle blew up." I guess I thought I was being funny. At least I didn't throw in a "Nelson" laugh.
Now that I think about it, a similar thing happened on 9/11. I drove to work (from near Baltimore to just before the DC beltway) at the time of the attacks. I either had the radio off or I was listening to a book on tape...probably the former because I was mad at my boss and wanted to talk to him first thing. I get to work, go into the building and straight into my boss' office. I start on whatever issue was eating at me and he says, "Not now." Just then one of my coworkers pops his head in and says to my boss, "The 2nd tower's down." At this point I'm totally confused so I go to my office and quickly learn what happened.
The morals of the stories? Don't make tragedy jokes because they may just come true, and always check the news at my computer first thing. There's probably a deeper lesson there that would make me a better person but I don't see it. I guess a better person would probably pick up on it...
Because you believed "do no evil" to be a policy, rather than a marketing statement. You wanted it to be true but it's not. Larry & Sergei couldn't resist the thought of putting AdWords in front of all those Chinese...the ones with money in their pockets for the first time in years. The fat brains at Google could have come up with a way to help chinese Internet users bypass the great firewall. I guess a rising stock price is very addictive.
Just remember, "do no evil" is not the same as "do good".
Fiber optics baby, that's the way to go. Verizon just wired my in-laws neighborhood with fiber. Initially they'll get 5Mbps broadband cheaper than from Comcast (cable) and by spring they'll be getting TV (including HDTV) through the same fiber. Hell, my PS2 has a fiber connection to my receiver.
Now since fiber is glass, and glass comes from sand, we shouldn't have a shortage of that anytime soon, right? And if we ever run out of sand, well, there's always this wireless thing I keep hearing about.
Slashdot Mirror
I remember reading that the 360 and Vista share similar software in the graphics system. In other words, MS was going to a "write once, play everywhere (that's from MS)" architecture so developers wouldn't have to do a lot of converting. It sounds like this is fallout from that, not some evil marketing plot to make people buy Vista to play a game.
Wife make you sleep on the couch last night? You sound a little cranky today...
It sounds like this is an "awful link of the day" from Something Awful. Let's get this guy into the same room as time cube guy and see what happens!
Sony's wholesale price of $23.45 for Blu-ray discs is 56 percent more than the $14.99 it costs to buy a new DVD of Hitch from BestBuy.com. A Terminator DVD is available for $9.99.
DVDs have been around since 1996 in Japan and 1997 in the US (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD/). Though I can't find the prices at which DVDs were originally released I'm sure most were more than $10. Note that Sony is not giving a suggested retail price. The company is letting the market determine that.
Maybe I'm closer to being a typical consumer than he is, as I use Yahoo Music Unlimited and I'm very happy with it. I disagree with some of the things he stated.
... they all do pretty much the same thing these days. Rip, mix, burn, play, organize playlists.
... Even if you could buy all your music in one place, like Wal-Mart, would you want to?
Services like iTunes -- where everybody has to shop from the same store -- are like walled garden online services back in the early days.
How many people search using only Google? If the store has everything I want, great! One stop shopping. Now my store (Yahoo Music) doesn't have everything I want - it lacks the Beatles. Songbird won't help...at least legally. The only way for me to get the Beatles legally is to pop a CD in and rip it.
All of the popular media players out there have pretty much the same feature set on the desktop
That's because 95% of the people only want to do those things. I think it's great that Songbird is going to innovate and be open...who knows what will come of it? Just don't expect the openness to be a killer feature that will attract "the masses".
Why wouldn't you buy your bluegrass in one place and your trance music in another?
Apparently the answer is yes. You don't see a lot of butchers and bakers around anymore, do you? That's because people like getting all their stuff in one place. Think Amazon.com. If one store has all my bluegrass and all my trance, then great.
The interface looks a lot like Yahoo Music's as well (or maybe iTunes...I'm not that familiar with it)
I've used NB for years (7 or so) and I'm very happy with the new version, at least what I've seen in beta. Of course, I don't touch many of the features as I have no need but for day to day Java development it's great. That's the nice thing about Java (and other languages to be sure)...it doesn't matter what you use to write the code, just as long as the code gets written (speaking as the lone NB on Windows user in an Eclipse on Linux shop).
I am working for an organization committed to upholding the belief in particular freedoms, I would hope it is not that organization which would bar me from employment for excercizing those beliefs.
If you hold the belief the organization employing you (US government) is evil and you wish it gone, well, I don't think you can reasonably expect to remain employed there. It's one thing to think, "Man, I hate George Bush. I can't wait until Hillary Clinton is president" but it's another to wish for an unlawful revolution (the legal ones being elections).
It's not illegal in a right to work state. There are clearly defined conditions which make termination illegal.
This guy's case is different, as he's paid to be an advocate for people and companies which are opposed to the values of an organization he leads. I don't think Microsoft would take lightly an employee moonlighting at Google. It's called conflict of interest.
This is not like the examples you give. Being a cop is not at odds with being a democrat. In general, politcal beliefs are not relevant to a government employee's job. The exceptions I can think of would be appointed staffs (like the president's) and in the field I'm in, which requires a security clearance (though I'm a contractor, not a government employee). If someone holding a TS clearance also starts espousing the views of anarchy or al qaeda, well, the clearance would probably go...and with it, the job.
I'm president of the local chapter of NORML. I was fired from my job as a DEA agent...can you believe that? I didn't take the job to be subversive, but rather to learn about the very thing I oppose...just from the other side.
Anyone know where I can publish an article on this grave injustice?
In case you missed it, let me clue you in. Suites are dead. People want lean applications with user-selected add-ons. Funky cutesy names are out...they lingered on a bit after the dot com bust (along with e- and i- names) but descriptive branding is the order of the day. "Microsoft Office" "Mozilla Internet Suite" "Apple Music Player". Oops...Jobs is going to kill me for leaking the last one...
But how will an acquisition of a gaming company lead to more network hardware sales? That's like an oil company buying a theme park with the idea that people driving to the park need gas, so gas sales will rise. There are other hardware providers, just as there are other oil companies.
More homes are going to broadband and the demand for bandwidth will only increase. I don't believe that by buying a networked game manufacturer they will increase the demand for connectivity, above the increase that would otherwise occur. In other words, the demand for broadband, if Cisco sells Nintendo hardware, will not increase above what it would be if Nintendo sells Nintendo hardware. In fact, I'd expect it to be less as selling gaming hardware is outside Cisco's core competency.
It would make more sense for Cisco to buy a broadband ISP or two, then they can guarantee the ISPs will use Cisco hardware. Now, if Cisco wants to sell more home networking components one might be able to argue for such an acquisition. It doesn't seem like a very cost effective way to increase sales on a highly-competitive, probably low-margin product though.
Cisco would want to own a game device to help drive more traffic on its network.
What network is that? I thought they made hardware. Wouldn't the traffic be carried by the DSL or cable providers?
Is Google about to release this as an alternative to Windows?
No, it's an alternative to OS X. No, wait, Solaris. DOS? Pen and paper?. In other news, McDonald's is experimenting with adding another slice of cheese to the cheeseburger. Are they about to release this as an alternative to the chicken sandwich?
The question is not "will this be an alternative to Windows" but rather "how will this affect the push towards a Linux desktop?" Will it further fragment the efforts or will it provide needed standardization? After all, standardization is a big part of why Windows remains successful. Windows provides a common platform upon which other things can be done. The amount of time looking for libs or recompiling or choosing between competing shells is minimized. If Google can build concensus and momentum then we're all better off (and I write this as someone who prefers Windows). If they come out with something too different or they can't build a backing then the adoption of Linux on the desktop will suffer.
Personally, I don't think they're interested in the desktop so much as they'd like to have something to support apps run on the server. Why install Open Office when you can click this icon and run Google's office right off their server?
Thanks for blowing it for the Chinese...putting a link to some backwater news site on the front page of Slashdot.
On a more serious note, couldn't people who are not in China put up a little proxy to return Google results? For example, I have a domain hosting a few pages. Could I put a little script to take a query entered at my site and return results obtained from Google?
There is no way for the money to get back to the artist. This plan only benefits the labels. Perhaps they can survey the P2P networks and get a sample of what's being searched for, then pay the artists accordingly. This will ensure the popular artists get the money while those with fewer fans get the shaft. At least by getting DRMed music, in theory the provider can accurately track whose music is being downloaded and thus compensate the artists.
It's time to choose:
a) If you like the challenge of configuring, securing, and running a server, do it yourself.
b) If you just need to use a server and you get what you want...security, access, uptime...somewhere else for free (or at a reasonable cost), then let someone else do it.
Yes, and you should not drink enough poison to kill yourself. By your reasoning, that means you should only drink poison in doses that won't kill you.
I'll tell you what. Since we've shared a moment here with these comments, I'll buy you the first round.
I made this point in another comment. This document is for guidance, not implementation. It's a high-level (hence Rumsfeld's signature) strategic look, not a tactical plan. You're not going to find, "we should do this, and here's how to do it."
1. I don't see where the article says the government is "surprised" by anything. In fact, it's a planning document, not a report, so there are no revelations. Since it was declassified only 3 years after it was written it's clearly not an important document.
2. Having been in the military for many years, I'm not surprised that the document does not contain specifics. It's a strategic overview (and pretty high level since Rumsfeld signed off on it). The details are left to those who handle the implementation (at the tactical level).
3. You needed some document to tell you this? Telegraph wires were tapped or cut back in the day. Radio jamming has been around for as long as there's been radio. VOA has been around for nearly 70 years. The surprise here is that you are surprised the Internet is of interest as well.
...regarding the propaganda:
The document's authors acknowledge that American news media should not unwittingly broadcast military propaganda. "Specific boundaries should be established," they write.
It's not quite like the summary seems to imply.
...man, was I wrong. I screwed up that day. I was in college, and we were hanging around our ROTC lounge. The liftoff was being shown on TV (broadcast, not cable) and some cadets were watching. I said, "bah, another shuttle launch, big deal" and left the room and went outside. This is why I'm not buying the guy's point that nobody watched it live. It was definitely on live. I saw the preparations for launch and left during the countdown.
A short while later one of the other cadets was wandering off by himself in the courtyard. A professor came up to me and asked what was bothering the cadet. At this point I didn't know of the accident, so I flippantly replied, "The shuttle blew up." I guess I thought I was being funny. At least I didn't throw in a "Nelson" laugh.
Now that I think about it, a similar thing happened on 9/11. I drove to work (from near Baltimore to just before the DC beltway) at the time of the attacks. I either had the radio off or I was listening to a book on tape...probably the former because I was mad at my boss and wanted to talk to him first thing. I get to work, go into the building and straight into my boss' office. I start on whatever issue was eating at me and he says, "Not now." Just then one of my coworkers pops his head in and says to my boss, "The 2nd tower's down." At this point I'm totally confused so I go to my office and quickly learn what happened.
The morals of the stories? Don't make tragedy jokes because they may just come true, and always check the news at my computer first thing. There's probably a deeper lesson there that would make me a better person but I don't see it. I guess a better person would probably pick up on it...
Dude, a week later you notice my comment and reply to it? Get a life.
Because you believed "do no evil" to be a policy, rather than a marketing statement. You wanted it to be true but it's not. Larry & Sergei couldn't resist the thought of putting AdWords in front of all those Chinese...the ones with money in their pockets for the first time in years. The fat brains at Google could have come up with a way to help chinese Internet users bypass the great firewall. I guess a rising stock price is very addictive.
Just remember, "do no evil" is not the same as "do good".
Fiber optics baby, that's the way to go. Verizon just wired my in-laws neighborhood with fiber. Initially they'll get 5Mbps broadband cheaper than from Comcast (cable) and by spring they'll be getting TV (including HDTV) through the same fiber. Hell, my PS2 has a fiber connection to my receiver.
Now since fiber is glass, and glass comes from sand, we shouldn't have a shortage of that anytime soon, right? And if we ever run out of sand, well, there's always this wireless thing I keep hearing about.
...can you imagine how much it would cost to have it bound?
Really, though, they should come up with a better comparison. "If burned to CD, it would take half as many CDs as AOL sends out in a year".