I know that a number of folks on/. might find this hard to believe, but there are a LOT of people out there who:
1. Do not have a computer at home or are employed with one (yes, it's true) 2. Have a computer at work or home, but only use it for work/bookeeping, and don't know rss from css.
In either case, these people can not be reached by digital media. It just aint happening. This core group of "non computer enthusiasts" is the base market, and the target of traditional media. And these guys aren't going anywhere.
Blue collar types generally don't picture themselves sitting in front of a PC downloading the season finale of Galactica, or reading about the RNR Hall of Fame inductions on Billboard.com....but they do read the Daily News on the ferry on the way to work. Not that I want to generalize, but most tradesmen, cops and fireman I know have nothing more than a passing interest in computers...and even then it;s because they have to buy them for their kids.
The media industries need to both adapt and create new content (and figure out how to make money) for the computer literate, and balance scaling back the more traditional delivery (newspapers, CD's, etc) methods. Neither side is going anywhere, though it may be a few more years before things balance out.
Parent's comment reminded me of a case from a few years back.
There was a congressman...or was it a police chief...who favored the position that once garbage was placed at the curb, it was considered abandoned by the owner, and was not subject to search by warrant. The police could just pick up any given bag of trash and search for evidence...no privacy concerns.
All was well until a local paper picked through his trash and publised the contents...unread magazines and solicitation letters... food boxes...that's what I remember.
Man, was he pissed...and suddenly his view didn't apply to him.
So, hell yes, let's put publicly accessable GPS devices in police cars, let's have webcams in police stations...in every room. Let's watch the watchers.
Also reminds me of that sherrif in Arizona who had webcams in his jail...the man was ahead of his time.
An alien from an advanced civilization who's planet (Krypton) was destroyed comes to earth as a child and exibits extrodinary strength and superhuman powers.
He grows up to become a hero, and a guardian of truth and justice...saving the earth and it's people many times over both from themselves and from other superhuman and outworldly enemies.
In some versions of the story, Superman has some of Krypton's tech to rely on....see the Fortress of Solitude.
Sounds like pretty reasonable Sci-Fi to me.
If you think of Batman's story, it starts off as more of a drama..really a sad story but it quickly incorporates Sc-Fi elements. I'd definitly consider it to be Sci-Fi on it's own...more so that Batman often crosses over with Superman.
From TFA, it looks like this is going to featue the Lion Voltron. Cool. Though they don't specifically say Lion Voltron, it's implied by the reference to 5 smaller robots.
I was a little worried that it might have been about the Spaceship Voltron (the one made up of 27 little ships) or the 3 robot Voltron.
>>But regardless, it's like saying owning a screwdriver is illegal because it could be used to take the hinges off an insecure door. Dumb.
Except that if you we actually caught robbing a place, having that screwdriver would (depending on jurisdiction) earn you the additional charge of possesion of burglars tools.
>>As you stand in the same spot for 1.3 seconds, the demon from hell rips your head off and tosses your mangled body over the nearby cliff. Alas, you find yourself dead at the bottom of the ravine.
But if the player was spending that 1.3 seconds watching the ad before dying, does it count as an ad-view? That's the big question, eh?
>>You have no right to privacy on other people's property.
Good point. I forgot about that.
But there is nothing stopping big brother from 'asking' for the privately collected data. For whatever reason.
Granted, we are talking about someting reltively trivial: Online gaming. It's not too important in and of itself. However, I am opposed to the bulk gathering of data about people in any form.
Maybe I sould like a tin foil hat, paraniod kind of guy, but I don't like being watched. There's no way of knowing how any particular entity can use the data... to send me targetted advertisements? to put me on a terrorist watch list because I'm a pretty good sniper?
I'd rather that these kinds of things didn't exist. Private servers or not.
Sure I am connected and being tracked within the rules of playing a game. However my behaviour should have no relevance in the 'real world'. The data used to track my online position (for collision detection, etc) should die with the end of that game loop (once the packet has been consumed by the game engine).
The only exception to this is still game related: Performance stats. Kills/deaths, win/lose, etc.
>>Massive says it won't charge advertisers unless the full ad has been viewed.'"
And how do they intend to track this? This is pretty scary. I kind of thought that the purpose of gaming servers was to facilitate gaming and interaction between players...not to monitor their activity.
Where does one draw the line as to what is and isn't monitored?
It is possible that some tech team at NASA back in the late 80's proposed a project to convert the data from the old format to the newer (and on it's way to becoming prevalent) IBM or MAC PC format?
I just don't get it, here we have an agency full of engineers, and no one could think, "hey wouldn't it be cool to look at the data on a PC/Mac, a UNIX machine, or an IBM Mainframe?".
It's a shame, becuase more than likely most of the engineers involved with the original pioneer project would have been alive and able to otherwise contribute to such a conversion.
Now that so much time has passed, these things are much harder.
The high level tasks for the project would be: 1. Engineer a hardware solution that suports the comm(item 2) and data conversion(item 3). This is the really hard part. Maybe bypass the pioneer era computer and just design an interface from the tape reader to a serial port on a PC?
2. Some type of comm protocol recognizable by both sets of hardware. The burden of this is most likely going to have to be carried by the newer hardware. Not sure about the source platform and how programmable it is these days, but maybe we can teach a PC or UNIX box to speak 'old tape'. THe more I think about this, the more it sounds like we'd need to write 'drivers' for the old tape drives.
3. Devise a proper data mapping/converison scheme from pioneer to ascii (or ebcidic) based storage. Involves probably writing conversion software on the receiving machine. (I'd love to take a crack at this myself to be honest.)
so we need: 1. conversion hardware 2. communications software (or driver for the old tape drives) 3. conversion software
Any analysis would take place using the output of 3.
Like I said above, I can't believe that no one at NASA has thought about this. SOmeone, somewhere must have had at least preliminary plans for something like this.
I totally agree with you. People are going to take breaks no matter what.
What is scary though is that web usage can be monitored. In contrast, coffee breaks and quickies in an empty conference room can't.
In my shop, the firewall reports are in real time.
Pretty scary when one's boss sends an Email with better links related to something one searched for earlier in the day.
One afternoon after shopping at think geek, a couple of years ago, my manager came by to chat and finished up by saying 'got root?'. Which was the specific t-shirt that I bought.
Slashdot Mirror
...to describe why bringing back Futurama is likely to work out well:
Family Guy
wbs.
I know that a number of folks on /. might find this hard to believe, but there are a LOT of people out there who:
....but they do read the Daily News on the ferry on the way to work. Not that I want to generalize, but most tradesmen, cops and fireman I know have nothing more than a passing interest in computers...and even then it;s because they have to buy them for their kids.
1. Do not have a computer at home or are employed with one (yes, it's true)
2. Have a computer at work or home, but only use it for work/bookeeping, and don't know rss from css.
In either case, these people can not be reached by digital media. It just aint happening. This core group of "non computer enthusiasts" is the base market, and the target of traditional media. And these guys aren't going anywhere.
Blue collar types generally don't picture themselves sitting in front of a PC downloading the season finale of Galactica, or reading about the RNR Hall of Fame inductions on Billboard.com
The media industries need to both adapt and create new content (and figure out how to make money) for the computer literate, and balance scaling back the more traditional delivery (newspapers, CD's, etc) methods. Neither side is going anywhere, though it may be a few more years before things balance out.
wbs.
Here's another reason to move to Canada.
Take off, eh?
Parent's comment reminded me of a case from a few years back.
There was a congressman...or was it a police chief...who favored the position that once garbage was placed at the curb, it was considered abandoned by the owner, and was not subject to search by warrant. The police could just pick up any given bag of trash and search for evidence...no privacy concerns.
All was well until a local paper picked through his trash and publised the contents...unread magazines and solicitation letters... food boxes...that's what I remember.
Man, was he pissed...and suddenly his view didn't apply to him.
So, hell yes, let's put publicly accessable GPS devices in police cars, let's have webcams in police stations...in every room. Let's watch the watchers.
Also reminds me of that sherrif in Arizona who had webcams in his jail...the man was ahead of his time.
Last time I checked, the calendar said it was November 25, not April 1.
wbs.
...is Sci-Fi.
An alien from an advanced civilization who's planet (Krypton) was destroyed comes to earth as a child and exibits extrodinary strength and superhuman powers.
He grows up to become a hero, and a guardian of truth and justice...saving the earth and it's people many times over both from themselves and from other superhuman and outworldly enemies.
In some versions of the story, Superman has some of Krypton's tech to rely on....see the Fortress of Solitude.
Sounds like pretty reasonable Sci-Fi to me.
If you think of Batman's story, it starts off as more of a drama..really a sad story but it quickly incorporates Sc-Fi elements. I'd definitly consider it to be Sci-Fi on it's own...more so that Batman often crosses over with Superman.
wbs.
when you are in your tent reacting to news of battle, throw a chair
it will clearly deomonstrate your judgement and power
I for one can not wait for the day when I can be transported to the office.
:)
Beam me over Scotty.
Looks like Shake has already thought of this. Not that the house is any cleaner though...
Oh yeah... sorry Geddy's jet is in the way. Take off, eh?
Robots playing catch with robots? How perverse!
>>What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free?
Are there any Open Source developers out there who'd care to comment on that one?
wbs.
C called.
It wants it's *pointers back.
wbs.
>>Lets take bets on what TV franchise from the 80's they will bastardize next. I've got $50 down for He-Man.
I wouldn't be suprised if they dug up The Smurfs at some point. God help us all.
wbs.
From TFA, it looks like this is going to featue the Lion Voltron. Cool. Though they don't specifically say Lion Voltron, it's implied by the reference to 5 smaller robots .
I was a little worried that it might have been about the Spaceship Voltron (the one made up of 27 little ships) or the 3 robot Voltron.
wbs.
Please mod parent up.
>>But regardless, it's like saying owning a screwdriver is illegal because it could be used to take the hinges off an insecure door. Dumb.
Except that if you we actually caught robbing a place, having that screwdriver would (depending on jurisdiction) earn you the additional charge of possesion of burglars tools.
wbs.
>>As you stand in the same spot for 1.3 seconds, the demon from hell rips your head off and tosses your mangled body over the nearby cliff. Alas, you find yourself dead at the bottom of the ravine.
But if the player was spending that 1.3 seconds watching the ad before dying, does it count as an ad-view? That's the big question, eh?
wbs.
>>xxxx Ave. NY, NY
Funny thing is that I am in NYC. How did you know?
wbs.
>>You have no right to privacy on other people's property.
Good point. I forgot about that.
But there is nothing stopping big brother from 'asking' for the privately collected data. For whatever reason.
Granted, we are talking about someting reltively trivial: Online gaming. It's not too important in and of itself. However, I am opposed to the bulk gathering of data about people in any form.
Maybe I sould like a tin foil hat, paraniod kind of guy, but I don't like being watched. There's no way of knowing how any particular entity can use the data... to send me targetted advertisements? to put me on a terrorist watch list because I'm a pretty good sniper?
I'd rather that these kinds of things didn't exist. Private servers or not.
wbs.
I don't agree with you.
Sure I am connected and being tracked within the rules of playing a game. However my behaviour should have no relevance in the 'real world'. The data used to track my online position (for collision detection, etc) should die with the end of that game loop (once the packet has been consumed by the game engine).
The only exception to this is still game related: Performance stats. Kills/deaths, win/lose, etc.
wbd.
>>Massive says it won't charge advertisers unless the full ad has been viewed.'"
And how do they intend to track this? This is pretty scary. I kind of thought that the purpose of gaming servers was to facilitate gaming and interaction between players...not to monitor their activity.
Where does one draw the line as to what is and isn't monitored?
wbs.
It is possible that some tech team at NASA back in the late 80's proposed a project to convert the data from the old format to the newer (and on it's way to becoming prevalent) IBM or MAC PC format?
I just don't get it, here we have an agency full of engineers, and no one could think, "hey wouldn't it be cool to look at the data on a PC/Mac, a UNIX machine, or an IBM Mainframe?".
It's a shame, becuase more than likely most of the engineers involved with the original pioneer project would have been alive and able to otherwise contribute to such a conversion.
Now that so much time has passed, these things are much harder.
The high level tasks for the project would be:
1. Engineer a hardware solution that suports the comm(item 2) and data conversion(item 3). This is the really hard part. Maybe bypass the pioneer era computer and just design an interface from the tape reader to a serial port on a PC?
2. Some type of comm protocol recognizable by both sets of hardware. The burden of this is most likely going to have to be carried by the newer hardware. Not sure about the source platform and how programmable it is these days, but maybe we can teach a PC or UNIX box to speak 'old tape'. THe more I think about this, the more it sounds like we'd need to write 'drivers' for the old tape drives.
3. Devise a proper data mapping/converison scheme from pioneer to ascii (or ebcidic) based storage.
Involves probably writing conversion software on the receiving machine. (I'd love to take a crack at this myself to be honest.)
so we need:
1. conversion hardware
2. communications software (or driver for the old tape drives)
3. conversion software
Any analysis would take place using the output of 3.
Like I said above, I can't believe that no one at NASA has thought about this. SOmeone, somewhere must have had at least preliminary plans for something like this.
wbs.
>>a butterfly might be amazed to find out that humans survive for 13 years before reaching reproductive age
Though at the Neverland Ranch, this age is closer to 8.
wbs.
>>Actually, anyone still using Windows 2000 are morons.
Yes, like entire IT departments afraid to upgrade to XP because of compatability and security concerns...even all these years later.
wbs.
I totally agree with you. People are going to take breaks no matter what.
What is scary though is that web usage can be monitored. In contrast, coffee breaks and quickies in an empty conference room can't.
In my shop, the firewall reports are in real time.
Pretty scary when one's boss sends an Email with better links related to something one searched for earlier in the day.
One afternoon after shopping at think geek, a couple of years ago, my manager came by to chat and finished up by saying 'got root?'. Which was the specific t-shirt that I bought.
wbs.