Well outrageous or not, residuals are a part of the entertainment industry. And the idea of profit sharing is certainly not outrageous either, the real devil is in the details. And that is what is going to have to be hammered out in this current situation with the voice actors. As for the programmers and other artists putting in tons and tons of blood sweat and tears, well hell yes, they should get a cut of the profits too! I think one key difference right now is the fact that the actors are unionized while the techies are not. That's a fact that I think is going to continue to put the people who do the real work at a disadvantage.
And here is yet more evidence that video games have risen to the level of other entertainment media. With a next generation of games that promise to hit us all up for $60 and $70 a pop, you can bet the voice acting is going to be more and more important. So I personally hope that the actors get the residuals they want because in the end I think it will give us all a better product.
Either way, there will still be games that suck, just like there are movies and tv shows that suck. But you can bet that these days the best actors get residuals from their work, why shouldn't voice actors be able to get the same kind of deals? There's plenty of pie for everyone!
It's certainly true that IBM is a big Linux supporter, but Microsoft can hurt Intel a lot more by taking business away than they are helping IBM. This is simply because Intel is a lot more dependent on Microsoft, though I think Intel may be trying harder now to shake this dependence.
I must say that they do seem to have all bets covered and are well prepared to continue making money as we move into a post PC era. I wonder why Intel didn't play a little harder to get a piece of the pie? This may actually say a lot about the state of Intel's relationship with Microsoft too. Maybe some of this is payback for Intel's Linux support and now we hear that Apple and Intel are starting to make nice too! Oh what an interesting world.
In other news, millions of trees around the globe raised their leaves and branches in thunderous applause in praise of the Google project.
I guess the battle is finally on as the days of printed paper medium begin to finally tick down. Like the recording industry, the print industry doesn't quite understand yet that their customers no longer want their products in the old formats. While I personally still like a printed book, I'm enjoying the added portability that digital media is providing. I look forward to the day I can carry my entire library in the palm of my hand, just as I now do with my music collection!
Video games are not art or media? WTF! That's the last straw, I'm going to writing some real mail to express my displeasure with the idiocy coming out of the state house here. If you live in Illinois, I would encourage you to write as well. Here is a link to contact info for Sen. Deanna Demuzio.
Heh! Sadly there are those who will indeed propose a hostile stance towards countries that push back the frontiers of cloning and stem cell research. So far all that the U.S. restrictions have done is ensure that the discoveries will be made elsewhere. I guess now if N Korea destroys S Korea, it'll be seen as divine retribution...
Hooray for a rare win for the little guys! I've been a Netflix customer since the beginning so I'm happy to see a deal that promises to keep Netflix around a little longer. That just leaves Amazon and Blockbuster. Personally, I'd like to see Amazon do a similar deal with Netflix rather than try to crush them. Why? Because Netflix has become a good brand in the DVD mail rental space, so Amazon may have more to gain teaming up with them than fighting.
Back in the day, there was a copy called Bleem that essentially sold emulators for the Sega Dreamcast that allowed it to play selected Playstation games, such as Gran Turismo 2, etc.. You would have to buy the appropriate "Bleem Pack" to play a given set of games. Perhaps Xbox 360 backwards compatibility will take this approach. The Xbox would download the appropriate patches and settings to play a given previous generation game. If they can support say the 50 most popular Xbox games, then they may be able to get away with it. Heck, the PS2 does not play 100 percent of the first generation Playstation games either.
In any case, if the end user has to go out and buy a title again, then backwards compatibility is a lie and I sincerely hope that Sony and Nintendo pummels them mercilessly! Seriously though, I think Microsoft will pull it off somehow. They have more than enough resources and talent to do the job. Yeah, I know, this is/., MS is evil! But they _do_ have a lot of talented and passionate people working on this. So I think they'll pull it off.
Hmmm, if Microsoft had attacked bugs and feature enhancements for IE as aggressively as I've seen for the Firefox crew, maybe IE wouldn't be in the straits it is in today. As a developer, the whole IE thing has been a disappointment because in the early days it really looked like MS was going to bring something great to the table, but after they killed Netscape, they just let it drop.
So yeah, all of the reinstalling the whole Firefox package to get the fixes is a little bit clunky (just a little), but I expect to hear less and less about security holes in Firefox in the near future at this rate. Go Firefox!
Well I for one agree with Paul Graham and since reading Hackers and Painters really feel he is on to something. If nothing else, his encouragement of smart people to think in an entrepreneural fashion is something that many of us in tech need to hear.
Recent events seem to indicate that the U.S. is moving closer and closer to some kind of state mandated censorship. A growing number of states are trying to pass legislation that would outlaw the sale of "violent" video games to minors. So far these laws have been struck down on constitutional grounds, but I don't believe that will be the final word on the matter. Anyway, once video games are censored or otherwise restricted, it is just a short hop to doing the same thing for movies, music and television.
So far the entertainment industry has strongly opposed anything that looks like censorship. But they are also so vigorously pursuing stronger copyright restrictions that they may be willing to deal. If they believe they can make more money by giving up creative freedom in exchange for stronger copyright laws, I believe they'll do it in a heartbeat. To get the broadcast flag now, they'll have to deal with Congress.
This is an interesting ploy on Microsoft's part and should be interesting and fun to watch. I would guess that they probably will net a few big operators at first before they wise up and cover their tracks better. So let the perp walks begin! I have no love for big time software piracy outfits, but it does bother me that this effort is likely to net a lot of clueless sorts who really don't amount to much in lost sales, just as the RIAA dragnet has done. In a worst case scenario, in some parts of the world this might get some people killed.
I don't think it's time to bury Intel yet, or AMD for that matter. If I've learned anything over the last many years, the better technical product doesn't always go on to dominate the market. But I would say that market domination is not necessarily needed to make a nice profit. AMD is making better performing chips than Intel right now, and with the dual core chips they should be making a nice profit with premium pricing. The market for such chips is currently limited to tech enthusiasts (such as PC gamers) and those with specialized computational needs. That's okay because with the right pricing that could be a very profitable niche. Apple is doing pretty well right now without being anywhere near dominant in the personal computer market due to a fiercely loyal user base, premium pricing, and some genuinely cool products. Apple is not the biggest, but they are profitable. AMD can do likewise.
Intel of course has nothing to worry about. They have the volume customers through deals with Dell, HP, and others. And they are picking up the low end of the market for dual core chips. These are not as good performance-wise as the AMD chips, but the lower cost is appealing to a more budget minded market. And with economies of scale, Intel certainly makes a nice profit. So it is unlikely they'll be shutting their doors anytime soon.
Everybody can win here. AMD has the harder job for now because their survival depends on continuing to produce better chips and growing their niche of customers. But as long as they make a profit, they can stay in the game.
What I don't get is how all of these anti-gay defense of marriage laws and ammendments are supposed to make my marriage stronger. How does denying someone else's rights, defend mine? This whole wave of anti-gay legislation is just evidence of what happens when religion gets mixed up with our laws. Specifically, marriage is considered to be religious sacrament by the religions I know of, not a civil law. Unfortunately, in the minds of many in the U.S., this religious sacrament _is_ a part of the law. Truthfully, _all_ marriages are civil unions as far as the state is concerned, but not all civil unions are marriages with regard to religions. Indeed, as I understand it, the Catholic church would not recognize a marriage between Catholics that only consisted of the joining by the Justice of the Peace (or similar civil official), but not the actual marriage sacrament involving a priest. And this is fair, no one is saying that the state should force any religions to recognize and sanction unions that go counter to those religions' beliefs.
I'm a Christian and I really don't know if the gay unions are right or not. But I do know that Jesus would not want me to mistreat gay people or diminish their human dignity. Jesus would treat gays with the same love and compassion that he showed the many outcasts he encountered during his time on Earth as recorded in scripture. Sadly, many of those pushing the current anti-gay agenda seem to be devoid of much in the way of compassion.
This is interesting news because it really is a break from Microsoft's past behavior of ignoring the existence of other OS's for the most part. And it moves them one step closer to creating a Microsoft distribution of Linux. Think about it. It is likely that some distributions of Linux may function better on their virtual server than others, which support-wise may implicitly force them to endorse some distros over others. It is only a small step from here to rolling an optimized distro for use on the virtual server. Then enhancements and bug fixes are likely to be developed and tested first on the MS Linux distro before others.
The nice thing about all of this is that Microsoft can do as much or as little as they wish if they play nice and adhere to the GPL and OSS community standards. Indeed, I think that the community will do a great deal without their help to make sure Linux runs well in the virtual server. As long as Mr. Balmer doesn't get cold feet, it could be a good thing.
Actually, I hate having to pay more than necessary and am willing to forgo extras in most cases. But there's been a trend in the Japanese market to offer extras with CDs and DVDs, sometimes at slightly greater cost, in an effort to appeal to dedicated fans to buy legal copies rather than pirated merchandise. I don't know how well this approach would work in the U.S. where the collector's culture is not as prominent.
So yes, if prices are going to go up anyway, I want more for my money. Otherwise I may start cutting back on my spending, which is something profit seeking companies definitely do not want to happen.
Except for the weird pricing, this might be worth a shot. If buying the double disc version is really more than buying both separately (which I doubt will remain the case) then I hope there are more extras thrown in to make it worthwhile. In any case, episodic content, like a TV anime series, is a good fit for the PSP and UMD media if DVDs ship with the UMD versions. I can see commuters and students wanting to catch an episode of their favorite series on the train or during lunch in the park.
The problem I see for TV episodes on UMD is that a lot of TV is already available online for download which means why bother with UMD when you can put shows on a memory stick. Right now most TV show downloads are illegal, but eventually legal services will pop up which will make the UMD even less attractive for TV content. Still, my guess is that downloads won't have the extras that can be placed on a disc, so there may still be a niche for UMD to thrive in. The trick and fun here is that this is all terra incognita, no one knows how the market is going to develop!
Call me a geek, but this is the scariest thing I've read all day! Sooner or later these cheap untested and mismarked components are going to make it into crucial safety or health systems and a lot of people are going to die who didn't have to.
This is just another example of sacrificing quality and ultimately safety in the name of a few more dollars (or a lot more dollars if you're really dirty and unethical). Over the last few years, I've been paying more for strong brands I can trust, but with so much counterfeiting going on now and the ensuing price pressure driven corner cutting, I wonder how long top tier brands will retain the quality that many of us now depend on?
Dell has never really been known as an innovative company, so there's no surprise they won't be using AMD's dual core chips anytime soon. Dell won't join the AMD party until it thinks it's safe and things sour a bit with Intel. In the meantime, competitors who live a bit on the edge will be able to make some progress, but not much, since quite honestly, the cutting edge market is probably only a fraction the size of the play it safe business market.
Hmmm, all these years I've been using Fireworks and wondering if I should move to Photoshop. I suspect this buyout means no more Fireworks. Hopefully, Adobe will integrate the best of Fireworks into Photoshop, then I can have the best of both worlds. Of course my biggest fear is that multimedia tools are about to get a lot more expensive!
Heh! The truth is that there are so many entities here in the U.S. that _do_ want to censor what people see and read, that China could very well turn their filtering technologies into a profit center! I wonder if the Chinese government has filed for any patents yet.
The customer is always right. So if visitors want to use adblockers or strip out images or whatever, then fine. As the site owner or creator, you just have to consider things like that in fashioning the best visitor experience you can. In the long run, annoying your site visitors won't pay off monetarily or otherwise.
As for ads in general, I think the challenge is to create something beautiful that people will want to look at or interact with. This isn't easy as anyone can see. But when done right, even ads can add to the overall visitor's experience. Yahoo is a site that I think does this fairly well at least for their own promotions, 3rd party ads are still a grab bag.
Slashdot Mirror
This is purely for that cute blonde in that line over there...
That should at least help screener recruitment efforts...heh heh.
Well outrageous or not, residuals are a part of the entertainment industry. And the idea of profit sharing is certainly not outrageous either, the real devil is in the details. And that is what is going to have to be hammered out in this current situation with the voice actors. As for the programmers and other artists putting in tons and tons of blood sweat and tears, well hell yes, they should get a cut of the profits too! I think one key difference right now is the fact that the actors are unionized while the techies are not. That's a fact that I think is going to continue to put the people who do the real work at a disadvantage.
And here is yet more evidence that video games have risen to the level of other entertainment media. With a next generation of games that promise to hit us all up for $60 and $70 a pop, you can bet the voice acting is going to be more and more important. So I personally hope that the actors get the residuals they want because in the end I think it will give us all a better product.
Either way, there will still be games that suck, just like there are movies and tv shows that suck. But you can bet that these days the best actors get residuals from their work, why shouldn't voice actors be able to get the same kind of deals? There's plenty of pie for everyone!
It's certainly true that IBM is a big Linux supporter, but Microsoft can hurt Intel a lot more by taking business away than they are helping IBM. This is simply because Intel is a lot more dependent on Microsoft, though I think Intel may be trying harder now to shake this dependence.
I must say that they do seem to have all bets covered and are well prepared to continue making money as we move into a post PC era. I wonder why Intel didn't play a little harder to get a piece of the pie? This may actually say a lot about the state of Intel's relationship with Microsoft too. Maybe some of this is payback for Intel's Linux support and now we hear that Apple and Intel are starting to make nice too! Oh what an interesting world.
In other news, millions of trees around the globe raised their leaves and branches in thunderous applause in praise of the Google project.
I guess the battle is finally on as the days of printed paper medium begin to finally tick down. Like the recording industry, the print industry doesn't quite understand yet that their customers no longer want their products in the old formats. While I personally still like a printed book, I'm enjoying the added portability that digital media is providing. I look forward to the day I can carry my entire library in the palm of my hand, just as I now do with my music collection!
Video games are not art or media? WTF! That's the last straw, I'm going to writing some real mail to express my displeasure with the idiocy coming out of the state house here. If you live in Illinois, I would encourage you to write as well. Here is a link to contact info for Sen. Deanna Demuzio.
p ?s=y&step=8&id=++++52845
http://energyaction.ase.org/legdirectory/Index.as
Capitol Address
Senator Deanna Demuzio
M106 Capitol Building
Springfield, IL 62706
Phone: (217) 782-8206
Fax: (217) 854-5311
District Address
Senator Deanna Demuzio
140 Carlinville Plaza
Carlinville, 62626
Phone: (217) 854-4441
Fax: (217) 854-5311
demuzio@senatedem.state.il.us
Heh! Sadly there are those who will indeed propose a hostile stance towards countries that push back the frontiers of cloning and stem cell research. So far all that the U.S. restrictions have done is ensure that the discoveries will be made elsewhere. I guess now if N Korea destroys S Korea, it'll be seen as divine retribution...
Hooray for a rare win for the little guys! I've been a Netflix customer since the beginning so I'm happy to see a deal that promises to keep Netflix around a little longer. That just leaves Amazon and Blockbuster. Personally, I'd like to see Amazon do a similar deal with Netflix rather than try to crush them. Why? Because Netflix has become a good brand in the DVD mail rental space, so Amazon may have more to gain teaming up with them than fighting.
Back in the day, there was a copy called Bleem that essentially sold emulators for the Sega Dreamcast that allowed it to play selected Playstation games, such as Gran Turismo 2, etc.. You would have to buy the appropriate "Bleem Pack" to play a given set of games. Perhaps Xbox 360 backwards compatibility will take this approach. The Xbox would download the appropriate patches and settings to play a given previous generation game. If they can support say the 50 most popular Xbox games, then they may be able to get away with it. Heck, the PS2 does not play 100 percent of the first generation Playstation games either.
/., MS is evil! But they _do_ have a lot of talented and passionate people working on this. So I think they'll pull it off.
In any case, if the end user has to go out and buy a title again, then backwards compatibility is a lie and I sincerely hope that Sony and Nintendo pummels them mercilessly! Seriously though, I think Microsoft will pull it off somehow. They have more than enough resources and talent to do the job. Yeah, I know, this is
Hmmm, if Microsoft had attacked bugs and feature enhancements for IE as aggressively as I've seen for the Firefox crew, maybe IE wouldn't be in the straits it is in today. As a developer, the whole IE thing has been a disappointment because in the early days it really looked like MS was going to bring something great to the table, but after they killed Netscape, they just let it drop.
So yeah, all of the reinstalling the whole Firefox package to get the fixes is a little bit clunky (just a little), but I expect to hear less and less about security holes in Firefox in the near future at this rate. Go Firefox!
Well I for one agree with Paul Graham and since reading Hackers and Painters really feel he is on to something. If nothing else, his encouragement of smart people to think in an entrepreneural fashion is something that many of us in tech need to hear.
Recent events seem to indicate that the U.S. is moving closer and closer to some kind of state mandated censorship. A growing number of states are trying to pass legislation that would outlaw the sale of "violent" video games to minors. So far these laws have been struck down on constitutional grounds, but I don't believe that will be the final word on the matter. Anyway, once video games are censored or otherwise restricted, it is just a short hop to doing the same thing for movies, music and television.
So far the entertainment industry has strongly opposed anything that looks like censorship. But they are also so vigorously pursuing stronger copyright restrictions that they may be willing to deal. If they believe they can make more money by giving up creative freedom in exchange for stronger copyright laws, I believe they'll do it in a heartbeat. To get the broadcast flag now, they'll have to deal with Congress.
This is an interesting ploy on Microsoft's part and should be interesting and fun to watch. I would guess that they probably will net a few big operators at first before they wise up and cover their tracks better. So let the perp walks begin! I have no love for big time software piracy outfits, but it does bother me that this effort is likely to net a lot of clueless sorts who really don't amount to much in lost sales, just as the RIAA dragnet has done. In a worst case scenario, in some parts of the world this might get some people killed.
I don't think it's time to bury Intel yet, or AMD for that matter. If I've learned anything over the last many years, the better technical product doesn't always go on to dominate the market. But I would say that market domination is not necessarily needed to make a nice profit. AMD is making better performing chips than Intel right now, and with the dual core chips they should be making a nice profit with premium pricing. The market for such chips is currently limited to tech enthusiasts (such as PC gamers) and those with specialized computational needs. That's okay because with the right pricing that could be a very profitable niche. Apple is doing pretty well right now without being anywhere near dominant in the personal computer market due to a fiercely loyal user base, premium pricing, and some genuinely cool products. Apple is not the biggest, but they are profitable. AMD can do likewise.
Intel of course has nothing to worry about. They have the volume customers through deals with Dell, HP, and others. And they are picking up the low end of the market for dual core chips. These are not as good performance-wise as the AMD chips, but the lower cost is appealing to a more budget minded market. And with economies of scale, Intel certainly makes a nice profit. So it is unlikely they'll be shutting their doors anytime soon.
Everybody can win here. AMD has the harder job for now because their survival depends on continuing to produce better chips and growing their niche of customers. But as long as they make a profit, they can stay in the game.
Please forgive the poor transliteration!
Porn Video: haam di (hah-mm dee)
Horny: haam suup (hah-mm s-uh-p) literally salty and wet
At least, those are the colloquial expressions I'm told.
What I don't get is how all of these anti-gay defense of marriage laws and ammendments are supposed to make my marriage stronger. How does denying someone else's rights, defend mine? This whole wave of anti-gay legislation is just evidence of what happens when religion gets mixed up with our laws. Specifically, marriage is considered to be religious sacrament by the religions I know of, not a civil law. Unfortunately, in the minds of many in the U.S., this religious sacrament _is_ a part of the law. Truthfully, _all_ marriages are civil unions as far as the state is concerned, but not all civil unions are marriages with regard to religions. Indeed, as I understand it, the Catholic church would not recognize a marriage between Catholics that only consisted of the joining by the Justice of the Peace (or similar civil official), but not the actual marriage sacrament involving a priest. And this is fair, no one is saying that the state should force any religions to recognize and sanction unions that go counter to those religions' beliefs.
I'm a Christian and I really don't know if the gay unions are right or not. But I do know that Jesus would not want me to mistreat gay people or diminish their human dignity. Jesus would treat gays with the same love and compassion that he showed the many outcasts he encountered during his time on Earth as recorded in scripture. Sadly, many of those pushing the current anti-gay agenda seem to be devoid of much in the way of compassion.
This is interesting news because it really is a break from Microsoft's past behavior of ignoring the existence of other OS's for the most part. And it moves them one step closer to creating a Microsoft distribution of Linux. Think about it. It is likely that some distributions of Linux may function better on their virtual server than others, which support-wise may implicitly force them to endorse some distros over others. It is only a small step from here to rolling an optimized distro for use on the virtual server. Then enhancements and bug fixes are likely to be developed and tested first on the MS Linux distro before others.
The nice thing about all of this is that Microsoft can do as much or as little as they wish if they play nice and adhere to the GPL and OSS community standards. Indeed, I think that the community will do a great deal without their help to make sure Linux runs well in the virtual server. As long as Mr. Balmer doesn't get cold feet, it could be a good thing.
Actually, I hate having to pay more than necessary and am willing to forgo extras in most cases. But there's been a trend in the Japanese market to offer extras with CDs and DVDs, sometimes at slightly greater cost, in an effort to appeal to dedicated fans to buy legal copies rather than pirated merchandise. I don't know how well this approach would work in the U.S. where the collector's culture is not as prominent.
So yes, if prices are going to go up anyway, I want more for my money. Otherwise I may start cutting back on my spending, which is something profit seeking companies definitely do not want to happen.
Except for the weird pricing, this might be worth a shot. If buying the double disc version is really more than buying both separately (which I doubt will remain the case) then I hope there are more extras thrown in to make it worthwhile. In any case, episodic content, like a TV anime series, is a good fit for the PSP and UMD media if DVDs ship with the UMD versions. I can see commuters and students wanting to catch an episode of their favorite series on the train or during lunch in the park.
The problem I see for TV episodes on UMD is that a lot of TV is already available online for download which means why bother with UMD when you can put shows on a memory stick. Right now most TV show downloads are illegal, but eventually legal services will pop up which will make the UMD even less attractive for TV content. Still, my guess is that downloads won't have the extras that can be placed on a disc, so there may still be a niche for UMD to thrive in. The trick and fun here is that this is all terra incognita, no one knows how the market is going to develop!
Call me a geek, but this is the scariest thing I've read all day! Sooner or later these cheap untested and mismarked components are going to make it into crucial safety or health systems and a lot of people are going to die who didn't have to.
This is just another example of sacrificing quality and ultimately safety in the name of a few more dollars (or a lot more dollars if you're really dirty and unethical). Over the last few years, I've been paying more for strong brands I can trust, but with so much counterfeiting going on now and the ensuing price pressure driven corner cutting, I wonder how long top tier brands will retain the quality that many of us now depend on?
Dell has never really been known as an innovative company, so there's no surprise they won't be using AMD's dual core chips anytime soon. Dell won't join the AMD party until it thinks it's safe and things sour a bit with Intel. In the meantime, competitors who live a bit on the edge will be able to make some progress, but not much, since quite honestly, the cutting edge market is probably only a fraction the size of the play it safe business market.
Hmmm, all these years I've been using Fireworks and wondering if I should move to Photoshop. I suspect this buyout means no more Fireworks. Hopefully, Adobe will integrate the best of Fireworks into Photoshop, then I can have the best of both worlds. Of course my biggest fear is that multimedia tools are about to get a lot more expensive!
Heh! The truth is that there are so many entities here in the U.S. that _do_ want to censor what people see and read, that China could very well turn their filtering technologies into a profit center! I wonder if the Chinese government has filed for any patents yet.
The customer is always right. So if visitors want to use adblockers or strip out images or whatever, then fine. As the site owner or creator, you just have to consider things like that in fashioning the best visitor experience you can. In the long run, annoying your site visitors won't pay off monetarily or otherwise.
As for ads in general, I think the challenge is to create something beautiful that people will want to look at or interact with. This isn't easy as anyone can see. But when done right, even ads can add to the overall visitor's experience. Yahoo is a site that I think does this fairly well at least for their own promotions, 3rd party ads are still a grab bag.