Good argument. Personally, I think there is a direct correlation between the decline of record sales and the quality of the artists on the big record labels that constitute the RIAA. Personally, I think record sales would go back up if they stop distributing crap. I think it all started with the Britney / Boy Band era where several "cookie-cutter" artists appeared. There is no more originality; nearly all popular artists today sample from a time when music was music. It's such a shame.
Not necessarily - This is a standard business tactic, it is an attempt to drive the market by creating more of a demand for the product. Think of it this way: sell 10 units at $100 or 50 units at $75. Still a loss per unit, but now you have 50 potential "investors" (read: game buyers) rather than just the 10. There is significant risk involved, due to the hypothetical nature of this reasoning. (What if people don't buy it at this price?) If the trend continues, they will likely scrub the project and work on Xbox 2.
On a side note, this is likely a very good move by Microsoft, everyone I know says Xbox > PS2; the price difference is likely to exacerbate this perception, driving those that have yet to buy either towards the Xbox. This is likely behind the hastiness of the decision.
Would be a waste of the team leader's energy (to have to carry this along with his other gear), and it doesn't take into account a person's distance from the access point, so some third-party triangulation would be necessary. It would be much easier to employ a per-soldier type of tracking (ankle bracelet?) which would be much smaller and monitorable from a satellite.
Unless you plan on playing chess wirelessly, it's not really good for LAN parties. It's 802.11b for goodness sake. I don't even surf the real internet that slow, let alone network.
It may be good for truly local personal ads though. Once connected, you could see the bios of potentials in your immediate area, then you go meet someone for real.
Unless there is no concern about these things being clandestine, there is no way these things would be able to penetrate a target without being shot down first. Unless, of course, you want to fly multiple planes into the target zone, sort of like a mini bomb run.
Anyone with TechTV knows that these things have been around for quite some time (employed by the U.S. army). They say that they don't carry destructive payloads, just cameras and the like. The real question is, did they develop these models themselves or buy them from a U.S. company?
'Would I do it again? No. I'll go on the record as saying that,' Marsh said. 'I certainly know a lot more today than I knew a month ago, in a lot of respects.'
I fail to see what Apple stands to gain from a ubiquity for the AAC format. 1 cent royalties are all well and good but won't mean anything if no one's buying from the mom&pop iTune shops of the internet. Unless these lessees can provide content that I want that I can't get anywhere else (say from iTunes), I won't be buying from them.
And if you're thinking that they would offer songs for a lower price, I doubt that would be possible. Apple isn't making anything selling them for $0.99, a smaller business can't hope to sell anything for less than that. I'd wager that they would actually charge MORE for their content.
You're forgetting about the MOTR people out there. We all know that the most nerdy people couldn't care less about the look of their tech, they just care that it works. Conversely, no matter how cool it looks, the high fashion snooty types would never WEAR a phone. That's just too lowbrow.
Ah, but then there's the majority of people out there that would think, "How cool is that phone! I have to get one!" Believe it or not, those are the people that drive sales like the iPod mini and things that seem wasteful to us/.'ers. Those are the people that these things target. Lots of disposable income, average IQ.
I saw this debate coming a long time ago, and I saw consoles winning. The reason is the hardware - if you're developing a game for the Xbox, you know everyone that has an Xbox will have the exact same hardware, and see your game just as everyone else will. PC titles will always have hardware issues because different people have different hardware. One person may see things smoothly and clearly while another will see them as very choppy. When internet play is involved, I'd like to thing I'm owning the newbie because of my skill, not my PC.
I personally prefer PCs, but more and more people are moving away from the computer for things they can get elsewhere. Oh well.
Ballmer said Microsoft spends about 12 percent of its media budget on online advertising, and that he orders his staff to "saturate" that market first and foremost.
While 'tis true that this quote:
"I want to make sure (a user) can't get through... an online experience without hitting a Microsoft ad," he said."
has nothing to do with the search engine, I do think his priorities are misaligned. It would be OSO nice if it read that he orders his staff to "make a decent product, first and foremost."
But then again, they try to "saturate" their product with "good" features that no one uses too...
This is no different than Microsoft's usual business tactics; enter a market where there are strong competitors, and use your ubiquity to promote your own agenda. I won't be surprised if in the new version of windows the 'CTRL + ENTER' trick to enter the www. and.com in the address bar suddenly brings up and MSN search isntead of what you were looking for. [Incredifind anyone?] The only thing is I doubt they will be able to get really good footing with the Google-naut in the fray. Unless of course they lose their 'Page Rank' copyright lawsuit.
On a side note, the only time I actually though Microsoft's product was better was the IE vs. Netscape wars. I used to use netscape but then IE got better. I don't see that happening here.
I can see why females who like music would go for the iPod mini, of course, though I don't know any that have one.
I went to the Apple store in a mall in New Jersey one day to pick up an extra docking station for my iPod and the line was out the door and snaking around the staircase. I went up to the guy at the entrance:
Me: "Is this the line to get in?"
Him: "Are you looking to buy an iPod mini?"
Me: "No, I need another station for my iPod."
Him: "This line's for the mini. Go right in."
I didn't even realize that it was the same day that the minis came out. [Had I been looking to buy one, I could've beat the crowd too!] I had stopped looking for mp3 players when I got mine as a gift from my wife. (Thx honey!)
I didn't see many females in the line, but maybe I wasn't really looking. I seemed to notice that they were mostly young (read: high school-aged) teens. I guess the minis are what's cool. Then again $50 is a big difference when you ain't got no job. I happen to think they are ugly, but that's just me.
My iPod gets the most looks of any player I've owned, at any rate. I'm not surprised.
1. "OpenOffice is free."
License cost makes up only a small portion of the total cost
of ownership. More significant costs include:
Installation and deployment
Data migration and testing (especially if customer uses
Access database)
Document conversion and rewriting macros (OpenOffice
does not support Office macros)
User support such as training (OpenOffice UI, although
similar in many ways to Office, is not the same and users
may require "retraining")
What they don't say is that most of these "costs" would apply when choosing to switch the M$ Office as well. In other words, the documents assumes that Office is the business' native enviroment. Look at the quote again and imagine switching from say Corel's office suite to M$. Same difference.
Or not.. you actually have to pay for the software to switch to M$. Bummer.
Store loyalty cards are used to track the purchases of the cardholder, but most stores only use the addresses on file to send snail-mail spam. The solution? Use a fake name and address. You get the discounts, and no one knows who you really are.
I don't think the RIAA remotly scanning all the contents of people's harddrives (if they are, I want to know what horrible OS vulnerability is allowing THAT), just the materials they are making available for download.
Do you really have to ask? *ahem*windoze*ahem*
In all seriousness, what they were doing was looking at what people are sharing and based on the filename (and possibly the mp3 tags) they were going after people sharing files that matched certain keywords (i.e. Metallica, etc.)
I seem to remember a case where they sent a cease and desist to a University because someone on their network was sharing some music with 'Usher' in the name. Turns out it was one of their professors whose name actually happened to BE Usher. The RIAA had to send them an apology letter.
What is not known is if they changed that method. Perhaps someone can enlighten us?
I don't think the security is even the main issue. Outside of those problems coupled with the cost involved, the problem is trust. I'd have a tough time trusting anyone outside source with that kind of information, let alone M$.
It doesn't matter how good a german car is, it's still a tough sell to an old WWII vet.
Slashdot Mirror
You can have the best job in the world and it still sux because of who you work for.
Like when your boss has chronic halotosis (or "halo" for short.)
mine does.
Can I persuade you to the contrary?
Good argument. Personally, I think there is a direct correlation between the decline of record sales and the quality of the artists on the big record labels that constitute the RIAA. Personally, I think record sales would go back up if they stop distributing crap. I think it all started with the Britney / Boy Band era where several "cookie-cutter" artists appeared. There is no more originality; nearly all popular artists today sample from a time when music was music. It's such a shame.
Not necessarily - This is a standard business tactic, it is an attempt to drive the market by creating more of a demand for the product. Think of it this way: sell 10 units at $100 or 50 units at $75. Still a loss per unit, but now you have 50 potential "investors" (read: game buyers) rather than just the 10. There is significant risk involved, due to the hypothetical nature of this reasoning. (What if people don't buy it at this price?) If the trend continues, they will likely scrub the project and work on Xbox 2.
On a side note, this is likely a very good move by Microsoft, everyone I know says Xbox > PS2; the price difference is likely to exacerbate this perception, driving those that have yet to buy either towards the Xbox. This is likely behind the hastiness of the decision.
Would be a waste of the team leader's energy (to have to carry this along with his other gear), and it doesn't take into account a person's distance from the access point, so some third-party triangulation would be necessary. It would be much easier to employ a per-soldier type of tracking (ankle bracelet?) which would be much smaller and monitorable from a satellite.
Unless you plan on playing chess wirelessly, it's not really good for LAN parties. It's 802.11b for goodness sake. I don't even surf the real internet that slow, let alone network.
It may be good for truly local personal ads though. Once connected, you could see the bios of potentials in your immediate area, then you go meet someone for real.
So instead of war driving will there be war running?
Unless there is no concern about these things being clandestine, there is no way these things would be able to penetrate a target without being shot down first. Unless, of course, you want to fly multiple planes into the target zone, sort of like a mini bomb run.
Anyone with TechTV knows that these things have been around for quite some time (employed by the U.S. army). They say that they don't carry destructive payloads, just cameras and the like. The real question is, did they develop these models themselves or buy them from a U.S. company?
He may know more, but I don't. What is SCO?
I fail to see what Apple stands to gain from a ubiquity for the AAC format. 1 cent royalties are all well and good but won't mean anything if no one's buying from the mom&pop iTune shops of the internet. Unless these lessees can provide content that I want that I can't get anywhere else (say from iTunes), I won't be buying from them.
And if you're thinking that they would offer songs for a lower price, I doubt that would be possible. Apple isn't making anything selling them for $0.99, a smaller business can't hope to sell anything for less than that. I'd wager that they would actually charge MORE for their content.
You're forgetting about the MOTR people out there. We all know that the most nerdy people couldn't care less about the look of their tech, they just care that it works. Conversely, no matter how cool it looks, the high fashion snooty types would never WEAR a phone. That's just too lowbrow.
/.'ers. Those are the people that these things target. Lots of disposable income, average IQ.
Ah, but then there's the majority of people out there that would think, "How cool is that phone! I have to get one!" Believe it or not, those are the people that drive sales like the iPod mini and things that seem wasteful to us
gg
is the alienware machine. I wonder if they'll give me linux preinstalled...
I hope they took the time to invent inertial dampeners like they have on Star Trek. I'd hate to see what mach-7 does to the pilot...
I saw this debate coming a long time ago, and I saw consoles winning. The reason is the hardware - if you're developing a game for the Xbox, you know everyone that has an Xbox will have the exact same hardware, and see your game just as everyone else will. PC titles will always have hardware issues because different people have different hardware. One person may see things smoothly and clearly while another will see them as very choppy. When internet play is involved, I'd like to thing I'm owning the newbie because of my skill, not my PC.
I personally prefer PCs, but more and more people are moving away from the computer for things they can get elsewhere. Oh well.
Dude, you KNOW you just gave M$ a to-do list for IE, right?
Spybot-S&D has blocked the download of "Microsoft Ad Generator"!
"I want to make sure (a user) can't get through
has nothing to do with the search engine, I do think his priorities are misaligned. It would be OSO nice if it read that he orders his staff to "make a decent product, first and foremost."
But then again, they try to "saturate" their product with "good" features that no one uses too...
This is no different than Microsoft's usual business tactics; enter a market where there are strong competitors, and use your ubiquity to promote your own agenda. I won't be surprised if in the new version of windows the 'CTRL + ENTER' trick to enter the www. and .com in the address bar suddenly brings up and MSN search isntead of what you were looking for. [Incredifind anyone?] The only thing is I doubt they will be able to get really good footing with the Google-naut in the fray. Unless of course they lose their 'Page Rank' copyright lawsuit.
On a side note, the only time I actually though Microsoft's product was better was the IE vs. Netscape wars. I used to use netscape but then IE got better. I don't see that happening here.
I can see why females who like music would go for the iPod mini, of course, though I don't know any that have one.
I went to the Apple store in a mall in New Jersey one day to pick up an extra docking station for my iPod and the line was out the door and snaking around the staircase. I went up to the guy at the entrance:
Me: "Is this the line to get in?"
Him: "Are you looking to buy an iPod mini?"
Me: "No, I need another station for my iPod."
Him: "This line's for the mini. Go right in."
I didn't even realize that it was the same day that the minis came out. [Had I been looking to buy one, I could've beat the crowd too!] I had stopped looking for mp3 players when I got mine as a gift from my wife. (Thx honey!)
I didn't see many females in the line, but maybe I wasn't really looking. I seemed to notice that they were mostly young (read: high school-aged) teens. I guess the minis are what's cool. Then again $50 is a big difference when you ain't got no job. I happen to think they are ugly, but that's just me.
My iPod gets the most looks of any player I've owned, at any rate. I'm not surprised.
What they don't say is that most of these "costs" would apply when choosing to switch the M$ Office as well. In other words, the documents assumes that Office is the business' native enviroment. Look at the quote again and imagine switching from say Corel's office suite to M$. Same difference.
Or not.. you actually have to pay for the software to switch to M$. Bummer.
Store loyalty cards are used to track the purchases of the cardholder, but most stores only use the addresses on file to send snail-mail spam. The solution? Use a fake name and address. You get the discounts, and no one knows who you really are.
Do you really have to ask? *ahem*windoze*ahem*
In all seriousness, what they were doing was looking at what people are sharing and based on the filename (and possibly the mp3 tags) they were going after people sharing files that matched certain keywords (i.e. Metallica, etc.)
I seem to remember a case where they sent a cease and desist to a University because someone on their network was sharing some music with 'Usher' in the name. Turns out it was one of their professors whose name actually happened to BE Usher. The RIAA had to send them an apology letter.
What is not known is if they changed that method. Perhaps someone can enlighten us?
I don't think the security is even the main issue. Outside of those problems coupled with the cost involved, the problem is trust. I'd have a tough time trusting anyone outside source with that kind of information, let alone M$.
It doesn't matter how good a german car is, it's still a tough sell to an old WWII vet.
I see .net passports...
they're everywhere...
they don't even know that no one's using them...