If the entertainment industry wants to get people to feel warm and fuzzy about them, quit the immoral stunts:-
Stop pulling stunts like double-dipping DVDs (where a version is released followed a few months later by a special edition).
Stop releasing greatest hits albums with a "previously unreleased" track designed to get fans to shell out £12+ for an album
Stop region coding/RCE on DVDs. Stop trying to block free trade on any imported CDs/DVDs.
Give me an option to go straight to the DVD menu
If my DVD gets scratched, at a sensible cost (like a few £), please replace it.
Quit the lies about copying. In the 1980s it was "piracy funds drug dealers", now it's "piracy funds terrorism". Funny, how now that drug dealers are the #2 bogeyman, that they don't get mentioned. Saying that it puts movie making at risk is more honest and decent.
You know what? Since those sites appear I spent far more on DVDs than before. Because I'll see a DVD I fancy on Amazon for £8, I'll buy it in an instant, wallet withstanding. I've even risked films that way, figuring that if it's a dog, I'll sell it on Ebay for a few quid.
But, I'm not going to risk £20 on a movie.
The thing is, people don't work on limited budgets. They don't say "I've got £400 to spend on DVDs for a year". It's an elastic figure based on value. If I can have 100 DVDs for £600 or 50 DVDs for £400, I'll probably buy the 100. And considering that "per version" a DVD costs little, the industry should consider that.
and my answer is then "well, I'm not buying... from you".
We have limited power in this world. The odd vote every few years. One area that we can try and improve things is in our spending choices. And I avoid non-FF sites. 2 sites at similar prices and one gives me a "best viewed with IE". I'll buy from the other guy.
There are rational reasons, in terms of things like quality of service. A local guy can get to you a lot quicker than someone elsewhere.
In the end, though, you are better doing cost/benefit analysis of the question. The danger of favoring local companies is complacency, that you get a worse service, simply because you chose local.
I have also confused you. It was "broken window fallacy", and leads to things like government job creation programs.
It doesn't matter what sort of a "fortress" you create, if the people inside it want to cause some trouble (eg the french resistance blowing up telegraph polls), it's hard to do something about it.
I'd back wifi in libraries. It seems like a cohesive idea along with the general idea of libraries.
But mostly, leave it to the coffee shops and hotels. They are now plentiful - a small market town near me with a population of about 8,000 has 2 hotspots.
The problem is, there are normally a ton of these $1800 a month projects.
In the end, each should provide value. The argument of "it's only $1800" is unacceptable. That expense should provide at least $1800 of good to society.
That's hardly an indication of corruption - more like giving a local vendor the business so that the increase in their local economic activity pumps a piece of that company's revenue right back into the local tax base.
That's often an argument from left-wing politicians. Create a project because it will create jobs. Look up "broken window syndrome" sometime.
Think fabrics that clean themselves when given a quick jolt of static electricity
Have you seen The Man in the White Suit? Old Ealing movie with Alec Guinness. Great stuff, and very much on topic for the sociological/industrial "what if".
There is definitely oversupply. I have been to festivals and heard bands that are incredibly derivative and dull,.
The big problem I have with the industry now is how much it is about creating an artist from nothing. It's much more likely to failure than a band building up a reputation from playing clubs, where the growth of audiences can be an indicator that they are on to something.
Bands (and the music) used to act as their own marketing. Bands like Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet built their initial success on playing gigs and word of mouth.
I'd like to venture a guess. Actually, I think it's more of an educated observation of factors.
The "next market" is web based solutions. Sure, we'll still be using a word processor and spreadsheet on the PC/Mac, but what about things like project planning or company accounts?
Before anyone said "been there done that, and Ellison's thin client didn't sell", let's bear a few things in mind. This is not 1998. Firstly, the people on the web were still mostly geeks who wanted control on their machines. Secondly, viruses were not much of a problem then. Thirdly, being geeks, they could administer apps. Fourthly, there wasn't the same degree of global fragmentation. Fifthly, the bandwidth wasn't there - you can get a big server with a ton of bandwidth onto the web for peanuts now.
There is already a market for webapps, like Basecamp and Salesforce. Google are doing online maps. Michelin do a route planner. People are already ditching software in favour of a browser-based solution.
I've noticed that a lot of companies building in-house software are not building console apps, but webapps, even for in-house use. I imagine it's partly simplicity (zero-deployment) but my guess is that someone has in mind the possibility of switching as they need to, and as networks get cheaper and cheaper, they'll do it.
IBM are in the software and hardware business, but more importantly, they are in the service business. They make nothing when they stick Windows on 1000 desktops. In fact, it costs them money. They also don't have the sort of control that they had on their mainframe operations.
By using OSS, they save money and can do much more with the software to meet their clients needs.
Oh, I don't dispute that teleportation or time travel is probably unlikely ever to occur, I was just being hypothetical.
And yes, new hassles. The internet - wonderful choice of shopping and data, but loads of virus risks.
In terms of your point - village life in the UK has changed over the past 40-50 years as car ownership has risen. A small market town that I once know as being a cheap place to live is now commutable to an industrial town, and hence house prices have risen.
The whole question of disruptive tech. is interesting. In terms of teleportation, we can also count things like outsourcing, which is not sci-fi. People in India can compete with the people in New York or London because it's all operating at light speed.
Things like AI, time travel (beyond relativity) and teleportation may all never happen. There are things that will. We are looking at the first baby steps of nanotech. What's the state of nanotech going to be in 50 years?
Maybe I didn't explain. I was thinking about how if you could teleport to the centre of London, why do you need to live within 60 miles of it? You could live somewhere really beautiful instead. And then the value of that housing that has a high value for being near London becomes no more valuable than the property in rural Herefordshire.
You only have to look at the way that the internet has caused serious problems to bricks-and-mortar retailers in the UK. The technology allowed things like businesses to operate out of countries with no VAT or lower operating costs in a way that they couldn't before.
I don't agree. I used to use a film SLR with "auto everything". I often used that just because it was quicker. Sometimes, I would override focus, shutter, aperture, whatever to get the shot I wanted.
That film SLR could be used as much by dummies as a dSLR. One difference is, that there's no ongoing cost.
To get good results, you still need to learn good technique. Film won't teach you that. I knew a lot of people with film SLR and who had spent no time on technique. The price didn't act as any incentive to better results.
You can learn the same technique on digital, and get more practise. You also have more chance of a great shot, as you will take more shots (I have more better shots now because I can try taking photos of the same scene in a number of ways without worrying about film costs).
Medium format gives beautiful results. Really wonderful. But for learning? I don't agree.
Now, technique is important - learning how to do it right, but so is practise - seeing and reviewing results. A medium format camera may be cheaper, but how many shots would you take before you start costing more than a $1000 dSLR camera?
ISTR that some SLR film cameras had different metering modes. You could choose to either take metering of the whole frame, or based more on the centre of the frame.
The idea is that if the subject was mostly surrounded by darkness, they wouldn't end up overexposed.
If I moved somewhere now, it would be to an up-and-coming nation like in Eastern Europe.
Why? Because software is now a global playing field. I live in the UK and I'm competing against guys with a much lower earning requirement (in terms of things like cost of beer, food, housing). I couldn't afford to live on $13,000 and nor could almost anyone in the UK. That means that I have to charge more than a Czech.
I spent 3 months this year working from home for a client who I met twice. Mostly, things were done by messenger, phone or email. To live in the Czech Republic, I would therefore have to take 8 flights to do the same job. That's just no sweat.
The thing is, a lot of people with SLRs don't get any better results, because they don't use the features, don't have any training and don't have a great eye for a shot.
An SLR can give better results if you have a good eye and learn how to use focus/depth of field and things like focus lock and metering. That said, even some of the better point-and-click cameras have this now.
I once read Chaucer and that's English. Mostly you can follow it, but you get confused sometimes.
The key is constant re-translation and description for understanding. People either read Chaucer by being taught how to read it, or by getting it translated into modern English.
XML is probably the best format we have. It gives you the data AND what the data is (unlike a fixed format file).
What's often scary is how people have data in truly weird formats of old legacy systems that they had built by someone who either disappeared or they fell out with. So, they end up running an application that they can't use the data from, and which is unsupported. In one case, I advised someone to use all their print/screen output to get the data.
I suppose the death star part of it could count, but to me it's fantasy. It's an adventure story with some mythology and magic. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I don't count Star Wars as sci-fi.
The best sci-fi to me is always about the human impact of technology. Space adventure often gets classed as sci-fi. Star Wars is adventure (you could adapt the same story to be on the high seas in the 15th century). I wouldn't call Alien sci-fi. It's horror.
?
One of my favourite sci-fi movies is The Man in the White Suit because it's all about the impact of technology. Black and White and set in 1950s England.
Slashdot Mirror
Stop pulling stunts like double-dipping DVDs (where a version is released followed a few months later by a special edition).
Stop releasing greatest hits albums with a "previously unreleased" track designed to get fans to shell out £12+ for an album
Stop region coding/RCE on DVDs. Stop trying to block free trade on any imported CDs/DVDs.
Give me an option to go straight to the DVD menu
If my DVD gets scratched, at a sensible cost (like a few £), please replace it.
Quit the lies about copying. In the 1980s it was "piracy funds drug dealers", now it's "piracy funds terrorism". Funny, how now that drug dealers are the #2 bogeyman, that they don't get mentioned. Saying that it puts movie making at risk is more honest and decent.
But, I'm not going to risk £20 on a movie.
The thing is, people don't work on limited budgets. They don't say "I've got £400 to spend on DVDs for a year". It's an elastic figure based on value. If I can have 100 DVDs for £600 or 50 DVDs for £400, I'll probably buy the 100. And considering that "per version" a DVD costs little, the industry should consider that.
And don't forget the legislation that falls into the "never going to actually get passed, but embarrasses our opponent".
We have limited power in this world. The odd vote every few years. One area that we can try and improve things is in our spending choices. And I avoid non-FF sites. 2 sites at similar prices and one gives me a "best viewed with IE". I'll buy from the other guy.
In the end, though, you are better doing cost/benefit analysis of the question. The danger of favoring local companies is complacency, that you get a worse service, simply because you chose local.
I have also confused you. It was "broken window fallacy", and leads to things like government job creation programs.
Since when?
It doesn't matter what sort of a "fortress" you create, if the people inside it want to cause some trouble (eg the french resistance blowing up telegraph polls), it's hard to do something about it.
But mostly, leave it to the coffee shops and hotels. They are now plentiful - a small market town near me with a population of about 8,000 has 2 hotspots.
In the end, each should provide value. The argument of "it's only $1800" is unacceptable. That expense should provide at least $1800 of good to society.
That's often an argument from left-wing politicians. Create a project because it will create jobs. Look up "broken window syndrome" sometime.
Have you seen The Man in the White Suit? Old Ealing movie with Alec Guinness. Great stuff, and very much on topic for the sociological/industrial "what if".
The big problem I have with the industry now is how much it is about creating an artist from nothing. It's much more likely to failure than a band building up a reputation from playing clubs, where the growth of audiences can be an indicator that they are on to something.
Bands (and the music) used to act as their own marketing. Bands like Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet built their initial success on playing gigs and word of mouth.
I'd like to venture a guess. Actually, I think it's more of an educated observation of factors.
The "next market" is web based solutions. Sure, we'll still be using a word processor and spreadsheet on the PC/Mac, but what about things like project planning or company accounts?
Before anyone said "been there done that, and Ellison's thin client didn't sell", let's bear a few things in mind. This is not 1998. Firstly, the people on the web were still mostly geeks who wanted control on their machines. Secondly, viruses were not much of a problem then. Thirdly, being geeks, they could administer apps. Fourthly, there wasn't the same degree of global fragmentation. Fifthly, the bandwidth wasn't there - you can get a big server with a ton of bandwidth onto the web for peanuts now.
There is already a market for webapps, like Basecamp and Salesforce. Google are doing online maps. Michelin do a route planner. People are already ditching software in favour of a browser-based solution.
I've noticed that a lot of companies building in-house software are not building console apps, but webapps, even for in-house use. I imagine it's partly simplicity (zero-deployment) but my guess is that someone has in mind the possibility of switching as they need to, and as networks get cheaper and cheaper, they'll do it.
IBM are in the software and hardware business, but more importantly, they are in the service business. They make nothing when they stick Windows on 1000 desktops. In fact, it costs them money. They also don't have the sort of control that they had on their mainframe operations.
By using OSS, they save money and can do much more with the software to meet their clients needs.
And yes, new hassles. The internet - wonderful choice of shopping and data, but loads of virus risks.
In terms of your point - village life in the UK has changed over the past 40-50 years as car ownership has risen. A small market town that I once know as being a cheap place to live is now commutable to an industrial town, and hence house prices have risen.
The whole question of disruptive tech. is interesting. In terms of teleportation, we can also count things like outsourcing, which is not sci-fi. People in India can compete with the people in New York or London because it's all operating at light speed.
Things like AI, time travel (beyond relativity) and teleportation may all never happen. There are things that will. We are looking at the first baby steps of nanotech. What's the state of nanotech going to be in 50 years?
You only have to look at the way that the internet has caused serious problems to bricks-and-mortar retailers in the UK. The technology allowed things like businesses to operate out of countries with no VAT or lower operating costs in a way that they couldn't before.
... that Charlie will surf, and with Internet Explorer?
That film SLR could be used as much by dummies as a dSLR. One difference is, that there's no ongoing cost.
To get good results, you still need to learn good technique. Film won't teach you that. I knew a lot of people with film SLR and who had spent no time on technique. The price didn't act as any incentive to better results.
You can learn the same technique on digital, and get more practise. You also have more chance of a great shot, as you will take more shots (I have more better shots now because I can try taking photos of the same scene in a number of ways without worrying about film costs).
Medium format gives beautiful results. Really wonderful. But for learning? I don't agree.
Now, technique is important - learning how to do it right, but so is practise - seeing and reviewing results. A medium format camera may be cheaper, but how many shots would you take before you start costing more than a $1000 dSLR camera?
The idea is that if the subject was mostly surrounded by darkness, they wouldn't end up overexposed.
Prepare for more web-based services operating out of places like India being consumed in the EU.
Why? Because software is now a global playing field. I live in the UK and I'm competing against guys with a much lower earning requirement (in terms of things like cost of beer, food, housing). I couldn't afford to live on $13,000 and nor could almost anyone in the UK. That means that I have to charge more than a Czech.
I spent 3 months this year working from home for a client who I met twice. Mostly, things were done by messenger, phone or email. To live in the Czech Republic, I would therefore have to take 8 flights to do the same job. That's just no sweat.
An SLR can give better results if you have a good eye and learn how to use focus/depth of field and things like focus lock and metering. That said, even some of the better point-and-click cameras have this now.
I once read Chaucer and that's English. Mostly you can follow it, but you get confused sometimes.
The key is constant re-translation and description for understanding. People either read Chaucer by being taught how to read it, or by getting it translated into modern English.
XML is probably the best format we have. It gives you the data AND what the data is (unlike a fixed format file).
What's often scary is how people have data in truly weird formats of old legacy systems that they had built by someone who either disappeared or they fell out with. So, they end up running an application that they can't use the data from, and which is unsupported. In one case, I advised someone to use all their print/screen output to get the data.
I suppose the death star part of it could count, but to me it's fantasy. It's an adventure story with some mythology and magic. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I don't count Star Wars as sci-fi.
? One of my favourite sci-fi movies is The Man in the White Suit because it's all about the impact of technology. Black and White and set in 1950s England.