The big point this report is totally missing is that the record companies whole cake is shrinking faster than the extra part of the slice they're gaining from DRM. More and more musicians are realising they can now idependently sell their own music directly over the internet instead of going to a record comapny.
Record companies contracts are so agressive that signed musicians earn very little from even millions of sales via the conventional channels. The record companies have traditionally been able to get away with this because of their monopoly on the marketplace, however the internet has thankfully broken their monpopoly in that a few sales on the internet now earn musicans more money than a million sales through a record contract. Furthermore musicians also get to keep their rights to their own music which are usually also demanded by the record company.
Ironically as a short-sighted response to this the record companies are making cotracts even more restrictive and making their products less desireable by adding DRM. For some reason they think us consumers are too stupid to spot or be concerned about the DRM. Just like every other accounting-driven business, record companies have a large blind-spot with respect to lost sales thorugh bad treatment of customers as there's no way to calculate the exact figure so they ignore it. This also explains why most companies feel its ok to keep you waiting in phone queues for 20 minutes over the cost of one more minumum wage phone clerk.
Ultimately record companies will just have to accept that they've lost their monopoly on the marketplace and will be obliged to either start making products that people actually want, and treat musicians like equal partners, or fade away into obscurity. However until then, they are kicking and screaming like the fat cat spoilt brats they are. But rest assured the change is being forced on them wheter they like it or not, so they can't keep it up forever.
Why they don't just restructure sales staff's pay to be mostly commission-only. That way they don't cost anything if they don't sell anything, and anybody earning more money is actually worth it.
like this one that presumes everyone already knows what its about just because its apparently a microsoft product? Its just like presuming that all computer software runs under MS windows. I have no clue what an elite is even after reading the post.
Last weekend I finally decided to see for myself what 2nd Life is all about. So after downloading the 2nd Life client, ran through the vast tutorials before finally getting to the public area. I spent about 10 minutes flying around before I realised there's nothing going on. Many people seem to have wasted large amounts of time creating some complex 3D models of houses and miscellaneous other junk, but for what? Maybe its just me but I don't get it. There doesn't seem to be any point, objective or benefit of err.. playing?.. 2nd life. I mean really can anyone who regularly uses 2nd life tell me what keeps bringing you back, what you spend most of your time doing, and why?
Oh gee I don't know, perhaps: Users run as superuser by default Any app can overwrite anything in the registry Having a registry in the first place Installing applications in windows permits and almost requires them to add/modify files (including the registry) in the operating system subdirectories, thus apps become extensions of the OS itself. Ie6 Active X need I go on...?
>> You know, being a manager isn't just about firing people and screwing them on raises. Of course its not. Why do you presume thats what I believe or do?
>> Why don't you just talk to your employees and try to figure out why they're working so hard? And why are you again making presumptions that I don't communicate?
>> Or are you trying to make a workplace that's adversarial Keeping brown-nosers around and rewarding people based on appearances (like hours worked rather than actual deliverables) destroys a team faster.
>> The number #1 job of a manager is to stay out of the way of their happiest, hardest working, highest productivity employees.
Not at all. Your job is to faciliatate, assist, and remove obstacles for those people.
And unlike most managers, I for one realise that hours sat at the desk is not an indication of productivity or who your best team players are. I also like to get brown-nosers out of my group (meaning those that habitually work long hours and/or wear suits/ties) so the others who are truly productive within their 40 hours don't feel threatened or think that I'm stupid enough to judge by superficial appearances only.
>> I've had employees that liked working a lot and great, I'd buy them dinner Define "a lot". if you mean long hours, then you are incorrectly presuming long hours == productivity. You should buy them dinner for their acheivements, not the hours spent in the office. And also don't forget what appears to be their achievements are often made on the shoulders of others. Find and reward them too.
>> As much as we love Star Wars for what it is, it nearly killed Hollywood's willingness to fund science-fiction movies that actually said something about the human condition.'"
Oh come on. The Star Wars movies and franchising has made more money than just about any other product. I'm sure Hollywood would LOVE the opportunity to again pay a measly 4 million for another Star Wars-like boom.
The sutff Hollwood produces is entirely formulaic, unoriginal, predictable, moralistic and downright dull in comparison to most independent movie makers, so please dont try to suggest their motivation is anything other than blatant captialisation of their stranglehold on the mass marketplace rather than any real concern about furthering the arts.
>> or if it became the dominant OS in use at a valuable target (US government computers).
Wow. How closed-minded. You need to look around you.
Linux IS ALREADY mainstream. It has become the dominant OS in many 'valuable targets' both inside and outside the US. Yes there really is a whole world outside the US and guess what we even have electricity now. Most European governemts are already mandated to running open source over proprietary OS's for several years now so are not even allowed to run Windows.
>> As well, Linux is no more secure than its administrators are competent. This is true, but also equally true for Windows so its irrelevant. The difference is that Linux does not have fundamentally flawed security because of the limited design decisions that went into the fundamental architecture of Windows. This means its easier for Linux admins to get it right. A Linux install by default is pretty secure. With Windows you have to find and enable hard-to-find stuff to make it that way.
>> There is not a lot of Linux expertise out there right now. You're kidding right? Apart from the fact that Unix existed well before Windows, there is tons of experienced Linux-specific people and agencies around.
Stupid Americans with your self-inflicted workaholicism. Don't blame google when its all in your own mind.
People should feel they can legitimately enjoy the perks then go home after doing an 8 hour day.
Whatever Google's real motivation is for offering free meals and transport, its pretty stupid to feel obliged to put in more hours because of them, especially if no-one has explicitly stated that they are provided in order to commit you to work more hours. And if they ever do say that, then drive yourself and take sandwiches in.
Apart from anything else, the transport has wi-fi and if you're not driving yourself you can work on the bus. this is all extra time for Google worth more than the cost of the transport anyway. The value of the free food only amounts to maybe 15 minutes of pay at most, but you save more than that time by not going out to get food. So why should people still feel obliged to work extra time measured in hours?
My guess is Google's real motivation for offering those things is becase it differentiates the comapny and attracts hard-to-find developers to apply to work there in the first place. It has nothing to do with hours/week.
As a manager, if members of my team work continually work more than 40 hours/week when its not necessary for their workload, it gives me an indication that they're either not able to keep up or they're brown-nosers, either of which gives me reason and inclination to fire them.
>> First of all he probably didn't bother installing a display driver(cause he sounds like that kind of person)
Jeez you are so wrong and also uneceessarily passimistic. I'm a gaming nut, a perofiessional Software Developer, and all areound tech geek. I built my own PC. Dont you think, after spending over $1600 just on a couple of watercooled 8800GTX GPU's that I'd at least know enough to download the latest drivers from nVidia?
>> because my games play excellent on Vista usually with the same or up to 10% better frame rate than xp. Well your findings are completely contrary to what everyone else on the internet is saying, and also what all respected tech review websites like Tom's Hardware and Anandtech are reporting (which is the same as I'm finding... a 20%+ performance hit for running vista).
>> Also Vista takes just under 8GB for a full install of the Ultimate version which contains all of the features from all the other versions combined. Not true. I installed the full ultimate version and the windows directory alone is over 11GB.
The author rants on like Vista is wonderful but it must be terribly badly structured internally, as its performance is terrible compared to XP and its a terrible resource hog too.
After running my own tests, I found most 3D-accelerated games run around 20-30% slower under Vista than XP. XP takes about 2GB of hard drive space, Vista takes over 12GB. I have 2GB of ram, but Vista uses about half of it without any apps running at all!!.
Furthermore everytime you do almost anything in Vista it keeps popping up this REALLY annoying dialog box asking for your permission to do what you just asked. That get old really fast.
After trying it, I decided not to even bother with Vista in the end, as for all that pain it really has no benefits over XP, and a lot of disadvantages, such as heavy DRM.
I now very happily use Linux for everything except gaming, which is the only valid reason I still have dual-boot (XP not Vista).
Mixing up running costs with green-ness is such an obvious misdirection that its making me think this report must have been funded by the oil industry.
So what if a Hummer costs less per mile to run than a Prius that has nothing to do with the environment.
Lets now consider the extra damage to the environment through emissions by selfish dumbasses who feel they need a stupidly innefieicent military vehicle just to go to the mall. Thats the real issue.
Plea bargain down to misdemeanours, sentence waived due to illness. Gee I bet she's quaking in her boots. I wonder if the judge is now an HP shareholder. I bet she'll even pick up a pay-rise this year from HP.
Its clear from the article that Microsoft's approach to opensource is a double-standard of 'encouraging' other companies with windows-based products to put their source code on Microsoft's website.
Its also clear Microsoft aren't ever going to put their own products source code there.
The more they try to become different, the more they stay the same.
There have already been several cases that have set or reinforced the legal precedent that people/companies running forum-style websites are not responsible for the content posted there by the public.
Slashdot Mirror
The big point this report is totally missing is that the record companies whole cake is shrinking faster than the extra part of the slice they're gaining from DRM. More and more musicians are realising they can now idependently sell their own music directly over the internet instead of going to a record comapny.
Record companies contracts are so agressive that signed musicians earn very little from even millions of sales via the conventional channels. The record companies have traditionally been able to get away with this because of their monopoly on the marketplace, however the internet has thankfully broken their monpopoly in that a few sales on the internet now earn musicans more money than a million sales through a record contract. Furthermore musicians also get to keep their rights to their own music which are usually also demanded by the record company.
Ironically as a short-sighted response to this the record companies are making cotracts even more restrictive and making their products less desireable by adding DRM. For some reason they think us consumers are too stupid to spot or be concerned about the DRM. Just like every other accounting-driven business, record companies have a large blind-spot with respect to lost sales thorugh bad treatment of customers as there's no way to calculate the exact figure so they ignore it. This also explains why most companies feel its ok to keep you waiting in phone queues for 20 minutes over the cost of one more minumum wage phone clerk.
Ultimately record companies will just have to accept that they've lost their monopoly on the marketplace and will be obliged to either start making products that people actually want, and treat musicians like equal partners, or fade away into obscurity. However until then, they are kicking and screaming like the fat cat spoilt brats they are. But rest assured the change is being forced on them wheter they like it or not, so they can't keep it up forever.
Why they don't just restructure sales staff's pay to be mostly commission-only. That way they don't cost anything if they don't sell anything, and anybody earning more money is actually worth it.
like this one that presumes everyone already knows what its about just because its apparently a microsoft product?
Its just like presuming that all computer software runs under MS windows.
I have no clue what an elite is even after reading the post.
Why did my post get modded as flamebait?
Is the fact that I'm genuinely appalled so contentious and I just shut up and be a good drone?
Is there no limit to the abominations that some so-called scientists will sink to? This is awful.
I mean, could you put regular coke in and get diet(low-sugar) coke out?
Last weekend I finally decided to see for myself what 2nd Life is all about. So after downloading the 2nd Life client, ran through the vast tutorials before finally getting to the public area.
I spent about 10 minutes flying around before I realised there's nothing going on. Many people seem to have wasted large amounts of time creating some complex 3D models of houses and miscellaneous other junk, but for what? Maybe its just me but I don't get it. There doesn't seem to be any point, objective or benefit of err.. playing?.. 2nd life.
I mean really can anyone who regularly uses 2nd life tell me what keeps bringing you back, what you spend most of your time doing, and why?
Oh gee I don't know, perhaps:
Users run as superuser by default
Any app can overwrite anything in the registry
Having a registry in the first place
Installing applications in windows permits and almost requires them to add/modify files (including the registry) in the operating system subdirectories, thus apps become extensions of the OS itself.
Ie6
Active X
need I go on...?
Not on the first offence, they'd get a warning first :-)
Do you realise Windows isn't the only (x86) OS in the world? Actually there are far better ones out there....
>> You know, being a manager isn't just about firing people and screwing them on raises.
Of course its not. Why do you presume thats what I believe or do?
>> Why don't you just talk to your employees and try to figure out why they're working so hard?
And why are you again making presumptions that I don't communicate?
>> Or are you trying to make a workplace that's adversarial
Keeping brown-nosers around and rewarding people based on appearances (like hours worked rather than actual deliverables) destroys a team faster.
>> The number #1 job of a manager is to stay out of the way of their happiest, hardest working, highest productivity employees.
Not at all. Your job is to faciliatate, assist, and remove obstacles for those people.
And unlike most managers, I for one realise that hours sat at the desk is not an indication of productivity or who your best team players are. I also like to get brown-nosers out of my group (meaning those that habitually work long hours and/or wear suits/ties) so the others who are truly productive within their 40 hours don't feel threatened or think that I'm stupid enough to judge by superficial appearances only.
>> I've had employees that liked working a lot and great, I'd buy them dinner
Define "a lot". if you mean long hours, then you are incorrectly presuming long hours == productivity. You should buy them dinner for their acheivements, not the hours spent in the office. And also don't forget what appears to be their achievements are often made on the shoulders of others. Find and reward them too.
>> As much as we love Star Wars for what it is, it nearly killed Hollywood's willingness to fund science-fiction movies that actually said something about the human condition.'"
Oh come on. The Star Wars movies and franchising has made more money than just about any other product. I'm sure Hollywood would LOVE the opportunity to again pay a measly 4 million for another Star Wars-like boom.
The sutff Hollwood produces is entirely formulaic, unoriginal, predictable, moralistic and downright dull in comparison to most independent movie makers, so please dont try to suggest their motivation is anything other than blatant captialisation of their stranglehold on the mass marketplace rather than any real concern about furthering the arts.
>> or if it became the dominant OS in use at a valuable target (US government computers).
Wow. How closed-minded. You need to look around you.
Linux IS ALREADY mainstream. It has become the dominant OS in many 'valuable targets' both inside and outside the US. Yes there really is a whole world outside the US and guess what we even have electricity now.
Most European governemts are already mandated to running open source over proprietary OS's for several years now so are not even allowed to run Windows.
>> As well, Linux is no more secure than its administrators are competent.
This is true, but also equally true for Windows so its irrelevant. The difference is that Linux does not have fundamentally flawed security because of the limited design decisions that went into the fundamental architecture of Windows. This means its easier for Linux admins to get it right. A Linux install by default is pretty secure. With Windows you have to find and enable hard-to-find stuff to make it that way.
>> There is not a lot of Linux expertise out there right now.
You're kidding right? Apart from the fact that Unix existed well before Windows, there is tons of experienced Linux-specific people and agencies around.
Stupid Americans with your self-inflicted workaholicism. Don't blame google when its all in your own mind.
People should feel they can legitimately enjoy the perks then go home after doing an 8 hour day.
Whatever Google's real motivation is for offering free meals and transport, its pretty stupid to feel obliged to put in more hours because of them, especially if no-one has explicitly stated that they are provided in order to commit you to work more hours.
And if they ever do say that, then drive yourself and take sandwiches in.
Apart from anything else, the transport has wi-fi and if you're not driving yourself you can work on the bus. this is all extra time for Google worth more than the cost of the transport anyway. The value of the free food only amounts to maybe 15 minutes of pay at most, but you save more than that time by not going out to get food. So why should people still feel obliged to work extra time measured in hours?
My guess is Google's real motivation for offering those things is becase it differentiates the comapny and attracts hard-to-find developers to apply to work there in the first place. It has nothing to do with hours/week.
As a manager, if members of my team work continually work more than 40 hours/week when its not necessary for their workload, it gives me an indication that they're either not able to keep up or they're brown-nosers, either of which gives me reason and inclination to fire them.
this incorrect but nevertheless pervasive presumption that the only PC os in the world is a Microsoft product.
Why don't they just switch to Linux? end of security problem.
Q: What exactly does the speed and number of patches that Microsoft issue have to do with determining the actual security of a system?
A: Nothing.
I'd be more impressed with any sort of figure based of the number of actual detected backdoors and intrusions.
I wonder how credible the RIAA think "motions for a protective order seeking confidentiality" are if all the people they wrongfully charge filed them.
>> First of all he probably didn't bother installing a display driver(cause he sounds like that kind of person)
Jeez you are so wrong and also uneceessarily passimistic.
I'm a gaming nut, a perofiessional Software Developer, and all areound tech geek.
I built my own PC. Dont you think, after spending over $1600 just on a couple of watercooled 8800GTX GPU's that I'd at least know enough to download the latest drivers from nVidia?
>> because my games play excellent on Vista usually with the same or up to 10% better frame rate than xp.
Well your findings are completely contrary to what everyone else on the internet is saying, and also what all respected tech review websites like Tom's Hardware and Anandtech are reporting (which is the same as I'm finding... a 20%+ performance hit for running vista).
>> Also Vista takes just under 8GB for a full install of the Ultimate version which contains all of the features from all the other versions combined.
Not true. I installed the full ultimate version and the windows directory alone is over 11GB.
The author rants on like Vista is wonderful but it must be terribly badly structured internally, as
its performance is terrible compared to XP and its a terrible resource hog too.
After running my own tests, I found most 3D-accelerated games run around 20-30% slower under Vista than XP. XP takes about 2GB of hard drive space, Vista takes over 12GB. I have 2GB of ram, but Vista uses about half of it without any apps running at all!!.
Furthermore everytime you do almost anything in Vista it keeps popping up this REALLY annoying dialog box asking for your permission to do what you just asked. That get old really fast.
After trying it, I decided not to even bother with Vista in the end, as for all that pain it really has no benefits over XP, and a lot of disadvantages, such as heavy DRM.
I now very happily use Linux for everything except gaming, which is the only valid reason I still have dual-boot (XP not Vista).
Mixing up running costs with green-ness is such an obvious misdirection that its making me think this report must have been funded by the oil industry.
So what if a Hummer costs less per mile to run than a Prius that has nothing to do with the environment.
Lets now consider the extra damage to the environment through emissions by selfish dumbasses who feel they need a stupidly innefieicent military vehicle just to go to the mall. Thats the real issue.
Why don't they just not save search data in the first place?
Plea bargain down to misdemeanours, sentence waived due to illness.
Gee I bet she's quaking in her boots.
I wonder if the judge is now an HP shareholder.
I bet she'll even pick up a pay-rise this year from HP.
Its clear from the article that Microsoft's approach to opensource is a double-standard of 'encouraging' other companies with windows-based products to put their source code on Microsoft's website.
Its also clear Microsoft aren't ever going to put their own products source code there.
The more they try to become different, the more they stay the same.
There have already been several cases that have set or reinforced the legal precedent that people/companies running forum-style websites are not responsible for the content posted there by the public.