You're saying that getting a 75+% profit margin in an industry where many companies rely on 5% or less profit margins isn't a monopoly?
That is irrelevant and doesn't mean anything. For instance, MS may be more efficient than its competitors like Apple, Sun, IBM, Red Hat, etc. Or MS may be innovating more (and hence producing a better product) so they may be making more money.
Actually, most of what hte original poster referred to are due to monopolistic practices. I will guarantee you that if a movie, for example, can be released by many companies, you wouldn't get the region encoding thing (which does very little from a fan point of view). Region encoding (in DVDs) is simply a marketing thing to control markets.
Price discrimination is, for example, when a movie theater charges different prices for different ages. This, to me, is different from the above case...
Regardless of what capitalists dream up, economic solutions to social problems just don't work. In this case, a pirate will ALWAYS* beat the original producer. The original company isn't just paying for the cost of reproducing CDs! The original companies pay for things like game development, artists, advertising and marketing, selling, etc. How will they compete with pirates even if they lower the price?
* Actually there are some exceptions but these don't generally apply to the vast majority of products and certainly not games. For instance, one of the ways the original manufacturer can beat pirates (when it comes to economics) is via economies of scale. Whoever that sells a lot will have lower costs. However, there is nothing stopping a pirate from having the same--or even greater--economies of scale. Right now, this hasn't happened in many countries because piracy is illegal.
LOTR is a bad example because they announced IN ADVANCE that they were releasing multiple versions. I imagine the casual movie fans probably never got the message.... Anyway, as the AC points out, you choose to buy it. If anything, they should release 10 versions and milk all the money out of you;)
This is the first time I have seen CAPITALISTS (90% of all economists are capitalists) try to JUSTIFY piracy. Interesting!
Like all things capitalists do (which can be summed up as trying to squeeze the 'free market' into everything), this one is full of holes and assumptions that aren't valid (as a side note, if the assumptions used by capitalists were correct, capitalism might actually work).
Let's go over the basics that flew over the head of these capitalists. What if people don't want to pay ANYTHING? I don't see the downloaders sending cheques to the artists. Do you? Art is so subjective that could it just be that price mechanisms cannot be used to indicate value? The author speculates that variable pricing (or in theory, free floating price I guess) can be used by consumers to gauge the value of music. Does anyone think that is true?
This is going to be VERY LONG. I don't know if you have time to read it...
I'm on the far-left (I'm something like 60% socialist and 30% anarchist) and most of what I'm about to say is going to sound crazy if you are anywhere on the right. Take it for what it is worth:)
I think the fact that you are located in a small country (Netherlands...BTW, what's the difference between Netherlands and Holland? Same thing?) will have influenced your view. I'll mention why some of the things you are saying are very hard to implement for large countries. BTW, I live in Canada which is also small but is close to USA.
About capitalism: I think the average citizen can only be sufficently protected in a properly functioning democracy.
I support democracy but even that is severely flawed. We are nowhere close to democracy so there is little point wasting time on a critique of democracy. However, from an idealist point of view (yes I am one:) ), democracy has some major flaws. In particular, majorities can oppress minorities under a democracy. When you are living in a small country, with possibly few ethnic groups, the problems aren't that serious. But it is problematic for large countries with tens of millions lined up on opposite sides.
It is my opinion that that democracy is the cause of many civil wars. You have probably never heard anyone say that--yes I admit that it is a crazy position. Look at the world though. There are many countries where the problem is rooted in the fact that the majority harms the minorities. A lot of the civil wars start when some minority group is oppressed and has no other choice since the political system does not cater to their views.
I think the far-future solution is anarchism. I'm not going to go into that since it is not relevant now.
Here the legislative force only has to answer to the representation of the people, and those in turn to the people themselves.
The problem is that people (at least most of them) can be manipulated. What needs to happen (on top of changes to the political system, or to prevent corruption of the politicians) is for people to be more aware. Right now, the vast majority of people in my country (or for that matter any other country) don't really know what is going on. This is why people actually REWARD politicians who LIE! Why do people elect LIARS?
I think goverment should have absolutely NO TIES to anything but the voters. No campain sponsoring, no investment in/owner of any business, not a shareholder.
I know there is this gray area where a private person with an agenda and a lot of money can do a "personal gift" to a politician, that would still further that personal agenda. I haven't thought that thru yet.
I don't think this is as big of a problem as it seems. All you need to do is to ban donations and put limits on "personal gifts". And you make everything transparent (eg. anyone who runs for office needs to disclose their receipts, expenses, etc).
There will always be richer and poorer people, but the rules of the democracy should be constructed in such a way as to make it as hard as possible for a rich person to buy influence.
This can never happen under capitalism. Capitalism is an ELITIST system (although capitalists will deny this). The reason wealth is the most valuable thing under capitalism is precisely because you can translate money into power. If all you could do with money is to buy stuff, it's value will plummet.
A rich person under capitalism will necessarily be more powerful and consequently, influential. For example, a rich person can buy more advertising (to influence others); a rich person can hire more lawyers/better lawyers to increase the probability of winning a court case; etc.
I like nation wide tallying of votes, not on a per state basis.
This kind of hook, buy, switch, replace, and repeat should eventually be legislated.
I'm not a capitalist and hence am in favour of legislating a lot of things. But what you are saying makes no sense whatsoever. What's the problem? If people keep buying something over and over and over again, it's THEIR problem. No one is forcing them to buy it again. This isn't important like water, food, energy, etc! Let's keep government control to cases of importance or when powerful entities can harm individuals (eg. large corporations, criminal syndicates, wealthy capitalists, etc)...
Sound is NOT half the movie. For you it may be but that's not the case with most people. Most people have no idea what's the difference between DTS and Dolby. I mean, most people still don't know the difference between pan&scan (fullscreen) and widescreen (do you know how many people pick the fullscreen version because it "fills" the screen?).
Most people don't care about DTS unless they are audiophiles or have very good sound systems. Needless to say, this doesn't apply to most.
On top of that, most people still value 'extras' more than the sound (including me). In some cases, you can't fit DTS+movie+extras onto one disk. Movies that are 3 hours will have problems for sure and probably those that are 2:45 or so (not sure exactly). The ideal situation is to have multiple disks (one for movie+sound, another for extras or something). But this increases costs and studios probably don't like doing that.
LOTR is the worst movie example to pick. The studios told WELL IN ADVANCE that there would be multiple versions. Those that were fooled, I guess, weren't following LOTR or the movie release.
It's too bad that other movies aren't like that. It would do hardcore movie fans a service if studios announced the versions ahead of time. I realize that greater than expected demand will cause the studios to release a new version but that only applies to a tiny fraction of films...
If Netflix could improve their distribution system in such a way that you could get your movies faster...Blockbuster is toast.
It wouldn't surprise me if Blockbuster attempts a takeover of Netflix. The Netflix business model is probably attractive in the long term so buying it out will help Blockbuster. The only thing is that it won't happen any time soon because Netflix and Blockbuster are competitors...
The problem is not with the studio but with your purchasing habit. YOU are the one purchasing. You can simply pick one version and just ignore all future releases...
They also listen to their computer guy, and if s/he tells them to use Google, they'll bookmark it and use it no matter what Microsoft has.
Yeah...but how many IT people are going to spend their time pushing Google (or any other website)? Unless there is some serious problem (virus, security breaches, unsuitable content, or the like), I can't see how IT people can go around telling users to switch. I mean, you can do it but what's the incentive? And how do you justify it to management? (I'm assuming that the MS search engine is reasonably good and somewhat equal).
Result: profit! shortly followed by a small stock-exchange explosion, a lot of sad investors, and a bunch of less lucky employees out of a job.
Isn't that what capitalism is all about? Except... capitalists don't talk about the stock exploding (I think you mean meltdown:) ), or investors being sad, or employess being out of jobs.
After all, markets are the answer to everything. If the stock crashes, it is because it isn't worth what it was; if investors lose money, they deserve to--they took a known risk; if employees lose jobs, they derserve to since they are clearly not hardworking and not needed...
This, of course, is the typical dot.com model of getting your start. The people who lead the IPO almost always fail to plan for market realities.
I disagree with your view. Most of the dot-com (or for that matter other companies) are administered by businesspeople. There were VERY FEW dot-coms that were driven by technology or technology-centric people. Nearly every single dot-com company (with a few exceptions) were controlled by venture capitalists and other Wall Street experts. It didn't start out that way but they all ended up that way (because you need financing to grow).
Your claim that technology-centric people are the cause of the dot-com collapse is so bogus that I wonder if you even knew what was going on. I mean, how many CEOs or board members of these dot-coms were engineers? Very few.
Coming back to Google... I don't really know much about it. However I will say this. I think Google's biggest threat is not its culture or management style but is Microsoft and other large companies. Google's business model seems solid to me (at least based on rumours and speculations I have read). They seem to have very high revenue that can only grow; they are supposedly very profitable (haven't lost money since the early days); etc. Of course, this is all based on speculation since Google is a private company and doens't disclose anything.
MS, on the other hand, is a huge threat. This isn't because MS can develop better technology (unlikely given Google's strength in engineering). But because MS can simply win by making the MS search page default in all Internet Explorers that are shipped with Windows. The vast majority of consumers just use what is there. Most don't know the difference between search engines and if MS provides one by default with Windows, Google is toast... the path for Google may be similar to Netscape... Similar to how Netscape relied on its browser for its revenues, Google relies on the search engine. In contrast, Microsoft does not really need to generate revenues from these ventures in the short term.
Maybe some execs also made bad decision, but it think ALL exec's (and other humans) do that from time to time. MS just has the money and the OS monopoly to try again and they every now and then they hit the jackpot.
I kind of agree with your point but you are putting too much emphasis on the OS. Yes it does help, but not as much as you think. I can see it playing a big role in cases where the softwaer is heavily dependent on the OS but many of the cases aren't like that. Some of the smaller companies (like Stacker, etc) were probably hurt disproportionately. BUT what about the market leaders? The fact that WordPerfect, for example, lost is simply pure management. WP totally dominated the market and had proprietary document formats, etc. But they failed... I don't really know how much an OS plays into that.
2) In the USA and some other places the saveguards are not working properly because of faltering democratic principles, giving rise to mingling of interests between politics, legislative arm, executive arm, business and people.
My theory is that capitalism leads to that. Democracy and (pure) capitalism are contradictory. In a pure democracy, the lower classes (who are a majority) will overthrow the rich (who are a minority).
3) Internationalisation, while also having some benefist (if you don't like te DMCA, host somewhere else) it has the drawback of allowing businesses with bad habits to gravitate towards legislative systems that have no/less saveguards.
That's a key element of capitalism. Under (pure) capitalism, you are supposed to have very little government intervention. You don't like the workers having too many rights here? Just move to South America. You don't like the stricter environmental regulations? Just move to China. That's capitalism!
You at least get the reference, most people today seemt to think it's some only team communication tool or something.
heh... man, we are getting old:(:(:( my life is all fucked up too:( Anyway, I think people may recognize King's Quest more than Space Quest. SQ wasn't as popular but everyone who was into computer gaming in the 90's would have heard of KQ... I didn't play all the SQ but I think the best one was the SQ4 (I think that was it)...
I do have a dual boot system, but find myself a lot on windows as my employer is shop mainly targetting ms-windows. Did some small linux projects, but those were embedded systems, so C++Kylix was not usefull (and maybe to immature?)
I think it'll be tough to work in Linux if your work uses Windows (and pretty much 99% of the employers do). If I had a software development job, I'm sure it'll be for Windows and I'll probably be using Windows or something. The only benefit of using Linux is cost right now. In terms of features, Linux isn't there yet. I probably can't live without Visual Studio if I'm doing anything major--and nothing comes close to Visual Studio.
I actually think strategy games (I'm thinking RTS, and not turn-based games like Civilization III which can takes weeks to play) will actually be MORE POPULAR than FPS games for spectators. FPS and other action-oriented games (say something like Diablo II--yes, I'm old school and haven't played recent games in a while) are too repetitious and can end up being boring. Except for a select few who really know the game, most don't really know what is going on in an FPS game. In contrast, strategy games can be understood by the general population.
I think RTS games--and the like--will be popular in the future. Even team-oriented FPS games can be popular.
With games, you wouldn't be watching the player. Instead, you'll be watching the screen. It's like watching chess games, or cards, or snooker or something. You don't watch the guy; only the playing field...
I think that some of the problem you may be experiencing is that there really isn't all that much left to do on a desktop for Joe User. Just because there has already been so much innovation in solving the needs of a user.
I think that's a cop-out. You CAN innovate. A feature I mentioned is the use of 3D graphics. Practically every single machine now uses a 3D card. Why not use a desktop that uses the 3D card capabilities? (Read one of my other responses to an AC for my idea about this).
Out of pure interest, what does it look like KDE is "catching up" to? A machine installed with the default GNU/Linux/KDE setup has a lot more than one installed with the straight Windows/Explorer setup, both in functionality and in looks. I think that M$ are the ones who should be playing catch-up...
KDE is still behind Windows in some things. Cutting & Pasting, for example, isn't that great. The menus aren't as consistent across applications (I"m talking about KDE-only applications of course). The help file or help system REALLY sucks. Windows sucks too but at least you can search and find stuff more easily. Changing things like video resolutions are way behind MS Windows. And so on...
Err.. We are talking about how a Word doc is formatted not what goes into the document.
You must have the wrong message. I was talking about the educational and work environment...
You are right of course. I heard the Democrats saying just that the other day.
Wouldn't surprise me if they did... They are no different than the Republicans they claim to be against...
And if I disagree with you am I a threat to you.
Yes but the difference is that *I* wouldn't come around and FORCE you to do something. *I* wouldn't jail you or harm you or penalize you for your thoughts. That's what seperates me, or for that matter you, from the entities I mentioned...
I could tell you but you wouldn't believe me.
If you think someone won't believe you, you either aren't doing a good job, or isn't telling the truth... In any case, this doesn't matter--it not central to my point...
Tactic #2321: Do not reveal your best weapons to the enemy until the time comes.
Tactic #923874: Make the enemy think you suck.
I'm sure the Martians are using some primitive weapon to shoot them down. This is done in order to confuse the humans and make them think the Martians suck... YOU, my dear human, have fallen for their tricks;)
I don't support capitalism and what you call economics is nothing more than CAPITALIST economics. I do not support using capitalism to curb social problems. You will get spam even if the cost was there. It hasn't stopped paper SPAM (flyers, unsolicited mail, etc) so why would it now? Paper spam is even more expensive.
I also disagree wtih your view of how to achieve utopia. Your say "if everyone were honest, there would be no stealing" but I disagree. The problem is not that people are dishonest but the SYSTEM that rewards dishonesty. People are greedy, for example, because capitalism rewards greed. Similarly, you say there would be no war/oppression/etc if humans treated each other well. The problem, in my view, is that the SYSTEM rewards war and oppression. So many people profit from war that some governments literally make billions off wars. Wars happen because the warmongers and their associates, the war profiteers, are allowed to run things. Oppression happens because the system allows people to oppress others. If people stopped worshipping governments, for example, oppression can be curbed. If soldiers don't run citizens over with their tanks, or if the police doesn't beat up and torture people, or if the courts don't jail people on cooked up charges, you will reduce oppression.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying OOo is total failure. It's very good and is important. My point is that it isn't innovating. Perhaps this is because they have to catch-up first. But if you spend time catching-up, you'll always be catching up. When I say, innovation, I'm not really talking about breaking the UI or making the trasition from MS Office worse. What I'm mainly talking about are "killer" features that are truly different. Things that are extra. Mozilla is better than IE, not because it renders webpages or because can bookmark the links (all browsers do that), but because it has pop-up blocking and tabbrowsing. Those are killer features. What are the killer features in OOo?
In the end, it all comes down to features--especially killer features. People will switch or try something new if it has some cool new feature. If all you are doing is copying others, you'll end up doing that forever (the only advantage in this case for someone would be cost. Cheap replicas cost less--same thing in software). Where are the killer features in KDE? How come the roadmap for KDE looks like it is just catching up ALL the time?
Finally, what takes the cake (and what lets me know that this is genuine trolling on your part) is that you bring up Longhorn. Anyone who would bring up something that isn't even Beta must be the same kind of person in an IT environment that keep buying the same old crap from Microsoft at the cost and frustration of the users they're supposed to serve.
I'm not trolling, although my opinions are "extremist" in some sense. People on slashdot throw around the world troll too much. Trolls are people who post inflammatory stuff just for fun. Trolls just post something and then leave. They do it to get some reaction. The opinion is not what matters; instead, it's the reasoning behind the opinion. Two people can say the same thing, yet one can be a troll while another is not. For example, if I say 'white people are stupid' and leave, I'm a troll (I do this to get a reaction and start a flame war). If I say 'white people are stupid because space is mostly black and hence anything related to white is inferior; and snow is worse than rain and white people look more like snow, therfore they are worse' then I'm probably not a troll. I am just a fascist and a racist. So trolling and having dissenting views is different. (NOTE: I am just using that example. I am not a fascist and do no share any of the views used in the example)
Anyway, as far as Longhorn, I'm unemployed have no influence over computer purchases of any sort. Longhorn might be far off and prone to change but so is everything else. I mean, 90% of what is posted on slashdot is bleeding-edge technology. We are all talking about stuff long before it makes it to market. Just read the front page. I would say at least 3 stories (per day) have nothing to do with the present.
Microsoft *doesn't* make a better product. They never could produce a better spreadsheet than Lotus 1-2-3 in the DOS world, so they leveraged their unique knowledge of the Windows ennvironment to make Excel. Ditto for Word, they couldn't produce a better word processor than Word Perfect in the DOS world and again used their special knowledge of the Windows environment to make Word.
That is completely false. What makes the product is not the OS; what makes it are the FEATURES. MS dominates, not because it is the only product for Windows, but because it has the most features. Yes, at one time, MS products were worse than WordPerfect, Lotus, etc. But that isn't the case now.
Unfortunately, it's not possible to send a properly formatted Word Document of Excel spreadsheet created from Lotus WordPro or Lotus 1-2-3, so I've had to use Microsoft's "flagship" (and supposedly "innovative") software.
Who's fault is that? My theory is that that free markets and capitalism will result in monopolies and oligopolies. Every business out there is trying to monopolize their industry. They even teach this in business schools. Of course,they don't mention the 'monopoly' word (that's too evil for capitalism) but everything they do is anything but. Schools teach you about 'capturing market share', 'erecting barriers to entry', 'eliminating the competition', 'locking in customers', etc. It is disingenious to claim that MS somehow is the only one that does it. IBM does it. Apple does it (it's even worse). Intel does it. And so on.
In any case, WordPerfect and Lotus were the MARKET LEADERS. THEY were the standard. How did they lose it? Did WordPerfect use an open format? Nope. So what's the deal here? I'm not saying this is right but that's how the world works. Am I in favour of open standards? Absolutely! Am I in favour of open source software? Yes. But most businesses don't do that. How much do you want to bet that IBM, Novell, Red Hat, et al will turn linux into a quasi-proprietary OS?
So, Microsoft doesn't innovate, they just put some more spit and polish over what exists already.
If the underlying product is idential to the competition, then a little polish will w
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You're saying that getting a 75+% profit margin in an industry where many companies rely on 5% or less profit margins isn't a monopoly?
That is irrelevant and doesn't mean anything. For instance, MS may be more efficient than its competitors like Apple, Sun, IBM, Red Hat, etc. Or MS may be innovating more (and hence producing a better product) so they may be making more money.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Actually, most of what hte original poster referred to are due to monopolistic practices. I will guarantee you that if a movie, for example, can be released by many companies, you wouldn't get the region encoding thing (which does very little from a fan point of view). Region encoding (in DVDs) is simply a marketing thing to control markets.
Price discrimination is, for example, when a movie theater charges different prices for different ages. This, to me, is different from the above case...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
So now we're on to economic solutions.
Regardless of what capitalists dream up, economic solutions to social problems just don't work. In this case, a pirate will ALWAYS* beat the original producer. The original company isn't just paying for the cost of reproducing CDs! The original companies pay for things like game development, artists, advertising and marketing, selling, etc. How will they compete with pirates even if they lower the price?
* Actually there are some exceptions but these don't generally apply to the vast majority of products and certainly not games. For instance, one of the ways the original manufacturer can beat pirates (when it comes to economics) is via economies of scale. Whoever that sells a lot will have lower costs. However, there is nothing stopping a pirate from having the same--or even greater--economies of scale. Right now, this hasn't happened in many countries because piracy is illegal.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
LOTR is a bad example because they announced IN ADVANCE that they were releasing multiple versions. I imagine the casual movie fans probably never got the message.... Anyway, as the AC points out, you choose to buy it. If anything, they should release 10 versions and milk all the money out of you ;)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
This is the first time I have seen CAPITALISTS (90% of all economists are capitalists) try to JUSTIFY piracy. Interesting!
Like all things capitalists do (which can be summed up as trying to squeeze the 'free market' into everything), this one is full of holes and assumptions that aren't valid (as a side note, if the assumptions used by capitalists were correct, capitalism might actually work).
Let's go over the basics that flew over the head of these capitalists. What if people don't want to pay ANYTHING? I don't see the downloaders sending cheques to the artists. Do you? Art is so subjective that could it just be that price mechanisms cannot be used to indicate value? The author speculates that variable pricing (or in theory, free floating price I guess) can be used by consumers to gauge the value of music. Does anyone think that is true?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Politics, Capitalism, and Other Thoughts
:)
:) ), democracy has some major flaws. In particular, majorities can oppress minorities under a democracy. When you are living in a small country, with possibly few ethnic groups, the problems aren't that serious. But it is problematic for large countries with tens of millions lined up on opposite sides.
This is going to be VERY LONG. I don't know if you have time to read it...
I'm on the far-left (I'm something like 60% socialist and 30% anarchist) and most of what I'm about to say is going to sound crazy if you are anywhere on the right. Take it for what it is worth
I think the fact that you are located in a small country (Netherlands...BTW, what's the difference between Netherlands and Holland? Same thing?) will have influenced your view. I'll mention why some of the things you are saying are very hard to implement for large countries. BTW, I live in Canada which is also small but is close to USA.
About capitalism: I think the average citizen can only be sufficently protected in a properly functioning democracy.
I support democracy but even that is severely flawed. We are nowhere close to democracy so there is little point wasting time on a critique of democracy. However, from an idealist point of view (yes I am one
It is my opinion that that democracy is the cause of many civil wars. You have probably never heard anyone say that--yes I admit that it is a crazy position. Look at the world though. There are many countries where the problem is rooted in the fact that the majority harms the minorities. A lot of the civil wars start when some minority group is oppressed and has no other choice since the political system does not cater to their views.
I think the far-future solution is anarchism. I'm not going to go into that since it is not relevant now.
Here the legislative force only has to answer to the representation of the people, and those in turn to the people themselves.
The problem is that people (at least most of them) can be manipulated. What needs to happen (on top of changes to the political system, or to prevent corruption of the politicians) is for people to be more aware. Right now, the vast majority of people in my country (or for that matter any other country) don't really know what is going on. This is why people actually REWARD politicians who LIE! Why do people elect LIARS?
I think goverment should have absolutely NO TIES to anything but the voters. No campain sponsoring, no investment in/owner of any business, not a shareholder. I know there is this gray area where a private person with an agenda and a lot of money can do a "personal gift" to a politician, that would still further that personal agenda. I haven't thought that thru yet.
I don't think this is as big of a problem as it seems. All you need to do is to ban donations and put limits on "personal gifts". And you make everything transparent (eg. anyone who runs for office needs to disclose their receipts, expenses, etc).
There will always be richer and poorer people, but the rules of the democracy should be constructed in such a way as to make it as hard as possible for a rich person to buy influence.
This can never happen under capitalism. Capitalism is an ELITIST system (although capitalists will deny this). The reason wealth is the most valuable thing under capitalism is precisely because you can translate money into power. If all you could do with money is to buy stuff, it's value will plummet.
A rich person under capitalism will necessarily be more powerful and consequently, influential. For example, a rich person can buy more advertising (to influence others); a rich person can hire more lawyers/better lawyers to increase the probability of winning a court case; etc.
I like nation wide tallying of votes, not on a per state basis.
I don't r
This kind of hook, buy, switch, replace, and repeat should eventually be legislated.
I'm not a capitalist and hence am in favour of legislating a lot of things. But what you are saying makes no sense whatsoever. What's the problem? If people keep buying something over and over and over again, it's THEIR problem. No one is forcing them to buy it again. This isn't important like water, food, energy, etc! Let's keep government control to cases of importance or when powerful entities can harm individuals (eg. large corporations, criminal syndicates, wealthy capitalists, etc)...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sound is NOT half the movie. For you it may be but that's not the case with most people. Most people have no idea what's the difference between DTS and Dolby. I mean, most people still don't know the difference between pan&scan (fullscreen) and widescreen (do you know how many people pick the fullscreen version because it "fills" the screen?).
Most people don't care about DTS unless they are audiophiles or have very good sound systems. Needless to say, this doesn't apply to most.
On top of that, most people still value 'extras' more than the sound (including me). In some cases, you can't fit DTS+movie+extras onto one disk. Movies that are 3 hours will have problems for sure and probably those that are 2:45 or so (not sure exactly). The ideal situation is to have multiple disks (one for movie+sound, another for extras or something). But this increases costs and studios probably don't like doing that.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
LOTR is the worst movie example to pick. The studios told WELL IN ADVANCE that there would be multiple versions. Those that were fooled, I guess, weren't following LOTR or the movie release.
It's too bad that other movies aren't like that. It would do hardcore movie fans a service if studios announced the versions ahead of time. I realize that greater than expected demand will cause the studios to release a new version but that only applies to a tiny fraction of films...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
If Netflix could improve their distribution system in such a way that you could get your movies faster...Blockbuster is toast.
It wouldn't surprise me if Blockbuster attempts a takeover of Netflix. The Netflix business model is probably attractive in the long term so buying it out will help Blockbuster. The only thing is that it won't happen any time soon because Netflix and Blockbuster are competitors...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
The problem is not with the studio but with your purchasing habit. YOU are the one purchasing. You can simply pick one version and just ignore all future releases...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Stretching the subject a bit, but, I have to say that boobies in 1080i look much more 3D and life-like.
;)
So THAT'S why you spent all that money on an HDTV!
Sivaram Velauthapillai
They also listen to their computer guy, and if s/he tells them to use Google, they'll bookmark it and use it no matter what Microsoft has.
Yeah...but how many IT people are going to spend their time pushing Google (or any other website)? Unless there is some serious problem (virus, security breaches, unsuitable content, or the like), I can't see how IT people can go around telling users to switch. I mean, you can do it but what's the incentive? And how do you justify it to management? (I'm assuming that the MS search engine is reasonably good and somewhat equal).
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Result: profit! shortly followed by a small stock-exchange explosion, a lot of sad investors, and a bunch of less lucky employees out of a job.
:) ), or investors being sad, or employess being out of jobs.
Isn't that what capitalism is all about? Except... capitalists don't talk about the stock exploding (I think you mean meltdown
After all, markets are the answer to everything. If the stock crashes, it is because it isn't worth what it was; if investors lose money, they deserve to--they took a known risk; if employees lose jobs, they derserve to since they are clearly not hardworking and not needed...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
This, of course, is the typical dot.com model of getting your start. The people who lead the IPO almost always fail to plan for market realities.
I disagree with your view. Most of the dot-com (or for that matter other companies) are administered by businesspeople. There were VERY FEW dot-coms that were driven by technology or technology-centric people. Nearly every single dot-com company (with a few exceptions) were controlled by venture capitalists and other Wall Street experts. It didn't start out that way but they all ended up that way (because you need financing to grow).
Your claim that technology-centric people are the cause of the dot-com collapse is so bogus that I wonder if you even knew what was going on. I mean, how many CEOs or board members of these dot-coms were engineers? Very few.
Coming back to Google... I don't really know much about it. However I will say this. I think Google's biggest threat is not its culture or management style but is Microsoft and other large companies. Google's business model seems solid to me (at least based on rumours and speculations I have read). They seem to have very high revenue that can only grow; they are supposedly very profitable (haven't lost money since the early days); etc. Of course, this is all based on speculation since Google is a private company and doens't disclose anything.
MS, on the other hand, is a huge threat. This isn't because MS can develop better technology (unlikely given Google's strength in engineering). But because MS can simply win by making the MS search page default in all Internet Explorers that are shipped with Windows. The vast majority of consumers just use what is there. Most don't know the difference between search engines and if MS provides one by default with Windows, Google is toast... the path for Google may be similar to Netscape... Similar to how Netscape relied on its browser for its revenues, Google relies on the search engine. In contrast, Microsoft does not really need to generate revenues from these ventures in the short term.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
...adhere to a set of rules that seem to have been made up by a bunch of retired economists...
Those people aren't just any person; they are the elites who control capitalism. You are getting closer and closer to the pantheon of capitalism.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Maybe some execs also made bad decision, but it think ALL exec's (and other humans) do that from time to time. MS just has the money and the OS monopoly to try again and they every now and then they hit the jackpot.
:(:(:( my life is all fucked up too :( Anyway, I think people may recognize King's Quest more than Space Quest. SQ wasn't as popular but everyone who was into computer gaming in the 90's would have heard of KQ... I didn't play all the SQ but I think the best one was the SQ4 (I think that was it)...
I kind of agree with your point but you are putting too much emphasis on the OS. Yes it does help, but not as much as you think. I can see it playing a big role in cases where the softwaer is heavily dependent on the OS but many of the cases aren't like that. Some of the smaller companies (like Stacker, etc) were probably hurt disproportionately. BUT what about the market leaders? The fact that WordPerfect, for example, lost is simply pure management. WP totally dominated the market and had proprietary document formats, etc. But they failed... I don't really know how much an OS plays into that.
2) In the USA and some other places the saveguards are not working properly because of faltering democratic principles, giving rise to mingling of interests between politics, legislative arm, executive arm, business and people.
My theory is that capitalism leads to that. Democracy and (pure) capitalism are contradictory. In a pure democracy, the lower classes (who are a majority) will overthrow the rich (who are a minority).
3) Internationalisation, while also having some benefist (if you don't like te DMCA, host somewhere else) it has the drawback of allowing businesses with bad habits to gravitate towards legislative systems that have no/less saveguards.
That's a key element of capitalism. Under (pure) capitalism, you are supposed to have very little government intervention. You don't like the workers having too many rights here? Just move to South America. You don't like the stricter environmental regulations? Just move to China. That's capitalism!
You at least get the reference, most people today seemt to think it's some only team communication tool or something.
heh... man, we are getting old
I do have a dual boot system, but find myself a lot on windows as my employer is shop mainly targetting ms-windows. Did some small linux projects, but those were embedded systems, so C++Kylix was not usefull (and maybe to immature?)
I think it'll be tough to work in Linux if your work uses Windows (and pretty much 99% of the employers do). If I had a software development job, I'm sure it'll be for Windows and I'll probably be using Windows or something. The only benefit of using Linux is cost right now. In terms of features, Linux isn't there yet. I probably can't live without Visual Studio if I'm doing anything major--and nothing comes close to Visual Studio.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Yeah... I agree...
I actually think strategy games (I'm thinking RTS, and not turn-based games like Civilization III which can takes weeks to play) will actually be MORE POPULAR than FPS games for spectators. FPS and other action-oriented games (say something like Diablo II--yes, I'm old school and haven't played recent games in a while) are too repetitious and can end up being boring. Except for a select few who really know the game, most don't really know what is going on in an FPS game. In contrast, strategy games can be understood by the general population.
I think RTS games--and the like--will be popular in the future. Even team-oriented FPS games can be popular.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
With games, you wouldn't be watching the player. Instead, you'll be watching the screen. It's like watching chess games, or cards, or snooker or something. You don't watch the guy; only the playing field...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I think that some of the problem you may be experiencing is that there really isn't all that much left to do on a desktop for Joe User. Just because there has already been so much innovation in solving the needs of a user.
I think that's a cop-out. You CAN innovate. A feature I mentioned is the use of 3D graphics. Practically every single machine now uses a 3D card. Why not use a desktop that uses the 3D card capabilities? (Read one of my other responses to an AC for my idea about this).
Out of pure interest, what does it look like KDE is "catching up" to? A machine installed with the default GNU/Linux/KDE setup has a lot more than one installed with the straight Windows/Explorer setup, both in functionality and in looks. I think that M$ are the ones who should be playing catch-up...
KDE is still behind Windows in some things. Cutting & Pasting, for example, isn't that great. The menus aren't as consistent across applications (I"m talking about KDE-only applications of course). The help file or help system REALLY sucks. Windows sucks too but at least you can search and find stuff more easily. Changing things like video resolutions are way behind MS Windows. And so on...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Err.. We are talking about how a Word doc is formatted not what goes into the document.
You must have the wrong message. I was talking about the educational and work environment...
You are right of course. I heard the Democrats saying just that the other day.
Wouldn't surprise me if they did... They are no different than the Republicans they claim to be against...
And if I disagree with you am I a threat to you.
Yes but the difference is that *I* wouldn't come around and FORCE you to do something. *I* wouldn't jail you or harm you or penalize you for your thoughts. That's what seperates me, or for that matter you, from the entities I mentioned...
I could tell you but you wouldn't believe me.
If you think someone won't believe you, you either aren't doing a good job, or isn't telling the truth... In any case, this doesn't matter--it not central to my point...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Tactic #2321: Do not reveal your best weapons to the enemy until the time comes.
;)
Tactic #923874: Make the enemy think you suck.
I'm sure the Martians are using some primitive weapon to shoot them down. This is done in order to confuse the humans and make them think the Martians suck... YOU, my dear human, have fallen for their tricks
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I don't support capitalism and what you call economics is nothing more than CAPITALIST economics. I do not support using capitalism to curb social problems. You will get spam even if the cost was there. It hasn't stopped paper SPAM (flyers, unsolicited mail, etc) so why would it now? Paper spam is even more expensive.
I also disagree wtih your view of how to achieve utopia. Your say "if everyone were honest, there would be no stealing" but I disagree. The problem is not that people are dishonest but the SYSTEM that rewards dishonesty. People are greedy, for example, because capitalism rewards greed. Similarly, you say there would be no war/oppression/etc if humans treated each other well. The problem, in my view, is that the SYSTEM rewards war and oppression. So many people profit from war that some governments literally make billions off wars. Wars happen because the warmongers and their associates, the war profiteers, are allowed to run things. Oppression happens because the system allows people to oppress others. If people stopped worshipping governments, for example, oppression can be curbed. If soldiers don't run citizens over with their tanks, or if the police doesn't beat up and torture people, or if the courts don't jail people on cooked up charges, you will reduce oppression.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying OOo is total failure. It's very good and is important. My point is that it isn't innovating. Perhaps this is because they have to catch-up first. But if you spend time catching-up, you'll always be catching up. When I say, innovation, I'm not really talking about breaking the UI or making the trasition from MS Office worse. What I'm mainly talking about are "killer" features that are truly different. Things that are extra. Mozilla is better than IE, not because it renders webpages or because can bookmark the links (all browsers do that), but because it has pop-up blocking and tabbrowsing. Those are killer features. What are the killer features in OOo?
In the end, it all comes down to features--especially killer features. People will switch or try something new if it has some cool new feature. If all you are doing is copying others, you'll end up doing that forever (the only advantage in this case for someone would be cost. Cheap replicas cost less--same thing in software). Where are the killer features in KDE? How come the roadmap for KDE looks like it is just catching up ALL the time?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
(NOT QUOTED IN ORDER)
Finally, what takes the cake (and what lets me know that this is genuine trolling on your part) is that you bring up Longhorn. Anyone who would bring up something that isn't even Beta must be the same kind of person in an IT environment that keep buying the same old crap from Microsoft at the cost and frustration of the users they're supposed to serve.
I'm not trolling, although my opinions are "extremist" in some sense. People on slashdot throw around the world troll too much. Trolls are people who post inflammatory stuff just for fun. Trolls just post something and then leave. They do it to get some reaction. The opinion is not what matters; instead, it's the reasoning behind the opinion. Two people can say the same thing, yet one can be a troll while another is not. For example, if I say 'white people are stupid' and leave, I'm a troll (I do this to get a reaction and start a flame war). If I say 'white people are stupid because space is mostly black and hence anything related to white is inferior; and snow is worse than rain and white people look more like snow, therfore they are worse' then I'm probably not a troll. I am just a fascist and a racist. So trolling and having dissenting views is different. (NOTE: I am just using that example. I am not a fascist and do no share any of the views used in the example)
Anyway, as far as Longhorn, I'm unemployed have no influence over computer purchases of any sort. Longhorn might be far off and prone to change but so is everything else. I mean, 90% of what is posted on slashdot is bleeding-edge technology. We are all talking about stuff long before it makes it to market. Just read the front page. I would say at least 3 stories (per day) have nothing to do with the present.
Microsoft *doesn't* make a better product. They never could produce a better spreadsheet than Lotus 1-2-3 in the DOS world, so they leveraged their unique knowledge of the Windows ennvironment to make Excel. Ditto for Word, they couldn't produce a better word processor than Word Perfect in the DOS world and again used their special knowledge of the Windows environment to make Word.
That is completely false. What makes the product is not the OS; what makes it are the FEATURES. MS dominates, not because it is the only product for Windows, but because it has the most features. Yes, at one time, MS products were worse than WordPerfect, Lotus, etc. But that isn't the case now.
Unfortunately, it's not possible to send a properly formatted Word Document of Excel spreadsheet created from Lotus WordPro or Lotus 1-2-3, so I've had to use Microsoft's "flagship" (and supposedly "innovative") software.
Who's fault is that? My theory is that that free markets and capitalism will result in monopolies and oligopolies. Every business out there is trying to monopolize their industry. They even teach this in business schools. Of course,they don't mention the 'monopoly' word (that's too evil for capitalism) but everything they do is anything but. Schools teach you about 'capturing market share', 'erecting barriers to entry', 'eliminating the competition', 'locking in customers', etc. It is disingenious to claim that MS somehow is the only one that does it. IBM does it. Apple does it (it's even worse). Intel does it. And so on.
In any case, WordPerfect and Lotus were the MARKET LEADERS. THEY were the standard. How did they lose it? Did WordPerfect use an open format? Nope. So what's the deal here? I'm not saying this is right but that's how the world works. Am I in favour of open standards? Absolutely! Am I in favour of open source software? Yes. But most businesses don't do that. How much do you want to bet that IBM, Novell, Red Hat, et al will turn linux into a quasi-proprietary OS?
So, Microsoft doesn't innovate, they just put some more spit and polish over what exists already.
If the underlying product is idential to the competition, then a little polish will w