I got one for my niece and nephew, and they love it. Even my parents (approaching their 60's) can understand it better than they could understand a PS2. People in nursing homes are finding they love it. Small children can use it, and it still has appeal for the 10-40 crowd. That's the core of it's sales - it has a far wider range of appeal.
However, it's graphics capabilities are not as advanced, and games for it have trouble comparing to their counterparts on other systems. The controls are an excellent idea, but could be much better designed (for instance, NOW is the time to resurrect the Power Glove). Other consoles can and will follow suit (unless Nintendo is able to file suit - difficult considering previous art).
The Wii is doing well because Nintendo always does well, even when they're not on top. Not only do they do well, but they do well without being the most technically advanced - because they pursue a wider market, rather than competing more heavily in a single one (such as the recent widespread dedication to hard core gamers, which turned out to be a mistake as HCG's were the most vocal, but not the most profitable).
Games are like movies. The slightly improved same-old-same-old will usually make more money than the truly innovative, just as the best movies usually never become blockbusters, and the apparent fact that you can make artistically great music, or you can make wildly popular music, but you can very rarely ever do both.
The Wii was a great concept, and if they don't blow it they could dominate - but it will be difficult to maintain that unless they upgrade their hardware as well.
Did they actually use Visual Studio during their development? IANAL, but I'd get the impression that such a thing would definitively prove direct exposure to prior art previous to their filing the patent in 2000 (since I've been enjoying Intellisense since back in the day in Visual C++ 6.0.
Tried and true standards make the net go round, but the most effective enhancements or changes to standards usually don't come from a committee working out best practices - it comes from individuals making hard choices on what to support. If those changes turn out to be beneficial, then they become adopted as new standards.
Going against standards can cause a bit of chaos as well, which is why it's good to avoid deviation - but sometimes a deviation makes sense, and you do it. Publicly announcing this (non-critical) deviation, and explaining exactly why, is the proper way to go about it.
When it's not abused, I think that's a great way to advertise. But it really depends on the subject matter, and on how much of the content was put there simply TO advertise it.
It's like movies or tv shows. If someone is drinking a Coke, but it's not written into the dialog or shown too prominently, then who cares if they were paid to do so - it didn't detract from the content in any real way. The more prominently they show it, or the more they mention it, the more it distracts from the plot.
On a website, items like that should not activate on mouse-over because it does detract from the content - it's a distraction. Also if they're too highly visible as links. Too subtle, and no one notices, but it doesn't take much to show what's a hotlink. This is useful primarily when discussing a subject that may interest people in the items described (such as if an article on electronics mentions oscilloscopes, and that word links to a site that sells them).
Like movies, it's all a matter of the taste of those making the content. If done right, it puts the brand in your consciousness, or drives an already-interested potential customer towards a specific vendor (the "pure" purpose of advertising). If done badly, it distracts the viewer, or even makes them hostile to the product (something that many advertisers seem to be missing).
Please note: the author of this message received no advertising capital or other gains for anything mentioned above
It would help to use proper citation methods, such as author and source.:)
When websites use simple banners or in-content ads, I never have any real problem with it. The exception to that is when the ad itself is far slower than the website calling it - then it chaps my hide.
However, popups drive me nuts. It's annoying, it's extraordinarily rude to their users, and it only serves to amplify the ruthlessness of advertisers - who are starting to demand popups in order to gain advertising revenue. When site advertisements begin to reach that point, it approaches the level of spam.
Regardless, it's the option of the person creating the website. If they want to block users who block popups, that's their right - though there is always a cost, in this case the loss of a stimulating audience that more often than not is either too young to have money to spend, or tend to have quite a bit of expendable cash (since it's usually the intelligent and resourceful who have both the good jobs and the popup blockers). If the goal of the site is to make money (something only cyberhippies seem to dislike), then by all means protect your profits. But if the population violating those ads is truly statistically insignificant, then why care (unless they're eating significant bandwidth)?
If I were in his position, I'd base my assertion purely on popup blockers hiding themselves - which becomes a bit more of a hostile act, no matter how many people (like me) love it. It's purely a circumvention tool, and not one that falls under fair-use since they haven't paid for squat.
Then again, I'd love to be part of any (non-radical) campaign to apply public pressure to some of the more... exuberant... advertisers - not to end web advertising (I enthusiastically embrace capitalism), but to keep it under some sort of realistic control.
People who invested in this stock dug their own grave.
Considering that their case seemed built on promises of evidence to come (did they EVER produce Document X?), I don't see why any intelligent investor would have gambled on them.
That could have been error on my part. I specifically meant that some of their new work, from what I understand, is not being made part of the openly distributed code - only the parts (still considerable) that were inherited via GPL. If they are distributing the entire source, top to bottom, then I'd be glad to hear that.
My main point was that, IMHO anyway, the concept of trying to use open source software to try to dominate the market isn't completely compatible with what makes it great in the first place. Fiddling with licenses and worrying about legalities takes a considerable chunk out of my long-held reasons for preferring MySQL to Microsoft SQL, for instance. at least as opposed to software like Apache, which (last I saw of it) made absolutely no demands except that I not repackage and resell their product for a direct profit. It's not all that bad yet, but I'm fairly certain that's the direction it's headed in (ie if you can't beat em, join em).
Money is to be made off of OSS, but I don't think it serves society well if that money is made from selling and licensing the OSS itself. That also includes some of the basic services for it. It's the politics that turn me off, and it seems there are a lot more politics now than there were back when I was getting professionally involved with Unix (about 8 years ago - back when it was still competitive with retail, but without the obsession with "winning").
At least the Linux kernel itself is still non-corporate, as corporate sponsorship is not the same as signing licensing deals, laying out increasingly cryptic regulations for use, and shooting for maximum market share. Linux is my preferred server of choice, but I couldn't give a hint of a care how many people run Windows... as long as there is a vibrant Linux community to keep things moving forward. Profiteering and licensing is the greatest threat to OSS, not competing products.
I'll borrow your formatting and respond in kind.:)
The purpose of running a business is to make money.
Businesses that do not intend to generate profit become nonprofit organizations.
Businesses that attempt to capitalize off any aspect of society, in any way, exist to make profit.
Companies that attempt to make money from open source software eventually exist to make money.
The moment a company accepts investments, rather than donations, it's nature changes to a for-profit model.
Companies that attempt to compete with major commercial enterprises WILL become like those commercial enterprises.
Redhat, MySQL, and other companies like them are closing much of their source because open source and significant profit are not particularly mutual, and are only pushed into appearing so by those who want to turn everything into open source.
The blame belongs to those who wish to contort open source software into what it was never meant to be, and into what it's creators never intended for it to be.
If you want to get rich, close your source and do your own work. If you want to contribute to society, open your source and ignore money.
If OSS is written well, it provides more alternatives to - and methods of - performing tasks than retail can ever hope to accomplish. However, if it is placed on a pedestal and designed to "beat" the "evil" proprietary options, it will, and so far inevitably DOES, become much like what it seeks to eliminate.
The end of an open sourced program's freedom begins when it's creators become an ever-expanding company. It shouldn't work like that, people believe it doesn't have to work like that, but somehow it always does.
It's no secret that copyright violation is always going to be a thorn in the side of all forms of media. The earnings losses will always be exaggerated (and based on the false assumption that every download is equivilant to one lost sale), and media execs who are trying to defend their jobs will gladly roll out the piracy card, but it's been eating away at profits for some time.
The difference is the dvd and video game industries are ramping up. They suffer just as heavily, if not worse, from piracy due to much of their target audience having access to digital copies. On the other hand, the vast majority of general music buyers and movie theater audiences still do not have the bandwidth or the meager technical skill to actually obtain music and movies in any quantity. Regardless, while the most heavily pirated (relative to sales) industries are succeeding by a great margin, the older media formats (music cds and theater releases) are failing, no matter what the causes.
It's very simple. The individuals running the music industry are, on the whole, not incredibly competent. They continue raising the price of music in order to fund increasingly expensive and expansive advertising and marketing targetted at teens and young adults (a major slice of the market), but increasingly ignore the rest of the market. One result of this is that "Independant" labels have begun to surge through the market, being smaller and tighter, and far more efficient. Have you noticed how it's only the largest media corporations who seriously complain about piracy, while the smaller operations (who's music is just as heavily pirated, relatively speaking) are less concerned?
There are two reasons for this: One is that the existing "big business" model of music production has reached a plateau and can only maintain itself through the aggressive marketing of short-lived quickly-produced consumer music - music that you'd play at a party, but lose interest in towards your mid 20's (right around the time you actually have money to spend). The natural inclination of the stockholders involved is to require the executives to adapt and continue growth, or replace them with fresh blood. Since the current batch of executives cannot produce any serious growth, only slowly dwindling profit, they are forced to cover themselves by finding a scapegoat - an actual but minor threat that they can blow out of proportion.
The other reason is that there are new ways to distribute music, and that major marketing campaigns are losing their power, relative to more meager methods available to small production houses and individual artists. Good quality studio equipment is now readily available to any individual, as are means of exposure. They can also sell their work via Amazon and a variety of other channels. The only audience they can't reach easily are those who are not very computer literate - and that audience is shrinking at a rate that frankly scares the music executives who rely on them. Again, music industry executives do not want to publicize that, even though it's not a secret anymore. Thus, as before, they need a scapegoat.
Compounding this, in order to compensate for increasing difficulty generating a profit, they continue to raise the price of music. I used to buy cd's regularly, but once the price of a cd came to mach the price of a dvd, the music simply lost out to the movies.
With theatrical movies, it's much simpler. I own a fairly large hi-def tv (1080i 52" rear-projection) with a good surround sound system - and with a little effort I was able to afford that on an average income. I can get almost any movie I want - I just have to wait until it hits dvd. When I go to see a movie at a theater, I'm doing it almost entirely to go out with friends, as the big screen just isn't so impressive anymore. This appears to be common with many people out there. Compounding that is the increasing expense of operating a movie theater, the trend (due to pressure) of creating larger and large
Dick's book did focus somewhat heavily on the religious aspects of existance, or at least looked at it from a religious angle.
The movie didn't bring in any Spielbergisms when it dealt with replicant emotion, though. The few good experiences they knew were few and far between, and to a great extent the movie explored the darker side of humanity. Spielberg's movies, at least his later ones, mostly focused on very basic and clear-cut emotions. The movie targetted ones that are harder to portray - and not particularly pleasant to think about. The idea wasn't that androids had feels too - it was that we created something equal or superior to ourselves, then wondered why it turned against us. In this respect, the movie was closer to Faust or Frankenstein, rather than the original subject matter.
I really didn't consider DADOES to be a particuarly signifcant novel, at least to me. It was a very interesting story, and it dealt with powerful philosphical themes, but I've read far more stimulating work from Dick, let alone other authors. On the other hand, as far as sci-fi goes, Bladerunner was much more direct in it's philosophy. A movie can never compete with a book in terms of sheer content - an author has hours, days, and even weeks to get his point across, where a scriptwriter and director only have an hour and a half, as well as a crew and actors to pay.
I wouldn't literally consider any movie a literary masterpiece because it's a totally different media. However, movies do often have artistic value - at times even more so than most books, if done particularly well. In that respect, I think Bladerunner, once you shave away the flying cars, moody cinematography, and physical combat, had more total value as a story than the book did - if only because the core meaning behind the story provided a better reflection of humanity than the book.
I enjoyed "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" - but the movie is a different story, only based off of Dick's novel.
The emphasis, as I read it, of Dick's novel was that no matter how real something seems, it is never as good as the real thing. No matter how realistically a replicant could look or act, it would never - ever - really be human.
The movie took the opposite stance. We created the replicants as slaves, but we made them too human - quite possibly "More human than human". Replicants were harsh, violent, and angry - which makes sense considering that they had the emotional experience of a 4 year old. They knew fear - not the reflexive mechanical fear of the book's replicants, but wild animal fear of a human who doesn't want to die. In the book, a replicant that knew it was screwed just gave in - in the movie, they did anything... anything they could... to escape and survive another day. I also don't recall replicants really caring for eachother in the book - whereas in the movie is was a primary driving force. The pictures they kept in the book were mostly to keep up appearances, while in the movie it was a sad attempt at building a past.
Also you have to admit - Batty as he was in the book wouldn't have been that memorable a villain. In the movie, he was one of the most memorable fictional villains ever. A ruthless poetic madman who was getting a crash course in emotions and ethics, and who didn't really understand life until the very end.
The book was good, but I'll take the movie any day - not just for cool factor, but because I feel the movie had far greater literary value (watered down as it was to suit the needs of a 90-minute action movie).
Now we know how our grandparents felt when broadcasters switched to a color signal. Their old black-and-white tv's (which couldn't read the color signal at all in many/most cases) suddenly became excessively-large paperweights.
Note that the old "black-and-white" tv is not the same as the current type (which reads a color signal and renders it into greyscale). Those used a much older signal format that did not allow for color info, and while color tv's could read the old signal, older tv's couldn't read the new one.
True. Throughout the 30's, european scientists often had moral issues with the medical research they were performing, but their work expanded the field of medicine greatly. True, many complained that the test subjects were not being given a choice, or that the experiments were a bit cruel and often resulted in maiming or killing the patient. However, science won out over ethics at that time, and it was science and the extent of human knowledge that benefited. Of course, it also left psychological scars on the world that won't go away for a very long time.
I do not have a significant qualm regarding stem cell research. I have limited issues with cloning ONLY for the purpose of producing more research material. I also do not consider an embryo to be on the same moral level as a fetus, or a fetus to be the same thing as a viable baby. But I do think every major advance in science presents us with a new slippery slope, and that concepts of morality change drastically over time, based primarily on the decisions made by previous generations.
You can rest assured that whatever you consider slightly dubious but warranted or necessary today with either be absolutely shunned by your children's children, or embraced in ways that would horrify you.
Without a clear line being drawn, I guarantee you that some parts of the world will do whatever is possible. Once you loosen the boundries in one area (creating biologically human lives, even if of highly dubious status), the rest can quickly fall like dominoes. Then you end up with debate over how far a test subject should be allowed to gestate before it's consumed, or debate over the legal status of a human created by humans specifically for study. Genetic manipulation only makes the lines blur further.
Progress is the core of modern society. But err on the side of caution, because the last century has shown what happens when you let morality take a back seat to that progress.
I dislike Bill's business practices. I get sick of hearing the word "Innovation" used in place of "Incremental Improvement". I think he's sneaky and underhanded.
I also think he might make for a very interesting president, not because of wow-factor, but because he's proven that he was capable of building up a company from nothing to global megacorp, and did it well. Tenacity, imagination, and brute intelligence.
I'm not certain, but if he announced his candidacy, I would very... VERY... seriously consider actively supporting the idea. It's not as if anyone could buy him out at this point - my only concern would be if he could stay ballanced when it came to Microsoft-related issues.
What part of the country are you in? Until the past few weeks, Houston was pretty hot. Not quite July triple-digit heat, but still in the mid 90's most of the time. Hot enough to where weighing a hot apartment vs a higher bill tipped in favor of a higher bill.
We only have a week of winter, on average, so I don't worry about the heating bills.
As for a $50 bill, you must get cheaper power up there. After the price increases, $50 is nearly unachievable (and requires significant sacrifice - my refrigerator alone would east a significant chunk of that).
I'm very touchy about the idea of limiting how many children any individual is allowed to have (within reason), but I am inclined to think that no matter how materially poor a society is, it can still be required to meet certain obligations before assistance is given from outside (beyond emergency issues).
When you have countries where the population expands explosively, without any effort put into infrastructure, the only reason they're able to continue to do so is the influx of medicine, food, and externally-supported technology. It's cruel to totally abandon developing countries to their own fate, but it's short-sighted to simply fuel their unrestricted growth far beyond their native means, at the expense of other developing nations that try to put an honest effort into their future.
Nature has a means of controlling population growth. When the population exceeds local resources, when the region lacks the mercantilism to obtain external resources by normal means, and when global society restricts the militarism and genocide required to obtain further resources by more direct means, the only other alternatives are famine and temporary fallback (a harsh but most common solution), restructuring to adapt to a larger population (difficult, but all the major powers went through it many times), or outside assistance (which by itself solves nothing).
When the Roman Empire pulled back from Europe, the societies left behind lacked the means to support their populations, and without Roman assistance quickly fell to low numbers. Periodic population explosions were quickly followed by die-offs - it's sad, but it's natural. It required major restructuring, done differently in different places, for European nations to escape from being poverty-stricken third-world nations (or the equivilant for their day). If the (at the time) affluent Arab states or the Eastern Roman Empire had started bringing in food to support the population (as well as advanced post-classical weapons), Europe would be very little from Africa (which has considerable resources, but lacks the structure to use it effectively).
In general, I think the best way we can help third-world nations, in their long-term interests, is to only help them avoid the most extreme disasters (which galvanize, but rarely truly help in any capacity), and use our power to slaughter the more destructive forces that disrupt them (being careful to avoid confusing violent shifts in power (an unavoidable part of development) with "destructive" matters (ie power-mad warlords)). It's a little like a chick hatching from an egg - left to it's own, the chick will eventually hatch - but it has to be protected from outside dangers, and it has to come out on it's own or it's doomed to be a cripple.
Uh...yeah, you'd put tax on the power bill, so that you get charged a proportionate amount.
I already pay $200+ a month in electricity for my little apartment. Power bills have nearly doubled over the past few years. All a tax does is make worse matters worse.
I once monitored my power usage - leaving just a single thing on while at work and killing all other circuits (even my refrigerator). I found my biggest power drains were the fridge, air conditioner, incandescent light bulbs, tv, and my stereo. My computer didn't even register compared to those (as it doesn't drain full power constantly). I now have my fridge set to a lower cooling level, I avoid the AC as much as possible (Houston sucks in that area), I use all-florescent lights, and I make sure the stereo is turned completely off when not in use. It helped a bit - I'm just under the $200 mark now.
I don't see the PS3 as being that horrid a power waster compared to other inefficient household appliances.
The tax could be spent on research into power saving technology, solar panels etc.
Oh, but it won't. You see, taxes are legislated with the suggestion or initial detail that the resulting funds be allocated to specific pet projects. Those pet projects are then typically cancelled or mothballed, and the funds go into the main cookie jar.
It's not a grim master plan by politicians to take our money - it's just the nature of taxation.
Also, as for climate change... the root cause of that has little to do with the efficiency of our power or our fossil fuels. The single biggest threat facing our planet is the fact that there are 6-billion-and-rising humans, consuming food, space, and water. Global warming is bad the the US, but on the whole not that terrible for the world. What IS bad is the rampant population explosion, deforestation by those same "poorest people" so that they can eat and breed (which is what people do - we are no different here), and the scourging of the oceans and jungles to pull every last morsel of fish and wildlife in order to feed families.
The answer is not to tax our power consumption. If I knew what the answer was, I'd gladly give it, but I guarantee it doesn't lie in taxation.
Microsoft's job is not to expand the boundries of IT for all, it's to make money. While OpenSource and GPL software has shown that it can be profitable, that's not where the real money has ever been for individual companies. Therefore, they stick with privatized licensed software models.
Since HIV research isn't a matter of profit for him, he'll go with what's the most efficient method for across-the-board advances. Makes perfect sense to me.
Your character is driven by mana/energy/rage/whatever-makes-him-happy.
YOU are driven by... hate. And pretzels. And beer.
I've wished, many a time, that I could affect my character's healing, damage-dealing, speed, etc simply by shrieking and howling into the microphone. It sure seems to work on team members in teamspeak.
The process of getting a visa is not meant to be a punishment. It's meant to introduce you to our country by showing you what it's like to be a citizen.
DMV
(or DPS for us Texans)
Until you have stood in line, and felt the mind-numbing soul-sucking near-lethal apathy of waiting to get your driver's license or anything else from those godforsaken offices, or waited to pay local taxes... you cannot truly be prepared for the US.
The visa application process is merely to weed out the weaklings, so that they don't keel over and die HERE when suddenly faced with our lines.
You want a good Star Trek movie? Make it dark. Make it bleak, inhospitable, and moody.
The ingredients of a good Trek film:
* dark, apocalyptic feel
* an excellent Bad Guy who far outshines all the Good Guys combined
* brutal space warfare - not sanitized like in many films, but a grudge-match between two well matched ships, with massive casualties on all sides.
* lots of death and mayhem - no drawn-out goodbyes, no supreme-acts-of-sacrifice, but hard cold death.
* Kirk (or his equivilant) being at the very end of his rope, but managing to (barely) pull one last desperate rabbit out of his hat.
* terrible events that test the will, the resolve, and the loyalty of all involved
finally...
* An ending that isn't feel-good, but leaves you in awe and wonder. To borrow from Star Wars, picture the scene with Luke burning Vader's corpse and everyone realizing what's changed, without all the dancing and singing Ewoks.
Wrath of Khan was hands-down the greatest ST movie of all time. While there's some argument about #2, it seems most people place First Contact in that slot, again being one of their darkest. Voyage Home is an oddity - the most lighthearted one, yet the stakes were the absolute end of life on Earth, and it was very immediate... not just an abstraction. Also, it's humor was masterfully done. Even the original movie was one of the better ones, and it was dark as night, just not that well executed.
Please no more sappy Trek films. Insurrection was possibly worse than The Final Frontier, and Nemesis was too cute in it's badness. A few nasty moments, but very very poorly executed (and no budget).
Art is what grabs people, and illicits a (usually emotional) reaction, or at least burns itself into memory - or at least tries it's very best to do so. Most "art" is merely an imitation of greater works, inferior but attempting to achieve at least a small part of the older work accomplished. Usually you end up with something easily forgotten, and sometimes you end up with something either nearly equal, or vastly superior in a different aspect.
Most games are exactly that - games. They exist for entertainment value, as they should. Art, in the classical sense, need not apply. However, some game creators don't want to just entertain you, they want to create a true work of art in their own medium. The problem is - art doesn't sell games... hype and entertainment value do. Interactive art, a favorite subject of "modern" art, just never seems to be real art. Art, in the classical sense, has to be experienced, rather than manipulated.
I have seen games that were visually stunning - not in their technology, but in the work of the artists who made the graphics. One example would be American McGee's "Alice". It was by no means a fantastic game, it was using older technology long since abandoned by serious game makers, and it wasn't all that significantly different from other games of it's type... except that the level of artwork was vastly superior, the use of color was more masterful, and every environment, character, and event was designed to appeal to your aesthetic sense, rather than simply to flesh out the game. I have no desire to go back and play it again, and it wasn't all that "fun"... but it's been burned into memory far better than others. Myst was another similar attempt at art... it was less played than experienced.
There is an art to game making, as there is to almost every media - even the most mundane sitcom. But it's very difficult to make a game an actual work of art, at least not without eliminating much of it's value as a game. Given time, a better ballance may be found. Look how long it took movies to develop more of an artistic sense, or music for that matter.
Slashdot Mirror
Innovation is good but not universally good.
I got one for my niece and nephew, and they love it. Even my parents (approaching their 60's) can understand it better than they could understand a PS2. People in nursing homes are finding they love it. Small children can use it, and it still has appeal for the 10-40 crowd. That's the core of it's sales - it has a far wider range of appeal.
However, it's graphics capabilities are not as advanced, and games for it have trouble comparing to their counterparts on other systems. The controls are an excellent idea, but could be much better designed (for instance, NOW is the time to resurrect the Power Glove). Other consoles can and will follow suit (unless Nintendo is able to file suit - difficult considering previous art).
The Wii is doing well because Nintendo always does well, even when they're not on top. Not only do they do well, but they do well without being the most technically advanced - because they pursue a wider market, rather than competing more heavily in a single one (such as the recent widespread dedication to hard core gamers, which turned out to be a mistake as HCG's were the most vocal, but not the most profitable).
Games are like movies. The slightly improved same-old-same-old will usually make more money than the truly innovative, just as the best movies usually never become blockbusters, and the apparent fact that you can make artistically great music, or you can make wildly popular music, but you can very rarely ever do both.
The Wii was a great concept, and if they don't blow it they could dominate - but it will be difficult to maintain that unless they upgrade their hardware as well.
Did they actually use Visual Studio during their development? IANAL, but I'd get the impression that such a thing would definitively prove direct exposure to prior art previous to their filing the patent in 2000 (since I've been enjoying Intellisense since back in the day in Visual C++ 6.0.
Tried and true standards make the net go round, but the most effective enhancements or changes to standards usually don't come from a committee working out best practices - it comes from individuals making hard choices on what to support. If those changes turn out to be beneficial, then they become adopted as new standards.
Going against standards can cause a bit of chaos as well, which is why it's good to avoid deviation - but sometimes a deviation makes sense, and you do it. Publicly announcing this (non-critical) deviation, and explaining exactly why, is the proper way to go about it.
When it's not abused, I think that's a great way to advertise. But it really depends on the subject matter, and on how much of the content was put there simply TO advertise it.
It's like movies or tv shows. If someone is drinking a Coke, but it's not written into the dialog or shown too prominently, then who cares if they were paid to do so - it didn't detract from the content in any real way. The more prominently they show it, or the more they mention it, the more it distracts from the plot.
On a website, items like that should not activate on mouse-over because it does detract from the content - it's a distraction. Also if they're too highly visible as links. Too subtle, and no one notices, but it doesn't take much to show what's a hotlink. This is useful primarily when discussing a subject that may interest people in the items described (such as if an article on electronics mentions oscilloscopes, and that word links to a site that sells them).
Like movies, it's all a matter of the taste of those making the content. If done right, it puts the brand in your consciousness, or drives an already-interested potential customer towards a specific vendor (the "pure" purpose of advertising). If done badly, it distracts the viewer, or even makes them hostile to the product (something that many advertisers seem to be missing).
Please note: the author of this message received no advertising capital or other gains for anything mentioned above
It would help to use proper citation methods, such as author and source. :)
When websites use simple banners or in-content ads, I never have any real problem with it. The exception to that is when the ad itself is far slower than the website calling it - then it chaps my hide.
However, popups drive me nuts. It's annoying, it's extraordinarily rude to their users, and it only serves to amplify the ruthlessness of advertisers - who are starting to demand popups in order to gain advertising revenue. When site advertisements begin to reach that point, it approaches the level of spam.
Regardless, it's the option of the person creating the website. If they want to block users who block popups, that's their right - though there is always a cost, in this case the loss of a stimulating audience that more often than not is either too young to have money to spend, or tend to have quite a bit of expendable cash (since it's usually the intelligent and resourceful who have both the good jobs and the popup blockers). If the goal of the site is to make money (something only cyberhippies seem to dislike), then by all means protect your profits. But if the population violating those ads is truly statistically insignificant, then why care (unless they're eating significant bandwidth)?
If I were in his position, I'd base my assertion purely on popup blockers hiding themselves - which becomes a bit more of a hostile act, no matter how many people (like me) love it. It's purely a circumvention tool, and not one that falls under fair-use since they haven't paid for squat.
Then again, I'd love to be part of any (non-radical) campaign to apply public pressure to some of the more... exuberant... advertisers - not to end web advertising (I enthusiastically embrace capitalism), but to keep it under some sort of realistic control.
People who invested in this stock dug their own grave.
Considering that their case seemed built on promises of evidence to come (did they EVER produce Document X?), I don't see why any intelligent investor would have gambled on them.
That could have been error on my part. I specifically meant that some of their new work, from what I understand, is not being made part of the openly distributed code - only the parts (still considerable) that were inherited via GPL. If they are distributing the entire source, top to bottom, then I'd be glad to hear that.
My main point was that, IMHO anyway, the concept of trying to use open source software to try to dominate the market isn't completely compatible with what makes it great in the first place. Fiddling with licenses and worrying about legalities takes a considerable chunk out of my long-held reasons for preferring MySQL to Microsoft SQL, for instance. at least as opposed to software like Apache, which (last I saw of it) made absolutely no demands except that I not repackage and resell their product for a direct profit. It's not all that bad yet, but I'm fairly certain that's the direction it's headed in (ie if you can't beat em, join em).
Money is to be made off of OSS, but I don't think it serves society well if that money is made from selling and licensing the OSS itself. That also includes some of the basic services for it. It's the politics that turn me off, and it seems there are a lot more politics now than there were back when I was getting professionally involved with Unix (about 8 years ago - back when it was still competitive with retail, but without the obsession with "winning").
At least the Linux kernel itself is still non-corporate, as corporate sponsorship is not the same as signing licensing deals, laying out increasingly cryptic regulations for use, and shooting for maximum market share. Linux is my preferred server of choice, but I couldn't give a hint of a care how many people run Windows... as long as there is a vibrant Linux community to keep things moving forward. Profiteering and licensing is the greatest threat to OSS, not competing products.
I'll borrow your formatting and respond in kind. :)
The purpose of running a business is to make money.
Businesses that do not intend to generate profit become nonprofit organizations.
Businesses that attempt to capitalize off any aspect of society, in any way, exist to make profit.
Companies that attempt to make money from open source software eventually exist to make money.
The moment a company accepts investments, rather than donations, it's nature changes to a for-profit model.
Companies that attempt to compete with major commercial enterprises WILL become like those commercial enterprises.
Redhat, MySQL, and other companies like them are closing much of their source because open source and significant profit are not particularly mutual, and are only pushed into appearing so by those who want to turn everything into open source.
The blame belongs to those who wish to contort open source software into what it was never meant to be, and into what it's creators never intended for it to be.
If you want to get rich, close your source and do your own work. If you want to contribute to society, open your source and ignore money.
If OSS is written well, it provides more alternatives to - and methods of - performing tasks than retail can ever hope to accomplish. However, if it is placed on a pedestal and designed to "beat" the "evil" proprietary options, it will, and so far inevitably DOES, become much like what it seeks to eliminate.
The end of an open sourced program's freedom begins when it's creators become an ever-expanding company. It shouldn't work like that, people believe it doesn't have to work like that, but somehow it always does.
It's no secret that copyright violation is always going to be a thorn in the side of all forms of media. The earnings losses will always be exaggerated (and based on the false assumption that every download is equivilant to one lost sale), and media execs who are trying to defend their jobs will gladly roll out the piracy card, but it's been eating away at profits for some time.
The difference is the dvd and video game industries are ramping up. They suffer just as heavily, if not worse, from piracy due to much of their target audience having access to digital copies. On the other hand, the vast majority of general music buyers and movie theater audiences still do not have the bandwidth or the meager technical skill to actually obtain music and movies in any quantity. Regardless, while the most heavily pirated (relative to sales) industries are succeeding by a great margin, the older media formats (music cds and theater releases) are failing, no matter what the causes.
It's very simple. The individuals running the music industry are, on the whole, not incredibly competent. They continue raising the price of music in order to fund increasingly expensive and expansive advertising and marketing targetted at teens and young adults (a major slice of the market), but increasingly ignore the rest of the market. One result of this is that "Independant" labels have begun to surge through the market, being smaller and tighter, and far more efficient. Have you noticed how it's only the largest media corporations who seriously complain about piracy, while the smaller operations (who's music is just as heavily pirated, relatively speaking) are less concerned?
There are two reasons for this: One is that the existing "big business" model of music production has reached a plateau and can only maintain itself through the aggressive marketing of short-lived quickly-produced consumer music - music that you'd play at a party, but lose interest in towards your mid 20's (right around the time you actually have money to spend). The natural inclination of the stockholders involved is to require the executives to adapt and continue growth, or replace them with fresh blood. Since the current batch of executives cannot produce any serious growth, only slowly dwindling profit, they are forced to cover themselves by finding a scapegoat - an actual but minor threat that they can blow out of proportion.
The other reason is that there are new ways to distribute music, and that major marketing campaigns are losing their power, relative to more meager methods available to small production houses and individual artists. Good quality studio equipment is now readily available to any individual, as are means of exposure. They can also sell their work via Amazon and a variety of other channels. The only audience they can't reach easily are those who are not very computer literate - and that audience is shrinking at a rate that frankly scares the music executives who rely on them. Again, music industry executives do not want to publicize that, even though it's not a secret anymore. Thus, as before, they need a scapegoat.
Compounding this, in order to compensate for increasing difficulty generating a profit, they continue to raise the price of music. I used to buy cd's regularly, but once the price of a cd came to mach the price of a dvd, the music simply lost out to the movies.
With theatrical movies, it's much simpler. I own a fairly large hi-def tv (1080i 52" rear-projection) with a good surround sound system - and with a little effort I was able to afford that on an average income. I can get almost any movie I want - I just have to wait until it hits dvd. When I go to see a movie at a theater, I'm doing it almost entirely to go out with friends, as the big screen just isn't so impressive anymore. This appears to be common with many people out there. Compounding that is the increasing expense of operating a movie theater, the trend (due to pressure) of creating larger and large
Dick's book did focus somewhat heavily on the religious aspects of existance, or at least looked at it from a religious angle.
The movie didn't bring in any Spielbergisms when it dealt with replicant emotion, though. The few good experiences they knew were few and far between, and to a great extent the movie explored the darker side of humanity. Spielberg's movies, at least his later ones, mostly focused on very basic and clear-cut emotions. The movie targetted ones that are harder to portray - and not particularly pleasant to think about. The idea wasn't that androids had feels too - it was that we created something equal or superior to ourselves, then wondered why it turned against us. In this respect, the movie was closer to Faust or Frankenstein, rather than the original subject matter.
I really didn't consider DADOES to be a particuarly signifcant novel, at least to me. It was a very interesting story, and it dealt with powerful philosphical themes, but I've read far more stimulating work from Dick, let alone other authors. On the other hand, as far as sci-fi goes, Bladerunner was much more direct in it's philosophy. A movie can never compete with a book in terms of sheer content - an author has hours, days, and even weeks to get his point across, where a scriptwriter and director only have an hour and a half, as well as a crew and actors to pay.
I wouldn't literally consider any movie a literary masterpiece because it's a totally different media. However, movies do often have artistic value - at times even more so than most books, if done particularly well. In that respect, I think Bladerunner, once you shave away the flying cars, moody cinematography, and physical combat, had more total value as a story than the book did - if only because the core meaning behind the story provided a better reflection of humanity than the book.
I enjoyed "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" - but the movie is a different story, only based off of Dick's novel.
The emphasis, as I read it, of Dick's novel was that no matter how real something seems, it is never as good as the real thing. No matter how realistically a replicant could look or act, it would never - ever - really be human.
The movie took the opposite stance. We created the replicants as slaves, but we made them too human - quite possibly "More human than human". Replicants were harsh, violent, and angry - which makes sense considering that they had the emotional experience of a 4 year old. They knew fear - not the reflexive mechanical fear of the book's replicants, but wild animal fear of a human who doesn't want to die. In the book, a replicant that knew it was screwed just gave in - in the movie, they did anything... anything they could... to escape and survive another day. I also don't recall replicants really caring for eachother in the book - whereas in the movie is was a primary driving force. The pictures they kept in the book were mostly to keep up appearances, while in the movie it was a sad attempt at building a past.
Also you have to admit - Batty as he was in the book wouldn't have been that memorable a villain. In the movie, he was one of the most memorable fictional villains ever. A ruthless poetic madman who was getting a crash course in emotions and ethics, and who didn't really understand life until the very end.
The book was good, but I'll take the movie any day - not just for cool factor, but because I feel the movie had far greater literary value (watered down as it was to suit the needs of a 90-minute action movie).
No, I was just horribly mistaken. :)
I'll go crawl back into my corner and medidate on the word "shame".
Now we know how our grandparents felt when broadcasters switched to a color signal. Their old black-and-white tv's (which couldn't read the color signal at all in many/most cases) suddenly became excessively-large paperweights.
Note that the old "black-and-white" tv is not the same as the current type (which reads a color signal and renders it into greyscale). Those used a much older signal format that did not allow for color info, and while color tv's could read the old signal, older tv's couldn't read the new one.
True. Throughout the 30's, european scientists often had moral issues with the medical research they were performing, but their work expanded the field of medicine greatly. True, many complained that the test subjects were not being given a choice, or that the experiments were a bit cruel and often resulted in maiming or killing the patient. However, science won out over ethics at that time, and it was science and the extent of human knowledge that benefited. Of course, it also left psychological scars on the world that won't go away for a very long time.
I do not have a significant qualm regarding stem cell research. I have limited issues with cloning ONLY for the purpose of producing more research material. I also do not consider an embryo to be on the same moral level as a fetus, or a fetus to be the same thing as a viable baby. But I do think every major advance in science presents us with a new slippery slope, and that concepts of morality change drastically over time, based primarily on the decisions made by previous generations.
You can rest assured that whatever you consider slightly dubious but warranted or necessary today with either be absolutely shunned by your children's children, or embraced in ways that would horrify you.
Without a clear line being drawn, I guarantee you that some parts of the world will do whatever is possible. Once you loosen the boundries in one area (creating biologically human lives, even if of highly dubious status), the rest can quickly fall like dominoes. Then you end up with debate over how far a test subject should be allowed to gestate before it's consumed, or debate over the legal status of a human created by humans specifically for study. Genetic manipulation only makes the lines blur further.
Progress is the core of modern society. But err on the side of caution, because the last century has shown what happens when you let morality take a back seat to that progress.
Ok, it's day 2 and I'm still trying to figure out which word you're saying I horribly mispelled. :)
I dislike Bill's business practices. I get sick of hearing the word "Innovation" used in place of "Incremental Improvement". I think he's sneaky and underhanded.
... VERY... seriously consider actively supporting the idea. It's not as if anyone could buy him out at this point - my only concern would be if he could stay ballanced when it came to Microsoft-related issues.
I also think he might make for a very interesting president, not because of wow-factor, but because he's proven that he was capable of building up a company from nothing to global megacorp, and did it well. Tenacity, imagination, and brute intelligence.
I'm not certain, but if he announced his candidacy, I would very
What part of the country are you in? Until the past few weeks, Houston was pretty hot. Not quite July triple-digit heat, but still in the mid 90's most of the time. Hot enough to where weighing a hot apartment vs a higher bill tipped in favor of a higher bill.
We only have a week of winter, on average, so I don't worry about the heating bills.
As for a $50 bill, you must get cheaper power up there. After the price increases, $50 is nearly unachievable (and requires significant sacrifice - my refrigerator alone would east a significant chunk of that).
I'm very touchy about the idea of limiting how many children any individual is allowed to have (within reason), but I am inclined to think that no matter how materially poor a society is, it can still be required to meet certain obligations before assistance is given from outside (beyond emergency issues).
When you have countries where the population expands explosively, without any effort put into infrastructure, the only reason they're able to continue to do so is the influx of medicine, food, and externally-supported technology. It's cruel to totally abandon developing countries to their own fate, but it's short-sighted to simply fuel their unrestricted growth far beyond their native means, at the expense of other developing nations that try to put an honest effort into their future.
Nature has a means of controlling population growth. When the population exceeds local resources, when the region lacks the mercantilism to obtain external resources by normal means, and when global society restricts the militarism and genocide required to obtain further resources by more direct means, the only other alternatives are famine and temporary fallback (a harsh but most common solution), restructuring to adapt to a larger population (difficult, but all the major powers went through it many times), or outside assistance (which by itself solves nothing).
When the Roman Empire pulled back from Europe, the societies left behind lacked the means to support their populations, and without Roman assistance quickly fell to low numbers. Periodic population explosions were quickly followed by die-offs - it's sad, but it's natural. It required major restructuring, done differently in different places, for European nations to escape from being poverty-stricken third-world nations (or the equivilant for their day). If the (at the time) affluent Arab states or the Eastern Roman Empire had started bringing in food to support the population (as well as advanced post-classical weapons), Europe would be very little from Africa (which has considerable resources, but lacks the structure to use it effectively).
In general, I think the best way we can help third-world nations, in their long-term interests, is to only help them avoid the most extreme disasters (which galvanize, but rarely truly help in any capacity), and use our power to slaughter the more destructive forces that disrupt them (being careful to avoid confusing violent shifts in power (an unavoidable part of development) with "destructive" matters (ie power-mad warlords)). It's a little like a chick hatching from an egg - left to it's own, the chick will eventually hatch - but it has to be protected from outside dangers, and it has to come out on it's own or it's doomed to be a cripple.
Uh...yeah, you'd put tax on the power bill, so that you get charged a proportionate amount. I already pay $200+ a month in electricity for my little apartment. Power bills have nearly doubled over the past few years. All a tax does is make worse matters worse.
I once monitored my power usage - leaving just a single thing on while at work and killing all other circuits (even my refrigerator). I found my biggest power drains were the fridge, air conditioner, incandescent light bulbs, tv, and my stereo. My computer didn't even register compared to those (as it doesn't drain full power constantly). I now have my fridge set to a lower cooling level, I avoid the AC as much as possible (Houston sucks in that area), I use all-florescent lights, and I make sure the stereo is turned completely off when not in use. It helped a bit - I'm just under the $200 mark now.
I don't see the PS3 as being that horrid a power waster compared to other inefficient household appliances.
The tax could be spent on research into power saving technology, solar panels etc.
Oh, but it won't. You see, taxes are legislated with the suggestion or initial detail that the resulting funds be allocated to specific pet projects. Those pet projects are then typically cancelled or mothballed, and the funds go into the main cookie jar.
It's not a grim master plan by politicians to take our money - it's just the nature of taxation.
Also, as for climate change... the root cause of that has little to do with the efficiency of our power or our fossil fuels. The single biggest threat facing our planet is the fact that there are 6-billion-and-rising humans, consuming food, space, and water. Global warming is bad the the US, but on the whole not that terrible for the world. What IS bad is the rampant population explosion, deforestation by those same "poorest people" so that they can eat and breed (which is what people do - we are no different here), and the scourging of the oceans and jungles to pull every last morsel of fish and wildlife in order to feed families.
The answer is not to tax our power consumption. If I knew what the answer was, I'd gladly give it, but I guarantee it doesn't lie in taxation.
Microsoft's job is not to expand the boundries of IT for all, it's to make money. While OpenSource and GPL software has shown that it can be profitable, that's not where the real money has ever been for individual companies. Therefore, they stick with privatized licensed software models. Since HIV research isn't a matter of profit for him, he'll go with what's the most efficient method for across-the-board advances. Makes perfect sense to me.
Hate does mean everything in PvP.
Your character is driven by mana/energy/rage/whatever-makes-him-happy.
YOU are driven by... hate. And pretzels. And beer.
I've wished, many a time, that I could affect my character's healing, damage-dealing, speed, etc simply by shrieking and howling into the microphone. It sure seems to work on team members in teamspeak.
The process of getting a visa is not meant to be a punishment. It's meant to introduce you to our country by showing you what it's like to be a citizen.
DMV
(or DPS for us Texans)
Until you have stood in line, and felt the mind-numbing soul-sucking near-lethal apathy of waiting to get your driver's license or anything else from those godforsaken offices, or waited to pay local taxes... you cannot truly be prepared for the US.
The visa application process is merely to weed out the weaklings, so that they don't keel over and die HERE when suddenly faced with our lines.
I *AM* a caveman coder, you insensitive clod!
Though ironically, I'm the one at work who gripes about a lack funtionality and elegance...
You want a good Star Trek movie? Make it dark. Make it bleak, inhospitable, and moody.
The ingredients of a good Trek film:
* dark, apocalyptic feel
* an excellent Bad Guy who far outshines all the Good Guys combined
* brutal space warfare - not sanitized like in many films, but a grudge-match between two well matched ships, with massive casualties on all sides.
* lots of death and mayhem - no drawn-out goodbyes, no supreme-acts-of-sacrifice, but hard cold death.
* Kirk (or his equivilant) being at the very end of his rope, but managing to (barely) pull one last desperate rabbit out of his hat.
* terrible events that test the will, the resolve, and the loyalty of all involved
finally...
* An ending that isn't feel-good, but leaves you in awe and wonder. To borrow from Star Wars, picture the scene with Luke burning Vader's corpse and everyone realizing what's changed, without all the dancing and singing Ewoks.
Wrath of Khan was hands-down the greatest ST movie of all time. While there's some argument about #2, it seems most people place First Contact in that slot, again being one of their darkest. Voyage Home is an oddity - the most lighthearted one, yet the stakes were the absolute end of life on Earth, and it was very immediate... not just an abstraction. Also, it's humor was masterfully done. Even the original movie was one of the better ones, and it was dark as night, just not that well executed.
Please no more sappy Trek films. Insurrection was possibly worse than The Final Frontier, and Nemesis was too cute in it's badness. A few nasty moments, but very very poorly executed (and no budget).
If only I had mod points today...
Art is what grabs people, and illicits a (usually emotional) reaction, or at least burns itself into memory - or at least tries it's very best to do so. Most "art" is merely an imitation of greater works, inferior but attempting to achieve at least a small part of the older work accomplished. Usually you end up with something easily forgotten, and sometimes you end up with something either nearly equal, or vastly superior in a different aspect.
Most games are exactly that - games. They exist for entertainment value, as they should. Art, in the classical sense, need not apply. However, some game creators don't want to just entertain you, they want to create a true work of art in their own medium. The problem is - art doesn't sell games... hype and entertainment value do. Interactive art, a favorite subject of "modern" art, just never seems to be real art. Art, in the classical sense, has to be experienced, rather than manipulated.
I have seen games that were visually stunning - not in their technology, but in the work of the artists who made the graphics. One example would be American McGee's "Alice". It was by no means a fantastic game, it was using older technology long since abandoned by serious game makers, and it wasn't all that significantly different from other games of it's type... except that the level of artwork was vastly superior, the use of color was more masterful, and every environment, character, and event was designed to appeal to your aesthetic sense, rather than simply to flesh out the game. I have no desire to go back and play it again, and it wasn't all that "fun"... but it's been burned into memory far better than others. Myst was another similar attempt at art... it was less played than experienced.
There is an art to game making, as there is to almost every media - even the most mundane sitcom. But it's very difficult to make a game an actual work of art, at least not without eliminating much of it's value as a game. Given time, a better ballance may be found. Look how long it took movies to develop more of an artistic sense, or music for that matter.