It seems to me that there was much the same sturm und drang about the price of the PS2 when it came out. It doesn't seem to have hurt sales much.
Yes, it's more expensive than the XBox360 and will almost certainly cost more than the Wii, but face it: game consoles are luxury items and luxury items don't usually follow the same rules of supply and demand that non-luxury items do. If they did, why would anyone in their right mind buy a Hummer H2 when it's almost exactly the same as a similarly-sized GMC? Or a $200 pair of running shoes that are indistinguishable from a set that goes for $50? Or an iPod. Or Revo sunglasses. Or anything that's "more expensive than it needs to be."
Sony is used to this. Trinitron TVs have always been more expensive than their competitors. Their digital cameras, which also tend to be more expensive than most of the competition, are second only to Canon in sales (per IDC). Sony's customers have always appeared to be comfortable with Sony's prices and I don't see that changing with the PS3.
In reality, works of intellect naturally belong to the people (known in legal-speak as the Public Domain)
That's an interesting concept. Does that mean that if I create something and choose never to release it to "the people", that I can or should be forced to do so?
My point precisely. Why should any of the distributors go to all the time and trouble when they're, in effect, duplicating a service that's already available at a price that they can't possibly meet?
Ha,ha. Funny. Thanks for the instant diagnosis, doctor.
Have you had to manage a large enteprise network before? I work with the teams that support our infrastructure of over 700 servers and 10,000 nodes, so I am keenly aware that they problably have important things to do. I hold meetings not for my gratification, but because there are so many groups involved with troubleshooting problems, the most efficient way to get everybody on the same wavelength is to have a short meeting.
Believe me, as a veteran of over 25 years and literally thousands of meetings, I hate meetings more than just about everybody else in the room. The only useful way that I've found to coordinate effort between groups is to have short meetings of 15 minutes or less. In order to make this happen, I ask the participants not to answer their phones or pagers (they can look at them, but only answer them if absolutely necessary) while we're in the meeting. Rather than calling someone to task, which is what the previous post suggested, looking at them is the gentlest way of reminding them that we are under time pressure and need to finish quickly.
Now if you're talking about large meetings, which I assume you are, I just ignore them unless someone else in the room objects. Usually the problem takes care of itself.
Maybe because the majority of American companies don't see themselves as doing business outisde of the US and probably will never have to? It's not because it's beneath them, it merely serves no purpose.
Besides, as was stated in another post, most Americans don't know what their country code is. It's not because we're stupid, it's because most people don't make or receive calls from people outside of the US.
Why is it the users' fault? Computers are vulnerable to attack because almost all of the security measures that have been added to consumer-grade operating systems have been added as an afterthought. Why should users be trained to react to something that shouldn't be there in the first place?
Rather than add another level of bureaucracy (who would be the licensing authority - your local geek?), why not take the real culprits to task? Would you blame the driver or the manufacturer if a car's wheel falls off due to bad design?
I seem to remember that most of the problems that people raised with the concept wasn't so much with the laptop itself, but rather whether the money could be better used for good health care, food and water.
Bill Gates was being pissy about Microsoft not being able to play. It's not inconsistent to disagree with the concept and Bill Gates at the same time, but for different reasons.
What difference would it make having a third, fourth or even fifth party when all of them have to fight over the middle anyway? The only true fight in today's political landscape is over the middle - the extremes will always vote along party lines, so both sides have to appeal to the swing votes, the ones that can be swayed either way, otherwise known as the center. Bill Clinton didn't win because the country swung radically to the left - the Democrats are way to disorganized (I'm a Democrat) for that. It was because he appealed to these voters.
If you want to change the process, the only change that would make any difference is to have true proportional representation rather then the 'winner takes all' government that we have now. Of course, this would be extremely messy - coalitions, 'no-confidents' votes, etc. And there is the slight changes to the Constitution that would have to occur first...
So the US goernment did something to suit it's own needs. Which government doesn't?
Governments don't exist to serve the wants of needs of the entire planet, just those of a few - either themselves, their constituents, or, if you're extremely cynical, the folks that pay for them. Any government does otherwise won't be around very long.
Or do you honestly think that foreign aid is given ever selflessly and unconditionally with no ulterior motive?
In California, you were given the top of the punch card as a receipt of your vote. It had no information as to how you actually voted, it just had a number. Now, let's say that you were questioning how your vote was counted. Assuming that you could get at your ballot in the first place (you couldn't) and assuming that the county kept that particular ballot around and sorted them in a way that made them easily findable (they didn't), and assuming that the county was willing to actually have someone go looking for it (right), how exactly would you read the little holes to figure out whether it actually matched your vote (assuming that you hadn't already thrown out your slate card and completely forgotten who you voted for) or that you hadn't just missed the alignment holes at the top and voted for the wrong guy?
Besides, how many people actually kept those recepts? Not many, I can tell you. I used to see them littering the floors in front of the polling places because people couldn't be bothered to keep them because they couldn't see any good reason to. Do you really think it would be any different now? Sure, people ask for receipts, but I feel that most of them do so to make the point that they can't get them - not that they actually want them.
The trains by me are funded by force -- the average rider pays a few dollars, and the taxpayer pays almost $10 more to cover the bureaucracy of the trains.
The road system is funded by force, too. Or did you think that the Interstate Highway system was built with VC cash? With the virtually no exception, every single mile of the road that people drive on was funded by Federal and State governments. Whether you use it or not. I take Public Transit to work, but I still subsidize the roads that I'm not driving on through the taxes that the Feds take from my paycheck, the sales tax California gets when I buy things and the property taxes that I pay. Regardless of whether I drive a single mile.
I believe cars are way more efficient and cheaper once you factor in the true costs of the train system.
Really? In areas that are serviced by trains, in what way is a single car carrying a single person more efficient to the same destination than a train carrying far more? Besides, trains at least bring in some revenue through fares to somewhat offset their costs - highways largely don't.
Does anyone think congress reads any of these bills?
As a practical matter, they can't. If you want to know why, look at the text of just about any bill. Even simple ones can be tens to hundreds of pages long. Bills that allocate funds are even longer. Now multiply that by all of the bills that they will be called on to vote on in a session. No one person could reasonably be expected to wade through all of that text, let alone make an analysis of each individual item on each individual bill. That's what staffers are for.
Look at it this way: Do you think everyone always reads the text of all of the measures that they are asked to vote on in an election? Do they just read the analysts section and stop there? Or do they just use slate cards?
I could rant about the year of hell that SBC put me through trying to get their ADSL to work for more than a couple hours at a time, but I've already wasted enough of my life on them.
Aside from the sheer impracticality of moving operations from Sacramento to San Jose, do you really think that all of that expertise that you speak of will accept Civil Service wages?
With the price of disk space so cheap, and bandwidth so fast, who needs to store their own music anymore?
I do, because I use my portable music player far more than I do my home system and I just might want to listen to it when I'm traveling, or commuting, or in some other place that access to the Internet is intermittent or is unavailable. You seem to assume that high-speed Internet access is ubiquitous. It isn't and isn't likely to be real soon.
Besides, it's way easier and more convenient to transfer a bunch of files from my computer to the player over USB2 speeds than over a 3Mbps (when I'm *very* lucky) cable Internet connection.
Why not ask why camera manufacturers force you to use JPEG. Or TIFF. Why not use PNG? While you're at it, why not complain that most pro cameras use Compact Flash rather than SD cards. Or that the lens mounts aren't interchangeable. The camera is yours, right? Why should you be forced to use an adapter to put a Nikon lens on a Canon body? They should be forced to use what YOU want!
Nikon encodes the white balance in their camera RAW format. That's their option. Don't like it? Don't use the format or don't use Nikon. That's your choice.
Of all the overblown comparisons that I've seen in the continuous rant against the RIAA, comparing the Israeli/Palestinian conflict to the 'RIAA/music user' mess takes the cake. I'm not particularly in love with the RIAA's tactics, but trying to make the slightest linkage between that and what has been going on in the Middle East for the last half-century transcends belief.
Please enlighten us, if you can, of the instances where people have lost their lives (not livelihoods, not conveniences, not something that they could have easily done without) when the RIAA sued them.
Relax folks. I was joking. Or at least I tried to.
Rouge - red in French, therefore: rouge state=red state=state that voted republican in last election. Get the (attempted) joke? Maybe it was the overthrow governments part...
Last time I try to make a joke based upon misspelling.
He first agitated for, and then actively participated in, the armed overthrow of the government, using an army of unlawful combatants backed by a rouge state.
Backed by a red state? The Republicans backed the overthrow of legitimate goverments even then?
From the quote: Music, itself, is going to become like running water or electricity...'
Gee, last time I looked, I had to pay for both electricity and water. Is Ziggy saying that we'll have to pay some central authority for music rather than individual distribution companies?
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, it's more expensive than the XBox360 and will almost certainly cost more than the Wii, but face it: game consoles are luxury items and luxury items don't usually follow the same rules of supply and demand that non-luxury items do. If they did, why would anyone in their right mind buy a Hummer H2 when it's almost exactly the same as a similarly-sized GMC? Or a $200 pair of running shoes that are indistinguishable from a set that goes for $50? Or an iPod. Or Revo sunglasses. Or anything that's "more expensive than it needs to be."
Sony is used to this. Trinitron TVs have always been more expensive than their competitors. Their digital cameras, which also tend to be more expensive than most of the competition, are second only to Canon in sales (per IDC). Sony's customers have always appeared to be comfortable with Sony's prices and I don't see that changing with the PS3.
Not quite. In 1900, there were about 38 different companies making and selling automobiles, so you could find them in just about any city.
That's an interesting concept. Does that mean that if I create something and choose never to release it to "the people", that I can or should be forced to do so?
My point precisely. Why should any of the distributors go to all the time and trouble when they're, in effect, duplicating a service that's already available at a price that they can't possibly meet?
And when they provide a better, DRM-less product, it will go up on the pirate boards just like it does now.
Have you had to manage a large enteprise network before? I work with the teams that support our infrastructure of over 700 servers and 10,000 nodes, so I am keenly aware that they problably have important things to do. I hold meetings not for my gratification, but because there are so many groups involved with troubleshooting problems, the most efficient way to get everybody on the same wavelength is to have a short meeting.
Believe me, as a veteran of over 25 years and literally thousands of meetings, I hate meetings more than just about everybody else in the room. The only useful way that I've found to coordinate effort between groups is to have short meetings of 15 minutes or less. In order to make this happen, I ask the participants not to answer their phones or pagers (they can look at them, but only answer them if absolutely necessary) while we're in the meeting. Rather than calling someone to task, which is what the previous post suggested, looking at them is the gentlest way of reminding them that we are under time pressure and need to finish quickly.
Now if you're talking about large meetings, which I assume you are, I just ignore them unless someone else in the room objects. Usually the problem takes care of itself.
Works every time.
Besides, as was stated in another post, most Americans don't know what their country code is. It's not because we're stupid, it's because most people don't make or receive calls from people outside of the US.
Rather than add another level of bureaucracy (who would be the licensing authority - your local geek?), why not take the real culprits to task? Would you blame the driver or the manufacturer if a car's wheel falls off due to bad design?
Bill Gates was being pissy about Microsoft not being able to play. It's not inconsistent to disagree with the concept and Bill Gates at the same time, but for different reasons.
Oops. 'No-confidence', not 'no-confidents'. Although the latter may be somewhat true...
If you want to change the process, the only change that would make any difference is to have true proportional representation rather then the 'winner takes all' government that we have now. Of course, this would be extremely messy - coalitions, 'no-confidents' votes, etc. And there is the slight changes to the Constitution that would have to occur first...
Governments don't exist to serve the wants of needs of the entire planet, just those of a few - either themselves, their constituents, or, if you're extremely cynical, the folks that pay for them. Any government does otherwise won't be around very long.
Or do you honestly think that foreign aid is given ever selflessly and unconditionally with no ulterior motive?
In California, you were given the top of the punch card as a receipt of your vote. It had no information as to how you actually voted, it just had a number. Now, let's say that you were questioning how your vote was counted. Assuming that you could get at your ballot in the first place (you couldn't) and assuming that the county kept that particular ballot around and sorted them in a way that made them easily findable (they didn't), and assuming that the county was willing to actually have someone go looking for it (right), how exactly would you read the little holes to figure out whether it actually matched your vote (assuming that you hadn't already thrown out your slate card and completely forgotten who you voted for) or that you hadn't just missed the alignment holes at the top and voted for the wrong guy?
Besides, how many people actually kept those recepts? Not many, I can tell you. I used to see them littering the floors in front of the polling places because people couldn't be bothered to keep them because they couldn't see any good reason to. Do you really think it would be any different now? Sure, people ask for receipts, but I feel that most of them do so to make the point that they can't get them - not that they actually want them.
The road system is funded by force, too. Or did you think that the Interstate Highway system was built with VC cash? With the virtually no exception, every single mile of the road that people drive on was funded by Federal and State governments. Whether you use it or not. I take Public Transit to work, but I still subsidize the roads that I'm not driving on through the taxes that the Feds take from my paycheck, the sales tax California gets when I buy things and the property taxes that I pay. Regardless of whether I drive a single mile.
I believe cars are way more efficient and cheaper once you factor in the true costs of the train system.
Really? In areas that are serviced by trains, in what way is a single car carrying a single person more efficient to the same destination than a train carrying far more? Besides, trains at least bring in some revenue through fares to somewhat offset their costs - highways largely don't.
As a practical matter, they can't. If you want to know why, look at the text of just about any bill. Even simple ones can be tens to hundreds of pages long. Bills that allocate funds are even longer. Now multiply that by all of the bills that they will be called on to vote on in a session. No one person could reasonably be expected to wade through all of that text, let alone make an analysis of each individual item on each individual bill. That's what staffers are for.
Look at it this way: Do you think everyone always reads the text of all of the measures that they are asked to vote on in an election? Do they just read the analysts section and stop there? Or do they just use slate cards?
I'm happy it works for you.
Aside from the sheer impracticality of moving operations from Sacramento to San Jose, do you really think that all of that expertise that you speak of will accept Civil Service wages?
I do, because I use my portable music player far more than I do my home system and I just might want to listen to it when I'm traveling, or commuting, or in some other place that access to the Internet is intermittent or is unavailable. You seem to assume that high-speed Internet access is ubiquitous. It isn't and isn't likely to be real soon.
Besides, it's way easier and more convenient to transfer a bunch of files from my computer to the player over USB2 speeds than over a 3Mbps (when I'm *very* lucky) cable Internet connection.
Why not ask why camera manufacturers force you to use JPEG. Or TIFF. Why not use PNG? While you're at it, why not complain that most pro cameras use Compact Flash rather than SD cards. Or that the lens mounts aren't interchangeable. The camera is yours, right? Why should you be forced to use an adapter to put a Nikon lens on a Canon body? They should be forced to use what YOU want!
Nikon encodes the white balance in their camera RAW format. That's their option. Don't like it? Don't use the format or don't use Nikon. That's your choice.
Of all the overblown comparisons that I've seen in the continuous rant against the RIAA, comparing the Israeli/Palestinian conflict to the 'RIAA/music user' mess takes the cake. I'm not particularly in love with the RIAA's tactics, but trying to make the slightest linkage between that and what has been going on in the Middle East for the last half-century transcends belief.
Please enlighten us, if you can, of the instances where people have lost their lives (not livelihoods, not conveniences, not something that they could have easily done without) when the RIAA sued them.
Relax folks. I was joking. Or at least I tried to.
Rouge - red in French, therefore: rouge state=red state=state that voted republican in last election. Get the (attempted) joke? Maybe it was the overthrow governments part...
Last time I try to make a joke based upon misspelling.
Backed by a red state? The Republicans backed the overthrow of legitimate goverments even then?
Gee, last time I looked, I had to pay for both electricity and water. Is Ziggy saying that we'll have to pay some central authority for music rather than individual distribution companies?
I can't imagine how they'll meter it...
Nah, that can't be it.