The icing on on the cake will be when malware appears that starts sending copyrighted material from an unsuspecting consumer's machine. The rash of complaints from innocent customers outght to be enough to severly cut into most ISP's profits, or at least force them to increase their customer service budget.
I agree, but we should make some accomodations. What happens if civilization falls apart and in 1400 years we are back in the bronze age?
That would be a real kicker, wouldn't it? Mankind survives some kind of global catastrophe just to be wiped out by some decaying storage containers containing radioactive waste?
First, as has been said MANY times, voice is still the primary use of a cell phone.
Second, I don't typically call mine a cell, I just call it a phone. It is my only phone, I always have it and don't really care if anyone want's to rename it. I'll probably still call it a phone.
My arguement is that neither #1 or #2 should exist. Personally, I am NOT a snob technophile elitist. I'm a technological professional that has dedicated a significant portion of my life to learning about technoloy. As a result I recognize Linux for what it is, a superior technolgical tool and a platform that allows technophiles to indulge their passions without limits. Windows is a platform for common users that just want to access the Internet. Mac OS X works well for those in between.
I would love to see everyone use Linux, but not at the cost of moving the whole OS away from a professional level tool. If a company can successfully create a desktop Linux that is as well supported as the Microsoft platform, as Linspire is attempting to do, I wish them the best. The bottom line is the community is never going to do this. Those with skills to develop quality software and give it away have no motivation to donate their time to making it 'easy' to use. Sure, there are some real jerks out there in the F/OSS arena, but there are good people too. To lump them all together as technophile snobs because they donate their time and don't have time or money to setup 800 lines, broker bundling deals with Dell and provide kickbacks to every hardware and software company with their hand out is is just not right.
This whole problem has to be approached from an economic perspective, not a technological problem. The problem isn't the community, it's the economic and social environment that has allowed Microsoft to have a stranglehold on the industry. No corporation can actually make money creating a Linux distribution that is palatable to the general public and even if when they try they are thwarted because the Dells and HPs of the world have deals with Microsoft to provide computers with Windows pre-installed. If a corporate entity could figure out how to provide a Linux based machine from major manufacturers, put into retail outlets and out advertise the Microsoft marketing machine the Linux desktop could be made ready for the world. It's a chicken and egg problem, no one will invest in making Linux 'easy to use' until they can make money at it, and no one can make money at it until it's 'easy to use'.
Arguements like this article are a complete waste of time because they try to blame the community for Linux failure to penetrate the desktop market. In reality it has little to do with the product and much more to do with market conditions and public perception.
Linux was created by developers for technical people. Those of us who get it, use it. Those who don't can spend $300 to upgrade to vista, or use OSX. I wish the Linux user base would get a little bigger so companies like Adobe would start building versions of their products for Linux (photoshop, dreamweaver, flash). Other than that, I don't think everyone should use it. In fact, I don't even try to push it on my family because I don't want to support it. Microsoft has put billions of dollars into (unsuccessfully) creating a lame OS that even a monkey can figure out. When all my family members want to do is check email and buy stuff off ebay, why would I ask them to learn Linux. On the contrary, I would much prefer they bother the nice folks in Redmond with their lame questions.
Anyone who is a Linux developer and wants to grow the user base should definitely take your comments to heart. For the rest of us, we should continue what we are doing. Our software IS adapted to the user's expectations, those users just don't happen to be Joe six pack who's surfing for porn on a Friday night.
Me? I haven't bought a CD in ages, and when I did it was generally used. The actual numbers aren't that important, especially since I'm just pulling guesses out of the air. My real conclusion isn't that full albums aren't better or CDs are better/worse than downloads. The only point I'm trying to make is that most people buy music based on what they hear over the radio/satellite/podcast/TV. Odds are good that the majority are going to buy the singles they are familiar with if the songs are for sale individually. As long as a CD sells for $1.00 + the overhead costs they are going to make as much money as they do on downloads. Generally they sell for quite a bit more than this number, resulting in higher revenue and more profit.
Personally I have several hundreds of CDs as well - and they are just taking up space in my house. I've converted them to digital format and NEVER listen to a CD. I have more music than I can possibly listen to and more is available, for free or cheap, every day. I listen to podcasts, indie music, emusic downloads, I can't even keep up, so why buy CDs that I'm just going to have to rip anyway?
Production and distribution costs for the CD medium is minimal. When we were producing software CDs a run of 3000 wasn't much, IIRC around $0.40 each. I'm sure music companies that create millions get it for a fraction of that. If you are selling through Walmart or a major CD retailer distribution, on a per CD basis, is minimal as well.
The real revenue issue between downloads and CDs is the quantity of music. You can break both mediums down by song. An iTunes download is $1.00. A CD of 10 songs is $19.00 retail. That's $1.90 per song. Take out the $0.90 as overhead, production and retailer profit and the recording company is still making $1.00 per song, but they sold 10, not just the 1 or 2 radio singles that were worth listening to. The trick is how do you get people to buy downloads of the other 9 songs?
What is the point of buying one of these high dollar domain names? Sure, sex.com is probably lucrative, but diamond.com? If I want to buy a diamond I'm going to go to a jewlery story website (or walmart) not diamond.com. There's no branding associated with it. It's not any better than any other name unless someone promotes it. Any jewler that wants to sell jewelry would be better off to spend the millions on a marketing campaign and get their domain associated with high quality gems.
I think it's getting worse, not better; because as politicians lose touch with reality, real people won't want to have anything to do with politics.
What's amazing to me is that the general populace, even though they know that the politicians are out of touch, will refuse to vote for anyone who isn't 'experienced'. An average Joe has about zero shot of getting elected to anything more than city dogcatcher.
I do think medicine isn't quite where it could be, but your statements are a bit off.
Most common technique for fixing people? A person with a sharp blade - a method most likely pioneered by the ancient Egyptians nearly 5000 yrs ago.
Depends on the type of fixing, but I would guess the laser is right up there with the scalpel for 'most common' due to all of the lasik surgery and other uses. Lasers are pretty modern.
Most common technique for finding out what's happening inside someone? Firing X-rays at a piece of film - a process pretty much unchanged since the late 1800's.
Most common due to price. These days we also have MRIs, CT Scans and even little cameras that can see inside of you.
Most common method for curing bacterial infection? Penicillin, a drug over 50 years old.
Can't argue with something that works. One of the improvements there are variants that can be used by people with allergic reactions to Penicillin.
Pain relief? Aspirin - again nearly 100 years old.
Why not? I'm all for taking responsibility for your actions, but there are many stories out there that should be told, but people are afraid to tell them. Do you really want our government to be able to intimidate witnesses of events to keep them quiet? I would much prefer anonymity. If the facts are accurate what difference does it make who said it?
The press are the ones speaking publically, their sources are speaking privately, to the members of the press. If the story is false the writers of the story and the companies they work for are the ones liable. 33 states believe there is a right to anonymous sources and I'm inclined to agree. There is no benefit in making reporters reveal the origin of their information other than totalitarian government oppression.
Also, why not use the ambient outdoor temperature to help regulate the indoor temp. Instead of running AC in the datacenter, pull cold air from outside.
Everyone complains about SUVs polluting all the time, but how much pollution is created by these incredibly inefficient heating and cooling schemes.
The only entry in that paragraph that would be at odds for an atheist would be
d. Find out how you can help your church, synagogue, mosque, temple, or religious fellowship.
I imagine this would be easy enough to substitute some other community organization.
Not being an Atheist myself I don't know if I can understand, but wouldn't you want your children to explore the concepts of religion with you and discuss what you do (or don't) believe? I don't know, never having been a scout myself I don't know how big they are on religion, but we live in a world where religion exists. Your children should at least be aware of it and able to discuss their opinions.
Not sure how it is where you live, or how long ago you went to school, but I have a friend with kids in elementary school. These days fighting is a SERIOUS issue - they get the police involved.
Personally, I don't see any problem with fights either, as long as they don't get out of control. On some level I have a theory that some of this school violence (shootings) we continue to see might be related to the vicious no-fighting policies the schools have. It would be safer if the kids could settle problems with their fists rather than an AK-47.
After work I think I'll go down to the bus from El Paso. The 300 Millionth American citizen should be just getting here from Juarez. I want to get a picture of him.
Exactly, and as much as I like the idea of regional (or at least decentralized) control over all aspects of the Internet, as owner of a few websites I'm not looking forward to coordinating International naming services.
I you are right and we americans aren't that stupid.
Exactly. A US court ordering ICANN to drop a name could have disasterous results. Not only would it be the end of ICANN, it could cause a MAJOR backlash resulting in a chaos of domain names.
I hate to bring up that whole slippery slope thing, but we can't just have courts ordering names removed from DNS. What's next? Porn sites? Music sharing? Terrorists? Communists? Democrats? Without an independent, (relatively) impartial name registration/IP address management system the whole concept of a global Internet could break down.
That's a great point. I'm not for government supporting everyone with tax dollars, but if this guy is important a fan should definitely feel good about contributing. The only time discouraging people from helping someone else is when the other person is just a scammer (like certain Nigerian princes). In this case the recipient of the funds is obviously not in a situation where he can help himself or just pocket money from donators.
By the way, Italy is apparently about to legalize online gambling [777.com] too, so how about that?
I think if there's one thing the Europeans are good at in their legal systems it's practicality. The Italians tried to block the IP addresses of online gamblers, quickly realized the futility of such a policy, so are not going to legalize and tax online gambling. The US government and citizens are generally much more idealistic, at least on the surface. Online gambling is looked down on 'because it's bad for you', just like drugs, steriods, cigarettes, etc... Most of the time our politicians take advantage of the idealism of their constituents just so the government can make a few extra bucks.
Kudos to the Italians for figuring out that fighting the system isn't always a good idea.
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The icing on on the cake will be when malware appears that starts sending copyrighted material from an unsuspecting consumer's machine. The rash of complaints from innocent customers outght to be enough to severly cut into most ISP's profits, or at least force them to increase their customer service budget.
I agree, but we should make some accomodations. What happens if civilization falls apart and in 1400 years we are back in the bronze age? That would be a real kicker, wouldn't it? Mankind survives some kind of global catastrophe just to be wiped out by some decaying storage containers containing radioactive waste?
First, as has been said MANY times, voice is still the primary use of a cell phone.
Second, I don't typically call mine a cell, I just call it a phone. It is my only phone, I always have it and don't really care if anyone want's to rename it. I'll probably still call it a phone.
My arguement is that neither #1 or #2 should exist. Personally, I am NOT a snob technophile elitist. I'm a technological professional that has dedicated a significant portion of my life to learning about technoloy. As a result I recognize Linux for what it is, a superior technolgical tool and a platform that allows technophiles to indulge their passions without limits. Windows is a platform for common users that just want to access the Internet. Mac OS X works well for those in between.
I would love to see everyone use Linux, but not at the cost of moving the whole OS away from a professional level tool. If a company can successfully create a desktop Linux that is as well supported as the Microsoft platform, as Linspire is attempting to do, I wish them the best. The bottom line is the community is never going to do this. Those with skills to develop quality software and give it away have no motivation to donate their time to making it 'easy' to use. Sure, there are some real jerks out there in the F/OSS arena, but there are good people too. To lump them all together as technophile snobs because they donate their time and don't have time or money to setup 800 lines, broker bundling deals with Dell and provide kickbacks to every hardware and software company with their hand out is is just not right.
This whole problem has to be approached from an economic perspective, not a technological problem. The problem isn't the community, it's the economic and social environment that has allowed Microsoft to have a stranglehold on the industry. No corporation can actually make money creating a Linux distribution that is palatable to the general public and even if when they try they are thwarted because the Dells and HPs of the world have deals with Microsoft to provide computers with Windows pre-installed. If a corporate entity could figure out how to provide a Linux based machine from major manufacturers, put into retail outlets and out advertise the Microsoft marketing machine the Linux desktop could be made ready for the world. It's a chicken and egg problem, no one will invest in making Linux 'easy to use' until they can make money at it, and no one can make money at it until it's 'easy to use'.
Arguements like this article are a complete waste of time because they try to blame the community for Linux failure to penetrate the desktop market. In reality it has little to do with the product and much more to do with market conditions and public perception.
For the ten ZILLIONTH time. WHO CARES??!?
Linux was created by developers for technical people. Those of us who get it, use it. Those who don't can spend $300 to upgrade to vista, or use OSX. I wish the Linux user base would get a little bigger so companies like Adobe would start building versions of their products for Linux (photoshop, dreamweaver, flash). Other than that, I don't think everyone should use it. In fact, I don't even try to push it on my family because I don't want to support it. Microsoft has put billions of dollars into (unsuccessfully) creating a lame OS that even a monkey can figure out. When all my family members want to do is check email and buy stuff off ebay, why would I ask them to learn Linux. On the contrary, I would much prefer they bother the nice folks in Redmond with their lame questions.
Anyone who is a Linux developer and wants to grow the user base should definitely take your comments to heart. For the rest of us, we should continue what we are doing. Our software IS adapted to the user's expectations, those users just don't happen to be Joe six pack who's surfing for porn on a Friday night.
Me? I haven't bought a CD in ages, and when I did it was generally used. The actual numbers aren't that important, especially since I'm just pulling guesses out of the air. My real conclusion isn't that full albums aren't better or CDs are better/worse than downloads. The only point I'm trying to make is that most people buy music based on what they hear over the radio/satellite/podcast/TV. Odds are good that the majority are going to buy the singles they are familiar with if the songs are for sale individually. As long as a CD sells for $1.00 + the overhead costs they are going to make as much money as they do on downloads. Generally they sell for quite a bit more than this number, resulting in higher revenue and more profit.
Personally I have several hundreds of CDs as well - and they are just taking up space in my house. I've converted them to digital format and NEVER listen to a CD. I have more music than I can possibly listen to and more is available, for free or cheap, every day. I listen to podcasts, indie music, emusic downloads, I can't even keep up, so why buy CDs that I'm just going to have to rip anyway?
Production and distribution costs for the CD medium is minimal. When we were producing software CDs a run of 3000 wasn't much, IIRC around $0.40 each. I'm sure music companies that create millions get it for a fraction of that. If you are selling through Walmart or a major CD retailer distribution, on a per CD basis, is minimal as well.
The real revenue issue between downloads and CDs is the quantity of music. You can break both mediums down by song. An iTunes download is $1.00. A CD of 10 songs is $19.00 retail. That's $1.90 per song. Take out the $0.90 as overhead, production and retailer profit and the recording company is still making $1.00 per song, but they sold 10, not just the 1 or 2 radio singles that were worth listening to. The trick is how do you get people to buy downloads of the other 9 songs?
What is the point of buying one of these high dollar domain names? Sure, sex.com is probably lucrative, but diamond.com? If I want to buy a diamond I'm going to go to a jewlery story website (or walmart) not diamond.com. There's no branding associated with it. It's not any better than any other name unless someone promotes it. Any jewler that wants to sell jewelry would be better off to spend the millions on a marketing campaign and get their domain associated with high quality gems.
I think it's getting worse, not better; because as politicians lose touch with reality, real people won't want to have anything to do with politics.
What's amazing to me is that the general populace, even though they know that the politicians are out of touch, will refuse to vote for anyone who isn't 'experienced'. An average Joe has about zero shot of getting elected to anything more than city dogcatcher.
I do think medicine isn't quite where it could be, but your statements are a bit off.
Most common technique for fixing people? A person with a sharp blade - a method most likely pioneered by the ancient Egyptians nearly 5000 yrs ago.
Depends on the type of fixing, but I would guess the laser is right up there with the scalpel for 'most common' due to all of the lasik surgery and other uses. Lasers are pretty modern.
Most common technique for finding out what's happening inside someone? Firing X-rays at a piece of film - a process pretty much unchanged since the late 1800's.
Most common due to price. These days we also have MRIs, CT Scans and even little cameras that can see inside of you.
Most common method for curing bacterial infection? Penicillin, a drug over 50 years old.
Can't argue with something that works. One of the improvements there are variants that can be used by people with allergic reactions to Penicillin.
Pain relief? Aspirin - again nearly 100 years old.
Acetaminophen and Ibuprofen are both widely used.
Why not? I'm all for taking responsibility for your actions, but there are many stories out there that should be told, but people are afraid to tell them. Do you really want our government to be able to intimidate witnesses of events to keep them quiet? I would much prefer anonymity. If the facts are accurate what difference does it make who said it?
The press are the ones speaking publically, their sources are speaking privately, to the members of the press. If the story is false the writers of the story and the companies they work for are the ones liable. 33 states believe there is a right to anonymous sources and I'm inclined to agree. There is no benefit in making reporters reveal the origin of their information other than totalitarian government oppression.
Also, why not use the ambient outdoor temperature to help regulate the indoor temp. Instead of running AC in the datacenter, pull cold air from outside.
Everyone complains about SUVs polluting all the time, but how much pollution is created by these incredibly inefficient heating and cooling schemes.
The only entry in that paragraph that would be at odds for an atheist would be
d. Find out how you can help your church, synagogue, mosque, temple, or religious fellowship.
I imagine this would be easy enough to substitute some other community organization.
Not being an Atheist myself I don't know if I can understand, but wouldn't you want your children to explore the concepts of religion with you and discuss what you do (or don't) believe? I don't know, never having been a scout myself I don't know how big they are on religion, but we live in a world where religion exists. Your children should at least be aware of it and able to discuss their opinions.
Exactly, way more efficient.
Umm... we only have to ban pick-axe handles, he didn't attack him with the actual pick-axe.
That aside, if it wasn't for the UK's stupid gun control laws he could have met the guy at the door with a 12 gauge rather than a kitchen knife.
Not sure how it is where you live, or how long ago you went to school, but I have a friend with kids in elementary school. These days fighting is a SERIOUS issue - they get the police involved.
Personally, I don't see any problem with fights either, as long as they don't get out of control. On some level I have a theory that some of this school violence (shootings) we continue to see might be related to the vicious no-fighting policies the schools have. It would be safer if the kids could settle problems with their fists rather than an AK-47.
After work I think I'll go down to the bus from El Paso. The 300 Millionth American citizen should be just getting here from Juarez. I want to get a picture of him.
Nice comment - was just thinking that myself. We've now come full circle.
Sure they do. That's exactly the kind of crap we watch on Discovery when we are bored.
Exactly, and as much as I like the idea of regional (or at least decentralized) control over all aspects of the Internet, as owner of a few websites I'm not looking forward to coordinating International naming services.
I you are right and we americans aren't that stupid.
Exactly. A US court ordering ICANN to drop a name could have disasterous results. Not only would it be the end of ICANN, it could cause a MAJOR backlash resulting in a chaos of domain names.
I hate to bring up that whole slippery slope thing, but we can't just have courts ordering names removed from DNS. What's next? Porn sites? Music sharing? Terrorists? Communists? Democrats? Without an independent, (relatively) impartial name registration/IP address management system the whole concept of a global Internet could break down.
Tools->Options->Privacy->Passwords = handy I bet you write software for a living.
Yeah. Stupid global warming!
That's a great point. I'm not for government supporting everyone with tax dollars, but if this guy is important a fan should definitely feel good about contributing. The only time discouraging people from helping someone else is when the other person is just a scammer (like certain Nigerian princes). In this case the recipient of the funds is obviously not in a situation where he can help himself or just pocket money from donators.
By the way, Italy is apparently about to legalize online gambling [777.com] too, so how about that?
I think if there's one thing the Europeans are good at in their legal systems it's practicality. The Italians tried to block the IP addresses of online gamblers, quickly realized the futility of such a policy, so are not going to legalize and tax online gambling. The US government and citizens are generally much more idealistic, at least on the surface. Online gambling is looked down on 'because it's bad for you', just like drugs, steriods, cigarettes, etc... Most of the time our politicians take advantage of the idealism of their constituents just so the government can make a few extra bucks.
Kudos to the Italians for figuring out that fighting the system isn't always a good idea.