Microsoft is essentially bored with the current obsession surrounding console cycles, and the obsolescence that happens every five years. It likes the way the film industry does things[...]
The same film industry that has apparently been waning as the gaming industry waxes?
As Allard points out, gaming is the only major form of electronic entertainment that doesn't offer consumers choice.
How is having three competing platforms not choice?
If the problem lies in competing hardware formats, why doesn't Microsoft put its money where its mouth is and throw in with one of the current manufacturers? Why does it need to be an MS standard? If it's the consumers that they care about, why not produce software for whichever happens to be the strongest seller on the market?
It's clear why Microsoft doesn't view its tactics as monopolistic; it's defined the term to mean something radically different from what everyone else holds.
The only reason most of these spywear companies exist...is to make profit. Go after their source of profit.
Unfortunately, it's not that simple. The only reason any spyware company exists is because it makes money.
Their approach is basically to trawl a huge net across the, uh, the net and take what money they can in the process. So the real source of income for this little shell game is primarily the poor sap buying herbal penile extension pills. What we really need is some way of convincing him he doesn't need them.
The last I heard, Microsoft were planning on scrapping the HDD in Xbox 2 and using solid state memory instead. They apparently felt it was being "underutilized" by developers.
That doesn't sound like they have the same vision for the Xbox.
There are a lot of slashdot posters who would love to see "insightful" posts actually carry a shred of evidence to back up their claims.
Wait, the only one I know of for sure is me. Care to qualify your statements accordingly?
Looking at what WinFS is setting out to accomplish, I'd expect it's metadata support would allow you to have non-heirarchical bookmarks. Whether that's useful or not depends on how many bookmarks you manage, I guess:)
Because he grew angry at their inability to provide the service he asked and paid for, he should continue to be illegally penalised by people who can't separate his distaste for the company from their own personal feelings?
I do know what you're saying and I do agree that his behaviour probably did compound this, but jesus...he somehow deserves to be treated this way because he reacted to being treated like that? That makes no sense.
Agreed. The gap between tracks on the iPod continues to irritate the hell out of me. My primary use for the iPod is to listen to DJ mixes, which can be up to 3 hours long, but to obtain the most efficient use of the battery tracks should apparently be no more than nine minutes long. I'd happily cut the tracks up into smaller parts if it wasn't for the goddamn gap between tracks.
For a company so "gung-ho" about their devotion to music, they're rather conveniently ignoring the fact that a growing amount of music doesn't fit into their nicely structured idea of what a 'song' is. Have they actually stated that it's too difficult? When I was checking into it, they weren't even acknowledging it at all...
Then again, why should I get so angry about a fundamental design flaw in an expensive piece of equipment when they've clearly been hard at work coding such compensations as the awesome 'Music Quiz' option? Thanks, Apple!
I'm not sure about the US but here in Australia, along with the UK/Europe/Japan etc, a DJ is nowdays considered to be someone with real mixing skills, capable of pulling together a long set of tracks in an interesting way.
Believe me, if a DJ tried mixing mp3s on the sound system at CMoog in Byron Bay, people would notice the difference.
Apparently the Australian truth in advertising laws were modified to explicitly exclude politicians from being held accountable to them.
Then again, they're also allowed to edit the *official* records of Parliamentary proceedings, just in case they ever stumble during a speech and actually reveal their true intentions.
The more power and responsibility you have, the higher the level of accountability should be that comes with it. That we constantly absolve our politicians in this way just makes me think we're all fully aware that the way it is and the way we *say* it is are two completely different positions.
Great, we're supposed to be glad that our government has realised what century we're in *now*, just a handful of years after they decided that privatising the telecomms infrastructure was a good idea, as opposed to *keeping* the infrastructure, privatising the commercial aspect and using the profits from leasing the network to, oh I don't know, start thinking about something other than the next election and maybe build us an infrastructure that acknowledges that maybe, just maybe, this 'Net' thing might actually be important to us as a country, for our future.
Agreed. I've always been annoyed at these egotists who set out on "heroic solo endeavours" and then desperately wait for the nearest country to bail them out when it all goes wrong. Watching some moron who took his boat or plane into the wrong place at the wrong time hamming it up for the cameras while the rescue team, who are the ones actually risking their lives to rescue them, get nothing.
Seriously, if you can afford the money it takes to attempt something like this, the least you can do is pay back what it cost to rescue you from the fat paycheck the publicity scores.
I both agree and disagree: life *is* that complicated, we just haven't yet come up with workable abstractions for a lot of things that allow us to handle them in the simplified manner you're asking for.
What you're seeing here is the process by which that happens. Chomsky especially is someone whom I don't consider to want to "make [things] out" to be more complicated than they are; on the contrary, he seems to be more about wanting to understand the *true* process that is at work, not the pre-accepted social fiction that we might currently use as an explanation.
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The same film industry that has apparently been waning as the gaming industry waxes?
As Allard points out, gaming is the only major form of electronic entertainment that doesn't offer consumers choice.
How is having three competing platforms not choice?
If the problem lies in competing hardware formats, why doesn't Microsoft put its money where its mouth is and throw in with one of the current manufacturers? Why does it need to be an MS standard? If it's the consumers that they care about, why not produce software for whichever happens to be the strongest seller on the market?
It's clear why Microsoft doesn't view its tactics as monopolistic; it's defined the term to mean something radically different from what everyone else holds.
Unfortunately, it's not that simple. The only reason any spyware company exists is because it makes money.
Their approach is basically to trawl a huge net across the, uh, the net and take what money they can in the process. So the real source of income for this little shell game is primarily the poor sap buying herbal penile extension pills. What we really need is some way of convincing him he doesn't need them.
The last I heard, Microsoft were planning on scrapping the HDD in Xbox 2 and using solid state memory instead. They apparently felt it was being "underutilized" by developers.
That doesn't sound like they have the same vision for the Xbox.
There are a lot of slashdot posters who would love to see "insightful" posts actually carry a shred of evidence to back up their claims. Wait, the only one I know of for sure is me. Care to qualify your statements accordingly?
Looking at what WinFS is setting out to accomplish, I'd expect it's metadata support would allow you to have non-heirarchical bookmarks. Whether that's useful or not depends on how many bookmarks you manage, I guess :)
Because he grew angry at their inability to provide the service he asked and paid for, he should continue to be illegally penalised by people who can't separate his distaste for the company from their own personal feelings? I do know what you're saying and I do agree that his behaviour probably did compound this, but jesus...he somehow deserves to be treated this way because he reacted to being treated like that? That makes no sense.
For a company so "gung-ho" about their devotion to music, they're rather conveniently ignoring the fact that a growing amount of music doesn't fit into their nicely structured idea of what a 'song' is. Have they actually stated that it's too difficult? When I was checking into it, they weren't even acknowledging it at all...
Then again, why should I get so angry about a fundamental design flaw in an expensive piece of equipment when they've clearly been hard at work coding such compensations as the awesome 'Music Quiz' option? Thanks, Apple!
Believe me, if a DJ tried mixing mp3s on the sound system at CMoog in Byron Bay, people would notice the difference.
Apparently the Australian truth in advertising laws were modified to explicitly exclude politicians from being held accountable to them. Then again, they're also allowed to edit the *official* records of Parliamentary proceedings, just in case they ever stumble during a speech and actually reveal their true intentions. The more power and responsibility you have, the higher the level of accountability should be that comes with it. That we constantly absolve our politicians in this way just makes me think we're all fully aware that the way it is and the way we *say* it is are two completely different positions.
Great, we're supposed to be glad that our government has realised what century we're in *now*, just a handful of years after they decided that privatising the telecomms infrastructure was a good idea, as opposed to *keeping* the infrastructure, privatising the commercial aspect and using the profits from leasing the network to, oh I don't know, start thinking about something other than the next election and maybe build us an infrastructure that acknowledges that maybe, just maybe, this 'Net' thing might actually be important to us as a country, for our future.
Agreed. I've always been annoyed at these egotists who set out on "heroic solo endeavours" and then desperately wait for the nearest country to bail them out when it all goes wrong. Watching some moron who took his boat or plane into the wrong place at the wrong time hamming it up for the cameras while the rescue team, who are the ones actually risking their lives to rescue them, get nothing. Seriously, if you can afford the money it takes to attempt something like this, the least you can do is pay back what it cost to rescue you from the fat paycheck the publicity scores.
I both agree and disagree: life *is* that complicated, we just haven't yet come up with workable abstractions for a lot of things that allow us to handle them in the simplified manner you're asking for.
What you're seeing here is the process by which that happens. Chomsky especially is someone whom I don't consider to want to "make [things] out" to be more complicated than they are; on the contrary, he seems to be more about wanting to understand the *true* process that is at work, not the pre-accepted social fiction that we might currently use as an explanation.