Hey, I'm totally against this last post. It's your ISP's bandwidth,/. isn't paying for it. If I were your ISP, I'd start charging/. whenever people visit it.
Get off your ivory tower, jackass. People pay to use the Internet, not just the web, and VoIP is on the Internet.
A more likely case: The Ultracade authors make a lot of money off of these boxes, but they could make more if arcade owners didn't have the option of downloading all the ROMs off of BIttorrent, putting them on a computer, and gutting an old arcade case that's been gathering dust for about a decade.
They have a closed-source product that is getting eaten alive by an open source product. If this doesn't have at least something in common with SCO, let me know. (And yes, I know; SCO didn't have the competing product. Still, the bullshit with IP makes it a case with very similar tonews.
As a side note, the reason I mention this is because I'm sure at least some of the code from Ultracade is likely to have originated from the open source community, considering the large number of games that Ultracade boxes support.
You know, the biggest problem with emulation nowadays is ego, and apparently the egos of the Ultracade creators got too big.
As a former ZD employee, I've seen this far too much in emulation, but it's never gone to this degree. This is a very evil way to get a point across, and I really hope, if this actually happens, that a few makers of these arcade games out and sue Ultracade for pulling this shit.
Why the hell would you take out the people who made your bread and butter? All that's going to happen is MAME is going to come out under a different name and be designed in such a way that it won't be compatible with Ultracade arcade boxes. You pull shit like this and alienate your users and fellow authors, you get burned. Ask Marat Fayzullin what I'm talking about.
I think it's good to have open source journalism in a sense above blogging -- wikis are the closest thing to offer it, but there are still problems in the accuracy department.
On top of this, there are elements of print news that blogging and wikis have not yet touched. I lay out news pages for a living, and the biggest problem that I've seen with blogging is the lack of consistent graphic designs that help make sense of the story. It's something that's difficult for one person to do on top of writing.
If you get fifty people working together on an open source wiki newspaper, it becomes easier for someone to pick up that baton, just as it makes it easier for journalists to have specialized focuses -- one focusing on politics, one focusing on entertainment.
The article mentions how Firefox has done well as a grassroots product. It has, and it's a solid product. However, as I've said before in open-source threads, there's a reason for that. They have their stuff together on both the marketing and the coding end.
Example: The fox logo is far more appealing to look at. The browser layout is clever and open-ended. The grass roots have emphasized how much better Firefox is with security.
Journalism's the same way. Infographics and strong designs can draw a reader into a story and narrow an extremely complex story into a short, understandable bit of information. Every time I see an open source product with undercooked marketing, I know it won't hit the mainstream -- word of mouth is helpful but can only go so far. Open source journalism is the same way -- if a group of people can do it right, it will work really well.
If they can do it better than most newspaper sites, even better -- most newspaper sites don't keep with standards, and therefore their sites aren't as appealing. It's a great field that could open up if a wiki project had all their ducks in a row.
It's not a POC (proof of concept), but it is a POC (piece of crap).
That's what you get when you keep building layers upon layers like an onion -- except, instead, the onion's rotting from the inside.
Hey, that's a pretty nifty throwing star that the guy created. I like how Apple is so good at industrial design that they manage to make even unintentional uses for their product look awesome.
Did it ever, honestly, occur to them that these are the kind of things that may come to light in a court of law, especially considering the sort of business they do?
I think it's safe to say that just by association, it further sullys the reputation of their competitors, too.
...but that's fine, because the labels aren't going to be worried about him.
The reason why Apple's setup worked so gosh-dern well is that they had all of their ducks in a row, as has every other label-sanctioned music service. The fact that he's going to launch this thing without even talking to them makes the promise of his service sound a little foolhardy. He had this same problem with MP3.com, remember; he had no way to control the quality of the artists.
Labels, love them or no (I certainly don't), tend to at the very least fliter out the amateurs and guys covering Chic songs with a mandolin and an egg shaker, so that you can actually hear someone with actual (or inflated) talent. The filter usually works as a loss to the customer, because the close-but-no-cigar artists are the ones that get filtered most unfairly. But in this case, the filter's a benefit -- it cuts out the armchair Garageband players.
I could launch a service like this tomorrow. Just give me MS Frontpage, a couple MP3s from that album Bronson Pinchot did back in 1988 at the height of his "Perfect Strangers" fame years, a streaming shoutcast link and a link to Paypal, and I can also I manage to successfully do everything that Michael Richardson is promising in this article. But do i have any connections? Nope.
In my scenario, the business plan fails, and pinchotTunes goes kaput in three weeks, but Bronson Pinchot has a second wind of fame as a result.
You know, if you were coming with your A game, Michael, I'd applaud you, but I keep seeing B- and C+ games out of your various companies.
You don't even bother to look at the things you criticize. You're ignorant. You call yourself a nerd?
I may not be a nerd in the sense you are, but I am a professional graphic designer and realize that it's as important to put a good face on something as it is to have the backend solid.
Mozilla, I might remind you, had a lot of problems starting out, because it didn't have a very marketable campaign. They worked on that, got a really memorable logo, and got some word-of-mouth going about its benefits. Opera is questionably better, but it doesn't have the momentum Firefox does.
You can call me ignorant all you want, but it's just as important to advertise as it is to have a solid backend with a good reputation.
KM, just like Linux, will not succeed with Grandma if she can't remember what the hell it's called. Grandma does not care if she can add key mapping to a program -- she simply wants to be able to look at recipies. What reason does she have to switch if she doesn't know why key-mapping is worthwhile?
This is a reversible thing, remember. It's easy to create a logo that doesn't suck and a webpage that shows the benefits of the program. Linux has done better lately too, though they still have a lot of work to do.
Happy trolling, Anonymous Coward! You should keep in mind that I know what I'm talking about just as much as you.
How much you want to bet that this corporation will pretty much do nothing but get pissy towards a bunch of emulator/C64-on-a-chip authors and not actually do anything with the company's legacy?
I mean, really, it's pretty much been empty promises since about 1992 from the Commodore/Amiga crowd, and the Commodore kicked the bucket.
Slashdot Mirror
They're mad hax0rz of the patent office.
Well, at least he got the title of the post right.
The Actual Effect: "Man, we're not very smart! We wasted all that money on the search program nobody uses."
Hug my mac tightly tonight, and trust it to only have one master: me.
Hey, at least they're doing something they're good at.
Just think, if the lawsuits decrease, record execs will suddenly whine, "OH WE ARE STARVING, WE SUED EVERYBODY! HELP US ORRIN!"
Get off your ivory tower, jackass. People pay to use the Internet, not just the web, and VoIP is on the Internet.
Yep -- he can't possibly compete any other way, so that's why he's pulling this.
(In response to the update) Called it.
They have a closed-source product that is getting eaten alive by an open source product. If this doesn't have at least something in common with SCO, let me know. (And yes, I know; SCO didn't have the competing product. Still, the bullshit with IP makes it a case with very similar tonews.
As a side note, the reason I mention this is because I'm sure at least some of the code from Ultracade is likely to have originated from the open source community, considering the large number of games that Ultracade boxes support.
The gall of this guy is just unbelievable.
As a former ZD employee, I've seen this far too much in emulation, but it's never gone to this degree. This is a very evil way to get a point across, and I really hope, if this actually happens, that a few makers of these arcade games out and sue Ultracade for pulling this shit.
Why the hell would you take out the people who made your bread and butter? All that's going to happen is MAME is going to come out under a different name and be designed in such a way that it won't be compatible with Ultracade arcade boxes. You pull shit like this and alienate your users and fellow authors, you get burned. Ask Marat Fayzullin what I'm talking about.
Is it a good sign for the author that her page was showing a bunch of garbage when I loaded it?
On top of this, there are elements of print news that blogging and wikis have not yet touched. I lay out news pages for a living, and the biggest problem that I've seen with blogging is the lack of consistent graphic designs that help make sense of the story. It's something that's difficult for one person to do on top of writing.
If you get fifty people working together on an open source wiki newspaper, it becomes easier for someone to pick up that baton, just as it makes it easier for journalists to have specialized focuses -- one focusing on politics, one focusing on entertainment.
The article mentions how Firefox has done well as a grassroots product. It has, and it's a solid product. However, as I've said before in open-source threads, there's a reason for that. They have their stuff together on both the marketing and the coding end.
Example: The fox logo is far more appealing to look at. The browser layout is clever and open-ended. The grass roots have emphasized how much better Firefox is with security.
Journalism's the same way. Infographics and strong designs can draw a reader into a story and narrow an extremely complex story into a short, understandable bit of information. Every time I see an open source product with undercooked marketing, I know it won't hit the mainstream -- word of mouth is helpful but can only go so far. Open source journalism is the same way -- if a group of people can do it right, it will work really well.
If they can do it better than most newspaper sites, even better -- most newspaper sites don't keep with standards, and therefore their sites aren't as appealing. It's a great field that could open up if a wiki project had all their ducks in a row.
It's not a POC (proof of concept), but it is a POC (piece of crap). That's what you get when you keep building layers upon layers like an onion -- except, instead, the onion's rotting from the inside.
Hey, that's a pretty nifty throwing star that the guy created. I like how Apple is so good at industrial design that they manage to make even unintentional uses for their product look awesome.
I was referring to the fact that "everyone" uses Kazaa Lite instead of regular Kazaa.
Making unsubstansiated claims and then trying to prove them with unrelated proof isn't a good way of getting your point across.
DO you have documents (like say, the ones mentioned in the article) to prove this?
I think it's safe to say that just by association, it further sullys the reputation of their competitors, too.
The reason why Apple's setup worked so gosh-dern well is that they had all of their ducks in a row, as has every other label-sanctioned music service. The fact that he's going to launch this thing without even talking to them makes the promise of his service sound a little foolhardy. He had this same problem with MP3.com, remember; he had no way to control the quality of the artists.
Labels, love them or no (I certainly don't), tend to at the very least fliter out the amateurs and guys covering Chic songs with a mandolin and an egg shaker, so that you can actually hear someone with actual (or inflated) talent. The filter usually works as a loss to the customer, because the close-but-no-cigar artists are the ones that get filtered most unfairly. But in this case, the filter's a benefit -- it cuts out the armchair Garageband players.
I could launch a service like this tomorrow. Just give me MS Frontpage, a couple MP3s from that album Bronson Pinchot did back in 1988 at the height of his "Perfect Strangers" fame years, a streaming shoutcast link and a link to Paypal, and I can also I manage to successfully do everything that Michael Richardson is promising in this article. But do i have any connections? Nope.
In my scenario, the business plan fails, and pinchotTunes goes kaput in three weeks, but Bronson Pinchot has a second wind of fame as a result.
You know, if you were coming with your A game, Michael, I'd applaud you, but I keep seeing B- and C+ games out of your various companies.
Wow, they brought down the lowest end by $100. Nice.. I could actually afford one now if I hadn't bought that Mac Mini first.
I may not be a nerd in the sense you are, but I am a professional graphic designer and realize that it's as important to put a good face on something as it is to have the backend solid.
Mozilla, I might remind you, had a lot of problems starting out, because it didn't have a very marketable campaign. They worked on that, got a really memorable logo, and got some word-of-mouth going about its benefits. Opera is questionably better, but it doesn't have the momentum Firefox does.
You can call me ignorant all you want, but it's just as important to advertise as it is to have a solid backend with a good reputation.
KM, just like Linux, will not succeed with Grandma if she can't remember what the hell it's called. Grandma does not care if she can add key mapping to a program -- she simply wants to be able to look at recipies. What reason does she have to switch if she doesn't know why key-mapping is worthwhile?
This is a reversible thing, remember. It's easy to create a logo that doesn't suck and a webpage that shows the benefits of the program. Linux has done better lately too, though they still have a lot of work to do.
Happy trolling, Anonymous Coward! You should keep in mind that I know what I'm talking about just as much as you.
The reason Firefox has a reasonable shot is because it has an actual, honest-to-God fanbase and strong marketing for an open source product.
This just has a crappy logo and some random submitter talking it up. (Hint: You need more than that to have a successful product.)
"Honey, I know you wanted to get laid tonight, but instead, you're in the doghouse, retard."
Why did you even suggest this thread again?
Obligatory joke about frying one's motherboard.
I mean, really, it's pretty much been empty promises since about 1992 from the Commodore/Amiga crowd, and the Commodore kicked the bucket.