You make a great point - that many of the discoveries were not directly or solely 'muslim' - but yet they were.
As you point out, many of of the key cities that fostered discovery were the locus of many ideologies, that were allowed to coexist. And that is the key point, at the height of the Muslim world the Muslim world was tolerant of local ideas, and learned from them, assimilated them, wove them in to their writings and scientific understanding, grew them in to something more.
It is dangerous to view any culture as an island unto itself. At least any culture that isn't isolated on an island. The truth is that Islamic cultures, like others, went through varying times of acceptance and rejection of other ideas. And like other cultures, the times of acceptance led to the times of greatest innovation, while the times of isolation and rejection led to war and stagnation. A number of Karen Armstrong's books lend great insight.
I think it is not much different than printing a hardcover first and paperback later.
I think you're on to something, but I'm not convinced the logic works.
Print publishing has been around for a long time, and they have had a chance to perfect the pricing model. There are two questions, why are hardcover books more expensive than paperback, and why do hardcover come out first? The answer to the first is that hardcover books are a bit more expensive to produce. The answer to the second is a little more interesting. Basically, publishers are working to maximize their profit (a good example based on the hotel industry can be found in The Art of Pricing). Some people are willing to pay more to get a book first, and they are willing to pay more than the difference between a hardcover and paperback copy - for example, a hardcover costs 10% more, but some people are willing to pay 40% more to get it early. If the publisher only released paperback, they would lose out on all the profits from the 'early adopters' while if they only released hardcover they would lose out on those who would be willing to pay a little less. So, release the hardover, which costs 10% more to produce, but has a 40% higher price tag compared to the paperback == more profit.
So, iTunes vs. CDs. CDs cost more to produce (like hardcover books) the question is, is the margin between "hardcopy" and "softcopy" enough that it is profitable to shift early adopters to the hardcopy version early and let the rest wait for the softcopy. I would say no, the margin per song from iTunes (or other digital distribution) is far, far better than a physical CD. Not to mention the impluse, instant gratification factor and the (likely) quicker format turnover/re-purchase.
It seems a better profit maximizing strategy for music distribution would be either an auction or loyalty based model. The first, auction, would be to have X * T number of songs available at a D * T price (loosly). So the price would go down over time and more songs would be sold. The hardcore fans line up to buy the song, but once they are sold, they're sold until tomorrow (sort of like the midnight CD release). The second, is to offer the songs only to those registered (possibly at a cost) to the fan club. They get the songs early and at a premium - but only those 'in the club' can get it first.
So, I think it is a lot like the print publishing model in as much as record companies need to find a way to charge those who want the music first more, but I don't think it is profit maximizing to do that through CD sales. CDs are a very expensive way to distribute music in 2006 - far more than the difference between hardcover/paperback books.
The labels are going to have to deal with digital distribution. And the first ones to do it will gain. Music is becoming more an more an impulse purchase, and technology is making that happen. With iTunes (and her ilk) one can hear a song on a TV show or movie, look it up and buy it before the song is over. It's only a matter of time before there are links to songs in TV shows, movies and music videos so you can buy it and download it while you watch.
I'm not so sure about the "feed the poor" arguement. A friend working on policy and GMO issues tells me that in the US alone a huge amount of grain goes unused every year - the corporation-farmers grow it and the government buys it because it can't be sold on the open market without depressing prices. Only recently has this "excess" gone to things like bio-deisel, but rarely to the poor. Why? Because they can't pay for it - the US government isn't in the business of giving hand outs remember (snicker).
Seriously though, I'm no biologist and can't speak to the cross pollination and such, but I play an economist on TV and I think the economics of GMOs is interesting. I could be totally wrong as I've given this about 15 minutes of thought, but it seems like GM crops are (or can be):
Good for a single or few farmers (suppliers) or,
Good for all people (consumers)
But at current prices I'm not sure it can be "good" for all farmers and all consumers (Paretto efficient). If only some farmers use GM crops they (only a few) have higher yeilds -> more to sell (with a higher marginal cost), but don't depress prices (much) -> higher profits (for a few). If all farmers use GM crops then we have higher yeilds -> greater supply -> lower prices, at a higher marginal cost (assuming GM seed is more expensive). So, this reduces (possibly eliminates) the farmer's profit margins unless the government steps in to either artificially restrict supply or artificially increase demand. If one of these things don't happen the price could drop to the point that net consumers of grain (think underdeveloped nations) could afford it. I haven't done the math, so it's possible that the lower price with GM crops could be more profitable for farmers (trade restrictions and governement intervention aside) or it's possible that even greater economies of scale would be needed and more small farmers would be bought out (again, trade restrictions and governement intervention aside).
Again, I'm not sure, but another interesting side to the debate. Hopefully we don't all grow third arms or something - remember that it took a long time for us to realize that tobacco and alcohol aren't that good for us.
Don't you think that is just a little simplistic? You're making the question one of "religion" or "science" and things are just not that well defined.
For example, there are many religions, each have their own concept of "afterlife" or what happens when you die. Many (but not all) have a heaven and hell. Also, many (but not all) claim to be the "one true faith" and everyone else is going to hell. So, let's just expand your arguement a little bit - you aren't looking at a 50/50 chance here, just take the major monotheistic religions common in our time - Christianity, Judaism and Islam (which are all basically the same, but let's not get in to that), plus science. Now you have only a one in four chance of getting to heaven. Things are less obvious now don't you think? Throw in the other religions that consider themselves "the one true faith" and your chances are starting to look pretty slim, probably less than 5%. Nothingness starts to look pretty good compared to the nearly as good chance of hell if you picked the wrong religion.
Your comment is a rationalization of faith, and a simple one at that. It seems there could be some validity to the "it's better to believe in something than nothing" arguement, but it requires a lot more thought than what you are implying, and it seems to me that it would lead to a rather blase style of faith anyway. It's fine to have faith, but faith is by definition irrational - the more you try to rationalize the more likely you end up in a logical mud puddle.
So no, it is not "more illogical to not try to believe". It may be more uncomforable, it may appear hopeless, it may not be your cup of tea, and that's cool, but it takes a big strech to consider any religion more logical than any other religion much less science.
Thank you for pointing out how the GP is over-simplifying things. When one does the math, you cannot be more correct.
It is hard to come up with an arguement where the free market is less efficient than a managed market (in macro). When one allows the variable of time greater than 2 days, this is even more true.
It's also possible that the lables aren't putting out anything that people will pay even $0.99 for. Most of the crap they are putting out they couldn't even pay me to listen to.
Oh, and less than one half of one percent on downloaded music (personal) when people are spending money on gifts (others). Just doesn't seem like a particulary significant statistic. Let's see what happens in the two weeks after the retail holiday.
The premise of intelligent design is that our God is a second imperfect God who did a shoddy job when he put together the earth. God did such a bad job that we can see the gaps in the fossil record.
If you held to a perfect God theory, then you would expect to find a perfect chain of evolution in the fossil record. For that matter, studying evolution would be a very spiritual and fulfilling science in that you are studying a perfect work of a divine creator.
This makes a nice point. As someone who has studied theology, one thing the 'theologists' are really good at is explaining away their logical phallacies.
For example, there is the question of how a perfectly good God (omnibenevolent) could allow so much evil in the world He created. [I'm using the theologists gender/capitalization]
There are at least a dozen arguements to explain this away without violating two ideas - 1) God is omnibenevolent and 2) evil exists. Each of those arguements violate some principle of logical reasoning. But these people are so invested in proving their chosen ideology that they will then explain away the logical fallacies with similar roundabout arguements that cloud, but do not remove the nonsequiter and absence of good reasoning.
The "Christian right" relies on the people's inability to recognize, or maybe simply lazy nature, to propagate ridiculous ideas, idiot politicians and dumbass policies. There are a few Supreme Court decisions that, if overturned, would prompt me to expatriate (and Bush makes me want to already), and the Scopes decision is one of them.
I'm an American, and lots of my fellow Americans scare the willies out of me.
Cheers - couldn't agree with you more. I'm an American travelling internationally, and constantly feel the need to apologize for the behaviour of my country. I have to show my co-workers and others that I meet that I do not conform to the image we (the US) have put forth to the world.
I think the US, as great as the nation is in many ways, needs to consider some humility on the world stage. A recognition that other systems can work (think democratic socialism) and that disagreement doesn't == evil, just disagreement. The arrogance of the US leaders (and many of the people) is what bothers me.
The domestic politics of it though - someone who is open to ideas, not heralding 'our system' has no chance of being elected - one must conform to one of a very few core ideologies to be elected (see Ralph Nader if you don't get it). The openess and (by comparission) free exchange of ideas on/. is quite a special case.
PS - I have met people who were surprised I am from the US because I am not overwieght. That says something huh?
It's as if some child says 'I'm running away' in the evening and ends up in a local bar/restaurant/strip joint/bookstore - who is really responsible for what he/she sees? On top of that, the child has to kill three cops and 5 hookers and do 4 lines of blow to get there. But add on top of that, the child needs turn by turn directions in crayon to a dark alley with a password "42" and a second password "purplemonkeydishwasher" to actually get in.
C'mon conservatives - kinds can find 'objectionable' so much more easily - like by walking outside, watching TV or reading your public record.
So, video games are bad m'kay. But video and images of killing in Iraq (and elsewhere) are fine? Is it because CNN is less graphic (hardly), or because those people are 'the bad guys'? How about the movies? Television dramas? Where the fuck does this guy come from?
Easy answer, every one else is either owned by the government or has a huge lobby. The video game industry lobby currently doesn't come close to the rest of media (where'd that link go?).
I really hope the general public gets the message 'dumbass is pissed about charity donation in his name' (sounds like Onion material) rather than 'superstar lawyer is saint and patroit' - there's a chance since the general public doesn't RTFA either.
The real irony, I think, is that if there were some Hindu/Buddhist/Jain company that created a game where the challenge was to not kill anything, this guy would be just as pissed - 'WHAT! You're not killing the $Name Bastards'. He'd probably be happy to attack/. just for the use of the word 'karma'
I don't see how this can work. In the problem the king can listen to the prisoner's strategy. With this solution all the king must do is keep calling the counter, and keep flipping the chalice until the counter is convinced all have been called, at which point he is wrong and everyone dies.
I'm sorry, are you the recent recipient of a free lobomotomy? Do you fall victim to phishing and 419 scams?
Fox News did not "report both sides of the story" in any way. Fox News reported statements as facts (more or less) with high attention without disclosing the obvious bias of the person making the statements. Then they proceded to say "well, maybe some of those comments might possibly have been influenced by Microsoft, or by any of these other organizations."
Almost every media outlet has at least some bias - it really is all a matter of degree and how clearly those outlets disclose their influces and the influences on their quotations. Not that CNN is perfect, but notice that any time there is a story about AOL-TimeWarner CNN clearly notes this is their parent company. Right there in the article believe it or not. Even/. notes the connection to OSTG in articles.
You can't call it reporting both sides of a story if the reporter is screaming one side and whispering the other.
You bring up a really great point - the holy shrine of the bottom line. Key goal of the small shop owner seeking dinner, and the big box store exec seeking earnings per share (or whatever measure you wish to use - they key is PROFIT).
That said, the trend in the software industry is to suppor the bottom line not with product, but with services. We have seen organizations such as Red Hat and IBM excel based on services, not on a specialized product.
So, the question becomes, why do people bother with the local computer store at all, since they can get the same thing at the 'big box' store, possibly for less. Here it is - they like the personal attention, the _service_ is what they are after. Geeks don't need hand-holding, but the average person does. The average consumer is still willing to pay a bit more to know that a real person will help them out with simple problems, and that person will charge a reasonable amount for complex problems (and that person is right in town, not on the other side of the world).
The big question, with F/OSS and the local computer shop, is marketing. How does the local computer guy, FireFox, GIMP, etc differentiate themselves not among the geeks, but among the general population? Being a marketing guy (hold the hisses) with a good dose of liberalism and technology I'm all for F/OSS, and I be happy to offer a few hours a week to good software I believe in. So, is there an opening on the F/OSS world for the marketing guy as well as the coder?
The primary goal of a website is not to convey "art", it's to convey and publish information...
I think you make a great point. The Web is about communicating information. For me, my pet peeve is Flash sites that get between me and the information I'm after. You use Flash, I use some other site.
That said, it is impossible to separate the content from the presentation. This has been true for hundreds of years (think fonts, script styles, illuminated texts), and has become even more true as there is so much information available the deciding factor for a user is often the quality of the presentation and not the content (a well organized, well indexed C++ book gets used more than the poorly organized one, even if the latter has more/better content).
I think what the originator of the thread meant, but didn't say, is that there is a fear or dislike of being judged on an attribute that was not designed for. What I mean is, being judged solely on the content without respect for the organization/presentation of the content. Its easy to create a site that renders well for IE, Firefox and Opera, easy to add RSS support - the presentation formats are known. Its very difficult to create a site for an unknown presentation format. There is a fear then, that the site will be panned by the user based on an unexpected (to the designer) experience.
Going back to the book example - if you read the book backwards (or upside down or whatever) you can't blame the author if it sucks and the plot seems, well, backwards (or upside down or whatever). Its fine to change the 'viewing angle' but if you do, you can't blame the creator if it seems out of whack. It is fine to say 'This book sucks when you read it backwards' - at least that way the opinion is qualified and I know I'm risking wasting my time if I read it backwards.
Slashdot Mirror
You make a great point - that many of the discoveries were not directly or solely 'muslim' - but yet they were.
As you point out, many of of the key cities that fostered discovery were the locus of many ideologies, that were allowed to coexist. And that is the key point, at the height of the Muslim world the Muslim world was tolerant of local ideas, and learned from them, assimilated them, wove them in to their writings and scientific understanding, grew them in to something more.
It is dangerous to view any culture as an island unto itself. At least any culture that isn't isolated on an island. The truth is that Islamic cultures, like others, went through varying times of acceptance and rejection of other ideas. And like other cultures, the times of acceptance led to the times of greatest innovation, while the times of isolation and rejection led to war and stagnation. A number of Karen Armstrong's books lend great insight.
Makes you think a little about where the US is.
That is exactly what the music industry needs to keep in mind.
I think you're on to something, but I'm not convinced the logic works.
Print publishing has been around for a long time, and they have had a chance to perfect the pricing model. There are two questions, why are hardcover books more expensive than paperback, and why do hardcover come out first? The answer to the first is that hardcover books are a bit more expensive to produce. The answer to the second is a little more interesting. Basically, publishers are working to maximize their profit (a good example based on the hotel industry can be found in The Art of Pricing ). Some people are willing to pay more to get a book first, and they are willing to pay more than the difference between a hardcover and paperback copy - for example, a hardcover costs 10% more, but some people are willing to pay 40% more to get it early. If the publisher only released paperback, they would lose out on all the profits from the 'early adopters' while if they only released hardcover they would lose out on those who would be willing to pay a little less. So, release the hardover, which costs 10% more to produce, but has a 40% higher price tag compared to the paperback == more profit.
So, iTunes vs. CDs. CDs cost more to produce (like hardcover books) the question is, is the margin between "hardcopy" and "softcopy" enough that it is profitable to shift early adopters to the hardcopy version early and let the rest wait for the softcopy. I would say no, the margin per song from iTunes (or other digital distribution) is far, far better than a physical CD. Not to mention the impluse, instant gratification factor and the (likely) quicker format turnover/re-purchase.
It seems a better profit maximizing strategy for music distribution would be either an auction or loyalty based model. The first, auction, would be to have X * T number of songs available at a D * T price (loosly). So the price would go down over time and more songs would be sold. The hardcore fans line up to buy the song, but once they are sold, they're sold until tomorrow (sort of like the midnight CD release). The second, is to offer the songs only to those registered (possibly at a cost) to the fan club. They get the songs early and at a premium - but only those 'in the club' can get it first.
So, I think it is a lot like the print publishing model in as much as record companies need to find a way to charge those who want the music first more, but I don't think it is profit maximizing to do that through CD sales. CDs are a very expensive way to distribute music in 2006 - far more than the difference between hardcover/paperback books.
The labels are going to have to deal with digital distribution. And the first ones to do it will gain. Music is becoming more an more an impulse purchase, and technology is making that happen. With iTunes (and her ilk) one can hear a song on a TV show or movie, look it up and buy it before the song is over. It's only a matter of time before there are links to songs in TV shows, movies and music videos so you can buy it and download it while you watch.
Seriously though, I'm no biologist and can't speak to the cross pollination and such, but I play an economist on TV and I think the economics of GMOs is interesting. I could be totally wrong as I've given this about 15 minutes of thought, but it seems like GM crops are (or can be):
But at current prices I'm not sure it can be "good" for all farmers and all consumers (Paretto efficient). If only some farmers use GM crops they (only a few) have higher yeilds -> more to sell (with a higher marginal cost), but don't depress prices (much) -> higher profits (for a few). If all farmers use GM crops then we have higher yeilds -> greater supply -> lower prices, at a higher marginal cost (assuming GM seed is more expensive). So, this reduces (possibly eliminates) the farmer's profit margins unless the government steps in to either artificially restrict supply or artificially increase demand. If one of these things don't happen the price could drop to the point that net consumers of grain (think underdeveloped nations) could afford it. I haven't done the math, so it's possible that the lower price with GM crops could be more profitable for farmers (trade restrictions and governement intervention aside) or it's possible that even greater economies of scale would be needed and more small farmers would be bought out (again, trade restrictions and governement intervention aside).
Again, I'm not sure, but another interesting side to the debate. Hopefully we don't all grow third arms or something - remember that it took a long time for us to realize that tobacco and alcohol aren't that good for us.
For example, there are many religions, each have their own concept of "afterlife" or what happens when you die. Many (but not all) have a heaven and hell. Also, many (but not all) claim to be the "one true faith" and everyone else is going to hell. So, let's just expand your arguement a little bit - you aren't looking at a 50/50 chance here, just take the major monotheistic religions common in our time - Christianity, Judaism and Islam (which are all basically the same, but let's not get in to that), plus science. Now you have only a one in four chance of getting to heaven. Things are less obvious now don't you think? Throw in the other religions that consider themselves "the one true faith" and your chances are starting to look pretty slim, probably less than 5%. Nothingness starts to look pretty good compared to the nearly as good chance of hell if you picked the wrong religion.
Your comment is a rationalization of faith, and a simple one at that. It seems there could be some validity to the "it's better to believe in something than nothing" arguement, but it requires a lot more thought than what you are implying, and it seems to me that it would lead to a rather blase style of faith anyway. It's fine to have faith, but faith is by definition irrational - the more you try to rationalize the more likely you end up in a logical mud puddle.
So no, it is not "more illogical to not try to believe". It may be more uncomforable, it may appear hopeless, it may not be your cup of tea, and that's cool, but it takes a big strech to consider any religion more logical than any other religion much less science.
If ever there was a time I wish I had mod points, this is it.
I could not have said it better.
Nope, completely original.
It is hard to come up with an arguement where the free market is less efficient than a managed market (in macro). When one allows the variable of time greater than 2 days, this is even more true.
Saying that human adults are superior to chimps is a bit like saying Coke is superior to Pepsi - it's all a matter of taste.
How many chimps buy penis enlargement pills after receiving Spam? How many kill others for using a different word for the same thing?
You see the point.
And Coke is better.
humans may not even reach (emotional) adulthood until well into their 30s.
/. female!
I think we have found the (formerly) mythical
Well......they could become president.
We do have precedent now.
It's also possible that the lables aren't putting out anything that people will pay even $0.99 for. Most of the crap they are putting out they couldn't even pay me to listen to.
Oh, and less than one half of one percent on downloaded music (personal) when people are spending money on gifts (others). Just doesn't seem like a particulary significant statistic. Let's see what happens in the two weeks after the retail holiday.
I wish I knew who said it, and I hope it is not just little old me, but someone once said something like
"More have been killed in the name of God than any other reason in history"
I think the significance is in that God refers to the Christian god here.
Anyone want to help out with the proper wording and attribution?
The premise of intelligent design is that our God is a second imperfect God who did a shoddy job when he put together the earth. God did such a bad job that we can see the gaps in the fossil record.
If you held to a perfect God theory, then you would expect to find a perfect chain of evolution in the fossil record. For that matter, studying evolution would be a very spiritual and fulfilling science in that you are studying a perfect work of a divine creator.
This makes a nice point. As someone who has studied theology, one thing the 'theologists' are really good at is explaining away their logical phallacies.
For example, there is the question of how a perfectly good God (omnibenevolent) could allow so much evil in the world He created. [I'm using the theologists gender/capitalization]
There are at least a dozen arguements to explain this away without violating two ideas - 1) God is omnibenevolent and 2) evil exists. Each of those arguements violate some principle of logical reasoning. But these people are so invested in proving their chosen ideology that they will then explain away the logical fallacies with similar roundabout arguements that cloud, but do not remove the nonsequiter and absence of good reasoning.
The "Christian right" relies on the people's inability to recognize, or maybe simply lazy nature, to propagate ridiculous ideas, idiot politicians and dumbass policies. There are a few Supreme Court decisions that, if overturned, would prompt me to expatriate (and Bush makes me want to already), and the Scopes decision is one of them.
I'm an American, and lots of my fellow Americans scare the willies out of me.
/. is quite a special case.
Cheers - couldn't agree with you more. I'm an American travelling internationally, and constantly feel the need to apologize for the behaviour of my country. I have to show my co-workers and others that I meet that I do not conform to the image we (the US) have put forth to the world.
I think the US, as great as the nation is in many ways, needs to consider some humility on the world stage. A recognition that other systems can work (think democratic socialism) and that disagreement doesn't == evil, just disagreement. The arrogance of the US leaders (and many of the people) is what bothers me.
The domestic politics of it though - someone who is open to ideas, not heralding 'our system' has no chance of being elected - one must conform to one of a very few core ideologies to be elected (see Ralph Nader if you don't get it). The openess and (by comparission) free exchange of ideas on
PS - I have met people who were surprised I am from the US because I am not overwieght. That says something huh?
Am I the only one who thinks "Vista is so slow coming out the gates" is really funny?
Quite the visual.
Cheers to you!
It's as if some child says 'I'm running away' in the evening and ends up in a local bar/restaurant/strip joint/bookstore - who is really responsible for what he/she sees? On top of that, the child has to kill three cops and 5 hookers and do 4 lines of blow to get there. But add on top of that, the child needs turn by turn directions in crayon to a dark alley with a password "42" and a second password "purplemonkeydishwasher" to actually get in.
C'mon conservatives - kinds can find 'objectionable' so much more easily - like by walking outside, watching TV or reading your public record.
So, video games are bad m'kay. But video and images of killing in Iraq (and elsewhere) are fine? Is it because CNN is less graphic (hardly), or because those people are 'the bad guys'? How about the movies? Television dramas? Where the fuck does this guy come from?
/. just for the use of the word 'karma'
Easy answer, every one else is either owned by the government or has a huge lobby. The video game industry lobby currently doesn't come close to the rest of media (where'd that link go?).
I really hope the general public gets the message 'dumbass is pissed about charity donation in his name' (sounds like Onion material) rather than 'superstar lawyer is saint and patroit' - there's a chance since the general public doesn't RTFA either.
The real irony, I think, is that if there were some Hindu/Buddhist/Jain company that created a game where the challenge was to not kill anything, this guy would be just as pissed - 'WHAT! You're not killing the $Name Bastards'. He'd probably be happy to attack
I didn't notice where K N, rather than K = N, so my assumption is K = N. This may be stoopid.
I don't see how this can work. In the problem the king can listen to the prisoner's strategy. With this solution all the king must do is keep calling the counter, and keep flipping the chalice until the counter is convinced all have been called, at which point he is wrong and everyone dies.
I'm sorry, are you the recent recipient of a free lobomotomy? Do you fall victim to phishing and 419 scams?
/. notes the connection to OSTG in articles.
Fox News did not "report both sides of the story" in any way. Fox News reported statements as facts (more or less) with high attention without disclosing the obvious bias of the person making the statements. Then they proceded to say "well, maybe some of those comments might possibly have been influenced by Microsoft, or by any of these other organizations."
Almost every media outlet has at least some bias - it really is all a matter of degree and how clearly those outlets disclose their influces and the influences on their quotations. Not that CNN is perfect, but notice that any time there is a story about AOL-TimeWarner CNN clearly notes this is their parent company. Right there in the article believe it or not. Even
You can't call it reporting both sides of a story if the reporter is screaming one side and whispering the other.
Wait - how can someone who sets things on fire and blows things up and drops things from high places have his credibilty "busted"?
You bring up a really great point - the holy shrine of the bottom line. Key goal of the small shop owner seeking dinner, and the big box store exec seeking earnings per share (or whatever measure you wish to use - they key is PROFIT).
That said, the trend in the software industry is to suppor the bottom line not with product, but with services. We have seen organizations such as Red Hat and IBM excel based on services, not on a specialized product.
So, the question becomes, why do people bother with the local computer store at all, since they can get the same thing at the 'big box' store, possibly for less. Here it is - they like the personal attention, the _service_ is what they are after. Geeks don't need hand-holding, but the average person does. The average consumer is still willing to pay a bit more to know that a real person will help them out with simple problems, and that person will charge a reasonable amount for complex problems (and that person is right in town, not on the other side of the world).
The big question, with F/OSS and the local computer shop, is marketing. How does the local computer guy, FireFox, GIMP, etc differentiate themselves not among the geeks, but among the general population? Being a marketing guy (hold the hisses) with a good dose of liberalism and technology I'm all for F/OSS, and I be happy to offer a few hours a week to good software I believe in. So, is there an opening on the F/OSS world for the marketing guy as well as the coder?
I don't know.......I have a hard time believing that even the androgenous Google would go for a whore like MS Bob.
Seems like Google would go for SAL9000 - what a babe!
The primary goal of a website is not to convey "art", it's to convey and publish information...
I think you make a great point. The Web is about communicating information. For me, my pet peeve is Flash sites that get between me and the information I'm after. You use Flash, I use some other site.
That said, it is impossible to separate the content from the presentation. This has been true for hundreds of years (think fonts, script styles, illuminated texts), and has become even more true as there is so much information available the deciding factor for a user is often the quality of the presentation and not the content (a well organized, well indexed C++ book gets used more than the poorly organized one, even if the latter has more/better content).
I think what the originator of the thread meant, but didn't say, is that there is a fear or dislike of being judged on an attribute that was not designed for. What I mean is, being judged solely on the content without respect for the organization/presentation of the content. Its easy to create a site that renders well for IE, Firefox and Opera, easy to add RSS support - the presentation formats are known. Its very difficult to create a site for an unknown presentation format. There is a fear then, that the site will be panned by the user based on an unexpected (to the designer) experience.
Going back to the book example - if you read the book backwards (or upside down or whatever) you can't blame the author if it sucks and the plot seems, well, backwards (or upside down or whatever). Its fine to change the 'viewing angle' but if you do, you can't blame the creator if it seems out of whack. It is fine to say 'This book sucks when you read it backwards' - at least that way the opinion is qualified and I know I'm risking wasting my time if I read it backwards.
That was a lot more than $0.02