I know that many who have not worked either for or around the US government before are shocked at how money is spent (squandered) on projects that never finish or are dead the day they are deployed.
The US Department of Energy spent approximately $250 million on a project to convert low-level radioactive waste into a concrete slurry that would be poured into a vault for disposal. They began construction on the vaults and had the grout plant ready to begin operation. Unfortunately, they didn't get approval of from the State of Washington before they began construction. At the point where full-scale testing was to begin, the State rejected their application to operate. Seems they were working a dual track: design and construction while simultaneously working on permit approval.
They gambled and lost. $250M dropped in a hole and it never hit bottom. The money that was spent on the FBIs last system will suffer a similar fate.
I think you mean they're losing money on total box office receipts.
No, although the total office receipts are dropping too.
Or are they expecting to pay for all the production & distribution costs and then some from a single day's ticket sales?
No, they were using opening day receipts as a guage on how many units they would ship to Blockbuster and other rental outlets. The popularity movie as a rental was a function of how well it did opening day.
You're assuming that the litigation and copy-protection has had no influence on the results we're seeing.
True, but the only way that the industry will move forward is by finding a way to work with the system as it exists today.
Even if they were to successfully destroy the current system, it will come back at some point in the future and the next person/company will make the money they should be making now.
How do these people come to be in charge of multimillion dollar companies? This should really be obvious, folks.
Its funny that you made the same comment, in a different way, as the commenter on NPR. They said something to the effect that "these people [entertainment execs] are really smart and will eventtually figure this out".
Until now, of course, all they have shown is that they are frightened asswipes with souless lawyers at the ready.
Re:Now we will get "video" images from battlefield
on
Disposable Camcorder
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
What else can I send over to the troops other than books and playing cards? I have a contact at work who arranges to have stuff shipped to Iraq on transports ferrying supplies.
I know that boredom killers are in high demand. I tried to get month-old magazines, but the local vendor said they get shipped back to the publisher for back issues. I've been looking for stuff that can be left behind and traded.
Although there are still millions of people who will continue to trade on p2p, having legitimate outlets supplying digital copies of music, television, and movies will become a hugely profitable venture for the entertainment industry. They just haven't figured out how to do it and still capture the largest share of the market.
A radio program this morning on NPR discussed how the movie industry was losing money on opening day box office receipts at the same time they are making a killing with DVD sales ($17BUSD). That means that they are going to have to change not only their marketing (opening day receipts are generally a 16-24 year old market), but also their metric for gauging success.
Overall, once they stop focusing all of their energy on litigation and lobbying for worthless copy-protection standards, they will begin to create a market-driven system that people will gravitate to and embrace.
Re:Now we will get "video" images from battlefield
on
Disposable Camcorder
·
· Score: 1
Wasn't that sort of thing (soldiers with cameras and camera-phones) cracked down on after the Abu Gharib thing?
I think so, but that doesn't mean they won't get smuggled out into the field.
There are probably still alot of cameras working in the field without approval from Central Command. Once they get *really* small and portable, they start showing up at all kinds of events that the commanders would rather they didn't.
Now we will get "video" images from battlefields
on
Disposable Camcorder
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
With something so cheap and disposable, it is just a matter of time before these start to become part of the soldier's standard kit.
I wonder how many of the x86 family of Unix will run in this Windows-based virtualization product. I don't think Microsoft would intentionally cripple the functionality of a *nix OS running in hypervision, but they might.
They could give the money back, but it would probably take days to locate individual donors. Because no one would get reimbursed for the time it takes to locate donors (if they can be found at all), the volunteers would essentially be working against the original intent for which the money was given.
Perhaps the money could be used to set up a trust for a scholarship fund. If the trust was set up properly, with the appropriate oversight, it could be a perpetual source of fund for students entering the computer science field.
I see that they are willing to support "new Fedora" with engineering and financial assistance, but I wonder how long they will continue to help if the disto takes a turn that they do not support.
What if Fedora begins to look, over time, more like Debian? Would they continue to provide engineering and financial support for that?
An earlier article about Redhat developers wanting to dump old platforms may indicate how tolerant they are in supporting ideals that do not fit into their business model.
..and your 3 movies cost $300 million to make total... and you made $2.91 billion..
Yes, but to make that kind of money you need to sell volumes larger than what an independent producer would garner. My movies would cost around $3 million to produce and I would have to sell 10,000 dvds at $30 to break even.
If I sell only one dvd for $24.95 and it gets released on bittorrent, I've just lost $3 million dollars.
What investor in their right mind would give me $3 million just to lose it on bittorrent?
You can lay 100% of the blame on the distributors for trying to maintain their old prices despite the new digital technology changing all the rules./i.
Okay, what is your price?
I'd be willing to write, produce, shoot, and distribute a feature-length movie if I could recover the costs and make a small profit. My costs are:
I also bought him a nicely bound copy of Shakespeare's complete works. He read it in two days.
On the other hand, a book may give rise to questions from sonny that daddy can't answer because he's spent his life debating the value of one mindless video game machine over another.
Following your train of thought is tough. I wasn't debating video consoles, just electronics purchases.
Perhaps this bit of confusion could have been eliminated entirely if Sony made GPS receivers and I said I would buy Garmin instead of a Sony model.
Of course that would have left you with very little to complain about and no traction in your attempt to belittle.
They lost the White House in 1980 and regained it in 1992 only after pushing a centrist candidate to through to the convention.
Their losses in the House and Senate have been due to both their lack of broad political appeal and the asinine redistricting laws in every state of the US.
The same asinine laws, I might add, that they benefitted from until they were tossed out of the majority.
Slashdot Mirror
I know there are TONS and TONS of researchers that would just DIE for $1 million.
I work with a few who feel the same way.
I'll take $500k!
Damn, I'm cheap.
Good points raised in your post.
Or did you never trade tapes with friends in the "old days"?
I sure did. I still have a few, but hardly listen to them except in my RV. I haven't mounted a CD player in it yet.
I know that many who have not worked either for or around the US government before are shocked at how money is spent (squandered) on projects that never finish or are dead the day they are deployed.
The US Department of Energy spent approximately $250 million on a project to convert low-level radioactive waste into a concrete slurry that would be poured into a vault for disposal. They began construction on the vaults and had the grout plant ready to begin operation. Unfortunately, they didn't get approval of from the State of Washington before they began construction. At the point where full-scale testing was to begin, the State rejected their application to operate. Seems they were working a dual track: design and construction while simultaneously working on permit approval.
They gambled and lost. $250M dropped in a hole and it never hit bottom. The money that was spent on the FBIs last system will suffer a similar fate.
Yes.... I've heard the immigrants from Africa saying this before.... It went something like this:
"Ubuntu.... Ubuntu..... Ubuntu......"
They will begin beating the squirrels at precisely 3:55 EST from now on.
I think you mean they're losing money on total box office receipts.
No, although the total office receipts are dropping too.
Or are they expecting to pay for all the production & distribution costs and then some from a single day's ticket sales?
No, they were using opening day receipts as a guage on how many units they would ship to Blockbuster and other rental outlets. The popularity movie as a rental was a function of how well it did opening day.
You're assuming that the litigation and copy-protection has had no influence on the results we're seeing.
True, but the only way that the industry will move forward is by finding a way to work with the system as it exists today.
Even if they were to successfully destroy the current system, it will come back at some point in the future and the next person/company will make the money they should be making now.
How do these people come to be in charge of multimillion dollar companies? This should really be obvious, folks.
Its funny that you made the same comment, in a different way, as the commenter on NPR. They said something to the effect that "these people [entertainment execs] are really smart and will eventtually figure this out".
Until now, of course, all they have shown is that they are frightened asswipes with souless lawyers at the ready.
What else can I send over to the troops other than books and playing cards? I have a contact at work who arranges to have stuff shipped to Iraq on transports ferrying supplies.
I know that boredom killers are in high demand. I tried to get month-old magazines, but the local vendor said they get shipped back to the publisher for back issues. I've been looking for stuff that can be left behind and traded.
Any suggestions?
Although there are still millions of people who will continue to trade on p2p, having legitimate outlets supplying digital copies of music, television, and movies will become a hugely profitable venture for the entertainment industry. They just haven't figured out how to do it and still capture the largest share of the market.
A radio program this morning on NPR discussed how the movie industry was losing money on opening day box office receipts at the same time they are making a killing with DVD sales ($17BUSD). That means that they are going to have to change not only their marketing (opening day receipts are generally a 16-24 year old market), but also their metric for gauging success.
Overall, once they stop focusing all of their energy on litigation and lobbying for worthless copy-protection standards, they will begin to create a market-driven system that people will gravitate to and embrace.
Wasn't that sort of thing (soldiers with cameras and camera-phones) cracked down on after the Abu Gharib thing?
I think so, but that doesn't mean they won't get smuggled out into the field.
There are probably still alot of cameras working in the field without approval from Central Command. Once they get *really* small and portable, they start showing up at all kinds of events that the commanders would rather they didn't.
With something so cheap and disposable, it is just a matter of time before these start to become part of the soldier's standard kit.
I wonder how many of the x86 family of Unix will run in this Windows-based virtualization product. I don't think Microsoft would intentionally cripple the functionality of a *nix OS running in hypervision, but they might.
"Slashdot - less plagirism than a blog."
Fast Food: Corporate America in your body
Television: Corporate America in your mind.
Both of which are consumed voluntarily.
This means we can rest easy knowing that there will be NO accidental same sex marriages between Tyrannosaurs!
Call the White House and Tom Delay.
Bounties should only ever be allocated out of the money that is there... never on what may/might come in in the future.
/. and I think is probably the best use for the money.
That has certainly been suggested frequently on
As noted before, however, there are legal issues to rangle with when using the money for purposes other than those originally intended.
Why would you want to help further saturate an already supersaturated field?
Why would I want to help?
You obviously don't know me very well.
I could care less whether there are too many computer scientists. I am a geologist.
They could give the money back, but it would probably take days to locate individual donors. Because no one would get reimbursed for the time it takes to locate donors (if they can be found at all), the volunteers would essentially be working against the original intent for which the money was given.
Perhaps the money could be used to set up a trust for a scholarship fund. If the trust was set up properly, with the appropriate oversight, it could be a perpetual source of fund for students entering the computer science field.
Now who wants more computer scientists?
Anyone?
I see that they are willing to support "new Fedora" with engineering and financial assistance, but I wonder how long they will continue to help if the disto takes a turn that they do not support.
What if Fedora begins to look, over time, more like Debian? Would they continue to provide engineering and financial support for that?
An earlier article about Redhat developers wanting to dump old platforms may indicate how tolerant they are in supporting ideals that do not fit into their business model.
..and your 3 movies cost $300 million to make total... and you made $2.91 billion..
Yes, but to make that kind of money you need to sell volumes larger than what an independent producer would garner. My movies would cost around $3 million to produce and I would have to sell 10,000 dvds at $30 to break even.
If I sell only one dvd for $24.95 and it gets released on bittorrent, I've just lost $3 million dollars.
What investor in their right mind would give me $3 million just to lose it on bittorrent?
You can lay 100% of the blame on the distributors for trying to maintain their old prices despite the new digital technology changing all the rules./i.
Okay, what is your price?
I'd be willing to write, produce, shoot, and distribute a feature-length movie if I could recover the costs and make a small profit. My costs are:
1. Cast
2. Crew
3. Equipment
4. More Equipment
5. Advertising
6. Legal fees (to protect *me* from lawsuits)
7. Administrative salaries
Based on your interpretation of business, I am just greedy if I want to charge $30 for a copy of the movie I make.
So how do I recover the few million dollars of invested cash and my time by giving it away for free through bittorrent?
Ouch!
I've read some of his exchanges.
You could buy him a book,..
I did one better: I got him a library card.
I also bought him a nicely bound copy of Shakespeare's complete works. He read it in two days.
On the other hand, a book may give rise to questions from sonny that daddy can't answer because he's spent his life debating the value of one mindless video game machine over another.
Following your train of thought is tough. I wasn't debating video consoles, just electronics purchases.
Perhaps this bit of confusion could have been eliminated entirely if Sony made GPS receivers and I said I would buy Garmin instead of a Sony model.
Of course that would have left you with very little to complain about and no traction in your attempt to belittle.
they both keep doing the same things, and losing.
They lost the White House in 1980 and regained it in 1992 only after pushing a centrist candidate to through to the convention.
Their losses in the House and Senate have been due to both their lack of broad political appeal and the asinine redistricting laws in every state of the US.
The same asinine laws, I might add, that they benefitted from until they were tossed out of the majority.