I actually believe that Coto was set up by Berman, because he knew Enterprise was toast. Now, hes got fans wanting their "better" Enterprise back.
Here is where I will make a prediction. IF Enterprise is brought back, Coto will be canned by Berman, because he obviously will have been the reason it got cancelled. Having thouroughly duped the Star Trek fans into protesting for their show back he will close the deal by making absolutely sure that EVERY episode includes time travel and no continuity error is left unexplored.
I love how the wireless companies are concerned about their #$^#%!!@# ringtones. When I hear someones phone start playing a dorky little tune it just makes me want to go over, take it from them and stomp on it.
My cellphone is set to the most phone like ringtone I can find.
But everyone who likes your ringtones, see what it brought you, now through your love of ringtones, the cellular companies think all songs should cost $3. Nope, no cellphone mp3 player convergance here, move along....
Don't blame me. I haven't gotten any modpoints in over two months. I used to routinely get them.
I've also noticed in metamoderating that I'm marking more mods as bad. There seems to be more use of the negative mods lately. I really hate the overated and oftopic moderations and generally never agree with them.
I don't agree. I think there are many more truly very capable people working at companies whose culture suppresses/inhibits them then there are great corporate cultures that don't have the right people to rise to the occasion.
My counterexample would be that I garuntee you that you could find the "wrong" sort of person to lead Pixar, who would (with the same employees) destroy the corprate culture to the point that their employees would want to leave, no matter how good they are. Now getting the right person to create the right culture, that s the tough part. Thats where Jobs (and to some point Lasseter) shine, thats the difference.
Surely you don't mean that the difference between their output, and that of some other company that's also techie-creative, is that Pixar "trusts" people to work collaboratively?
No that's exactly what I mean. On the commentary for Incredibles, Brad Bird talks about how he threw really difficult tasks at his animators and let them sink or swim and most of the time they achieved something that was past their original capabilities when they started. He also related that when he started out in animation, the first director he worked for did not give hard tasks to the new guys and limited what they were allowed to do.
The impression that I get from Pixar is that they're collaborative at every set of the movie making process and take input from whereever it comes (i.e. animators can give suggestion to story guys). An example showing where collaboration is better than top down control would be Empire Strikes Back, arguably the best Star Wars movie. George Lucas has less direct control over that picture than any of the other movies, and that made it BETTER.
Pixar understands that more heads are better than one and they LIVE it. Many of their counterparts in industry do not.
Talent plays a part in what Pixar is. But culture allows them to be what they are.
Thats why servers are bulit with redundancy, so that one component can fail and not take down the entire server. I know, some components can't be redundant, but then you can have redundant servers. It is a lot easier to keep 1 of 2 servers running than all 50 client PCs.
Yes, but with thin clients, I can change an application for 50 users from my desk, ONCE. Its that versus updating 50 machines. Even automated updates don't come close to the ease of thin clients as there's always some where the update didn't go right and needs to be re-done, by hand.
Re:Treating employees like human beings?
on
Inside Look at Pixar HQ
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I think you're giving Pixar too much credit. Sure they hire smart, talented, people. But one difference is that they're not all exactly IT people, they're artists, IT folks, directors, voice actors, etc. Just some of the jobs are IT and Technology related, everyone else works with technology.
The really appear to have setup a great culture to create great movies. The work environment is part of that. However, there are many people who would like to see movies more often from Pixar and maybe see TV cartoons from Pixar with their characters. But they don't do that, they have a commitment to quality that goes beyond most other movie studios and in fact most other companies. And they know that to get that quality they have to trust their people and have to work collaboratively. It just amazes me watching their making of and listening to their commentaries on their DVD's how much of a team effort it is to bring their movies to life.
Its all about culture. The difference here is that pixar looks like it does because it hasen't succumbed to that "gotta make a profit this quarter" culture that currently pervades American business. Thats what makes other jobs suck, everybody says they hire the best people, Pixar just appears to treat them better.
Me? I voted with my dollars. I don't have cable/satellite, nor do I buy music CDs. I haven't totally unplugged from popular culture, but I'm far from a "model customer".
Sadly, in the end that may be the only vote that counts. But, it is one that for sure WILL count.
I am with you in not buying CDs, and the actions of the MPAA will determine if I continue to spend hundreds of dollars a year on DVDs or not.
You just keep pulling the democrat lever in the voting booth and wishing that they will not blow our fair use rights to hell.
There are bought politicians on both sides of the aisle on this one. Although Hatch has proposed some pretty idiotic enforcement for "IP" violations. Fritz Hollings, a Democrat, has instead of draconian enforcement, tried mandating the capabilities (or lack thereof) of consumer electronics.
Draw the party lines all you want, and then prepare to be betrayed.
The only thing that will save us is the uproar of the citizenry when they finally go too far. I believe we will reach a point where almost every TV viewer will be mad as hell (music just ain't going to get to the boiling point), or where almost every citizen is willingly violating IP law and enforcement will be absolutely impossible (not just almost impossible like the RIAA is facing now). Then every politician will have to listen or risk the loss of their political career.
Oh, BTW, if Hollings or Hatch is your senator, let them know what you think. My former senator co-sponsored Fritz's ridiculous bill last year and now hes gone, the next step for me is to make sure that I let his replacement know how I feel he should vote.
Baseball has a government granted Anti-Trust exemption. Congress has every right to look into this since they control whether or not baseball keeps its exemption.
You have a point there. All Microsoft would need to do is tie each registered user to their dongle (man that doesn't sound good), and then use it as part of the new DRM strategy.
A human can look at the environment he is in with awe and wonder, a probe can send back the collection of pixels it sees with its instruments.
Thats the difference.
Seeing things, measuring things with probes, in my mind its all about being a prerequesite to BEING THERE.
Responding to the Hubble issue. I think that what we really need to do is get a telescope on the moon, it would actually be easiser to build than a satellite, you could do some of the construction on location. It could also be much larger than Hubble.
The one thing that really frustrates me is that we do not have a permanent presance on the moon. Its something we should have done by now.
Yeah, because if Kerry would have gotten he would have.... Oh wait he would have killed off the plan to send people to Mars.
I agree wholeheartedly with the grandparent post about how without the prospect of manned space travel the public will have no appetite for any space exploration at all.
While I really love seeing the pictures sent back from Titan. The one thing they really make me think and wish is, Wouldn't it be great for someone to actually be there exploring that moon.
Yeah, your right. I don't have a ton of music, legal or illegal, but I do have some.
Were music cheaper, in either CD or electronic, I would have more, but I would not have Gigabytes of the stuff no.
And if this were about DVDs I would agree somewhat. But the neat thing is that there seems to be much more elasticity in price for DVDs. You can buy some pretty good movies on DVD for $9 or less, but for quality CD's that are older, the price is still high. There are no discount CDs. Well I guess Wal-Mart is starting to have $ 10 CDs of older popular stuff, but really I would compare them to the $ 5 DVDs though.
All in all I don't think that from the consumers perspective CDs and CD prices are quite as attractive/equitable as they are with DVDs.
But heres the rub. All of these posts about CDs being "economical" assume I listen to CDs all day, in the car or at work or whatever. Well, I don't.
My commute is only about 15 minutes and I generally listen to radio of some sort and not CDs, so, no value there. I listen to the piped in music a work and not CDs (which would require the distraction of having to wear headphones), so no extra value for me there. I don't sit around at home and listen to music, I generally watch DVDs or something off of my PVR.
So its not that I'm being a cheepskate. DVD hold far greater value for me, so I buy them instead. Songs generally have a much lower value for me vs. video of some kind. Heck I dished out over $400 for all 5 seasons of Babylon 5, so its not like I'm not buying entertainment, I am, but I do find the price of CDs too high for the value I would get out of them.
I've actually noticed that with CD's I burn I get bored with the selection and order and just toss them when they get old and burn another with a different mix (yes, I suppose I could really use a n apple shuffle). But CD's just aren't that valuable to me.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes. That finale was also lame.
To turn back to a more Sci-fi bent to lame endings.
We find out that Agent Cooper is now Bob...
I actually believe that Coto was set up by Berman, because he knew Enterprise was toast. Now, hes got fans wanting their "better" Enterprise back.
Here is where I will make a prediction. IF Enterprise is brought back, Coto will be canned by Berman, because he obviously will have been the reason it got cancelled. Having thouroughly duped the Star Trek fans into protesting for their show back he will close the deal by making absolutely sure that EVERY episode includes time travel and no continuity error is left unexplored.
dream... That they had won the lottery and that yes, in fact Dan is really dead.
The real excitement is the explosion of knowledge about these creatures that can result from such a find.
Real exchitement, bah! Tell that to the people running away from the cloned T-rex!!!
I love how the wireless companies are concerned about their #$^#%!!@# ringtones. When I hear someones phone start playing a dorky little tune it just makes me want to go over, take it from them and stomp on it.
My cellphone is set to the most phone like ringtone I can find.
But everyone who likes your ringtones, see what it brought you, now through your love of ringtones, the cellular companies think all songs should cost $3. Nope, no cellphone mp3 player convergance here, move along....
When your product needs to be marketed as the XXXX killer, you know you're not the top company in the marketplace. Yes, Apple is the new Sony.
Don't blame me. I haven't gotten any modpoints in over two months. I used to routinely get them.
I've also noticed in metamoderating that I'm marking more mods as bad. There seems to be more use of the negative mods lately. I really hate the overated and oftopic moderations and generally never agree with them.
I don't agree. I think there are many more truly very capable people working at companies whose culture suppresses/inhibits them then there are great corporate cultures that don't have the right people to rise to the occasion.
My counterexample would be that I garuntee you that you could find the "wrong" sort of person to lead Pixar, who would (with the same employees) destroy the corprate culture to the point that their employees would want to leave, no matter how good they are. Now getting the right person to create the right culture, that s the tough part. Thats where Jobs (and to some point Lasseter) shine, thats the difference.
But the answer's simple. The App Server can't be down. There are things you can do that can make you 99.99% sure (or more) that that is the case.
Surely you don't mean that the difference between their output, and that of some other company that's also techie-creative, is that Pixar "trusts" people to work collaboratively?
No that's exactly what I mean. On the commentary for Incredibles, Brad Bird talks about how he threw really difficult tasks at his animators and let them sink or swim and most of the time they achieved something that was past their original capabilities when they started. He also related that when he started out in animation, the first director he worked for did not give hard tasks to the new guys and limited what they were allowed to do.
The impression that I get from Pixar is that they're collaborative at every set of the movie making process and take input from whereever it comes (i.e. animators can give suggestion to story guys). An example showing where collaboration is better than top down control would be Empire Strikes Back, arguably the best Star Wars movie. George Lucas has less direct control over that picture than any of the other movies, and that made it BETTER.
Pixar understands that more heads are better than one and they LIVE it. Many of their counterparts in industry do not.
Talent plays a part in what Pixar is. But culture allows them to be what they are.
Thats why servers are bulit with redundancy, so that one component can fail and not take down the entire server. I know, some components can't be redundant, but then you can have redundant servers. It is a lot easier to keep 1 of 2 servers running than all 50 client PCs.
Yes, but with thin clients, I can change an application for 50 users from my desk, ONCE. Its that versus updating 50 machines. Even automated updates don't come close to the ease of thin clients as there's always some where the update didn't go right and needs to be re-done, by hand.
I think you're giving Pixar too much credit. Sure they hire smart, talented, people. But one difference is that they're not all exactly IT people, they're artists, IT folks, directors, voice actors, etc. Just some of the jobs are IT and Technology related, everyone else works with technology.
The really appear to have setup a great culture to create great movies. The work environment is part of that. However, there are many people who would like to see movies more often from Pixar and maybe see TV cartoons from Pixar with their characters. But they don't do that, they have a commitment to quality that goes beyond most other movie studios and in fact most other companies. And they know that to get that quality they have to trust their people and have to work collaboratively. It just amazes me watching their making of and listening to their commentaries on their DVD's how much of a team effort it is to bring their movies to life.
Its all about culture. The difference here is that pixar looks like it does because it hasen't succumbed to that "gotta make a profit this quarter" culture that currently pervades American business. Thats what makes other jobs suck, everybody says they hire the best people, Pixar just appears to treat them better.
Me? I voted with my dollars. I don't have cable/satellite, nor do I buy music CDs. I haven't totally unplugged from popular culture, but I'm far from a "model customer".
Sadly, in the end that may be the only vote that counts. But, it is one that for sure WILL count.
I am with you in not buying CDs, and the actions of the MPAA will determine if I continue to spend hundreds of dollars a year on DVDs or not.
You just keep pulling the democrat lever in the voting booth and wishing that they will not blow our fair use rights to hell.
There are bought politicians on both sides of the aisle on this one. Although Hatch has proposed some pretty idiotic enforcement for "IP" violations. Fritz Hollings, a Democrat, has instead of draconian enforcement, tried mandating the capabilities (or lack thereof) of consumer electronics.
Draw the party lines all you want, and then prepare to be betrayed.
The only thing that will save us is the uproar of the citizenry when they finally go too far. I believe we will reach a point where almost every TV viewer will be mad as hell (music just ain't going to get to the boiling point), or where almost every citizen is willingly violating IP law and enforcement will be absolutely impossible (not just almost impossible like the RIAA is facing now). Then every politician will have to listen or risk the loss of their political career.
Oh, BTW, if Hollings or Hatch is your senator, let them know what you think. My former senator co-sponsored Fritz's ridiculous bill last year and now hes gone, the next step for me is to make sure that I let his replacement know how I feel he should vote.
Baseball has a government granted Anti-Trust exemption. Congress has every right to look into this since they control whether or not baseball keeps its exemption.
Of course 90% of future computer viruses will be spread on the "secure global information network".
You have a point there. All Microsoft would need to do is tie each registered user to their dongle (man that doesn't sound good), and then use it as part of the new DRM strategy.
Quick someone better warn Google!!!
Can you imagine the psychological impact to "Are we there yet?" as you drive to EUROPE!!!???
The horror!!!
Damn, that's funny, I wish I had some mod points.
A human can look at the environment he is in with awe and wonder, a probe can send back the collection of pixels it sees with its instruments.
Thats the difference.
Seeing things, measuring things with probes, in my mind its all about being a prerequesite to BEING THERE.
Responding to the Hubble issue. I think that what we really need to do is get a telescope on the moon, it would actually be easiser to build than a satellite, you could do some of the construction on location. It could also be much larger than Hubble.
The one thing that really frustrates me is that we do not have a permanent presance on the moon. Its something we should have done by now.
Yeah, because if Kerry would have gotten he would have.... Oh wait he would have killed off the plan to send people to Mars.
I agree wholeheartedly with the grandparent post about how without the prospect of manned space travel the public will have no appetite for any space exploration at all.
While I really love seeing the pictures sent back from Titan. The one thing they really make me think and wish is, Wouldn't it be great for someone to actually be there exploring that moon.
Yeah, your right. I don't have a ton of music, legal or illegal, but I do have some.
Were music cheaper, in either CD or electronic, I would have more, but I would not have Gigabytes of the stuff no.
And if this were about DVDs I would agree somewhat. But the neat thing is that there seems to be much more elasticity in price for DVDs. You can buy some pretty good movies on DVD for $9 or less, but for quality CD's that are older, the price is still high. There are no discount CDs. Well I guess Wal-Mart is starting to have $ 10 CDs of older popular stuff, but really I would compare them to the $ 5 DVDs though.
All in all I don't think that from the consumers perspective CDs and CD prices are quite as attractive/equitable as they are with DVDs.
But heres the rub. All of these posts about CDs being "economical" assume I listen to CDs all day, in the car or at work or whatever. Well, I don't.
My commute is only about 15 minutes and I generally listen to radio of some sort and not CDs, so, no value there. I listen to the piped in music a work and not CDs (which would require the distraction of having to wear headphones), so no extra value for me there. I don't sit around at home and listen to music, I generally watch DVDs or something off of my PVR.
So its not that I'm being a cheepskate. DVD hold far greater value for me, so I buy them instead. Songs generally have a much lower value for me vs. video of some kind. Heck I dished out over $400 for all 5 seasons of Babylon 5, so its not like I'm not buying entertainment, I am, but I do find the price of CDs too high for the value I would get out of them.
I've actually noticed that with CD's I burn I get bored with the selection and order and just toss them when they get old and burn another with a different mix (yes, I suppose I could really use a n apple shuffle). But CD's just aren't that valuable to me.