Then again, I do get annoyed with all the 'members-only' sections of sites, or enhanced features at a price. When the internet went public, your price for finding something good was having to search for it through all the crap that was out there. Ads didn't seem like anything as long as you found what you were looking for (unless it was 64 scripted pop-ups). Now, the actually useful info is still equally hard to find, and once you get there, it'll cost you $5/month per site to get the good stuff. Or at least that's the impression it leaves with me.
My griping aside, you do prove a good point, and for all we know, maybe they're working on it.
It's interesting that MSN and Yahoo IM clients are working together to get in on the pie that AOL currently has half of through text chat. Meanwhile, it looks like Google wants to make sure everyone can talk to everyone in hopes that this will attract more people than regular IM, methinks. Afterall, why bother with IM, when Google will have a veritable VoIP service for free ( I know it's not the same, but it could be quite similar ) that plays with others? The only pitfall to this tactic is that you can IM someone a dirty little sercret at work, but VoIP'ing it can get you into serious trouble ^_^
I'm not going to defend every capitalist hog out there, but what else are you supposed to do to support the bandwidth? Almost every cool site out there that wasn't bought by some benevolent billionaire ended up sucking in some small part due to the reality that resources aren't free. I can think of dozens that have small nuisances from ads now as opposed to years ago, but guess what? The Escapists still has good articles. Fuck the ads, economics, or the big companies that charge too much for services (whether you believe that or not). But don't cast stones at the people just trying to make ends meet to provide some good content.
Yes, blogs are out there, and possibly even revealing all the corruption in current politics. However, the problem that blogs face (right now) as a credible news source is the same kind of problem that video games face. The majority thinks that both subjects are just something for kids. This is why a lot of blogs aren't taken seriously (even the few that possibly should), and this is the same reason M rated games are being torn apart in the media as 'bad for children'.
Until the public can realize that some (I know there's a lot of garbage out there, but bear with me) bloggers are actually serious about reporting news and telling people what it actually means to them, then people will continue to look at blogs as unreliable because it's just a 'kid thing'. If we can get a website actually known that's devoted to listing real news reporting blogs, internet journalists aren't going to make a real dent in the grand scheme of journalism. Maybe on the local level, but not enough to get the same kind of protection the networks will get.
That's just my opinion though. If you'd like to 'correct' me, please don't use a torch to do it.
If (and that's a big if) we want to put some sort of definition or door charge on the word 'journalist', I think the place we need to start is by putting us (bloggers) level with the Media Conglomerates. For all of us that spout nonsense, and obvious bias, it's just as 'factual' as the subtle biases that ripple through almost every major network.
Then again without patents, you would have to assume that such a radical move would also kill off copyrights and trademarks. Without which MS would have never been able to file suit against 14-year old Micheal Rowe for www.mikerowesoft.com.
Of this, I'm well aware. However, Microsoft's bean counters may find that that $500m may actually be a ripple in the pond compared to revenues generated by patents acquired from an entire assimilated company. Or, at nothing else, they would at least eliminate competition in some shady sense of 'business' and claim that they would increase their own product sales enough to compensate. Voodoo economics is a twisted thing my friend ^_^
Here's another piece of kindling for your fire upon which the article rests:
Microsoft has no foreseeable reason to ever become anti-patent. Even if the 'The big IF' situation you described (a little upstart having something Microsoft wants) comes true, then what will Billy do? Buy them. Microsoft has built an empire buying the technology they need to make them money. Any costs of subsuming smaller companies would become quickly overturned by the profits brought in by their newly acquired patents that came with 'the assimilated'
We still have our planet to cover first. I want to search for 'Pizza Hut in San Fransisco' and have Google show me each of their specials when I click on the location!
Here's how the Standards issue can work for FF whether everyone adheres to them or not (in my opinion anyway):
True, FF isn't a truly standards compliant browser, but it's damn close compared to the alternatives at the time that it was really popularized. At the time Firefox was booming, Opera was still a commercial product, and Safari still is (with the price tag of a mac computer: ouch!), IE was/is hideously broken, and FF was the closest thing most users could get to standards compliance for free. Not to mention that FF helped become a nice standard browser for Linux desktops instead of worrying about the 30 million others that someone could choose from.
But FF wasn't and isn't still only about standards. It's also about extensibility. They have more to their popularity than just standards, because if that was the driving goal, then everyone would obviously switch to Opera (because that's closer to passing Acid2 than FF) or just buy a mac for Safari2 (please pick up on my sarcasm here ^_^).
Lastly, when it comes to what the W3C finally gets around to approving as a standard: that's just a complex issue. Honestly, if something can stay on someone's desk at W3C long enough as a candidate, it usually becomes a standard, if for nothing else but the fact that the status of 'W3C release candidate' is usually enough to get people using a good technology. If it takes them 5 years to say no, all they have to do is look out the window to realize that the rest of the world has been using it while the W3C was looking over the specs! No, I know it really isn't that haphazard, but there are ways to develope with new technologies without breaking the currently set standards. It's not easy, but it can be done.
...the game could be crippled without one. Imagine when all the new maps come out for Halo3 and you're the one that can't play with your friends on Live because you don't have the HD to download the map-pack.
They really need to give up the act about 'broadening our audience' for a while. Until this system costs less than I pay for my car each month, I don't think they'll be reaching for anybody but hardcore gamers.
As a response to all my 'fan mail' on this, I am aware of problem with, and alternatives to WINE. I use OO.o on both Linux and Windows, this was only meant as a joke because I'm sure Bill Gates has some sick sort of spidey sense that tells him whenever someone is using a microsoft application on Linux. On top of that, it's like receiving Ghost Rider's penance stare, which burns into his soul each time it happens.
By now, I hope you all understand that I'm only kidding ^_^
You know, now I'm half-tempted to try using WINE (or a windows emulator, which I know WINE is not) to run Office on my Fedora box, just to piss off Bill. That, and I always wanted to know it it would work ^_^
Then again, I remember reading an article in WIRED about a year ago that mentioned that the vast majority of pro-bloggers don't make enough to even live off of at low class level. I have a vague feeling that about the only people making the real money off of this aren't the actual bloggers themselves but the owners of site like (I really don't know which ones bring in the most money) LiveJournal, Gizmodo, Wonkette and such. If you ask me, I think the webmasters controlling the blogs are raking in the real cash on this gig.
I could be wrong, so please don't correct me with a torch, but from the stats I've seen, being a blogger is no replacement for your day job.
If my hunch is correct, then the 'designers' are going for some ill conceived sort of mystique to intrigue people into checking out what it is. Personally, I think this tactic wouldn't be so bad except here's a few problems I have with their implementation:
- The type is too big for any sort of mysterious appeal. If they want people to become interested by being vauge, then the text HAS to be smaller and not so pretentious.
- Even with the plot to intrigue the user, one has to give away more information than they already don't to at least let you know "wtf". For example, when rogaine first aired commercials in the US, it advertised itself as 'rogaine with monoxodil' as some product to turn your life around, but instead of people asking where to sign up, everyone called to ask 'what the fuck is it?' and ended up being more annoyed than anything else.
- Lastly, people hate the idea of giving away their digital identity (email) just to test a browser. Hint to the creators: You're not Apple, and as such, you are not going to get everyone to sign up for an invite to feel special in your exclusive club despite secrets handshakes and a password. Give the beta out there with a disclaimer, and an open invitation to test and give feedback instead of trying to be some underground organization, and learn to use colors better ^_^
I suppose (though I could be wrong) that this is the first time Dell is actually marketing a OS-less system instead of leaving it as some obscurely shaped button near the copyright notice (slight exageration).
To me, this just sounds like Dell is getting desperate. I remember all those 'easy as Dell' sort of ads, which makes this idea seem like Apple marketing systems with a GUI-less UNIX preinstalled on it. If they really wanted to get a lot of geeks, they'd probably offer more in the way of AMD X2 chips and whatnot.
Making people mad may make something "art", but it doesn't win you customers.
Hence the term: starving artist ^_^
Personally, I'm trying to figure out what the intended message was here because the symbol and word 'passion' mesh together so harmoniously, I could have done better by hitting it with a hammer. Does '10 years of passion' mean that we've died on a cross for a decade for Sony's sake? Or do they refer to the gamers who suffer social stigma, lack of sleep, and general lack of money for the games we love? If that's the case, they could have done a lot better. I'm just trying to wrap my brain meats around this to figure out what the ad was even supposed to mean.
Eh, stupid marketing, but it's not as if this is onthe system or anything.
Okay, this one is in reference to the first article and my attempt as making sense of it:
Sony ran this ad in Italy, and Catholics were infuriated. I really can't blame them because I feel that Sony actually made a really dumb ad. Their use of the word 'passion' doesn't line up with the religious symbolisim in it at all. I really am trying to understand the ad better so can someone answer this: Does '10 years of passion' mean that we've been crucified for Sony for a decade? If so, I just think the ad is plain stupid. Missing the point. Go figure.
However, I don't think that Sony is going to suffer a fiery fate by the hands of the horned one for this ad. While it mentions that Catholics in Italy were offended, I don't recall any mention to religious gamers and their actual reactions to this. Besides, 1 billion baptised Catholics != 1 billion practicing Catholics. I'm not knocking any religion, but people don't always follow the faith they were raised with. Screwing with statistics. Go figure some more.
Finally, I'm not really sure if this could even be conceived of as any major detriment to Sony's PS3 sales in the US (the article even lists that there are about 66 million Catholics in the US, which is why I bring this up.) given that this ad was run in Italy and I'd never even seen it before reading this article. Secondly, I don't play video games for their religious conviction, nor do I make purchasing decisions based on a company's devotion. I know some people that do, but it usually doesn't relate to gaming (While I'm at it, Microsoft has done PLENTY of things that deeply offend me, but I still may buy the 360 ^_^). It's not as if this bad use of symbolism is being used in the game, it was just a poor ad. Missing the target audience. I'm still figuring, and it could take all night.
(I am not claiming that my opinion is everyone else's, but I want to clarify that I think most gamers (whom I've had experience with) that are also religious, usually don't mix faith with game. It's just like religious scientists and evolution vs. creationism; most of them don't mix faith with science.)
Well considering that the RIAA just handed out a truckload of lawsuits to various college student super-nodes, I think the labels are hoping that they can bring the download model down with 'daddy' to take care of all those nasty p2p users.
It really wouldn't shock me if that was the motive.
Then again, I couldn't fault them for withholding tech-tabloid cannon fodder. As soon as someone makes a promise or releases numbers, cNet and friends go into a spin-doctor uproar (from my observation anyway)
Slashdot Mirror
Then again, I do get annoyed with all the 'members-only' sections of sites, or enhanced features at a price. When the internet went public, your price for finding something good was having to search for it through all the crap that was out there. Ads didn't seem like anything as long as you found what you were looking for (unless it was 64 scripted pop-ups). Now, the actually useful info is still equally hard to find, and once you get there, it'll cost you $5/month per site to get the good stuff. Or at least that's the impression it leaves with me.
My griping aside, you do prove a good point, and for all we know, maybe they're working on it.
Fair enough, but globally, AIM consists of roughly 56% of all IM messages on the internet.
It's interesting that MSN and Yahoo IM clients are working together to get in on the pie that AOL currently has half of through text chat. Meanwhile, it looks like Google wants to make sure everyone can talk to everyone in hopes that this will attract more people than regular IM, methinks. Afterall, why bother with IM, when Google will have a veritable VoIP service for free ( I know it's not the same, but it could be quite similar ) that plays with others? The only pitfall to this tactic is that you can IM someone a dirty little sercret at work, but VoIP'ing it can get you into serious trouble ^_^
I'm not going to defend every capitalist hog out there, but what else are you supposed to do to support the bandwidth? Almost every cool site out there that wasn't bought by some benevolent billionaire ended up sucking in some small part due to the reality that resources aren't free. I can think of dozens that have small nuisances from ads now as opposed to years ago, but guess what? The Escapists still has good articles. Fuck the ads, economics, or the big companies that charge too much for services (whether you believe that or not). But don't cast stones at the people just trying to make ends meet to provide some good content.
Yes, blogs are out there, and possibly even revealing all the corruption in current politics. However, the problem that blogs face (right now) as a credible news source is the same kind of problem that video games face. The majority thinks that both subjects are just something for kids. This is why a lot of blogs aren't taken seriously (even the few that possibly should), and this is the same reason M rated games are being torn apart in the media as 'bad for children'.
Until the public can realize that some (I know there's a lot of garbage out there, but bear with me) bloggers are actually serious about reporting news and telling people what it actually means to them, then people will continue to look at blogs as unreliable because it's just a 'kid thing'. If we can get a website actually known that's devoted to listing real news reporting blogs, internet journalists aren't going to make a real dent in the grand scheme of journalism. Maybe on the local level, but not enough to get the same kind of protection the networks will get.
That's just my opinion though. If you'd like to 'correct' me, please don't use a torch to do it.
If (and that's a big if) we want to put some sort of definition or door charge on the word 'journalist', I think the place we need to start is by putting us (bloggers) level with the Media Conglomerates. For all of us that spout nonsense, and obvious bias, it's just as 'factual' as the subtle biases that ripple through almost every major network.
Then again without patents, you would have to assume that such a radical move would also kill off copyrights and trademarks. Without which MS would have never been able to file suit against 14-year old Micheal Rowe for www.mikerowesoft.com.
Of this, I'm well aware. However, Microsoft's bean counters may find that that $500m may actually be a ripple in the pond compared to revenues generated by patents acquired from an entire assimilated company. Or, at nothing else, they would at least eliminate competition in some shady sense of 'business' and claim that they would increase their own product sales enough to compensate. Voodoo economics is a twisted thing my friend ^_^
Here's another piece of kindling for your fire upon which the article rests:
Microsoft has no foreseeable reason to ever become anti-patent. Even if the 'The big IF' situation you described (a little upstart having something Microsoft wants) comes true, then what will Billy do? Buy them. Microsoft has built an empire buying the technology they need to make them money. Any costs of subsuming smaller companies would become quickly overturned by the profits brought in by their newly acquired patents that came with 'the assimilated'
We still have our planet to cover first. I want to search for 'Pizza Hut in San Fransisco' and have Google show me each of their specials when I click on the location!
Here's how the Standards issue can work for FF whether everyone adheres to them or not (in my opinion anyway):
True, FF isn't a truly standards compliant browser, but it's damn close compared to the alternatives at the time that it was really popularized. At the time Firefox was booming, Opera was still a commercial product, and Safari still is (with the price tag of a mac computer: ouch!), IE was/is hideously broken, and FF was the closest thing most users could get to standards compliance for free. Not to mention that FF helped become a nice standard browser for Linux desktops instead of worrying about the 30 million others that someone could choose from.
But FF wasn't and isn't still only about standards. It's also about extensibility. They have more to their popularity than just standards, because if that was the driving goal, then everyone would obviously switch to Opera (because that's closer to passing Acid2 than FF) or just buy a mac for Safari2 (please pick up on my sarcasm here ^_^).
Lastly, when it comes to what the W3C finally gets around to approving as a standard: that's just a complex issue. Honestly, if something can stay on someone's desk at W3C long enough as a candidate, it usually becomes a standard, if for nothing else but the fact that the status of 'W3C release candidate' is usually enough to get people using a good technology. If it takes them 5 years to say no, all they have to do is look out the window to realize that the rest of the world has been using it while the W3C was looking over the specs! No, I know it really isn't that haphazard, but there are ways to develope with new technologies without breaking the currently set standards. It's not easy, but it can be done.
But that's just my opinion.
...the game could be crippled without one. Imagine when all the new maps come out for Halo3 and you're the one that can't play with your friends on Live because you don't have the HD to download the map-pack.
They really need to give up the act about 'broadening our audience' for a while. Until this system costs less than I pay for my car each month, I don't think they'll be reaching for anybody but hardcore gamers.
Yeah, I heard about this. It was made by SONY and the file is called something like |\/|@d_1337_3|\/|ul873rz!.exe
As a response to all my 'fan mail' on this, I am aware of problem with, and alternatives to WINE. I use OO.o on both Linux and Windows, this was only meant as a joke because I'm sure Bill Gates has some sick sort of spidey sense that tells him whenever someone is using a microsoft application on Linux. On top of that, it's like receiving Ghost Rider's penance stare, which burns into his soul each time it happens.
By now, I hope you all understand that I'm only kidding ^_^
You know, now I'm half-tempted to try using WINE (or a windows emulator, which I know WINE is not) to run Office on my Fedora box, just to piss off Bill. That, and I always wanted to know it it would work ^_^
I think Slashdot has you beat there. Nobody's more cynical and sarcastic than us as a collective ^_^
Then again, I remember reading an article in WIRED about a year ago that mentioned that the vast majority of pro-bloggers don't make enough to even live off of at low class level. I have a vague feeling that about the only people making the real money off of this aren't the actual bloggers themselves but the owners of site like (I really don't know which ones bring in the most money) LiveJournal, Gizmodo, Wonkette and such. If you ask me, I think the webmasters controlling the blogs are raking in the real cash on this gig.
I could be wrong, so please don't correct me with a torch, but from the stats I've seen, being a blogger is no replacement for your day job.
If my hunch is correct, then the 'designers' are going for some ill conceived sort of mystique to intrigue people into checking out what it is. Personally, I think this tactic wouldn't be so bad except here's a few problems I have with their implementation:
- The type is too big for any sort of mysterious appeal. If they want people to become interested by being vauge, then the text HAS to be smaller and not so pretentious.
- Even with the plot to intrigue the user, one has to give away more information than they already don't to at least let you know "wtf". For example, when rogaine first aired commercials in the US, it advertised itself as 'rogaine with monoxodil' as some product to turn your life around, but instead of people asking where to sign up, everyone called to ask 'what the fuck is it?' and ended up being more annoyed than anything else.
- Lastly, people hate the idea of giving away their digital identity (email) just to test a browser. Hint to the creators: You're not Apple, and as such, you are not going to get everyone to sign up for an invite to feel special in your exclusive club despite secrets handshakes and a password. Give the beta out there with a disclaimer, and an open invitation to test and give feedback instead of trying to be some underground organization, and learn to use colors better ^_^
But at least they all have a long way to go to catch up to Motorola ^_^
I can't wait for some XTRM GRFX CRD.....(suddenly disturbed by the likelyhood of such blasphemy)
I suppose (though I could be wrong) that this is the first time Dell is actually marketing a OS-less system instead of leaving it as some obscurely shaped button near the copyright notice (slight exageration).
To me, this just sounds like Dell is getting desperate. I remember all those 'easy as Dell' sort of ads, which makes this idea seem like Apple marketing systems with a GUI-less UNIX preinstalled on it. If they really wanted to get a lot of geeks, they'd probably offer more in the way of AMD X2 chips and whatnot.
But that's just my opinion, take it as you will.
Making people mad may make something "art", but it doesn't win you customers.
Hence the term: starving artist ^_^
Personally, I'm trying to figure out what the intended message was here because the symbol and word 'passion' mesh together so harmoniously, I could have done better by hitting it with a hammer. Does '10 years of passion' mean that we've died on a cross for a decade for Sony's sake? Or do they refer to the gamers who suffer social stigma, lack of sleep, and general lack of money for the games we love? If that's the case, they could have done a lot better. I'm just trying to wrap my brain meats around this to figure out what the ad was even supposed to mean.
Eh, stupid marketing, but it's not as if this is onthe system or anything.
Okay, this one is in reference to the first article and my attempt as making sense of it:
Sony ran this ad in Italy, and Catholics were infuriated. I really can't blame them because I feel that Sony actually made a really dumb ad. Their use of the word 'passion' doesn't line up with the religious symbolisim in it at all. I really am trying to understand the ad better so can someone answer this: Does '10 years of passion' mean that we've been crucified for Sony for a decade? If so, I just think the ad is plain stupid. Missing the point. Go figure.
However, I don't think that Sony is going to suffer a fiery fate by the hands of the horned one for this ad. While it mentions that Catholics in Italy were offended, I don't recall any mention to religious gamers and their actual reactions to this. Besides, 1 billion baptised Catholics != 1 billion practicing Catholics. I'm not knocking any religion, but people don't always follow the faith they were raised with. Screwing with statistics. Go figure some more.
Finally, I'm not really sure if this could even be conceived of as any major detriment to Sony's PS3 sales in the US (the article even lists that there are about 66 million Catholics in the US, which is why I bring this up.) given that this ad was run in Italy and I'd never even seen it before reading this article. Secondly, I don't play video games for their religious conviction, nor do I make purchasing decisions based on a company's devotion. I know some people that do, but it usually doesn't relate to gaming (While I'm at it, Microsoft has done PLENTY of things that deeply offend me, but I still may buy the 360 ^_^). It's not as if this bad use of symbolism is being used in the game, it was just a poor ad. Missing the target audience. I'm still figuring, and it could take all night.
(I am not claiming that my opinion is everyone else's, but I want to clarify that I think most gamers (whom I've had experience with) that are also religious, usually don't mix faith with game. It's just like religious scientists and evolution vs. creationism; most of them don't mix faith with science.)
Well considering that the RIAA just handed out a truckload of lawsuits to various college student super-nodes, I think the labels are hoping that they can bring the download model down with 'daddy' to take care of all those nasty p2p users.
It really wouldn't shock me if that was the motive.
I wouldn't have space for that on a Linux box after my (practically monthly) regular download of $distro['foo']!
That's why I have Windows, because I can afford to lose what's on it ^_^
</toungeincheek>
Then again, I couldn't fault them for withholding tech-tabloid cannon fodder. As soon as someone makes a promise or releases numbers, cNet and friends go into a spin-doctor uproar (from my observation anyway)