It's a large market, but is it worth the gamble to game developers?
Are you nuts? It's a market that in a few years will be 5-10 times larger than the US market, taking into account that asian cultures are more open to gaming in general (see Korea for example). If there is any single market in the world that's worth it, it's China.
Other industry has been there, done that. Car manufacturers all knew after the initial surprises that if they open a factory in China, their blueprints will be copied and another chinese factory somewhere else will produce the same cars for a cheaper price. Some stayed out of China for that reason. Until the chinese began to buy cars. Then, they had no choice but to do it, because they couldn't sell on the chinese market without having a chinese factory. They did it knowing full well the damage they'd sustain.
Frankly, ten years from now, game developers will probably wonder whether it's worth the trouble anymore translating their games for the US market.
Funny how this argument mostly comes from people who know virtually nothing about X. Most importantly, not the difference between the concept, the protocol and the implementation.
And just because it's 20 years old doesn't mean it sucks. How old is TCP/IP? The mouse? The binary system?
Not too long ago, Wolfenstein was recalled in Germany for containing Nazi symbols."
You should've also read the discussion on that when it was posted, and noticed that a lot of german readers have pointed out that all that goes back to a bundle of laws the the allies, i.e. you americans, most of all forced unto Germany after WW2, before the Federal Republic of Germany was founded.
Quite honestly, as long as it helps improve the quality of education - and making them public plus opening competition via a marketplace is likely to do that - what the fuck do you care if someone profits? Have we dropped so low already that we're jealous of the winner, even in a win-win situation?
Gartner has published their market share numbers by operating system for 2008 based on total software revenues. According to Gartner, Oracle
* Continues to be #1 overall with 48.9 per cent share
* Continues to hold more market share than its six closest competitors combined
* Continues to be #1 on Linux with 75.8 per cent share
(*) Source: Market Share: Relational Database Management System Software by Operating System, Worldwide, 2008 - Colleen Graham, Bhavish Sood, Horiuchi Hideaki, Dan Sommer - June 12, 2009
It's not the number of competitors that matters. It's relative market share. WalMart has millions of competitors - all the tiny shops selling anything that WalMart also sells. But almost all of them don't matter and their market share wouldn't appear anywhere within the first five digits.
May I recommend you spend the same time with Google that it takes you to post these questions the first Google hit would answer? Oh, what am I expecting from an american. Here, bite-size ready: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/consumers/index_en.html
But for the serious reader: The difference is that a crime is a behaviour, and to prevent it you would have to violate basic personality rights in order to predict human behaviour. A monopoly is a market development and can be predicted with publicly available information and some easy extrapolation. Even if we would grant a company personality rights, they would not be violated by such activities.
The EU is upset with MS, how come they haven't developed a successful alternative?
The EU is a transnational government body, not a software company.
It would cost EU companies billions to switch from Oracle to another database.
Maybe. But the EU is a transnational government body, did I mention that? In short: They have tanks. They could liquidate all european assets of Oracle and use the profits to cover the transition costs. Or they could simply go to the WTO and request permission to invalidate Oracle's copyrights, trademarks and other rights within Europe. There's a good chance they could win.
But yes, everyone who's not a total idiot knows that if you get into a fight, you'll get hurt, even if you win. So they're trying to resolve this with talk and muscle flexing instead of outright war. And their primary goal isn't to hurt Oracle, it's to protect the local market.
So yes, it's highly unlikely that it'll come to blows. MS is about the only company stupid enough to play chicken with the government. My reply was directed not at Oracle (who are smarter than that), but at the fucktards who keep posting this "wheee, it's an american company, we should just pull out of europe" nonsense to every story of this kind.
Yes, please. Let one large international corporation try the stunt and pull out.
I'll be watching the fireworks and selling those stocks short. Also, I'll be making side-bets on how long until revolting shareholders kick out the entire board and replace it.
And then I'll search out this posting and reply "told you so". Then we can finally stop this narcistic US attitude that makes the whole world sick of you arrogant bastards.
As for "monopolistic reasons": Between IBM, Microsoft, Teradata, PostgreSQL, etc, how can Oracle possibly be said to have a monopoly on databases?
The job of the EC anti-trust commission is to prevent monopolies before they happen, not punish them when they do (the way the Sherman act works in the US). So their fear is not that Oracle would be a monopoly, but that it comes too close to being able to corner the market. You don't need a monopoly for that, just a commanding influence.
Well, standing up to badly behaved American companies.
Try some research before you post nationalistic crap like that. The EC has fined european companies in the billions range for violations of anti-corruption laws, does the same anti-trust checks on european companies and so on.
Wake up. 50 years ago, the US had the moral high ground on the rest of the world, but you can't go downhill forever without losing it.
Not entirely true. You can have fun with copyrights without leaving WTO, in fact there was a case earlier this year of a small caribbean nation getting a free pass on US copyrights as penalty payment for some US WTO violations.
They are American companies. Soon to be an American company.
*yawn*
always the same old crap. Maybe I should write a reply-macro.
I'll make it short: The EU can kill them. Europe is a bigger market than the US. It is also an important hub towards the near and middle east and eastern Europe, Russia, etc. for most american companies. Not being able to do business in the EU is a deathspell for most international corporations. Especially in the technology sector where the technology and competitors that will emerge in Europe to take your place can easily expand world-wide.
If the EC complains it is so unfair, Oracle can suggest they either stop selling SUN hardware or Oracle software to the EU, and let those bueacratic bastards pick how they best wish to further retard the quality of their citizens lives.
Funny how no "american company" has ever actually tried that stunt. I wonder why? Are they all pussies or are you an idiot for believing that they wouldn't be hung from their own intestines by their shareholders if they triedD?
The EU and the EC are getting a rep for disagreeing with US counterparts.
Generally, in a disagreement there are two parties that disagree with each other. Unless one wants to implicitly express that one side is right and the other wrong, that's the way it should be phrased.
Quite frankly, given that US "guardians" of the markets have just been caught sleeping at the wheel when they let the financial crisis happen despite experts having warned of the problems for about a decade, it's not as if they had much reputation capital left, do they?
Also, because PP is a horrible tool, badly suited for the job it is intended for - and routinely abused for jobs it wasn't.
I've seen PowerPoint and Keynote presentations right next to and/or immediately following each other. That's a difference you can't put into words. I've seen people who know how to work the tool and people who wear a suit and sit at a desk all day with "manager" on their door sign present, and it's another world of difference. I've seen people use presentation software for presentations, and for practically every other purpose, including the agenda of a meeting.
Add all that up, and the range is unbelievable. People who only know four programs (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook) and still insist on creating their presentations themselves are a total failure, and they don't even notice. But their audience does. And if you're trying to put facts, figures and formulas into a medium that was meant for more condensed information, it only gets worse.
Every university, and almost every company would profit considerably if they were to just wipe out powerpoint on all their machines and prevent re-installation. I'm serious.
You're handing control over to another driver, who may very well decide not to brake and cause a five car pileup, or worse. Also, there's no way to know the mechanical status of the vehicle -- what if one of them blows a tire, or runs out of gas, or the engine seizes?
And the danger is higher on a road train compared to manual driving because of what, exactly?
It isn't. I'm sure during this research they'll collect the numbers on that, and then some, because they know how much convincing people need to give up control. Because that's what this is about: Control. Not safety. Every "safety" argument against automated driving that I've heard so far isn't actually a safety argument, it's an "I feel safer when I'm in control" argument. Which says nothing about safety, only about feelings and control.
What you should do is create a dedicated lane that is controlled entirely by computer,
You already spotted the problem with that. Manual drivers will use that lane, and no, police and penalties won't discourage them (otherwise, there would be nobody speeding).
I mean, it'd basically be a packet-switched network, but with cars instead of pieces of data. It's a relatively benign IT problem.
Except that you can't simply re-transmit if you have packet collisions.
As well, vehicle breakdowns would be handled a lot better because the system would be tied directly to the onboard computer and navigation systems:
The research already includes onboard computers that are required to join the road train. What makes you think that these things would not be handled by the same computer?
The Mythbuster episode was manually driven drafting. Yes, that's dangerous. At the speeds involved, a human can not react fast enough on the short distances involved, over a reasonably long period of time (you can do it for short time, but the stress level is high).
The other point you mention is probably - but you know, I'm just guessing here - one of the reaons they do things like research on these ideas before they throw them out into the wild^H^H^Hroads. Not to mention that in large complex systems, statistics matter more than individual experiences and preferences. Yes, the risk you mention probably exists. If, however, statistically speaking, the danger of something happening to you in a road train is, say, 0.01% per km, while travelling manually means the danger is 0.02% per km, then it is still safer to take the road train.
The main problem with car traffic is a stupid, ancient emotion of humans, namely that we feel safer if we feel in control. In many cases in modern life, that's no longer true.
Are you really suggesting that "by this insurance or die" is a reasonable thing?!?!?
I am suggesting that society has made a choice. The choice has been that we have a bit of a dislike for letting people die for monetary reasons. Which means that since medical treatment isn't free, we have two choices to cover the bills when we've decided that "cash up front" isn't what we want. One is universal health care, financed via taxation. The other is compulsory insurance.
If you have a way to guarantee medical treatment with neither taxation nor compulsory insurance, I'm certain half the world is interested.
Strictly speaking, it doesn't. But the real point is: Does diet food taste bland, or is it all the other food that's ruined your taste because it's been smashed with flavour enhancers, artificial this and artificial that? Except where it's about harmful or poisoneous substances, taste is almost entirely acquired.
Except that with a car you can choose not to buy insurance by choosing not to buy a car and drive it on the public roads. Exactly how do I choose not to buy this insurance? Oh.. I can't?
Correct. You need to examine the source of the risk. In the car analogy, the risk of having a crash comes with driving a car, hence if you drive a car, you ought to have insurance. In the health part, the risk of becoming ill comes with living a life, hence if you live, you ought to have health insurance. You can, of course, choose to die. There are instructions on the Internet to opt-out of life.
Let's see... Buy insurance, or go to jail. It sounds like Massachusetts.
No, it sounds like a reasonable society. I'll use a car analogy because it's a lot clearer there: If you don't have a car insurance, and you crash into me, that is my problem, not yours. Most people who don't have insurance are also too broke to cover the damage themselves. So a law that forces you to have at least enough insurance to cover the other guy's costs is a very reasonable thing.
It's a lot more indirect for health insurance, but the argument is similar.
Slashdot Mirror
It's a large market, but is it worth the gamble to game developers?
Are you nuts? It's a market that in a few years will be 5-10 times larger than the US market, taking into account that asian cultures are more open to gaming in general (see Korea for example). If there is any single market in the world that's worth it, it's China.
Other industry has been there, done that. Car manufacturers all knew after the initial surprises that if they open a factory in China, their blueprints will be copied and another chinese factory somewhere else will produce the same cars for a cheaper price. Some stayed out of China for that reason. Until the chinese began to buy cars. Then, they had no choice but to do it, because they couldn't sell on the chinese market without having a chinese factory. They did it knowing full well the damage they'd sustain.
Frankly, ten years from now, game developers will probably wonder whether it's worth the trouble anymore translating their games for the US market.
The developers had released a roadmap showing that perhaps it would be ready for a Christmas release.
Did they mention the year? Or at least the decade?
I remember waiting for E17. That was about two years before I switched to OS X, so it must be what, five years now?
Funny how this argument mostly comes from people who know virtually nothing about X. Most importantly, not the difference between the concept, the protocol and the implementation.
And just because it's 20 years old doesn't mean it sucks. How old is TCP/IP? The mouse? The binary system?
Not too long ago, Wolfenstein was recalled in Germany for containing Nazi symbols."
You should've also read the discussion on that when it was posted, and noticed that a lot of german readers have pointed out that all that goes back to a bundle of laws the the allies, i.e. you americans, most of all forced unto Germany after WW2, before the Federal Republic of Germany was founded.
You know, because 10 minutes after they left the Google index, they're not top-1000 sites anymore.
Quite honestly, as long as it helps improve the quality of education - and making them public plus opening competition via a marketplace is likely to do that - what the fuck do you care if someone profits? Have we dropped so low already that we're jealous of the winner, even in a win-win situation?
The only numbers I could find so quickly (source: http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=507466):
Oracle: 47.1%
IBM: 21.1%
MS: 17.4%
everyone else is under 5%. No, it's not a monopoly. But an Oligopoly isn't much better for the market, consumers and (minor) competitors.
Because - and this story was posted proudly by Oracle on their own website (http://www.oracle.com/database/number-one-database.html):
Gartner 2008 Worldwide RDBMS Market Share Reports 48.9% Share for Oracle (*)
Gartner has published their market share numbers by operating system for 2008 based on total software revenues. According to Gartner, Oracle
* Continues to be #1 overall with 48.9 per cent share
* Continues to hold more market share than its six closest competitors combined
* Continues to be #1 on Linux with 75.8 per cent share
(*) Source: Market Share: Relational Database Management System Software by Operating System, Worldwide, 2008 - Colleen Graham, Bhavish Sood, Horiuchi Hideaki, Dan Sommer - June 12, 2009
It's not the number of competitors that matters. It's relative market share. WalMart has millions of competitors - all the tiny shops selling anything that WalMart also sells. But almost all of them don't matter and their market share wouldn't appear anywhere within the first five digits.
May I recommend you spend the same time with Google that it takes you to post these questions the first Google hit would answer? Oh, what am I expecting from an american. Here, bite-size ready: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/consumers/index_en.html
Aside from it not being a crime, you mean?
But for the serious reader: The difference is that a crime is a behaviour, and to prevent it you would have to violate basic personality rights in order to predict human behaviour. A monopoly is a market development and can be predicted with publicly available information and some easy extrapolation. Even if we would grant a company personality rights, they would not be violated by such activities.
No, it was the WTO. I thought that was obvious from my posting, apologies if it wasn't.
The EU certainly has a lot more influence in the WTO than all caribbean nations combined, so their chances would be considerably better.
The EU is upset with MS, how come they haven't developed a successful alternative?
The EU is a transnational government body, not a software company.
It would cost EU companies billions to switch from Oracle to another database.
Maybe. But the EU is a transnational government body, did I mention that? In short: They have tanks. They could liquidate all european assets of Oracle and use the profits to cover the transition costs. Or they could simply go to the WTO and request permission to invalidate Oracle's copyrights, trademarks and other rights within Europe. There's a good chance they could win.
But yes, everyone who's not a total idiot knows that if you get into a fight, you'll get hurt, even if you win. So they're trying to resolve this with talk and muscle flexing instead of outright war. And their primary goal isn't to hurt Oracle, it's to protect the local market.
So yes, it's highly unlikely that it'll come to blows. MS is about the only company stupid enough to play chicken with the government. My reply was directed not at Oracle (who are smarter than that), but at the fucktards who keep posting this "wheee, it's an american company, we should just pull out of europe" nonsense to every story of this kind.
Yes, please. Let one large international corporation try the stunt and pull out.
I'll be watching the fireworks and selling those stocks short. Also, I'll be making side-bets on how long until revolting shareholders kick out the entire board and replace it.
And then I'll search out this posting and reply "told you so". Then we can finally stop this narcistic US attitude that makes the whole world sick of you arrogant bastards.
As for "monopolistic reasons": Between IBM, Microsoft, Teradata, PostgreSQL, etc, how can Oracle possibly be said to have a monopoly on databases?
The job of the EC anti-trust commission is to prevent monopolies before they happen, not punish them when they do (the way the Sherman act works in the US). So their fear is not that Oracle would be a monopoly, but that it comes too close to being able to corner the market. You don't need a monopoly for that, just a commanding influence.
Well, standing up to badly behaved American companies.
Try some research before you post nationalistic crap like that. The EC has fined european companies in the billions range for violations of anti-corruption laws, does the same anti-trust checks on european companies and so on.
Wake up. 50 years ago, the US had the moral high ground on the rest of the world, but you can't go downhill forever without losing it.
Not entirely true. You can have fun with copyrights without leaving WTO, in fact there was a case earlier this year of a small caribbean nation getting a free pass on US copyrights as penalty payment for some US WTO violations.
They are American companies. Soon to be an American company.
*yawn*
always the same old crap. Maybe I should write a reply-macro.
I'll make it short: The EU can kill them.
Europe is a bigger market than the US. It is also an important hub towards the near and middle east and eastern Europe, Russia, etc. for most american companies. Not being able to do business in the EU is a deathspell for most international corporations. Especially in the technology sector where the technology and competitors that will emerge in Europe to take your place can easily expand world-wide.
If the EC complains it is so unfair, Oracle can suggest they either stop selling SUN hardware or Oracle software to the EU, and let those bueacratic bastards pick how they best wish to further retard the quality of their citizens lives.
Funny how no "american company" has ever actually tried that stunt. I wonder why? Are they all pussies or are you an idiot for believing that they wouldn't be hung from their own intestines by their shareholders if they triedD?
The EU and the EC are getting a rep for disagreeing with US counterparts.
Generally, in a disagreement there are two parties that disagree with each other. Unless one wants to implicitly express that one side is right and the other wrong, that's the way it should be phrased.
Quite frankly, given that US "guardians" of the markets have just been caught sleeping at the wheel when they let the financial crisis happen despite experts having warned of the problems for about a decade, it's not as if they had much reputation capital left, do they?
Also, because PP is a horrible tool, badly suited for the job it is intended for - and routinely abused for jobs it wasn't.
I've seen PowerPoint and Keynote presentations right next to and/or immediately following each other. That's a difference you can't put into words. I've seen people who know how to work the tool and people who wear a suit and sit at a desk all day with "manager" on their door sign present, and it's another world of difference. I've seen people use presentation software for presentations, and for practically every other purpose, including the agenda of a meeting.
Add all that up, and the range is unbelievable. People who only know four programs (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook) and still insist on creating their presentations themselves are a total failure, and they don't even notice. But their audience does. And if you're trying to put facts, figures and formulas into a medium that was meant for more condensed information, it only gets worse.
Every university, and almost every company would profit considerably if they were to just wipe out powerpoint on all their machines and prevent re-installation. I'm serious.
You're handing control over to another driver, who may very well decide not to brake and cause a five car pileup, or worse. Also, there's no way to know the mechanical status of the vehicle -- what if one of them blows a tire, or runs out of gas, or the engine seizes?
And the danger is higher on a road train compared to manual driving because of what, exactly?
It isn't. I'm sure during this research they'll collect the numbers on that, and then some, because they know how much convincing people need to give up control. Because that's what this is about: Control. Not safety. Every "safety" argument against automated driving that I've heard so far isn't actually a safety argument, it's an "I feel safer when I'm in control" argument. Which says nothing about safety, only about feelings and control.
What you should do is create a dedicated lane that is controlled entirely by computer,
You already spotted the problem with that. Manual drivers will use that lane, and no, police and penalties won't discourage them (otherwise, there would be nobody speeding).
I mean, it'd basically be a packet-switched network, but with cars instead of pieces of data. It's a relatively benign IT problem.
Except that you can't simply re-transmit if you have packet collisions.
As well, vehicle breakdowns would be handled a lot better because the system would be tied directly to the onboard computer and navigation systems:
The research already includes onboard computers that are required to join the road train. What makes you think that these things would not be handled by the same computer?
The Mythbuster episode was manually driven drafting. Yes, that's dangerous. At the speeds involved, a human can not react fast enough on the short distances involved, over a reasonably long period of time (you can do it for short time, but the stress level is high).
The other point you mention is probably - but you know, I'm just guessing here - one of the reaons they do things like research on these ideas before they throw them out into the wild^H^H^Hroads. Not to mention that in large complex systems, statistics matter more than individual experiences and preferences. Yes, the risk you mention probably exists. If, however, statistically speaking, the danger of something happening to you in a road train is, say, 0.01% per km, while travelling manually means the danger is 0.02% per km, then it is still safer to take the road train.
The main problem with car traffic is a stupid, ancient emotion of humans, namely that we feel safer if we feel in control. In many cases in modern life, that's no longer true.
Are you really suggesting that "by this insurance or die" is a reasonable thing?!?!?
I am suggesting that society has made a choice. The choice has been that we have a bit of a dislike for letting people die for monetary reasons. Which means that since medical treatment isn't free, we have two choices to cover the bills when we've decided that "cash up front" isn't what we want. One is universal health care, financed via taxation. The other is compulsory insurance.
If you have a way to guarantee medical treatment with neither taxation nor compulsory insurance, I'm certain half the world is interested.
Diet food tastes like shit.
Strictly speaking, it doesn't. But the real point is: Does diet food taste bland, or is it all the other food that's ruined your taste because it's been smashed with flavour enhancers, artificial this and artificial that? Except where it's about harmful or poisoneous substances, taste is almost entirely acquired.
Except that with a car you can choose not to buy insurance by choosing not to buy a car and drive it on the public roads. Exactly how do I choose not to buy this insurance? Oh.. I can't?
Correct. You need to examine the source of the risk. In the car analogy, the risk of having a crash comes with driving a car, hence if you drive a car, you ought to have insurance. In the health part, the risk of becoming ill comes with living a life, hence if you live, you ought to have health insurance. You can, of course, choose to die. There are instructions on the Internet to opt-out of life.
Let's see... Buy insurance, or go to jail. It sounds like Massachusetts.
No, it sounds like a reasonable society. I'll use a car analogy because it's a lot clearer there: If you don't have a car insurance, and you crash into me, that is my problem, not yours. Most people who don't have insurance are also too broke to cover the damage themselves. So a law that forces you to have at least enough insurance to cover the other guy's costs is a very reasonable thing.
It's a lot more indirect for health insurance, but the argument is similar.