"You haven't addressed the parent poster's point, though, which is that many of them are TOO greedy. Instead of making 10 cents for every article, they're trying to get 150 cents. That's more than most people are willing to pay. Instead, the site ends up collecting zero cents."
You are assuming that online publishing has an audience capable of supporting itself at ten cents per article. Right now that is not the case, and people want to charge more because very few readers want to pay at all.
"It's greed, I think more than anything, that's limiting it's acceptance..."
Greed? Heaven forbid that content providers should expect people to pay for the content and not just the bandwidth!
Writers and artists like getting paid for their work, not to mention the costs of the computers, networking equipment, sysadmins, network engineers, security techies, and so on. None of those people work cheap, because even in a bear market, there is still a huge demand for people who can keep the computers running.
People think that the internet as a medium somehow cuts out the expensive middleman simply because there is not storefront; all the internet really does is switch to a different middleman, and that middleman is not necessarily cheaper or more efficient right now. Micropayments is a stupid system, because charging people in tiny amounts will never really generate the revenue needed to cover the incredible costs of online media.
I gave up college to become a fast-paced, overpaid computer weenie. Now I spend my life chasing around other people's problems and buried in lame paperwork. The only good thing I have really done for myself was not to by an expensive house like all the other techies, because I haven't totally tied myself in. Being a techie sucks, because no matter what you do, people only notice you when you piss them off. You can never take serious pride in your work, because if someone else doesn't break it every day, you will have to update the OS/Software/whatever too often to to step back and look at what you have done. The money doesn't matter, because you can't enjoy it when you have to worry about a to-do list that you have no hope of catching up to. Mentors are rare at best, because companies never want to spend money training anyone, so all the experts are executives or academics. You will never have a decent social life, because all the time around computers sticks you into a different world mentally.
Stay out of tech. It is not worth the stress, the denegration, or the way it will take over your life. Do not worry about money, because the things you own WILL end up owning you. Do something fun, take pictures, and write about it. Enjoy life, because you only get one.
Two weeks ago, I bought a Radeon 9700 Pro. In that time, I have managed to get three out of my huge pile of 3D games to work with it, and only Quake III works well. ATIs driver coders are off in lala-land, and games can't cope with them. No two people seem to have the same problems with the Radeon 9700 Pro, which makes troubleshooting a nightmare. I would have been better off just getting an Nvidia card for half the money to hold me over until the next Nivida card came out.
ATI cards are just not good for gamers. While Nvidia focuses on speed and stability, ATI focuses on cramming any possible feature they can into their All-In-Wonder cards, at the cost of a decent driver set for people who want a card that just attaches to a CRT and WORKS. I will NEVER buy another ATI card, and I will always remember why I ran all my systems on Nvidia for five years before screwing up and getting this fucking ATI card.
For $1000 I can get a $200 Walmart PC that will run circles around an imac performance wise, and a nice 17" Viewsonic monitor. The current rate for a 17" imac is $1999. Does anyone else see the problem for Apple here?
Apple's problem is that consumers have grown up. Windows is just as easy to use and more reliable (I have had fewer Win2K crashes since 1999 than I have with OS X since 2001.) than Mac OS 9 or X, so Apple cannot keep pushing the ease of use button. People know that Apple's 700MHz CPUs are slow compared to the 2+ GHz X86 CPUs, and that Apple is charging twice as much for RAM and old Nvidia/ATI cards than X86 vendors.
I have said this before and I will keep saying it; Apple computers cost too much. Buying my ibook was the worst computer-related decision I have ever made, and after seeing how an Apple system performs for the cost, I will never do it again, nor would I encourage anyone else to.
Apple has been riding on waves lately; the Jobs-is-back wave, the visual-aesthetics-are-nice wave, and is now trying to stay on top of the Linux-geeks-really-want-to-watch-a-DVD-with-no-fre e-software-hassles wave. The problem is, none of those waves has done anything to create a solid customer base, and Apple is falling back into its old habit of hyping gimmicks to the undying cult of Mac Geeks, who cannot keep that company alive. The time has come for Apple to start a new wave, the Apple-switched-to-AMD-CPUs-and-cheap-RAM wave, and then the company might have a chance in the long run.
First, I want to give a big thanks to the developers who made this happen. Very cool stuff, and very useful.
Second, does anyone know if PyTK (The Python TK stuff.) is going to be ported? Imagine being able to toss together a Python/TK app together that could run on OS X without X! Very cool stuff!
In defense of "24 Hours" Re:people are idiots
on
Red Hat Linux 8 Bible
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Be kind to the"Tech yourself XXX in 24 Hours" books. They are not presented as authoritative or deep textbooks, just as a quick introduction for people new to a subject. I find that one of the best ways to learn about a topic is to read the related "24 Hours" book, and use the basic knowledge presented there as a foundation for deeper knowledge.
Another nice feature of the "24 Hours" books is the authors. Sams has brought in some really great authors over the last few years, and most of the new books are written by accepted experts, not just some guy with a certification.
"Stereotyping is usually considered a bad thing as it is in this situation."
I never stereotyped anyone. My post clearly identifies a subset of EverQuest players, specifically the ones who never stop complaining about how awful it is, how mistreated they are, and why nobody should ever spend money on it; and yet they still sit in a dank hole playing for at least several hours a day.
You know what I love about EQ players like this one? They get treated like crap and continue pumping cash and effort into a game that most companies would consider to be in the "Alpha" state of development as far as quality is concerned.
And they never just quit. These people are losers, dorks with no lives and no spines. I have an EverQuest account that has been active for a couple years. I haven't logged on in months, and one of these ultimate-losers (I don't even know who anymore.) pays the bill for me. EQ players need to wake up and smell the damned latte: YOU ARE LETTING PEOPLE EXPLOIT YOU. Now I will present the steps to getting over EverQuest.
1- Cancel your account. Really. 2- Move out of your Mom's basement. 3- Get a haircut, and I mean a real one, not just a trim of that disgusting mop on your head. I don't care if you look like Richard Stallman or black-and-white era beatles, have a barber make you look like a man. 4- Shave. Daily. 5- See a dermatologist. Stop using that excuse about an HMO approval and just spend the fucking 6- Buy nice new clothes. Get them somewhere nice like Macy's, Bloomingdale's, or Lord and Taylor. 7- Put on your nice clothes, go out into the world, and make friends who are NOT gamers. Girls are especially nice. 8- Have fun. Learn what sunlight is like. Get a dog and take him camping with you.
At this point, when you have realized what REALLY matters in life, you can start playing EverQuest again. Only then will you be able to get over all the little bugs and bad customer service, because you just won't care anymore.
Funny how when fifty-thousand people think earth was settled by aliens they are a cult, but when a billion people believe that earth was created by an invisible man in the sky, that group is a religion.
Paying by fingerprint is far more private than handing over a check with my bank account, address, phone number, and in some states my social security number on it. It also beats generating credit card receipts containing my account number, which can still be used online.
"As well as law enforcement cooperation issues..."
If law enforcement is tracking you down, they have better ways than working with a retailer's fingerprint database. This is a case where the only people who need to worry really ARE the criminals, who could just pay with cash anyway.
"Either you are a spoiled rich brat with money to burn or you have been brainwashed to believe that such short forced upgrade cycles are supposed to be the norm."
Neither of the above. But I have worked with NT and 2000 enough to know that NT is a pile of crap, and that Windows 2000 is so much better only a madman should still be running it. While it is not cheap or easy, Active Directory really does have enough advantages to make it worth upgrading from Windows NT. As for your 7-10 year lifecycle, are you smoking crack? Those numbers might sound nice in MBA classes, but would you really want to run an enterprise using 7-10 year old technology?
"- Active Directory cannot be fully deployed in heterogenous environments (which is what the majority if large IT shops are)"
What do the problems of old, heterogenous environments have to do with up-to-date, easier to manage ones? I was pointing out that managing a cutting-edge Linux desktop network with free software isn't really any harder than managing a Windows 2000 network, and that Windows networks can be managed rather easily by companies with a decent staff. Organizations still built around NT are doing it because they have bad mangers who haven't managed to upgrade in THREE YEARS. Windows 2000/AD is NOT cutting edge technology! Linux is NOT a solution when the real problem is management that cannot move to a better option in three years!
Linux is a great kernel, and some of the distros are great operating systems. But as long as Linux zealots try to promote Linux with cheap shots at Windows, the Linux zealots will get the same response Microsoft gets out of all the silly TCO statistics they pay third party groups to generate in favor of Windows.
"...(these are the same IT departments whose days are consumed with applying Windows patches or verifying license compliance)."
Patching and license compliance are only a problem in companies with shitty managers who do not have their infrastructure built to handle such issues. Windows 2000 made that stuff pretty damned easy.
1- Steps to distributing Windows patches in an Active Directory network: I. Get the.msi version of the patch. If that is not available make your own, it is not hard (Not nearly as hard as dealing with RPMs to replace all those holes in KDE.). II. Administrator tells domain controller to install.msi patch on all systems in the domain. III. Done.
Steps to ensure licensing compliance in Active Directory network: I. Ensure that ordinary users cannot install software without administrative help, which they should not be doing anyway! II. Have all installs handled automatically by the Active Directory Domain Controllers. Set it to only install what is already paid for.
Linux zealots need to stop attacking Microsoft and commercial software companies over things that are non-issues at a company with a well-managed IT department. Sell Linux on its own strengths, not on percieved weaknesses of others.
If anything is going to protect us from Microsoft's hardware DRM mess, it will be chips like these. When Microsoft has strongarmed American companies into producing CPUs that only run signed code, we will have cheap Asian knockoffs to turn to.
How about being a little more accurate, and saying that this is going to reproduce a map that scientists BELIEVE Lewis and Clark took? Given the immense amount of theory in today's science, where so little is provable with what we really know, and how many old laws/rules/etc. have been proven wrong, how about not stating that anything is/was correct unless there is some serious proof?
Refuting crackpots means that NASA has to take a scientist away from his work, and pay him to read a crackpot's rant, and then write a rebuttal. After that the rebuttal has to be proofread, edited, and approved for public release, all of which would involve multiple people not doing their regular work. NASA has enough budget problems as it is, and spending money refuting the work of idiots is just wasteful. As the popularity of blogging grows, the number of crackpots spouting on the internet will too, and eventually NASA could end up devoting most of its current resources debunking the theories of people who insist that the world is flat, and that the moon landing was faked.
Dvorak knows something about computers, specifically desktops. Apparently he knows nothing about the rest of it, or he would have discussed the thousands of creative uses of Linux, in server clusters, network appliances, embedded devices of all shapes and sizes, incredible server clusters, renderfarms, the list goes on and on. He also ignores the numerous interface projects, both 2D WIMP enhancements, and the 3D interfaces that Windows does not have.
Dvorak is a fool, a pundit, he is the computer industry's Rush Limbaugh. Fortunately for the computer industry, Dvorak does not have millions of moron listeners who fail to look through his fallacies.
The Dreamcast did not run Windows CE. It was capable of running it, and several early game titles used it (The games come with the OS they boot to. No reason to keep a static OS on a console with a 5+ year life.), but the system itself did not run Windows.
1- Consoles do not run Windows, and are therefore much more stable. 2- A console does not need a $350+ video card upgrade every 12 months to run the current batch of games. 3- Console games are not regularly released in a beta state by broke game companies that need sales to finish the code and release a giant patch. 4- The more time we spend parked 12" away from a monitor at work, the more we value gaming ten feet away on the La-Z-Boy.
Slashdot Mirror
"You haven't addressed the parent poster's point, though, which is that many of them are TOO greedy.
Instead of making 10 cents for every article, they're trying to get 150 cents. That's more than most people are willing to pay. Instead, the site ends up collecting zero cents."
You are assuming that online publishing has an audience capable of supporting itself at ten cents per article. Right now that is not the case, and people want to charge more because very few readers want to pay at all.
"It's greed, I think more than anything, that's limiting it's acceptance..."
Greed? Heaven forbid that content providers should expect people to pay for the content and not just the bandwidth!
Writers and artists like getting paid for their work, not to mention the costs of the computers, networking equipment, sysadmins, network engineers, security techies, and so on. None of those people work cheap, because even in a bear market, there is still a huge demand for people who can keep the computers running.
People think that the internet as a medium somehow cuts out the expensive middleman simply because there is not storefront; all the internet really does is switch to a different middleman, and that middleman is not necessarily cheaper or more efficient right now. Micropayments is a stupid system, because charging people in tiny amounts will never really generate the revenue needed to cover the incredible costs of online media.
"...there is a great surplus of unemployed ATP pilots right now."
Which explains why the ones who ARE flying work the same kind of nutty hours the hospital ER employees do.
"...there exists vastly more people who win the lotto jackpots than there are drunk pilots."
It only takes one drunk pilot to crash a plane. Good luck getting a drone drunk.
How about replacing drunk, overworked, sleep-deprived pilots?
I gave up college to become a fast-paced, overpaid computer weenie. Now I spend my life chasing around other people's problems and buried in lame paperwork. The only good thing I have really done for myself was not to by an expensive house like all the other techies, because I haven't totally tied myself in. Being a techie sucks, because no matter what you do, people only notice you when you piss them off. You can never take serious pride in your work, because if someone else doesn't break it every day, you will have to update the OS/Software/whatever too often to to step back and look at what you have done. The money doesn't matter, because you can't enjoy it when you have to worry about a to-do list that you have no hope of catching up to. Mentors are rare at best, because companies never want to spend money training anyone, so all the experts are executives or academics. You will never have a decent social life, because all the time around computers sticks you into a different world mentally.
Stay out of tech. It is not worth the stress, the denegration, or the way it will take over your life. Do not worry about money, because the things you own WILL end up owning you. Do something fun, take pictures, and write about it. Enjoy life, because you only get one.
Two weeks ago, I bought a Radeon 9700 Pro. In that time, I have managed to get three out of my huge pile of 3D games to work with it, and only Quake III works well. ATIs driver coders are off in lala-land, and games can't cope with them. No two people seem to have the same problems with the Radeon 9700 Pro, which makes troubleshooting a nightmare. I would have been better off just getting an Nvidia card for half the money to hold me over until the next Nivida card came out.
ATI cards are just not good for gamers. While Nvidia focuses on speed and stability, ATI focuses on cramming any possible feature they can into their All-In-Wonder cards, at the cost of a decent driver set for people who want a card that just attaches to a CRT and WORKS. I will NEVER buy another ATI card, and I will always remember why I ran all my systems on Nvidia for five years before screwing up and getting this fucking ATI card.
For $1000 I can get a $200 Walmart PC that will run circles around an imac performance wise, and a nice 17" Viewsonic monitor. The current rate for a 17" imac is $1999. Does anyone else see the problem for Apple here?
e e-software-hassles wave. The problem is, none of those waves has done anything to create a solid customer base, and Apple is falling back into its old habit of hyping gimmicks to the undying cult of Mac Geeks, who cannot keep that company alive. The time has come for Apple to start a new wave, the Apple-switched-to-AMD-CPUs-and-cheap-RAM wave, and then the company might have a chance in the long run.
Apple's problem is that consumers have grown up. Windows is just as easy to use and more reliable (I have had fewer Win2K crashes since 1999 than I have with OS X since 2001.) than Mac OS 9 or X, so Apple cannot keep pushing the ease of use button. People know that Apple's 700MHz CPUs are slow compared to the 2+ GHz X86 CPUs, and that Apple is charging twice as much for RAM and old Nvidia/ATI cards than X86 vendors.
I have said this before and I will keep saying it; Apple computers cost too much. Buying my ibook was the worst computer-related decision I have ever made, and after seeing how an Apple system performs for the cost, I will never do it again, nor would I encourage anyone else to.
Apple has been riding on waves lately; the Jobs-is-back wave, the visual-aesthetics-are-nice wave, and is now trying to stay on top of the Linux-geeks-really-want-to-watch-a-DVD-with-no-fr
First, I want to give a big thanks to the developers who made this happen. Very cool stuff, and very useful.
Second, does anyone know if PyTK (The Python TK stuff.) is going to be ported? Imagine being able to toss together a Python/TK app together that could run on OS X without X! Very cool stuff!
Be kind to the"Tech yourself XXX in 24 Hours" books. They are not presented as authoritative or deep textbooks, just as a quick introduction for people new to a subject. I find that one of the best ways to learn about a topic is to read the related "24 Hours" book, and use the basic knowledge presented there as a foundation for deeper knowledge.
Another nice feature of the "24 Hours" books is the authors. Sams has brought in some really great authors over the last few years, and most of the new books are written by accepted experts, not just some guy with a certification.
"Stereotyping is usually considered a bad thing as it is in this situation."
I never stereotyped anyone. My post clearly identifies a subset of EverQuest players, specifically the ones who never stop complaining about how awful it is, how mistreated they are, and why nobody should ever spend money on it; and yet they still sit in a dank hole playing for at least several hours a day.
You know what I love about EQ players like this one? They get treated like crap and continue pumping cash and effort into a game that most companies would consider to be in the "Alpha" state of development as far as quality is concerned.
And they never just quit. These people are losers, dorks with no lives and no spines. I have an EverQuest account that has been active for a couple years. I haven't logged on in months, and one of these ultimate-losers (I don't even know who anymore.) pays the bill for me. EQ players need to wake up and smell the damned latte: YOU ARE LETTING PEOPLE EXPLOIT YOU. Now I will present the steps to getting over EverQuest.
1- Cancel your account. Really.
2- Move out of your Mom's basement.
3- Get a haircut, and I mean a real one, not just a trim of that disgusting mop on your head. I don't care if you look like Richard Stallman or black-and-white era beatles, have a barber make you look like a man.
4- Shave. Daily.
5- See a dermatologist. Stop using that excuse about an HMO approval and just spend the fucking 6- Buy nice new clothes. Get them somewhere nice like Macy's, Bloomingdale's, or Lord and Taylor.
7- Put on your nice clothes, go out into the world, and make friends who are NOT gamers. Girls are especially nice.
8- Have fun. Learn what sunlight is like. Get a dog and take him camping with you.
At this point, when you have realized what REALLY matters in life, you can start playing EverQuest again. Only then will you be able to get over all the little bugs and bad customer service, because you just won't care anymore.
"A religious cult, the Raelians..."
Funny how when fifty-thousand people think earth was settled by aliens they are a cult, but when a billion people believe that earth was created by an invisible man in the sky, that group is a religion.
Why not just use a PIN with the fingerprint? A fingerprint does not need to be the only step in the process.
"I'm sure some /.-ers will have privacy concerns"
Paying by fingerprint is far more private than handing over a check with my bank account, address, phone number, and in some states my social security number on it. It also beats generating credit card receipts containing my account number, which can still be used online.
"As well as law enforcement cooperation issues..."
If law enforcement is tracking you down, they have better ways than working with a retailer's fingerprint database. This is a case where the only people who need to worry really ARE the criminals, who could just pay with cash anyway.
"Either you are a spoiled rich brat with money to burn or you have been brainwashed to believe that such short forced upgrade cycles are supposed to be the norm."
Neither of the above. But I have worked with NT and 2000 enough to know that NT is a pile of crap, and that Windows 2000 is so much better only a madman should still be running it. While it is not cheap or easy, Active Directory really does have enough advantages to make it worth upgrading from Windows NT. As for your 7-10 year lifecycle, are you smoking crack? Those numbers might sound nice in MBA classes, but would you really want to run an enterprise using 7-10 year old technology?
"- Active Directory cannot be fully deployed in heterogenous environments (which is what the majority if large IT shops are)"
What do the problems of old, heterogenous environments have to do with up-to-date, easier to manage ones? I was pointing out that managing a cutting-edge Linux desktop network with free software isn't really any harder than managing a Windows 2000 network, and that Windows networks can be managed rather easily by companies with a decent staff. Organizations still built around NT are doing it because they have bad mangers who haven't managed to upgrade in THREE YEARS. Windows 2000/AD is NOT cutting edge technology! Linux is NOT a solution when the real problem is management that cannot move to a better option in three years!
Linux is a great kernel, and some of the distros are great operating systems. But as long as Linux zealots try to promote Linux with cheap shots at Windows, the Linux zealots will get the same response Microsoft gets out of all the silly TCO statistics they pay third party groups to generate in favor of Windows.
"...(these are the same IT departments whose days are consumed with applying Windows patches or verifying license compliance)."
.msi version of the patch. If that is not available make your own, it is not hard (Not nearly as hard as dealing with RPMs to replace all those holes in KDE.). .msi patch on all systems in the domain.
Patching and license compliance are only a problem in companies with shitty managers who do not have their infrastructure built to handle such issues. Windows 2000 made that stuff pretty damned easy.
1- Steps to distributing Windows patches in an Active Directory network:
I. Get the
II. Administrator tells domain controller to install
III. Done.
Steps to ensure licensing compliance in Active Directory network:
I. Ensure that ordinary users cannot install software without administrative help, which they should not be doing anyway!
II. Have all installs handled automatically by the Active Directory Domain Controllers. Set it to only install what is already paid for.
Linux zealots need to stop attacking Microsoft and commercial software companies over things that are non-issues at a company with a well-managed IT department. Sell Linux on its own strengths, not on percieved weaknesses of others.
If anything is going to protect us from Microsoft's hardware DRM mess, it will be chips like these. When Microsoft has strongarmed American companies into producing CPUs that only run signed code, we will have cheap Asian knockoffs to turn to.
Capitalism ROCKS.
How about being a little more accurate, and saying that this is going to reproduce a map that scientists BELIEVE Lewis and Clark took? Given the immense amount of theory in today's science, where so little is provable with what we really know, and how many old laws/rules/etc. have been proven wrong, how about not stating that anything is/was correct unless there is some serious proof?
"The transaction reflects an aggregate purchase price of approximately $235 million..."
Where the hell did Yahoo come up with $235 million in cash?
Refuting crackpots means that NASA has to take a scientist away from his work, and pay him to read a crackpot's rant, and then write a rebuttal. After that the rebuttal has to be proofread, edited, and approved for public release, all of which would involve multiple people not doing their regular work. NASA has enough budget problems as it is, and spending money refuting the work of idiots is just wasteful. As the popularity of blogging grows, the number of crackpots spouting on the internet will too, and eventually NASA could end up devoting most of its current resources debunking the theories of people who insist that the world is flat, and that the moon landing was faked.
Better to just prepare for Mars.
Dvorak knows something about computers, specifically desktops. Apparently he knows nothing about the rest of it, or he would have discussed the thousands of creative uses of Linux, in server clusters, network appliances, embedded devices of all shapes and sizes, incredible server clusters, renderfarms, the list goes on and on. He also ignores the numerous interface projects, both 2D WIMP enhancements, and the 3D interfaces that Windows does not have.
Dvorak is a fool, a pundit, he is the computer industry's Rush Limbaugh. Fortunately for the computer industry, Dvorak does not have millions of moron listeners who fail to look through his fallacies.
The Dreamcast did not run Windows CE. It was capable of running it, and several early game titles used it (The games come with the OS they boot to. No reason to keep a static OS on a console with a 5+ year life.), but the system itself did not run Windows.
I got a big fat check. And then I made a big donation to the EFF.
1- Consoles do not run Windows, and are therefore much more stable.
2- A console does not need a $350+ video card upgrade every 12 months to run the current batch of games.
3- Console games are not regularly released in a beta state by broke game companies that need sales to finish the code and release a giant patch.
4- The more time we spend parked 12" away from a monitor at work, the more we value gaming ten feet away on the La-Z-Boy.