"Free" software often costs more money when you factor in the costs of lost productivity and training when "Mary in accounting" has to learn a new UI and new application. I know of lots of users who can't even surf the web if you move the 'blue "e"' from one side of their display to the other.
With digital TV, once the signal drops below a certain threshold, the error correction is unable to compensate for the degradation, at which point you get a blank screen.
Sometimes when I hear about this I idly wonder if there would be any way to design a solution that involves some buffering - i.e. if you're in a fringe area create a tuner that buffers up an available lower-bandwidth signal that's more tolerant. It means you might have to watch "America's Next Top Model" a hour later than everyone else, but at least you'd be able to watch it...
What's interesting is that those of us who are Gen-Xers (I'm 41) and who were 'raised' on Star Wars-era model spaceships and motion-control FX find that CGI looks 'fake.' Even though in all liklihood it's more realistic than models, when we see a CGI starship we wind up thinking "The Millenium Falcon looked better."
I first visited the attraction back in '98 and I've been on a it a few times since. It was always great fun. On my most recent visit (2007) I happened to glance into an alcove as we exited the ride and was amused to note that the application controlling the "Enterprise" was running on Windows 3.x.
Wil Wheaton's got a good blurb on the ride on his blog:
>The "Basic" Voicemail only allows you to have 3 messages for something like 48 hours
I've had this 'limitation' on my Telus Mobility handset for 10 years. Never been a problem. I get a voicemail, the handset beeps. I listen to the message, maybe listen to it again and write something down, then I delete it. Why would I want to clutter up my VM inbox with all these messages. The only downside is when I travel to a GSM-only jurisdiction and the phone doesn't work, but in that case I simply revise the outgoing message telling people to email me instead. Problem solved.
Almost all of Canada lives in their top few cities.
Also, and I don't have a cite easily to hand, Canada was an early adopter of cable TV. As a result, most homes in Canada already had a coax drop to them. I remember in the 70s cable had pretty quick uptake because many Canadian homes only had one or two TV channels (CBC and CTV).
Absolutely Craigslist. I put my junk in a box on the front steps, then list it on Craiglist under the 'free' section with an ad that basically says 'This stuff is on my front steps at [address] for free.' Sometimes it's gone within 20 minutes.
The odd thing about it, though, was that once I selected the flights that I wanted, I was able to go directly to the airline's website (Air Canada, in this case) and buy the tickets for cheaper than Expedia was offering.
The problem is this: When expedia et al first entered the market, there was a basic airline ticket offering. It was economy class, it let you check a bag, gave you some frequent flyer miles and might have given you a meal.
Today, many of those offerings are a la carte offerings, presented in the airline's site, at time of ticket purchase. It's difficult for expedia to present all those options, so they usually present a baseline ticket price that includes 'most of what customers likely expect.' However, if you're willing to go absolutely bare-bones you can probably get a cheaper ticket at Air Canada's site. I bet if you compared apples to apples with identical options on the tickets, you'd find the prices the same.
I'm too busy / lazy to google a supporting link, but by contrast the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing committee has promised free (like beer) internet to all media, including 'non acredited' media.
Craigslist has millions of dollars in revenue, they can afford lawyers.
Just because they have millions of dollars in revenue doesn't mean they can afford lawyers - Who knows what their operating costs / bandwidth costs etc. are. It's unreasonable to expect Craiglist to spend tens-of-thousands to defend someone who has put up a free ad.
I'm sure a lot of it also has to do with bandwidth. I have friends and family who use dialup (because it's cheaper) and they can't be bothered to tie up their phone line for hours downloading new browser versions once a month.
So I think to display stats like this you need to ask "Who is on BROADBAND who hasn't upgraded?"
So if someone is too stupid to drive a car, it is Ford's fault?
It is if a significant percentage of people of otherwise 'typical' intelligence can't drive Ford's cars. However, this isn't an issue with cars (although many people likely don't know how to set the clock on their radio), but is with computers.
I work as a product manager at a software company, and this sort of 'geek arrogance' regarding these statements from users (starting 'email', 'clicking on the blue E') really annoys me. If users are using wrong terminology or find things difficult unless they follow very precise steps it's not the fault of the users, it's the fault of geeks who designed the user interface, and the 'user experience.'
she prefers to pay $12 for the less-expensive dial-up connection
My parents (well, my 67-year-old father, really) are the same. Dialup is $10 per month, ADSL and Cable around $35. Before taxes, that's a savings of around $300 per year. Over the five years I've had broadband and he's stuck with dialup, he's saved nearly $1700, after taxes.
I do buy a new PC every three years, but buy a new graphics card every year (much like many other developers) whenever new 3D API extensions appear.
In the past I have installed new hard disk drives whenever larger capacity models became available (going from 80Gb to 250Gb).
Sure, but this is not 'typical.' Again, 95% of users buy a computer and stick with it. The only 'upgrade' they perform is buying a new computer 3-5 years later.
A few are needed, but the fewer marketing droids masquerading as engineering-types, the better
Did you RTFA? He said he wanted to work for a company that actually built and sold stuff. He said Google just invented or bought all this stuff (Flickr, Blogger) without any MARKET research done ahead of time as to who would buy the stuff or how much to charge for it. It's those marketing droids who help figure out how to build what the customers want. And no, I don't work in marketing.
For a desktop (and maybe even laptops) this would include the cost of upgrading the graphics card and installing new disk drives/memory over a period of four/five years.
Virtually no one I know performs 'upgrades' on their computer. They buy a 'new computer,' use it for 3-5 years and then buy another 'new computer.' They might add some peripherals (printer, scanner, whatever) but generally their CPU stays screwed shut for the life of the machine.
Re:Get Over Yourselves People!
on
Terminal Chaos
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· Score: 1
If it were possible to pay a little extra and get guarantees for stuff like this, a lot of people would do so. But apparently not enough
Keep in mind you *can* get better 'than that', you just have to pay for it. Want more legroom on a domestic flight? Pay for Economy Plus on United. Want more internationally? Fly "deluxe economy" on one of the international carriers. Want to pay a fare that's still less than a comparable 1960s fare (indexed to inflation)? Fly business class.
Here's a quote I've always liked:
Robert Crandall, the crusty former boss at American Airlines, used to say that customers always talk in surveys about food and legroom. But when it comes to buying tickets, the only thing that ever matters to them is price.
In other words, good service is nice but we'll put up with a lot if it means a cheaper seat. Americans, as a rule, won't pay more for a plusher seat or better food. And U.S. airlines know it."
How is having non-transferable tickets a cost saver for the airline? It could well be, I just don't get it.
Because it allows an airline to create a transferable ticket and sell it for more money. The baseline cheapest ticket is full of restrictions. As the prices increase, the restrictions come off.
Re:Back in the day...
on
Terminal Chaos
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· Score: 2, Interesting
My family lives in Brazil (I'm a dual citizen), if it would take me a month each way, (two weeks being generous) to get me from nashville, TN to Rio de Janeiro, I would never get to see my family.
I think the difference is that cheap airfare has resulted in an expectation that people are able to fly 'home' repeatedly and cheaply. In the 60s, if you'd left Brazil and moved to America you probably would have resolved yourself to the fact you wouldn't have seen your family for a few years. Flying would have been too expensive and other options would have taken too long. Fast forward 40 years and people *expect* to be able to fly everywhere cheaply.
My father moved to Vancouver, Canada from England in 1964. He didn't return to England for 8 years. Why? It was too expensive.
I think as the era of 'cheap flights' comes to end (due to higher fuel prices) people will have to once again change their mindsets and expect that unlimited cheap travel is a thing of the past...
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use free software to save costs
"Free" software often costs more money when you factor in the costs of lost productivity and training when "Mary in accounting" has to learn a new UI and new application. I know of lots of users who can't even surf the web if you move the 'blue "e"' from one side of their display to the other.
they came up with a lot of intriguing gadgets and ideas to wrap the book's formula around when I was in the 6th grade
To this day, I still enjoy saying "Subocean Geotron"
http://www.tomswift.info/homepage/geotron.jpg
With digital TV, once the signal drops below a certain threshold, the error correction is unable to compensate for the degradation, at which point you get a blank screen.
Sometimes when I hear about this I idly wonder if there would be any way to design a solution that involves some buffering - i.e. if you're in a fringe area create a tuner that buffers up an available lower-bandwidth signal that's more tolerant. It means you might have to watch "America's Next Top Model" a hour later than everyone else, but at least you'd be able to watch it...
(This is how my dad watches youtube on dialup)
Battery-powered weather TVs work in the basement? Impressive.
It's not about CGI being hard to accept
What's interesting is that those of us who are Gen-Xers (I'm 41) and who were 'raised' on Star Wars-era model spaceships and motion-control FX find that CGI looks 'fake.' Even though in all liklihood it's more realistic than models, when we see a CGI starship we wind up thinking "The Millenium Falcon looked better."
For example:
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=APBm4q-bqxs
I first visited the attraction back in '98 and I've been on a it a few times since. It was always great fun. On my most recent visit (2007) I happened to glance into an alcove as we exited the ride and was amused to note that the application controlling the "Enterprise" was running on Windows 3.x.
Wil Wheaton's got a good blurb on the ride on his blog:
http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2008/07/star-trek-the-e.html
>The "Basic" Voicemail only allows you to have 3 messages for something like 48 hours
I've had this 'limitation' on my Telus Mobility handset for 10 years. Never been a problem. I get a voicemail, the handset beeps. I listen to the message, maybe listen to it again and write something down, then I delete it. Why would I want to clutter up my VM inbox with all these messages. The only downside is when I travel to a GSM-only jurisdiction and the phone doesn't work, but in that case I simply revise the outgoing message telling people to email me instead. Problem solved.
Almost all of Canada lives in their top few cities.
Also, and I don't have a cite easily to hand, Canada was an early adopter of cable TV. As a result, most homes in Canada already had a coax drop to them. I remember in the 70s cable had pretty quick uptake because many Canadian homes only had one or two TV channels (CBC and CTV).
Absolutely Craigslist. I put my junk in a box on the front steps, then list it on Craiglist under the 'free' section with an ad that basically says 'This stuff is on my front steps at [address] for free.' Sometimes it's gone within 20 minutes.
The problem is this: When expedia et al first entered the market, there was a basic airline ticket offering. It was economy class, it let you check a bag, gave you some frequent flyer miles and might have given you a meal.
Today, many of those offerings are a la carte offerings, presented in the airline's site, at time of ticket purchase. It's difficult for expedia to present all those options, so they usually present a baseline ticket price that includes 'most of what customers likely expect.' However, if you're willing to go absolutely bare-bones you can probably get a cheaper ticket at Air Canada's site. I bet if you compared apples to apples with identical options on the tickets, you'd find the prices the same.
I'm too busy / lazy to google a supporting link, but by contrast the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Organizing committee has promised free (like beer) internet to all media, including 'non acredited' media.
Just because they have millions of dollars in revenue doesn't mean they can afford lawyers - Who knows what their operating costs / bandwidth costs etc. are. It's unreasonable to expect Craiglist to spend tens-of-thousands to defend someone who has put up a free ad.
So I think to display stats like this you need to ask "Who is on BROADBAND who hasn't upgraded?"
You just flip the swich on the power strip. Job done.
It is if a significant percentage of people of otherwise 'typical' intelligence can't drive Ford's cars. However, this isn't an issue with cars (although many people likely don't know how to set the clock on their radio), but is with computers.
Certainly not my parents. When you call them you get a busy signal when dad's 'using the internet.'
I work as a product manager at a software company, and this sort of 'geek arrogance' regarding these statements from users (starting 'email', 'clicking on the blue E') really annoys me. If users are using wrong terminology or find things difficult unless they follow very precise steps it's not the fault of the users, it's the fault of geeks who designed the user interface, and the 'user experience.'
My parents (well, my 67-year-old father, really) are the same. Dialup is $10 per month, ADSL and Cable around $35. Before taxes, that's a savings of around $300 per year. Over the five years I've had broadband and he's stuck with dialup, he's saved nearly $1700, after taxes.
Sure, but this is not 'typical.' Again, 95% of users buy a computer and stick with it. The only 'upgrade' they perform is buying a new computer 3-5 years later.
Did you RTFA? He said he wanted to work for a company that actually built and sold stuff. He said Google just invented or bought all this stuff (Flickr, Blogger) without any MARKET research done ahead of time as to who would buy the stuff or how much to charge for it. It's those marketing droids who help figure out how to build what the customers want. And no, I don't work in marketing.
I work for a company that's built on MS infrastructure. Our data centre is hugely scaled and works very well, and is very easy to administer.
Anecdotal to be sure, but there you go.
Virtually no one I know performs 'upgrades' on their computer. They buy a 'new computer,' use it for 3-5 years and then buy another 'new computer.' They might add some peripherals (printer, scanner, whatever) but generally their CPU stays screwed shut for the life of the machine.
Keep in mind you *can* get better 'than that', you just have to pay for it. Want more legroom on a domestic flight? Pay for Economy Plus on United. Want more internationally? Fly "deluxe economy" on one of the international carriers. Want to pay a fare that's still less than a comparable 1960s fare (indexed to inflation)? Fly business class.
Here's a quote I've always liked:
Robert Crandall, the crusty former boss at American Airlines, used to say that customers always talk in surveys about food and legroom. But when it comes to buying tickets, the only thing that ever matters to them is price.
In other words, good service is nice but we'll put up with a lot if it means a cheaper seat. Americans, as a rule, won't pay more for a plusher seat or better food. And U.S. airlines know it."
Source:
http://money.cnn.com/2005/06/02/pf/goodlife/best_airlines/?cnn=yes
Because it allows an airline to create a transferable ticket and sell it for more money. The baseline cheapest ticket is full of restrictions. As the prices increase, the restrictions come off.
I think the difference is that cheap airfare has resulted in an expectation that people are able to fly 'home' repeatedly and cheaply. In the 60s, if you'd left Brazil and moved to America you probably would have resolved yourself to the fact you wouldn't have seen your family for a few years. Flying would have been too expensive and other options would have taken too long. Fast forward 40 years and people *expect* to be able to fly everywhere cheaply.
My father moved to Vancouver, Canada from England in 1964. He didn't return to England for 8 years. Why? It was too expensive.
I think as the era of 'cheap flights' comes to end (due to higher fuel prices) people will have to once again change their mindsets and expect that unlimited cheap travel is a thing of the past...