Way back when, the operating system would only let jobs run for a certain amount of time. This was mostly to prevent students who inadvertently wrote an infinite loop from sitting there all night staring at the terminal wondering why they never got a result.
When DTSS became DCTS, though, they changed it from CPU seconds to a mysterious thing called "Computer Resource Units" (CRUs) which encompassed both CPU time and the amount of information printed. This was mostly done for billing purposes to non-Dartmouth users. Users had a maximum number of CRUs that their job could use at any one time. However, when they exceeded that amount, it wouldn't kill the job. Instead, it would tell them they exceeded it and ask if they wanted to continue. Very nice......unless you were hosting a multi-terminal session. The process was stopped until the person sitting at the console answered the question. All terminals that were connected were hung--they couldn't even disconnect.
So, I wanted to make sure that the process ended before the user ran out of CRUs. Based on a typical student account, 45 minutes seemed like a good number. So I started a timer for 43 minutes, displayed a warning, and then ran a timer for two minutes and ended the program.
Probably the most assembly-language programming I've ever done.
Of course, the other question is whether they have the great adventures of Bjegorlund the Bold...
If your job pays good money, be a man and provider and sacrifice your happiness so your child can have a better life. Having 8 hours of boring yet high paying work is better than having 8 hours of fun yet low paying work, because the boring life is better for your wife and kids welfare. The 1950s called. They want their social structure back.
I've read this sort of opinion a few times here. "You're the man--it's your duty to support your family." What is this 1950s Leave-It-To-Beaver "No Wife Of Mine Will Work" bullshit?!
The guy should be discussing this with his wife and not Slashdot. They'll do a better job working this out than we will.
Personal story: My Dad had a pretty good job as a teacher. But he was miserable. He drank. He took it out his frustrations on Mom and us kids (not physically, thank goodness, but emotionally). Finally, My Mom told him that he had to get his act together. If that meant quitting teaching, so be it--we'd get by somehow.
My Dad quit. Started his own sign company. Mom found herself a better paying job to make up some of the difference. But, even with less money in the household, we were all much happier.
So there are a bunch of unanswered questions: Does his wife work? Does she have marketable skills? What does the hobby he is considering pursuing pay? Will his wife be able to make up the difference? What will the difference be and what will it mean in regards to everyone in the family (are we talking no food on the table or are we talking no vacations to Hawaii)? Without answers to those questions, it's tough to give advice.
But the whole "Be A Man And Bring Home The Bacon" attitude? Sorry--long gone. And good riddance, too.
".. believe that Soviet and China was in on the conspiracy, at the height of the cold war when this was a major blow to them. They could easily have disproved a fake moon landing, and choose to let US revel in glory instead..?" Well...
First, they would need better evidence than what the fake moon landing yahoos trot out. Since I haven't seen any, I'd feel pretty secure that it doesn't exist.
Of course, just for fun, let's say it does exist. Let's say the whole thing was fake and Russia and/or China figured it out. Let's also consider the time period.
To say that it was "the height of the cold war" is dubious. Remember that Nixon, elected in 1968, ushered in a new era of "Détente." The Soviet Union could have used information about the fake moon landing to gain advantages at the SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) talks. Furthermore, there was quite a bit of tension between the Soviet Union and China during the late 1960s and early 1970s. China was looking for an ally in the United States and wouldn't hurt that by bringing forth evidence that the landing was a fraud.
As you say, the best evidence is the moon rocks. Of course, the Soviet Union has a small amount of lunar soil from their missions to the moon, but they never sent anyone...
That assumes that the people down the supply chain don't decide to take your knowledge and compete with you.
I read an interesting story awhile back about Schwinn bicycles. From what I read, Schwinn had various techniques that they used in assembling their bicycles that made them more reliable. But they were losing sales to cheaper foreign-made bicycles which weren't as reliable but were considerably cheaper.
Well, they moved their assembly to China. They went over and taught Chinese workers their techniques for making making a reliable bicycle. So now they had less expensive bicycles which were just as reliable.
Until the bicycle factory took these techniques and started producing their own bicycles using those techniques and competing against Schwinn.
So even if you "specialize at a different part of the supply chain," the stuff still has to be assembled and whatever unique knowledge you have brought to the product will be taken by your competitors.
Do you really not care about all the mass graves and rape rooms found all over Iraq? Why does a true tyrant who really did fill mass graves and gas women and children not bother nearly half as much you as much as Bush? Okay. That's kind of a loaded question, so I'll throw out one.
We've spent almost $11,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country (300,000,000,000 / 27,499,638--June 2007 estimate). We've had to borrow money in order to do this and continue to support ourselves in the manner to which we've become accustomed. We'll be paying back that money and our children will be paying back that money. As the American population gets older, more people will be getting sick and will not be able to afford healthcare.
So, are you willing to tell a 70 year old woman that there's no way the US Government can afford to pay--or even subsidize--the medication she needs to stay alive because we spent all the money that we were going to use for this to save Iraqi women and children from the gas chamber? That, as she ends up eating dog food because that's all she can afford after buying the medication she needs to stay alive, she should be proud of what her country has accomplished in Iraq?
AT&T doesn't give a pair of fetid dingos's kidneys what you do with your AT&T data service just so long as you pay your bill on time and aren't a bandwidth hog. In the case of Apple, I'd like to modify what you said and you'll start to see the point...
AT&T doesn't give a pair of fetid dingos's kidneys what you do with your AT&T data service just so long as you pay for your bandwidth and abide by their terms of service. There. That should make things a bit clearer.
Okay, let's get down to brass and tacks. Apple worked a deal with AT&T where iPhone customers get 450 minutes and "unlimited" Internet use for $60 per month. Nice deal, in theory. But, of course, the details are in fine print.
Now let's look at some of that fine print. Scroll down to where it talks about "Prohibited and Permissible Uses." Read it. Start to get the picture?
Essentially, AT&T doesn't want to use their network for anything other than what they say you can do. Even if you're running your laptop through a cellular PCMCIA card, you're still supposed to adhere to their terms of service. But also check out AT&T's DataConnect Rates. Yup. $60/month for 5GB and you have to adhere to their terms of service. They have an unlimited plan for "PDAs and cellphones" which offers unlimited use for $35 per month, sure, but you still must adhere to AT&T's terms of service.
Remember that. Sure, you can download your movies on your Palm, Windows Mobile, or Symbian phone. Just be aware that you may find yourself without a data plan next month.
In regards to the billing, let's add up some numbers. Let's say I go with the cheapest iPhone option: 450 minutes and unlimited data for $59.99. Without an iPhone, using Palm, Windows Mobile, or Symbian phone, you pay $74.99 ($39.99 + $35). So AT&T is making $15 less per iPhone customer per month than they would from Palm, Windows Mobile, or Symbian phone user.
AT&T doesn't care how much bandwidth you use, as long as you pay for it. I agree wholeheartedly. However, AT&T wants you to pay more than $60 a month. If you want the kind of service that you can do whatever the hell you want, you're gonna have to pay.
[...] those in the northern USA might want to start building their robotic-arm-shelters soon... I think it would be extremely naive of us, Mr. President, to imagine that these new developments are going to cause any change in Canadian expansionist policy. Mr. President, we must not allow... a robotic-arm gap!
"Similarly, a human can do much more than Spirit, but you can probably send 10000 rovers like that for the same amount it costs to send one human." That's a good point--the question is, will you have fewer limitations?
Human beings are pretty good tool users. So you send a geologist with lots of geology tools. He can wander across the plains of Mars looking for interesting rocks. Those rocks he finds that are interesting, he can bring back with him to the base where he has more tools. He can chip off a bit of rock with a hammer and look at it under a microscope.
In short, figure out how to keep said geologist alive and productive on Mars and you've come a long way in getting some really interesting science done.
To me, the investment made in figuring out how to keep someone alive and productive on Mars seems like it could mean that we could send people there and figure stuff out much quicker than just throwing the same money at more robots which will all have the limitations that the parent described. Of course, it will take considerably longer to figure out how to keep someone alive on Mars than it would to just send a bunch of probes. Still, once you solve that problem...
To draw an analogy, should we not bother creating a heavy-lift rocket and, instead, launch a bunch of light-lift rockets and assemble things in orbit? Would that be better?
[...] why didn't they just design a home basic OS that everyone could buy on the cheap with a very basic feature set, and then allow people to pay for different features a la carte so that they could buy only the addons that they actually wanted? Because needs change depending on the application software people are using.
Apple did this way back when (like in the System 7 days) and it became an enormous pain in the patuckus to keep you software update to date and compatible.
For example, you'd install a piece of software that requires Open Transport 3.2 when you had Open Transport 3.1. You'd run the app and--if you were lucky--you'd get a message that says, "Requires Open Transport 3.2." So then you'd be off to Apple's website to try to find Open Transport 3.2. You'd download, install, and hope that it didn't cause other applications to get messed up (in theory, it shouldn't, but...)
Sometimes you'd run across applications that tried to be helpful. They licensed the latest version of Open Transport and installed that with their software. Of course, the disks or CDs that you have are six months old and Apple has upgraded Open Transport to 3.3 and you install this app and suddenly you're back to Open Transport 3.2 and some other app, which required 3.3, doesn't work but you don't discover this for a week after you installed when you really need that app for something you have to present tomorrow and you need to figure out why the app is suddenly crashing when it worked just fine two weeks ago (because you weren't lucky and the app didn't come up with a message saying, "Requires Open Transport 3.3.")
Also, the box ends up with a bunch of system requirements which is rather daunting:
Requires:
Windows Vista
Windows Aero SP2
Windows Network SP1
Microsoft Audio+
Microsoft DirectX10
Even with the various flavors of Windows Vista, that's still alot easier than knowing what components you have and whether they are up-to-date enough to run a particular app.
I could see online distribution taking over the rental market, but I don't necessarily see it overtaking the purchase market.
"Huh?" I hear you ask.
Consider the content of Amazon's current top selling DVD, American Gangster. It has the original movie, as seen in theaters. It has a new "extended version." It has commentary, and a couple of documentaries on the subject matter and the making of the film. Almost 7.5 hours of video!
That's a lot of stuff.
Conversely, if I go to, say, an online distributor such as iTunes Store or Amazon Unbox, I get the original movie, as seen in theaters. About 2 hours and 37 minutes worth of video. But if I really love the movie and think it's great and awesome and fantastic and all, I'm going to want the rest of that content. But to download 7.5 hours worth of video is going to take a long time. I'm pretty sure I could drive to the mall, buy it, and come home before it finished downloading all that content.
That's why I'm not convinced that online distribution is going to kill Blu-Ray. Garbage expands to fill the space allotted and there's alot more room for garbage to expand on a Blu-Ray disk than online distribution is going to be able to conveniently handle.
While this is a funny comment, it's not a horrible idea.
First, you know the topology of the area, which I would imagine would be helpful in designing the rover and lander. You know you won't have to deal with going up big hills or anything like that.
Second, and more mercurial, I'd imagine pictures and video of the Apollo 11 landing site would fetch a pretty penny. You could probably sell exclusive broadcast rights and such for a few extra million.
Awhile ago, I had this argument with someone. My argument is that Apple would have benefitted more from an unlocked phone and an open specification (and, perhaps, code) for visual voicemail.
As I said while arguing, consider all those people standing in line for an iPhone. Do you really think all those people were standing in line for AT&T service? Hell, no! They wanted an iPhone! They would have been quite content to take their iPhone to AT&T, T-Mobile, Alltel, or anyone else who would have given them service.
Now, pretend you're a cellular phone company with a GSM network. Here is a line with hundreds of people who are about to buy a phone that is compatible with your network, but they're going to need a carrier. If it were me, the first thing I'd do is set up a kiosk right in front of the Apple Store saying, "Activate Your iPhone Here!" Assuming that my competitors would be doing the same, I'd be offering pretty good rates to get them signed up!
Open standard for visual voicemail? And it'll help me woo Apple customers?! I'd have the IT department working on that as soon as the spec came out. Ideally, I'd have a beta or demo available on the first day the iPhone was available so I could show potential customers why they should sign up with me instead of my competitors. "We want to work with your awesome Apple phone, unlike our competitors that are offering crappy rate plans." Hell, Mac users eat that up!
Remember this is the cell phone industry--they're fighting for customers tooth and nail. You have a potentially large group of people who are about drop their old carrier for a new one. Wouldn't you want to get those customers? I know I would!
Of course, without the "exclusive" deal, Apple wouldn't make as much money as they do per iPhone customers. But I would argue that Apple would have more customers worldwide.
That's why I tend to doubt the whole "end-to-end user experience" line. I've been at the Apple Genius Bar when people bring in their iPhones. When it's a network issue, the genius sends them off to the nearest AT&T store. So where's Apple's control? They get to sign people up through iTunes? Whoop-dee-doo.
Personal opinion, I think Apple was hedging their bets. American consumers aren't used to the idea of unlocked phones. It's new. It's different. It's weird. So they wanted to make sure they had one phone provider that they could be certain would support them. Apple is new to this whole phone thing, anyway, and they wanted a partner that could help them spot any unknowns.
I personally wouldn't expect a second five-year exclusive deal with anyone.
If you had your choice of having $500 million in sales with rampant piracy, or $1 billion in sales with twice as much piracy, which would you choose? The music industry has a history of choosing the lesser amount because of the risk of the increase in music piracy. Part of the reason for this, I imagine, is that the music industry would rather have all the sales.
Their belief is that if they sell 100,000,000 songs and 100,000,000 songs are pirated, they've lost the money from selling those 100,000,000 songs. If they sold 200,000,000 songs and 200,000,000 songs were pirated, they've lost the money from selling those 200,000,000 songs. To them, piracy is lost money. The fact that you might, in the future, buy the whole CD or just the song you like is lost on them. Their job is to maximize the number of sales and you don't necessarily do that by giving away stuff for free.
Well, actually, his views are almost perfect for politics. He's saying, "Given a choice between two things, we will do both and raise taxes (democrats) or have larger deficits (republicans). That way everybody is happy and will vote for me."
Remember Apple's Rip, Mix, Burn ad? The tag line at the end, "It's your music. Burn it on a Mac"? At the time, the music industry was up in arms over this idea that people could rip music from CDs to their computers. Apple became a fair-use sweetheart overnight by actively promoting the concept in advertising that it was okay for you to do this. Apple was the consumer's friend, fighting for our rights against the evil music cartels--or so the fanbois said.
Then Apple came out with the Airport Express. A great idea--stream audio from your iTunes library to your home stereo. However, Apple encrypted the data so that it could not be sniffed and somehow copied out of the air. Why? According to Apple, they had to do that so as not to offend the music industry. And to make matters worse, they didn't even add a way to send encrypted audio to it. So it only worked with iTunes.
After that, Apple started selling music videos in the iTunes Store. But there is no way to transfer the audio portion of the music video to a CD or an iPod. So if you like the song and you like the video, you need to buy them separately, even though the song is part of the video. What gives?
And, of course, most recently, Apple added ringtones to the iTunes Store which you can install on your iPhone. But you can only make ringtones from music that you purchased on the iTunes store. So you first have to pay 99 cents to buy the full song--possibly twice if you already bought it on CD--and that gives you the privilege of spending 99 cents again for a ringtone! Why? Well, because the music industry wanted it that way.
What happened to Apple, the consumer's friend, the fair-use sweetheart?
I was especially galled by the ringtone thing. Here was a perfect opportunity for Apple to stand up and say, "It's ridiculous for you to have rebuy a song to use it as a ringtone!" To, once again, show itself as the consumer's friend. Instead, they bowed under pressure from the music industry. What's even more annoying, though, is the mewling Mac mavens who immediately chime in, "Well, at least you're not paying $3.99 a year like all those other guys charge!"
You'd have to make sure that the weapons that are carried by passengers are not going to damage the airplane. It wouldn't do much good if, in the process of battling it out with the hijackers, the armed passenger shoots out a window or in some way creates a situation where the airplane crashes.
Also, you probably would want to stop serving any alcohol on the airplane. Stories involving alcohol and convenient access to firearms tend to end badly.
Considering the restrictions (special weapons, ammunition, and training), I'm not sure you'd see too many people doing it, even if it were allowed.
On the one hand, I'm pretty sure that the big name distributors (GameStop, WalMart, etc.) do not carry AO games. Since most of your sales go through those folks, that makes it difficult to release an AO game and make money.
On the other hand, you could sell it direct through your own website and keep most of the money you made for yourself.
Most likely, I'd expect them to split the game into two versions. So you have the 'M' rated version for the distributors. You wait six months and then offer the AO version via your website and get people to buy the game twice.
but just keeps on doing what I want - it plays tunes while I run. I wouldn't recommend a hard-drive based player then. Lots of people bought the original hard-drive based iPods and used them while running. They ended up with head crashes, etc.
IBM used to do this all the time. If they ended up with viable competition in, say, mainframe hard drives, they would drop the prices or give out special deals to customers. then they'd adjust the prices on their typewriters.
I remember that the court case went all the way to the US Supreme Court. However, the Supreme Court announced the results of that case on the same day they started breaking up AT&T, so it kind of got lost in the shuffle.
"To me, the "Good Game" line has always been a PC way to be an ass."
Actually, back in my yout playing high school soccer, I always used to laugh at the "Good Game."
After every game, both teams would line up and walk past each other saying, to each member of the opposing team, "Good game." So after spending an hour or so laughing at the opposing teams effort to beat you (or, conversely, cringing at every good play they made) you'd strap on your hypocrisy and say, "Hey, you played a good game."
I was a coward, I admit, but I always wanted to walk along the line and say, "Good Game. Good Game. You suck. Good game. Good Game..."
Slashdot Mirror
If you miss Kiewit, consider a trip to the Carson City Library in Carson City, Nevada.
Hey! I had a good reason for doing it!
...unless you were hosting a multi-terminal session. The process was stopped until the person sitting at the console answered the question. All terminals that were connected were hung--they couldn't even disconnect.
Way back when, the operating system would only let jobs run for a certain amount of time. This was mostly to prevent students who inadvertently wrote an infinite loop from sitting there all night staring at the terminal wondering why they never got a result.
When DTSS became DCTS, though, they changed it from CPU seconds to a mysterious thing called "Computer Resource Units" (CRUs) which encompassed both CPU time and the amount of information printed. This was mostly done for billing purposes to non-Dartmouth users. Users had a maximum number of CRUs that their job could use at any one time. However, when they exceeded that amount, it wouldn't kill the job. Instead, it would tell them they exceeded it and ask if they wanted to continue. Very nice...
So, I wanted to make sure that the process ended before the user ran out of CRUs. Based on a typical student account, 45 minutes seemed like a good number. So I started a timer for 43 minutes, displayed a warning, and then ran a timer for two minutes and ended the program.
Probably the most assembly-language programming I've ever done.
Of course, the other question is whether they have the great adventures of Bjegorlund the Bold...
I've read this sort of opinion a few times here. "You're the man--it's your duty to support your family." What is this 1950s Leave-It-To-Beaver "No Wife Of Mine Will Work" bullshit?!
The guy should be discussing this with his wife and not Slashdot. They'll do a better job working this out than we will.
Personal story: My Dad had a pretty good job as a teacher. But he was miserable. He drank. He took it out his frustrations on Mom and us kids (not physically, thank goodness, but emotionally). Finally, My Mom told him that he had to get his act together. If that meant quitting teaching, so be it--we'd get by somehow.
My Dad quit. Started his own sign company. Mom found herself a better paying job to make up some of the difference. But, even with less money in the household, we were all much happier.
So there are a bunch of unanswered questions: Does his wife work? Does she have marketable skills? What does the hobby he is considering pursuing pay? Will his wife be able to make up the difference? What will the difference be and what will it mean in regards to everyone in the family (are we talking no food on the table or are we talking no vacations to Hawaii)? Without answers to those questions, it's tough to give advice.
But the whole "Be A Man And Bring Home The Bacon" attitude? Sorry--long gone. And good riddance, too.
First, they would need better evidence than what the fake moon landing yahoos trot out. Since I haven't seen any, I'd feel pretty secure that it doesn't exist.
Of course, just for fun, let's say it does exist. Let's say the whole thing was fake and Russia and/or China figured it out. Let's also consider the time period.
To say that it was "the height of the cold war" is dubious. Remember that Nixon, elected in 1968, ushered in a new era of "Détente." The Soviet Union could have used information about the fake moon landing to gain advantages at the SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) talks. Furthermore, there was quite a bit of tension between the Soviet Union and China during the late 1960s and early 1970s. China was looking for an ally in the United States and wouldn't hurt that by bringing forth evidence that the landing was a fraud.
As you say, the best evidence is the moon rocks. Of course, the Soviet Union has a small amount of lunar soil from their missions to the moon, but they never sent anyone...
"[...] there are those of us in the United States who spend whole minutes -- even hours -- away from the computer and the television."
:^D
What is this "away from the computer and television" of which you speak? Your ideas are intriguing and I'd like to subscribe to your blog...
That assumes that the people down the supply chain don't decide to take your knowledge and compete with you.
I read an interesting story awhile back about Schwinn bicycles. From what I read, Schwinn had various techniques that they used in assembling their bicycles that made them more reliable. But they were losing sales to cheaper foreign-made bicycles which weren't as reliable but were considerably cheaper.
Well, they moved their assembly to China. They went over and taught Chinese workers their techniques for making making a reliable bicycle. So now they had less expensive bicycles which were just as reliable.
Until the bicycle factory took these techniques and started producing their own bicycles using those techniques and competing against Schwinn.
So even if you "specialize at a different part of the supply chain," the stuff still has to be assembled and whatever unique knowledge you have brought to the product will be taken by your competitors.
We've spent almost $11,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country (300,000,000,000 / 27,499,638--June 2007 estimate). We've had to borrow money in order to do this and continue to support ourselves in the manner to which we've become accustomed. We'll be paying back that money and our children will be paying back that money. As the American population gets older, more people will be getting sick and will not be able to afford healthcare.
So, are you willing to tell a 70 year old woman that there's no way the US Government can afford to pay--or even subsidize--the medication she needs to stay alive because we spent all the money that we were going to use for this to save Iraqi women and children from the gas chamber? That, as she ends up eating dog food because that's all she can afford after buying the medication she needs to stay alive, she should be proud of what her country has accomplished in Iraq?
Okay, let's get down to brass and tacks. Apple worked a deal with AT&T where iPhone customers get 450 minutes and "unlimited" Internet use for $60 per month. Nice deal, in theory. But, of course, the details are in fine print.
Now let's look at some of that fine print. Scroll down to where it talks about "Prohibited and Permissible Uses." Read it. Start to get the picture?
Essentially, AT&T doesn't want to use their network for anything other than what they say you can do. Even if you're running your laptop through a cellular PCMCIA card, you're still supposed to adhere to their terms of service. But also check out AT&T's DataConnect Rates. Yup. $60/month for 5GB and you have to adhere to their terms of service. They have an unlimited plan for "PDAs and cellphones" which offers unlimited use for $35 per month, sure, but you still must adhere to AT&T's terms of service.
Remember that. Sure, you can download your movies on your Palm, Windows Mobile, or Symbian phone. Just be aware that you may find yourself without a data plan next month.
In regards to the billing, let's add up some numbers. Let's say I go with the cheapest iPhone option: 450 minutes and unlimited data for $59.99. Without an iPhone, using Palm, Windows Mobile, or Symbian phone, you pay $74.99 ($39.99 + $35). So AT&T is making $15 less per iPhone customer per month than they would from Palm, Windows Mobile, or Symbian phone user.
AT&T doesn't care how much bandwidth you use, as long as you pay for it. I agree wholeheartedly. However, AT&T wants you to pay more than $60 a month. If you want the kind of service that you can do whatever the hell you want, you're gonna have to pay.
Human beings are pretty good tool users. So you send a geologist with lots of geology tools. He can wander across the plains of Mars looking for interesting rocks. Those rocks he finds that are interesting, he can bring back with him to the base where he has more tools. He can chip off a bit of rock with a hammer and look at it under a microscope.
In short, figure out how to keep said geologist alive and productive on Mars and you've come a long way in getting some really interesting science done.
To me, the investment made in figuring out how to keep someone alive and productive on Mars seems like it could mean that we could send people there and figure stuff out much quicker than just throwing the same money at more robots which will all have the limitations that the parent described. Of course, it will take considerably longer to figure out how to keep someone alive on Mars than it would to just send a bunch of probes. Still, once you solve that problem...
To draw an analogy, should we not bother creating a heavy-lift rocket and, instead, launch a bunch of light-lift rockets and assemble things in orbit? Would that be better?
Apple did this way back when (like in the System 7 days) and it became an enormous pain in the patuckus to keep you software update to date and compatible.
For example, you'd install a piece of software that requires Open Transport 3.2 when you had Open Transport 3.1. You'd run the app and--if you were lucky--you'd get a message that says, "Requires Open Transport 3.2." So then you'd be off to Apple's website to try to find Open Transport 3.2. You'd download, install, and hope that it didn't cause other applications to get messed up (in theory, it shouldn't, but...)
Sometimes you'd run across applications that tried to be helpful. They licensed the latest version of Open Transport and installed that with their software. Of course, the disks or CDs that you have are six months old and Apple has upgraded Open Transport to 3.3 and you install this app and suddenly you're back to Open Transport 3.2 and some other app, which required 3.3, doesn't work but you don't discover this for a week after you installed when you really need that app for something you have to present tomorrow and you need to figure out why the app is suddenly crashing when it worked just fine two weeks ago (because you weren't lucky and the app didn't come up with a message saying, "Requires Open Transport 3.3.")
Also, the box ends up with a bunch of system requirements which is rather daunting:
Requires:
- Windows Vista
- Windows Aero SP2
- Windows Network SP1
- Microsoft Audio+
- Microsoft DirectX10
Even with the various flavors of Windows Vista, that's still alot easier than knowing what components you have and whether they are up-to-date enough to run a particular app.Depends on the content.
I could see online distribution taking over the rental market, but I don't necessarily see it overtaking the purchase market.
"Huh?" I hear you ask.
Consider the content of Amazon's current top selling DVD, American Gangster. It has the original movie, as seen in theaters. It has a new "extended version." It has commentary, and a couple of documentaries on the subject matter and the making of the film. Almost 7.5 hours of video!
That's a lot of stuff.
Conversely, if I go to, say, an online distributor such as iTunes Store or Amazon Unbox, I get the original movie, as seen in theaters. About 2 hours and 37 minutes worth of video. But if I really love the movie and think it's great and awesome and fantastic and all, I'm going to want the rest of that content. But to download 7.5 hours worth of video is going to take a long time. I'm pretty sure I could drive to the mall, buy it, and come home before it finished downloading all that content.
That's why I'm not convinced that online distribution is going to kill Blu-Ray. Garbage expands to fill the space allotted and there's alot more room for garbage to expand on a Blu-Ray disk than online distribution is going to be able to conveniently handle.
While this is a funny comment, it's not a horrible idea.
First, you know the topology of the area, which I would imagine would be helpful in designing the rover and lander. You know you won't have to deal with going up big hills or anything like that.
Second, and more mercurial, I'd imagine pictures and video of the Apollo 11 landing site would fetch a pretty penny. You could probably sell exclusive broadcast rights and such for a few extra million.
Alas, neither is Charles Rocket.
Awhile ago, I had this argument with someone. My argument is that Apple would have benefitted more from an unlocked phone and an open specification (and, perhaps, code) for visual voicemail.
As I said while arguing, consider all those people standing in line for an iPhone. Do you really think all those people were standing in line for AT&T service? Hell, no! They wanted an iPhone! They would have been quite content to take their iPhone to AT&T, T-Mobile, Alltel, or anyone else who would have given them service.
Now, pretend you're a cellular phone company with a GSM network. Here is a line with hundreds of people who are about to buy a phone that is compatible with your network, but they're going to need a carrier. If it were me, the first thing I'd do is set up a kiosk right in front of the Apple Store saying, "Activate Your iPhone Here!" Assuming that my competitors would be doing the same, I'd be offering pretty good rates to get them signed up!
Open standard for visual voicemail? And it'll help me woo Apple customers?! I'd have the IT department working on that as soon as the spec came out. Ideally, I'd have a beta or demo available on the first day the iPhone was available so I could show potential customers why they should sign up with me instead of my competitors. "We want to work with your awesome Apple phone, unlike our competitors that are offering crappy rate plans." Hell, Mac users eat that up!
Remember this is the cell phone industry--they're fighting for customers tooth and nail. You have a potentially large group of people who are about drop their old carrier for a new one. Wouldn't you want to get those customers? I know I would!
Of course, without the "exclusive" deal, Apple wouldn't make as much money as they do per iPhone customers. But I would argue that Apple would have more customers worldwide.
That's why I tend to doubt the whole "end-to-end user experience" line. I've been at the Apple Genius Bar when people bring in their iPhones. When it's a network issue, the genius sends them off to the nearest AT&T store. So where's Apple's control? They get to sign people up through iTunes? Whoop-dee-doo.
Personal opinion, I think Apple was hedging their bets. American consumers aren't used to the idea of unlocked phones. It's new. It's different. It's weird. So they wanted to make sure they had one phone provider that they could be certain would support them. Apple is new to this whole phone thing, anyway, and they wanted a partner that could help them spot any unknowns.
I personally wouldn't expect a second five-year exclusive deal with anyone.
Because it can be edited to remove the ads?
Their belief is that if they sell 100,000,000 songs and 100,000,000 songs are pirated, they've lost the money from selling those 100,000,000 songs. If they sold 200,000,000 songs and 200,000,000 songs were pirated, they've lost the money from selling those 200,000,000 songs. To them, piracy is lost money. The fact that you might, in the future, buy the whole CD or just the song you like is lost on them. Their job is to maximize the number of sales and you don't necessarily do that by giving away stuff for free.
Well, actually, his views are almost perfect for politics. He's saying, "Given a choice between two things, we will do both and raise taxes (democrats) or have larger deficits (republicans). That way everybody is happy and will vote for me."
Yup. Sounds like Washington to me.
Remember Apple's Rip, Mix, Burn ad? The tag line at the end, "It's your music. Burn it on a Mac"? At the time, the music industry was up in arms over this idea that people could rip music from CDs to their computers. Apple became a fair-use sweetheart overnight by actively promoting the concept in advertising that it was okay for you to do this. Apple was the consumer's friend, fighting for our rights against the evil music cartels--or so the fanbois said.
Then Apple came out with the Airport Express. A great idea--stream audio from your iTunes library to your home stereo. However, Apple encrypted the data so that it could not be sniffed and somehow copied out of the air. Why? According to Apple, they had to do that so as not to offend the music industry. And to make matters worse, they didn't even add a way to send encrypted audio to it. So it only worked with iTunes.
After that, Apple started selling music videos in the iTunes Store. But there is no way to transfer the audio portion of the music video to a CD or an iPod. So if you like the song and you like the video, you need to buy them separately, even though the song is part of the video. What gives?
And, of course, most recently, Apple added ringtones to the iTunes Store which you can install on your iPhone. But you can only make ringtones from music that you purchased on the iTunes store. So you first have to pay 99 cents to buy the full song--possibly twice if you already bought it on CD--and that gives you the privilege of spending 99 cents again for a ringtone! Why? Well, because the music industry wanted it that way.
What happened to Apple, the consumer's friend, the fair-use sweetheart?
I was especially galled by the ringtone thing. Here was a perfect opportunity for Apple to stand up and say, "It's ridiculous for you to have rebuy a song to use it as a ringtone!" To, once again, show itself as the consumer's friend. Instead, they bowed under pressure from the music industry. What's even more annoying, though, is the mewling Mac mavens who immediately chime in, "Well, at least you're not paying $3.99 a year like all those other guys charge!"
You'd have to make sure that the weapons that are carried by passengers are not going to damage the airplane. It wouldn't do much good if, in the process of battling it out with the hijackers, the armed passenger shoots out a window or in some way creates a situation where the airplane crashes.
Also, you probably would want to stop serving any alcohol on the airplane. Stories involving alcohol and convenient access to firearms tend to end badly.
Considering the restrictions (special weapons, ammunition, and training), I'm not sure you'd see too many people doing it, even if it were allowed.
It is an interesting call.
On the one hand, I'm pretty sure that the big name distributors (GameStop, WalMart, etc.) do not carry AO games. Since most of your sales go through those folks, that makes it difficult to release an AO game and make money.
On the other hand, you could sell it direct through your own website and keep most of the money you made for yourself.
Most likely, I'd expect them to split the game into two versions. So you have the 'M' rated version for the distributors. You wait six months and then offer the AO version via your website and get people to buy the game twice.
Stick with the flash based models.
Second space station that NASA has been involved with.
Actually, that's okay.
IBM used to do this all the time. If they ended up with viable competition in, say, mainframe hard drives, they would drop the prices or give out special deals to customers. then they'd adjust the prices on their typewriters.
I remember that the court case went all the way to the US Supreme Court. However, the Supreme Court announced the results of that case on the same day they started breaking up AT&T, so it kind of got lost in the shuffle.
"To me, the "Good Game" line has always been a PC way to be an ass."
Actually, back in my yout playing high school soccer, I always used to laugh at the "Good Game."
After every game, both teams would line up and walk past each other saying, to each member of the opposing team, "Good game." So after spending an hour or so laughing at the opposing teams effort to beat you (or, conversely, cringing at every good play they made) you'd strap on your hypocrisy and say, "Hey, you played a good game."
I was a coward, I admit, but I always wanted to walk along the line and say, "Good Game. Good Game. You suck. Good game. Good Game..."