I started a site to share (and as an excuse to continue my interest in) my love for the city where I live - every two weeks I would add a new section with a map itenerary covering a new section, some new photos and a bit of text describing the history of the land covered. It began simple but became much more... shall we say important.
Some told me that I should have people pay for all the info I give out for free, but I don't think the web is ready for that yet (most prefer some for free over something more complete but pay-access - and as far as I'm concerned people are still wary of paying for anything through the web), so I chose instead to make a place for ads and have visits "make my site worth its while" in that indirect way.
Not only am I told that I am stupid for doing this, but that I am naive. True that, open since a month and a half already, but not yet generating a lot of traffic, I am already finding bits and pieces of my info elsewhere on the web on sites that appear higher up in the SERP's than mine, sites that also sport google ads, and sites that probably also generate much more "click-through" cash than mine.
As far as I'm concerned the "anti-spam" market has been fairly lacklustre for the past ten years. The only real innovation I've seen is in-computer solutions: The best yet (I've seen) is OS X's "Mail.app" filter, and Microsoft's Entourage comes in a close second.
It would be so nice to have spam blocked server-side, but for finding a solution to that it seems that everyone's following everyone else around in circles these days. If one giant on the same level with all weights of contenders decides to muscle ahead (in spite of its failures), perhaps another company with a better solution will see that as motivation enough to clean up in the first's wake.
or you might subsequently buy it as a result of dowloading it and trying it out
...I'll agree to the above for mp3's (namely because of the bad quality of the files you find online) but not for software. Normally one who goes looking for software to download on the net doesn't have the intention of buying it - if it works to his liking he's going to use it. Most often then not the downloader couldn't afford the software anyways - or perhaps he just couldn't afford to "try out" several softwares until he found one to his liking.
Shareware is on the road to being a solution for distributing software, but the price remains a problem. How much is too much? Sure, it takes a certain amount of time to make an application, but how many do you intend to sell so that you can calculate a "correct" price? If you don't intend to limit the distribution of an application - and none do to my knowledge - it is hard to determine a justifiable price. Today's market sets the price barometer by trying to determine something between how many copies may be sold and how much the customer can/is willing to pay - mostly the latter - and for some this price can bee seen as both unjustified and too expensive.
I really don't know how much one should charge for software though - how to determine a "correct" price based on a production cost/shelf price comparison? Next to impossible I say: Charge a lot and sell too many, you're a glutton - but charge a little and sell too few you're screwed.
But, speaking personally, if I use a software and it saves me time and or money, I know how much that money saved is. I think then that the software authour is deserving of a share of that, and I would grant it to him willingly (to a limit of course) if I could. But I alone can determine how much I save using it.
As long as the market has no fixed and justifiable software pricing/distribution practices, there will always be pirates.
No self-sufficient country can ever have reason for attacking another, nor could it have any reason for provoking attack.
Business is individuals who trade in what they produce. Government, at least in a democracy, would be a group of individuals who vote and preserve laws governing what it considers to be good or bad for itself. If a government begins to mix the two in deciding laws "helping" its "leading traders" to trade with another country, the concerned traders are no longer dealing in democratic business and the government is no longer a democracy. What's more, if the government-led agreement results in a profit for those normally unconcerned with any production process, and/or if the agreement results in more than generous profits for one party at the expense of another (work/earnings ratio), there's more than a possibility that there will be some left with a feeling of jealousy or with a sense of being exploited.
I don't care what name it goes under, any organised effort is politics. When one political entity takes action against another, if it is not pure agression for material gain, it would be for one of the above reasons - retaliation against exploitation or an attempt to get (or quell) a piece of the "free money" pie.
Already through the above there are shades of grey, but when you add groups that have both of the just-mentioned goals for reasons of agression, things get even cloudier - and more dishonest.
The whole point of democracy is to make things black and white. Laws stating very clearly what is "good" and "bad" for itself are voted, and the majority's view becomes letter.
I'm sure that you can see much of the above in many of the world's conflicts. Unmix the business, get rid of the grey, and things will once again become clear. And less people will die.
This is the sort of fellow does it all "by the book". It's obvious that he's found either a loophole or a grey spot in the existing copyright laws and is milking it as much as he can; although in essence what he's doing is dishonest, he uses "it's the law" as a base for all his arguments and endeavours. In fact he doesn't even think to any moral implications of any of his actions: "The law says it's mine, so I can defend it so if you use it you owe me". He will probably not even consider any other logic or argument because it threatens the integrity of his.
Fill the loophole or sharpen the grey spot in the copyright laws and this guy will blink his eyes, scratch his head and start looking around for another loophole to exploit.
You know, I can perfectly see the logic and even convenience in combining the phone (land and cell; it's gonna happen anyways) and the PC - even though the article says that "Microsoft wants to" do the above, are they the ones who wanna or are they (again) just buying out someone else who already does?
Also, I don't mind at all a giant taking over several divisions of the same domain (communications, graphic design, etc) if their goal is making a better product and if they're big because they're the best at it (think Adobe and graphics), but Microsoft... what are they good at, anyways?
"I am sure there is prior art all over the place."
"Time to go to the market!" (Getting out sketch pad) "Okay, we need provisions. The market is three kilometres away and that tarmac is HOT." (scribbles, nods, starts madly tying a pair of sandals) Wait, those provisions are HEAVY. (scribbles a travois, scratches head, draws the same rolling on logs, hums, scratches head, eyes light up, shouts "eureka", dances around room then draws the trevois lying across an axle between the cut ends of a thick log). "Okay, I hope someone just invented a market to buy things at... time to go!" (knock on door) "Hello? Patent office. I'm sorry sir, everything you've made just now has been invented already. And have you bought a license for that fire over there?"
Protecting complex physical mechanisms from rip-off "clone copying" is understandable. Protecting the ideas behind their making from ever being used again isn't.
I tested this! It was a camera back, not a camera (unless you're speaking of another machine I'm not aware of): The quality was great (it could take a publishable A4 picture), but it was so damn slow - it took three passes to take a picture. Those were the days for sure : )
I applaud Kodak's move to embrace new technologies, but It's a little too early to axe the old ones. I've gone completely digital for everything 135 (24 x 36) but I'm still "into silver" for everything middle and large format - mainly because there are still no affordable film scanners (of any good quality) for those sizes . And getting things scanned by any service using larger machines will cost you, as they say here, "un bras et une jambe."
Today, when a client wants to publish something I've done in a larger format, I make a print and scan that . But if others follow Kodak's lead, not for long it seems.
"rants of anger towards Microsoft that they were unfairly bundling Windows Media Player with Windows XP"
I've said here before and I'll repeat again - the above is ridiculous and besides the point. Stop Microsoft from shipping Windows already installed in every PC sold and the market will return to order.
Everyone's whining about one card when the whole deck's stacked. Wake up!
The world would be a much better place if evryone did their job for the sake of the job and had a good time doing it.
I'm really beginning to dislike the phrase "make money". Money is work, a purely symbolic representation of a person's labour; With it a person can trade the product of his labour with anyone else's - instead of trading chickens for grain for bricks like we used to.
People seem to think today that "making money" is something you can do without work - but even if you find a way to, don't forget that money is the result of someone else's.
I can say I sympathise. I am an Architect by degree, but today am working in the Graphic arts and photography fields. Thus, as far as my trades are concerned, I have no schooling at all.
A while back I was looking for salaried work (instead of the usual freelance - which I've gone back to BTW), and all the ads were for looking for someone "imaginative and independant" but with at least a college degree. I couldn't help but thinking that what they were looking for was a perfect contradiction.
Some time later I was speaking with a client who was looking for someone in his design department, and he was commenting on the schools his candidates were attending and judging them on that. I said to him: "do you want ideas, or conformism"? He looked at me and said "Ideas, of course." To tell you the truth I don't know who he hired but you get the picture.
The whole educational system needs a workover, but this won't happen until the job market changes. If everyone is looking for independant, free-thinking people who really care about what others want, instead of the usual conformist self-interested self-preserving lemming we are trained to be, schools of course will follow suit and teach us WHY we're learning instead of just promising us that we'll have the world if we follow their orders. Today's educational system is very confusing and discouraging to anyone with ideas of his own.
All this pandering to the Beijing government for distribution rights, as low-down it may be because of the same's treatment of the people the company would like to distribute to, will only be a temporary measure. This period is "China's education" and it won't last long. Once it's over and the floodgates open, the Chinese economy will steamroll the world's.
Since it decided to open up, its people have been "getting used to" newer technologies - and how to make them for themselves. The textile industry is already ripe and just-opened - and not a month after Europe's quota on Chinese textile product imports was lifted, its market was flooded with a 200% increase of low-cost products, sparking a drop in the sales of more "local" companies. To compete, the local companies claim they have to relocate their factories to developing countries.
But here's the thing - even here the Europeans can't compete because China already has all the low-cost hands it needs, and to boot, it already has most of the machines and technology too. Its economy isn't one where everyone in a product's production chain, from raw material to store shelf, is aiming to make a 100% (or more) profit - which makes everything cheaper for them. What's more, since they're a bit 'behind' for the time being, they don't feel the 'need' to create new ideas when they can just dip into the existing market's and make them at a cheaper price. Bill Gates is only adding to this - just wait until the above hits the computer/software industry.
Unfortunately with the floodgates of trade already opening it will be soon too late to protest the Beijing Government's treatment of the Chinese people - the only to protest this is to refuse to have anything to do with its function, meaning cutting them off and not dealing with them - but already it's too late for that. The Bush administration is drooling at the aspect of billions of petrol-consuming new cars and they won't be turning back at any price. Not until the damage is (already) done, anyway. Beijing is full today of "western" businessmen wanting to sell planes, weapons and other technologies - but don't ask me what any of this has to do with "government" - the government's freinds won't want you to. But I digress.
The market eventually will "balance" itself, but before then, in the first decade (at least) after the Chinese floodgates open, we're gonna be in for a helluva ride.
...he didn't say it would be "better" or "worse" you senseless git - he said "wait and see, Steve says but Steve's reputation is on the line in saying so." You also took from that Times article only what served your... indefined but jaded position.
And anyone can mount a 27" LCD screen on a Lada and call it "a luxury car" - even if we'd call it "a rolling joke". Go peddle your preferences elsewhere.
(lifts hand from Mac keyboard, tests own breath behind hand) No, no disagreeable odours here... at least not in my opinion. Perhaps it's a Windows-user thing... something like Tolkien's Orcs thinking humans smell bad?
...I would agree, that in their grouping "against" Microsoft, that Mac users can be at some times quite jaded when it comes to discussing Mac technology. Mac is great because it works and is easy to use, but this doesn't make it a miracle. If one listens to a Mac user explaining Mac to a PC user one may often think so.
Still, there's no reason for the article's vitriol, and most Mac users aren't "goose-stepping lemmings" - We're workers who have chosen the tool we think works best for our (most often creative) trade. Period.
I totally agree with you, and tried stating the same in my post - I'm sorry if it didn't come through clearly. No-one can protect an idea if it remains only an idea for sure.
Thank you for your kind reply. And for finding the "thread" through what we were saying.
I myself love the 'junk' shops, and they are indeed what sticks most in my mind about Akihabara. I have a 1992 LC 630 with an 8gb HD, a CD-Burner, a "real" 68040 chip and it still serves as my television today. There's a lot of Akihabara in there : )
The whole point of my posting, and in the title I gave my post, was that articles about lesser-known aspects of foreign places should best be written about people who have at least live(d) what they're writing about.
...ambiguous - that would perhaps be a better way to describe that article. Inoffensive, but just not precise. Using one thing to prove another pulls one both ways. The vertical height... no, I wouldn't say they sold junk from hovels : )
My wife is Japanese, and we spend one month every year in Tokyo. Since 1991. Kono koto desu ka?
Slashdot Mirror
(rolling eyes thoughtfully to cieling) "Hmmmm ...penis flavour. Dang mainframe guy's in the kitchen again."
Hey, I am completely in the same boat as you.
I started a site to share (and as an excuse to continue my interest in) my love for the city where I live - every two weeks I would add a new section with a map itenerary covering a new section, some new photos and a bit of text describing the history of the land covered. It began simple but became much more... shall we say important.
Some told me that I should have people pay for all the info I give out for free, but I don't think the web is ready for that yet (most prefer some for free over something more complete but pay-access - and as far as I'm concerned people are still wary of paying for anything through the web), so I chose instead to make a place for ads and have visits "make my site worth its while" in that indirect way.
Not only am I told that I am stupid for doing this, but that I am naive. True that, open since a month and a half already, but not yet generating a lot of traffic, I am already finding bits and pieces of my info elsewhere on the web on sites that appear higher up in the SERP's than mine, sites that also sport google ads, and sites that probably also generate much more "click-through" cash than mine.
By being honest, how are we to compete?
Mod parent up. This guy's got a good point.
As far as I'm concerned the "anti-spam" market has been fairly lacklustre for the past ten years. The only real innovation I've seen is in-computer solutions: The best yet (I've seen) is OS X's "Mail.app" filter, and Microsoft's Entourage comes in a close second.
It would be so nice to have spam blocked server-side, but for finding a solution to that it seems that everyone's following everyone else around in circles these days. If one giant on the same level with all weights of contenders decides to muscle ahead (in spite of its failures), perhaps another company with a better solution will see that as motivation enough to clean up in the first's wake.
What, you sell magnifying glasses?
or you might subsequently buy it as a result of dowloading it and trying it out
...I'll agree to the above for mp3's (namely because of the bad quality of the files you find online) but not for software. Normally one who goes looking for software to download on the net doesn't have the intention of buying it - if it works to his liking he's going to use it. Most often then not the downloader couldn't afford the software anyways - or perhaps he just couldn't afford to "try out" several softwares until he found one to his liking.
Shareware is on the road to being a solution for distributing software, but the price remains a problem. How much is too much? Sure, it takes a certain amount of time to make an application, but how many do you intend to sell so that you can calculate a "correct" price? If you don't intend to limit the distribution of an application - and none do to my knowledge - it is hard to determine a justifiable price. Today's market sets the price barometer by trying to determine something between how many copies may be sold and how much the customer can/is willing to pay - mostly the latter - and for some this price can bee seen as both unjustified and too expensive.
I really don't know how much one should charge for software though - how to determine a "correct" price based on a production cost/shelf price comparison? Next to impossible I say: Charge a lot and sell too many, you're a glutton - but charge a little and sell too few you're screwed.
But, speaking personally, if I use a software and it saves me time and or money, I know how much that money saved is. I think then that the software authour is deserving of a share of that, and I would grant it to him willingly (to a limit of course) if I could. But I alone can determine how much I save using it.
As long as the market has no fixed and justifiable software pricing/distribution practices, there will always be pirates.
No self-sufficient country can ever have reason for attacking another, nor could it have any reason for provoking attack.
Business is individuals who trade in what they produce. Government, at least in a democracy, would be a group of individuals who vote and preserve laws governing what it considers to be good or bad for itself. If a government begins to mix the two in deciding laws "helping" its "leading traders" to trade with another country, the concerned traders are no longer dealing in democratic business and the government is no longer a democracy. What's more, if the government-led agreement results in a profit for those normally unconcerned with any production process, and/or if the agreement results in more than generous profits for one party at the expense of another (work/earnings ratio), there's more than a possibility that there will be some left with a feeling of jealousy or with a sense of being exploited.
I don't care what name it goes under, any organised effort is politics. When one political entity takes action against another, if it is not pure agression for material gain, it would be for one of the above reasons - retaliation against exploitation or an attempt to get (or quell) a piece of the "free money" pie.
Already through the above there are shades of grey, but when you add groups that have both of the just-mentioned goals for reasons of agression, things get even cloudier - and more dishonest.
The whole point of democracy is to make things black and white. Laws stating very clearly what is "good" and "bad" for itself are voted, and the majority's view becomes letter.
I'm sure that you can see much of the above in many of the world's conflicts. Unmix the business, get rid of the grey, and things will once again become clear. And less people will die.
So if this story is duping an already duped story, but is more developed (thus superior to) the first dupe, couldn't we call it a Superduper?
"this guy is a tool" - right on.
This is the sort of fellow does it all "by the book". It's obvious that he's found either a loophole or a grey spot in the existing copyright laws and is milking it as much as he can; although in essence what he's doing is dishonest, he uses "it's the law" as a base for all his arguments and endeavours. In fact he doesn't even think to any moral implications of any of his actions: "The law says it's mine, so I can defend it so if you use it you owe me". He will probably not even consider any other logic or argument because it threatens the integrity of his.
Fill the loophole or sharpen the grey spot in the copyright laws and this guy will blink his eyes, scratch his head and start looking around for another loophole to exploit.
You know, I can perfectly see the logic and even convenience in combining the phone (land and cell; it's gonna happen anyways) and the PC - even though the article says that "Microsoft wants to" do the above, are they the ones who wanna or are they (again) just buying out someone else who already does?
Also, I don't mind at all a giant taking over several divisions of the same domain (communications, graphic design, etc) if their goal is making a better product and if they're big because they're the best at it (think Adobe and graphics), but Microsoft... what are they good at, anyways?
And by 2055 it will be enslaving the human race.
...yes, and from your wrist.
"I am sure there is prior art all over the place."
"Time to go to the market!" (Getting out sketch pad) "Okay, we need provisions. The market is three kilometres away and that tarmac is HOT." (scribbles, nods, starts madly tying a pair of sandals) Wait, those provisions are HEAVY. (scribbles a travois, scratches head, draws the same rolling on logs, hums, scratches head, eyes light up, shouts "eureka", dances around room then draws the trevois lying across an axle between the cut ends of a thick log). "Okay, I hope someone just invented a market to buy things at... time to go!" (knock on door) "Hello? Patent office. I'm sorry sir, everything you've made just now has been invented already. And have you bought a license for that fire over there?"
Protecting complex physical mechanisms from rip-off "clone copying" is understandable. Protecting the ideas behind their making from ever being used again isn't.
Ask the cat.
I tested this! It was a camera back, not a camera (unless you're speaking of another machine I'm not aware of): The quality was great (it could take a publishable A4 picture), but it was so damn slow - it took three passes to take a picture. Those were the days for sure : )
I applaud Kodak's move to embrace new technologies, but It's a little too early to axe the old ones. I've gone completely digital for everything 135 (24 x 36) but I'm still "into silver" for everything middle and large format - mainly because there are still no affordable film scanners (of any good quality) for those sizes . And getting things scanned by any service using larger machines will cost you, as they say here, "un bras et une jambe."
Today, when a client wants to publish something I've done in a larger format, I make a print and scan that . But if others follow Kodak's lead, not for long it seems.
Ah. So if the Queen taps into bitTorrent, I suppose that downloading from her library wouldn't be illegal either.
The only problem there lies in the fact that the The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards' "Farewell to the Greys" is not on most of our mp3 hit-lists...
Yes, the Queen would have a "Royal We" Pod, not an "i"Pod.
"rants of anger towards Microsoft that they were unfairly bundling Windows Media Player with Windows XP"
I've said here before and I'll repeat again - the above is ridiculous and besides the point. Stop Microsoft from shipping Windows already installed in every PC sold and the market will return to order.
Everyone's whining about one card when the whole deck's stacked. Wake up!
The world would be a much better place if evryone did their job for the sake of the job and had a good time doing it.
I'm really beginning to dislike the phrase "make money". Money is work, a purely symbolic representation of a person's labour; With it a person can trade the product of his labour with anyone else's - instead of trading chickens for grain for bricks like we used to.
People seem to think today that "making money" is something you can do without work - but even if you find a way to, don't forget that money is the result of someone else's.
I can say I sympathise. I am an Architect by degree, but today am working in the Graphic arts and photography fields. Thus, as far as my trades are concerned, I have no schooling at all.
A while back I was looking for salaried work (instead of the usual freelance - which I've gone back to BTW), and all the ads were for looking for someone "imaginative and independant" but with at least a college degree. I couldn't help but thinking that what they were looking for was a perfect contradiction.
Some time later I was speaking with a client who was looking for someone in his design department, and he was commenting on the schools his candidates were attending and judging them on that. I said to him: "do you want ideas, or conformism"? He looked at me and said "Ideas, of course." To tell you the truth I don't know who he hired but you get the picture.
The whole educational system needs a workover, but this won't happen until the job market changes. If everyone is looking for independant, free-thinking people who really care about what others want, instead of the usual conformist self-interested self-preserving lemming we are trained to be, schools of course will follow suit and teach us WHY we're learning instead of just promising us that we'll have the world if we follow their orders. Today's educational system is very confusing and discouraging to anyone with ideas of his own.
All this pandering to the Beijing government for distribution rights, as low-down it may be because of the same's treatment of the people the company would like to distribute to, will only be a temporary measure. This period is "China's education" and it won't last long. Once it's over and the floodgates open, the Chinese economy will steamroll the world's.
Since it decided to open up, its people have been "getting used to" newer technologies - and how to make them for themselves. The textile industry is already ripe and just-opened - and not a month after Europe's quota on Chinese textile product imports was lifted, its market was flooded with a 200% increase of low-cost products, sparking a drop in the sales of more "local" companies. To compete, the local companies claim they have to relocate their factories to developing countries.
But here's the thing - even here the Europeans can't compete because China already has all the low-cost hands it needs, and to boot, it already has most of the machines and technology too. Its economy isn't one where everyone in a product's production chain, from raw material to store shelf, is aiming to make a 100% (or more) profit - which makes everything cheaper for them. What's more, since they're a bit 'behind' for the time being, they don't feel the 'need' to create new ideas when they can just dip into the existing market's and make them at a cheaper price. Bill Gates is only adding to this - just wait until the above hits the computer/software industry.
Unfortunately with the floodgates of trade already opening it will be soon too late to protest the Beijing Government's treatment of the Chinese people - the only to protest this is to refuse to have anything to do with its function, meaning cutting them off and not dealing with them - but already it's too late for that. The Bush administration is drooling at the aspect of billions of petrol-consuming new cars and they won't be turning back at any price. Not until the damage is (already) done, anyway. Beijing is full today of "western" businessmen wanting to sell planes, weapons and other technologies - but don't ask me what any of this has to do with "government" - the government's freinds won't want you to. But I digress.
The market eventually will "balance" itself, but before then, in the first decade (at least) after the Chinese floodgates open, we're gonna be in for a helluva ride.
...he didn't say it would be "better" or "worse" you senseless git - he said "wait and see, Steve says but Steve's reputation is on the line in saying so." You also took from that Times article only what served your... indefined but jaded position.
And anyone can mount a 27" LCD screen on a Lada and call it "a luxury car" - even if we'd call it "a rolling joke". Go peddle your preferences elsewhere.
(lifts hand from Mac keyboard, tests own breath behind hand) No, no disagreeable odours here... at least not in my opinion. Perhaps it's a Windows-user thing... something like Tolkien's Orcs thinking humans smell bad?
...I would agree, that in their grouping "against" Microsoft, that Mac users can be at some times quite jaded when it comes to discussing Mac technology. Mac is great because it works and is easy to use, but this doesn't make it a miracle. If one listens to a Mac user explaining Mac to a PC user one may often think so.
Still, there's no reason for the article's vitriol, and most Mac users aren't "goose-stepping lemmings" - We're workers who have chosen the tool we think works best for our (most often creative) trade. Period.
I totally agree with you, and tried stating the same in my post - I'm sorry if it didn't come through clearly. No-one can protect an idea if it remains only an idea for sure.
Thank you for your kind reply. And for finding the "thread" through what we were saying.
I myself love the 'junk' shops, and they are indeed what sticks most in my mind about Akihabara. I have a 1992 LC 630 with an 8gb HD, a CD-Burner, a "real" 68040 chip and it still serves as my television today. There's a lot of Akihabara in there : )
The whole point of my posting, and in the title I gave my post, was that articles about lesser-known aspects of foreign places should best be written about people who have at least live(d) what they're writing about.
Take care both of you.
...ambiguous - that would perhaps be a better way to describe that article. Inoffensive, but just not precise. Using one thing to prove another pulls one both ways. The vertical height... no, I wouldn't say they sold junk from hovels : )
My wife is Japanese, and we spend one month every year in Tokyo. Since 1991. Kono koto desu ka?