"...but rarely had the money to pay for their overpriced hardware."
I love how the Slashdot crowd - which consists mostly of techies that make way more money than the average citizen and then spends that money on $2000 PVRs, Nomad MP3 players, PDAs, cell phones, pagers, the highest end Sony consumer electronics, every console video game system, rewiring their entire house with cable/Ethernet/RCA connectors, making sure every corner of their house can access their 802.11b/Bluetooth wireless network, creating a photo mosaic out of a dozen LCD screens, funding the fastest Internet connection available in their area, and hacking up any device that can run Linux - still complains that a Mac costs 10 to 20 percent more than a PC...
I saw "Monsters Inc" here in suburban Cleveland at a Cinemark theatre using the "Digital Light Projection" (DLP) system. There's only 20 in the country? Wow, I feel special now.
Anyway, the movie looked great to me. However, during the previews when the green screen talking about the ratings was up, I could plainly see jagged edges on things like the letter "A". Very obvious....
I think I only noticed it once during the actual movie. Jagged edges on Mike's eye...
But for the most part I think it's great because of the ability for theaters to receive movies via satelite and not having to worry about the movie getting damaged. I've seen way to many movies that had vertical scratch marks....
Had trouble getting the site to load, as some others have said.
However, I'm streaming a movie at the 350 Kbps rate and have been for over 20 minutes and have had no trouble with it at all. No lag, no stutter, no rebuffer. Pretty impressive.
Most of the players aren't trading/selling players and therefore aren't earning money from the game. The small percentage that IS making the money is making a LOT of money from it apparently to average out to around $2000 a year.
Ummmm... I don't think this is completely right. Not everyone has to sell for there to be value. If there's a group of people selling stuff and you also have that stuff, that stuff has a dollar amount to it, whether you sell it or not.
So if people are selling virtual chain mail on eBay (I'm not exactly sure how this works. I've never played EverQuest) for an average of $5, then chain mail suddenly has a real world value of $5. So if in the game you create/find/earn chain mail, you're earning $5.
The $2000-whatever a year comes from the average amount of sellable things an avatar collects/buys/makes/etc each year. So in the above example, maybe everyone's getting an average of 400 pieces of chain mail a year. They don't have to sell it for it to have that value. Just as long as SOMEONE is selling it for that value. (and someone else is paying for it...)
You're thinking of it too analogly. (is that a word?)
They're not actually speeding up the show, they're dropping a frame every minute or so. All the other frames are fine and stay intact so therefore the pitch does not change.
This isn't the same as speeding up a record player so a 5 minute song gets finished in 4 minutes. THAT would change the pitch. This does not.
I remember about a year ago I wanted to find an online service where I could pick the songs I wanted on a CD, pay for it (I'd pay as much as $20), have them burn it and ship it to me. There was nothing like that! There still isn't as far as I know.
And the reason? Record companies like to sell you a CD that has 16 songs on it but only 3 you acutally like. So if you want 16 songs you like, you have to buy 5 different CDs instead of just buying one with the service I mentioned above. Then less money for the record companies.
And yes, I think artists should get paid. But why should I have to pay for songs that suck?
Actually, the "Artists Make Money" section was somewhat interesting.
If I can put my music/audio on Napster and then get paid whenever it changes hands, that might be interesting.
MP3.com used to have the "Pay for play" system where artists could get money each time their music was played or downloaded through the site.
At first that system was awesome - it was free for artists AND the listeners! But then MP3.com got bought out and you had to pay $20/month to be part of the program and they started adding all these things which made it really complex. So I quit that.
But if registering my stuff with Napster can get me cash, I'm interested.
There might be some cost to the artist (or maybe it'll be free in the beginning) but it could be cool.
However, there's only so much people will do for free.
Not neccessarily. Perhaps there's only so many people who will do stuff for free, but some people will do some things for free until the day they die. (like certain programmers who write free software, or an artist who just likes to create and also likes when another person enjoys what they created)
So for better-quality content and services, paid-for-use works.
Once again, not neccessarily true. Look at all the arguements on "Linux is better than Windows". Linux is free, Windows is "paid-for-use".
Also, many authors who wrote great pieces of literature died in poverty. Money didn't make them create something that was better. Luckily, even in America, there's forces stronger than money that motivate people to create.
I'm not saying that paying for content is evil. And it's not forced so it doesn't matter to me. But the free stuff (and even free stuff that's "better" than paid-for stuff) will also thrive online.
People paying for Slashdot is like people paying for Napster. (the way Napster was in its glory days, that is)
The great part about Slashdot are the comments from it's readers! So someone is going to charge me to read comments posted by people who aren't even on the Slashdot payroll?! (Like for Napster "Someone's gonna charge me for letting people access MY hard drive and use MY bandwidth?")
Now, if I got paid for every comment I posted on Slashdot, that would be another story.:)
I'm so tired of the whole "The free web is over" rants. Why do so many people think the commercial part of the web is the only part of the web? People have created content for free for a long, long, long time. Whether it be music, art, comics, poetry, literature, editorials, films, TV shows (yay for public access cable!), books, whatever... Many people are driven by ideas or creativity they just want others to pay attention to, without getting paid for it.
So the "Soon you'll have to pay for all your web content" chant really means "Soon you'll have to pay for all the web content dished up by commercial organizations." Good. I don't need it anyway.
The Internet is cool because all the free content that was out there to begin with can now be put online by anyone and viewed by anyone. So your underground newspaper, or garage band, or your off-the-wall comic strip has the potential to be viewed by a lot more people than just those in your town or school.
I don't care if I have to pay for content owned by AOL Time Warner or whoever. There's plenty of people out there who want me to look at their stuff for free. (gee, kinda like how the Internet used to be)
So ad revenues will go down because less people are watching the commercials and soon I'll have to pay a buck every time I want to watch The X-Files. Yay.
The idea of an Internet "appliance" doesn't make much sense to me.
The Internet is always changing, and computers adapt. The online experience is much different than it was 5 years ago. There's more plug-ins, different browser specs, more broadband stuff, etc. However, over the past 5, 10, even 20 years of toasting bread, it's pretty much stayed the same: Make Bread Crispy.
I don't really need to upgrade my toaster. Or my blender. Or my fridge. Sure, I can get newer ones with new features, but I don't have to worry about the latest loaf of Wonder bread not toasting properly in my 1986 toaster.
Internet Appliances are way too closed and just don't adapt to the ever-changing Internet the way a computer can.
Publicity stunt? What did Apple have to do with it from a marketing standpoint? They regularly give an Emmy for this sort of thing - technological advances in TV and film.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, microsoft.die.die.die.slashdot.org.
I love how the Slashdot crowd - which consists mostly of techies that make way more money than the average citizen and then spends that money on $2000 PVRs, Nomad MP3 players, PDAs, cell phones, pagers, the highest end Sony consumer electronics, every console video game system, rewiring their entire house with cable/Ethernet/RCA connectors, making sure every corner of their house can access their 802.11b/Bluetooth wireless network, creating a photo mosaic out of a dozen LCD screens, funding the fastest Internet connection available in their area, and hacking up any device that can run Linux - still complains that a Mac costs 10 to 20 percent more than a PC...
I saw "Monsters Inc" here in suburban Cleveland at a Cinemark theatre using the "Digital Light Projection" (DLP) system. There's only 20 in the country? Wow, I feel special now.
Anyway, the movie looked great to me. However, during the previews when the green screen talking about the ratings was up, I could plainly see jagged edges on things like the letter "A". Very obvious....
I think I only noticed it once during the actual movie. Jagged edges on Mike's eye...
But for the most part I think it's great because of the ability for theaters to receive movies via satelite and not having to worry about the movie getting damaged. I've seen way to many movies that had vertical scratch marks....
Why? Because you can.
C'mon, this is Slashdot we're talking about here. They also post articles on running MAME on an Xbox and 101 uses for your Dreamcast.
Had trouble getting the site to load, as some others have said.
However, I'm streaming a movie at the 350 Kbps rate and have been for over 20 minutes and have had no trouble with it at all. No lag, no stutter, no rebuffer. Pretty impressive.
I'm on a T1, but still...
Ummmm... I don't think this is completely right. Not everyone has to sell for there to be value. If there's a group of people selling stuff and you also have that stuff, that stuff has a dollar amount to it, whether you sell it or not.
So if people are selling virtual chain mail on eBay (I'm not exactly sure how this works. I've never played EverQuest) for an average of $5, then chain mail suddenly has a real world value of $5. So if in the game you create/find/earn chain mail, you're earning $5.
The $2000-whatever a year comes from the average amount of sellable things an avatar collects/buys/makes/etc each year. So in the above example, maybe everyone's getting an average of 400 pieces of chain mail a year. They don't have to sell it for it to have that value. Just as long as SOMEONE is selling it for that value. (and someone else is paying for it...)
You're thinking of it too analogly. (is that a word?)
They're not actually speeding up the show, they're dropping a frame every minute or so. All the other frames are fine and stay intact so therefore the pitch does not change.
This isn't the same as speeding up a record player so a 5 minute song gets finished in 4 minutes. THAT would change the pitch. This does not.
The iMac is also going to use less power which has the two-fold benefit of saving you money on your electric bill and helping the environment.
I remember about a year ago I wanted to find an online service where I could pick the songs I wanted on a CD, pay for it (I'd pay as much as $20), have them burn it and ship it to me. There was nothing like that! There still isn't as far as I know.
And the reason? Record companies like to sell you a CD that has 16 songs on it but only 3 you acutally like. So if you want 16 songs you like, you have to buy 5 different CDs instead of just buying one with the service I mentioned above. Then less money for the record companies.
And yes, I think artists should get paid. But why should I have to pay for songs that suck?
Yeah, you're obviously not a member of Emusic or else you'd realize that their selection sucks.
I check the Billboard 200 to see who the best selling artists right now are and then checked Emusic to see if they were available there...
Creed - Not on Emusic
Ludacris - Not on Emusic
Nickelback - Nope
Linkin Park - No
Enya - Nah
Well, you get the idea.
$10/mo seems like a ripoff for Emusic. Go to MP3.com and download music for free.
Actually, the "Artists Make Money" section was somewhat interesting.
If I can put my music/audio on Napster and then get paid whenever it changes hands, that might be interesting.
MP3.com used to have the "Pay for play" system where artists could get money each time their music was played or downloaded through the site.
At first that system was awesome - it was free for artists AND the listeners! But then MP3.com got bought out and you had to pay $20/month to be part of the program and they started adding all these things which made it really complex. So I quit that.
But if registering my stuff with Napster can get me cash, I'm interested.
There might be some cost to the artist (or maybe it'll be free in the beginning) but it could be cool.
Not neccessarily. Perhaps there's only so many people who will do stuff for free, but some people will do some things for free until the day they die. (like certain programmers who write free software, or an artist who just likes to create and also likes when another person enjoys what they created)
So for better-quality content and services, paid-for-use works.
Once again, not neccessarily true. Look at all the arguements on "Linux is better than Windows". Linux is free, Windows is "paid-for-use".
Also, many authors who wrote great pieces of literature died in poverty. Money didn't make them create something that was better. Luckily, even in America, there's forces stronger than money that motivate people to create.
I'm not saying that paying for content is evil. And it's not forced so it doesn't matter to me. But the free stuff (and even free stuff that's "better" than paid-for stuff) will also thrive online.
People paying for Slashdot is like people paying for Napster. (the way Napster was in its glory days, that is)
:)
The great part about Slashdot are the comments from it's readers! So someone is going to charge me to read comments posted by people who aren't even on the Slashdot payroll?! (Like for Napster "Someone's gonna charge me for letting people access MY hard drive and use MY bandwidth?")
Now, if I got paid for every comment I posted on Slashdot, that would be another story.
I'm so tired of the whole "The free web is over" rants. Why do so many people think the commercial part of the web is the only part of the web? People have created content for free for a long, long, long time. Whether it be music, art, comics, poetry, literature, editorials, films, TV shows (yay for public access cable!), books, whatever... Many people are driven by ideas or creativity they just want others to pay attention to, without getting paid for it.
So the "Soon you'll have to pay for all your web content" chant really means "Soon you'll have to pay for all the web content dished up by commercial organizations." Good. I don't need it anyway.
The Internet is cool because all the free content that was out there to begin with can now be put online by anyone and viewed by anyone. So your underground newspaper, or garage band, or your off-the-wall comic strip has the potential to be viewed by a lot more people than just those in your town or school.
I don't care if I have to pay for content owned by AOL Time Warner or whoever. There's plenty of people out there who want me to look at their stuff for free. (gee, kinda like how the Internet used to be)
Posting a response to an unnewsworthy article saying said article is unnewsworthy is even more unnewsworthy.
"The Treo 10 is similar in appearance to the iPod but is somewhat larger." - cnet article
What, they're both white and square?
So ad revenues will go down because less people are watching the commercials and soon I'll have to pay a buck every time I want to watch The X-Files. Yay.
And since I already have a computer, I should buy this because.....?
This topic on Slashdot should be completely killed because the article it points to is NOT about 10.1.
It's about 10.0.x!!!! Hence the "Prelude to 10.1" in the title. Prelude. BEFORE 10.1.
The article NEVER mentions 10.1, but DOES very obviously say 10.0.2, 10.0.4....
Geez, guys. Really sloppy move here.
timothy, Joystickit.... Do a little more careful reading next time.
Sad.
Just to be annoying...
:)
Mac OS X is BSD based and AOL makes a client for it.
So not ALL people who switch to a BSD based OS have to drop AOL.
Okay, I'll shut up.
Hey, my other hand is busy while I'm surfing porn sites.
The idea of an Internet "appliance" doesn't make much sense to me.
The Internet is always changing, and computers adapt. The online experience is much different than it was 5 years ago. There's more plug-ins, different browser specs, more broadband stuff, etc. However, over the past 5, 10, even 20 years of toasting bread, it's pretty much stayed the same: Make Bread Crispy.
I don't really need to upgrade my toaster. Or my blender. Or my fridge. Sure, I can get newer ones with new features, but I don't have to worry about the latest loaf of Wonder bread not toasting properly in my 1986 toaster.
Internet Appliances are way too closed and just don't adapt to the ever-changing Internet the way a computer can.
Publicity stunt? What did Apple have to do with it from a marketing standpoint? They regularly give an Emmy for this sort of thing - technological advances in TV and film.
The only reason IE is still the standard is because it's still the embedded browser in AOL.
As soon as AOL gets its act together and embeds Netscape into AOL 7.0, 8.0, or whatever, Netscape will be the standard again.
And then who cares if IE doesn't support Netscape plugins. The majority will be using Netscape anyway. MS would be dumb not to include support.
This monopoly thing is getting to their head...
So a computer can identify your face. Big deal. So can a human. And either one can make mistakes. Just don't do something wrong.