If Democrats win in the fall elections, and these machines are still being used, will there still be an uproar?
I'm doubtful.
C'mon, don't make this a partisan issue. Democrats are making a lot of noise about it right now because they were the ones most recently burned. Plenty of Republicans, Libertarians, Greens, and independents are just as upset about it.
Oh, and a big difference -- the Republican party has been demonstrably messing with the election process. From worse gerrymandering (of course the Dems do it too), to manipulation of the voter rolls, Republican control of the voting apparatus has lessened the democracy of the US. When the Democrats are also demonstrated to have systematically abused the voting apparatus to rig elections, then there will be just as large an uproar.
And one final note -- what uproar? I haven't seen one. The MSM hasn't covered this to any extent. Joe Q. Public is unaware there is a problem. If you're trying to say in your post that the media is biased, or that coverage of the issue is biased, or that Democrats are only making an issue of this because they lost, you'e way off base. It isn't the Democratic party that's making an issue of this.
As far as how a guy breaks into a mostly female clique, I suspect most Slashdotters would desperately love to know that one. So if anyone has more insight into that general conundrum, tey should post it.;-)
Once these games come to the fore, WoW will look primitive and inane next to them. We'll say to each other, "Did we really used to play that?!"
And yet these games will not have close to the market share that WoW has in the US, becuase there will be more of them competing for the same players.
I'm not disputing that the industry will continue to grow, or that innovation will not continue to occur. What I'm saying is that until there is a downturn in the popularity of these games, and thus a lag in innovation and development for the market, no one game will have the massive marketshare that WoW has enjoyed in the US.
I didn't mean to call you an imbecilic troll... rather that that particular statement was imbecilic and trollish "(hail capitalism)"? Maybe it's because I'm used to seeing more well-thought out posts from you, that I hold you to a higher standard than a lot of the frequent posters on slashdot... sorry for over-reacting.
It's just strange how much capitalism hurts academia.
I have to disagree with that. There's a reason unis prefer to review texts from reputable publishers, and those publishers do in fact provide a service to the authors. I'll agree that a lot of the publishers have been taking advantage of the stranglehold they have on major textbooks, but that's also changing now (in part because of the internet). Keep in mind that the publishers provide what the universities demand; the problem, as I see it, is not capitalism, but the homogenization of the educational system, which is far from capitalist. Academia requires that material used in the classroom is vetted; universities have depended on publishing companies to vet the material they publish. Also, I'd like to note that many of the classes I've taken did not depend upon published textbooks, but rather papers published in journals. Sure, we had reference works, but they were not necessary (this was in pharmacology).
It's sad the author had to argue to get his book online.
I disagree -- what's sad is that he chose the wrong method of distribution if his purpose was to provide his material free of charge to as many people as possible.
And as to capitalism driving men to charge for doing nothing -- that's called greed, not capitalism. The two are not the same. Also, publishers such as Wiley do perform a lot of services that are beyond the scope of most individuals.
I have a very different perspective than you on book publishing, I think -- though we're closer together on the publishing of entertainment media.
The confession prompts others--infrared communication on the units was sketchy, and it was difficult for advanced builders to incorporate enough motors and sensors to craft something sophisticated. Something adult[1]. Something that could, in short[2], get chicks[3] (not Steve's words).
[1] I think I saw one of these robots on a.de website once...
[2] I think if you're trying to get shorts, you've got electrical design issues
[3] 'Get' or 'Make' chicks... best prom ever?
I'm only making these (inane) jokes because I lack the skills to make a really awesome robot of my own. Call it robot envy.
Sure. But the author has signed away their right to publish independently, normally it's an exclusive license. Book publishers include prohibition of publishing online because they've traditionally seen online publishing in direct competition with their print publishing.
But online chat isn't an industry. Or did you pay to chat in IRC or with an instant messenger ?
You misunderstand what I'm saying. Online socializing in general has set the stage for MMOGs to succeed based on cultural differences in today's youth from yesterday's youth. This is why I forecast continued growth, in the mid-term, for the MMOG industry -- the tappable market is still growing.
Sounds like he didn't sign a contract that left him creative and absolute control over the distribution of this work.
Who woulda thunk it... he signs a contract to get a company to publish and distribute his work, and doesn't retain absolute control? If he wanted complete control, he would have self-published. There are pros and cons of both, and to rip the publishing industry for a perfectly reasonable contract term is ridiculous. As self-publishing becomes more and more feasible given the internet, these restrictions will change. This is a sign of that change, and you should celebrate Wiley rather than lambast them.
Yet if they don't get it into print, it can't be used in a classroom setting. What a terrible system (hail capitalism).
What an imbecilic troll. The problem isn't capitalism, it's the inherent nature of a bureaucratic system -- it's resistant to change (for good reason -- there are lots of crappy ideas out there). This depends not at all on what kind of socioeconomic system is in place, and capitalism may indeed offer better opportunities for authors (do you think an autocratic economic system would enhance the ability of authors to get their material accepted in the classroom?).
Please note, I am not a free market idealist. I am also not an apologist for the publishing industry, and their treatment of authors. However, you severely misrepresent the fact that publishers such as Wiley do indeed provide services to authors, and to the public. (Editing, fact-checking, vetting, advertising, marketing, etc).
Disclaimer: I work in magazine publishing, which is an entirely different kettle of fish. I do, however, deal with book authors on a frequent basis, both self-published and thos epublished by major imprints.
All joking aside, WoW will not be beaten... in this generation. In any emergent industry based on non-commodity goods, the first player to hit mainstream success will be the benchmark that all others fail to meet. After the first product goes mainstream, competition increases and even an increasing market has too many players for any one to achieve the saturation of the first one.
Now, if the whole MMOG industry was to die down, it's quite possible that someone new could come in and create a renaissance where they could dominate a larger market than existed during the previous incarnation... like Nintendo did after the video game industry 'died' in the early 80s.
However, I don't think the MMOG industry is going anywhere anytime soon. It's natural outgrowth of the online socializing that today's youth has grown up with -- I expect more variety, but don't see any shrinkage for quite a long time.
Probably sit on it and break it. 8 cm long? Not short enough to prevent bending it should I sit on something that could act as a lever... like the edge of a subway seat.
The willingness of people to indiscriminately kill innocent people cannot be separated from the influence of fundamentalist religious belief.
Don't pin it on the fundamentalist religion. The same result has been observed in Africa (Rwanda? the Congo? Algeria? Liberia? I could go on...), without an organized fundamentalist religion providing the moral justification. In the fundamentalist Moslem case, what we are seeing is religion used as a tool by those in power to both secure their hold on it and to increase it. This drama has played out all over the world throughout history, whether it's been political, tribal, national, or religious idealogy that's abused in this manner.
And the army Clinton left for Bush won the battles quickly and efficiently. Now that they are essentially beat-cops in the worst neighborhood on earth, I pity the President that's going to have to restore their strength.
Nonsense. After being stung in Somalia, Clinton chose not to get involved in battles with less than a certain outcome of overwhelming victory.
The military's failure under Bush is more due to scope creep of missions than anything else. When you cherrypick your fights, you can make yourself look much better.
That said, I still think Bush's choices of what wars/battles to fight are pretty abysmal. But his success record has little to do with the effectiveness of the armed forces.
There will come a day when innuendo replaces fact, thanks to the rapidity with which things spread on the Internet. One blogger picks up on something, two more repeat it, and so forth and so on.
This has always been true with any media.
You have those you trust, and those you don't. As with most fact-checking, it's not a good idea to search in the same media form for corroboration.
Eventually we will have news sites on the web that we trust -- the question is whether they will pick up on 'small' news stories. Once they do, you can bet that they'll properly fact-check almost all the time, since their reputation and livelihood depend upon it.
Keep in mind that previous EPA administrators under Bush have resigned because of their refusal to toe the Bush administration's line and the administration's refusal to acknowledge real environmental concerns. See Christine Todd Whitman, who was by no means an environmentalist, but still not in bed enough with corporate interests.
For all intents and purposes, an EPA bureaucrat (as part of the Bush administration) making a decision is the same as the POTUS (or those who make decisions for him) making the decision.
The closing of libraries is not Bush's idea--it's EPA bureaucrats saying "Look what you made us do!"
Two thoughts:
1. Who put those bureaucrats in place, and who leans on them to take specific actions?
2. I think you're insinuating that the bureacrats are purposely making a mountain out of a molehill in order to preserve their funding. Possibly... but is this what you meant?
I was just having a little fun with the slashdot stereotype of right wing readers:-)
Sorry, I guess one flew over the cuckoo's nest, there.
Probably a lot of nasty small places will use terminology acceptable to the US government in the next few years seeing as the USA is the dominant world power (while still carrying out terrible human rights abuses).
Nothing new there. Again, I'm pretty stuck on post-colonial Africa (where we propped up the 'democratic' regime of Mugabe for decades, and continue to do the like) -- I just finished reading The Fate of Africa by Martin Meredith. Illuminating and disturbing.
This all depends on how much more market share you think that is there to be gained.
Well, my OP in the thread is basically concerned with getting new users out of the Joe Schmoe segment of the population.
I'm not trying to be argumentative, but I'll address the three segments of the market that you list (apologies for paraphrasing):
1. Those who had IE swapped out by someone in the know: this segment is growing, albeit slowly. It's still very small compared to the market of those without nerd friends/family, and I feel that this particular segment is approaching saturation.
2. Those who use an IE7 non-compatible OS. These people are not a concern, they already use alternative browsers. I would submit that it's not healthy for the browser market to have all of them using Firefox, since competition breeds advancement. What Mozilla (in terms of increasing market share) should be concerned about is prying users away from IE, which dominates the market.
3. people who actively choose to have different browsers concurrently: Sure, they don't need FF to blow IE out of the water. But if you want them to use FF in addition to IE, then you've got to at least make FF an attractive alternative -- why would they use FF concurrently with IE if it offered no advantage? Anecdotally, I preferentially use FF -- but I need to use IE for a lot of work, since so many websites I depend upon don't render in FF. If that problem disappeared, I would never use IE, as it would offer no advantage to me.
If the project forks between "newMozilla Suite" and "Firefox" then you might end up with an aggregate market share higher than what Firefox originally had, I just hope that such development is really made on different branches instead of spoiling one good piece of software.
Amen to that. But I think the point still remains that in addition to gettin those users who are currently attracted to FF, it's important to tap into the market segment of those who currently have no interest in it.
Re:Keep Mozilla Simple
on
Marketing Mozilla
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I hate to bring in successful commercial companies
Why, what's wrong with learning from someone who is successful? Sure beats the alternative.:)
The biggest problem I see (on further reflection) is that by providing all those plug-ins as default, Mozilla is basically vouching that they won't break anything. This makes patches much more difficult, as they have been known to break extensions in the past... Basically, it make me worry that Mozilla will be dealing with scope creep, and that too much time will be spent on managing extensions.
That said, maybe they could link to sites where bundled packages are available. E.g., Click this link to download $DOMAIN.com's version that includes extended functions for instant messaging.
Good for them! What makes you think that group of people ever stopped using MS IE?
That's very short-sighted. What makes you think that anyone who tries FF is going to stick with it if it doesn't blow IE7 out of the water? Getting marketshare up is dependent both on user retention and getting new users.
Just add a big ZIP file with a bunch of plugins and there you go.
Too complex for many users. Plus, too many choices can be very intimidating. Plug-and-play is what's needed here IMO (if you want to increase market share), at it's most basic level.
It's not like the growing number of Linux users will suddenly start using IE7 like crazy.
This isn't about Linux users. It's about Windows users. We already know that Linux users are willing and able to try something different.
Re:Keep Mozilla Simple
on
Marketing Mozilla
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I'll agree with you, except that the largest portion of the market isn't going to enable those functions, or go through the bother of downloading and installing extensions. They'll end up thinking that FF is inferior only because they don't have the ability or knowledge to take full advantage of what it has to offer.
Why not offer a few different builds with pre-installed extensions so that Mom & Pop can just download a version with the features they want?
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, and a big difference -- the Republican party has been demonstrably messing with the election process. From worse gerrymandering (of course the Dems do it too), to manipulation of the voter rolls, Republican control of the voting apparatus has lessened the democracy of the US. When the Democrats are also demonstrated to have systematically abused the voting apparatus to rig elections, then there will be just as large an uproar.
And one final note -- what uproar? I haven't seen one. The MSM hasn't covered this to any extent. Joe Q. Public is unaware there is a problem. If you're trying to say in your post that the media is biased, or that coverage of the issue is biased, or that Democrats are only making an issue of this because they lost, you'e way off base. It isn't the Democratic party that's making an issue of this.
I'm not disputing that the industry will continue to grow, or that innovation will not continue to occur. What I'm saying is that until there is a downturn in the popularity of these games, and thus a lag in innovation and development for the market, no one game will have the massive marketshare that WoW has enjoyed in the US.
I have to disagree with that. There's a reason unis prefer to review texts from reputable publishers, and those publishers do in fact provide a service to the authors. I'll agree that a lot of the publishers have been taking advantage of the stranglehold they have on major textbooks, but that's also changing now (in part because of the internet). Keep in mind that the publishers provide what the universities demand; the problem, as I see it, is not capitalism, but the homogenization of the educational system, which is far from capitalist. Academia requires that material used in the classroom is vetted; universities have depended on publishing companies to vet the material they publish. Also, I'd like to note that many of the classes I've taken did not depend upon published textbooks, but rather papers published in journals. Sure, we had reference works, but they were not necessary (this was in pharmacology).
I disagree -- what's sad is that he chose the wrong method of distribution if his purpose was to provide his material free of charge to as many people as possible.
And as to capitalism driving men to charge for doing nothing -- that's called greed, not capitalism. The two are not the same. Also, publishers such as Wiley do perform a lot of services that are beyond the scope of most individuals.
I have a very different perspective than you on book publishing, I think -- though we're closer together on the publishing of entertainment media.
[1] I think I saw one of these robots on a
[2] I think if you're trying to get shorts, you've got electrical design issues
[3] 'Get' or 'Make' chicks... best prom ever?
I'm only making these (inane) jokes because I lack the skills to make a really awesome robot of my own. Call it robot envy.
What an imbecilic troll. The problem isn't capitalism, it's the inherent nature of a bureaucratic system -- it's resistant to change (for good reason -- there are lots of crappy ideas out there). This depends not at all on what kind of socioeconomic system is in place, and capitalism may indeed offer better opportunities for authors (do you think an autocratic economic system would enhance the ability of authors to get their material accepted in the classroom?).
Please note, I am not a free market idealist. I am also not an apologist for the publishing industry, and their treatment of authors. However, you severely misrepresent the fact that publishers such as Wiley do indeed provide services to authors, and to the public. (Editing, fact-checking, vetting, advertising, marketing, etc).
Disclaimer: I work in magazine publishing, which is an entirely different kettle of fish. I do, however, deal with book authors on a frequent basis, both self-published and thos epublished by major imprints.
No, that's why they made a level cap.
All joking aside, WoW will not be beaten... in this generation. In any emergent industry based on non-commodity goods, the first player to hit mainstream success will be the benchmark that all others fail to meet. After the first product goes mainstream, competition increases and even an increasing market has too many players for any one to achieve the saturation of the first one.
Now, if the whole MMOG industry was to die down, it's quite possible that someone new could come in and create a renaissance where they could dominate a larger market than existed during the previous incarnation... like Nintendo did after the video game industry 'died' in the early 80s.
However, I don't think the MMOG industry is going anywhere anytime soon. It's natural outgrowth of the online socializing that today's youth has grown up with -- I expect more variety, but don't see any shrinkage for quite a long time.
Oh wait... nevermind
Probably sit on it and break it. 8 cm long? Not short enough to prevent bending it should I sit on something that could act as a lever... like the edge of a subway seat.
One of the largest? Sure. One of the most respected? No way. Why did we call it a Trash-80?
RS was known for selling substandard computers and parts all along... we knew, but accepted it because they were so cheap. Kind of like a Yugo.
The military's failure under Bush is more due to scope creep of missions than anything else. When you cherrypick your fights, you can make yourself look much better.
That said, I still think Bush's choices of what wars/battles to fight are pretty abysmal. But his success record has little to do with the effectiveness of the armed forces.
This has always been true with any media.
You have those you trust, and those you don't. As with most fact-checking, it's not a good idea to search in the same media form for corroboration.
Eventually we will have news sites on the web that we trust -- the question is whether they will pick up on 'small' news stories. Once they do, you can bet that they'll properly fact-check almost all the time, since their reputation and livelihood depend upon it.
Keep in mind that previous EPA administrators under Bush have resigned because of their refusal to toe the Bush administration's line and the administration's refusal to acknowledge real environmental concerns. See Christine Todd Whitman, who was by no means an environmentalist, but still not in bed enough with corporate interests.
For all intents and purposes, an EPA bureaucrat (as part of the Bush administration) making a decision is the same as the POTUS (or those who make decisions for him) making the decision.
Two thoughts:
1. Who put those bureaucrats in place, and who leans on them to take specific actions?
2. I think you're insinuating that the bureacrats are purposely making a mountain out of a molehill in order to preserve their funding. Possibly... but is this what you meant?
Great explanation.
I'll just add that the choice by people to use alternative browsers is a gateway to them using other alternative software.
"Gee, this Firefox works much better than IE... I wonder what else is out there that I don't know about? That Clippy guy sure is annoying..."
What I think is great is that Firefox is a great way of introducing people to the Open Source community as a whole.
Nothing new there. Again, I'm pretty stuck on post-colonial Africa (where we propped up the 'democratic' regime of Mugabe for decades, and continue to do the like) -- I just finished reading The Fate of Africa by Martin Meredith. Illuminating and disturbing.
Well, my OP in the thread is basically concerned with getting new users out of the Joe Schmoe segment of the population.
I'm not trying to be argumentative, but I'll address the three segments of the market that you list (apologies for paraphrasing):
1. Those who had IE swapped out by someone in the know: this segment is growing, albeit slowly. It's still very small compared to the market of those without nerd friends/family, and I feel that this particular segment is approaching saturation.
2. Those who use an IE7 non-compatible OS. These people are not a concern, they already use alternative browsers. I would submit that it's not healthy for the browser market to have all of them using Firefox, since competition breeds advancement. What Mozilla (in terms of increasing market share) should be concerned about is prying users away from IE, which dominates the market.
3. people who actively choose to have different browsers concurrently: Sure, they don't need FF to blow IE out of the water. But if you want them to use FF in addition to IE, then you've got to at least make FF an attractive alternative -- why would they use FF concurrently with IE if it offered no advantage? Anecdotally, I preferentially use FF -- but I need to use IE for a lot of work, since so many websites I depend upon don't render in FF. If that problem disappeared, I would never use IE, as it would offer no advantage to me.
Amen to that. But I think the point still remains that in addition to gettin those users who are currently attracted to FF, it's important to tap into the market segment of those who currently have no interest in it.
The biggest problem I see (on further reflection) is that by providing all those plug-ins as default, Mozilla is basically vouching that they won't break anything. This makes patches much more difficult, as they have been known to break extensions in the past... Basically, it make me worry that Mozilla will be dealing with scope creep, and that too much time will be spent on managing extensions.
That said, maybe they could link to sites where bundled packages are available. E.g., Click this link to download $DOMAIN.com's version that includes extended functions for instant messaging.
Too complex for many users. Plus, too many choices can be very intimidating. Plug-and-play is what's needed here IMO (if you want to increase market share), at it's most basic level.
This isn't about Linux users. It's about Windows users. We already know that Linux users are willing and able to try something different.
I'll agree with you, except that the largest portion of the market isn't going to enable those functions, or go through the bother of downloading and installing extensions. They'll end up thinking that FF is inferior only because they don't have the ability or knowledge to take full advantage of what it has to offer.
Why not offer a few different builds with pre-installed extensions so that Mom & Pop can just download a version with the features they want?