Xbox button->Media pane->Music->Select music. How does your setup work?
Windows Media Connect?
Again - why should I have to install another little widget on my laptop or PC (which has to be MS, btw) for functionality that is technically already in the X360? Furthermore, if a change in GUI is all it takes to make you forget your using an MS product... I'm assuming that your entire network is already MS centric.
This has been in for a while and they placed added support for it in this patch.
Duly and gladly noted.
Mine is no louder than the drives on my PC/Laptop on spinup but then again it's across the room.
How loud are your regular drives exactly? The drive in my laptop (IBM T41) is audible during spin-up, and quiets down a lot afterwards. The X360 on the other hand starts loud and stays loud - loud enough that sitting about 5 feet away from it, I have to turn up the volume on the stereo significantly to mask the drive noise. Yes, I understand that loud drives are common. But the day that a quiet gizmo will come out that does what I want it to do, the X360 will be relegated to strictly playing games that are exclusive to the X360. And that's not MS' goal.
Again - I don't want to download anything extra on my laptop. It's full of "necessary" junk as it is. The Media Connect is, as far as I know, little more than the library of calls that allow XP to act like a Media Center, minus the interface. Why should I download and install Media Connect when all I want is to access my files on the network drive? I know X360 has the TCP/IP stack to do it - it's just that the GUI for the OS is so braindead that there is no interface to access stuff that isn't on the local hard disk.
It has support for USB keyboards? Grand! I can strike that off my list. And get one from Fry's on the way home.
It might be a high-speed drive, but it's still far louder than necessary. There are various ways of mitigating the noise, none of which the X360 is using.
Flamebait at -1? Man, the XBox fanboys are out in force today. I guess some people really are happy getting shafted by a weak UI. Burn Karma burn!
Multi-tasking has been around since what - the early 1980s? I found it astounding that the X360 OS would be so seriously crippled, considering that it is MS' Trojan Horse into the living room. While we are on the topic of seriously brain dead decisions, why is it that I need to install MS Media Center on an existing PC to listen to tunes that aren't on the X360? I've got a network drive specifically so that I don't have to jump through hoops like that. It's crap like that will make me buy Apple products for my entertainment wants..
If MS is serious about making the X360 the center-piece of the living room, here are a couple of suggestions: - make me forget that I'm using an MS product. Seriously, there is no need for me to be hogtied to a Media Center PC when the X360 is essentially a Media Center PC. - make it easy to access media on my home network. A couple of buttons at most. They're almost there, but not quite. - make it easy to use a keyboard with it. I hate entering any information into it via the controller. - make it quiet. The damn drive sounds like a jet during take off. Yeah, I know, this is not controlled by the OS. But MS can still work on it during subsequent releases of the X360.
If the X360 doesn't do all of the above, MS can forget about the (my) living room. There are wonderful components that do those things much better invidividually and are about as expensive all combined, so there's very little incentive for me to use the X360 for them. Gimme that functionality, and I'll overlook the fact that I'm paying the MS tithe everytime I log onto XBL.
Now what are "nondramatic musical works"? And why the restriction? I smell a rat. Wanna bet that this only applies to people who can't afford the lawyer to label their music "dramatic"? I doubt that something as vague as that is in a copyright bill by accident.
If it becomes the mainstream way of getting content, however, then it does make it uneconomical for the producers of content (except for news and for programs where the view interacts with the show, such as by voting on what contestants win or lose).
This is (almost) what I expected - though I didn't think MS would use something as critical as security updates to flog their $50 a year revenue model. It all started with XBL, when MS figured out that users are apparently willing to pay $50 for a service that costs MS peanuts, and that users technically have already! It's no wonder that they've been looking to replicate this model elsewhere. I just thought it would be also in the entertainment section (WMP, for example), not in the critical security section.
Welcome your new MS overlords who will nickel-and-dime you to death.
No, you got the right problem - I just phrased the conclusion badly. The cost-benefit models the economists were using didn't work out - but once they changed the metrics, they could properly predict "worker" behavior. It also looks like I managed to mangle the original problem..... the question was why would people walk on stairs, not why they walk on escalators. Looking back, I'm amazed you managed to figure out what I was talking about in the first place.:)
Dammit - me with 5 shiny mod points and a great post languishing at +2. Too bad I already posted elsewhere....
The only thing I disagree with is that the natural equilibrium point of any market is a monopoly. In a perfect (i.e., practically impossible) free market, it takes just one person to break up the monopoly. Furthermore, the idea that the natural equilibrium for markets is a monopoly requires humans to be completely rational beings, which many studies have shown they are not. The simplest example of this is the escalator problem: economists had a hard time figuring out why anybody would walk on an escalator - their cost-benefit analysis didn't work out. Until they figured out that people didn't do a standard cost-benefit analysis when deciding when to walk or stop or an escalator. They took into account things that are impossible to quantify with money - time, want versus need, all kinds of irrational feelings, etc.
Monopolies ONLY occur due to government licensing.
You know, I've seen you post this drivel time and time again. I just want to know one thing: do you actually understand how markets work? Are you even willing to rethink previous positions that are patently false, or are you just interested in preaching? Because of all the complete falsehoods that you manage to come up with from time to time, this takes the cake. Do you understand the concept of a natural monopoly? Would you care to explain why you think that your opinion on this matter, which goes against what nearly every economic text book, economic prize winner and just plain logic can be trotted out again and again without revision?
Thankfully, someone modded you up already, so I can just reply to you. You're completely right - there are very good reason why a free market doesn't work in certain situations, and this is one of them. As a quick reminder, a free market can by definition only be beneficial to the greater public if the following conditions are met: the market provides perfect information about all products and companies to the consumers, and barriers to entry are low to non-existent.
Here's why: perfect information is required, because otherwise, shady companies can fly under the radar and rip off consumers. Yes, at some point the gig is up, but if the imperfect information means that every consumer has to experience the shady deal themselves, companies can still rake in a ton of dough before people stop doing business with them. Barriers to entry need to be low for the same reason: if it is nearly impossible for a new company to enter the market, the incumbent can be as a big of a dick as they want - there's nothing the consumer can do to punish the company in question, especially if the incumbent is already in a monopoly position. Remember the bad old ATT? Prime example number one.
Now look at the ISP and telco market from these points - what do you see? At best, oligopolies; at worst, outright monopolies. Barriers to entry are sky-high, and it is difficult to figure what companies are up to. Ever read the entire Terms of Service before you clicked accept? Maybe you did, but I can guarantee you a lot of people didn't. Yes, there are internet resources out there that rank service providers, but how do you know there's no astroturfing going on?
So now we have a market that is run by monopolies in certain situations, where the incumbents do not have to fear anybody treading on their turf if they screw up and where it is difficult to figure out what's going on, and some people actually think deregulation is a good idea? It seems that communists aren't the only dreamers around - some capitalists have their up their ass just as much when it comes to their understanding of human nature and even how the theory works.
One of the reasons there are few providers is the very State regulation, which already exists, to force the telecoms to play nice.
Only partially correct. Telecoms is a field where monopolies tend to naturally appear. This is because infrastructure things like power grids, railroads and phone/data lines require a very large up-front investment (billions of dollars) while requiring much less in on-going maintenance. This means that incumbents can very easily fend off competitors by temporarily lowering their fees until the new kids burn through all their credit lines, and can then go back to their old business model.
This means that simply reducing regulation on the current incumbents is going to result in an all-out monopoly, even if it's a local one. The proper way to deal with this mess is to realize that the infrastructure is always going to be a monopoly, and put it under government regulation and control. The service providers can then be deregulated, because the barriers to entry are fairly low, and the efficient and quality service providers can win out.
However, this would require brains and guts from the politicians. As a result, I'm willing to accept the second best solution of more (semi-sensible) regulation. Yeah, yeah, low expectations and all that. Beats constantly dreaming about fantasies though.
BTW -
As it is, there have been efforts in recent years to prevent the State from regulating new connections; this is why a few providers are now starting to invest in fibre to the home.
Complete hogwash. The US is pretty much the laughingstock of the industrialized world when it comes to connection quality and price. Why? Because the local and unregulated monopolies are laughing all the way to the bank. Fiber is weird and strange only in the US - and then, only in residential US.
You mistakenly assume that people have choices when it comes to their ISP. I have the choice between SBC (sorry, ATT now) for DSL, and Comcast for Cable. Yes, there are other DSL ISPs out there, but they all sublease from ATT and are at their complete mercy when it comes to fixing stuff. I'd love to buy into the free-market talk, but unfortunately, telecoms are about as far from a free market as you can get here. As a result, and much to my dismay, regulation is needed to force the telecoms to play nice.
You know what the best part will be? This same school complaining that it doesn't have enough funds to pay decent salaries to teachers, buy school resources and fund the school library and science class rooms. Because, you know, it's important that the online MySpace monitor gets paid properly.
Wow. I'm normally one who mods down much, but I wish I could set this to "-1, Windbag". Most developers on quote said there isn't much difference between X360 and PS3. GTA4 will be on both PS3 and X360, with exclusive downloadable content for X360. GameCube didn't have the kiddie market - it had decent sales for people who were interested in more than the latest FPS or Thugs n' Gunz games. I'd say that PS2 was where the kiddies were - someone had to buy all that Barbie, Spongebob and 50 Cent crap.
Sheesh, I think I'm feeding a troll. I probably should just stop here before my head explodes.
Don't listen to Colin Campbell. He is a nitwit who somehow managed to snag editor status on a respected magazine. He contradicts himselfs, has no data to support his statistics, and generally just relies on "I am editor, hear me roar" for logic. He was like this when Next-Gen the magazine started to turn south (I'm actually convinced he was part of the reason why the magazine is the tripe it is now), and he still is.
Ah... more "we need no steenkin laws, the market takes care of everything." While I do agree to some extent with your proposition, I don't agree taking it all the way to the end.
There is a value in a brand, and there is a monetary value associated with it. How much is it though? No one knows for sure. The simplest way really is to check the stock market: tally all assets and revenue, subtract from capitalization, and you get some left over stuff that can be qualified as the value that people associate with the company itself.
Another point you have patently wrong (and I'm sure you can actually vouch for this if you'd actually stop to look) is that people are never "willing accept one grievance or mistake." They actually do that every day. It's a question of how badly did they get shafted, and how much work is it to find a new supplier or partner. To give you an example: I have a choice between several online stores. One carries a good selection, has good prices and I haven't had any problems with them. Would I switch to another store just because I got a bad product once? No. Would I switch if I got a bad copy and plenty of grief to boot? Maybe. Why? Because I don't want to have to redo my homework on what stores are reputable, what the price/performance ratio is and how long it takes them to ship stuff. You're right, it doesn't mean I will stay with them inspite of continuous foul-ups. But my past experience does influence my reaction to problems with them.
Dude, you have time to not only get a lengthy first post, but you also manage to read the linked article in its entirety? Are you from the future or something?
I do live off of creating stuff, thank you. Glad to see that you aren't jumping to conclusions or anything. It might not be music, but writing, fixing and training people on software is in the same area. Let's see.... should I charge everyone anytime they use a construct that is the same as mine? Should I charge them every time they use my software? Should I be the only one who controls what happens to my software? No, no, no. Why? Because it is hypocritical (yeah, like I haven't used stuff that others used before me), inefficient (people don't like paying per use) and unfair (I'm selling you software, but I still tell you what to do with it - riiight).
It's nice to get some insight into the other side - how people think that they deserve to make enough money to reach a certain lifestyle, regardless of cost to the public, to other people in the same business or their skill in the art in question. Good job. I hear Marx has some interesting things to say about stuff like that.
Ever been to an actual live session? Infinitely different from listening to a song in your car. That's why distributing songs via digital media will never remove the market for live performances. Yeah, you probably won't get artists who can afford to buy a Rolls in Silver and in Black, just because they can't make up their mind. But honestly, I really don't care about that. Plus, it'll give them their anonomity back. Isn't that what every mega star is whining about - that life is so tough now that they have millions and millions, and everybody knows them?
... and I consider it one of the best things I've done there.
The situation we used to work in was that we had a lot of customer information that changed quickly, a group of engineers who worked disparate hours (there was supposed to be someone available between 7AM and Midnight) and documentation that was scattered all over. We had a central repository for documentation, but it was the pits. You could only search on key words or categories, check-out and check-in procedures were laborious, if not counter-productive, and everything had to go through an approval cycle. Finally (and that, combined with the fact the repository was unsearchable, was kinda the nail in its coffin), reviews were partially based on how many entries you'd submit. The end result was an essentially unsearchable repository was filled to the bring with duplicate entries and outdated stuff.
Fed up with that, we created a Wiki on the side project. Initially I filled it myself with random things that I found useful. Then other people started using it. It wasn't perfect, but it was loads better than what we had - we could actually find information! Outdated stuff could be updated. People didn't have to call others at all hours of the night for server information anymore. And best of all, new hires could be pointed to it, and they could find useful starting information.
To give you an idea of how successful it was, it was initially completely disallowed by management, as it was creating a duplicate information store. The desktop server on which it was stored was yanked. But it stuck around, because people actually used it. Now, the entire group uses it for storing training, server, contact or any other information that a lot of people need and that changes often. Contrary to the commercial data storage software, it helps us do our job more efficiently.
Wikis are undeniably useful and loads better than anything else out there - if you make sure that the information you try to make accessible falls in the following categories: - lots of different people can use it - changes often - lots of people can contribute to it
Oh, and it also helps if people aren't dicks, to use Wikipedia's rule.
You're confusing randomness with chaos theory. Randomness is essentially us saying "We might know the principles at work, but it's too complicated for us to make an accurate prediction on what is exactly going to happen." Brownian motion is one such example. We have a good idea on the physics behind it, but the huge number of interactions that take place mean that we can only predict the behavior of the entire system, not of single particles in it. Furthermore, single particles do not show a propensity to do anything in particular. You won't find random particles moving in circles, for example.
Chaos theory deals with systems where we can calculate effects on single objects in the system, and where these objects exhibit non-random patterns. You mentioned fractals already (although strictly speaking, that's defined as a complex system rather than a chaotic one), and population growth patterns are another.
As always, Congress completely misses the actual problem when working out a solution. Hey, if they didn't propose half-baked sollutions, they might actually have to do real work.
Here's what I don't get about this deal: as far as I can tell, judges who don't understand the technology are not the problem. If a judge doesn't know an inline for-loop from an EJB, does that really mean that he/she can't tell whether someone is infringing on the one-click patent? Furthermore, assuming that they are technically savvy, can they actually invalidate bad patents? Or would they just ask the patent office to reexamine it?
None of these things have anything to do with the main problems of the current patent process: patents for ideas, patents for things without implementations and patent trolls. This is just gonna be a band-aid with absolutely no effect on the patent trolls.
I've got 30 gigs worth of VMWare images. They are useful, but no panacea.
I can understand that you're reluctant to let some stanger's laptop onto your network - heck, I'm surprised when people let me just plug into their network. However, I have seen the effect that a lock down of the machine has - it takes a couple of hours to a couple of days to get something done, because requests have to be issued, analyzed and then acted upon. What I actually prefer is if clients give me one of their own machines. They can do whatever they want with it, and I can transfer files via USB stick.
I'm not saying that locking down a machine can't be done - I'm saying that the type of lockdown advocated by the original poster makes my job more difficult than it should be. Tell me - what kind of lockdown would you propose?
Why is this insightful? Yeah, it's a fact that as soon as someone brings up the high price of the PS3, someone brings up the argument that the Wii will profit from this. That's because a lot of people think like that - including me. And they think that because the low price of the Wii and the new controller are actually the reasons that they'll buy a Wii and not a PS3 - including me.
Methinks that you're simply a disappointed Sony fanboi who can't handle the fact that they aren't part of the cool team anymore. Get over it.
Ah.... the old "castrate the user so that they can use Word, email and minesweeper only."
Let me give you an example: I work as a consultant. My laptop is my life. Every week, there is a chance that I'll have to install some weird VPN software on it, program demos, home grown connection programs and change my registry, firewall and connection setting so that I can properly work in the client's network. If my laptop is set up to your specifications, I'm out of my job. For the simple reason that I don't have the time necessary to propagate these change requests through the proper command structure.
Here's what can be done instead: - make it actually possible to do daily work with a low-privilege user. - make it easy to give yourself the necessary privileges when you do need root, admin or something similar.
What's that you say? Get a mac? Hey, tell that to my clients.
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Xbox button->Media pane->Music->Select music. How does your setup work?
Windows Media Connect?
Again - why should I have to install another little widget on my laptop or PC (which has to be MS, btw) for functionality that is technically already in the X360? Furthermore, if a change in GUI is all it takes to make you forget your using an MS product... I'm assuming that your entire network is already MS centric.
This has been in for a while and they placed added support for it in this patch.
Duly and gladly noted.
Mine is no louder than the drives on my PC/Laptop on spinup but then again it's across the room.
How loud are your regular drives exactly? The drive in my laptop (IBM T41) is audible during spin-up, and quiets down a lot afterwards. The X360 on the other hand starts loud and stays loud - loud enough that sitting about 5 feet away from it, I have to turn up the volume on the stereo significantly to mask the drive noise. Yes, I understand that loud drives are common. But the day that a quiet gizmo will come out that does what I want it to do, the X360 will be relegated to strictly playing games that are exclusive to the X360. And that's not MS' goal.
Again - I don't want to download anything extra on my laptop. It's full of "necessary" junk as it is. The Media Connect is, as far as I know, little more than the library of calls that allow XP to act like a Media Center, minus the interface. Why should I download and install Media Connect when all I want is to access my files on the network drive? I know X360 has the TCP/IP stack to do it - it's just that the GUI for the OS is so braindead that there is no interface to access stuff that isn't on the local hard disk.
It has support for USB keyboards? Grand! I can strike that off my list. And get one from Fry's on the way home.
It might be a high-speed drive, but it's still far louder than necessary. There are various ways of mitigating the noise, none of which the X360 is using.
Flamebait at -1? Man, the XBox fanboys are out in force today. I guess some people really are happy getting shafted by a weak UI. Burn Karma burn!
Multi-tasking has been around since what - the early 1980s? I found it astounding that the X360 OS would be so seriously crippled, considering that it is MS' Trojan Horse into the living room. While we are on the topic of seriously brain dead decisions, why is it that I need to install MS Media Center on an existing PC to listen to tunes that aren't on the X360? I've got a network drive specifically so that I don't have to jump through hoops like that. It's crap like that will make me buy Apple products for my entertainment wants..
If MS is serious about making the X360 the center-piece of the living room, here are a couple of suggestions:
- make me forget that I'm using an MS product. Seriously, there is no need for me to be hogtied to a Media Center PC when the X360 is essentially a Media Center PC.
- make it easy to access media on my home network. A couple of buttons at most. They're almost there, but not quite.
- make it easy to use a keyboard with it. I hate entering any information into it via the controller.
- make it quiet. The damn drive sounds like a jet during take off. Yeah, I know, this is not controlled by the OS. But MS can still work on it during subsequent releases of the X360.
If the X360 doesn't do all of the above, MS can forget about the (my) living room. There are wonderful components that do those things much better invidividually and are about as expensive all combined, so there's very little incentive for me to use the X360 for them. Gimme that functionality, and I'll overlook the fact that I'm paying the MS tithe everytime I log onto XBL.
Now what are "nondramatic musical works"? And why the restriction? I smell a rat. Wanna bet that this only applies to people who can't afford the lawyer to label their music "dramatic"? I doubt that something as vague as that is in a copyright bill by accident.
Any data for that? Or are you just making it up?
This is (almost) what I expected - though I didn't think MS would use something as critical as security updates to flog their $50 a year revenue model. It all started with XBL, when MS figured out that users are apparently willing to pay $50 for a service that costs MS peanuts, and that users technically have already! It's no wonder that they've been looking to replicate this model elsewhere. I just thought it would be also in the entertainment section (WMP, for example), not in the critical security section.
Welcome your new MS overlords who will nickel-and-dime you to death.
No, you got the right problem - I just phrased the conclusion badly. The cost-benefit models the economists were using didn't work out - but once they changed the metrics, they could properly predict "worker" behavior. It also looks like I managed to mangle the original problem..... the question was why would people walk on stairs, not why they walk on escalators. Looking back, I'm amazed you managed to figure out what I was talking about in the first place. :)
Dammit - me with 5 shiny mod points and a great post languishing at +2. Too bad I already posted elsewhere....
The only thing I disagree with is that the natural equilibrium point of any market is a monopoly. In a perfect (i.e., practically impossible) free market, it takes just one person to break up the monopoly. Furthermore, the idea that the natural equilibrium for markets is a monopoly requires humans to be completely rational beings, which many studies have shown they are not. The simplest example of this is the escalator problem: economists had a hard time figuring out why anybody would walk on an escalator - their cost-benefit analysis didn't work out. Until they figured out that people didn't do a standard cost-benefit analysis when deciding when to walk or stop or an escalator. They took into account things that are impossible to quantify with money - time, want versus need, all kinds of irrational feelings, etc.
You know, I've seen you post this drivel time and time again. I just want to know one thing: do you actually understand how markets work? Are you even willing to rethink previous positions that are patently false, or are you just interested in preaching? Because of all the complete falsehoods that you manage to come up with from time to time, this takes the cake. Do you understand the concept of a natural monopoly? Would you care to explain why you think that your opinion on this matter, which goes against what nearly every economic text book, economic prize winner and just plain logic can be trotted out again and again without revision?
Thankfully, someone modded you up already, so I can just reply to you. You're completely right - there are very good reason why a free market doesn't work in certain situations, and this is one of them. As a quick reminder, a free market can by definition only be beneficial to the greater public if the following conditions are met: the market provides perfect information about all products and companies to the consumers, and barriers to entry are low to non-existent.
Here's why: perfect information is required, because otherwise, shady companies can fly under the radar and rip off consumers. Yes, at some point the gig is up, but if the imperfect information means that every consumer has to experience the shady deal themselves, companies can still rake in a ton of dough before people stop doing business with them. Barriers to entry need to be low for the same reason: if it is nearly impossible for a new company to enter the market, the incumbent can be as a big of a dick as they want - there's nothing the consumer can do to punish the company in question, especially if the incumbent is already in a monopoly position. Remember the bad old ATT? Prime example number one.
Now look at the ISP and telco market from these points - what do you see? At best, oligopolies; at worst, outright monopolies. Barriers to entry are sky-high, and it is difficult to figure what companies are up to. Ever read the entire Terms of Service before you clicked accept? Maybe you did, but I can guarantee you a lot of people didn't. Yes, there are internet resources out there that rank service providers, but how do you know there's no astroturfing going on?
So now we have a market that is run by monopolies in certain situations, where the incumbents do not have to fear anybody treading on their turf if they screw up and where it is difficult to figure out what's going on, and some people actually think deregulation is a good idea? It seems that communists aren't the only dreamers around - some capitalists have their up their ass just as much when it comes to their understanding of human nature and even how the theory works.
Only partially correct. Telecoms is a field where monopolies tend to naturally appear. This is because infrastructure things like power grids, railroads and phone/data lines require a very large up-front investment (billions of dollars) while requiring much less in on-going maintenance. This means that incumbents can very easily fend off competitors by temporarily lowering their fees until the new kids burn through all their credit lines, and can then go back to their old business model.
This means that simply reducing regulation on the current incumbents is going to result in an all-out monopoly, even if it's a local one. The proper way to deal with this mess is to realize that the infrastructure is always going to be a monopoly, and put it under government regulation and control. The service providers can then be deregulated, because the barriers to entry are fairly low, and the efficient and quality service providers can win out.
However, this would require brains and guts from the politicians. As a result, I'm willing to accept the second best solution of more (semi-sensible) regulation. Yeah, yeah, low expectations and all that. Beats constantly dreaming about fantasies though.
BTW -
As it is, there have been efforts in recent years to prevent the State from regulating new connections; this is why a few providers are now starting to invest in fibre to the home.
Complete hogwash. The US is pretty much the laughingstock of the industrialized world when it comes to connection quality and price. Why? Because the local and unregulated monopolies are laughing all the way to the bank. Fiber is weird and strange only in the US - and then, only in residential US.
You mistakenly assume that people have choices when it comes to their ISP. I have the choice between SBC (sorry, ATT now) for DSL, and Comcast for Cable. Yes, there are other DSL ISPs out there, but they all sublease from ATT and are at their complete mercy when it comes to fixing stuff. I'd love to buy into the free-market talk, but unfortunately, telecoms are about as far from a free market as you can get here. As a result, and much to my dismay, regulation is needed to force the telecoms to play nice.
You know what the best part will be? This same school complaining that it doesn't have enough funds to pay decent salaries to teachers, buy school resources and fund the school library and science class rooms. Because, you know, it's important that the online MySpace monitor gets paid properly.
Wow. I'm normally one who mods down much, but I wish I could set this to "-1, Windbag". Most developers on quote said there isn't much difference between X360 and PS3. GTA4 will be on both PS3 and X360, with exclusive downloadable content for X360. GameCube didn't have the kiddie market - it had decent sales for people who were interested in more than the latest FPS or Thugs n' Gunz games. I'd say that PS2 was where the kiddies were - someone had to buy all that Barbie, Spongebob and 50 Cent crap.
Sheesh, I think I'm feeding a troll. I probably should just stop here before my head explodes.
Don't listen to Colin Campbell. He is a nitwit who somehow managed to snag editor status on a respected magazine. He contradicts himselfs, has no data to support his statistics, and generally just relies on "I am editor, hear me roar" for logic. He was like this when Next-Gen the magazine started to turn south (I'm actually convinced he was part of the reason why the magazine is the tripe it is now), and he still is.
Ah... more "we need no steenkin laws, the market takes care of everything." While I do agree to some extent with your proposition, I don't agree taking it all the way to the end.
There is a value in a brand, and there is a monetary value associated with it. How much is it though? No one knows for sure. The simplest way really is to check the stock market: tally all assets and revenue, subtract from capitalization, and you get some left over stuff that can be qualified as the value that people associate with the company itself.
Another point you have patently wrong (and I'm sure you can actually vouch for this if you'd actually stop to look) is that people are never "willing accept one grievance or mistake." They actually do that every day. It's a question of how badly did they get shafted, and how much work is it to find a new supplier or partner. To give you an example: I have a choice between several online stores. One carries a good selection, has good prices and I haven't had any problems with them. Would I switch to another store just because I got a bad product once? No. Would I switch if I got a bad copy and plenty of grief to boot? Maybe. Why? Because I don't want to have to redo my homework on what stores are reputable, what the price/performance ratio is and how long it takes them to ship stuff. You're right, it doesn't mean I will stay with them inspite of continuous foul-ups. But my past experience does influence my reaction to problems with them.
Dude, you have time to not only get a lengthy first post, but you also manage to read the linked article in its entirety? Are you from the future or something?
I do live off of creating stuff, thank you. Glad to see that you aren't jumping to conclusions or anything. It might not be music, but writing, fixing and training people on software is in the same area. Let's see.... should I charge everyone anytime they use a construct that is the same as mine? Should I charge them every time they use my software? Should I be the only one who controls what happens to my software? No, no, no. Why? Because it is hypocritical (yeah, like I haven't used stuff that others used before me), inefficient (people don't like paying per use) and unfair (I'm selling you software, but I still tell you what to do with it - riiight).
It's nice to get some insight into the other side - how people think that they deserve to make enough money to reach a certain lifestyle, regardless of cost to the public, to other people in the same business or their skill in the art in question. Good job. I hear Marx has some interesting things to say about stuff like that.
Ever been to an actual live session? Infinitely different from listening to a song in your car. That's why distributing songs via digital media will never remove the market for live performances. Yeah, you probably won't get artists who can afford to buy a Rolls in Silver and in Black, just because they can't make up their mind. But honestly, I really don't care about that. Plus, it'll give them their anonomity back. Isn't that what every mega star is whining about - that life is so tough now that they have millions and millions, and everybody knows them?
... and I consider it one of the best things I've done there.
The situation we used to work in was that we had a lot of customer information that changed quickly, a group of engineers who worked disparate hours (there was supposed to be someone available between 7AM and Midnight) and documentation that was scattered all over. We had a central repository for documentation, but it was the pits. You could only search on key words or categories, check-out and check-in procedures were laborious, if not counter-productive, and everything had to go through an approval cycle. Finally (and that, combined with the fact the repository was unsearchable, was kinda the nail in its coffin), reviews were partially based on how many entries you'd submit. The end result was an essentially unsearchable repository was filled to the bring with duplicate entries and outdated stuff.
Fed up with that, we created a Wiki on the side project. Initially I filled it myself with random things that I found useful. Then other people started using it. It wasn't perfect, but it was loads better than what we had - we could actually find information! Outdated stuff could be updated. People didn't have to call others at all hours of the night for server information anymore. And best of all, new hires could be pointed to it, and they could find useful starting information.
To give you an idea of how successful it was, it was initially completely disallowed by management, as it was creating a duplicate information store. The desktop server on which it was stored was yanked. But it stuck around, because people actually used it. Now, the entire group uses it for storing training, server, contact or any other information that a lot of people need and that changes often. Contrary to the commercial data storage software, it helps us do our job more efficiently.
Wikis are undeniably useful and loads better than anything else out there - if you make sure that the information you try to make accessible falls in the following categories:
- lots of different people can use it
- changes often
- lots of people can contribute to it
Oh, and it also helps if people aren't dicks, to use Wikipedia's rule.
You're confusing randomness with chaos theory. Randomness is essentially us saying "We might know the principles at work, but it's too complicated for us to make an accurate prediction on what is exactly going to happen." Brownian motion is one such example. We have a good idea on the physics behind it, but the huge number of interactions that take place mean that we can only predict the behavior of the entire system, not of single particles in it. Furthermore, single particles do not show a propensity to do anything in particular. You won't find random particles moving in circles, for example.
Chaos theory deals with systems where we can calculate effects on single objects in the system, and where these objects exhibit non-random patterns. You mentioned fractals already (although strictly speaking, that's defined as a complex system rather than a chaotic one), and population growth patterns are another.
As always, Congress completely misses the actual problem when working out a solution. Hey, if they didn't propose half-baked sollutions, they might actually have to do real work.
Here's what I don't get about this deal: as far as I can tell, judges who don't understand the technology are not the problem. If a judge doesn't know an inline for-loop from an EJB, does that really mean that he/she can't tell whether someone is infringing on the one-click patent? Furthermore, assuming that they are technically savvy, can they actually invalidate bad patents? Or would they just ask the patent office to reexamine it?
None of these things have anything to do with the main problems of the current patent process: patents for ideas, patents for things without implementations and patent trolls. This is just gonna be a band-aid with absolutely no effect on the patent trolls.
I've got 30 gigs worth of VMWare images. They are useful, but no panacea.
I can understand that you're reluctant to let some stanger's laptop onto your network - heck, I'm surprised when people let me just plug into their network. However, I have seen the effect that a lock down of the machine has - it takes a couple of hours to a couple of days to get something done, because requests have to be issued, analyzed and then acted upon. What I actually prefer is if clients give me one of their own machines. They can do whatever they want with it, and I can transfer files via USB stick.
I'm not saying that locking down a machine can't be done - I'm saying that the type of lockdown advocated by the original poster makes my job more difficult than it should be. Tell me - what kind of lockdown would you propose?
Why is this insightful? Yeah, it's a fact that as soon as someone brings up the high price of the PS3, someone brings up the argument that the Wii will profit from this. That's because a lot of people think like that - including me. And they think that because the low price of the Wii and the new controller are actually the reasons that they'll buy a Wii and not a PS3 - including me.
Methinks that you're simply a disappointed Sony fanboi who can't handle the fact that they aren't part of the cool team anymore. Get over it.
Ah.... the old "castrate the user so that they can use Word, email and minesweeper only."
Let me give you an example: I work as a consultant. My laptop is my life. Every week, there is a chance that I'll have to install some weird VPN software on it, program demos, home grown connection programs and change my registry, firewall and connection setting so that I can properly work in the client's network. If my laptop is set up to your specifications, I'm out of my job. For the simple reason that I don't have the time necessary to propagate these change requests through the proper command structure.
Here's what can be done instead:
- make it actually possible to do daily work with a low-privilege user.
- make it easy to give yourself the necessary privileges when you do need root, admin or something similar.
What's that you say? Get a mac? Hey, tell that to my clients.