"Anyone willing to pay $500+ for a phone will certainly pay $400 or less for some entry-level iMac device."
Absolutely. Anyone who has just spent $500 on a phone would be more than happy to almost double their spending to use a main feature of the phone. It's common sense.
I buy almost all of my electrical goods in America. Or Japan. I know enough people from around the world who come over here and are willing to bring me things.
A couple of years ago I spent about $1200 on computer components, and my wily friend managed to avoid all customs charges.
England has to wait months to get anything released here, and when they are, they tend to be about twice the price. Even when you take into account how the economies differ, and how we earn more, it's still an unreasonable markup.
What a fantastic theory. Taunting strengthens children. How about we extend the taunting, so it's not just the children, but the teachers joining in as well. That'll help keep those kids sharp. Why stop when the kids have grown up? Good old taunts and office humiliations will keep you sharp.
Children (and adults) sometimes commit suicide due to bullying. Even though this isn't common, I'm pretty certain it's contemplated a lot more than is known. And a child shouldn't be contemplating suicide, it's not healthy, no matter how the child turns out.
Teachers frequently don't do enough. I'm not going to forget it, despite the fact that I'm great now.
This reminds me a little of ChuChu Rocket for the Dreamcast. With the almost identical name structure and the fact that it's a simple sounding game involving rockets.
ChuChu Rocket was also the first popular online console game, and was distributed free, mostly. Maybe a puzzle type game involving rockets is required when you start a new console online technology.
You have it spot on. The legal system here seemingly caters for petty and irrelevant things only. Minor law breaking warrants greater investigation than assault, and defending yourself is a greater crime than attacking.
Nobody dares to disturb the roving youths, and everyone slams on brakes for the speed cameras. Jury consciences are now identical to those of the high-paid government prosecutors.
I modded my XBox and installed XBMC so I could watch movies and listen to music from my server on my main television set without making a dedicated Media Centre PC. I also play SNES games (that I legally own) on it; more than XBox games. I'm not sticking anything to any men, I just made a cut down PC more useful for a good price.
Only one part of the summary is a quote, and mentions nothing on the subject. What is mentioned after the quotation is that it is "reported to operate on top of a proprietary form of the Linux kernel". I'm personally not very familiar with those. It also states that there are "efforts to make a GNU/Linux for the console", which it would not be the first console to have, and would not be unique in, and is therefore hardly noteworthy.
The story claims it will be running an "Updatable Linux OS" as if it is the first console to do that. It won't be an out of the box open Linux distro, it (apparently) won't have the GPL, and therefore offers nothing new, which is my point.
Console interfaces have been updated remotely for years. There now a claim that a proprietary kernel will do the same thing Microsoft does, but apparently has something to do with the Linux kernel.
The title is misleading. It isn't going to run a user customisable Linux GUI when turned on, the Wii just has that capability. Just like the XBox. And The PS2. To make this a selling point is just another example of how people are doing everything they can to suck up to Nintendo. I know Sony hasn't been on top of any game for a while, but with the sheer hatred suffers has and all the Nintendo worship going on, I'm starting to feel like there are very few important people who are dedicated to making me want to buy a Wii.
And they aren't from Nintendo.
In actuality I only helped a handful of people. Under 10. There were more who wanted assistance, but a different kind. I only actually operated for a few months before going to University, but my point isn't how well I did, it's how well I did compared to my investment. I made a nice sum of money (for a student) with absolutely no initial investment. My point is that with capital to go towards advertising, there is a very large market waiting to reach you.
I had one tiny free phone number in the Yello Pages directory, and it made me pretty good spending money. I'm going to start advertising around the University. At the moment I actually perform similar work for the Univserity.
I set up a free telephone listing in the Yellow Pages which went to my mobile offering computer repair. I charged cheaply and visited promptly, and I helped a few people out, but most calls I received were trying to sell my business something.
But this was a tiny ad with just my number. Offering cheap help and repairs is easy enough, and as long as you can take care of the tax side of it, is very simple to do. I arranged a business account and the bank would have offered me investment if I'd made a business plan, but I was starting University at the time, and didn't want the hassle. I'm convinced that it would be a profitable venture if I had the time and the resources to put out a slightly expensive ad, even locally.
It's something I will do again, but a few similar copycat services have since appeared.
I charged £20 for the first hour and £10 an hour after that.
I agree with this. It saves me the hassle of having to trawl through each friend to see what new things they've done. This collates it and makes it readily available. And I'm annoyed at the fierce resistance it has received. Perhaps to appease those who cannot stand for new things and seem to fear change, there should be an option to not show it by default. But to remove it from the web? If they didn't want the information available, logically, they shouldn't make it available.
Some do think too highly of themselves. But I have noticed certain trends in ordering and placement of songs, and I'm quite sure you probably have as well.
Personally, I never use shuffle when listening to music. I listen to it always in album order, MP3 or not. I know that's unusual, but I like to preserve whatever thought the artist put into the order and what effect they hope to achieve in their musical progression.
This is particularly true of Classical music. I don't see what can be gained by putting Mozart's Requiem on shuffle. It tells a story. And maybe artists who think their albums tell a story do think too highly of themselves, but they ordered those songs for a reason, and if they see something in the progression of their music, perhaps I can as well, and I wouldn't want to miss it if it's there.
And I have noticed it in my modern music collection.
That occurred to me while I was writing the post. It's an option, and some bands have opted for that kind of layout. Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven by Godspeed You Black Emperor is a double CD with only four tracks between both CDs. They average to about 23 minutes per track.
But with the artists in question, it's not necessary. With the sale of a physical CD (especially with a CD that had no paid publicity), usually people play the whole thing. That's what I did with my Radiohead CDs. After I was familiar with the album, I then chose to listen to just certain songs. The CD format is perfect for that. The MP3 (or AAC or WMA or OGG) format can do that, but people tend not to when they don't have to get every track.
Saying that "getting paid for stuff people don't want to buy" is the sole reason for anyone not wishing to sell single tracks makes it seem like you hold the artists in very little esteem.
While your logic can be applied to many modern bands, I doubt that that makes it universal. Before the advent of music downloads, of course it was possible to listen to only your favourite song or to only hear half the opera, but it wasn't logical to never want to hear the rest. Usually.
If your statement were true, with iTunes quickly becoming one of the most profitable sources of money, wouldn't it be far more commonplace for bands and artists to withhold their music unless the full album price is paid for? If it were just for money, I doubt you'd fine so little resistance. It is less profitable to withhold your work from a massive market.
Given artists own attitude to their music, how they can feel very personally, I find it very easy to expect that artists may refuse to let an iPod culture 'happen' to their music.
If I were a starving artist (or a record executive), I'd sell individual songs at a cost my musical integrity. The bands that tend to hold back their music (noted in the article) can afford to pretoect their integrity, as they clearly aren't starving.
It's strange how Radiohead have chosen to do this, considering they were one of the first major bands to offer MP3 downloads to the public. Kid A was released for free online before in stores, and they found it advantageous. This was at the same time as their refusal to release singles or advertise the album in order to sell it purely on its merits.
Radiohead made Kid A top the charts, both here (UK) and America, through online publicity.
Perhaps it is since the culture of iPods is to create playlists and to "shuffle" that they wish to avoid it, and their release on the internet was in the idea that people still listened to music, downloaded or not, as a whole work, as if on CD.
Often called pretentious, the desire to have your work viewed and heard as a whole appeals to an older perception of music, one that I personally still subscribe to. It holds the idea of an album as a progression, as something that has a beginning and a conclusion, such as one might expect from a traditional symphony.
It can be very discouraging to an artist when an entire medium is practically devoted to destroying that construction. And if they care more about their artistic integrity than making further sales, I can only applaud them.
Oh yes, we can complain, but it isn't as if this episode is wholly surprising. Especially with the extent of the 'by the book' upholders of the law that we endure, where minor things that are technically illegal are now punishable to the full extent of the law; like a £60 fine for a wheel slightly on the kerb, or when a valid argument is completely picked apart over an irrelevant detail.
For those of you familiar with the Stolen Sidekick story, it's more of the same, but eventually with a happy ending. Many people on its forum argued that the phone wasn't technically stolen, and that found property should remain with the person who found it, etcetera. What appalled me was that several people thought and argued this, and that the common sense approach was that the phone should return to the rightful owner, but they argued that the law should protect the little thief that had the phone [I shouldn't technically call her a thief].
That is an example of people upholding the law, or at least arguing on behalf of the law, where the overall effect is negative. Thus, a rethink is due before we reprimand these police constables. I remember a time when the kids would have been taken home, if not ignored. Even taking them home would have seemed harsh.
The children admitted to breaking public property by damaging the tree, planning to build a "tree den", and by damaging it, they broke the law, and the law states that law breakers should be arrested and dealt with. Technically, the police officers have done nothing wrong.
So until there is a complete overhaul of how we treat the law, we cannot complain about individual situations like this. It's obviously common sense that they were treated harshly and there was a total overreaction, but it isn't a legal overreaction. It's procedure. We need as a society to be able to adapt and interpret situations differently, especially in legal cases, where the law does not end up doing more harm than good. If the law has a negative effect, how can anyone respect it? Governments need to rethink this and apply a whole new subjective filter to how situations are dealt with, and officers should not fear punishment for not following procedure if it goes against common sense.
Slashdot Mirror
"Anyone willing to pay $500+ for a phone will certainly pay $400 or less for some entry-level iMac device."
Absolutely. Anyone who has just spent $500 on a phone would be more than happy to almost double their spending to use a main feature of the phone. It's common sense.
I buy almost all of my electrical goods in America. Or Japan. I know enough people from around the world who come over here and are willing to bring me things.
A couple of years ago I spent about $1200 on computer components, and my wily friend managed to avoid all customs charges.
England has to wait months to get anything released here, and when they are, they tend to be about twice the price. Even when you take into account how the economies differ, and how we earn more, it's still an unreasonable markup.
I think he means one of those newfangled three-stroke engines that are all the rage.
Paint chips? You mean wall candy!
What a fantastic theory. Taunting strengthens children. How about we extend the taunting, so it's not just the children, but the teachers joining in as well. That'll help keep those kids sharp. Why stop when the kids have grown up? Good old taunts and office humiliations will keep you sharp.
Children (and adults) sometimes commit suicide due to bullying. Even though this isn't common, I'm pretty certain it's contemplated a lot more than is known. And a child shouldn't be contemplating suicide, it's not healthy, no matter how the child turns out.
Teachers frequently don't do enough. I'm not going to forget it, despite the fact that I'm great now.
No. It won't be.
But they've already found a workaround.
If I were a sniper, my first shot...
... would be the robot.
This reminds me a little of ChuChu Rocket for the Dreamcast. With the almost identical name structure and the fact that it's a simple sounding game involving rockets.
ChuChu Rocket was also the first popular online console game, and was distributed free, mostly. Maybe a puzzle type game involving rockets is required when you start a new console online technology.
Fox News now projects HD-DVD the winner in Florida...
You have it spot on. The legal system here seemingly caters for petty and irrelevant things only. Minor law breaking warrants greater investigation than assault, and defending yourself is a greater crime than attacking.
Nobody dares to disturb the roving youths, and everyone slams on brakes for the speed cameras. Jury consciences are now identical to those of the high-paid government prosecutors.
I can't wait to leave this beurocratic hell hole.
You're basing that on what? Have you played it?
I modded my XBox and installed XBMC so I could watch movies and listen to music from my server on my main television set without making a dedicated Media Centre PC. I also play SNES games (that I legally own) on it; more than XBox games. I'm not sticking anything to any men, I just made a cut down PC more useful for a good price.
Only one part of the summary is a quote, and mentions nothing on the subject. What is mentioned after the quotation is that it is "reported to operate on top of a proprietary form of the Linux kernel". I'm personally not very familiar with those. It also states that there are "efforts to make a GNU/Linux for the console", which it would not be the first console to have, and would not be unique in, and is therefore hardly noteworthy.
The story claims it will be running an "Updatable Linux OS" as if it is the first console to do that. It won't be an out of the box open Linux distro, it (apparently) won't have the GPL, and therefore offers nothing new, which is my point.
Console interfaces have been updated remotely for years. There now a claim that a proprietary kernel will do the same thing Microsoft does, but apparently has something to do with the Linux kernel.
The title is misleading. It isn't going to run a user customisable Linux GUI when turned on, the Wii just has that capability. Just like the XBox. And The PS2. To make this a selling point is just another example of how people are doing everything they can to suck up to Nintendo. I know Sony hasn't been on top of any game for a while, but with the sheer hatred suffers has and all the Nintendo worship going on, I'm starting to feel like there are very few important people who are dedicated to making me want to buy a Wii. And they aren't from Nintendo.
Great, more competition.
In actuality I only helped a handful of people. Under 10. There were more who wanted assistance, but a different kind. I only actually operated for a few months before going to University, but my point isn't how well I did, it's how well I did compared to my investment. I made a nice sum of money (for a student) with absolutely no initial investment. My point is that with capital to go towards advertising, there is a very large market waiting to reach you.
I had one tiny free phone number in the Yello Pages directory, and it made me pretty good spending money. I'm going to start advertising around the University. At the moment I actually perform similar work for the Univserity.
I set up a free telephone listing in the Yellow Pages which went to my mobile offering computer repair. I charged cheaply and visited promptly, and I helped a few people out, but most calls I received were trying to sell my business something.
But this was a tiny ad with just my number. Offering cheap help and repairs is easy enough, and as long as you can take care of the tax side of it, is very simple to do. I arranged a business account and the bank would have offered me investment if I'd made a business plan, but I was starting University at the time, and didn't want the hassle. I'm convinced that it would be a profitable venture if I had the time and the resources to put out a slightly expensive ad, even locally.
It's something I will do again, but a few similar copycat services have since appeared.
I charged £20 for the first hour and £10 an hour after that.
I agree with this. It saves me the hassle of having to trawl through each friend to see what new things they've done. This collates it and makes it readily available. And I'm annoyed at the fierce resistance it has received. Perhaps to appease those who cannot stand for new things and seem to fear change, there should be an option to not show it by default. But to remove it from the web? If they didn't want the information available, logically, they shouldn't make it available.
From the Wikipedia article:
Some do think too highly of themselves. But I have noticed certain trends in ordering and placement of songs, and I'm quite sure you probably have as well.
Personally, I never use shuffle when listening to music. I listen to it always in album order, MP3 or not. I know that's unusual, but I like to preserve whatever thought the artist put into the order and what effect they hope to achieve in their musical progression.
This is particularly true of Classical music. I don't see what can be gained by putting Mozart's Requiem on shuffle. It tells a story. And maybe artists who think their albums tell a story do think too highly of themselves, but they ordered those songs for a reason, and if they see something in the progression of their music, perhaps I can as well, and I wouldn't want to miss it if it's there.
And I have noticed it in my modern music collection.
That occurred to me while I was writing the post. It's an option, and some bands have opted for that kind of layout. Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven by Godspeed You Black Emperor is a double CD with only four tracks between both CDs. They average to about 23 minutes per track.
But with the artists in question, it's not necessary. With the sale of a physical CD (especially with a CD that had no paid publicity), usually people play the whole thing. That's what I did with my Radiohead CDs. After I was familiar with the album, I then chose to listen to just certain songs. The CD format is perfect for that. The MP3 (or AAC or WMA or OGG) format can do that, but people tend not to when they don't have to get every track.
Saying that "getting paid for stuff people don't want to buy" is the sole reason for anyone not wishing to sell single tracks makes it seem like you hold the artists in very little esteem.
While your logic can be applied to many modern bands, I doubt that that makes it universal. Before the advent of music downloads, of course it was possible to listen to only your favourite song or to only hear half the opera, but it wasn't logical to never want to hear the rest. Usually.
If your statement were true, with iTunes quickly becoming one of the most profitable sources of money, wouldn't it be far more commonplace for bands and artists to withhold their music unless the full album price is paid for? If it were just for money, I doubt you'd fine so little resistance. It is less profitable to withhold your work from a massive market.
Given artists own attitude to their music, how they can feel very personally, I find it very easy to expect that artists may refuse to let an iPod culture 'happen' to their music.
If I were a starving artist (or a record executive), I'd sell individual songs at a cost my musical integrity. The bands that tend to hold back their music (noted in the article) can afford to pretoect their integrity, as they clearly aren't starving.
It's strange how Radiohead have chosen to do this, considering they were one of the first major bands to offer MP3 downloads to the public. Kid A was released for free online before in stores, and they found it advantageous. This was at the same time as their refusal to release singles or advertise the album in order to sell it purely on its merits.
Radiohead made Kid A top the charts, both here (UK) and America, through online publicity.
Perhaps it is since the culture of iPods is to create playlists and to "shuffle" that they wish to avoid it, and their release on the internet was in the idea that people still listened to music, downloaded or not, as a whole work, as if on CD.
Often called pretentious, the desire to have your work viewed and heard as a whole appeals to an older perception of music, one that I personally still subscribe to. It holds the idea of an album as a progression, as something that has a beginning and a conclusion, such as one might expect from a traditional symphony.
It can be very discouraging to an artist when an entire medium is practically devoted to destroying that construction. And if they care more about their artistic integrity than making further sales, I can only applaud them.
Oh yes, we can complain, but it isn't as if this episode is wholly surprising. Especially with the extent of the 'by the book' upholders of the law that we endure, where minor things that are technically illegal are now punishable to the full extent of the law; like a £60 fine for a wheel slightly on the kerb, or when a valid argument is completely picked apart over an irrelevant detail.
For those of you familiar with the Stolen Sidekick story, it's more of the same, but eventually with a happy ending. Many people on its forum argued that the phone wasn't technically stolen, and that found property should remain with the person who found it, etcetera. What appalled me was that several people thought and argued this, and that the common sense approach was that the phone should return to the rightful owner, but they argued that the law should protect the little thief that had the phone [I shouldn't technically call her a thief].
That is an example of people upholding the law, or at least arguing on behalf of the law, where the overall effect is negative. Thus, a rethink is due before we reprimand these police constables. I remember a time when the kids would have been taken home, if not ignored. Even taking them home would have seemed harsh.
Let's look at it like this:
The children admitted to breaking public property by damaging the tree, planning to build a "tree den", and by damaging it, they broke the law, and the law states that law breakers should be arrested and dealt with. Technically, the police officers have done nothing wrong.
So until there is a complete overhaul of how we treat the law, we cannot complain about individual situations like this. It's obviously common sense that they were treated harshly and there was a total overreaction, but it isn't a legal overreaction. It's procedure. We need as a society to be able to adapt and interpret situations differently, especially in legal cases, where the law does not end up doing more harm than good. If the law has a negative effect, how can anyone respect it? Governments need to rethink this and apply a whole new subjective filter to how situations are dealt with, and officers should not fear punishment for not following procedure if it goes against common sense.