Great. Good to see the Actors are on board. What about the writers though? I have to imagine the highly talented futurama writers found new homes that have been enjoying their talent for a while.
I see people saying how he was asked not to use the wireless signals and therefore he shouldn't keep using them being modded +5 insightful. Then, the next time we have a satellite TV discussion, those same people get +5 insightful for saying it's our right to use any signal beamed through our heads on our own property.
Which is it? Do I have a right to hack my neighbors WLAN because it's carrying over into my property? Do I have the right to steal a satellite feed because it's raining its info all over my state? It really shouldn't be a double standard.
I had the exact same experience trying to cancel NetZero. It took me 90 minutes and 6 different customer service reps before someone would give me an account cancellation number. After this, I changed my tactics. The next time I had this conversation with a company cancelling an account, it was 2 minutes:
You know who I am, correct? - Yes You know which account I am referring to? - Yes You have confirmed with the last four of my social I am who I am? - Yes You know I want you to cancel my account? - Yes Good. I'm not wating any more of my time. Cancel my account and if there are any further charges from your company they will be chargebacked through my credit card *click*.
It's amazing that it's a simpler process to chargeback something than it is to actually cancel it. FYI: Erenterplan billed me for 6 months after I cancelled my account twice. Avoid.
Ahh. While this isn't a perfect example, it looks like companies in the future might not be able to have their cake and eat it too. If companies are allowed to data mine and claim that this information helps them create a product, do they have any implicit duty to use that information to help protect their customers?
I'd prefer no data mining to begin with, but this could take an interesting turn.
Whether it's tech, manufacturing, marketing, HR, facilities, finance... Everyone asks for more budget than they really need. You really sound like you've never managed a budget before.
Ideally this isn't the case, but in practice it is.
Since MS abused its monopoly in the OS market to create a competitive advantage in the browser market... is it legal for them to use that competitive advantage to enter ANOTHER market (search engine)?
Look at Lawyers, Tax Accountants, etc. There is some job security in making something people need completely incomprehensible to them.
Let's say you build the perfect Linux distro. Free and easier to use than Mac OS X. Now the business, who do they hire? Do they hire you @ 200k/year who can solve any problem, or do they hire some schmuck at $60k per year who can run it just the same (since it's so easy), and IF there is a major problem they can call you in for $150/hr.
If I owned the business, I know what I'd do.
My point is that no one in the FOSS community is motivated to make software super-easy to use.
1) Can't use FOSS because it's too complex. 2) Can easily work around the complexities and have minimal gain from making it "easier".. heck, could put themselves out of work if they make it too easy to use.
You can't require me to do anything. I need more information for me to decide whether or not I want to read it. Otherwise the front page might as well just be links with no summaries.
Your response indicates you feel it necessary to read everything posted on Slashdot. I do not.
Everyone blames capitalism for this. That's sort of true. The problem isn't capitalism itself, but "expanding" corporations. Corporations that can use revenue from one area to subsidize expansion in another area can destroy a regional or industry economy.
Examples:
MS using O/S revenue to destroy Netscape (they used illegal practices as well)
Wal-Mart using revenues in one area to destroy local businesses in another, then repeat once that new area is profitable and has no competition.
Electronics companies using revenue in one country to support expanding market-share and hurting competitors in others (aka "dumping").
I don't know the best way to fix it, I just know that this particular problem occurs in capitalist countries, but isn't inherently part of capitalism. There are many artificial constraints that could solve it, the question is: Which is the best one, How will we get it passed into law, and most importantly, how will we enforce it?
and judge this one way or another. Or make any grand conclusions from one example.
The professor found that in their class, students who were using laptops were not learning as well as students who were taking notes. Thus the professor banned the laptops in order to help the students learn better.
Let's not use this one example to come to a conclusion that laptops or no laptops are the best way to run every single classroom.
Where I'd like to see this most are for things that aren't easily shipped. TV's, Appliances, etc. The problem is will google be able to pester the businesses enough to keep their inventories updated. I'd be pissed if I drove out somewhere only to find that they're OOS. And no, calling first defeats the purpose of this product IMO.
There *is* a reason that these stores don't have a good online presence. It's probably not a web programmer's fault, but more of the stores not being able to integrate the needs of an online store into their B&M's daily processes.
1) Gamers get positive previews and find out what games will look like, how they will play, but will not hear any of the negatives.
2) Gamers hear nothing of new games and have to wait for reviews of the games after they are released. Or worse: purchase based on number of TV ads they see.
Given those, i'll take option #1 anyday. It's not fair to game developers if they will get ripped for framerate issues when they let editors take an early playtest. There's lots wrong with the video-game industry (such as bought REVIEWS). However, overly-positive "previews" are not one of them. They're par for the course and an acceptable trade-off.
Guys, SAP has stuck around and will stick around because it's very hard to learn. You don't realize that sometimes it's more painful to fix a broken system than to live with its quirks. There are good reasons why businesses stick with SAP.
Further, let's just drop all this OSS nonsense. I believe it would take 10+ years of development for anyone to seriously consider it. Let's say you develop a system. Who is trained on it? What major companies have successfully run it?
Look how long it's taken Linux to gain acceptance, and Linux is something you can incorporate one server at a time. To move your whole company over to a new database system is not something anyone wants to do unless there's a proven, stable solution. This is just one of those areas where OSS can't compete effectively IMO. OSS isn't the answer to every question, as much as some would like it to be.
People must realize that approximately 90% of profit on movies (as of 5 years ago I believe) came from non box-office sales. That profit mainly comes from DVD/VHS rental sales, but also TV, Pay per View, Product Placements, and Merchandising.
If your $200m movie grosses $200m at the box office, you've got a huge winner. Notice I said profit, not revenue.
This is why movie theatres suck. They have no control over the distribution chain, product, and are sucha small slice of the pie for the movie studios they have no bargaining power.
This is a good point. If situations were reversed, we might be listening to lunatics like Pat Robertson. He is the exact same type of person as the few insane Imams who condone and encourage acts of hate.
This is a flawed argument. It leads to segregation, as those who wish to discriminate will all live near each other. Fair housing act is a good thing.
Further, if you're renting out your house, you're not "sharing" it, you're selling it. Thus it is a business. It is illegal for businesses to discriminate based on race. Get used to it. We're right. You're wrong.
As a finance guy, here's my take.
Make friends with your FP&A. Get all the data on how much time you and others spend on doing these unnecessary tasks. Take it upon yourself to gather all the data necessary to prove it's wasting money. Give that data to the FP&A in a reasonable and understandable format. Have him create a small presentation showing how costly this practice is. Have your senior management present that to the executives with the FP&A's blessing.
You can't just complain about processes. Odds are they are there for a reason. For example, in the FP&A's analysis, he might discover that without those processes in the past, spending on memory in non-production units had a ridiculous growth rate.
Sounds like all you've done is complain and not made a logical, dollars-based argument on why the system sucks.
Well, you were on the right track. Disney isn't just about movies. It's about Movies, Television, Theme Parks, Toys, Lunchboxes, Playing Cards, Mall Stores.
If a movie, like Toy Story, nets you $200m at the box office, you have to know that's nothing compared to what it'll net from merchandise.
If it becomes trivial to pirate the OS, and a significant number of people do that instead of buying a mac, it costs them their business.
If it becomes trivial to dual boot Windows, and people do that, and then developers stop developing for mac and tell them to just boot windows... it costs them their business.
It's much more than just a price point.
Re:But it can be disabled trivially.
on
iTunes is Malware?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Right. Relevant, non-annoying ads in a free product.
That's Google level evil right there.
He deserved it.
I drink, and it's tempting to drive home drunk, but I don't. He played a racing game, was tempted to drive home faster and did. This is why I have a license and he doesn't. Looks like the system is working in this case.
Slashdot Mirror
Great. Good to see the Actors are on board. What about the writers though? I have to imagine the highly talented futurama writers found new homes that have been enjoying their talent for a while.
I see people saying how he was asked not to use the wireless signals and therefore he shouldn't keep using them being modded +5 insightful. Then, the next time we have a satellite TV discussion, those same people get +5 insightful for saying it's our right to use any signal beamed through our heads on our own property. Which is it? Do I have a right to hack my neighbors WLAN because it's carrying over into my property? Do I have the right to steal a satellite feed because it's raining its info all over my state? It really shouldn't be a double standard.
I had the exact same experience trying to cancel NetZero. It took me 90 minutes and 6 different customer service reps before someone would give me an account cancellation number. After this, I changed my tactics. The next time I had this conversation with a company cancelling an account, it was 2 minutes:
You know who I am, correct? - Yes
You know which account I am referring to? - Yes
You have confirmed with the last four of my social I am who I am? - Yes
You know I want you to cancel my account? - Yes
Good. I'm not wating any more of my time. Cancel my account and if there are any further charges from your company they will be chargebacked through my credit card *click*.
It's amazing that it's a simpler process to chargeback something than it is to actually cancel it. FYI: Erenterplan billed me for 6 months after I cancelled my account twice. Avoid.
Ahh. While this isn't a perfect example, it looks like companies in the future might not be able to have their cake and eat it too. If companies are allowed to data mine and claim that this information helps them create a product, do they have any implicit duty to use that information to help protect their customers? I'd prefer no data mining to begin with, but this could take an interesting turn.
Is that not what everyone does?
Whether it's tech, manufacturing, marketing, HR, facilities, finance... Everyone asks for more budget than they really need. You really sound like you've never managed a budget before.
Ideally this isn't the case, but in practice it is.
Since MS abused its monopoly in the OS market to create a competitive advantage in the browser market... is it legal for them to use that competitive advantage to enter ANOTHER market (search engine)?
Look at Lawyers, Tax Accountants, etc. There is some job security in making something people need completely incomprehensible to them.
Let's say you build the perfect Linux distro. Free and easier to use than Mac OS X. Now the business, who do they hire? Do they hire you @ 200k/year who can solve any problem, or do they hire some schmuck at $60k per year who can run it just the same (since it's so easy), and IF there is a major problem they can call you in for $150/hr.
If I owned the business, I know what I'd do.
My point is that no one in the FOSS community is motivated to make software super-easy to use.
1) Can't use FOSS because it's too complex.
2) Can easily work around the complexities and have minimal gain from making it "easier".. heck, could put themselves out of work if they make it too easy to use.
that leaves group 1 (potential FOSS users) SOL.
You can't require me to do anything. I need more information for me to decide whether or not I want to read it. Otherwise the front page might as well just be links with no summaries.
Your response indicates you feel it necessary to read everything posted on Slashdot. I do not.
A note:
A summary that says "the article explains it" is not very useful to me, or anyone really.
I don't know the best way to fix it, I just know that this particular problem occurs in capitalist countries, but isn't inherently part of capitalism. There are many artificial constraints that could solve it, the question is: Which is the best one, How will we get it passed into law, and most importantly, how will we enforce it?
and judge this one way or another. Or make any grand conclusions from one example. The professor found that in their class, students who were using laptops were not learning as well as students who were taking notes. Thus the professor banned the laptops in order to help the students learn better. Let's not use this one example to come to a conclusion that laptops or no laptops are the best way to run every single classroom.
Where I'd like to see this most are for things that aren't easily shipped. TV's, Appliances, etc. The problem is will google be able to pester the businesses enough to keep their inventories updated. I'd be pissed if I drove out somewhere only to find that they're OOS. And no, calling first defeats the purpose of this product IMO.
There *is* a reason that these stores don't have a good online presence. It's probably not a web programmer's fault, but more of the stores not being able to integrate the needs of an online store into their B&M's daily processes.
Hard to get a solution.
Here are your options:
1) Gamers get positive previews and find out what games will look like, how they will play, but will not hear any of the negatives.
2) Gamers hear nothing of new games and have to wait for reviews of the games after they are released. Or worse: purchase based on number of TV ads they see.
Given those, i'll take option #1 anyday. It's not fair to game developers if they will get ripped for framerate issues when they let editors take an early playtest. There's lots wrong with the video-game industry (such as bought REVIEWS). However, overly-positive "previews" are not one of them. They're par for the course and an acceptable trade-off.
Guys, SAP has stuck around and will stick around because it's very hard to learn. You don't realize that sometimes it's more painful to fix a broken system than to live with its quirks. There are good reasons why businesses stick with SAP.
Further, let's just drop all this OSS nonsense. I believe it would take 10+ years of development for anyone to seriously consider it. Let's say you develop a system. Who is trained on it? What major companies have successfully run it?
Look how long it's taken Linux to gain acceptance, and Linux is something you can incorporate one server at a time. To move your whole company over to a new database system is not something anyone wants to do unless there's a proven, stable solution. This is just one of those areas where OSS can't compete effectively IMO. OSS isn't the answer to every question, as much as some would like it to be.
People must realize that approximately 90% of profit on movies (as of 5 years ago I believe) came from non box-office sales. That profit mainly comes from DVD/VHS rental sales, but also TV, Pay per View, Product Placements, and Merchandising. If your $200m movie grosses $200m at the box office, you've got a huge winner. Notice I said profit, not revenue. This is why movie theatres suck. They have no control over the distribution chain, product, and are sucha small slice of the pie for the movie studios they have no bargaining power.
Two Points:
1) Yes, *WE* tech geeks think of Sony as evil and anti-consumer, the average consumer does not.
2) Unfortunately for Sony, *WE* tech geeks are the ones the average consumers ask for advice.
This is a good point. If situations were reversed, we might be listening to lunatics like Pat Robertson. He is the exact same type of person as the few insane Imams who condone and encourage acts of hate.
This is a flawed argument. It leads to segregation, as those who wish to discriminate will all live near each other. Fair housing act is a good thing.
Further, if you're renting out your house, you're not "sharing" it, you're selling it. Thus it is a business. It is illegal for businesses to discriminate based on race. Get used to it. We're right. You're wrong.
As a finance guy, here's my take. Make friends with your FP&A. Get all the data on how much time you and others spend on doing these unnecessary tasks. Take it upon yourself to gather all the data necessary to prove it's wasting money. Give that data to the FP&A in a reasonable and understandable format. Have him create a small presentation showing how costly this practice is. Have your senior management present that to the executives with the FP&A's blessing. You can't just complain about processes. Odds are they are there for a reason. For example, in the FP&A's analysis, he might discover that without those processes in the past, spending on memory in non-production units had a ridiculous growth rate. Sounds like all you've done is complain and not made a logical, dollars-based argument on why the system sucks.
Well, you were on the right track. Disney isn't just about movies. It's about Movies, Television, Theme Parks, Toys, Lunchboxes, Playing Cards, Mall Stores. If a movie, like Toy Story, nets you $200m at the box office, you have to know that's nothing compared to what it'll net from merchandise.
If it becomes trivial to pirate the OS, and a significant number of people do that instead of buying a mac, it costs them their business. If it becomes trivial to dual boot Windows, and people do that, and then developers stop developing for mac and tell them to just boot windows... it costs them their business. It's much more than just a price point.
Right. Relevant, non-annoying ads in a free product. That's Google level evil right there.
Because, like AIM, Windows, and Office. Everyone else uses it, so switching is more trouble than it's worth.
but the spammer didn't cost them that much money. They shouldn't be allowed to use my tax dollars to do their investigation.
He deserved it. I drink, and it's tempting to drive home drunk, but I don't. He played a racing game, was tempted to drive home faster and did. This is why I have a license and he doesn't. Looks like the system is working in this case.