This amazing tale began in 1998 when Korea decided it couldn't wait for SSL to be standardized (which it was in 1999) and commissioned an ActiveX control for secure Web transactions.
According to Wikipedia, South Korea's economy began a miraculous recovery starting in 1998. They enjoyed 10% growth in 1999 and 9% in 2000. Growth continued, though at a slightly slower (but very respectable) 6% after that. And interestingly, the major driver of that growth is in the service industry - the very segment of the economy that relies on Windows. Could it be that having Windows as a monolithic IT infrastructure is/was a key driver of that economic growth? Most developed nations would *love* to be shackled to growth like that.
At the very least it helps the government's employees by providing them with jobs. Then it helps people that rely on government services. Then it helps other people because all these people are employed or are getting government assistance, so they can spend more.
Every bureaucracy, if left unchecked, will seek to expand itself. Individuals within it may have morality but the organism as a whole does not.
This is interesting. I can't help but think of governments, which are the ultimate in large bureaucracies. If success is a criteria for an organization to begin exhibiting "immoral" attributes, then is the key to prevent your government from acting immorally to make sure your government is not "successful"? And if that is the case, how does one define success for a government? If one uses the usual definition of a successful government, that would probably mean a happy (safe, well-cared for, healthy), thriving populace. But by your theory then, that leads to an immoral government, and so it is better in the long run if your government is not successful, and your people are unhappy. But unhappy people usually revolt and overturn the government, with the hope of installing a government that will make them happy (thereby restarting the cycle). Quite a conundrum.
do you think for one minute a company that sold out its business partners with "Plays for Sure"... won't think twice about short-shrifting...
Please explain how Microsoft sold out its partners with "Plays For Sure". Do they no longer support PFS in Vista? Did they revoke the licenses to their PFS DRM or codecs? [note: the answer is "no" to both of those questions] In my view, if they *had* made Zune a PFS-compatible player (Zune uses a different DRM scheme, as does Urge, their affiliated music store) they would have been short-shrifting their partners. But this is not the case. People who have bought or are buying PFS content can continue to do so, and can continue to play their PFS content, even on Vista. Companies/partners who licensed it can continue to do so. By making Zune non-PFS, their PFS partners don't have to worry about the 600lb gorilla who sources a significant portion of their technology competing directly with them. Consider the converse. If MS *had* made Zune PFS-compatible, would you then be saying they sold out their partners by directly competing with them (and giving themselves an unfair advantage)?
sorry, I know I keep using this as an example.
If you indeed do keep using this example, you need to pick a new one. I'm sure with a company as "evil" as Microsoft you can find one that is more apt.
The difference in your examples is that AMD was always a CPU company. Intel is not a graphics chip company. They tried to be once but failed miserably. Graphics is a specialized area with unique domain knowledge, just as CPU design is. Would you assume, if Nvidia announced they were going to make CPUs to compete with Intel and AMD that they would be successful? Now, I'm not saying Intel can't be successful. I am only saying it's not the way to bet (and I have history on my side).
This is from the company whose business model is built around proprietary document formats - the sole purpose of which is to lock users into a never-ending upgrade cycle.
I look at it a little differently. Microsoft is a company that has consistently put an extremely high priority on backwards compatibility, thereby allowing people to access their data and run their application even though they were produced decades ago. I think MS may be uniquely qualified to tackle a problem like this because of that experience. Contrary to what you assert, people *are not* forced to upgrade *because* MS provides backwards compatibility. I can send an old Word 6.0 document to someone with Word 2007 and they can read it. I am not forced to upgrade unless I want the new features of Word 2007, or unless I want to read Word 2007 files. Further, I can request the sender to write out a Word 6.0 file so that I could read it with my ancient application. Where exactly is the forced upgrade? In fact, many on these boards have commented that Microsoft's big problem is convincing people to upgrade - why buy the new office when the old one works just fine. This would be a much easier task for MS if they took the easy road and abandoned backwards compatibility.
The biggest impediment I see to iPod users switching to Zune is Apple's DRM. Once users have bought a collection of songs from iTunes (even if it's only 20 or 30) they won't want to throw them away by switching DRM vendors, so they will be pre-disposed to buy another compatible player (and since "fairplay" is Apple only, they will be forced to buy from Apple again). This is actually an aspect of DRM that is not as often discussed. People focus on the lack of portability, but not from the perspective of vendor lockin. heck, one could imaging Apple indexing iPod pricing to iTunes "installed base". As users become more and more encumbered by "fairplay" they become less and less price-sensitive on the cost of the player. In this scenario it seems Microsoft would need to come up with some sort of iTunes trade-in program whereby users could get new Zune-DRM'd versions of any file they bought from iTunes for free or a nominal fee.
People buy iPods because they can use it at the hottest online music store.
I disagree. According to this graph:
http://www.blackfriarsinc.com/blog/2006/12/do-math -itunes-sales-arent-collapsing.html
iTunes sells about 22 songs per iPod sold. Something tells me most (all?) iPods have WAAAY more than 22 songs in them. So what are people putting in their iPods? Open mp3s of course. The iPod is a really nice mp3 that *ocassionally* is used to hold songs purchased from iTunes, but that is far from its primary usage.
I think majority market share is pretty unlikely, even as far out as 5 years, unless they decide to subsidize the Zune and sell it much cheaper than iPods. As everyone has seen with Windows, it is very hard to displace an entrenched brand unless the market dominator really screws up. However, if they did offer Zunes at a substantial (30%-50%) price advantage over iPods, AND if they beefed up the applications for the WiFi feature, they could conceivably displace iPods when people make their replacement purchases in the 2-4 year timeframe. Imagine a partnership with Skype, for example, so that the Zune could function as a Skype handset. Imagine partnering with Toyota or other auto manufacturers so your Zune, via WiFi, could wirelessly stream your music through your car stereo. Just as the XBox is a stealthy assault on the desktop PC, the Zune could be a stealthy assault on the PDAs, Smartphones, and portable music players. Of course there are alot of "ifs" in this paragraph.
Here is another small thread elsewhere in/. that basically says the same thing, only with more detail. Some (many?) of the Kyoto signatories are using it purely as a weapon against the U.S.. Or, to be less "paranoid-sounding", they are using Kyoto purely to promote their own self-interests, *not* out of any desire to protect the environment:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=217278 &cid=17643104
I'll name three: Cuba, Russia, China. All 3 of these countries are ratified signatories of Kyoto. Now do you honestly believe these 3 countries are paragons of environmental awareness and stewardship? Have they done anything in their history that shows they respect and are concerned about the environment? Or could their motives perhaps be more political in nature? Could they possibly be signing Kyoto to bring political pressure and/or embarrassment on the U.S? I think that explanation, given their respective track records on the environment and, for that matter, human rights, is much more likely. This is not paranoia, it is realism.
Who are these people with this agenda, and how are they influencing scientists? Do you realize how paranoid you sound?
I said nothing about "influencing scientists". I said the scientists are tools. There are inarguably countries in the world whose governments would very much like to see America's global powers diminished. Heck, there are even large blocks of people in the U.S. who would like to see that. To believe otherwise would be naive. I was merely pointing out that groups with those interests are fervently beating the Kyoto drum, along with using any other mechanism they can grasp to limit/reduce American power. This is not paranoia, but is simply an acknowledgment of reality. Of course it does *not* mean that most of the people worried about Global Warming have political or economic agendas, only that it is a convenient weapon for those who do. That is in essence at the root of my comment, lamenting this fact, because it makes it much more difficult to discuss this topic, to learn "the truth".
Seriously, try reading a journal dedicated to climatology. If you're not able to understand it, then please don't argue about the science.
Would you please point out where in my comment I argued about or questioned the science? I did nothing of the kind.
Scientists are not out to bring America down, or trying to stop us having fun in cool cars. They're totally regular people whose only crime is knowing about the frickin topic they're talking about
While all of that may be true, it is also true that they (scientists) are being used as tools by people with political agendas (most certainly including those with an agenda to "bring America down"). I wish we really could remove all the geo-political crap around this issue and get to the bottom of it from a purely scientific perspective, but with all that is at stake (economically and politically) that is simply never going to happen. It's clear to me that *both sides* are guilty of twisting the facts and exaggerating the consequences of action/inaction. To make matters worse, most of the time when this topic is discussed it decays very quickly into name calling (like "smart-arses"), which certainly doesn't foster reasonable discussion. Just read the other posts on this thread to see what I mean.
PS. Sorry, but you *did* ask someone to call you on it.
Two words: baby boomers. The Most Selfish Generation do not adapt themselves to their surroundings
I know just what you mean. (sarcasm) Why just the other day I was working with a member of The Greatest Generation and they positively floored me with their willingness and ability to accept change. Why can't Baby Boomers be more like them?(/sarcasm)
And by the way, adapting your surroundings to yourself is what spurs progress, unless you think sleeping under a pile of leaves and eating tree bark is a better way to go than building shelter and farming.
Oh, feel free waste a mod point to mod me troll my American friends
oops... what happened? 5, Insightful? Hmmm, how'd that happen? Clearly you knew very well that on/., bashing Americans and America is one of the fastest ways to get karma.
I have plenty more karma - and it will just prove my point:)
Please don't confuse the ability of someone to pay with the need to provide an appropriate reward for the producers/creators. I for one do not begrudge any person, group or company that develops a medical breakthrough that saves millions of lives. I want them to be rewarded to the extreme. Now, one *could* ask a different question, which is "what should society do?". It seems to me that the economics and the morality of the situation (a person with cancer is too poor to pay the $120) dictate that society should bear the cost of the pill in those instances. Nevertheless, I still want the people who developed the cure to be handsomely rewarded so that others will be motivated to do the hard, long and oftentimes fruitless research necessary to find the next cure for, say, heart disease.
Then you can screw everyone over by charging sick people $120 a pill for it
So you feel that $120 for a cure for cancer is too much to pay?
Wounder (sic) if we will ever see some medical industries move to countries without these kinds of patent laws and start to produce medication for 10% of the cost.
I can answer that easily. NO Because there would be no incentive to do all that hard work and research.
Slashdot Mirror
With wired they can sell premium seats with LAN, or cheaper seats without LAN. That would be harder to control with wireless.
If you indeed do keep using this example, you need to pick a new one. I'm sure with a company as "evil" as Microsoft you can find one that is more apt.
The difference in your examples is that AMD was always a CPU company. Intel is not a graphics chip company. They tried to be once but failed miserably. Graphics is a specialized area with unique domain knowledge, just as CPU design is. Would you assume, if Nvidia announced they were going to make CPUs to compete with Intel and AMD that they would be successful? Now, I'm not saying Intel can't be successful. I am only saying it's not the way to bet (and I have history on my side).
Intel is years behind in this market. And they tried this once before, with dismal results: http://news.com.com/Intel+retreats+from+graphics+c hips/2100-1001_3-230019.html
If anything the graphics market has gotten even more specialized since then. I don't know why they think they can succeed this time.
The biggest impediment I see to iPod users switching to Zune is Apple's DRM. Once users have bought a collection of songs from iTunes (even if it's only 20 or 30) they won't want to throw them away by switching DRM vendors, so they will be pre-disposed to buy another compatible player (and since "fairplay" is Apple only, they will be forced to buy from Apple again). This is actually an aspect of DRM that is not as often discussed. People focus on the lack of portability, but not from the perspective of vendor lockin. heck, one could imaging Apple indexing iPod pricing to iTunes "installed base". As users become more and more encumbered by "fairplay" they become less and less price-sensitive on the cost of the player. In this scenario it seems Microsoft would need to come up with some sort of iTunes trade-in program whereby users could get new Zune-DRM'd versions of any file they bought from iTunes for free or a nominal fee.
http://www.blackfriarsinc.com/blog/2006/12/do-mat
iTunes sells about 22 songs per iPod sold. Something tells me most (all?) iPods have WAAAY more than 22 songs in them. So what are people putting in their iPods? Open mp3s of course. The iPod is a really nice mp3 that *ocassionally* is used to hold songs purchased from iTunes, but that is far from its primary usage.
I think majority market share is pretty unlikely, even as far out as 5 years, unless they decide to subsidize the Zune and sell it much cheaper than iPods. As everyone has seen with Windows, it is very hard to displace an entrenched brand unless the market dominator really screws up. However, if they did offer Zunes at a substantial (30%-50%) price advantage over iPods, AND if they beefed up the applications for the WiFi feature, they could conceivably displace iPods when people make their replacement purchases in the 2-4 year timeframe. Imagine a partnership with Skype, for example, so that the Zune could function as a Skype handset. Imagine partnering with Toyota or other auto manufacturers so your Zune, via WiFi, could wirelessly stream your music through your car stereo. Just as the XBox is a stealthy assault on the desktop PC, the Zune could be a stealthy assault on the PDAs, Smartphones, and portable music players. Of course there are alot of "ifs" in this paragraph.
Here is another small thread elsewhere in /. that basically says the same thing, only with more detail. Some (many?) of the Kyoto signatories are using it purely as a weapon against the U.S.. Or, to be less "paranoid-sounding", they are using Kyoto purely to promote their own self-interests, *not* out of any desire to protect the environment:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=217278 &cid=17643104
Umm, perhaps he was referring to Farenheit? "Every child" knows that -30 degrees F would indeed be 60 degrees below freezing on that scale.
Would you please point out where in my comment I argued about or questioned the science? I did nothing of the kind.
PS. Sorry, but you *did* ask someone to call you on it.
And by the way, adapting your surroundings to yourself is what spurs progress, unless you think sleeping under a pile of leaves and eating tree bark is a better way to go than building shelter and farming.
You just proved my point!
Please don't confuse the ability of someone to pay with the need to provide an appropriate reward for the producers/creators. I for one do not begrudge any person, group or company that develops a medical breakthrough that saves millions of lives. I want them to be rewarded to the extreme. Now, one *could* ask a different question, which is "what should society do?". It seems to me that the economics and the morality of the situation (a person with cancer is too poor to pay the $120) dictate that society should bear the cost of the pill in those instances. Nevertheless, I still want the people who developed the cure to be handsomely rewarded so that others will be motivated to do the hard, long and oftentimes fruitless research necessary to find the next cure for, say, heart disease.
I can answer that easily. NO Because there would be no incentive to do all that hard work and research.
How about asking each of the sites this simple question:
"Which is the best question answering site?"