Game makers face the exact same problem. There is no one-size-fits-all answer, nor was I attempting to offer one. You asked for an alternative and I shared it. Some studios do put 5 to 10 minutes of a movie up to watch. Wall-E and Speed Racer come to mind. This isn't some idea I'm claiming to have invented.
I'll pose a couple of questions for you to think about:
1. How many DVDs have you purchased of movies you've seen before? 2. How many "Directors Cuts" have you purchased or at least been interested in?
If not, that may even be more exciting as it may provide support for the idea that the creation of life may not be an exceedingly rare event.
I wouldn't get too excited about that last bit. We need proof that life can originate in an environment commonly found on other planets. Right now all we're finding is that some life on an ecologically rich and abundant planet can evolve into a hostile environment. To use a poor metaphor: There's a difference between us breathing this atmosphere and putting on a scuba tank and going underwater.
So we don't raise our pitchforks a thousand times a day over a vague dictionary definition.
Don't mod my post down or I'll submit a story about how people shouldn't stand for your censorship even though submitted it full well knowing how this place works!!
With your second comment, are you suggesting that the policies about Apple's App Store and what an Iphone can't do unless jailbroken and so on are simply made up?
No. I'm suggesting that some of the people bitching about Apple's policies aren't smart enough to stay within the bounds of what they actually know about. We all know, for example, you're not going to get an alternative email app for the iPhone. Perfect thing to bitch about. And... no, twice I saw somebody modded up a day or two ago for saying that you need iTunes to install an app. Amusingly these are the same sorts that like to use the term 'Reality Distortion Field'.
My sources for these claims are Apple users themselves - who insist that it's a good thing that their phone is locked down like this.
I consider this seperate from my post, but I wanted to comment on it anyway. Maybe I can shed a little light on it. I've had numerous mobile devices since.. oh... 98 or so. Pocket PC's, Palm Pilots, a Zaurus, you name it. You would think with all the babble here that there aren't any interesting apps on the iPhone. Now, I don't know the sole reason why, but this is comically untrue. The iPhone, by a long shot, has been far better supported software-wise than say my Pocket PC's or Treo. (I have not had an Android device, let's be real clear about that.) I'm resigned to the fact that I'm not replacing the browser, email client, etc, because Apple won't allow that. In exchange, I'm getting MUCH better games support. For whatever reason, maybe it's the number of iPhones out there, maybe it's the number of people paying for apps, I dunno, but the game market on the iPhone is sooooo much bigger than it was on the other devices. I can get Chinatown Wars on the iPhone. I'm not saying it's never happened, but this is the first time I have seen a major game company release a major title on the iPhone. For all of Apple's restrictions, the diversity of the software is well above what I've seen in Windows Mobile or Palm Pilot land.
On top of the software support, Apple has also made it very easy to find, pay for, and install apps. Before it was a research project to find an app that does something. Today it's something I do while I'm waiting for a coffee at Starbucks. That's one of the benefits of having a centralized place to get software tied into a rating system. Otherwise I would have been browsing the web on a slow cellular connection using a shitty browser to try to find that app.
Here are a couple of cases where at least it seems like I'm benefiting from Apple's policies. The things I would have normally complained about (like the lack alternative browsers) haven't, in reality, been an issue. And that's the key difference. It's easy to use terms like "Reality Distortion Field" and imagine that we all follow our lord and master Steve Jobs, but the reality is we actually have the phones and it's working out, as opposed to the other dudes out there who are arguing it academically. Suddenly their world revolves around having Flash but in my world, except for wanting Hulu on my phone, it hasn't been an issue. Silliness. But... I can't say I've never behaved like that. I've said all kinds of silly things about Linux even though I've never used it on my desktop.:D
FUCK THIS SHIT, and fuck all the Apple astroturfers like Paska just below.
Blame the haters, too. 670+ comments in the last 5 iPhone/iPad related stories. 1,470 if you go back only two more. Slashdot is ad driven and ads are served even if you post just to complain.
It reminds me of a friend I had that'd corner people in their cubicles and endlessly complain about how he never had time to get any work done.
Exactly. You can sell Ice to Eskimo's. You just need to value add! Look! Yellow snowcones. What?!? It's lemon!
If Apple sold lemonade-flavored snow cones, here is how Slashdot would react:
"Oh please, people have been making yellow snow cones for years!"
"You can't eat with unless you have a special cup for it! (Well I don't know if that's actually true but it sounds plausible!)"
"I've never tried one, but I know they're not actually sweet! Steve Jobs just told them to like it! Sugar is just a marketing term they made up."
"If you go to the Kwik-E-Mart you can get other flavors, too. If you look hard enough, you can even buy them from your neighbor's kids from their stand down the street! They don't taste as good, the quality is not as consistent, and the coloring will run down your sleeve, but you have choice!"
"Heaps and heaps of people only by them so they can show off their yellow mustaches!"
Good thing they have had the ability to run Opera or any other browser they wanted then.
You weren't going to run Opera back then. Also, Microsoft restricted development on that OS. One of the BFDs about version 3 or 4 was that access was granted to bits of the OS that weren't available before. That's what the Zaurus was a big deal to Slashdot.
In principal it sounds all nice and dandy. In reality it was a joke.
Incidentally, I can't read, write, swim, drive or ride a bicycle. I assume none of those things is any good.
Yes because simple splicing of video clips in the 21st Century requires just as much effort to learn as riding a bicycle, swimming, driving, writing, or walking.
It's actually quite funny to see how similar and in some aspects even better it is (and for a product 12 years ago!). Apart from the obvious (larger price and more weight), the older product actually has 12-16 hour life compared to iPad's 8 hour life. There's also dial-up modem (remember how bulky those were?), more apps, syncing software, and multitasking. 640x480 resolution and touch display.
You would be far less impressed if you remembered what Windows CE, its multi-tasking, and its apps were like back then. You would wince (har har) even more if you remembered what LCD displays were like back then.
Windows CE, especially the 2x series, was half-assed and its apps would not impress you. Part of the problem is that internet wasn't ubiquitous like it is today. That's not the 98 tablet's fault. There's most of the usefulness of the tablet gone right there. Windows CE could multitask, but the apps didn't even have a close button! Basically you just used apps until it croaked and you had to reset it. If you guys thought Windows 95 was bad... hah. Try to imagine that without the Start Bar.
Oh yeah, forget about going to a web page and installing an app from it. You couldn't even do that on PocketPC successors years later. I'm not even certain they ever got around to supporting it with Windows Mobile. You had to download an app on your Windows machine, run the installer, then run ActiveSync to get the app going on your CE device. Make sure to know what sort of processor your machine uses, btw, so you know which one to install.
Forget using the net on it. Even if you did manage to somehow jam a cable into it and get it on the net, Internet Explorer on Windows CE was a joke then and it almost certainly wouldn't work now. No wonder the thing had good battery life, no wireless or video playback to drain it!
The LCD displays would drive you mad. They had no useful black level. They ghosted. They were desaturated. They'd flicker like mad if you touched them. You could technically 'touch' them but you wouldn't have the gestures that you do today. Even if you did, things would ghost so bad that you'd spend a good deal of your time scrolling to find a landmark. You can forget about watching video on it.
Your definition of 'better' only works if you really really really oversimplify the bullet points. The fact is if somebody handed you the Courier then handed you an iPad, the iPad is the one you'd find an actual use for. Probably more than one simply for the reason that it has a built in wireless connection.
Pretty awesome for a product in the 1998, considering it even beats iPad at some aspects.
Microsoft got its ass handed to them by the much simpler Palm Pilot back then. That should give you an idea of how 'awesome' it was to have all those features of multi-tasking, installing any app you want on it, and so on. Ultimately these things sell by what people envision themselves doing with them, not by their ingredients.
If you call that "a great deal more experience expressing themselves in text" then I quit right now.
How dramatic.
Welp, to each is own, but I can happily say that the peeps I've been working with in their 20's to 30's communicate effectively enough via IM that I don't have to go physically talk to them all that often. Not bad considering I work in a visual industry.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh who cares, really? It's all about diversity. If we do less technological R&D, we have less technology.
I for one welcome our Autobot overlords.
It was the Decepticons that flew. Yeesh.
Wow. Overzealous Slashdot babble may have actually done some good for a change. I feel stupid for bitching about it.
Game makers face the exact same problem. There is no one-size-fits-all answer, nor was I attempting to offer one. You asked for an alternative and I shared it. Some studios do put 5 to 10 minutes of a movie up to watch. Wall-E and Speed Racer come to mind. This isn't some idea I'm claiming to have invented.
I'll pose a couple of questions for you to think about:
1. How many DVDs have you purchased of movies you've seen before?
2. How many "Directors Cuts" have you purchased or at least been interested in?
An actual short edit of a film instead of a two minute segment edited to mislead you into being excited to see it.
Not really. I mean, the Episode I trailer was entertaining....
> On /. we prefer the word pirated. Thanks for understanding.
^^ Ha ha I stole your text, now you can't use it!!
If not, that may even be more exciting as it may provide support for the idea that the creation of life may not be an exceedingly rare event.
I wouldn't get too excited about that last bit. We need proof that life can originate in an environment commonly found on other planets. Right now all we're finding is that some life on an ecologically rich and abundant planet can evolve into a hostile environment. To use a poor metaphor: There's a difference between us breathing this atmosphere and putting on a scuba tank and going underwater.
Why argue?
So we don't raise our pitchforks a thousand times a day over a vague dictionary definition.
Don't mod my post down or I'll submit a story about how people shouldn't stand for your censorship even though submitted it full well knowing how this place works!!
"Whether or not you agree with Fiore's political sentiments, I believe we can all agree that the censorship of his work should be denigrated."
The righteous never think that what they say is propaganda.
With your second comment, are you suggesting that the policies about Apple's App Store and what an Iphone can't do unless jailbroken and so on are simply made up?
No. I'm suggesting that some of the people bitching about Apple's policies aren't smart enough to stay within the bounds of what they actually know about. We all know, for example, you're not going to get an alternative email app for the iPhone. Perfect thing to bitch about. And... no, twice I saw somebody modded up a day or two ago for saying that you need iTunes to install an app. Amusingly these are the same sorts that like to use the term 'Reality Distortion Field'.
My sources for these claims are Apple users themselves - who insist that it's a good thing that their phone is locked down like this.
I consider this seperate from my post, but I wanted to comment on it anyway. Maybe I can shed a little light on it. I've had numerous mobile devices since.. oh... 98 or so. Pocket PC's, Palm Pilots, a Zaurus, you name it. You would think with all the babble here that there aren't any interesting apps on the iPhone. Now, I don't know the sole reason why, but this is comically untrue. The iPhone, by a long shot, has been far better supported software-wise than say my Pocket PC's or Treo. (I have not had an Android device, let's be real clear about that.) I'm resigned to the fact that I'm not replacing the browser, email client, etc, because Apple won't allow that. In exchange, I'm getting MUCH better games support. For whatever reason, maybe it's the number of iPhones out there, maybe it's the number of people paying for apps, I dunno, but the game market on the iPhone is sooooo much bigger than it was on the other devices. I can get Chinatown Wars on the iPhone. I'm not saying it's never happened, but this is the first time I have seen a major game company release a major title on the iPhone. For all of Apple's restrictions, the diversity of the software is well above what I've seen in Windows Mobile or Palm Pilot land.
On top of the software support, Apple has also made it very easy to find, pay for, and install apps. Before it was a research project to find an app that does something. Today it's something I do while I'm waiting for a coffee at Starbucks. That's one of the benefits of having a centralized place to get software tied into a rating system. Otherwise I would have been browsing the web on a slow cellular connection using a shitty browser to try to find that app.
Here are a couple of cases where at least it seems like I'm benefiting from Apple's policies. The things I would have normally complained about (like the lack alternative browsers) haven't, in reality, been an issue. And that's the key difference. It's easy to use terms like "Reality Distortion Field" and imagine that we all follow our lord and master Steve Jobs, but the reality is we actually have the phones and it's working out, as opposed to the other dudes out there who are arguing it academically. Suddenly their world revolves around having Flash but in my world, except for wanting Hulu on my phone, it hasn't been an issue. Silliness. But... I can't say I've never behaved like that. I've said all kinds of silly things about Linux even though I've never used it on my desktop. :D
FUCK THIS SHIT, and fuck all the Apple astroturfers like Paska just below.
Blame the haters, too. 670+ comments in the last 5 iPhone/iPad related stories. 1,470 if you go back only two more. Slashdot is ad driven and ads are served even if you post just to complain.
It reminds me of a friend I had that'd corner people in their cubicles and endlessly complain about how he never had time to get any work done.
Mobile phones and computers are sold over many millions a day.
Dell sells 365 million laptops a year?!
Exactly. You can sell Ice to Eskimo's. You just need to value add! Look! Yellow snowcones. What?!? It's lemon!
If Apple sold lemonade-flavored snow cones, here is how Slashdot would react:
"Oh please, people have been making yellow snow cones for years!"
"You can't eat with unless you have a special cup for it! (Well I don't know if that's actually true but it sounds plausible!)"
"I've never tried one, but I know they're not actually sweet! Steve Jobs just told them to like it! Sugar is just a marketing term they made up."
"If you go to the Kwik-E-Mart you can get other flavors, too. If you look hard enough, you can even buy them from your neighbor's kids from their stand down the street! They don't taste as good, the quality is not as consistent, and the coloring will run down your sleeve, but you have choice!"
"Heaps and heaps of people only by them so they can show off their yellow mustaches!"
... etc.
They've been doing these things for years.
Not until years after this device was released.
Good thing they have had the ability to run Opera or any other browser they wanted then.
You weren't going to run Opera back then. Also, Microsoft restricted development on that OS. One of the BFDs about version 3 or 4 was that access was granted to bits of the OS that weren't available before. That's what the Zaurus was a big deal to Slashdot.
In principal it sounds all nice and dandy. In reality it was a joke.
Incidentally, I can't read, write, swim, drive or ride a bicycle. I assume none of those things is any good.
Yes because simple splicing of video clips in the 21st Century requires just as much effort to learn as riding a bicycle, swimming, driving, writing, or walking.
Gotta love how users get blamed for lame UI's.
It's actually quite funny to see how similar and in some aspects even better it is (and for a product 12 years ago!). Apart from the obvious (larger price and more weight), the older product actually has 12-16 hour life compared to iPad's 8 hour life. There's also dial-up modem (remember how bulky those were?), more apps, syncing software, and multitasking. 640x480 resolution and touch display.
You would be far less impressed if you remembered what Windows CE, its multi-tasking, and its apps were like back then. You would wince (har har) even more if you remembered what LCD displays were like back then.
Windows CE, especially the 2x series, was half-assed and its apps would not impress you. Part of the problem is that internet wasn't ubiquitous like it is today. That's not the 98 tablet's fault. There's most of the usefulness of the tablet gone right there. Windows CE could multitask, but the apps didn't even have a close button! Basically you just used apps until it croaked and you had to reset it. If you guys thought Windows 95 was bad... hah. Try to imagine that without the Start Bar.
Oh yeah, forget about going to a web page and installing an app from it. You couldn't even do that on PocketPC successors years later. I'm not even certain they ever got around to supporting it with Windows Mobile. You had to download an app on your Windows machine, run the installer, then run ActiveSync to get the app going on your CE device. Make sure to know what sort of processor your machine uses, btw, so you know which one to install.
Forget using the net on it. Even if you did manage to somehow jam a cable into it and get it on the net, Internet Explorer on Windows CE was a joke then and it almost certainly wouldn't work now. No wonder the thing had good battery life, no wireless or video playback to drain it!
The LCD displays would drive you mad. They had no useful black level. They ghosted. They were desaturated. They'd flicker like mad if you touched them. You could technically 'touch' them but you wouldn't have the gestures that you do today. Even if you did, things would ghost so bad that you'd spend a good deal of your time scrolling to find a landmark. You can forget about watching video on it.
Your definition of 'better' only works if you really really really oversimplify the bullet points. The fact is if somebody handed you the Courier then handed you an iPad, the iPad is the one you'd find an actual use for. Probably more than one simply for the reason that it has a built in wireless connection.
Pretty awesome for a product in the 1998, considering it even beats iPad at some aspects.
Microsoft got its ass handed to them by the much simpler Palm Pilot back then. That should give you an idea of how 'awesome' it was to have all those features of multi-tasking, installing any app you want on it, and so on. Ultimately these things sell by what people envision themselves doing with them, not by their ingredients.
That is partly because the people who hate the iPad won't shut up about it, either. Lotsa ads getting served all over the place.
Does the phrase 'history is written by the victors' mean anything to you?
This marks the first time I've heard anybody put forth the argument that racism breeds diversity.
Who is Wonder? You mean Stevie?
If you call that "a great deal more experience expressing themselves in text" then I quit right now.
How dramatic.
Welp, to each is own, but I can happily say that the peeps I've been working with in their 20's to 30's communicate effectively enough via IM that I don't have to go physically talk to them all that often. Not bad considering I work in a visual industry.
Slashdot hates Flash.
We hate Flash until we can use it against Apple.
It's not the rationale, it's the thoughtless parrot-like behaviour regarding the iPhone.
Yeah, because we all know that numbers sold stand in direct correlation to quality..
When you're marketing a software platform the number of people that adopt it is an aspect of it's 'quality'.
(Just to be sure, let me point out that Windows sells a lot more units than Mac OS. Do the math.)
See above.