And there are a hundred example of smaller organizations not working with larger ones, for the very same reason. Why is this newsworthy? The only flamebait here is this article.
I'm... blown away by this advertisement for Snapper. What makes this a SlashDot worthy article?
I used to be a professional writer. I pitched stories on two technology related startups (who will remain nameless so as to respect the editor's right of refusal) to SlashDot that were very relevant. The first was about an open iTunes publisher who puts your music up for sale for a flat fee (ties in with digital music rights, open source). The second was a new web based real estate company (that I'm the CEO of, but they knew that) built on 100 percent open source software, promoting affordable housing by taking a team approach with real estate purchases.
Now I'm fine with these kinds of stories being turned down, if SlashDot's policy is to avoid anything that might even be considered free advertising. They'll have to pass on some very relevant pieces, but that's the price you pay. Sure, a reasonable policy.
But after seeing this, I have no idea what to think. Maybe Jeff just loves their products. Maybe he liked the writing. We may never know. All I can say is: This piece was an advertisement, pure and simple.
I can see one application at these prices. Release the digital versions weeks or months prior to the DVD, and some people might bite.
There have been a couple of movies that did multi-format releases, with the movies hitting the big screen at the exact same time as the hit DVD. Imagine, if you will, something huge like Lord of the Rings comes out. The morning after it hits the big screen, you can download it, along with extra footage and the like. And when the full DVD comes out, they'll send it to you.
There might be a limited market for this. People don't like to wait. People with the kind of casual money to spend on things like this want the latest and greatest before anyone else gets their hands on it. This is one way to do that.
Some people seem to be wondering if this is just showing off, or are there short to medium term applications for this?
I think that one of the first, fairly simple applications for this is in the field of gate arrays. FPGA's, or field-programmable gate arrays, are cool devices that emulate strings of logic gates. They can be used in circuit design tasks, emulating loads on networks, and any number of geeky things.
FPGA's are often considered the ugly step sister to application-specific integrated circuits, or ASIC's. Why? Because they suck more power and they're slower. People still use FPGA's a lot of the time because they're more flexible, you can change them on the fly.
Now imagine an FPGA that's ultra-miniaturized, drawing almost no power, producing very little heat, and operating at amazing speeds. They need to perfect NAND or NOR gates, but once they have one of those, they can replicate them a billion times, and either of those gate types will be able to emulate every other logic gate, when placed in the right order.
That's one interesting application, on the pure logic level. So it might be an exciting time, depending on how quickly they can move this out of the lab. I love this stuff.
Slashdot Mirror
And there are a hundred example of smaller organizations not working with larger ones, for the very same reason. Why is this newsworthy? The only flamebait here is this article.
I'm... blown away by this advertisement for Snapper. What makes this a SlashDot worthy article? I used to be a professional writer. I pitched stories on two technology related startups (who will remain nameless so as to respect the editor's right of refusal) to SlashDot that were very relevant. The first was about an open iTunes publisher who puts your music up for sale for a flat fee (ties in with digital music rights, open source). The second was a new web based real estate company (that I'm the CEO of, but they knew that) built on 100 percent open source software, promoting affordable housing by taking a team approach with real estate purchases. Now I'm fine with these kinds of stories being turned down, if SlashDot's policy is to avoid anything that might even be considered free advertising. They'll have to pass on some very relevant pieces, but that's the price you pay. Sure, a reasonable policy. But after seeing this, I have no idea what to think. Maybe Jeff just loves their products. Maybe he liked the writing. We may never know. All I can say is: This piece was an advertisement, pure and simple.
I can see one application at these prices. Release the digital versions weeks or months prior to the DVD, and some people might bite.
There have been a couple of movies that did multi-format releases, with the movies hitting the big screen at the exact same time as the hit DVD. Imagine, if you will, something huge like Lord of the Rings comes out. The morning after it hits the big screen, you can download it, along with extra footage and the like. And when the full DVD comes out, they'll send it to you.
There might be a limited market for this. People don't like to wait. People with the kind of casual money to spend on things like this want the latest and greatest before anyone else gets their hands on it. This is one way to do that.
Some people seem to be wondering if this is just showing off, or are there short to medium term applications for this? I think that one of the first, fairly simple applications for this is in the field of gate arrays. FPGA's, or field-programmable gate arrays, are cool devices that emulate strings of logic gates. They can be used in circuit design tasks, emulating loads on networks, and any number of geeky things. FPGA's are often considered the ugly step sister to application-specific integrated circuits, or ASIC's. Why? Because they suck more power and they're slower. People still use FPGA's a lot of the time because they're more flexible, you can change them on the fly. Now imagine an FPGA that's ultra-miniaturized, drawing almost no power, producing very little heat, and operating at amazing speeds. They need to perfect NAND or NOR gates, but once they have one of those, they can replicate them a billion times, and either of those gate types will be able to emulate every other logic gate, when placed in the right order. That's one interesting application, on the pure logic level. So it might be an exciting time, depending on how quickly they can move this out of the lab. I love this stuff.