Now I've finally managed to read the full article, the email chain is pretty embarassing. When words like 'moron' start getting bandied about then the author has overstepped the bounds of professionalism IMO.
I think using pre-release samples is fair game as long as you mention early on it's a pre-release, mark the review a preview and do not under any cicumstances give it a final mark out of ten or whatever. Only production kit should get a normal review.
If they're making loads more, the unit cost will go down so they'll sort of save money on each battery. The same way wives 'save' you money buy buying $200 shoes for $180 but hey, gotta look for that silver lining.
Agree. Apple are extremely picky about who they'll give kit to for review. Their PR don't have the best reputation for being useful/responsive unless you're in their little book of favoured people - and it's a very small book.
If they're anything like 'Which' in the UK, I know what you mean. They have the right idea - buying the stuff themselves but usually come up with bizarre recommendations on stuff I know about making me seriously doubt their reviews on stuff I'm clueless about. When it came to computers or most techy toys/hiFi etc. I could usually find half a dozen or more errors in each review, table of features etc. making the conclusions laughable.
Disagree. I've worked for bad editors (try and say something nice, anything, we're carrying some ads for them next month) and good ones (say it like it is and if advertising dept call, hang up. Editorial never talk to advertising, it's unethical).
That said, I'm not sure I'd have carried this as a story if I were in the same boat, I'd just write them off as a supplier of review product and more fool them.
The fact they've been slashdotted into 'web server down for maintenance' I suspect they're starting to regret it a bit now.
It doesn't happen now AFAIK but a few years ago graphics card manufacturers got caught out with drivers optomised for the current crop of benchmark programs - their real world performance was worse than benchmarks implied.
Not true. I've given very poor reviews of kit and the manufacturer still supplies me with new product to evaluate. I've never had the 'Alienware' problem myself. The only thing like this is if the review is for a magazine/website that the PR company or supplier may think doesn't have enough clout in which case you'll get the 'sure, it's in the post' line and no amount of chasing will make anything actually turn up.
One thing I would add though and this is purely anecdotal, I work within the UK market and there, it is an often repeated statement that US magazines can have very different standards for reviews and often print what the manufacturers give them to print rather than writing the copy themselves. No idea if it's true or not.
>When you have a review site, do you get to KEEP the hardware?
Depends on the supplier, some do, some don't. Also on the value of the item. It's not uncommon too to offer special 'journalist price' on items. Software either comes on review copies (rare), in boxes marked with 'not for resale' or just standard off the shelf copies.
>I bought a house on a hill. I drive a fuel efficient car.
How much energy must you waste climbing that hill everytime? Sheesh, some people are so selfish..
Seriously, you cite some good things there. It's down to all of us to start doing our own bit to make a difference and you've made a fine start, sir.
I think he was being ironic i.e. "terrorists hate our freedoms", "Bush has helped us fight terrorists" with the unsaid obvious conclusion being "by removing our freedoms"
The worrying thing is, you're probably not that far wrong, Bush et al are probably convinced God is turning up before things get too bad climate wise. Lets hope (insert mythical deity here) turns up real soon then.
>As far as the UK is concerned, the weather would actually get warmer there
Eh? The melting polar cap stops the Gulf Stream elevator dead. That's what keeps UK and other areas as warm as they are. If it stops then the temperature will drop pretty damned quickly to the same levels as Northern Russia.
>uncertain climate science
Actually, no. As An Inconvenient truth points out, out of 900+ reports on global warming, the number of scientists that disagree with the issue and the number of reports that find their are uncertainties is 0%. On the other hand, it goes on to show that the number of news articles in the media that claim doubt is well over 50% (63% from memory but don't quote me on that). It then moves on to a US govt official (now resigned) who had deliberately edited documents to add uncertainty to help confuse the public and help them continue to avoid the issue. It compares and contrasts with 1950's smoking adverts "most doctors smoke Camel brand' and the Tobacco industry leaked documents where they state they are deliberatly trying to add uncertainty to the mix to stop people giving up smoking. Basically, the politicos have no apatite for stopping people doing what they like to do i.e. waste energy, drive big cars etc. and they're trying to sow doubt to put off them having to force the issue during their tenure.
To be fair, An Inconvenient Truth (should be compulsive viewing for everybody, especially politicians) does finish with some stuff about what you can do but it's sorta hidden in the closing titles - they cite a web address to go to. Not much but hey, it's a bit more substantial that 'change your habits'.
I talked to an old friend recently who works in the music industry. He both plays in a band, runs a studio and does A&R. He's always been extremely anti downloading music and we've crossed swords on this a few times as for *me*, the ability to sample huge amounts of music has resulted in me actually buying considerably more CDs.
We had a chat about how in the good old days a band could have maybe 3 or 4 albums before they started to get it together, the label would support them as they grew and matured. The few mega bands, the likes of the Beatles, U2 etc all earned so much money for a label, they allowed them to prop up the other 90% of their roster that lost money. Record companies made money, bands thrived, everyone was happy.
These days an artist gets maybe two singles or an album out the door and if they're not hits (and big hits at that) then they're dropped. Why? Seems the bands that make big money no longer do so. If the price of a CD (or vinyl) since 1980 kept up with inflation, wages etc they should be almost 4 times higher than they are now so the big bands are making the label one quarter of what they were. Thus, less money to support the up and coming ones. A&R is all but a memory for many of them.
On top of that, we have all got used to polished sound so studio time and costs grew to ridiculous levels, again eating in to the bottom line. I read that Heaven 17 only just broke even on their 1982 album last year. Result is that many of the big studios are shutting down as they can't cover costs with production moving to purely PC based setups in many cases.
Music downloads make it even worse as the amount of money everyone gets from a (legit) download is less than from a CD.
It's a bad state but TBH, whilst it means big record labels, studios etc are all falling by the wayside, the alternative model of bands doing their own thing, selling via web sites etc is really taking off, as is live performance. I guess we're seeing a shift away from the 'music industry' back to the musicians. The EMI's of the world see the writing on the wall so are fighting for survival hence the heavy handed tactics. I can't see how they can avoid it now though, the Genie is out the bottle and the power has shifted. Good or bad? I can't say myself.
OTOH if NASA didn't have to do everything on the cheap, the astronauts would hopefully be at less risk every time they go up. Heck, it seems more dangerous now that it was in the 60's.
The whole SP thing is a throwback to the bad old days of 28.8k modems and CDs by post. Now we can add the fixes as they come along so why bother with a monolithic chunk of code that must be a testing nightmare for MS as well as corporate end users?
The only thing I can see that will be missed is that SPs often slipped in a new feature or two but no doubt someone somewhere thought it would be good business to stop that and insist people plonk down the $ for Vista. As per usual with suits, that's short term thinking. If you're being obliged to do a full OS upgrade you may as well consider other options like Linux.
I log 7 stories including stuff like Sony forcing games mega hard/software site lik-sang offline, a team developing a cloak of invisibility etc. and they all get rejected. And this gets accepted. WTF!?!?!?!?!
Exactly and starting censorshop is a slippery slope - where do you stop? Almost every country, individual or group will have something that they take offense to. You can't please everybody and trying to do so is only going to cause a problem to pop up somewhere else
Oblig. joke: And I for one welcome our Google non-censoring overlords.
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Now I've finally managed to read the full article, the email chain is pretty embarassing. When words like 'moron' start getting bandied about then the author has overstepped the bounds of professionalism IMO.
I think using pre-release samples is fair game as long as you mention early on it's a pre-release, mark the review a preview and do not under any cicumstances give it a final mark out of ten or whatever. Only production kit should get a normal review.
If they're making loads more, the unit cost will go down so they'll sort of save money on each battery. The same way wives 'save' you money buy buying $200 shoes for $180 but hey, gotta look for that silver lining.
Agree. Apple are extremely picky about who they'll give kit to for review. Their PR don't have the best reputation for being useful/responsive unless you're in their little book of favoured people - and it's a very small book.
If they're anything like 'Which' in the UK, I know what you mean. They have the right idea - buying the stuff themselves but usually come up with bizarre recommendations on stuff I know about making me seriously doubt their reviews on stuff I'm clueless about. When it came to computers or most techy toys/hiFi etc. I could usually find half a dozen or more errors in each review, table of features etc. making the conclusions laughable.
Disagree. I've worked for bad editors (try and say something nice, anything, we're carrying some ads for them next month) and good ones (say it like it is and if advertising dept call, hang up. Editorial never talk to advertising, it's unethical).
That said, I'm not sure I'd have carried this as a story if I were in the same boat, I'd just write them off as a supplier of review product and more fool them.
The fact they've been slashdotted into 'web server down for maintenance' I suspect they're starting to regret it a bit now.
It doesn't happen now AFAIK but a few years ago graphics card manufacturers got caught out with drivers optomised for the current crop of benchmark programs - their real world performance was worse than benchmarks implied.
Not true. I've given very poor reviews of kit and the manufacturer still supplies me with new product to evaluate. I've never had the 'Alienware' problem myself. The only thing like this is if the review is for a magazine/website that the PR company or supplier may think doesn't have enough clout in which case you'll get the 'sure, it's in the post' line and no amount of chasing will make anything actually turn up.
One thing I would add though and this is purely anecdotal, I work within the UK market and there, it is an often repeated statement that US magazines can have very different standards for reviews and often print what the manufacturers give them to print rather than writing the copy themselves. No idea if it's true or not.
>When you have a review site, do you get to KEEP the hardware?
Depends on the supplier, some do, some don't. Also on the value of the item. It's not uncommon too to offer special 'journalist price' on items. Software either comes on review copies (rare), in boxes marked with 'not for resale' or just standard off the shelf copies.
Urban Myth is a bit strong but an interesting article thanks.
>I bought a house on a hill. I drive a fuel efficient car.
How much energy must you waste climbing that hill everytime? Sheesh, some people are so selfish..
Seriously, you cite some good things there. It's down to all of us to start doing our own bit to make a difference and you've made a fine start, sir.
>2.) No device shall be allowed to have a 'stand-by' mode.
EU legislation on the way to do just that.
I think he was being ironic i.e. "terrorists hate our freedoms", "Bush has helped us fight terrorists" with the unsaid obvious conclusion being "by removing our freedoms"
>tax children.
We're certainly getting to the point where we might need to start limiting families to 1 child.
The worrying thing is, you're probably not that far wrong, Bush et al are probably convinced God is turning up before things get too bad climate wise. Lets hope (insert mythical deity here) turns up real soon then.
>As far as the UK is concerned, the weather would actually get warmer there
Eh? The melting polar cap stops the Gulf Stream elevator dead. That's what keeps UK and other areas as warm as they are. If it stops then the temperature will drop pretty damned quickly to the same levels as Northern Russia.
>uncertain climate science
Actually, no. As An Inconvenient truth points out, out of 900+ reports on global warming, the number of scientists that disagree with the issue and the number of reports that find their are uncertainties is 0%. On the other hand, it goes on to show that the number of news articles in the media that claim doubt is well over 50% (63% from memory but don't quote me on that). It then moves on to a US govt official (now resigned) who had deliberately edited documents to add uncertainty to help confuse the public and help them continue to avoid the issue. It compares and contrasts with 1950's smoking adverts "most doctors smoke Camel brand' and the Tobacco industry leaked documents where they state they are deliberatly trying to add uncertainty to the mix to stop people giving up smoking. Basically, the politicos have no apatite for stopping people doing what they like to do i.e. waste energy, drive big cars etc. and they're trying to sow doubt to put off them having to force the issue during their tenure.
To be fair, An Inconvenient Truth (should be compulsive viewing for everybody, especially politicians) does finish with some stuff about what you can do but it's sorta hidden in the closing titles - they cite a web address to go to. Not much but hey, it's a bit more substantial that 'change your habits'.
I talked to an old friend recently who works in the music industry. He both plays in a band, runs a studio and does A&R. He's always been extremely anti downloading music and we've crossed swords on this a few times as for *me*, the ability to sample huge amounts of music has resulted in me actually buying considerably more CDs.
We had a chat about how in the good old days a band could have maybe 3 or 4 albums before they started to get it together, the label would support them as they grew and matured. The few mega bands, the likes of the Beatles, U2 etc all earned so much money for a label, they allowed them to prop up the other 90% of their roster that lost money. Record companies made money, bands thrived, everyone was happy.
These days an artist gets maybe two singles or an album out the door and if they're not hits (and big hits at that) then they're dropped. Why? Seems the bands that make big money no longer do so. If the price of a CD (or vinyl) since 1980 kept up with inflation, wages etc they should be almost 4 times higher than they are now so the big bands are making the label one quarter of what they were. Thus, less money to support the up and coming ones. A&R is all but a memory for many of them.
On top of that, we have all got used to polished sound so studio time and costs grew to ridiculous levels, again eating in to the bottom line. I read that Heaven 17 only just broke even on their 1982 album last year. Result is that many of the big studios are shutting down as they can't cover costs with production moving to purely PC based setups in many cases.
Music downloads make it even worse as the amount of money everyone gets from a (legit) download is less than from a CD.
It's a bad state but TBH, whilst it means big record labels, studios etc are all falling by the wayside, the alternative model of bands doing their own thing, selling via web sites etc is really taking off, as is live performance. I guess we're seeing a shift away from the 'music industry' back to the musicians. The EMI's of the world see the writing on the wall so are fighting for survival hence the heavy handed tactics. I can't see how they can avoid it now though, the Genie is out the bottle and the power has shifted. Good or bad? I can't say myself.
Lik-Sang's own site (www.lik-sang.com) for one and http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6064620.stm for the invisibility cloak (it's no as exciting as it sounds alas).
OTOH if NASA didn't have to do everything on the cheap, the astronauts would hopefully be at less risk every time they go up. Heck, it seems more dangerous now that it was in the 60's.
Yup, I'll give you that one, shoots down my argument nicely.
The whole SP thing is a throwback to the bad old days of 28.8k modems and CDs by post. Now we can add the fixes as they come along so why bother with a monolithic chunk of code that must be a testing nightmare for MS as well as corporate end users?
The only thing I can see that will be missed is that SPs often slipped in a new feature or two but no doubt someone somewhere thought it would be good business to stop that and insist people plonk down the $ for Vista. As per usual with suits, that's short term thinking. If you're being obliged to do a full OS upgrade you may as well consider other options like Linux.
I log 7 stories including stuff like Sony forcing games mega hard/software site lik-sang offline, a team developing a cloak of invisibility etc. and they all get rejected. And this gets accepted. WTF!?!?!?!?!
Exactly and starting censorshop is a slippery slope - where do you stop? Almost every country, individual or group will have something that they take offense to. You can't please everybody and trying to do so is only going to cause a problem to pop up somewhere else
Oblig. joke: And I for one welcome our Google non-censoring overlords.