Of course, one might argue that if you're reading Slashdot and spewing a lot of anti-Microsoft hatred, your sense of morality would prohibit you from accepting a paycheck from anyone who would see that as a problem. True, money is money, but from what I can gather, most people here feel passionately enough about this issue that they would hesitate to take any sort of job that would require them to hide their feelings about M$.
I suppose that's my litmus test - don't put something online that you wouldn't defend to the point of losing your job. If you'd openly stand by your decision to go into a NYC deli at 4 AM wearing nothing but a pink thong with a mini-pumpkin in the crotch, by all means, put the pics up on your MySpace page (true story, not mine - and yes, he does have a "respectable" job). If not, then it's probably not something you should be putting online.
Stand by your convictions until convicted for your stance...
The ironic part of all of this is that if the **AAs didn't have such tunnel vision, they would realize that on-demand is exactly what people want, and they could actually figure out a way to turn it into money.
Look at the music industry - iTunes was essentially the first place to legally download a decent selection of songs at any price, and it debuted in 2003 (albeit with an extremely limited selection at the time). My town was lucky enough to get cable modem access in 1998, but I think most places had it by at least 2000, which means that the technology and demand for online song downloading was around for 3-5 years before there were legal channels to do so. Now that it's out, I know that I often actually pay for songs, and iTunes is pretty successful, but they've essentially thrown away 5 years of profits by adapting so slowly to the technology.
As far as TV and movies go, there are still relatively few places to go to get stuff legally, despite the bandwidth having been available for at least six years! To ABC's credit, now if I want to watch Lost a couple days after I missed its airing I can go to iTunes or watch it on their website, but for most other shows, the only option is to find a Torrent that serves it up. This forces the consumer to get in the habit of piracy simply because there is no reliable alternative.
I'm not sure exactly what the networks make off of each ad-viewer that they get, but I can't imagine it's anywhere close to $1 per person per show. I know that I would personally be more than willing to shell out a dollar to watch something that I'm interested in when I want it. So why is there nowhere that I can spend said dollar to see the show at my convenience instead of the network's?
In my opinion, ABC's approach is better - not only can you watch what you want (again, within the extremely limited selection) when you want it, you have to sit through the limited ads (fewer than real TV), so the advertisers are guaranteed that they're not throwing money away. Is there some subtle problem with this business model that makes it unattractive to other networks, or are they really just such inflexible businesses that they can't imagine changing the way they do things? If it's the latter, then they are doomed to get what they deserve, which unfortunately seems to be precious little at the moment...listen to your customers, you idiots, it's the first rule of any business!
It certainly spells disaster for Sony if the people on Slashdot are rooting against their new system (you'd think we'd be the ones itching to shell out big bucks for the next hot thing!), and looking at the polls, Sony should be worried. However, I wonder whether we might be overstating the shortage of games?
An informal Google search revealed the following numbers of games available/expected to be available at console launch:
PS: 35/12 (? conflicting info ?)
Wii: 27 playable at E3
PS2: 26
XBox: 18
XBox 360: 18
GBA: 16
PS3: 15
Game Cube: 12
Nintendo DS: 6
Game Boy: 5
Sega Genesis: 5
SNES: 3
N64: 2
If the PS3 actually launches with 15 games, that puts it right about the middle of the pack. Of course, it will have fewer than any of the other systems of this generation, and that may be more important than a comparison to systems more than a decade old. Add to that the fact that they've offered what appears to be little more than a PS2++ (or should I say a (PS1++)++?), priced higher than a low-end desktop computer, and the overall picture is anything but rosy for Sony.
Come on, guys, at least give us some reason to prefer your box over the other guy's!
I'm not going to argue that for the majority of/. readers this article offers absolutely nothing they don't already know. But the fact is, once you leave the cozy confines of the IT world, your average business-person doesn't have a clue what a Wiki is or why anyone would use one. Since at least some businesses could probably gain quite a bit from this model of collaboration, I do applaud the intentions of the article, even if this isn't necessarily the correct audience to target.
That said, your average business person stops reading the moment they get to "Next, find the LocalSettings.php file in your wiki directory. Add the following lines: $wgGroupPermissions['*']['createaccount'] = false;..." A better way to word this would have been "Now go find those tech guys you keep in the basement and tell them you want a Wiki."
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, one might argue that if you're reading Slashdot and spewing a lot of anti-Microsoft hatred, your sense of morality would prohibit you from accepting a paycheck from anyone who would see that as a problem. True, money is money, but from what I can gather, most people here feel passionately enough about this issue that they would hesitate to take any sort of job that would require them to hide their feelings about M$.
I suppose that's my litmus test - don't put something online that you wouldn't defend to the point of losing your job. If you'd openly stand by your decision to go into a NYC deli at 4 AM wearing nothing but a pink thong with a mini-pumpkin in the crotch, by all means, put the pics up on your MySpace page (true story, not mine - and yes, he does have a "respectable" job). If not, then it's probably not something you should be putting online.
Stand by your convictions until convicted for your stance...
The ironic part of all of this is that if the **AAs didn't have such tunnel vision, they would realize that on-demand is exactly what people want, and they could actually figure out a way to turn it into money.
Look at the music industry - iTunes was essentially the first place to legally download a decent selection of songs at any price, and it debuted in 2003 (albeit with an extremely limited selection at the time). My town was lucky enough to get cable modem access in 1998, but I think most places had it by at least 2000, which means that the technology and demand for online song downloading was around for 3-5 years before there were legal channels to do so. Now that it's out, I know that I often actually pay for songs, and iTunes is pretty successful, but they've essentially thrown away 5 years of profits by adapting so slowly to the technology.
As far as TV and movies go, there are still relatively few places to go to get stuff legally, despite the bandwidth having been available for at least six years! To ABC's credit, now if I want to watch Lost a couple days after I missed its airing I can go to iTunes or watch it on their website, but for most other shows, the only option is to find a Torrent that serves it up. This forces the consumer to get in the habit of piracy simply because there is no reliable alternative.
I'm not sure exactly what the networks make off of each ad-viewer that they get, but I can't imagine it's anywhere close to $1 per person per show. I know that I would personally be more than willing to shell out a dollar to watch something that I'm interested in when I want it. So why is there nowhere that I can spend said dollar to see the show at my convenience instead of the network's?
In my opinion, ABC's approach is better - not only can you watch what you want (again, within the extremely limited selection) when you want it, you have to sit through the limited ads (fewer than real TV), so the advertisers are guaranteed that they're not throwing money away. Is there some subtle problem with this business model that makes it unattractive to other networks, or are they really just such inflexible businesses that they can't imagine changing the way they do things? If it's the latter, then they are doomed to get what they deserve, which unfortunately seems to be precious little at the moment...listen to your customers, you idiots, it's the first rule of any business!
An informal Google search revealed the following numbers of games available/expected to be available at console launch:
If the PS3 actually launches with 15 games, that puts it right about the middle of the pack. Of course, it will have fewer than any of the other systems of this generation, and that may be more important than a comparison to systems more than a decade old. Add to that the fact that they've offered what appears to be little more than a PS2++ (or should I say a (PS1++)++?), priced higher than a low-end desktop computer, and the overall picture is anything but rosy for Sony.
Come on, guys, at least give us some reason to prefer your box over the other guy's!
I'm not going to argue that for the majority of /. readers this article offers absolutely nothing they don't already know. But the fact is, once you leave the cozy confines of the IT world, your average business-person doesn't have a clue what a Wiki is or why anyone would use one. Since at least some businesses could probably gain quite a bit from this model of collaboration, I do applaud the intentions of the article, even if this isn't necessarily the correct audience to target.
That said, your average business person stops reading the moment they get to "Next, find the LocalSettings.php file in your wiki directory. Add the following lines: $wgGroupPermissions['*']['createaccount'] = false;..." A better way to word this would have been "Now go find those tech guys you keep in the basement and tell them you want a Wiki."
Just a thought.