Maybe they don't care at all about deployment of Vista.
We harp on MS a lot, but they ARE clever in certain ways. Suppose someone is thinking Big Picture in some kind of twisted sense. They can play a variant of GoodGuy/BadGuy by having a "Sacrificial OS" every 8 years. They're somehow getting us to pay for their beta testing. They HAD to get Vista out, period, and rely on their patented brand of bluster to get through it. They were getting serious heat from inactivity. I bet someone got utterly crushed when they had to switch codebases during that dev setback.
I barely heard of Win Me - consecutive tips told me to get Win2000, which lasted me through 2.5 OS changes from MS. Then in the early days, I saw a lovely crash&burn act on XP *SP2* until everyone repaired their firmware. I even had some flash devices that I had to return until the factory shipped ones with newer firmware.
Now XP is their heavy duty workhorse while they experiment with their new codebase. Suppose just for a moment that Vista NEVER works... but what they learned from Vista SP1 gets applied to Windows 7 (anyone got a codename yet?). Then maybe by 2010 all the results of history on the media scene will be in, maybe they will back off from DRM, and take some other focus. If they don't screw it up, Vista will be that smile in techie's forums, Windows 7 will be the new 8 year workhorse, and off we go ever after.
Having cash flow the size of a country must be fun.
Is it possible TheMCP even figured out the source of an answer above?
Maybe the IT Admin does have a metric - Lost Costs Avoided.
Starting especially with low-level user nuisances... instead of funneling "Mgt is mean", log both the original user request, its resolution, and... rate it on a value scale. Nuisance class fixes "improve overall staff effectiveness". So - install the Java update for them, get that weird anti-virus directory error to go away, find someone's lost file. The value provided is something like the number of times the user doesn't have to deal with the nuisance (that AV error on bootup), multiplied by the time they lose *stewing about it* (politely: disrupting their workflow concentration).
If your project log contains some 100 of these a month, that's 100 cases of someone not staring at the screen (or talking at the office fridge) about the glitch.
For higher level fixes, estimate the lost productivity when the major data server goes down, and then use a cost-prevented calculation to show you got it back up in 2 hours instead of five.
Don't forget the delicious language. Instead of the legendary "syntax error", we now get a "catastrophic failure". Do it yourself FUD!
(Scene at office) ComputerGuy: "Sure, let's open that with GoogleApps." Colleague: "Why am I getting a catastrophic failure? Maybe I better use Excel."
We all rail at Microsoft and possibly Apple for their Monolith approach to certain things. One famous argument with at least a few grains of truth is that "eight-ish distros confuse potential new users". They certainly confuse me, and I'm even expecting a certain amount of roller-coaster riding.
The previous poster may be right that if forced to choose ONE desktop, we would have... none at all because of the disagreements. But maybe two of everything is just the right balance for a lot of areas. Two desktops - one ultra-protective of new users, one *promoted* as more advanced that the new user can glance at and think "maybe I can use that next year".
We might be there with the Office apps - some combo of Open Office and your choice of Google Apps or whichever other one eventually becomes emergent. In Browser-land, it might also be there - Firefox/IceWeasel and Opera.
We absolutely have to have a distro that nearly everyone wants to stand behind to present to work environments. I'm absolutely for the experimentation bit at home, but for work, business schools have been teaching standardization for some 60 years now. Apparently Dell thought about this and chose uBuntu. Take your pick of your favorite Newbie-Friendly second distro. Then mark all the others as "For specific purposes" and I think the public will get that. I have a copy of u. Drake that looks benign enough.
I see the suggestion for folks wanting pure GUI to go to OSX. However, I have this Animal Farm premonition of Apple's lock-in being just as bad as Microsoft's at some point. "Then one day, we could not tell the difference".
I think there are ways to let users know that the best raw power lives in the command line, but they need not ever use it if they don't wish to.
The last few days he has put in a ton of work with a big spread of news. I could be wrong, but it seems like this year the RIAA monolith is starting to crack, just a little.
Wasn't it also Universal who was just trumpeting how they'd do a trial period of DRM-Free (or something?) files to test sales?
Now suppose they do some fancy version of ad-injection that people hate... so they tried to Astroturf how great their files were, hoping that someone missed this new development?
Then when the Tech sites get the story out, they whine to judges that they removed DRM and their sales went down?
Except sometimes they even KNOW the policy is trashing productivity, but someone at a senior buying level "enjoys" playing power games with office supplies.
My answer: sometimes it pays just to buy some things yourself. I got my first experiences as a temporary worker just to get into the work world. Some company tried to pawn off a broken adding machine on me. I asked nicely to get a newer one, and was turned down. (These things are only $30 each.)
I shrugged, and dug into my supply of interesting objects. Out came a 1970's Monroe electro-mechanical model I had named the Big Brown Beast and kept as a joke. Hitting a key sounded like a train track switching.
Of course, they were not amused. I, however, was.
"That thing makes a racket! Can you get it out of here?" "I'm sorry, I don't understand your question. I need an adding machine to run tapes. The one you gave me is broken. I brought in my own. Would you like to give me a new adding machine now?"
Half of the discussion was "fine as it went" when it was talking about customer eyeballs. But I am getting NO benefit from excessive CPU hogging when reading a *text file*!
I have a particular class of older Dell machine at work from the end of the old NetBurst era. Those machines started quiet, but when one of these ads comes on, the fan kicks in and sounds like an aircraft taking off. Then I'd reboot to get the fan to reset to normal.
I vaguely knew of adblock, but I hadn't quiet made the connection between that module and all the times I happened to glance at a page and see it get stuck on an ad server, or that there was anything I could do to keep that fan from kicking in.
Kudos to this article's comments for leading me to the correct web searches to learn about pipelining, wildcard filters to block google analytics, etc.
The shift of moral considerations to a "product" only becomes valid when that product itself acquires intelligence as recognized by some other test. We do in fact see very moral computers already! "I see you (got tired of working and just started closing windows everywhere.) Would you like to save your file?"
A moral computer is a total snap - because morality is rules. Even the "gray areas" can be parsed... with the same amusing results as when people fudge the gray areas.
Intelligence is a raw processing capability. The famous SF machines were intelligent but not moral, and probably not wise.
Last I looked into that landmark, no one said the processing power to do it properly was from a toy. What started to emerge was the criteria of "fool a person" rewarded cheap tricks to fool a person.
Other definitions of successor tests included "Allow the machine to be clearly different, but judge the value and worth of the output". Separate but equal/superior.
"For instance, how do you see a trail as it winds over grassland and leads into the woods? How does one see a year old trail that is partially overgrown, or a new trail not completely tramped down. How do you track down an animal from smattering of scat, nibbles and tracks over rocks, dirt, grassland, and the tree line? How does a human being see a camouflaged predator slinking behind the tree line? How do you read the sky and know what the weather will be later that day? How do you look at a river and know if it's crossable or not? Back at home, how do you play your relatives, friends, and enemies in the tribe so that you are elected leader when the Big Man passes away? Or how do you manage to convince your husband that your new pregnancy is his, and not your secret lovers'?"
Algorithms can be written for all these things, because all it takes is a team of a brilliant programmer and a Savannah expert... who can *explain* what he is doing. Then it won't seem like intelligence, because a computer can do it.
We're pleased right now that comps tank at interaction... except that's a second cousin of the Turing Test. Then, we won't even care that the Siliconisity is obvious, only that it "behaves enjoyably". I'd say it's closer to Daniel Goleman's emotional intelligence, but we basically refuse to push forward into AI because it's the end of MeatSpace.
... except it's not even "whatever can be done by a human", because the reply comments to -1 topics blast certain activities of humans. It's "whatever can be done by the world's elite humans even though no one else can perform that level".
Fascinating comment compared to their other lead flagship that allowed them to buy D&D at all. In the Magic world, they did whatever they wanted and/or had to, to declare a central ruleset. There are no house rules at sanctioned events. Also, no turning back the clock. No "ditching all the new sets and playing like it's 1993".
I really expect that a movement will grow that will adhere closely to their 4th ed. rules as the central corpus. I expect Wizards to forcefully deprecate any prior version. However, the consequences of this are thunderingly unclear.
I disagree. I learned basic computing on some low end Win boxes. Slowly, the news discussions about the MS Trilogy of Windows-Office-IE Explorer began making me think.
Firefox proved to be the easiest switch. Easy install... and... glitches! But wait... more deep breaths... weren't we complaining about IE6 glitches? So in the spirit of the article, "if each is free and both have glitches, then MS doesn't really have an advantage, do they?" (And who pirates IE? That's super-free, because of the whole MS bundle trick the DOJ became amused with.)
Now, I did happen to glance at Open Office in the Version 1.x stages. I had my ideology all lined up... but it was so different, that time cost forced me to decline. Life progressed, and one day on a lark, I murmured, "Gee. What's Open Office up to these days?". Now, having first suffered horribly for 3 days on V1.x, I was *grateful* for the incredible improvements in the (then-beta) V2 next generation. I still run into amusements like printing workbooks instead of sheets,... but this is OSS Office software! The second part of the MS trilogy defeated! Sure I can survive a botch or three!
But that last one is really tough. I am sorry to say, making the OS switch is NOT as easy as the app switches. My first day I managed to nuke my music player because I somehow turned off the GUI window. (A fit of completely inspired bravery into the command line and the manual got it back two hours later.) I'm still motivated. And I'm still researching, at a glacial pace. But that "comfy-MS" feeling is my vote for the reason no one has switched. The only reason Mac is surviving... is because Apple is pulling out every last ounce of strength they have to market themselves... as comfy.
Re: The resume point, I disagree. Borrow a friend's machine, whip up your resume, save the file, and that's the only windows-created file you'll ever need, right? If not, make the file yourself.. and get a friend to *check it* before you send it to HR.
Looking at the types of word docs I see being created, I have never heard of people rushing towards Office in stark terror *if they know of an alternative*. The problem is mindshare. "You mean, something *else besides office* can create a spreadsheet!?"
The kiss of death in business used to be the weird proprietary apps that only run on windows. However, we just switched to a unified server running clients... while not marketed as such, that windows server... will actually enable me to take a crack at a Linux desktop... *gasp*... in the company!!
The last remaining problem is - the advocate of anything new... needs to be GOOD. Currently, I'm a gibbering hatchling. But one hysterical blunder at a time, I'll learn enough to only look like a fool instead of a menace. Then I can broach the idea. I am lucky enough that my boss is actually pretty pro-tech, even if he needs help on the details. I think he'll see what I'm trying to do.
I have a static workflow, so once I nail the pattern,... look! here I am! Free-Source software! MS has lost a prisoner! And who plays games at work anyway? So who needs DirectX 10?
My email is visible. My remarks are sincere. Any of you Penguin hotshots who want to volunteer to be disaster-mitigation resources, let me know. I'm right on the money the perfect switch candidate. So for all the otbers like me out there, I'm game.
This is the post that is the closest to offering hope in my view.
Movie Theaters ARE added value. And tastes ARE jaded. Yes, "some indie films have succeeded", because they are carefully written not to require cinema pyrotechnics. However, many low-budget imitations of big-budget movies that cheat on the special effects get *slammed* horribly as "cheese-planet".
I certainly don't have any clear answers, but I'd like to see some kind of system that deliberately plays on the poor-student eventually feeling cramped with the poor-student experience, and wanting a complete package of extra value for the premium fee. (Visit the big theater, get a *handout* like the CD booklet everyone likes, maybe semi-3d effects, etc.) And lower the concession stand prices to make them almost approach a value, and return the favor with something more solid.
Of all places, Star Trek first described the surprises of the Duplication Economy! (Their end result was horribly skewed, but they at least raised the issue.) Music and Movies are the first results of the Replicator. iTunes certainly won't keep 99 cent music *forever*... it was a transitional step.
Let's agree that Transformers cost a colossal amount of money, and *deserved it*. (Animators received something like 25 complimentary car/truck copies from the auto company so they could *completely disassemble* them and study them for *months* trying to understand where the parts go in a transformation.) However stupid parts of the script became, virtually no one could knock the effects.
So for the crowd that insists on being able to download their copy, where do they suggest the $100Mil comes from? $1 from 100 million people?? Net 1.0 was full of companies who tried Micropayments and croaked.
Or like the concorde, is the age of the 100M movie over?
If nothing else, this should become a day's lecture in an Econ class!
I will add the "McDonald's ComboMeal" price model: Your standard package of (food, music) could include 7 popular songs for $5. The hordes of undiscerning masses pay that price.
However, if you take the Live version of songs 1,3, and 6, and the Remix version on songs 2,4 and 7,... your price drops to $2.25, because it took work to find the bargain values.
(McDonald's version: The Double Cheese is a dollar, the Quarter Pounder is $2.65ish)
I think think the parent post gets a few things right that a post below misses after all.
We all agree that the supply of the song is digitially near-infinite. So, the "curve" is not supply and demand vs price. The curve is *pure demand vs price*.
Suppose a band called the Horsefly's Elbows produces a song. It starts off with a demand of ten, so it is *worth* near-zero. Then it suddenly rockets to the top of the charts, so the chic crowd HAS to have it. That's when the price goes up - it's the usual "price of being cool".
Now if you can get USERS to get rewards for selling "their" copies, you'd get a Musical Stock Market.
But maybe the Horsefly's Elbows NEVER take off. Then... you get to happily own your album for $0.57. And only you care.
This does devastating things to the Long Tail model.
These two forms of public response operate in different spheres of influence. Protests have a higher chance of being covered by a local reporter, and have to work to boost the awareness across a larger geographic range.
Blogs cover geography effortlessly, but push against dilution from competing media. The blogger has to network his blog message among other bloggers until the critical mass is reached.
I think your post might be falling into a variant of statistical sampling fallacy.
(Snark) (Written from a Pseudo-Industry viewpoint)
1. "Sure, I can't copy an HD-DVD(*), but that's ok coz I'm not going to bother buying an HD-DVD until I can play an HD-DVD using Free software (which ultimately means the DRM would have to be cracked)."
--- Report to CEO: According to this user, there is no Free Software that plays HD-DVD under these conditions. Therefore our DRM is effective enough to stall this user from his form of copying.
2. "It doesn't make good economic sense to stop 100 people using copies if the means to prevent copying also stops 200 people from buying it in the first place."
--- Report to CEO: According to this user, DRM *IS* slowing down the expected demographic from copying. However, our models do not agree that an addtional 200% of the audience still remains to be captured, and therefore we consider his logic flawed.
3. "As far as I'm concerned, if I buy a CD (for example), I have the right to play that CD on my computer, rip it to Vorbis format, etc. If the publisher designs the CD so that I can't exercise those rights then it is useless to me and I will get the content via some other means in a DRM-free format. If the publisher makes sure *all* official formats are DRM'd then the only choices I have are to either do without the content, or download the content illegally - either way the content producer doesn't get their money."
-- Report to CEO: The technical knowledge displayed by this user falls within the outlier range past the two-standard-deviation range. We consider losses like him to be acceptible business loss since we have regained the rest of our projected market.
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.. And I had one of those. Then I was so pleased to later upgrade to a then-3-yr-old Win2000 box that ran at (gasp) 800 mhz! Look! It plays music!
So I also agree, something is seriously whacked if their high end flagship can't play music.
Maybe they don't care at all about deployment of Vista.
We harp on MS a lot, but they ARE clever in certain ways. Suppose someone is thinking Big Picture in some kind of twisted sense. They can play a variant of GoodGuy/BadGuy by having a "Sacrificial OS" every 8 years. They're somehow getting us to pay for their beta testing. They HAD to get Vista out, period, and rely on their patented brand of bluster to get through it. They were getting serious heat from inactivity. I bet someone got utterly crushed when they had to switch codebases during that dev setback.
I barely heard of Win Me - consecutive tips told me to get Win2000, which lasted me through 2.5 OS changes from MS. Then in the early days, I saw a lovely crash&burn act on XP *SP2* until everyone repaired their firmware. I even had some flash devices that I had to return until the factory shipped ones with newer firmware.
Now XP is their heavy duty workhorse while they experiment with their new codebase. Suppose just for a moment that Vista NEVER works... but what they learned from Vista SP1 gets applied to Windows 7 (anyone got a codename yet?). Then maybe by 2010 all the results of history on the media scene will be in, maybe they will back off from DRM, and take some other focus. If they don't screw it up, Vista will be that smile in techie's forums, Windows 7 will be the new 8 year workhorse, and off we go ever after.
Having cash flow the size of a country must be fun.
Is it possible TheMCP even figured out the source of an answer above?
... rate it on a value scale. Nuisance class fixes "improve overall staff effectiveness". So - install the Java update for them, get that weird anti-virus directory error to go away, find someone's lost file. The value provided is something like the number of times the user doesn't have to deal with the nuisance (that AV error on bootup), multiplied by the time they lose *stewing about it* (politely: disrupting their workflow concentration).
Maybe the IT Admin does have a metric - Lost Costs Avoided.
Starting especially with low-level user nuisances... instead of funneling "Mgt is mean", log both the original user request, its resolution, and
If your project log contains some 100 of these a month, that's 100 cases of someone not staring at the screen (or talking at the office fridge) about the glitch.
For higher level fixes, estimate the lost productivity when the major data server goes down, and then use a cost-prevented calculation to show you got it back up in 2 hours instead of five.
Don't forget the delicious language. Instead of the legendary "syntax error", we now get a "catastrophic failure". Do it yourself FUD!
(Scene at office)
ComputerGuy: "Sure, let's open that with GoogleApps."
Colleague: "Why am I getting a catastrophic failure? Maybe I better use Excel."
There may be a hint of an idea here.
... none at all because of the disagreements. But maybe two of everything is just the right balance for a lot of areas. Two desktops - one ultra-protective of new users, one *promoted* as more advanced that the new user can glance at and think "maybe I can use that next year".
We all rail at Microsoft and possibly Apple for their Monolith approach to certain things. One famous argument with at least a few grains of truth is that "eight-ish distros confuse potential new users". They certainly confuse me, and I'm even expecting a certain amount of roller-coaster riding.
The previous poster may be right that if forced to choose ONE desktop, we would have
We might be there with the Office apps - some combo of Open Office and your choice of Google Apps or whichever other one eventually becomes emergent. In Browser-land, it might also be there - Firefox/IceWeasel and Opera.
We absolutely have to have a distro that nearly everyone wants to stand behind to present to work environments. I'm absolutely for the experimentation bit at home, but for work, business schools have been teaching standardization for some 60 years now. Apparently Dell thought about this and chose uBuntu. Take your pick of your favorite Newbie-Friendly second distro. Then mark all the others as "For specific purposes" and I think the public will get that. I have a copy of u. Drake that looks benign enough.
I see the suggestion for folks wanting pure GUI to go to OSX. However, I have this Animal Farm premonition of Apple's lock-in being just as bad as Microsoft's at some point. "Then one day, we could not tell the difference".
I think there are ways to let users know that the best raw power lives in the command line, but they need not ever use it if they don't wish to.
Brilliant joke, sir.
"I hope to God clerics got toned back a bit..."
Whose God are you hoping to? The overpowered Cleric's, or yours?
Really.
The last few days he has put in a ton of work with a big spread of news. I could be wrong, but it seems like this year the RIAA monolith is starting to crack, just a little.
Wasn't it also Universal who was just trumpeting how they'd do a trial period of DRM-Free (or something?) files to test sales?
Now suppose they do some fancy version of ad-injection that people hate... so they tried to Astroturf how great their files were, hoping that someone missed this new development?
Then when the Tech sites get the story out, they whine to judges that they removed DRM and their sales went down?
The fallacies are so thick I need a shovel.
No one says you have to boycott products.
I at least just dislike the ad aggression. If the product itself is worthwhile enough that it sells itself off a shelf, then it's fine by me.
Except sometimes they even KNOW the policy is trashing productivity, but someone at a senior buying level "enjoys" playing power games with office supplies.
My answer: sometimes it pays just to buy some things yourself. I got my first experiences as a temporary worker just to get into the work world. Some company tried to pawn off a broken adding machine on me. I asked nicely to get a newer one, and was turned down. (These things are only $30 each.)
I shrugged, and dug into my supply of interesting objects. Out came a 1970's Monroe electro-mechanical model I had named the Big Brown Beast and kept as a joke. Hitting a key sounded like a train track switching.
Of course, they were not amused. I, however, was.
"That thing makes a racket! Can you get it out of here?"
"I'm sorry, I don't understand your question. I need an adding machine to run tapes. The one you gave me is broken. I brought in my own. Would you like to give me a new adding machine now?"
They lasted a week, and then caved.
Oh Gawd, Yes.
Half of the discussion was "fine as it went" when it was talking about customer eyeballs. But I am getting NO benefit from excessive CPU hogging when reading a *text file*!
I have a particular class of older Dell machine at work from the end of the old NetBurst era. Those machines started quiet, but when one of these ads comes on, the fan kicks in and sounds like an aircraft taking off. Then I'd reboot to get the fan to reset to normal.
I vaguely knew of adblock, but I hadn't quiet made the connection between that module and all the times I happened to glance at a page and see it get stuck on an ad server, or that there was anything I could do to keep that fan from kicking in.
Kudos to this article's comments for leading me to the correct web searches to learn about pipelining, wildcard filters to block google analytics, etc.
Yep. It worked.
Whether you got it because of originality is not clear.
But several times when I see "fine, there goes my Karma but I have to post _____ ", it ends up +3 interesting.
The shift of moral considerations to a "product" only becomes valid when that product itself acquires intelligence as recognized by some other test. We do in fact see very moral computers already! "I see you (got tired of working and just started closing windows everywhere.) Would you like to save your file?"
... with the same amusing results as when people fudge the gray areas.
A moral computer is a total snap - because morality is rules. Even the "gray areas" can be parsed
Intelligence is a raw processing capability. The famous SF machines were intelligent but not moral, and probably not wise.
Last I looked into that landmark, no one said the processing power to do it properly was from a toy. What started to emerge was the criteria of "fool a person" rewarded cheap tricks to fool a person.
Other definitions of successor tests included "Allow the machine to be clearly different, but judge the value and worth of the output". Separate but equal/superior.
"For instance, how do you see a trail as it winds over grassland and leads into the woods? How does one see a year old trail that is partially overgrown, or a new trail not completely tramped down. How do you track down an animal from smattering of scat, nibbles and tracks over rocks, dirt, grassland, and the tree line? How does a human being see a camouflaged predator slinking behind the tree line? How do you read the sky and know what the weather will be later that day? How do you look at a river and know if it's crossable or not? Back at home, how do you play your relatives, friends, and enemies in the tribe so that you are elected leader when the Big Man passes away? Or how do you manage to convince your husband that your new pregnancy is his, and not your secret lovers'?"
... who can *explain* what he is doing. Then it won't seem like intelligence, because a computer can do it.
Algorithms can be written for all these things, because all it takes is a team of a brilliant programmer and a Savannah expert
We're pleased right now that comps tank at interaction... except that's a second cousin of the Turing Test. Then, we won't even care that the Siliconisity is obvious, only that it "behaves enjoyably". I'd say it's closer to Daniel Goleman's emotional intelligence, but we basically refuse to push forward into AI because it's the end of MeatSpace.
... except it's not even "whatever can be done by a human", because the reply comments to -1 topics blast certain activities of humans. It's "whatever can be done by the world's elite humans even though no one else can perform that level".
Fascinating comment compared to their other lead flagship that allowed them to buy D&D at all.
In the Magic world, they did whatever they wanted and/or had to, to declare a central ruleset. There are no house rules at sanctioned events. Also, no turning back the clock. No "ditching all the new sets and playing like it's 1993".
I really expect that a movement will grow that will adhere closely to their 4th ed. rules as the central corpus. I expect Wizards to forcefully deprecate any prior version. However, the consequences of this are thunderingly unclear.
I disagree. I learned basic computing on some low end Win boxes. Slowly, the news discussions about the MS Trilogy of Windows-Office-IE Explorer began making me think.
... glitches! But wait... more deep breaths... weren't we complaining about IE6 glitches? So in the spirit of the article, "if each is free and both have glitches, then MS doesn't really have an advantage, do they?" (And who pirates IE? That's super-free, because of the whole MS bundle trick the DOJ became amused with.)
... but this is OSS Office software! The second part of the MS trilogy defeated! Sure I can survive a botch or three!
... as comfy.
... will actually enable me to take a crack at a Linux desktop ... *gasp*... in the company!!
... needs to be GOOD. Currently, I'm a gibbering hatchling. But one hysterical blunder at a time, I'll learn enough to only look like a fool instead of a menace. Then I can broach the idea. I am lucky enough that my boss is actually pretty pro-tech, even if he needs help on the details. I think he'll see what I'm trying to do.
... look! here I am! Free-Source software! MS has lost a prisoner! And who plays games at work anyway? So who needs DirectX 10?
Firefox proved to be the easiest switch. Easy install... and
Now, I did happen to glance at Open Office in the Version 1.x stages. I had my ideology all lined up... but it was so different, that time cost forced me to decline. Life progressed, and one day on a lark, I murmured, "Gee. What's Open Office up to these days?". Now, having first suffered horribly for 3 days on V1.x, I was *grateful* for the incredible improvements in the (then-beta) V2 next generation. I still run into amusements like printing workbooks instead of sheets,
But that last one is really tough. I am sorry to say, making the OS switch is NOT as easy as the app switches. My first day I managed to nuke my music player because I somehow turned off the GUI window. (A fit of completely inspired bravery into the command line and the manual got it back two hours later.) I'm still motivated. And I'm still researching, at a glacial pace. But that "comfy-MS" feeling is my vote for the reason no one has switched. The only reason Mac is surviving... is because Apple is pulling out every last ounce of strength they have to market themselves
Re: The resume point, I disagree. Borrow a friend's machine, whip up your resume, save the file, and that's the only windows-created file you'll ever need, right? If not, make the file yourself.. and get a friend to *check it* before you send it to HR.
Looking at the types of word docs I see being created, I have never heard of people rushing towards Office in stark terror *if they know of an alternative*. The problem is mindshare. "You mean, something *else besides office* can create a spreadsheet!?"
The kiss of death in business used to be the weird proprietary apps that only run on windows. However, we just switched to a unified server running clients... while not marketed as such, that windows server
The last remaining problem is - the advocate of anything new
I have a static workflow, so once I nail the pattern,
My email is visible. My remarks are sincere. Any of you Penguin hotshots who want to volunteer to be disaster-mitigation resources, let me know. I'm right on the money the perfect switch candidate. So for all the otbers like me out there, I'm game.
This is the post that is the closest to offering hope in my view.
... it was a transitional step.
Movie Theaters ARE added value. And tastes ARE jaded. Yes, "some indie films have succeeded", because they are carefully written not to require cinema pyrotechnics. However, many low-budget imitations of big-budget movies that cheat on the special effects get *slammed* horribly as "cheese-planet".
I certainly don't have any clear answers, but I'd like to see some kind of system that deliberately plays on the poor-student eventually feeling cramped with the poor-student experience, and wanting a complete package of extra value for the premium fee. (Visit the big theater, get a *handout* like the CD booklet everyone likes, maybe semi-3d effects, etc.) And lower the concession stand prices to make them almost approach a value, and return the favor with something more solid.
Of all places, Star Trek first described the surprises of the Duplication Economy! (Their end result was horribly skewed, but they at least raised the issue.) Music and Movies are the first results of the Replicator. iTunes certainly won't keep 99 cent music *forever*
Let's agree that Transformers cost a colossal amount of money, and *deserved it*. (Animators received something like 25 complimentary car/truck copies from the auto company so they could *completely disassemble* them and study them for *months* trying to understand where the parts go in a transformation.) However stupid parts of the script became, virtually no one could knock the effects.
So for the crowd that insists on being able to download their copy, where do they suggest the $100Mil comes from? $1 from 100 million people?? Net 1.0 was full of companies who tried Micropayments and croaked.
Or like the concorde, is the age of the 100M movie over?
If nothing else, this should become a day's lecture in an Econ class!
... your price drops to $2.25, because it took work to find the bargain values.
I will add the "McDonald's ComboMeal" price model: Your standard package of (food, music) could include 7 popular songs for $5. The hordes of undiscerning masses pay that price.
However, if you take the Live version of songs 1,3, and 6, and the Remix version on songs 2,4 and 7,
(McDonald's version: The Double Cheese is a dollar, the Quarter Pounder is $2.65ish)
I think think the parent post gets a few things right that a post below misses after all.
We all agree that the supply of the song is digitially near-infinite. So, the "curve" is not supply and demand vs price. The curve is *pure demand vs price*.
Suppose a band called the Horsefly's Elbows produces a song. It starts off with a demand of ten, so it is *worth* near-zero. Then it suddenly rockets to the top of the charts, so the chic crowd HAS to have it. That's when the price goes up - it's the usual "price of being cool".
Now if you can get USERS to get rewards for selling "their" copies, you'd get a Musical Stock Market.
But maybe the Horsefly's Elbows NEVER take off. Then... you get to happily own your album for $0.57. And only you care.
This does devastating things to the Long Tail model.
These two forms of public response operate in different spheres of influence. Protests have a higher chance of being covered by a local reporter, and have to work to boost the awareness across a larger geographic range.
Blogs cover geography effortlessly, but push against dilution from competing media. The blogger has to network his blog message among other bloggers until the critical mass is reached.
The two sides of comparison are live protest to persuade leaders to change a policy, or writing a blog to persuade a leader to change a policy.
The President's Button is a red herring, because that would be a leader SETTING a policy.
I think your post might be falling into a variant of statistical sampling fallacy.
(Snark) (Written from a Pseudo-Industry viewpoint)
1. "Sure, I can't copy an HD-DVD(*), but that's ok coz I'm not going to bother buying an HD-DVD until I can play an HD-DVD using Free software (which ultimately means the DRM would have to be cracked)."
--- Report to CEO: According to this user, there is no Free Software that plays HD-DVD under these conditions. Therefore our DRM is effective enough to stall this user from his form of copying.
2. "It doesn't make good economic sense to stop 100 people using copies if the means to prevent copying also stops 200 people from buying it in the first place."
--- Report to CEO: According to this user, DRM *IS* slowing down the expected demographic from copying. However, our models do not agree that an addtional 200% of the audience still remains to be captured, and therefore we consider his logic flawed.
3. "As far as I'm concerned, if I buy a CD (for example), I have the right to play that CD on my computer, rip it to Vorbis format, etc. If the publisher designs the CD so that I can't exercise those rights then it is useless to me and I will get the content via some other means in a DRM-free format. If the publisher makes sure *all* official formats are DRM'd then the only choices I have are to either do without the content, or download the content illegally - either way the content producer doesn't get their money."
-- Report to CEO: The technical knowledge displayed by this user falls within the outlier range past the two-standard-deviation range. We consider losses like him to be acceptible business loss since we have regained the rest of our projected market.
(/Snark)