For all *you* care. But thousands of other people (and a growing number at that) watch the videos. Is it okay if we run a few video pieces for them? Please? Maybe three or four a week? We'd appreciate it. Thx

Wow. I would *love* to have budget to turn out 23-minute scripted, animated videos. That would be GREAT!

These videos are "Meet the Press" style on purpose. They exist to let you see some of the people behind the software, stories, and hardware they (or their companies) make. Steven, for instance, is one of the world's more popular tech journalists. Next time you see his byline, you can mentally call up his image. You may not want to do that, but others obviously do; thousands of people watch /. videos.

I agree with you about charts and graphs, up to a point. And people who have some sort of device or whatever should have a working model to show off. Otherwise, it's like my favorite PR pet peeve: Sending out a press release about a google glass look-sort-of-alike thing that is only a display and saying, "...I would love to schedule an interview for you with a Vufine team member." Instead of a review unit? Come on!

This is not a hypothetical situation. It's a press release I got today from this company: http://www.vufine.com/

Obviously, a hands-on test of an eyeglass-mount projector would be more informative than either a video or text interview -- and more fun for me, too. Why didn't they offer a test unit? Not to keep, of course. Just for a few days. Hmm?

Back to the talking head syndrome. I've made a lot of screencap videos, TV news shorts, online ad videos, TV spots, and a few music videos. So yeah, I can do fairly complex video work. 30 cuts in a 60 second piece? Sure. I've done that. BUT here we're sharing information, and a lot of it is pretty dry. We have no budget for motion video or animation, either. I could have included some shots of Steven's articles and pics of TV antennas, cableco logos, and other pieces of "visual interest." If you and a bunch of others feel the extra work/time/money is worthwhile, I'm happy to do that in future videos.

There's a whole other reason for videos of people talking: You know they're not being misquoted. Raw source material protects you against reporters changing meanings or opinions. I've been the misquoted person more than once, and I didn't like it. Even in a case like today's, where we ran a 4 minute video and 20 minutes' worth of text transcript, you can reasonably (and correctly) assume that I have the rest of the interview on a hard drive somewhere. Accuracy insurance.

Audio only? Be my guest! Listen to this video's audio on your smartphone while driving if you like. 100% up to you. But if it was sound only, you wouldn't have the option of watching the video. I was talking with someone else today about video vs. audio podcasts. His company did audio casts for a while, but he says they got a lot more response when they switched to video. And they do *not* provide transcripts.

A lot of this discussion falls into the "can't please everyone" category. Some people prefer watching people talk to reading what they say. (I'm a reader, myself.) But some people prefer visual information intake. Not you, obviously -- which is okay. Read the transcripts, don't watch or listen to the videos.

Last note: You said, "(I need to point out that anyone can grab a camera and record someone talking for ten minutes. What makes Slashdot better than all the YouTube teenagers who do this for their HS project? You have the intent, time, and money to do this. Do it right, then learn to do it well.)"

Geez! You're big on catching flies with vinegar, aren't you? :)

BUT if making simple videos is all that easy, why have we only gotten *one* usable video actually submitted by a Slashdot reader - ever? And it was over an hour long, and our management now wants our videos to be under 5 minutes. So we ran an excerpt of the guy's video and provided a link to the full-length version at his (non-commercial) site.

I have a guy who offered himself up for an interview because he though his product was better than one we did a video about. He does some interesting stuff I'm sure at least some /. readers will enjoy learning about. I'm going to try to schedule him in for next week, and see if he has any raw product demo footage around that I can use to make the video more interesting.

Do you have a video you want to run on Slashdot? Or a topic suggestion? Happy to check them out. Use the usual submission bin or email robin at roblimo dot com.

Thx.

Supergreen.

While you were busy 'reading articles', he was busy getting a low ID. BTW, UID 1 never read an article.

Are you complaining that LG Canada holding back what others have complained of being a buggy update?

Is this good or bad?

I wish I'd known that loyalty and initiative will be punished by the insecure and incompetent ones above you.

I realize this would be difficult as a first-job type, but be very careful about taking on added responsibilities without any discussion with the powers-that-be about compensation. It is very easy for a "go-getter" to take on a lot more but never be recognized for those added responsibilities.

If nothing else, annual reviews should be an opportunity for you to bring up your now changed job description. As others have mentioned, salary negotiation is a key skill. If you are doing more for the company, you should use that as a negotiating advantage.

Oh, and start saving in a 401(k), IRA (Roth or otherwise) as soon as possible.

Of course the poor box-office of Tomorrowland is one data point, which the superstitious oracles at Disney have taken as an omen that any film which has certain factors in common with it will also fail.... rather than an indication that maybe this movie was specifically not very good, or not properly marketed.

Memory processes in FPGAs aren't very good. You'd have to really be desperate for a few hundred megabytes of extra memory.

For the past twenty years Microsoft's two major sources of income were Windows and Office. One is an operating system to make the computer go and the other is software to let people do something with it.

Windows is mostly tied to the sales of x86 computers. PC sales peaked in about 2010 and aren't likely to get back to that high point. That doesn't mean Microsoft is doomed. They're doing the smart thing and porting their software to growing platforms.

This means the market for Office can explode. Not only do they keep their position on PCs but can expand it to iOS and Android devices of which there are billions.

Office on iOS and Android means there's a bridge between the Microsoft dominated world of the PC and the mobile world where they have an inferior position. This reinforces their desktop position because Office remains the de facto standard in business, even when their mobile devices don't run Windows.

Microsoft isn't alone here. Adobe, Autodesk, and plenty of other traditional software houses are looking to extend their reach to mobile platforms. Mobile isn't necessarily replacing the traditional desktop but is growing independently.

I heard a story about a nun who had anorgasmia- meaning she couldn't experience pleasure of any sort (not just sexual). Someone did VNS surgery on her and had the implant send pulses to her pleasure center. That produced major changes- she was super happy, quit being a nun, decided to become a prostitute, and went to Venezuela(?). Eventually her pleasure center couldn't take being hammered by electricity anymore and she started to find it annoying. Eventually she had them remove it.

Sigh. We supply text transcripts with almost all videos. Look for the link -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H... tells you how to use a hyperlink (or 'link' for short).

To see that link, click on the video's title or on the "read more" link below the video where it appears on the main page.

Have a nice day, and may everyone you meet be as courteous to you as you are to Slashdot staff!

Thanks,

- Robin

Unless a story or video is marked SPONSORED CONTENT or ADVERTISEMENT it is not a paid ad on Slashdot. Sometimes a Slashdot editor -- Tim in this case -- gets interested enough in a person, group, service or product to do a video interview with the person/people behind it. The theory behind the Dan Shapiro interviews (and we have two more to run after a while) is that they're a great primer on how to use crowdfunding to kickstart your company. His Glowforge product is obviously not unique, and we have said so and linked to several competitors, which should be a clue that it's not an ad.

We looked at what Shapiro had to say as good info for entrepreneurial Slashdot users who may want to start their own businesses one day. You may not be one of them. Please understand that many thousands of people hit Slashdot every day, and stories that interest you may not interest each and every one of them. And stories that interest some of them may not be your cup of milk.

A funny datum for you: We ran an excerpt from an interview at http://passionatevoices.org/ - whose owner Erik first contacted me about our videos; he wondered if they were paid ads. Obviously they're not, because when Erik submitted his first video on passionate voices, this is what happened: http://news.slashdot.org/story...

We are happy to accept and run reader-submitted videos and we love suggestions for people we should interview. You can use the submission form or email me, robin at roblimo dotcom.

Got any good ideas? :)

- Robin