The original "but we're worth so much more than they're offering" dot.com story...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PointCast_(dotcom)

How many have their been since?

Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors are destined to repeat them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PointCast_(dotcom)

Things like high frequency trading make me want to vom. Essentially, all they're doing is shuffling money around, taking advantage of an outdated system, and increasing risk for the entire world.

It'd be great to see this kind of innovation in something that actually is useful and valuable - not for creating an incremental improvement on a corrupt system.

Some helpful links? I'd love to record from those devices.

Both the PS3 and the Xbox have lifetime sales figures of under 80 million.

I think that 5-10 million in sales, first year would make them a contender.

That story was from the 21st. Of August :) If a robotics company falls in the Valley...

Wow.

So let me get this straight: Best-selling, presumably well-heeled author uses his star power to hold the beggar's cup on Kickstarter.

Author spends the proceeds without delivering anything.

Author pens a nice FU to the folks that trusted him, gives up.

Stephenson: how about digging into your pocket and delivering what you promised? I sincerely hope that he now has 9000+ former fans that will never buy another book from him, and will tell their family and friends to do the same. And thus ends up taking a bigger financial hit than just simply doing the right thing.

"The N900 might have been this neat little device but clearly it sold poorly or Nokia wouldn't have ditched it."

Your entire post starts from a false assumption. Actually, it sold really well considering. Some estimates are over 1mm. Here's some substantiation:

http://www.intomobile.com/2010/06/01/how-many-n900-units-has-nokia-sold/

This was a phone with no subsidies, no marketing or advertising, not compatible with anything else...

OK, then of course, the N9 must have been a sales failure, right? Nope.

http://www.quora.com/Is-the-Nokia-N9-MeeGo-handset-still-outselling-Nokias-Windows-Phone-7-handsets-February-2012

Again, no subsidies, no advertising - and Elop shitting all over it, disowning it, etc.

If anything, it looks like Nokia made the absolutely wrong decision. It's almost as if there was an agenda that wasn't primarily motivated by profit or unit sales. Hmmm.

Jeremy,

Since you're hanging about, let me take the opportunity to say thanks for making such a vital, useful and wonderful piece of software - and thanks to the rest of the Samba team, too.

I've used it at work over the decades, I use it at home even now. It's made my life better. That is not at all hyperbole.

I know that this is Slashdot, but it wouldn't hurt to say thanks, right?

Cheers!

Like Makerbot, they went closed source for their latest printer - the M2 that you're touting.

I have an M2, and it's a great printer, but there's nothing Open Source about it, sadly. Well, except for the fact that Makergear looks to the community for help with support and such.

The N900 sold somewhere between 1 and 1.5mm units.

This was without advertising.
Without marketing.
Without subsidies.

Yeah, that didn't sell particularly well. The N9 apparently did substantially better, even with Elop bending over backwards to prevent its success.