Slashdot Mirror

J.fold makes a camo wallet too... Built like a tank. Very cool. http://www.jfold.com/

I don't know about you all but as far as I'm concerned there's only one place to look: http://www.jfold.com/

Remember, don't give CD's!

http://www.whatacrappypresent.com/

Save your wallet.

Apparently some of you have forgotten the Golden Rules of Slashdot.

Here they are:

Rule 1: If you're discussing a problem with Windows:

Blame the monopolistic, capitalist monstrosity which is the root cause of this problem. If Microsoft weren't a bunch of money-grubbing, back-stabbing pigs your problem would never have occured.

Rule 2: If you're discussing a problem with OSX:

It isn't Apple's fault. Maybe its your fault. Or maybe its that third party software you're using. Most likely your problem is the result of incompatibilities with MS Office (see rule 1). Apple doesn't make mistakes. Apple loves you.

Rule 3: If you're discussing a problem with Linux:

Agree that there *is* a problem. Then state that the hardworking heroes of the opensource community are hard at work making this problem go away. The message has to be that "We're on it". Remember, one shining day in the future these problems won't plague our people any more. It doesn't matter that your system is losing data, we proudly wear the banner of responsibility in this matter, and we are slavishly addressing your problem.

Any questions? ...apparently there was some confusion.

----------

judge a man by his wallet

Most people don't know that you can send text messages for free through Google's text messaging service.

http://toolbar.google.com/send/sms/index.php

Now all you need is a perl script and ... hello? ...hello?

-------------

judge a man by his wallet

_________

Judge a Man by His Wallet

True geeks know (as later related by Timothy Zahn) that Yoda actually arrived on Dagobah
in pursuit of a dark jedi clone -- whom he fought, and wasted underneath a certain large
tree. That tree retained powerful "echoes of evil" for years afterwards,
and was later used by Yoda to test the resolve of his young padawan "Luke" (in
Episode V).

My theory? This apparent contradiction in plotlines may have been why Lucas
cut the scene of Yoda peacefully arriving on Dagobah.

__________

Judge a man by his wallet

For example: Just because Apple makes money on iTunes (ie: legitimate music sales) they make far, far more on sales of the iPod -- which are prediated on the availability of free pirated music. iTunes keeps Apple's music initiatives legitimate, but to say that Apple hasn't benefited from piracy would be wrong.

And let's talk about storage media: How much will Seagate, iOmega, yada yada yada, benefit from storing pirated digital movies? Tons!

Piracy is huge business.

Hell, I pull out my wallet for storage and playback media far, far more than I do for music. And I don't think I'm unusual at all -- most people are the same.

(I *know* you know what Vivid is).

Let's face it: Americans pull out their wallet for the format with the best pr0n.

Furthermore, wouldn't surfing with encryption enabled baffle the filters anyway?

Or is this too simplistic an assesment? What am I missing?

&nbsp

__________________

shameless googlebomb: wallet

This thing is of course, pretty cool, but it seems to me to be a pretty basic mechanical device. My understanding is that developing ultra-high tension/flexibility nanofibers capable of stretching from Earth to orbit, and developing the orbital platform was what made construction of a space elevator difficult.

My two cents.

_________

As Diddy says: Don't pull out your wallet if you ain't going to use it.

This sounds like a marketing ploy if I've ever heard one. Microsoft smells poor sales of the 360 because they've priced it (IMHO) way too high... so what do they do? Release fewer on to the market. Then they get to send out a news release (around December 1st) saying that the 360 is "totally sold out", "Extremely scarce!","Has a waiting list", etc. The press eats it up, creating millions of dollars in free advertising for Microsoft.

Then, surprise! Around December 12th they manage to find a few extra thousand units laying around and since there are waiting lists everywhere, the delay doesn't cost them a single sale.

This is about free press, marketing and stoking desire among consumers if you ask me.

Still, it might not be enough to get users to break out their wallets for a system that's priced at the price of a decent PC. Hell, once you price in controllers, the add-on hard drive, etc. You could build yourself a pretty sweet ITX machine.

My 2 cents.

Its funny how a promise of "open source" and "modding culture" early on in a title so often means -- "We're not going to spend much time on play balancing". Morrowind was another perfect example of openness vs. gameplay. In Morrowind the emphasis on open-endedness, freedom and expandability ultimately translated into a disastrous in-game economy, weapon imbalances, impossibly overpowered characters and ultimately a play experience that depended on story-line (which was actually excellent) rather than the aspects of the game itself.

I think I'll wait before breaking out my wallet on this one.

Firefox has a similar system built into the browser as a standard feature. But it seems a little dumbed down compared to Google's new toolbar system.

For example:
From what I can tell (And I'll be the first to admit this isn't the result of very intensive testing) the Firefox system simply takes you to whatever Google's first link is.

For example: Typing in the word "Wallets" in Firefox brings you to FatWallet.com which happens to be Google's first link on the keyword "wallets". This isn't what I'd call an appropriate redirect. (Of course, we'd all rather go to J.Fold.)

Since this amounts to an all-or-nothing, winner-takes-all search ranking competition, I expect the competition to be ranked #1 will increase even more if browser keyword searches become commonplace.

Here's the problem with MMORPG's based on fiction properties (Galaxies, MEOL, etc.)

Since MMORPG's must be socialist in their play-balancing, and must be open ended (for revenue reasons) there can be no over-arching saga, no heroes, no theatrical climax and no resolution.

Would LOTR have been at all interesting if Frodo had been one of 1000 ring bearers? And what if they had all just wandered Middle-Earth endlessly, never reaching the end of their quest (but instead, constantly increasing in ability)?

MMORPG's can only ever be generic universes because all they offer is generic experiences. There is a necessary "sameness" to the characters for reasons of playability and that "sameness" destroys any possibility of compelling story-telling.

Middle Earth online will be, at best, Dark Age of Camelot with different 3D models, and a more familiar (albeit less extesible) map.

Yawn. Seen it.

________________________________
Judge a man by his wallet.

Not withstanding Lucas' seemingly awesome ability to f*ck things up... this should come as pretty great news. Why? Because hopefully Lucas will do two things:

1) Hire directors and stay out of the director's chair himself. Lucas is a far better visionary than he is a director. When he gets to close to the director's chair we get cutesy sh*t that even kids think is gay.

2) Draw from any of the truly great (non George Lucas) Star Wars fiction that exists. Let's face it: Timothy Zahn writes better Star Wars than Lucas ever did. Hell, even the Star Wars comic series (Marvel) was better written than anything by Lucas.

Bottom line: Lucas should paint in big strokes. He's got a great talent for epic space opera. He's got a lousy talent for actualizing it.

______
Judge a man by his wallet