Mostly because getting rights is a PITA. Think of each product as an actor, and the parent corporation as their overzealous agent.
Say you're a game developer with a brilliant vision, and you think it would be realistic to put a Coca-Cola logo on the side of some vending machines. Now you might think "Hey, Coca-Cola would love that! I'll contact them and see if they'll pay me to put their logo in as I see fit!"
Not exactly. Some guy at Coca-Cola's marketing department contacts you back and says "All right, but we have to approve of every placement. Show us where you plan on using the logo.
And you talk to your modelers and level designers and figure out everywhere in the game you'd put a Coca-Cola logo.
And you talk to Coca-Cola again. They look at the nice pictures you made, then point to a picture of a wrecked Coke machine in a bombed-out building and say "This just won't do. See how the machine is all broken and scratched? The lights aren't even on. Replace it with a new machine in working order."
And they point to another picture and say "Here you've got a Coke machine in the enemy headquarters. We don't want that. Make all the good guys visibly drink Coca-Cola products, and make all the bad guys visibly drink some generic product."
And then they tell you "Hey, we've been thinking. Gameplay is 'where it's at'. We'll pay you a tidy sum if you make the player drink Coca-Cola products to restore his health. And have the player hunt for Power-Ade bottles for an extra 'Boost'! It could add a whole new mechanic to your game!"
And you go back and forth with Coca-Cola until you finally say "This is going nowhere! I don't want to turn my game into a Coca-Cola commercial! Can you just give me permission to put the logo in my game according to my artistic vision? I don't care about the money any more!"
And they reply "Sorry, unless you intend to portray our brand in a positive light we won't give you any rights to it."
And you're back at square one, albeit a bit wiser. The next day, you ask the art lead "Hey, can you come up with a nice generic soft drink company logo?"
Hollywood has been banging against this problem for decades. Companies won't pay for just any instance of their product on screen, or relinquish their rights merely for the sake of "Realism". If you want their logo, you have to play by their rules. That's why ninety-nine out of a hundred items seen on film are still "genericized", and the few that are branded are usually quite conspicuous.
Free games from independent developers won't "replace" current games any more than YouTube "replaced" Hollywood.
My amazing prediction is that in the future, people will indeed get a lot of entertainment from free and/or indie games, but at times they'll want the high-budget spectacle that only a major studio can provide.
(And by the way... If you think micropayments are the same as "free", you must think a credit card is some kind of magical money tree.)
You are comparing a low level package manager with a high level application chooser. I don't know if you're a troll or just ignorant. Compare with the high level "Add/Remove" and see which one is more difficult.
Neither. I was responding to a trollish parent post that claimed that Apt was as easy to use as any App Store, and that App Stores were nothing more than "weak" package managers.
Don't misread my post as a "lunix is teh suck!" rant. I have nothing against Linux; in fact, I'm running 64bit Intrepid Ibex on my main PC here. I was simply pointing out that—for the average user—there's a huge gulf between a regular package manager and an App Store. As technically brilliant as Apt+Synaptic may be, they are as confusing as hell to most people. The fact that Ubuntu now promotes gnome-app-install, a program designed to hide the actual package management behind the appearance of an App Store, is proof of that.
I'm fairly surprised to hear that vacuum cleaners use that much power
Have you ever noticed the lights dim when you turn one on? Vacuum pumps, especially ones that have to suck air through a bag filled with dust and lint, are pretty power hungry.
You are comparing a low level package manager with a high level application chooser. I don't know if you're a troll or just ignorant. Compare with the high level "Add/Remove" and see which one is more difficult.
You are comparing a low level package manager with a high level application chooser. I don't know if you're a troll or just ignorant.
Neither. I was responding to a trollish parent post that claimed that Apt was as easy to use as any App Store, and that App Stores were nothing more than "weak" package managers.
Don't misread my post as any sort of "lunix is teh suck!" rant. I have nothing against Linux; hell, I'm running 64bit Intrepid Ibex on my main PC here. I was simply pointing out that, for the average user, there's a huge gulf between a package manager and an App Store. As technically brilliant as Apt+Synaptic may be, they're confusing as hell to most people. The fact that Ubuntu promotes gnome-app-install, a program designed to hide the actual package management behind the appearance of an App Store, is proof of that.
Try sitting someone inexperienced with computers in front of Synaptic, and sit someone else in front of the Apple App Store. Don't help them. See who figures out how to install a program first.
There's an absolute night-and-day difference between a package manager, written by and for people who don't ever think outside the *nix box, and an App Store, written by design experts for people who have never installed a software program before. Claiming that a package manager is "more powerful" is utterly missing the point.
You don't have to be a mechanic to put gas in your car. You don't have to be an electrician to plug in a lamp. You shouldn't have to be a CS major to install a program.
I wouldn't be surprised if the cable/satellite companies and local broadcasters are pressuring the national networks, as they have the most to lose from Internet-streaming set top boxes.
Local broadcasters don't have enormous profit margins. They're hurting right now, and if ten percent of their market decide to stream Hulu to their TV, it could mean bankruptcy for many smaller providers. NBC and Fox have done the math; they don't want to lose the majority of their audience (who still watch whatever's on the tube) just to make a minority (who've learned about this whiz-bang Internet thingy) happy.
Cable and satellite companies, of course, have tremendous influence over the networks as well, as they provide the majority of the audience these days. They also have a history of doing whatever it takes to prevent competition and sweeten their contracts with the networks. If NBC has to choose between Comcast and Hulu, they'll pick the one that has 25 million paying subscribers. Hint: It's not Hulu...
Honestly, I don't think this is really about Boxee at all. I think it's just an attempt to set precedent. Lots of people are scared to death of a box that lets people watch whatever they want, whenever they want, with no monthly fee (beyond their broadband service). End distributors (local networks, cable companies) are afraid of the competition. Networks are afraid of losing their position as the gatekeepers of content, as the Internet makes it far easier for content creators (the individual production companies) to deal directly with the "distributors" (YouTube, etc).
So the networks have to walk a very fine line here. On the one hand, they can't afford to anger (or bankrupt) their current distributors. On the other, they can't afford to lose their dominance, even as people start switching to Internet-based services.
As a result, the networks seem to be taking a cautious approach: They work to popularize their own online services, like Hulu, in hopes of transferring their content oligopoly to the online world, but they avoid direct competition with their major distribution methods.
I'd wager that if streaming ever reaches a "saturation point", where everybody is watching TV on their computer and the market seems ready to switch, the networks will release some ordained "magic box" which streams their content (and maintains their control over the content market), and happily give their old distributors the metaphoric finger.
Or, if one large content owner makes a big push for streaming set top boxes, expect the rest to follow suit fairly quickly.
Until one of those occurs, though, expect more of the status quo. To use an analogy that describes technology adoption by most large industries: Nobody wants to be the only one in the pool, but they definitely don't want to be the only one out of the pool. They may all decide to jump in together, but if one decides to jump in now, the rest will follow.
I'd assumed the VelociRaptor was, like most "large" 2.5" drives, 12.5mm thick (and would fit in the optical drive enclosure). After doing a little research, it's actually 15mm—an oddball thickness for a 2.5" drive.
Still, there are 7200rpm 2.5" drives that are faster over SATA than any 3.5" drive is over Firewire.
I could kind of understand this back when the Mini only had USB and FW400. Now that they have FW800—why bother? What does anyone use a Mini for that requires 100MB/s+ transfer rates?
You can still get the full-size keyboard. It doesn't cost any more.
That said, full size keyboards have become rather anachronistic, as they put the least used keys in the most prominent position, directly in front of the user:
Navigation keys? Who needs Page Up and Page Down when they have a scrolling mouse?
Numeric keypad? Are we still in the eighties? How many people spend more time on the numeric pad than the alphanumerics or mouse?
Num Lock, Scroll Lock, Pause/Break, Print Screen? Don't make me laugh.
Not only do these extra keys take up prize desktop real estate, they force the user to spread their arms unnaturally far apart to reach the left edge of the keyboard and the right edge of the mouse pad. You might not even notice the stretch after a while, but it makes for poor ergonomics.
While I can still see the advantages of a numeric keypad for spreadsheet or accounting use, I think it makes a lot more sense to use a physically separate pad. With a detached pad, you can put the alphanumeric keys and mouse much closer together (and put your arms in a more natural position). The numeric pad can go in a more sensible location off to the side.
I used to be a huge fan of full-size keyboards (hell, I owned the original Logitech G15 Gaming keyboard a few years back, a 22"x11" monstrosity). But after spending the last 18 months on the new Apple Bluetooth keyboard, I'm not about to go back. It's more natural and more comfortable—and it frees up a ton of desk space.
The molecules in a gas move at rather high velocities (you can calculate this with a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution). If some of those molecules are moving faster than escape velocity, they may simply fly off into space. Over time, unless the atmosphere is constantly being renewed (from volcanic eruptions, etc.), the planet will become a bare rock.
Not all gases disperse at the same rate, mind you. A mixture of gases tends to exist at a common temperature. And temperature is a measure of kinetic energy, a product of both mass and velocity. In other words, light atoms and molecules move more quickly, and massive atoms and molecules move more slowly. Planets with low escape velocity can only retain heavy, slow moving molecules. Planets with high escape velocity can retain lighter, faster atoms and molecules. This is why large planets can have atmospheres composed of the lightest elements (hydrogen, helium), while small planets and moons have no atmosphere or are limited to heavier molecules (like hydrocarbons).
Fortunately, the Earth is massive enough that it loses its primary atmospheric gases (nitrogen and oxygen) very slowly, and any small losses can be replaced by outgassing from the surface. However, smaller, faster atoms and molecules like hydrogen and helium still escape.
Mars, on the other hand, is far lighter than the earth and cannot retain an atmosphere nearly as well. Mars also has no magnetic field or ozone layer, so the atmosphere is subject to high-energy solar radiation. This radiation both adds heat and breaks molecules apart, speeding them up and "helping" them escape the gravity well. Over time, it's likely that whatever atmosphere Mars had created during its volcanic period simply dispersed.
To have parkingticket.com prepare a guaranteed dismissal request letter, customers post 50 percent of the fine amount at the onset of the process. If parkingticket.com is successful in assisting you in getting the ticket dismissed, then the upfront deposit is retained by parkingticket.com. If, after a hearing, the parking ticket fine is reduced rather then dismissed, parkingticket.com retains half of the amount you saved and refunds the balance. After the hearings take place, if parkingticket.com is unsuccessful in getting the ticket dismissed or reduced they will not only refund the posted payment, but also pay you an additional $10.00 just for trying!
Using your example, they'd retain $2.50 and refund you $12.50. You'd save $2.50.
Maybe if you gave the sats a twist at launch, like that provided with rifling grooves of a firearm, they could power on by any chance collision with spacejunk with little deflection.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry about the double post; my Internet service was on the fritz yesterday. Packet loss + AJAX web sites makes for a bad combination.
Mostly because getting rights is a PITA. Think of each product as an actor, and the parent corporation as their overzealous agent.
Say you're a game developer with a brilliant vision, and you think it would be realistic to put a Coca-Cola logo on the side of some vending machines. Now you might think "Hey, Coca-Cola would love that! I'll contact them and see if they'll pay me to put their logo in as I see fit!"
Not exactly. Some guy at Coca-Cola's marketing department contacts you back and says "All right, but we have to approve of every placement. Show us where you plan on using the logo.
And you talk to your modelers and level designers and figure out everywhere in the game you'd put a Coca-Cola logo.
And you talk to Coca-Cola again. They look at the nice pictures you made, then point to a picture of a wrecked Coke machine in a bombed-out building and say "This just won't do. See how the machine is all broken and scratched? The lights aren't even on. Replace it with a new machine in working order."
And they point to another picture and say "Here you've got a Coke machine in the enemy headquarters. We don't want that. Make all the good guys visibly drink Coca-Cola products, and make all the bad guys visibly drink some generic product."
And then they tell you "Hey, we've been thinking. Gameplay is 'where it's at'. We'll pay you a tidy sum if you make the player drink Coca-Cola products to restore his health. And have the player hunt for Power-Ade bottles for an extra 'Boost'! It could add a whole new mechanic to your game!"
And you go back and forth with Coca-Cola until you finally say "This is going nowhere! I don't want to turn my game into a Coca-Cola commercial! Can you just give me permission to put the logo in my game according to my artistic vision? I don't care about the money any more!"
And they reply "Sorry, unless you intend to portray our brand in a positive light we won't give you any rights to it."
And you're back at square one, albeit a bit wiser. The next day, you ask the art lead "Hey, can you come up with a nice generic soft drink company logo?"
Hollywood has been banging against this problem for decades. Companies won't pay for just any instance of their product on screen, or relinquish their rights merely for the sake of "Realism". If you want their logo, you have to play by their rules. That's why ninety-nine out of a hundred items seen on film are still "genericized", and the few that are branded are usually quite conspicuous.
Nonsense. Valve games use elegant engines, from a more civilized age.
And they arrive precisely when they mean to.
Free games from independent developers won't "replace" current games any more than YouTube "replaced" Hollywood.
My amazing prediction is that in the future, people will indeed get a lot of entertainment from free and/or indie games, but at times they'll want the high-budget spectacle that only a major studio can provide.
(And by the way... If you think micropayments are the same as "free", you must think a credit card is some kind of magical money tree.)
Turning on a 12 amp electric motor, in an average US home wired for ~100 amps, will cause voltages to dip momentarily.
Granted, most US homes' wiring systems *are* undersized considering the low voltage, but that's neither here nor there.
You are comparing a low level package manager with a high level application chooser. I don't know if you're a troll or just ignorant. Compare with the high level "Add/Remove" and see which one is more difficult.
Neither. I was responding to a trollish parent post that claimed that Apt was as easy to use as any App Store, and that App Stores were nothing more than "weak" package managers.
Don't misread my post as a "lunix is teh suck!" rant. I have nothing against Linux; in fact, I'm running 64bit Intrepid Ibex on my main PC here. I was simply pointing out that—for the average user—there's a huge gulf between a regular package manager and an App Store. As technically brilliant as Apt+Synaptic may be, they are as confusing as hell to most people. The fact that Ubuntu now promotes gnome-app-install, a program designed to hide the actual package management behind the appearance of an App Store, is proof of that.
I'm fairly surprised to hear that vacuum cleaners use that much power
Have you ever noticed the lights dim when you turn one on? Vacuum pumps, especially ones that have to suck air through a bag filled with dust and lint, are pretty power hungry.
You are comparing a low level package manager with a high level application chooser. I don't know if you're a troll or just ignorant. Compare with the high level "Add/Remove" and see which one is more difficult.
You are comparing a low level package manager with a high level application chooser. I don't know if you're a troll or just ignorant.
Neither. I was responding to a trollish parent post that claimed that Apt was as easy to use as any App Store, and that App Stores were nothing more than "weak" package managers.
Don't misread my post as any sort of "lunix is teh suck!" rant. I have nothing against Linux; hell, I'm running 64bit Intrepid Ibex on my main PC here. I was simply pointing out that, for the average user, there's a huge gulf between a package manager and an App Store. As technically brilliant as Apt+Synaptic may be, they're confusing as hell to most people. The fact that Ubuntu promotes gnome-app-install, a program designed to hide the actual package management behind the appearance of an App Store, is proof of that.
Try sitting someone inexperienced with computers in front of Synaptic, and sit someone else in front of the Apple App Store. Don't help them. See who figures out how to install a program first.
There's an absolute night-and-day difference between a package manager, written by and for people who don't ever think outside the *nix box, and an App Store, written by design experts for people who have never installed a software program before. Claiming that a package manager is "more powerful" is utterly missing the point.
You don't have to be a mechanic to put gas in your car. You don't have to be an electrician to plug in a lamp. You shouldn't have to be a CS major to install a program.
Why not just put wheels on the backpack? Then you could pull it at ground level no back problems, saves bazillions of dollars.
I can see the product slogan: Real American soldiers don't climb stairs—they level the building.
...who finds it slightly depressing to read about a representative government choosing to "bow to pressure from [their constituents]"?
It reminds me of an XKCD punchline: "Strictly speaking, it's better than the alternative—But someone is clearly doing their job horribly wrong."
I wouldn't be surprised if the cable/satellite companies and local broadcasters are pressuring the national networks, as they have the most to lose from Internet-streaming set top boxes.
Local broadcasters don't have enormous profit margins. They're hurting right now, and if ten percent of their market decide to stream Hulu to their TV, it could mean bankruptcy for many smaller providers. NBC and Fox have done the math; they don't want to lose the majority of their audience (who still watch whatever's on the tube) just to make a minority (who've learned about this whiz-bang Internet thingy) happy.
Cable and satellite companies, of course, have tremendous influence over the networks as well, as they provide the majority of the audience these days. They also have a history of doing whatever it takes to prevent competition and sweeten their contracts with the networks. If NBC has to choose between Comcast and Hulu, they'll pick the one that has 25 million paying subscribers. Hint: It's not Hulu...
Honestly, I don't think this is really about Boxee at all. I think it's just an attempt to set precedent. Lots of people are scared to death of a box that lets people watch whatever they want, whenever they want, with no monthly fee (beyond their broadband service). End distributors (local networks, cable companies) are afraid of the competition. Networks are afraid of losing their position as the gatekeepers of content, as the Internet makes it far easier for content creators (the individual production companies) to deal directly with the "distributors" (YouTube, etc).
So the networks have to walk a very fine line here. On the one hand, they can't afford to anger (or bankrupt) their current distributors. On the other, they can't afford to lose their dominance, even as people start switching to Internet-based services.
As a result, the networks seem to be taking a cautious approach: They work to popularize their own online services, like Hulu, in hopes of transferring their content oligopoly to the online world, but they avoid direct competition with their major distribution methods.
I'd wager that if streaming ever reaches a "saturation point", where everybody is watching TV on their computer and the market seems ready to switch, the networks will release some ordained "magic box" which streams their content (and maintains their control over the content market), and happily give their old distributors the metaphoric finger.
Or, if one large content owner makes a big push for streaming set top boxes, expect the rest to follow suit fairly quickly.
Until one of those occurs, though, expect more of the status quo. To use an analogy that describes technology adoption by most large industries: Nobody wants to be the only one in the pool, but they definitely don't want to be the only one out of the pool. They may all decide to jump in together, but if one decides to jump in now, the rest will follow.
Why is the Colossus "infamous"? It's famous, and it's use saved thousands of lives and shortened the war.
Because of that one time it took over the world.
Sheesh, kids these days. No knowledge of history.
If they had no problem buying it with their own money, why should they get a handout?
Then again, I'm a crazy liberal who thinks that the government should give to the poor, not the rich.
I'd assumed the VelociRaptor was, like most "large" 2.5" drives, 12.5mm thick (and would fit in the optical drive enclosure). After doing a little research, it's actually 15mm—an oddball thickness for a 2.5" drive.
Still, there are 7200rpm 2.5" drives that are faster over SATA than any 3.5" drive is over Firewire.
SATA is 3Gb/s max, FW800 is 0.8Gb/s max.
And the 2.5" 10000RPM VelociRaptor is faster (in most respects) than any 3.5" HD out there.
I hate when submitters do this...the link goes to some useless blog which then links to iFixit.
They do it in remembrance of Roland, you insensitive clod!
I could kind of understand this back when the Mini only had USB and FW400. Now that they have FW800—why bother? What does anyone use a Mini for that requires 100MB/s+ transfer rates?
No, the iMacs come standard with 4GB. Upgrading to 8GB is damn expensive, because the iMac has two memory slots and 4GB SODIMMs ain't cheap.
You can still get the full-size keyboard. It doesn't cost any more.
That said, full size keyboards have become rather anachronistic, as they put the least used keys in the most prominent position, directly in front of the user:
Not only do these extra keys take up prize desktop real estate, they force the user to spread their arms unnaturally far apart to reach the left edge of the keyboard and the right edge of the mouse pad. You might not even notice the stretch after a while, but it makes for poor ergonomics.
While I can still see the advantages of a numeric keypad for spreadsheet or accounting use, I think it makes a lot more sense to use a physically separate pad. With a detached pad, you can put the alphanumeric keys and mouse much closer together (and put your arms in a more natural position). The numeric pad can go in a more sensible location off to the side.
I used to be a huge fan of full-size keyboards (hell, I owned the original Logitech G15 Gaming keyboard a few years back, a 22"x11" monstrosity). But after spending the last 18 months on the new Apple Bluetooth keyboard, I'm not about to go back. It's more natural and more comfortable—and it frees up a ton of desk space.
Mars's biggest problem is gravity.
The molecules in a gas move at rather high velocities (you can calculate this with a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution). If some of those molecules are moving faster than escape velocity, they may simply fly off into space. Over time, unless the atmosphere is constantly being renewed (from volcanic eruptions, etc.), the planet will become a bare rock.
Not all gases disperse at the same rate, mind you. A mixture of gases tends to exist at a common temperature. And temperature is a measure of kinetic energy, a product of both mass and velocity. In other words, light atoms and molecules move more quickly, and massive atoms and molecules move more slowly. Planets with low escape velocity can only retain heavy, slow moving molecules. Planets with high escape velocity can retain lighter, faster atoms and molecules. This is why large planets can have atmospheres composed of the lightest elements (hydrogen, helium), while small planets and moons have no atmosphere or are limited to heavier molecules (like hydrocarbons).
Fortunately, the Earth is massive enough that it loses its primary atmospheric gases (nitrogen and oxygen) very slowly, and any small losses can be replaced by outgassing from the surface. However, smaller, faster atoms and molecules like hydrogen and helium still escape.
Mars, on the other hand, is far lighter than the earth and cannot retain an atmosphere nearly as well. Mars also has no magnetic field or ozone layer, so the atmosphere is subject to high-energy solar radiation. This radiation both adds heat and breaks molecules apart, speeding them up and "helping" them escape the gravity well. Over time, it's likely that whatever atmosphere Mars had created during its volcanic period simply dispersed.
Net Applications only gives weekly and daily statistics to paying subscribers.
It's not a surprise that Safari's average for the last month was lower, considering the new browser was just released last week.
From TFA:
Using your example, they'd retain $2.50 and refund you $12.50. You'd save $2.50.
Maybe if you gave the sats a twist at launch, like that provided with rifling grooves of a firearm, they could power on by any chance collision with spacejunk with little deflection.
Thanks, Slippy!
Nah, no one will think they're racist as long as they have that brown desktop.